Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1903-03-26


| tL,, stars lowering above the Judean hills:
| And we should be stimulated in the di.
rection of coming into closer quarters with
the sublime facts of the spiritual world--
God, soul and all the eternals, if we would
keep closer company with those impulses
of ours, those spiritual appetites, that III.
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 III 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 infailible prophecy
of an outward reality that perfectly fits, it,
And those great longings of the soul that
swell within uS in our best and freest mo.
ments, so great sometimes as to be beyond
our power to articnlate, these, too, it is
foolish and stupid in us to treat as less
trustworthy and infallib'c than are the
auieter 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 di'
vine. And that gives man something to
go upon. 1t at once makes the farthest
star in the heavens a proper object OF ILL.,
quiry. and lays out before him highway
into the heart and centre of the kingdom
spiritual.
But the highway into the heart and cen.
tire of the kingdom spiritual is not a road
that is being numcrous'y Travelled. We are
about as far along on that road as Coum-
bus was on the way to the Western Cont
nent when he was still heaving anchor in
the harbor of Palos. But the road is as
feasible aud passabc as the waterway of
the Atlantic. And the world is going to
get there The religious impulse, the pas
Sion of tE, divine is in us for purpose.
God is movable and He is going to be
known Spiritual things are discemible
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 life, having it here. too. as matter
OF clear aud definite experience. We are
not saying ANYTHING Just now as to the ma
tute of the highway that leads into the
midst of the spiritually discerned realities
1ow ABOUT the steps man takes In tread.
ing that highway. The only impression |
am studying to leave this morning is that
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-
ercisnd make the matters of that remoter
inI,, III II IN Sho ltlp and
as confidently appreciable to the earliest
Spanish explorers; that spiritual discern.
ment has iust as solid a meaning in its re-
lation to things spiritual as ocular discern
mcnt 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
az the vision Of the body independent OF
bodily vision and thousand times more
richly ard 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 Nlch sVh hu'S iulNh Wv 'S''SN'N' ."
navigation.
This does not mean that there are not n
good many who have an inkliug of the
meaning Of the spiritual kingdom. some:
thing as men at sea gain susplclon OF
distant land by observing the imnalpab::e
blanket of mist that hoycrs about 1t. 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 q kline. OF
Epn ,y,iob from mar
appears to be but 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 who
have already Travelled good stretch OF
distance into the midst of things, the splr,,
itual veritics, that make out the spimtuaii
world. In ali departments OF lite 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 ana
looked over the shoulders of their contem'
poraries, who have lived in the same
wo.ld 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. prophet, prop
erly speaking is not so much a man VINO
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 scentlhc
truth as to be able to see with firm and
fast Vision where eyes less sympathetic
have failed. Exactly the parallel OF tIlat
has been true over and over again IN tnat
other world of truth mysteriously hidden
that is our special concern tins mornlhs'
And, as | say, we call such ones prophets;
And there are prophets now az IN the o1d
davs-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 infantiie for those whose eyes have III
them a feeble light to deny the uncovermg
that has been made to these prophets ana
prophetesscs of 4 longer and purer sight,
as for YOU and me to siur over with ironi-
cal contempt the revelations brought back
70 us bv 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 lew
prophets, pioneers in the van, and the rest
plodd:ng on bchind-some not even p;;od-
ding, some no nearer millennium tlian
when history started out. OF course, the
Great prophet OF all prophets, the great
seer Of all seers, was Jesus Christ it
would seem that to His eye the things OF
the heavenly kindom were as, near and as
distinct os were the long hidden mysteries
of the solar system distinct to the vision
of Copernicus. He did not reason; Christ
did not, nor conjecture, nor guess; lie saw
When lie told Of God, of the soul. Of the The
liife eternal, He spoke of that which He
knew and testified that which He had
seen. He came not as delineator., While
He was telling things to people He saw
the things that He was telling them. There
is nothing in the Bible about suppoosing,
but there is great lot in 1T about seeing.