The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-04-27

and a new world around her. What
is the secret of it all? She has been
| holding on and abiding in the things
| remained. They nave been moving
on in the larger life. We think we
would like to go back to the old vii
lage, to the old times, and the old
ways, but in our reason we know how
| absolutely unsatisfying such an eXper-
fence would be. We sing:
Backward, roll backward, oh time in
thy flight,
Make me a child again just for to-
night"
But if we went back and IT we
met those whom we knew in the years
gone by, how quickly conversation and
communion would be exhausted, and
| especially if We have been moving on
and they have been standing still. 1t
would not be good to be a child again.
Our march is onward and the grave
is not it's goal" With all this wide
universe of things we are sweeping
away from the past every hour, every
moment, and Paul expressed the right
philosophy of human life and recog-
nized the wide reach of this law OF
the universe when he resolved to for
get the things that are behind and
press toward the things which are be-
fore. Certainly, disaster must befs.ll
the man who stops. There is
and there is life only In moving IN.
| If you were to climb to the apex OF
the Metropolitan tower, and there
| should succeed in stopping, some
thing fearful would befall you. The
atmosphere of the earth, rushing on
| nineteen miles in a second, striking
against you would instantly reduce
you to a little patch of flame, and you
would disappear. Something / X
that begins to happen when a man
halts en- a journey. refuses to hear
| the call of God, ceases to feel the tre-
mendous mobility Of the universe
moving around him, and thinks ne
will sit down content in his place n
be quiet. God will not have it so;
| God will not let you keep still. You
must move or die. With all of the
wide sweep of this moving universe
around you, the only safety for man
from absolute destruction OF soul n
life is to cast himself into the moving
currents of God and trust himself TO
them to bear him on.
If now we have found this mobil.
ity Of the world to be a great fact
of experience, and if it has seemed to
us to indicate that this is really a
universal law of life and of the world,
ought we not to think again? Surely
these meanings Of things reach higher
than our little lives and deeper than
the mere food and fux OF phenome'
non before our eyes. Does not this
great spectacle Of a moving cosmos,
this great consciousness OF on-moV1ne
life tell US something as to IL
the nature of God Himself? lave
we fixed Him sometimes in our theol'
ogies upon a static throne IN the
midst of angels and archangels? NOT
so was the picture of Him that Jesus
drew. So solicitous was He-our
Father in Heaven-that the hairs OF
Il heads were numbered, that not
one sparrow could fall without His
notice; and we may not find God at
all unless somehow We n Him In
this moving universe. Who paints
the superb colors of the sunrise in the
morning east, different each passing
morning and beyond the painters
skill to- initiate? Who Is the vast
weaver that threads the fabric OF the
petals Of the flowers and weaves Greer
| carpets over the fields? Who Is the
spirit of the mist that lifts itself from
the meadow-way under the JUG OF
| the morning sun? We should be tlred
by this time or that wooden fetish OF
law under which men have bound this
frail and mobile universe, n which
men have w~orshiped in the place oil
God. No, God is not law; God is
life. and life is motion, and God Him.
self is forever moving IN. The final
exclamation Of this mobile universe
must be sought in the infinite mobil.
ity of God. God is not a static SOW
ereign seated on His throne; He is the
life of all life, the light behind the
light, the glory that shines with the
glory. IF the heavens ard the earth
are passing away, it is because moth
ing that has Gods life IN it can re-
main stationary.
If, then, We would harmonic our
selves and quiet u restless hearts,
in a sense that Augustine perhaps
did not mean, it shall not be by rest.
ing in some snug haven of Gods
preparation. It shall be by coming tc
that triumphant faith of the soul that
is willing to cast itself into the NOV
ing providence of God, and go on
where God is going. And shall that
be forever? Certainly 1 hope SO.
This shall be the transcendant Joy OF
the life that is to come, that we are
forever to pass on into the new and
the wonderful and the unexpected re.
gions and the unexplored glories OF
an infinite universe. Fear not, oh,
soul. to launch thy bark and cast
away; cut thy moorings behind thee;
let the old dead past go, and in the
vast tomorrow look upward through
the vistas of that path Of the just,
| Singing more and more unto the per.
feet day, on which no darkness ever
shuts down. where no night ever falls.
which no barriers ever cut off, and
whose goal has not been fixed for us,
because it is the endless path OF the
| onward moving God. :