The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1902-06-07

"Belief in the personality Of Coz
and belief in the personality Of mar
stand or fall together.
In the depths Of his own conscious,
ness man has found the vestigeS Of
the royal edict, "Let us make mar il
u WI image.
If mans personality then is founded
upon the personality of God then al
study Of personality leads US unerr,
ingly to the feet Of Christ.
The incarnation becomes, therefore,
the supreme study, for it is only by
studying self, in the light Of the in
carnation that we come to any
adequate and real conception of our
natures and our relations to the
world.
The apostle is giving US the move
ment of life in its relation to the
progress Of the world.
He would be an untrue teacher did
he not describe the pain as well as the
pleasure.
With the consummate skill Of a
master he delineates the most painful
fact in all human history.
He contrasts the energy, the pas
sionate devotion, the enthusiastic
idealism Of the saints with their
seeming failure. "These all died not
having received t%he.promise, j."
sit was a saying of Seneca that
those who have been before us have
done much, but they have not finished
anything"
The pagan philosopher paraphrases
the words Of our Lord, 'Other men
have labored and ye have entered
into their labors."
This truth descriptive Of the 5000
years passing in review before the
apostles mind is an epitome Of every
earnest, loyalli Inspired personality
has access to the outlook of God and
its ideals outrun the three-score and
ten years allotted to man.
Inspired personality lives and labors
upon the small arc Of an infinite
circle.
"Pathetic beyond all expression is
the unfinished work beside which true
men and women Of every age have
laid down and died when they could
do no more"
1t is Abraham, gathered to his
people, when an old man with the
promises of life unfulflled.
1t is Joseph, dying in a strange
country with a lifelong hunger for
the old tent home in Canaan, giving
commandment concerning his bones.
It is Moses, with uudimmed eye
beholding the land for which he had
Yearned SO long and piteously but
%vainly, begging on Pisgah's lonely
height, LET me go over and see the
goodly land which is beyond Jordan. "
1t is Paul. in a Roman dungeon
ready to be offered up, but longing to
preach the gospel in the regions
beyond.
1t is Lambeth, with great plans for
missionary work, dying before they
had hardly been outlined.
1t is Grady, c%onsecrating his life to
the reconciliation Of the estranged
sections Of u great country, dying
before the vast meaning Of his
evangel had been realized.
1t is all the mighty spirits who, in
every age, have loved humanity and
served God, but we're not able to
finish their work before the night
came on, going home Sobbing and
crying 10 the twilight as they went,
Establish thou the work OF our
hands upon us, yea the work of our
hands, establish thou It,"
Into this deep, rich and influential
inheritance Of unfinished work we
have come.
It IS magnificent Ia its proportions.
Everywhere and in every realm we
are confronted by the monumental
labors Of those who were before US.
Indeed, all that we mean by
church and state, science and phil
Osophy, literature and art, is the
embodiment Of their thoughts and
the product Of their lives.
And this inheritance is sacred iu
its character.
The labors Of the past are not to
be measured alone by utilItarian
standards. They have UNNECESSARILY