The record-union., 1899-07-28
PRESENT DAY THOUGHTS.
ny q. Grosvenor Dave.


The. New Man -Spfritual-With his
prow Tanned by the dawn breeze OF the
new century, the new man faces the
A&nt and puts behind him the centur-
les OF black bigotry and burdensome
superstition that have made mans
struggle toward spiritual light seem a
eruei nightmare. The new man-spirit-
uai, declares in favor of spiritual. ex-
pianat1on of mans diversified powers
ana deeds, but at the same time he de-
mes the right Of any one man or any
set OF men to claim that those spiritual
powers can be classified. labeled and
cr1pped into one form Of belief or into
one pre-ordained mode of development.
he admits this much pre-ordinatlon-
mat as surely as the waters OF river
gam In volume as they flow and glide
onward to the depths and breadths or
the sea, so surely shall man develop IN
MS spiritual experience onward from
darkness and upward from material
forms and ceremonies until he finds the
power at the center of all things to be
The truth of all things Yet, filled with
tender regard for those who cannot see
as he does, he contends for freedom OF
thought because all are not equally de-
veloped in, spiritual understanding; for
as with the river so with the stream OF
human life, the drops that are riven in
the furious mountain torrent know not
yet the full breadth to which they shall
arrive and so do not even imagine 1t.
The New Man-Spiritual sees nothing
to be dreaded in the fuller knowledge
that has come to us of how the worlds
are and why they swing their circles
with infinite accuracy. The more the
discoveries the greater the advance
away from the puZzlings of the Savage
toward a knowledge that is more exact
and that, being more exact, makes the
Creator of all things seem more WON
derful and more adorable. The new
man does not dread the groupings of
scientists among the secrets of life and
he welcomes every new fact that makes
us understand the oneness of life in it's
material aspects throughout the ranks
dn myriad forms. of all things that live.
The law of evolution and the law that
fixes species do not make him dread the
dethronement in human minds of a
Creator, blessed forever and in and
over all. The more he knows the more
certain does it seem that naught but
an Almighty Power could have brought
life to the surface of a planet whose
elements were gathered in the unimag
Unable heat of nebulous vapor; and the
more certainly will he credit to the in
terposition of that Almighty Power the
fact that human beings have within
them something that sets them above
the other forms of life.
Ef
The New Man-Spiritual, looks out
over this great world and back along
all the ages of struggle and of effort,
and he claims for all the striving souls
of men in whatever degree they have
understood their superiority to the
beasts, a share in the spiritual progress
of the race. He venerateS as part of
the spiritual history of the world every
form of belief, no matter how weird
and unreasonable it may seem to us;
for he sees in it proof of the reaching
up of soul to the understanding of d
God. Looking out with the unbiased
eye of hopeful judgment he sees at
work a great law Of spiritual evolution,
bringing the perfect light into evidence
as result of the glimmerings of
spiritual insight when they first began
to show upon the horizon of the human
mind. The new man-spiritual, is ready
to declare that a belief nharvelously re-
mote from his own is different only in
degree and not essentially in kind. The
new man, therefore, thrills with the
sense that not one man but all men,
that not one tribe but all tribes, that
not one generation but all generations
are sweeping forward in one towards
truth: and believing this in his soul
he can be patient amid disappointment
and self possessed amid discords.
The New Man-Spiritual denies that
there ever has been SO far a time when
the human race or any part of 1t has
understood in full the power or the will
of the almighty center of things. He,
therefore, holds that all religious sys
tens simply take their places as step
ping stones for the progress of the
race; but as that progress has never
vet ceased, so no system elaborated in
the partial darkness of the human soul
has ever yet been more than a stepping
stone He contends for the reasonable
ness of this position because a system
made uo with human elements only
represents spiritual truth crystallized
into the human ideas of the time, and
as a consequence no sooner is a system
formulated than it begins to grow old;
yet every truth buried in a creed
, sooner or later bursts the bands of
death, lays aside the grave clothes, and
comes forth again to live. The new
man-spiritual therefore. is full of The
inspiration that comes from feeling per-
feet knowledge to be nearer to us now
than it has ever yet been in the his
tory of the race. Also he cares but lit
tie for himself as to whether perfect
knowledge shall come during the tenn
porary span of his material life, or
whether its full glories shall be under
stood when the spiritual is no longer
clothed and hampered and drawn back
by the physical. His only care is that
as he gains light he shall give light
and that as he rises up into the clear
atmosphere above. the darkening can
yons of human wretchedness he shall
lift others with him. Thus is he hap
py in getting simply that he may scat
ter again.
The New Man-Spiritual loves all
who love truth. Truth is his meat and
his drink and in the strength Of 1t he
goes forward. He binds none. He
forces none Neither will he be bound
nor forced. For all men of all minds he
hopes all things and is serene.
Irvington, N. Y.
GRANTS SENSE OF HONOR.
How He Did His Duty Without