The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-04-07

meates society and the home. then life
has q new meaning. If a man omits the
spiritual life from his business, he had
better be an outcast; if he cannot carry
religion into his social relations, he had
better be an outcast; if he cannot sancti-
fly home life with the Bible, he had bet
ter never nave had a home. There
should be in man a great outlying and
dominating spiritual world. He should
have access to the magazines OF Gods
resources. Let him talk with God, CON
verse with the angels, have visions Of
horses and chariots Of fire, hear the
music Of the skies, and be shot through
with the splendors of the sun of righte-
I ousness."
LECTURE NUMBER TWO.
Il spoke last evening Of the promin-
ence of spiritual things as attested by
the Bible and the church. Let me ad-
vert for a moment to the expression upon
this whole question given in our new
Testament, which is more emphatic than
the Old, pressing the statement Of the
claims of the spiritual, intellectually
and ethica1ly, upon US in a style that
is more simple and with less frequent
use of anthropomorphism. Our citizenship
in the Kingdom Of God is emphasized
t-AA ga " 49, Vi Jul II1t, A4I u oIQ
social, are provided for in the spiritual
realm. The reality of these things is
the point to Which we have to come in
conscious experience and here we are
met with difficulties at the outset.
THE physical and natural is first in
our experience and with that our life be-
gins. What is the process by which we
come into the knowledge of the spiritual,
which alone satisfies our highest need?
Men attempted to do this in past cen
turtles by Withdrawing from the natural,
thus giving rise to monasticism. But
this was and is impossible. We must
apprehend the spiritual here in the midst
of the stress and cares OF this life and
find a unity between the world Of sense
in which we live and the world of the
spirit. There is no gOnism between
the natural and the spiritual. 1t is all
God and he placed us here that we
might find in the world of work and
stress the higher things of the spirit.
Those who ave the finest intentions see
in the natural world a spiritual meaning.
For this reason the poet, in the right
sense of the word, is the true interpreter
of nature, seeing in it subtle meanings
which transcend nature and come from
the realm of the spirit.
" t ST peSlu III app tHcISlOu u lie
spiritual in childhood. Somehow, some
where, by some means we are touched
in our childhood by that which does not
belong to the natural. In our inner con-
sciousness there is a touch of the spir-
itual and life has a new meaning. It is
crude at first and there is no full APP
| p~rehension of Gods whole nature, but it
is sufficient to bring to a child the sense
of responsibility. There is no way to
explain this by mere natural processes,
it must find it's explanation in q con-
seriousness of our relation to what We
call and feel to be God. This conscious
ness of God, dim at first in the child, is
really the foundation Of all ethics and
there is no other force which can sus-
tain our social order.
Faith is the process by which in the
first instance we a~pprehend the spiritual.
The processes of science do not apply in
this really. We cannot analyze it or
measure it by any scientific methods. In
spite of the sneers of scientists and bust
ness men faith underlies all our life,
even in the natural world. This faith is
defined by the writer Of the Epistle to
the Hebrews to be the realization Of
things hoped for and the conviction Of
things not seen. What we hold by faith
We HolI Will dS sun d 81 asp as We w
the things Of the natural world. By this
process we come into a knowledge that
we are in the midst Of forces unseen by
the natural eye. hat the air teens with
multitudes Of angelic beings, that the
heavens are bright with a light that
never Shone on sea or land. Voices are
sounding through our ears, and influences
are thrilling us to the inmost soul, that
come not from the world about US. 1t
is the consciousness Of God. The stir
of the invisible and eternal things pos
sesS US and they are, for us, the highest
reality. Faith makes this world more
substantial than the world of sense about
us and a rapture thrills us that sensuous
things cannot furnish. An examination
of the state of scientific knowledge Of
substance, light, electricity, etc, reveals
the fact that our knowledge OF such
things is not certain. In fact we do not
know more of matter than we do of
spirit and the most real things to us
the realities of our inner spiritual
life.
"There is a tendency among men to
lose enthusiasm for the things Of the
spirit apprehended by faith because they
they are expressed in the various terms
of theology. This arises from a miscon-
~ pawn VI CoIoS euth oyoASlllS
merely the outgrowth of an intellectual
necessity and we are not required to put
our belief in them. Our faith must be
in the things to which theology seeks
to give expression. Our belief, as the
belief of the early church, which had no
theology or New Testament, must be in
Jesus and His Gospel.
I'VE AVE in the revelation of the spir-
itual the Old Testament Scriptures lying
back CT the New. In the study of these
sacred writings we are told in this mod
ern day by higher critics that we must
give up belief in the supernatural and
that all things must be reduced to &C
cord with the scientific idea of evolution.
Although there are some phases of this
teaching that may be safely accepted we
cannot believe that all life evolves from
some original germ and that the Bible
must be put into such a system. We
believe that the first thought of God was
not produced by man, unaided by super
natural forces. God himself spake to us
through a developing order Of man and
We must believe that in the beginning
God revealed himself to man."