The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-03-27
Habit of the unIuerse.


 Continuing Dr. Jones said In substance: This reaching after righteousness is not simply the necessity of the human but 1t seems to be that habit of the universe. The dog reaches after excel lenoe; lions and tigers have established mutual grounds fixed the limits of ceded territories. The dogs of Constanti- nople, left to their own savage instincts, have their wards out of which no dog Is permitted to stray with lmpunity All the day down, through ant and bee. the way down, through ant and bee, on the principles of justice appear. What, then. have we found? Who Is he that besets before and behind and lays his hand upon us? Law inf1ex- ible, beauty universal love ever present. duty ever growing. These are no inven- tlons of man, no ignents of the human brain. Man is created by them; he Is not the creator of them. These forces were here before we came; they will | remain when we are gone. Aye, they will abide though all our kind be no more.
 l And here we have not found four gods but one God; four phases of the one re- ality, They are easily convertible, the one into the other; as light, heat. motion electricity. play hide and go seek with | one another in the laboratory, so do these realities of the spirit gladly exchange 1 garments. the one ever willing to testify | in the interest of the other; all anxious | to serve each. Law is beautiful; the beau- tiful is loving, and the loving Is dutlful Law, beauty, love- duty-all poor words thrown out by the halting mind of man towards one reality, too real for words, too great for measurement.
 Call Him what you will. call not at all. let your pronouns be personal or imper- sonal. masculine or feminine, speak it with a capital or small 'g," as you will-here is really that cannot be evaded, from which you cannot escape, | in whose arms we gladly trust ourselves. | Here Is sef-asserting divinity which forever pleads with sinners, woos the lone ly, inspires the thinker, companions the prophet. sage and hero. Ills scripture has the scroll of nature for an Old Testament l and the struggles and triumphs of human nature for its New Testament.
 | Whenever the eye is pierced with beauty | or the ear thrilled with harmony, when ever the daisy of summer blooms upon tho hillside or the daisy of winter spar kles on the window pane touching us with admiration or filling us with awe, we are worshippers at the shrine of the divine. When sin, like letters. chafes us and we struggle for freedom, 1t is the voice within seeking the God of righteous | ness without.
 But hear three objections. The first. | the protest oft made in the name of science. What of the grim side of nature: the nature that Is red In tooth and claw" cruel, revengeful, blood-thirsty?
 You have right to ask. Where is your 1 God of love, righteousness. beauty and order now?" I answer that He Is at least in your honest questionings; in the hot 1 indignation of your own heart: in the l age-long grapple with cupidity and mean ness, if nowhere else. He has made taste less at least the lives of those whose fame for dollars is not matched with an equal fame for the conservation of those dollars. He lays his hand heavily upon those souls arrested in their growth. Some One Somewhere. | The beggar's clutch for money in his dreams is prophecy. The plenty Is com ing to some one. some where. Aye, the peace that passeth understanding, the | harmony with nature, the generosity that makes of the favored providence to the | ill-favored makes the strong a guarding of the weak. the wall of the starveling. the shudder of the freezing, the grasp of the hanged. and the torture of those whose damnation is in the present tense. | is coming. is nearing day by day. | Aye, the fires of hell are purging Through them the besetting God vindi- l cates His supremacy. When He does not woo He drives the children of dark ness towards the light When pleasure falls, pain compels submission to His law. It is His love that dooms the chill dren of men to perdltion now that there may be paradise further on. Hell itself | is a way station on the road to heaven l Through veal or through woe the chill | dren of men must win the gates of the | celestial city. the city of light, of love, the city of God.
 What Bigotry Wants.
 | A second objection I hear. The very greatness of this God dethrones Him in | the finite heart of man. The soul of a -~~~>~~~~~~~~~-~>~~~~-~~~ Continued on Sixth Paeel