The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-10-25

Sometimes the higher forms of life are prefigured in the lower forms. Some times we must make our appeal from these great thoughts which, because of their very grandeur, cast a shadow in the mind. to those eternal processes which carry us back to the primary energies of nature. Sometimes faith is reinforced by glimpse of the heart Of common things.
 There is a great lesson for us in the ebb and flow of vital forces in creation. Had we the faith in our own spiritual integrity which is justified by the pro- cesses going on around us we should learn to rest in God somewhat as that fine old figure of ''the everlasting arms" suggests. The circle of the seasons re- veals an economy of all force which science sees. Every springtime marks the breaking of the turf and bark by tender shoot and bud. Every summer carpets earth and clothes the trees with green. Every autumn brings hoar frost and falling leaves, and scared old earth. Winters white mantle ever falls upon wood and field like the sym tol of departed life. In all this change | we have no fear. We do not doubt We know the life is indestructible. Forms may perish, but the life of forms fails ! not. The seasons quickly pass. The years roll on. We eat and drink and labor and rest, with perfect trust in the return of blade and blossom when the times are ripe.
 Ought we to distrust the spirit which dwells in man while we trust so fully that which dwells in glebe and glade! Shall the swift seasons witness the de- cay of one and the survival of the oth- CT? If one must die, which should it | be by every law of values? Is there l less vitality in that which lives in. hu- manity than there is in that which lives in the grass which to-day is and to- morrow is cast into the oven?~ And shall the spirit of the soul be less adaptable than the spirit of the world? Ought we not to expect the greater changes in the higher life? >
 There are springtimes of the soul as of the world; moents and moods when fresh experiences and new forms of faith break turf and bark of habit and 1 tradition. There are sumner-lands when kindled enthusiasm covers life i with spreading vine and fig-tree foliage. But ever the autumn follows, and the hoar frost nips the luxuriant growth, and winter with it's whited sepulcher of lifeless formula descends. | But the spirit is not dead. Under the l snow the seed and root of finer growths .I survive The life behind the form and in the soul is only waiting for the sea- son of it's rebirth. In some tomorrow I it will break the turf and bark and green fields and fragrant flowers of worship will cause the earth to break forth into singing and the hills to echo with their laughter. "., =s
 Nor is it only change, the endless cir cle of returning, that is happening. The fine law of development which through ages rears the forests, Gods S first temples,' upon the site of fields of swamp morass, and forever peoples this great planet with the higher forms of life, holds of the spirits sway and sweep through all the centuries. A mil lion temporary forms are passing in the world and in the soul. Crude growths forever disappear. More perfect forms replace them. A thousand forests and
 a thousand creeds rise out of and re-
 turn to the unseen. A thousand gener- ations watch them pass and wonder if
 their like will ever come again. But ever the world turns toward the sun. sEver it's orbit lies where prophet and seer, and Jesus have pointed the way.
 Fuller and fresher, and freer, and finer is the bud or blade that breaks the crust Unhasting, unresting, never
 failing, always fulfilling, forever un-
 folding, this is the law of our life in God, this the promise of Eden, the hope of the soul-From the Universalist
 Leader. .+#