The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-10-24
"IRUE PURPOSE OF LIFE. ]"
SERMON AT EPWoRrH CHURCH
 YESTERDAY

Rev. Mr. Glfan Speak. of the Graver
 Significance of Iire-Love and Deatb
 Two of GOd,. Powerful Instruments
 for Awakening Man to HI. True Self
 -Our Savior the Only One Who
 Knew What Was in Man.
 One of the strong and able sermons delivered in this city yesterday was that preached from the pulpit of the Epworth M. D. church during the morning service by the pastor, Rev. William E. Giffin. The Rev. MT. Gifin had selected as his subject. "The True Purpose of Life.'' and the sermon had for text the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, For this end was born and for this cause came I into the world. that I should bear witness unto the truth" St. John, xviii., 37. MT. Gifin said in part.
 The soul has a meaning apart from he toll and happiness of our ordinary life. We owe more than the duties of he office, or of the shop, or of the home. The soul has graver signifi-. eance
 Some people arrive at this meaning pf life early, others late. many after Desperate struggle. a few apparently easily, while multitudes never know Themselves and the reason why they. i've.
 God is ,industriously endeavoring 10 bring to each one the unfolding of he self to the self. Often he works by he awakening powers of love, for love a great teacher She instructs, she ehides, she pleads, she unfolds. Aspir- ation, hope, faith issue from her. She reaches the soul and spiritualizes, she reaches the heart and guickens, she beaches the mind and interprets, She s a reacher of life and brought many
 man to himself and opened to him the gateway to new and better world.
 Home associations, for example, hay call the careless to remembrance When the prodigal son was in Egypt Feeding on the husks the thought of bis father at home was as powerful n bringing him to himself as was his wn destitute condition.
 "And the close fellowshinp oi the hurch, love made and love sustained lage opened our eyes and enabled us 0 o,behnld wondrous things in ourselves Fhrough her we have been taught the yGlue of the individual soul before sod.
 "But sometimes. God acts in harsher Ind more obtrusive ways. The tomb with it's black robbed and sad faced uardians speaks in strangely startling ones. Its guardians tell us that all lesh is as grass and the glory of it IS flower, fiourishing, fading forgot en They sing to us in solemn, tear Aul dirges, painfully sweet, reminding Is of the vanity of human toll and hu- han triumph The paths of glory ead but to the grave"
 Many youth, bred where the years. lave yelled in tributes to indulging Pleasures, whose broad shouldered fa- her, with his commanding word and Increasing power, seemed tower of nfailing strength, when he silently .katched the coffin lowered into the Brave and Earth to earth, ashes to ashes. dust to dust became vivid Reality, has begun to rub his eyes in mazement and in dazed confusion to nq1ire, What am I? What is life? What is it's purpose? And the virgins !. f the tomb hopefully chant He is not Eere, he is risen. The soul has it's en- turing meaning. Find it. find true life Where can discover. the true purpose If life%
 Fs Answers differ. The man at my side ells me to build up fortune, pass frby urges me toward fame, my ac- aintance calls upon me to feat, drink ] Ind be merry and even the influ- nces of domestic affection may limit { Ind hamper And can look upon the ! ilent form of loved one, I broken Ind discouraged at the inexplicable trangeness of life, a hard sailing on a 2 ea, to suffer and then to be engulfed. "Whosis wise enough to give author l kative utterance on life? Who has in { Eight enough to discover it's meaning? a Who has compass to reach about it and C aa..-.z.-.1.a-=44uzzl