The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1899-07-27
THE new MAN.
WHAT He SEES SPIRITUAL,
Fine Thoughts for Great possibili-
ties.
BY G. GROSvENOR DAVE.

Written for The Commonwealth.
The New Man-Spiritual.-With his
brow famed by the dawn-breeze of the
rev. century, the new man faces the
light and puts behind him the centur-
les of black bigotry and burdensome
superstition that have made mans
struggle towards spiritual light seem
a cruel nightmare. The new man.
spiritual, declares in favor of a spirit
ual explanation OF mans diversified
powers and deeds, but at the same time
he denies the right OF any one man Or
any set Of men to claim that those
spiritual powers can be classified, label
ed and cribbed into one form of be-
lief or into one pre-ordained mode OF
development He admits this much
pre-ordination-that as surely as the
waters OF a river gain in volume as
they flow and glide onward to the
depths and breadths of the sea, so sure
ly shall man develop in his spiritual
experience onward from darkness and
upward from material forms and cere-
monies until he finds the power at the
centre OF all things to be the truth OF
all things. Yet, filled with tender re-
gard for those who cannot see as he
does, he contends Tor freedom OF
thought because all are not equally de-
yelopsd n spiritual understanding for
as with the river SO with the stream OF
human lie, the drops that ale riven IN
the furious mountain torrent know
not yet the full breadth to which they
shall arrive and so do not even imagine
it.
**F
The New III 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 puzz.ings of the savage
toward knowledge that is more exact
and that, being more exact, makes the
creator of all things seem more wonder
full 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 its material aspects throughout the
ranks, in 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 hu-
man minds of 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 planet whose elements were gath
cred in the unimaginable heat of nebu-
lous vapor and the more certainly will
he credit to the interposition of that
almighty power the fact that human
beings have within them something
tnat sets them above the other forms
of life.
~
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, 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 a. soul to the understanding OF a
God. Looking out with the unbiased
eye of hopeful judgment he sees at
work great law of spiritual evolution,
bringing the perfect light into evidence
as a result OIL the glimmeripgs OF spirit
ual insight when they first began to
show upon the horizon OF the human
mind. The new man-splritual, Is
ready to declare that belief marvel
ously remote from his one is different
only III 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 genera
tions are sweeping forward in one to-
wards truth and believing this In his
soul he can be patient amid dlsappolnt-
rnent aud self possessed amid discords.
***
! The New Man-Splritual, denies that
there ever has been so far time when
the human race or any part OF 1t has
understood in full the power or the VIII
Of the almighty centre of things He
therefore, holds that all religious sys-
TENS simply take their places as step.
n,ne stones for the progress OF the
1 race but as that progress has never
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