The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-04-08
An IMPULSE OF SPRING.

Even the most superficial observer of
the changes in modern spiritual beliefs
cannot have failed to note what a different
sort of place heaven has become under the
new dispensation from that formerly pic
tured as the eternal home of the elect. The
chief difference is that it has ceased to
be a place of rest. Disciples of the modern
cults, from Theosophists to advanced Pres
byterians-the Presbyterians who get out
of the pulpit when the thirty-nine articles
are shaken at them-all agree that the
next stage of existence is one of great
activity. However widely they may diff
fer in other respects they are united in
refusing to weary humanity an indefinite,
to say nothing of an infinite, period of
repose. Their souls. their astral bodies,
their spiritual natures, or whatever the ego
may be when the bonds of the flesh are
laid aside, are represented as being in a
constant state of progression. They are
not satisfied where they are, but are en-
gagged in a perpetual struggle to reach a
higher goal. This is intended by the por-
trayers to be an inspiring picture, and may
be so under some conditions, for it must
be acknowledged that the old. conventional
heaven, with it's continuous harp-playing
and chorus singing and it's streets of
sold does not convey the dea of perfect
and unending bliss to all minds; but, on
the other hand, there are times when a
future which Is all work, as an existence
Of constant progression must he offers NO
charms. One of these times is the spring
of the year. Most men and women work
regularly and constantly; many not to
great profit. perhaps, but the majority
more than is really good for them, men,
tally, morally or physically. When win
that the life which now is ought to offer
something better than constant labor and
care. Primal instincts stir within them.
They loiter in the sunshine; they go re-
luctantly to their shops. their desks. their
schoolrooms, their household tasks. Men
among them wander away for a days
hunting or fishing. Women look at the
little plots of ground about their homes
and plan for flowers or other growing
things. or they bring from market pots
of plants and place them in their windows,
while in their minds are visions of green
fields and poisoning trees, of swift-fiow-
Ing streams and Of skies bluer than the
smoke-blurred ones above their city homes.
II is the time of stir and growth In the
inanimate world. but it is not work that
men and women want. Instinct leads then
to nature. but to see. not to labor. The
hunter does not care greatly whether he
finds any game or not; he has had the odor
of the fresh earth and Of the marsh weeds
ir. his n~ostrils. he has breathed the air
from lake and forest and is refreshed. He
fancies that he would like such existence
the year through, and has dreams of farm
life and rural bliss; but IL is not work ks
longs for. He wishes merely to see the
yearly miracle of growth and blossom and
harvest, not TO be an element in it, John
Burroughs, who has realized the ideal la
tent in every normal man of country birth
at least, revels in natures phenomena He
loves the trees. the birds, the plenitude Of
plant and flower, but 1t Is no part OF hi
pleasure 70 help produce this growth: h
= merely an Idle looker-on. 1t is not =