The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-12-01

wrought SellSulys Ildh4AS ASASAlDoAS SAA-
emies, have by slow degrees been more
and more subjected to the claims Of the
1 common interest, making neighbors
friends, allies copatriots, might be read
| lily Illustrated. How it is verified in the
wide view in the experience Of commu-
, mites in their uprise from lower to a
| higher social state. But I desire to
bring our subject to more personal
/ bearing, as it applies to the sphere of
the individual life. Where it does apply
where in fact may be and is reflected
! essentially the same change to which in
! its larger scope We have just referred.
For in a certain true sense each one Of
US is a microsm-a world in himself,
and the law of his advance of his Chris
tian civilization, is identified in it's prin-
ciple and its main incidents with the
law of the advance OF humanity. I
once heard man say and a very good
man in the esteem Of those best ac>
quainted with him, that while he did
not feel himself qualified to pass judg-
ment on the theory of our ultimate de-
riVation from brute origin, he was in
clined to believe it, for Che said) am
@OA4lpC44Su OWh that G44C dLCS VI
traces of them are all in me; tigers,
bears, swine, the whole herd, and We
had them to deal with. What he meant
the reality to have, as Professor Drum
mond puts it, the fires of its passions
transformed into finer energies. He SO
! described it none of US, am sure, can
/ fail to understand. There is at all
events by our creation an unmistakable
quality of the savage in us-or most Of
us-a nature that needs to be tanned If
we are. to come to our proper manhood.
The, elemental force in us contain the
potentiality and promise of our rise to
the dignity of moral beings, are at the
outset yoked to the animal, the carnal
part of us. We are to begin with not
so much new or the raw material of
manhood. 1t is pregnant saying that
every. child is born bundle Of capaci-
ties. Our higher and our lower natures
are originally tied up together-not es-
tablished, but If the higher is to be SUI
preme it must be by mastering the low
err by bringing 1t under the yoke, and
rulings it, whereby the strength of it
is made vassal to the higher. So and so
only do we work our way up into genu-
inc normal manhood.
Phillips Brooks in a great sermon of
his on Prison Reform, having laid it
down most inpressively that our
thought of the prisoner, no matter who
should always be that he is still a man
as much as any of us, and our fellow
man, so God looks upon him and so
ought we-define the criminal as being
what he Is not, primarily in virtue Of
what he has acquired, but of what he
has missed. The fundamental truth re-
garding him is not that he has become
a criminal, but that he has not become
in the full sense man. All that he
has been is but the vicious exhibition
of that which he has failed to be-"
The aim of the Christian state in sep
arating him from society should be, he
says, ito make the criminal less a Grim
inal, by making the man more a man."
and that, thank God, Is becoming more
and more in our time the recognized
duty of the state toward those who by
their evil works have delivered them
selves into the stern hand of the law,
to assist them by training and discipline
to control and subject the untamed inn
pulses that have hitherto controlled
them. This is in the line of the duty of
every one who is conscious, as who is
not? Of law In his members warning
against the law Of his mind.
The man from whom / borrow that
expression, who spoke for us all when
He said, The flesh lusteth against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh,
for these are contrary the one to the
other! came out in the end of His con-
f1ict complete victor, as we know. The
spirit won the day. Yet Paul the apos-
tie was under God made out of the
tribe that had been. Paul, the persecu-
tor, that was formerly the strength of
his old evil life, was now the splendid
magnificent genius-his whole constitu-
tional endowment, his energy, was now
the strength of his new Christian life.
That passionate heart in him that once
went to anger, cruel, mercfless heart,
now to cIarity--a tide Of love flowing
out to all mankind. He had been a
bold, bad man, now he was a bold, good
man. That was the outcome and up
shot of his conversion. 1t was verita-
sphere to that by which the Ramah Of
our text was converted into Geba and
Mizpah, and the like was gloriously
came about in the experience of many a
man, not often with the same initiation,
but with the same result. One of the
most serious views we can take Of our
existence as we inherit 1t from the CIV
er Of life regards the moral possible
ties that go with it-possibilities two
ways Of baseness and Of nobleness, of
honor and Of dishonor the superstruc-
ture of demons and of angels, may rise
upon the same outfit Of faculties and
powers. !
A will of word may be devoted to be-
nefcent service or contrariwise to pur-
poses injurious and Infamous; so the
will may be turned to resist that which
is evil or to resist that which is good.
So may the rooted instinct of acquisi-
ton be the minister of sordid circum-
stances, or the minister of that worthy
aspiration that covets earnestly the best
gifts. So again may the force of habit,
which is one of the foreign forces-a
force that pushes nightly up or a force
that pushes nightly down-rnay be the
strong handmade of sin or the strong
handmade of duty, and will be one or
the other. The capabilities, one and all,
that reside in man may be degraded to-
the alliance of the unholy powers or
sanetified tn fhe alliance Of the mowers