The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1905-07-02
Visions and Tasks
Selected for The Timcs-Dispatch.)

| lt N'S'SSNSo III IHC IiiHcS-l)lSl)ilCIJ
while Peter thought on the vision, tho
Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men
seek thee. Acts, x:19.
| Potter had been praying OH the top OF
| Simons house at Joppa, and there had
been shown to him great sheet full of
all kinds OF horny beasts, which he was
| hidden TO take and cat. And while he
hestated he was rebukcd for his narrow
conception OF the gospel and It's teach
ings. He now sat there bordering, and
doubling in himself what the vision which
he had seen should mean.
A new idea had come to him. 1t was
all abstract and mpalpable. 1t bewildered
and eluded him. He could not see what
the outcome would be. AS he still waited,
steps were heard below; they were tho
servants OF Cornelius, the Gentle, coming
to ask that Peter would visit their mas
ter. Here was the chance to put into
action. the idea which possessed him.
1t WIS critical moment. He was
standing between the vision and its APP
| plicaton. On one side Of him was the
! mysterious sheet and Its multitude of
beasts on the other We're tho three men
who needed him and the truths he had
been taught The question was, whether
the vision could pass through Peter to
these three men, and Cornelius. When
on the morrow he went with them"
! that question was decided his vision and
its appropriate duty had Joined hands. :,
Man standing between his visions and
his tasks; that is our subject for con-
sideratlon., 1t is the place where certain
men are often called upon to stand. and
! In some degree 1t Is where all men are
standing always. Every man has his
visions-now bright and beautiful; now
clouded and obscurc-of what is absolute
| ly and abstractly true; and every man has
1 also pressing OH him the warm, clear
lives of his felow-men. There is a world
Of truth on one side, and world OF men
/ upon the other.
This may be peculiarly manifest In tho
life Of some young man to-day. When
| the school session has been closed; when
tho college doors have dismissed their
graduate; when the professional student
has left forever the calm scholar days
behind him: when the young minister
! still feels the hands of ordination on his
bowed head--in all these cases. how real
are the two worlds between which he
stands! Amid tho silence and the stir,
the calm accumulation and tho active
employment OF his truth the young man
stands With q strange consciousness which
is never SO wildly repeated at any other
moment of his life.
| Sad is his lot, sad Is the nature OF any
man, who can pass through such a mo-
nlent and not be solemnlzed and exalted
by 1t. Sad Is that man, who can graduate
| from college, and go out into the world
| thinking of his education only as a druid
gerry from which he has at last escaped,
or merely as an equipment with what he
Is to earn his daily bread.
The power OF men to stand between
abstract truth one the one side, and the
concrete facts OF life on the other comes
| from the co-exlstence in his human ma
ture Of two different powers. One tho
power of knowing, the other the power
i of loving. The power OF knowing, whether
! by patient study or the faculty of gaining
wisdom by experience, everything by
which he tries to learn and succeeds In
knowlng-that is one. necessary element
OF his manhood.
And the other is love, hat power of
s