The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-13

can sustain itself on the rains of yes, terday, but the clear brook rippling down the hillside must constantly re- new itself from hidden sources. He who thinks it possible, without the ad- dition of fresh fuel to keep the fires burning upon the altar of his heart thereby deceiyes himself. Not long ago man asked me in rather unctious tones if I believed in the new-birth; and because I thought I understood the character of his mind I answered, "No.' Let me now take it back. l be- lieve not only in one new birth, but in a thousand. If you are to live every day in new world, then every day you must be born anew. If your soul is new, the world will be new. It is well for us as a church that we have a sure hold upon past experiences, it is right for us to glory in our traditions;
 but let us never forget what great New England teacher once said:
 There is one thing better than tradi- tion: that is, the original and Eternal Life, out of which tradition arose."
 Assuming that we are agreed as to the necessity of a rebirth of fresh feeling, a renewal of the soul, let us pass to the inquiry as to now this ex- perience may be brought about Just
 here is where most of our religious in struction fails The pulpit swings wide the gates of heaven, but does not erect
 the ladder on which men are to climb round by round. I would avoid this
 mistake if it be possible. l would show you this new realm the soul of man
 may enter. But I would not forget to trace the way by which one passes from this old dead world into that new.
 Would you have your inward man re- newed? Would you have the world seem a new world? Would you be ! born into some fresh glow of spirit? Woull you have that kind of religion
 that somebody has called "the poetry
 of the heart?" Then it would seem
 that there is but one method to pur-
 sue. You must set your heart to the task. You must exercise the spiritual l faculties that God has given you. 1 Strange, is it not that while all admit l that Nature confers upon us no benefit without exacting a just price, we per-
 sist in believing that spiritual results
 may be obtained without a correspond. 1 ing sacrifice. Even fool knows that strength goes ont of his arm when he
 ceases to exercise it's muscles. Yet peo-
 pie wonder Why they have lost out of
 their souls that fresh glow of spiritual
 exaltation. One of the laws of our na-
 ture most peculiar and most disre-
 garded is that by which faculty tends
 to be extirpated through disuse. Up
 to the age of thirty;" wrote Darwin,
 poetry gave me great pleasure, For
 merly pictures gave me considerable
 and music very great pleasure, But
 now for many years cannot endure to
 read line of poetry. I have also all
 most lost my taste for pictures or
 music. My mind seems to have become
 a kind of machine f6r guiding general laws out of large collections of facts. If had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry,
 and listen to some music at least once
 every week, for perhaps the parts of
 my brain now atrophied would thus
 have become active through use. The
 loss of these tastes is a loss of happi-
 ness, and may possibly be injurious to J the intellect, and more probably to the
 moral character, by enfeebling the
 emotional nature"
 Would that we might take home to
 ourselves the lesson contained in this
 pathetic utterance; for that which is
 true of poetry of music, of art is true,
 likewise, of those higher delights of
 spiritual sensibility. If, as Darwin
 thought the extlrpation of the aesthet-
 ic faculties is a loss, how much greater
 the loss of those higher faculties by which we are lifted into some real
 sense of a living spirit in the world.
 If we are to have any vivid realization
 of that moral glory which transfigures
 all things and gives life divine mean
 ings, then we must guard these pre-
 cious affinities of our spiritual nature;
 we must stir up the gift in our own
 deepest soul, we must rouse ourselves
 as men who are determined to fulfill | the prophecies that God Himself has
 wrought into us. If only the men Of
 this age would listen to those great
 masters of life who have learned wis
 dom, and have spoken in such words as those of Socrates in his Apology: "Foi do nothing but go about persuadina
 you all, old and young alike-to care
 about the greatest Improvement of the soul" We maye shut our eyes to the truth, but sooner or later it will burr It's way into our deepest consciousness that mans chief business in thi' r,a..la ;a taa u,f0ldino tha davalopi,,e and the renewal of the soul. "Wha shall 1t profit 8 man if he gain tho whole world and lose his own soul?" There remains one other thought il the text that would bring out and i follows logically upon what have said If the need of the age is a renewal O life, if that renewal Is to be brough about by the exercise of such spiritua faculties as God has given us, then i becomes important that we straight ? way take ourselves in hand. The chic business of a mans life ought not to b.
 delayed single day. Thus the las words in the text. Though our out
 is renewed day by day" Here is tn f thought of continuous process. It i ! as if the apostle had said "The relig
 ion of Christ is not a thing for Sunda. |. alone, or for special occasions; it 1 3 something given us for everyday use. t l have heard people say that they re l joiced, through the worship of Sunday . to have their spiritual life renewed. l understood what they meant, and, ac f cording to their meaning, they wer