Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1905-06-08
cravings, but with the essential man
and his cravings and requirements. 1t

lSs
deals with the most universal fact of
human nature, hich is hunger From
the merely material activities of his
physical body up to the highest 'activ-
1ty OF his spiritual nature man is, in q
sense, mere bundle of hungers And
this is true because he is merely a re-
c1pient; and every minutest vesicle of
both body and soul is mouth clamOr-
ing to be fed. But it is only a small
part OF this universal hunger that we
are conscious Of As in the body some
of the more general organs make us
conscious of their needs when they are
not supplied, while the needs of the
numberless smaller organs and vesicles
are met by physical processes that we
are wholly unconscious Of, so Of the
universal hunger OF the spirit only a
small part ever falls within our con-
sciousness. And this is so because the
Lord requires of us only so much as
He must require of US to make us
images and likenesses of Himself To
be that it is necessary that we should
contribute to our life certain measure
of activity and effort and cooperation
and reciprocation. And to secure that,
some Of the more external hungers of
the body and of the mind appeal to
us strongly enough to. prompt us to
such action as is necessary to satisfy
them.
But in our present condition all the
hungers of our natural life are more or
less perverted hungers, which seek for
perverted and unhealthy satisfactiOns.
And this we begin to recognize as soon
as we begin to see what the true life
sf man is. The first evils the truth
reveals to us are the indulgences of
wrong appetites, and passions, and
cravings, and the first task the truth
| imposes on us is to refuse to these
wrong hungers or cravings the salts
| faction they demand
This reputation of these cravings
we should find a hard task to begin
with if we We're not helped in it by
counteracting hunger. Among the
| sweetest Of the satisfactions in life Is
| the approval Of those whose approval
| we prize. And our strong hunger for
this approval makes it easy for us to
discard reprehensible indulgences and
| pleasures.
| This is, of course, a purely selfish
aim, and yet any aim or effort, even so
dubious one as this, to see what is
evil in our life and to put it away,
opens the mind to more and higher
truth, which brings all things into
clearer light, and this higher truth
| makes clear to us that disreputable
evils are not the only evils we have to
deal with, that there are many prac-
tices that are approved of and freely
INDUCED in by the world about us that
/ are sins we no longer tolerate, so our
clarified conscience now demands that
our life shall be purged of these con-
! ventional and reputable evils. And in
this task we are not helped by the ap-
proval of public opinion. But there is
another selfish satisfaction that does
help us. It is the sweet satisfaction
of feeling that we are good and are
deserving of all the happiness the Lord
has in store for all who are good. This
feeling takes many forms in the mind,
but in general it is the feeling that we
are as virtuOus as most of those we
know and far more virtuous and kind
! ly and self-denying than very many
whom we know. This is the sweetest
satisfaction our merely natural life is
capable of, and in many wonderful
ways it holds us up to the work of re-
pressing external evils and discarding
| all lower satiSfactiOns.
So, when the hunger for better life
has been thus far quickened in US, this
is the way in which we are always
tempted to satisfy it. It is described
here as a temptation to make the
stones of the desert into bread. The
stones of the desert are the aspect that
spiritual truth takes on when it is ap-
pretended by the natural mind or the
self-life. This is the aspect that spirit
ual truth takes on in the letter of the
word, which is truth adapted to the
lowest spiritual needs Of men. There
reward and punishment are presented
as the motives for refraining from evil
and doing right. 1t is an appeal to
what is called enlightened seifishness.
This aspect Of the truth is necessary
to start us on the way toward the
heavenly life. But to convert these
stones into bread is to be permanently
satisfied with these purely selfish as
poets Of truth and with this selfish
stage of right living, this doing right
and refraining from wrong doing for
the sake Of the approval of others, and
: for the sake of the self-sa tisfaction il
affords. To stop at this point, to be
content with this attainment, which il
temptation that confronts us al
again and again, is to appropriate tt
: ourselves the letter that killeth and tt
!. shut our eyes to the spirit that makett