Newport weekly independent., 1903-08-07

AAStSA SSs reply: Yes and no. It is in mems hearts as an inner experience, and it is all about them in outward, practical contact with the world and the people of the world. One does not need to take Jacobs ladder or borrow Gabriel's wings to scale the heights and gain the borders of the Land of Upright ness. It is not far away from the busy rush of life. It is not on the mountain-top of transfiguration nor in the seventh heaven of Paul's experi- ence. It lies within the confines of the sphere in which you already live and move and have your being. It may be an undiscovered land to you. Oh, how many, many, many people in this world are rushing pell-mell through life to blackness and despair at the that just at hand is the Land of Up rightness, in which is joy and peace and satisfaction, and true success!
 I ESUS dwelt in the Land of Upright
 ness, and that is the reason He
 
 gathered. That is why His hand was ever reaching out to help and to save That is why every leaf and flower, the grass of the field, the waving grain, the lowly sparrow, spoke their lessons to His soul, and were left as enduring mes sages to the heart of man. Those crude, uncultured fishermen by the Lake of Galilee were found in the Land of the Natural Self. They knew what it was to see the stars at night standing guard over them, while they thrashed the wa ters with their nets after the darting fish. They were familiar with the grassy slopes of the lake and the fiower-decked fields of Galilee. They felt the throb of life all about them, and had to mingle herewith, in order to gain a livelihood. And yet until Jesus met them and led them into the Land of Up- rightness, they did not know the beau ties of Nature; they did not realize the dignity of life; they did not understand that fishing on the lake of Galilee was the school in which they were to begin their preparation to become fishers of men. It was new world in which they moved after they met Jesus, and that world was the Land of Uprightness. The entrance into that land did not take them out of the world in which they already were, but it put them into new relations herewith. The Land of Up rightness, then, is not new place or sphere, but the present place, ruled by the will of God, and where His Spirit is the unerring guide. On the one hand it's borders touch the Land of Darkness, and on the other it's delightful fields un- fold with never break into the Elysian fields of the Heavenly land.
 TT HE inhabitants of the Land of Up l rightness are faithfully described in the First Psalm. They are they who walk not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. Their de- light is in the law of the Lord and in His law do they mediate day and night. They are like tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf does not wither, and whatsoever he doeth prospereth Abel dwelt in that land, and when the jealous hand of his brother struck him down, he quickly passed over to the joys and peace of the land where tears are un- known and sorrow and pain have given place to joy of heart and peace of life Enoch walked with God in the Land of Uprightness, and one day when enjoy ing the companionship of the dear Lord he wandered over the line, and never came back. Noah lived in the Land of Uprightness, but at that time he was about it's only inhabitant The god less inhabitants of the world were as unconscious of the existence of the Land of Uprightness as the blind fish of Mammoth Cave are ignorant of the blessed sunshine and the glad bird bath ing in it's light. But notwithstanding that Noah had a pretty lonesome time of it as related to human associations, he found in the end that it paid to dwell there. Abraham was content to abide in the Land of Uprightness, where Gods will controlled and His Spirit led, but Lot. who knew the Land of Uprightness, and ought to have remained resident thereof, lift ed up his eyes, and, beholding the glitter and show and surface pleasures of the Land of the Natural Self, he wan dered off to its distractions, and Gods angels had hard work rescuing him later from the destruction which over took portion of that goddess land. And we have not space to tell of all the others who dwelt in the Land of Up rightness, as enumerated in the Scrip lures. Nor have we time to review the grand army which has passed through this land into the better land since Christ first drew His disciples about Him and commissioned them to go into all the world and tell of this Land of Uprightness, and draw thereto all who would listen to the glad message and turn from the Land of the Natural Self. whose borders are adjacent to the outer darkness of eternal death, and to the