The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1903-10-29

disc of God" There is a very common no.
| ton that though goodness may be safe
track to some far-off celestian city it IS a
considerable sacrifice of the content of life
here and now. Naturally enough not a
few decide to take what they can in the
present and leave the struggle for goodness
alone and chance the future. Well, the
truth is that only in worthy character, in
the ascendancy over evil, in the mastery
of impurity and of egoism in all its forms,
on the higher levels of special cultivation,
does man really get the core of life now,
get the very best there is in it. in fact
the Old Eden story comes true again and
again in the lives of men. Get your pleas
IRE. satisfy your desire in illicit ways, In
defiance or in neglect of the divine order
of life, it simply means paradise lost. You
turn yourself ont of the best by so doing.
Loyalty to goodness il, the way o. blessed
ness. There is no happiness like that
which comes from simple goodness.
What does the victor find? He finds the
Unseen reserves from which he may draw
sustenance and power to his own surprise
and that of the world. "To him :has over
cometh l will give to cat of the hidden
mamma" In the winning struggle you End
she soul sustenance hidden from YOU be-
fore and still hidden from the word. New
condolences, new assurances, new faiths
arise in TIE soul; new visions break upon
1T, new voices speak to it and in it; new
communions with unseen covers enrich
its inner solitudes, and the man gets Ly
and by to understand what Paul meant
when he spoke OF being strengthened
with might in the inner man." The truly
earnest man who perseveres in the life of
the good is constantly surprised at the re-
serve of power upon which he draws. Ted
seas which looked as il they meant certain
death have been safely crossed, and the
song Of triumph rang up to God on the
other side
Difficulties which seemed insurmountab,e
have been successfully overcome. This is
why the man says "Hitherto hath the
Lord helped me-" He cannot understand
himself by himself, and so he bui;ds an
alter to higher power. In life's victories
we discover hfe's forces; in the onward
march we discover the enrichment Of the
wav, come to one after another of the
wells ct salvation, hidden from all who do
not march that way. And, remember al
ways, that the larger orr CONQUEST IN life,
the more abundant will be lfe's srsten-
ance; 1T IS the conqueror who finds Tie
mamma In a sense, everything is hidden
from u.s. and all growth is discovery. 1t
IS SO in the intellectual sphere. You dis
cover treasures as You conquer difficulties.
You must conquer the alpnabeS and the
spelling book to discover the sentence;
CONQUER the sentence to discover the para
graph; conquer every paragraph to know
the treasure OF the book. And so all the
way up. Many cannot read a book that is
at all difficult the food there is II 1t they
cannot appreciate. Why? because their
conquests are too small; they have not
overcome ignorance and superfcia,ty suffi-
GENTLY, so the mama there remains hid
den.
The same is trle 10 the moral and spir-
itral sphere There are people who arc
quite incapable OF understanding the high
est kind of affection and the hottest
kind OF love because they have not them
selves overcome the vulqarity and coarse
ness of human natures lower levels All
noble souls have meat tn cat which the
world knows not Of" they have afec-
with base INGREDIENTS, and aspirations
which it would always tarnish with the
stains of earth. Be sure of it, your decov-
cry or lies best things viii depend upon
your conquest Of its worst. and with every
victory you shall eat hidden mama and
be strengthened for victories yet to be
achieved The successful struggle con-
him before. and still hidden from lives
which 90 not know TIE ioftier reaches and
the more earnest endeavors. What does
life yield TO the VICTOR Here is one Of the
finest of the promises: 81 will give him the
morning star" What Is tbs gift Of the
morning star? 1t is the feeling that life is
sweet and pure, fair and fresh with the
touch of morning 1t is the feeling that
life is full of promise. that day is coming
on; that the best is yet to be. It is the
power to be oneself a sweeteniDp freshen-
ing influence in the world, a living pro-
phecy of its betterment. Now, friends,
there is nothing like moral purity to keep
the touch of morning on life; compromise
your morality and it is marvellous how soon
everything IS stale. There is an indescrib-
able sweetness in the air of early morning
when the world is as God makes it; when
1T is indeed in the process of His remaking
before we light our fires and emit our
smoke and heat up the dust of our noisy,
turbulent life. Something like that sweet
freshness of morning belongs to the soul
that Is pure and comes to it always in it's
hour of victory over sin. As long as your
affections are clean they are fresh: YOU
never tire of pure feelings or holy loves.
Again, what does the moral victor find?
It is promised that Christ will write upon
hun Gods name and the name of Gods
city, and his own new name. In our Ian
quage this means that life yields the victor
the consciousness that he really belongs
to God: that he belongs to the new So
ciety: that he belongs to Christ. In other
words, the spiritual universe owns him,
and he knows himself as vital part of it,
even as pillar in the temple of God, an
upnOiOer OF the sacred things OF kte: one
OF those who have a real permanent life in
the. sanctuary, among the sanctities of
God-yea, who share the spiritual sover-
eignty of life with God, with Christ and
with all the good: "Ie shall sit with Me
on My throne" etc.
Oh, You who are fighting sin, take cour-
age; with every triumph you are mounting
the steps of the throne of God and ever
nearing the time when your life shall be
fixed in the truth which knows no turning.
and the Righteousness which is forever.
Lay hold on the thought of God as your
Helper. and believe that if you work with
Him all will be well. I invite YOU to no
superficial optimism that has never sound
ed the depths of life's woe. nor seen into
the hearts of it's tragedy. There is no pow
CT and no healing in that. I heard It once
given out from a Christian platform. Is
denounced gloominees Of every kind: il
slashed the pessimists in every direction.
it declared that all things were going on
exceedingly well: even the sluus were not
50 bad as some made out, and the war i'm
South Africa-wel, it would come to an
end some time
So much of this was dealt out that felt
that such optimism was the shallowest Of
les. and that to ventilate it in the name
OF Christianity was to forget the TRAGEDY
of Gethsemane and to blot out the mem
DYsy Of 4tH<.1