The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1908-11-23
GODS OPPORTUNITY
AND MANS" SUBJECT
Continued from fourth page.


In temptation who still keeps his head
above hte flood the individual who has
laid in the hungry earth. his beloved,
and whose cry is, "The Lord gave, and
the Lord hath taken, ETC." is surely a
eonquefor and possessed Of the conquer
or's joy.
In your Paradise for towards you find
no patriarch walking with God, In your
Paradise for towards there is no Hebrew
psalm, no epic OF Joe, no oracle Of proph-
et, no sweet elithlehem no Gethsemane,
no Calvary, no Mount Of Ascension In
the hateful world where everything
makes for luxury, idlessness, elleminacy,
you have no heroes, no martyrs, no re.
formers,
II we had made this world we should
have made tragedy impossibloi and If
so doing we should have made the hui.
man race poor indeed. For the tragedy
Of the world is the garden Of the Lord.
In that awful movement Of cross-cur
rents between ideals and experiences,
dear hopes, and blank negations, TO
which we give the name OF tragedy the
supreme achievements and possessions
OF man are found--strength, love, daunt.
less courage, inward victory, and the
sense that below the waves and pillows
that have gone over MS is the tide, the
tide that will carry us, alive or dead,
70 our own shore. =
~ Again, this world as it is, is
Gods opportunity. When Paul began
life he had many things in him which
needed taking ont. He was proud man.
His Joy IN existence consisted largely
IN his sense Of superiority to other men.
That is tremendous weakness II
means isolation from much OF the best
life OF the race; IL means incapacity for
certain great experiences, it diminishes
capacity for growth.
This was one OF Paups weaknesses;
It shut him In from the great life of
humanity, it gave him a mean delight.
In this world as IL Is, God took Paul,
and 50 wrought upon him that his chief
Joy was found in the common possession
Of Christian men. Paul came to have
his chief joy in the God who is the
Father OF all, in the Christ who is the
Saviour Of all, in the kingdom that rul-
eth over all.
Was not that great thing to do for
paulg Was the world not a good world
in which so great thing was done
Was not the proud man in his proud iso-
lation Gods opportunity? Did not the
stern order Of things serve God as a Geld
for the accomplishment Of 'his great
work. He found the proud man upon
his poor perch, not ft for an owl and
lie brought him down 10 the sense of
equality with the humblest OF his kind
For, after all, the best gift is humanity,
and every human being shares in that.
Another weakness OF Paul. akin to
that described, was his abnormal sense
of tribal and sectarian distinction. Was
he not a Pharisee of the Pharisees? A
Hebrew of the Hebrews, And did any
man ever wrap his garments about him
in the sense OF exclusive privilege, with
more Joy than hey In this mood, living
in this world, God found Paul. Hear
him speak when he had been delivered
from this weakness. Howbeit what
things were gain to me, these have
counted loss for Christ.
In this world God turned this Jewish
into tho supreme democrat
al his age; so that he now goes every
where, TO Jews, Greeks, Romans, bar
bagian, bond and free, as a debtor OF all,
struggling through monumental services
to discharge this debt to the race
through fellowship with whom God has
given him a supreme life
Who would not live in this world for
this end? Who would not suffer that
he might become like Paul the broad
breasted, highsouled, dauntless servant
OF upn?
Paul was naturally an irritable man.
Almost all persons worth anything are
with this form Of weakness. /
1t il the defect OF their virtue They
are sensitive, full Of zeal, full OF in
sight, full Of power. The tendency to
Impotence and irritabiiity goes with |
these high qualities, Irritability is sim |
ply unusual capacity to stimulation, to
inspiration.
The men who feel quickly and pro-
foundly the appeals from the wise, feel
quickly and deeply the appeals from the
foolish A discord is disaster to Bee
thoyen, because to him a harmony is q
kind of heaven, The great, keen, in
5ense,r responsive soul has unusual priv
eEes among the wise and unusual mis-
,ries among the foolish There is little
.redit to an oyster for its calm; but
here ID a great deal Of credit to high
strung man or woman in the exercise
II benign self-controi.
There is one incident in st. Paul's
lie which shows his temper, He was
allied before the high priest to answer
or his behavior, The high priest stood
o Jewish society very much as the chief
Justices OF the supreme court Of the
United States stands to our citizens.
fhe high priest said something that was