Los Angeles herald., 1905-10-30

I Miss Elizabeth
Ss..+.st.z.. i j. ! + !. ~.
growing hour of his life the poet
laureate exclaimed, My greatest long
ing is for a clearer vision of God And
again, Oh, that may have his help to
give expression to the vision L have
seem
"Whittier's Our Master and The
Eternal Goodness breathe an eternal
hore.
THE solar light is on Wordsworth s
face, the divine note is in his voice,
the perfume of the hills of God
breathes in all his pages. God has
touched the singers lips with a coal
from the divine altar.
THE true poets sing the abiding,
eternal priciples the true novelists
plead the cause of the poor, the slave
and the orphan, the true essayists dis
cuss the reforms and the sons of
genius use their gifts to lift shields
above Gods little ones. Verify, all the
real authors are seeing visions and The
poets are dreaming dreams.
Optimism in Science
1.-THE science of today is optimistic,
not pessimistic. True science does not
doubt, it inquiries. Twenty-Five years
ago Prof. Tyndall found in matter .ho
potency and promise of life. Today
science finds in life the potency and
promise of matter.
"In the British Scientific association,
the Christian members maintain a
daily prayer meeting. Professor Young
the Princeton astronomer, is an elder
in an American Presbyterian church
Lord Romanes, after long wandering
amid the deserts of agnosticism and
pessimism, came back to a childs
faith.
"Agassiz was a devout believer in
God. Henry Drummond was scien-
tist and evangelist. John Fiske, who
wrote with much clearness upon the
universe, seen and unseen, was an in
spring optimistic preacher, with ma
ture and the soul as text books.
Lord Kelvin is an elder in Scotch
Presbyterian church. His testimony
is explicit, that belief in God is a sci
entific necessity.
There is far less skepticism in the
world today than twenty years ago.
The old lines of doubt have been aban-
doned and men are thinking affirma-
lively about the future life.
Men are opposed to dogma. but
there is something pathetic in the al
most universal turning of all men to
ieism, psychology, spiritualjsm and
other modern movements attest this
thirst of spirit. Creeds have been
growing more and more simple.
But, again, what is true of nations
Is true of individuals. Where there is
no vision, the individual perishes.'
what really defines your life is not
its possessions or its acquisitions, but
it's dreams, it's imaginations, visions.
Is a life absorbed in that which 1t is
getting, in money, or success, then
that life is shut up more and more;
visionless, it must perish.
"It was vision which changed Abram,
Chaldean worshiper, into Israel, Prince
of God David, the sensual king, into
the sweetest singer of spiritual expert
ences; jeremiah, the prophet of lam
entation, into hope and courage of Is
rael; Saul, the prosecuting Pharisee,
into Paul, the self-sacrificing apostle;
John, the son of thunder, into John,
the beloved disciple.
1.-THE hope of Jerusalem was in John
the Baptist. The hope of Athens in
Socrates. The hope of Florence in Sa-
vonarola, with his warnings of i'm
pending destruction. The hope of Ger
many in the youth who prayed at Wit
tenburg.
Sustained by Visions
"It was a vision which sustained
Moses, who endured as seeing the In
visible Blind Homer sat amid the
isles of Greece and sang his deathless
songs and saw his visions.
"The history of England for 200 years
is the history of dreams and prayers
of blind John Milton.
"Dante, sad poet Of Italy dedicated
his life and talents to the pursuit of
a vision.
Joan of Arc dreams her dreams
and sees her visions of France liber-
ated and goes forth to be it's liberator.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, while at the
communion table, has vision which
she embodies in Uncle Toms Cabin;
a vision which sets the heart of the
world palpitating with indignation and
pity for the slave.
"Frances E. Willard had vision OF
a world redeemed from alcohol and 1t
grew until the world was girdled by
the White Ribbon and Worlds Peti-
tion.'
susan B. Anthony had vision OF
women's liberty and equality before
the law and consecrated her life to
this object, and the vision grew until
in conservative Germany the Interna-
tional Suffrage association is establish
ed and the principles of universal
equality and liberty are changing law
and history.
abraham Lincolns vision Of duty
was mistaken by criticism and cir
cumstances. Hear his prophetic words
'Fondly do we hope; fervently do we
pray, that this mighty scourge of wal
might speedily pass away; yet, If God
Wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondmen's 25C
years of unreQuited toll shall be sunk