The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1908-11-26

bruised, broken, soied, and eternally
rewarded. Life is not worth the liv-
ing, if the God we trust in is nothing
but G of caprice. or malicious cru
city, or if life is nothing but huge
lottery liz which we have to take our
chance.
| From whence do we come-whither
do We tend: Is there an answer to
this riddle? Joyfully;; 1 affirm that
there is, and that the philosophy of
divine wisdom has the key to all of
life's problems. Take the savage races
those unevolved human beings who
seem to have scarcely the semblance
of soul. Many of them are not able
to distinguish any difference between
good and evil; and what is their COM
pariscn to the most morally, intellect
ually, and spiritually advanced men of
the world. If one life was all that was
permitted to mankind, what chance
would the savage have of ever attain
ing the heights of his elder brother?
Ii there was no evolution of souls, as
well of bodies, then should we in JUS
tice say that the world is unfairly di-
vided, and that there is something
decidedly lacking in the scheme of
mans growth.
Man is the maker of his own destiny
the weaver of the web in which he
linds himself, the builder of his own
prisOn-house, of his own which,
ever he feels it to be. He has travelled
already a long, long journey, and in
that journey, he has set in motion
many causes, which he has not had
tlme or opportunity to work out He
has s0wn much seed which he has not
yet reaped. The divine law is that
whatsoever man soweth, that shall
he reap" We do not come to our re-
spective places in this world by acci-
dent, neither do we come into this
world thirty, fifty, sixty years ago with
blank-paper souls.
The child who is born with fine intel
lectual capacities, to whom everything
seems to come easy, has had to work
for it in past lives. He is not an alb
normal creation-a special favorite of
God; he is now reaping the reward of
patient industry Ill the past, of 0ppor-
tunities seized and utilized. The knowl-
edge which seems to come with so
little effort, is because in the y st he
~ mo
edly. lie has made it So much his own
that he has built it into his very self
the soul-and he brings the knowledge
back as intuitional capacities His
healthy environment is not by special
gift; but because he has by his past
acts contracted a debt from nature,
which nature invariably pays. The
devoted friends, by whom he is sur
rounded, aud who are willing to make
any sacrifice for him, are 50 because in
the past he has forged between himself
and them strong links of unsellish love
which cannot be broken. The child
VINO is born with criminal BRAIN"
with everything around him unholy
and unloveiy-tO whom it is far easier
to go wrong than rights in such a
state because in his past he has per-
sistently chosen darkness rather than
light. He has persistently yielded to
evil thoughts and selfish acts; he has
persistentiy chosen the evil way, aud
so has built for himself this terrible
prisOn-house. Nevertheless his case is
not hopeless, even tho he dies in his
sins. lie may probably go OIL tread
ing the downward path for more than
one life, but the time will come, must
come, when he will thoroughly realize,
that the way of the transgressor is
hard; that sin is ugly and undesirable;
then he will resOluteIy turn his back
on the darkness, and he will begin to
grOpe for the light. Then he will be-
gin to resist evil thoughts and selfish
actions, and his feet will slowly and
painfully begin to climb the steep road
up the mountain of Righteousness.
He who is the most stepped in sin,
who is the most repulsive Of our fellow
men, has latent in his being the bright
jewel of divinity, for he as much as the
saint. is the 'chlid of God, the inheritor
Of the kingdom of heaven"