The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-01-09
ASPIRATIONS AND IDEALS.
Rev. w. Il. Bcaucl,amp's Excellent Dis
course at Broad ST. Mct,otiist


course at Broad ST. Methodist.
There was very interesting service at
Broad5Strect Methodist church Sunday
night. The music by tho choir was sex-
ceptipnaIly fine. and Rev. w. 3. Beau
champ preached an excellent sermonsfrona
Acts .: II, u.s. The subject of his discourse
was Ones Aspirations and IDEALS, and
was. the first of a series of sermons to
young men. He said, in part:
THE Scripture speaks that in the full
ness of time, in the last days, it shall
Z come to pass that the Spirit shall be
poured out on all flesh and all men shall
see visions. The worlds great men have
been dreamers. Ruskin said, Life with
out sentiment would not be worth living.
To me there is more truth in this, That
life without visions would not be worth
the living. Cur aspirations and our
ideals, our dreams and our visions. and
what do they mean for us. and what do
they do for US, and what have they done
for men?-
Mcdonald, the 4sLory-teller and the
poet, tells US that ambition is an aspira-
ton turned hellward: some one else says.
aspirations are stars which God hangs
in mans night to lure him on to better
and ,oblc-- things. No man becomes
great. becomes an active and mighty
figure in the worlds conflicts and battles
unless he has been and is a man of great
aspira TONS and has great ideal. A boy
ten years old walked his room and NUT
tered to himself that he wanted to do
something that the world would not will
lingly let die. Through conflicts and bat
ties this splendid vision of the boy of
ten years remained with the man, and he
wrote Paradise Lost and Milton did
something that the world will not let die.
They said that Joseph was a dreamer
and a seer of visions. and they cast him
into the pitsthat his dreams and visions
might be crushed out OF Israel; they sold
him into Egypt that in his bondage his
E visions might come TO naught, but Joseph
was still the dreamer and still the vision
seer. and God made him the savior of
his people.
ASHES OF DISAPPOINTMENT.
81 do not know how you look upon
life do not know what you think Of it,
I do not know what your aspirations are,
/ do not know what your ideals are but
I can tell You tonight out of a long
history of men, out of book inspired
of God, out OF the lives of the people
about YOU. that no life becomes great. no
life becomes good, no life becomes mighty
unless. in its central, existence there is a
conception and ideal thought of what one
would like to be and by the help of God
what he will be. And these aspirations
and ideals lift us up out of the hum
drum of existence There are hundreds
of lives passing into the very ashes Of
disappointment: there are thousands of
hearts that grow weary with lfe's irk-
some tasks and with the small things
that come to them-what a gift of God
1t is that in the midst of these ashes OF
disappointmenis we may look beyond TO
where God shows wondrous things to us.
They take MS ONT of orr SOrC1il self and
out of the hum-drum life and into a
glorious existence.
There are two sorts Of people that I
always have a tendency to fcuddle: the
one is the poet who catches these beauti-
full dreams out of a world, unknown to
US until we see the story told in words.
and I often wish / could have the poets
vision, The other is the artist who takes
the common things CT life and puts them
on the canvass.
Life is not what we wear and what
we eat: life does not consist in the things
that We see, but Of the things that we
feel and The dreams that we have and the