Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-08-13

is to miss your chance IN life, to fa1l
utterly at living, no matter how much
you may succeed at being dead piece
of business machinery.
The great message Of religion is just
here; 1t is ever saying to man, you
have values that are not in things,
you have possibilities and powers that
cannot be measured in terms of things.
Life Is yours; all things and circum-
stances are but it's tools and agencies.
Learn to live, not for the tools that
perish, but for the real self, that which
Is eternal.
Salvation is growth. sin is failure to
grow, missing our possibilities, turn
ing aside from 1ife's true and high
aims and permitting that which dulls
the fine faculties, sears over-sensitive-
ness to the things of the SOUL and
prevents the life from finding its full
ness.
This is the real JOY Of living, to
know more, feel more, see more, to
enter into larger universe, to be able
to do more and to be able to give
more Of the self and Of ones service
to our day. Greatness comes from
such growth, and such greatness lies
within the power Of all. Few may
climb the pedestalg Of fame, but all
may open the heart and the magma
ton to the wealth of life about them.
The great writer's, musicians, preach
ers, thinkers, are great because they
are our teachers; they open up new
worlds to US, they aid us to enrich
our lives. But elements of greatness
lie about us in the common things
of life. Our nearest neighbors have
something for us: every man Is a
soul; in each man we may, as we will,
find either the great and the inspiring
or the trivial and life destroying.
In every circumstance OF life lies
either enriching or impoverishing, just
as we may approach it; its content
is for us to determine. Daily duties
may be seen as a part of great and
glorious service for all the world or
may be as treading at the DEVILS mills.
He who drives a nail into packing
case may see that he is serving the
universe and so reach his life out into
its great breadth, or he may see him
self as a slave at soul-dwarhngt task
The test of every day and Of every
life is just here: is man so living as
to make life mean more and to make
his life worth more? No dreams OF
heavenly bliss can set us free from
this obligation to gain more life, and
| no speculations about the worth of our
own soul can set us free from the OBJ
| legation to live SO as to have life
worth giving to our world and efficient
powers with which to serve our day.
He who has found the JOY of the
| life that goes from strength to
strength, that treats of the food of
| the spirit, that companions with the
| great of all ages, that finds more life
| and rejoices in being able to give more
| life. he who finds life more abundant
| springing up within at every step OF
| the way, has no fears as to life be-
yond; the potency of the present is the
promise Of the future.
Somehow in the life that thus
grows, that finds in all about it the
sources of strength and the avenues
| of service, there comes a sense of a
| larger, all. embracing life, the life of a
father of spirits, the fullness Of a
| power and affection toward which one
! presses, in which is found the hope
and aim of all life, the source and
| end of being and in that sense of life
| all living finds unity and reason.