The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1903-03-26


alon" astronomicallv when David shep,.
haraed his flocks and muSingiy watched
IL -. st:rs lowering above the Judean mis-:
And we should be stimulated IN the d.
cciion OF coming INTO c.oSer quarters WIN
the sublime facts OF the spiritual world,
Col. soul and all The eterna!S, II we would
keep closer company with those impulses
of ours. those spiritual appetltcs, taat IN
stinctively lean and extend themselves III
the direction of that suspected but nm
known world. There is not an impulse ySy;
detected in our nature. whether phySical
or mcntai, that has not been 1ound III
course Of time to be correlated with some
thing outside that precisely matches It,
Thirst means that there Is water, ana the
water is there waiting. lhc eye means
that there is light. and the hight Is there
waiting. The budding interrogation IN the
child's mind means thGt there Is truth. and
the truth ~ there waiting. SO far as we
have vet gone the inward impulse mas
shown itself to be an infallhie prophecy
of an outward reality that perfectly hts 1t.
And those great longlnCs C the soul th2I
swell within us in our best and freest mo,
ments. so gr,at sometimes as to be beyond
our power to articulate, these. too. 1t ls
foolish ard stupid in US to treat as less
Trustworthy and infallibie than are the
ouicter appetenCeS of the intelligence or
the colrser instincts of the BODY. lnere IS
no safe creed that does not start IN WITH
e. confession of faith in ones own super9
seli-superb in the sense OF being gifted
with powers that put him in direct re!a-
ton with the rocks under HIM, the ar
about him. the great God overhead. ana
the eternal realm of Spirit. human and d.
vine And that gives man something 10
90 upon. 1t at once makes the farthest
-, h. object
ouiry, and lays out before him 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 road
that is being numerously Travelled. We are
about as far along on that road as Co!um-
bus was on the way to the Western Conti-
nent when he was still heaving anchor IN
the harbor of Palos. Bat the road is as
feasible and passable as the waterway OF
the Atlantic. And the world is going to
get there. The religious impulse, the pas
sion of tko divine is in us for purpose.
known. Spiritual things are discernible
and they are going to be discerned. There
is such thing as the life eternal and there
is such thing as having a realization OF
that i,fe, having it here, too, as a matter
of clear and definite experience. We are
not saving 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 aoout the steps man ia kes IN tread.
ing that highway. The only impression l
am studying to leave this morning IS tnat
there is 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 remoter
continent as certainly distinguishable and
as confidently appreciable to the earliest
Spanish explorers; that spiritual discern
ment has Just as solid a meaning IN its re-
lation to things spiritual as ocular discern
ment 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 solidly planted in the assurance
of the man that has become spiritually cog.
infant Of them; that the soul is endowed
with the faculty of vision that is as true
as the vision of the body, independent OF
bodily vision and a 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 inkling of the
meaning OF the spiritual kingdom, some.
thing as men at sea gain a suspicion OF
distant land by observing the impalpable
blanket of mist that hovers about it. 1t IS
net much in itself, and yet 1t is a great
deal, because of the much that it is capa..
bic of widening out into. 1t Is a kind OF
appears to be hut filmy thread, but
which is for all that the solid edge OF
solid continent.
Nor does that which we have been say
ing mean that there are not those Tho
have already travelled a good stretch or
distance into the midst Of things, the spir,,
itual veritieS, that make out 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 eontem-
poraries, who have lived in the same
world as they, but at the same time lived
in larger world than they. In the world
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
things which are now. There Is such
thing. even in matters of science. as coming
so into accord with the spirit OF scientific
truth as to be abe to see with firm and
fast Vision where eyes less sympathetic
have failed. Exactly the parallel OF that
has been true over and over again in that
other world of truth mysteriously hidden
that is our special concern this morning.
And, as | say, We call such ones prophets;
And there are prophets nov; as IN the Old
days-men and women whose spiritual
steps are more than abreast with their
own day. They know what they see, they
realize what they feel, and it is as feeble
and infantile for those whose eyes have in
them feeble light to deny the uncovering
that has been made to these prophets and
prophetesses of longer and purcr sight,
as for you and me to slur over with ironi-
cal contempt the revelations brought back
to us by those who have climbed farther
than we into the heights OF the material
heavens.
But that is the way history grows; that
is the way the world becomes larger-a few
prophets, pioneers in the van. and the rest
IL