Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1910-06-03
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RELIGION IN LIFE.

By Henry F. cope.
Il will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills from whence cometh my help. =
Psalms cxxi., 1.
1t is not so strange that many
should say they have no need for re-
ligion in their lives. To some it seems
rather a mark of weakness than Of
strength, yielding to superstitfous
fear or to popular custom or sacr1-
Ace of the independent judgment in
favor Of scheme which has been de-
vised by the few for the deception of
the many.
There is a good deal that goes I'M
der the name Of religion that one
ought to be ashamed not to disown;
there are types Of piety that are but
confessions of poverty of intellect, and
there are forms of faith that are only
evidences of cowardly and supersti-
tious fear. Wherever religion means
being less man, means dwarfng,
shrinking the life, then one dare not
! acknowledge allegiance to it.
But there are so many limitations,
so many pretensions of religion sim
ply because the thing itself is so es-
sential to the life of man So far from
the religious life being one of lesser
living, so far from religion signifying
the sacrifice Of powers, the denying
of reason, judgment, and the will, the
truth is that no life can be in any
sense complete without it's spirit and
power.
If there is one thing of which a man
might we'll be ashamed Of it is the
loss Of the spirit and ideals Of re-
ligion in his life. Those characteris-
tics which mark the trained, devel-
oped, ordered, educated life are the
attributes of religion. There is no
fullness of life, no mastery of the
spirit, no conquest of the art of living
without this.
No man can be a gentleman by the
process of memorizing books of Ell
quette any more than he can find full
ness of health by reading books on
medicine and hygiene The life of
courtesy and the life of vigor and
health have their hidden sources.
Every life that realizes fullness and
beauty has it's hidden sources in the
religious spirit. This is the power
and secret of the perfect life.
The world is full of half developed
lives; men and women who are com
petent in spots; as strong in some
things as they are weak in others,
brilliant as to some of their ways and
walking in darkness as to others; the
man of affairs loses vision, the phil
osopher loses practical sense, the sci
enlist becomes an animated, soulless
scalpel, and all for the want of an
aim that would preserve a balance
and harmony in the life.
A man can SO give his hand to bust.
ness in that he becomes nothing but
hand; another can give his mind
to intellectual problems so that he
becomes only a brain carried around
on stills, while yet another becomes
a stomach and no more. But religion
gives to all lives the spirit and aim
that apportions to every part it's true
function, subduing all to a purpose
great enough to enlist all the powers
and to bring them to harmonious full
ness.
Religion means living for the sake
of life itself; it means finding a suffi-
cient motive in living. 1t is the point
if view and the spirit in life that sets
things in right relations, helps one to
find true values and to know the
things that are worth living for, to
set the tools of life and the products
of life in right relations.
Who is sufficient for living without
this spirit? He who lives the right
life knows that he has struck time
and tune with the eternal laws of the
universe; he who lives for love finds
the real law of life. Seeking the good
we find the infinite goodness; the life
and love that are the heart Of all be-
come certainty to all Of those who
follow the light they nave, who do the
will of love.
The life Of faith is living in loyalty
to faith in life's best, in its higher
values This is the faith we need to
nourish, faith in the righteousness of
the universe, faith in goodness, truth,
honor and right as over and against
lust and meannesS, falsehood and cow
ardice. He only has the truth who
dares be true to the vision he has,
who lives in the freedom of his light