The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-04

and if one departs from that it is to run the most perilous risks. Happy he who is able to reclaim himself, who finds the way back to simplicity.
 Good plain sense is not, as is often imagined, the innate possession of the first chance conner, a mean and paltry equipment that has cost nothing to any one. l would compare it to those old folk songs, unfathered, but death- less. which seem to have risen out of the very heart of the people. Good sense is a fund slowly and painfully accumulated by the labor of centuries. It is a Jawel of the first water, whose value he alone understands who has lost 1t or who observes the lives of others who have lost it. For my part think no price too great to pay for gaining it and keeping 1t for the pos session of eyes that see and a judg- ment that dlscerns. One takes good care of his sword that 1t be not bent or rusted; with greater reason should he give heed to his thought.
 But let this be well understood: An appeal to common sense is not an ap- peal to thought that grovels, to narrow positivism which denies everything 1t cannot see or touch; for to wish that man should be absorbed in material sensations, to the exclusion of the high realities of the inner life, is also want of good sense. Here we touch upon a tender point, round which the greatest battles of humanity are waging. In truth, we are striving to attain a con ception of life, searching 1t out amid countless obscurities and griefs, and everything that touches upon spiritual realities becomes day by day more painful. In the midst of the grave perplexities and transient disorders that accompany great crises of thought 1t seems more difficult than ever to es- cape with any simple principles. Yet necessity itself comes to our aid, as 1t has done for the men of all times. The programme of life is terribly simple after all, and in the fact that existence so imperiously forces herself upon us she gives us notice that she precedes any idea of her which we may make for ourselves and that no one can put off living pending an attempt to under stand life. Our philosophies, our ex- plantations, our beliefs, are everywhere confronted by facts, and these facts, prodigious, irrefutable, call us to order when we would deduce life from our reasonings and would wait to act until we have ended philosophizing. It Is this happy necessity that prevents the world from stopping while man ques- tions his route. Travellers of a day, we are carried along in vast move ment to which we are called upon to contribute, but which we have not fore seen nor embraced in its entirety nor penetrated as to it's ultimate aims. Our part is to flll faithfully the role Of private, which has devolved upon us, and our thought should adapt itself to the situation. Do not say that we live in more trying times than our ances- tors. for things seen from afar are of- ten seen imperfectly. It is, moreover, scarcely gracious to complain of not having been born in the days of one's grandfather
 What we may believe least contesta- ble on the subject Is this: From the be- ginning of the world it has been hard to see clearly; right thinking has been difficult everywhere and always. In the matter the ancients were in no- wise privileged above the moderns, and 1t might be added that there is no diff ference between men when they are considered from this point of view. Master and servant, teacher and learn CT, writer and artisan, discern truth al the same cost. The light that humanity acquires In advancing is no doubt of the greatest use, but it also multiplies the number and extent of human prob lens. The difficulty is never removed the mind always encounters its obsta. cle. The unknown controls us and hems us in on all sides. But just as one need not exhaust a spring to quench his thirst, so we need not know everything to live. Humanity live and always has lived on certain elemental provisions.
 We will try to point them out. First of all, humanity lives by confidence. h so doing 1t but reflects. commensurate with its conscious thought, that which is the hidden source of all beings. An imperturbable faith in the stability of the universe and it's intelligent order. ing sleeps in everything that exists The flowers, the trees, the beasts of the field, live in calm strength, in entire se- curity. There is confidence in the fall. ing rain, in dawning day, in the brook running to the sea. Everything that is seems to say: T am, therefore should be. There are good reasons fol : this, rest assured"
 So, too, mankind lives by confidence From the simple fact that he is, man has within him the sufficient reason foi his being-a pledge of assurance. He reposes in the power which has Wiileo that he should be. To safeguard tnls confidence, to see that nothing discoh certs it, to cultivate 1t, render 1t more personal more evident-toward tnls should tend the first effort of oui thought. All that augments confidence within us is good. for from confidence ia horn the life without haste-tranqui energy, calm action, the love of life and its fruitful labor. Deep seated con fdence is the mysterious spring th"' sets in motion the energy within us. l is our nutriment. By 1t man lives much more than by the bread he eats. And 50 everything that shakes this conf