Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1906-03-01

Well, now having faced this two-fold
fact-on the one hand that each of us
can grow a soul if he is willing to pay
the price, and on the other hand that
this soul-growth is not being realized
within us as it ought-let us see this
morning what are some of the condl-
tons in obedience to which sous-growth
may become glorious reality for each
one of us.
/. Let us recognize in the first place
what the soul is, what it represents.
By the soul, we~mean something deep
er than .'the machine which ticks in
the brain, that calculates and memor-
ICES, that learns the tricks Of trade,
and practices them in the world" That
is not your soul, although / dare say
it is the only apology for a soul some
of us have. The soul is that in you
and me which has kinship with God.
It is the chamber in which the divine
and immortal within us dwells. The
soul is the holy Of holies in mans
life It is as Paul says, ''The Temple
of the Holy Ghost" When, for in
stance, you feel at times, as surely at
times we all do, an almost overpOwer-
ing Hearning after God, to know Him,
to be like Him, it is your soul that is
speaking. It is the immortal within
you, crying out for its kinship with
God. The vitality of your soul. there
fore, is the pledge of your immortality.
Destroy the soul, and you destroy that
within you without which eternity is
unthinkable. That is why Christ put
such emphasis on the awful possibility
of losing the soul. "What shall it profit
a man. He said, "if he gain the whole
4;
ing can compensate that loss. Christ
does not say that gaining the world"
necessarily means loss of the soul;
what He says is, that a prize even so
great as the attainment of the whole
single individual soul. Do we realize
that?
The first condition, therefore, in soul
growth, is to realize the issue at stake,
to recognize the infinite value Of your
soul as your one and only asset when
death, with ruthless fingers, strips
you of all else. '"Think of living"
said Carlyle, "for vert thou the pitt
| fullest of all the sons of earth thy life
| is no idle dream. It is thine own. It is
all that thou hast to face eternity
with True, but living without a soul
| is to make eternity voidless blank.
| It is your soul within you, claiming it's
kinship with God. that is the only
! thing worth living for. That is the
! first point. When you recognize that,
you have taken the first step in soul
| growth.
g The second condition is to recog-
! nize clearly the great hindrance to
| soul-growth. It is futile to ask why
our souls do not grow naturally, as. for
| instance, the body does. Spiritual de-
| velopment is one thing, natural growth
is quite another thing. The fact must
be recognized, explain it how you will
| that soul-growth is tremendously hand
| icapped and hindered by forces which
/ conspire it's ruin. In other words, our
souls are in the grip Of a deadly dis
| ease. which dwarfs and stunts them.
What is that disease? A correct dag
nosis is the first step to complete the
| cure.
Suppose for moment you have a
boy who, instead of growing into
| health and strength, is pinched and
| dwarfed and anemic in appearance.
You take the lad to a physician, and
| he will tell you that that boy Of yours
| is really suffering from wrong habit
Of life. He is not being nourished prop
erly. His digestive organs are being
overloaded with food which he cannot
assimilate. What the boy needs is no'
more food, but less; not richer diet,
but simpler. Nature is being thwarted
by artificial living, and artificial living
is the seed-plot Of disease. And the
physician will doubtless tell you that
the boy being young, the cure is simple
He will say: ''Give nature a >chance
by simplifying his daily diet Well
/ it is even so with the health Of the soul
/ Our souls are starved and stuntef hy q
disease. which is created and aggra
yated by a wrong mode of life. we
are SO gerging our minds With all the
elaborated and artificial forms OF liz
ing. that the spiritual within US L
| stifed. Sin is the disease which kills
the soul. but sin is simply product o.
that sordid selfish life which clogs tnt
| great arteries Of the soul II dei1ber
| ately we follow a life which makes III
provision for prayer and communion
i with God, which cherishes evil habit:
and nourishes actions which begin a ane