The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-07-17

down the Hudson on q barge. He land
 ed in the city at last, after spending five
 dollars on the journey. And what shall
 l say more? Time would fail me to tell ] of Homer, Dante, Bruno, Copernicus,
 Bunyan, Beethoven, Lincoln, Garfield,
 and the rest, who rose superior to the
 perplexities and obstacles of opposing circumstances by the power of vision
 burning brightly in the heart.
 If it takes some vision of an ideal life
 to carry us through this world, how
 much more is it necessary to carry us beyond 1t! The perfect circle has not yet been drawn, but we know that there is such thing. The ideal is reality. The chords of righteousness and love
 and truth have not been struck in per feet tune in our hearts, but i've follow
 after, if that we may apprehend.' We know that God is not tantaizing us. Our progress through this world is like
 the journey which the novice sometimes
 makes from his hotel in the Alpine vil- lage. He aseends to some summit, which, viewed from the valley below, seemed like the very pinnacle of crea- ton. but, when attained, appears not
 much higher than the village he has left, but is simply the first step to a giant stairway that reaches above the clouds.
 So does God lead us on. The process Is long, but it is not in vain. There is
 a reality somewhere, hidden in the in-
 finite blue corresponding to our vision.
 We are not ruled by a fiendish power,
 who endowed us with wings and then
 chained us to a rock in dark cave, to
 live forever with reptiles and spiders.
 AS long as the wings are there we shall
 believe that there is some region where
 they can be used. Whence comes that
 feeling that visits us in the hour of wor- ship, of infinite hope and faith? Is 1t
 simply a phantom, with no foothold on the highway of reality-a farce passing
 across the theater of the mind, with en- trance on one side and exit on the oth- CT? Whence comes that spirit of mu- sic that sometimes expands the soul un- til it seems as if the Infinite came in?
 Is 1t merely a mocking fiction-a crea-
 ton of the imagination that never was
 in the universe until fancy put it there? And the stars? Were they made to tor
 ment us? Did God hang those lamps Of purity over our heads to irritate us and taunt us because we are doomed 10 De
 separated from them forever and to lind our end in the dust beneath our feet? And love? Why doss 1t never reach per- lection here? Why are hopes broken and lives discovered? And righteous ness? Why does the fairest pattern Of
 human excellence seem incomplete?
 Why do we only approximate to our
 visions of virtue? Were those things
 sent to aggravate us and baffle us? If
 so. then have we learned sorrowtul | secret, indeed, secret that, once l known, must take the heart out Of every
 noble enterprise, secret that we must hesitate to tell the believing, let us hands grow stiff and the lips falter- the sad secret that the universe Would have been better if man had made it,
 and behind every dreamer with his | chiseI who is fashionine the earthly | reality according to heavenly pattern, | is some mocking fiend ready to destroy | his work as soon as it Is finished. But | it is not true. "The earth is the Lords S, | and the fullness thereof" The visions | come from Him, and in struggling to make them real we become like Hlm. | We cannot believe God deceives us. l A thrush is born this year, and all sum l mer long sees nothing but the region around it's nest; but with the cold, des- | olate days of autumn there stirs within | a migrating instinct to seek some warm | CT southern cline The cline is there. | God never tantalizes. An acorn drops | from the limb of an oak and falls into the moist and yielding ground. All
 through the winter months it lies in the , cold and frozen earth. With the birth
 of spring a mysterious longing stirs in | it's heart, saying it is too large Tor US
 narrow shell and must go to world of i brightness above. The world IS there.
 God never provokes, A young lark
 stands on the edge of it's nest and a
 voice within whispers to its heart to
 commit it's weight to the soft, gentle
 air and trust the power of untried wings
 to bear it along above the earth. It can
 be done. God never deceives. man ! comes down to the end of life and he feels in his soul unawahened powers possibilities and faculties not yet devel- 1 oped, dreams and longings of heights unattained.
 Is there no reality corresponding to | these things? Does God exhaust His
 skill in guiding beats and birds and plants, and then fill the soul of man with desires only to taunt him with an impossibilty and make him run in pur- suit of phantom? Does God speak
 truth when whispering to the caterpll-