The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1902-07-04
World Building.

When Paul was smitten with blindness
outside the walls of the city of Damascus,
he had to remodel his lite This he did
with such signal success that at his death
he was lamented as few men have been.
What Paul did we all can do in an humble
way.
Paradox though it may seem, we all
build the worlds in which we dwell and
frame our own destinies The world of
field and stream and brick and stone that
greets our eye of a mornings outside our
power. 1t is fixed and hard and beyond
our power to fashion, but there is an
other world which we do fashion that is
OF more vital Importance than the world
of material things speak of the world
OF our thoughts, so real, so all engrossing
at times that we are utterly oblivious of
the other world of sense. How many
thoughts fit across the brain in the course
OF the day as the lights of a city fly past
us III the darkness on journey by rail.
Swift they come i'll succession unbroken
save by the hours of sleep. We may even
sleep to dream, that's, to think No man
can escape the society of his thoughts.
Let him flee to the depths of the Sahara,
yet even there the thought of God will be
W
about entertaining thoughts. The only
question is, of what sort shall they be,
pure and noble or low and degrading.
Our guests are a matter of choice, not of
accident. You do not entertain MIR. b
unless you choose, and we also choose
what manner of thoughts shall keep us
company as we do our guests at the table.
do not mean to say that they are al
ways at our bidding. Sometimes they
come trooping across our minds like
bands of rollicking school children, refus-
ing to come when hidden or depart when
requested to do so. But as one tries to
control this rebellious troop he is re- ward
cd by seeing it become more tractable un-
til in the end he can marshal his thoughts
as an officer his men, making them ad.
vance, wheel, or halt as he wills When
this is accomplished the mind is no mean
instrument for this ability to hold ones
mind riveted to a task until it is accom-
plished, is the possession of the very few.
The trouble with a great many is not lack
OF brains so much as lack of control
This self mastery is most important. If
we have the framing of the spirit worlds
in which we dwell we should control the
architect, which is the mind, rather than
being at its mercy. l am persuaded that
not few have little or no control over
their thoughts but are dragged helplessly
after them, as one who drives unbroken
horses. Then, too, this thought world is
important because parts of it, like melted
lava, are constantly thrown out into the
world of matter, there to harden into
solid realities. You admire your neigh
boris house, its proportions and its con-
Irat1 10 Ill
existed as thought in the mind of the
architect. He built it all first in the spirit
world and now it exists in the actual.
Years ago you mapped out your life, all
rose colored and smiling, and now what
you are this day is the fulfillment of what
you planned ten, twenty years ago. Only
you have discovered the thornsi in the path
in the imagination had strewn only with
roses. Wenever plan for the thorns, but
God who sees that we somehow need them
does. In a very real and literal sense we
choose our spiritual companions, we
of that spirit world becomes real in the
world of matter. All which l conceive
lends beauty and dignity to life and
ing is no perilous occupation.
lSii lhsil HlOliolOIly plays lOO ldI SC d
part in these thought-worlds of ours.
thought of spending ones whole life under
the same conditions. 1t is dull, hopeless
monotony that is after all the hardest to
bear. There is certain exhilaration in
real danger that makes it thing sought
after. Many of the games of school boys
derive their spice from the danger with
J., +1,a,- Tod L., %1,a Ie+
of danger every sense is alert, the eye
quick. the mind active. The actoris wide
awake, he is living intensely, and in that
lies keen joy though death be staring
him in the face The first blow of crush
ing calamity is not so hard to bear, for
either ones spirit is so stunned as not to
feel the pain or it rises supreme over it's
woe for the time. The hard part comes
when dull day succeeds dull day in an
endless procession and each morning the
burden must be shouldered for the days
march. 1t is not danger that takes the
heart out of men, nor is it calamity, but
rather the monotonous routine of our
daily existence. Now as we build our
worlds for ourselves we are responsible
even for their monotony. They are bright
and glad or dull and dreary, according as
VIC hhON llctl
ment plays great part in a mans life,
and that it sometime seems of necessity
cherries and bare. But that is only one
appearance. If the builder only has
enough high courage he can make the
dullest lot bright with joyous labor.
Luther was at one time cooped up in a
castle at Wartburg. Wecould not blame
him if he had fumed and fretted his time
away longing to be out and at work.
Instead of SO doing, he set to work trans
lating the Latin Vulgatei into German and
Luther's Bible is classic today and has
been the chief factor in forming the Ger
man tongue. That Imprisonment gave
the Germans the Scri pture in their own
tongue, and / have no doubt that to the
prisoner the days were glad and all too
short for his task. He had enough energy
to overcome what to most of us would
have been hopeless monotony. There is
no dull or dreary existence to him who
will not have it so, but the barest lot
affords scope for a glad activity. So
build your world according to your own
peculiar bent and out of the nature given
to you. Build it not carelessly or with
out plan, seeing that it is to be your
home and remember that none but the
builder is responsible for it's defects.
ROBERT +. STERLING,
Pastor of Deer Creek Harmony