The record-union., 1899-10-25

this great hope; every drop Of my blood
thrills with it's anticipation; all the
/ fibers of my soul tingle with its IN
spiration- A boy in a grammar school
to-day has a larger vision than the
prophets Of the past We are all be-
coming Seers. Our sons and our daugh-
ters are prophesying. and our young
men are seeing visions, and our old
men are dreaming dreams. We will be
content with nothing less than the best.
The largest hope does not content US;
the largest reality must follow and be
! greater than our hopes. Our songs
that the people care to sing, breathe
only hope Our pofts may as well be
gone as to strike any more sad harps
by the waters of Babylon. Our states
men may better be dead unless they
have some vision of a diviner age rap
| idly approaching and already close
upon US. Our preachers are rightly dis
couraged and stand before empty peWs
except as they ring out glad messages
of the universal and iIlimitable hope
And the very complications and per-
| pleXities and uncertainties and agony
and anguish of our industrial and COM
mercial world are seen to be but the
travail for the birth into larger life
and a holier humanity and a vaster
fellowship; and the very jealousieS and
strifes, and wars and rumors of wars
are seen, by a vision soon to be fulfilled
to be only the last expiring throeS of II
brute humanity-of the brute charac-
teriStics of human nature about to be
superseded by the glorious mutual SER
vice of the future-and the very crea-
tion groaing and Travelling in pain till
now, waiting for the manifestation of
the sons of love.
There is infinitely more love in the
world than there ever was before.
have sometimes wondered what Paul
meant when he said: when I was q
child, I thought as achild and spake
as child, and understood as a child
When / became a man, I put away
childish things" Several years ago, as
I was reading that, I thought I saw
something of it. Some of our good ex-
| positors of the Bible believe that this
was not one of the first of PauPs writ
/ ings, but written later in his life. If
| that was SO, I could understand it.
! could understand how a man might
mean to say that, in his earlier expert
ence, before he accomplished religion
! by the presence of God, and his sur
render to Christ-as he says, Christ
manifested in his own Hfe"-I can see
how, in the earlier days, he might de-
/ light to wander in the realms of meta
physics and spin out fine theological
speculations; but how at last he might
grow to that place where we are told
the Apostle John was. When some
one asked him why he talked above
| love all. the time, he said: There is
nothing else to talk about" And Paul
might have said: There was a day of
my speculation and theorizing, but now
that I have become a man, I see there
is nothing except love" And you re-
member how he said that all law is full
filled in one word even in this: Thou
shalt love-
You know the story of the Wads-
worth's notices: Look up, and not
down; look forward and not back; look
out, and not in, and bend the hand "
Look up, and not down-that was for
faith. Look forward. and not back
that was meant for hope. Look out.
and not in-that was meant for love.
And as love was the greatest, it would
have two meanings: Look out, and
not in''-for love in contemplation; and
! one for love in action-"and lend a
| hand"
| These two things, love in contempla-
| ton and love in action-how marvel
ously they have increased in this world
| of ours. Why, only few years ago.
when you and I went to college, we
were taught by the venerable doctor
of divinity who occupied the Presi-
! dents chair and the chair of moral
philosophy-we were actually taught
that self-interest was the first law of
life. I was taught that by a Presby-
| terian doctor Of divinity, who was sup
posed to be a follower of the self-sac-
riicing Jesus that self-interest was
| the first law of life Science was just
then being born, and when we went
into the room of the scientific Pro-
fessor, he told US that we We're just
/ discovering that self-interest was the
/ first law of nature and that nature
was read with tooth and claw, ravening
and thirsting for blood, and that it
only existed by the sacrifice Of the