The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-05-01

that with which DC marks the flight OF a |
bird on The lutter oi a leaf
I'm Che realm of the spiritual ON the con. |
trary not q great deal has been achieved |
yet that the spirit of man can encourage |
itself with or that 30 can found great eX. |
pectations uron and profound anticipa. |
tions So TAR as such matters are con
cemed we are not much farther along IN |
the realities OF the world spiritual than |
the world wa. along geographically ia The /
DAYS when Columbus was wondering u |
there were not more beyond the shores OF
Spain than the fifteenth century vet knew
OF, OF much farther than the world was
along automatically when David shep
herded his fl0cks and musing,y watched
IT, sttrs lowering above the Judean hills.
And we should be stimulated in the Oh.
reetion of coming into closer quarters with
the sublime facts Of the spiritual world
God, loul and all the eteruals, If we would
keep closer company with those impulses
of Ours, those spiritual appetites, that in.
stinctively lean and extend themselves in
the direction OF that suspected but un.
known world. There is not an impulse yet
detected in our nature, whether physical
or mental, that has not been found in
course Of time to be correlated with some.
thing outside that precisely matches it.
Thirst means that there is water, and the
water Is there waiting. The eye means
that there is light. and the light is there
waiting. The budding interrogation in the
child's mind means that there is truth, and
the truth is there waiting So far as we
have yet gone the inward impulse has
shown itself to be an infallible prophecy
Of an outward reality that perfectly fits it.
And those great longings of the soul that
swell within as in our best and freest mo-
ments, so or Eat sometimes as to be beyond
a. 30 Aaa "a
foolish and stupid in us to treat as less
trustworthy and infallible than are the
Quieter appetences of the intelligence or
the coarser instincts of the body. There is
no safe creed that does not start in with
confession of faith in ones own superb
self-superb in the sense of being gifted
with powers that put him IN direct rela-
ton with the rocks under him, the air
about him, the great God overhead and
the eternal realm of Spirit, human and dl-
vine. And that gives a man something to
60 upon it at once makes the farthest
star in the heavens a proper object OF III
quiry. and lays out before him a highway
into the heart and centre Of the kingdom
spiritual.
But the highway into the heart and CEN
ire of the kingdom spiritual is not n road
that is being numerously Travelled. We are
about as far along on that road as Column
| bus was on the way to the Western Cont
nent when he was still heaving anchor in
the harbor of Paios. But the road is as
] feasible and passahle as the waterway Of
/ the Atlantic And the world is going to
| get there The religious impulse, the pas
| sion of tie divine Is in us for a purpose
| God is movable and He is gong to he
| known Spiritual things are discernib.e
and they are going to be dscerned. There
! is such thing as the life eternal and there
| is such a thing as having a realization of
! that life, having it here too, as a matter
! of clear and definite experience. We are
not saying anything Just now as to the ma
ture Of the highway that leads into the
midst of the spiritually disCerned realities
! that compose that kingdom. nothing just
now ABOUT the steps man takes in tread.
! ing that highway. The only impression |
am studying to leave this morning is that
there is a continent of reality as distinct
from the continent of every day interest
as the Western Hemisphere of our globe
is distinct from the Eastern; that we are
endowed with faculties which to the de-
gree in which they are developed and eX-
ercised make the matters of that remotcr
continent az certainly distingmshabie and
! as confidently appreciate to the earliest
Spanish explorers; that spiritual discern
ment has Just as sQ!ld g meaning u lts re-
latlon to things spiritual as ocular discern
meut has in its relation to things material,
and that it is capable Of yielding results
that are Just as convincing and satisfying,
and lie as solidiy planted in the assurance
OF the man that has become spiritually cog
infant Of them; that the soul is endowed
with the faculty of a vision that is as true
NJ the vision of the body, independent of
bodily vision and thousand times more
richly and wonderfully gifted
Men are interested in houses, lands,
clothes, money, markets, commerce science
and art, but there is not much interest in
religion. There is interest in the matter
of being saved, whatever that may mean,
but desire to be saved is no more religion
than the desire to be gotten out of the
water when you have fallen overheard is
navigation.
This does not mean that there are not a
good many who have an mixing of the
meaning of the spiritual kingdom. some
thing as men at sea gain a suspicion of
distant land by observing the impal pable
blanket of mist that hovers about it. 1t is
not much in itself, and yet it is a great
deal, because of the much that it is capa-
be OF widening out into. 1t is kind of
spiritual coast line which, seen from afar,
appears to be but a hlmy thread, but
which is for all that the sold edge OF a
solid ointment.
Nor does that which we have been say
ing mean that there are not those who
have already Travelled a good stretch OF
distance into the midst of things, the spir-
itual verities, that make ont the spiritual
world In ali departments of life and in all
directions of growth there have always
been men who have outrun their fellows,
pioneers in the enterprise of discovery
giants in research who have stood high and
looked over the shoulders Of their contem.
poralies, who have lived in the same
wocld as they, but at the same time lived
of religious thought and experience we
call such men prophets. A prophet, prop
erly speaking, is not so much a man who
is able to see what is going to be as he is
one who sees more widely than others the
+bi,.~. which arc noun Tboro "a such /,