The Newtown bee., 1905-04-07
LOCAL AFFAIRS.
SOCIAL TOPICS.
CONDITIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
 BY O. o. WRIGHT.

We have seen that the first essential of the true life of the spirit is freedom. A mother condition of the spiritual life is innocence, or the natural simplicity of the childhood state. It is the un- perverted condition of the normal life. The unspoiled child and youth is close to the heart of nature. It is in sym pathy with all that is natural and good, and delighted with the Eden of the material world. How true and beau tiful and good everything is to the in geniOuS, trusting, wondering mind uf youth! This condition of the unper- verted natural life which is akin to the Spirit of Truth, and in close har- mony with all the works of God, is all So one of the best conditions for re- ceiving the grace of the divine and eternal life.
 Froebel says: "Genuine and true, living religion, reliable in danger and struggles, in times of oppression and need, in joy and pleasure, must come to man in his infancy; for the Divine Spirit that lives and is manifest in the l finite, in man, has an early though dim feeling of its divine origin; aud | this vague sentiment, this exceeding | ly misty feeling, should be fosteret, !, strengthened, rurtured, and, later o., raised into full consciousness, into | clear apprehension.
 Dean Farrar, in speaking of the Temptation in the wilderness, makes a touching reference to the Saviour's sympathy with the natural world: And here" he says, "Jesus, according to the graphic and pathetic touch of the second Evangelist, was with the Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder: the young lion and the dra- gon shalt thou trample under feet; So l had the voice of Olden promise spoken; and in Christ, as in so many Of His children, the promise was fulfilled. It is not a natural thing that the wild creatures should attack with ferOcity, or fly in terror from, their master, man. A poet has sung of tropical isle that
 "Nor save for pity was it hard to take The helpless life, so wild that it was tame"
 "Who has not known people whose presence does not scare the birds, and who can approach without danger, the most savage dog? We may we'll be- lieve that the mere human spell of a living and SinleSS personality would go far to keep the Saviour from danger" :" | In the story of the Marble Faun: 1 Donatello is represented in his innO- cency as being able, in the forest, to call the wild beasts and birds to him | because of his intimate and mySteri- ous relations to them by nature; but after he had committed sin they summed his presence, and would not respond to his call. And, indeed, who has not felt in some degree that every experience of evil has cost the freedom and privilege and natural delight of the heart, and marred the beauty and symmetry of the soul?
 And so, say, the unperverted nat uraI life of childhood and youth, be- fore the sad days of evil experiences have come, is one of the conditions of the spiritual life. This is what the wise-man of old taught:
 | "Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth."
 On one important occasion Jesus inn pressed this great truth upon His dis ciples by an object lesson: And He called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Except ye turn, and become as little children, Ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. WhOsOever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven"