The weekly times-record., 1913-04-03
"RELIcioN A LIFE"
(, CONTINUED from page l0.)

Continued from page lO.)
believe must all be true that when we
realize the facts of life as they are and
have been, we stand amazed before
them. Some lives indeed have been
wrecked, but the bulk Of the lives
which have been of the sort that are
born from above, have come thru il
all, now clinging to this idea, and now
to that. Thru it all the steady, and
divinely informed stream of life has
made progress. The saints have es
capped as the redeemed who washed
their robes in the blood of the Lamb
Should l say, Like the redeemed
who have washed their robes in the
blood of the lamb?" No this Is not
correct. They are the redeemed them
selves. AS John says these are they
which come out of the great tribula
ton, and they washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the
Lamb, Therefore are they before the
throne Of Cod" 1t seems to me that
these words were spoken Of those who
have been trying to let the life within
live, those who have struggled on
lodging, first this way and that, both
to avoid danger and to secure safe
footing. These are they who were safe
not because of perfect beliefs alone
and the permanency of their positions
but because of the bubbling, struggling
and onward pushing life within which
insisted on finding way Of living
The vital thing was not the belief
alone by which life lived, but the life
that wanted something by which to
live for the time being, at least. Only
as we come to grasp this truth can we
see how the human soul can live on
with so much error coupled with its
so.called truth. We believe something
but usually it is only part Of the truth
or little more than the same. In
this condition what Is it that saves us,
and enables us to make progress? We
are saved by the life within, which
knows its destiny sufficiently to hold
itself in the right direction. The
souls aim and it's insistance on realiz'
ing that aim, its life and growing push.
ing ability, is the thing wherein lies
safety. Not all our beliefs will be alb
solutely pure and beyond correction
as time passes by. Error no doubt has
always been part of your belief and
mine thru it all the soul life, unrecog-
nized by us, has been of the kind that
wormed itself forward in spite of some
error, thus coming to more per-
feet knowledge. Like the plant,
again, which insists on growing even
where the odds are against it, 50 the
soul has gone on in it's life. Living, in
fact, is much like the conduct Of one
trying to escape the bullets of an
enemy in the forest" first this tree
and then that serves as a protection
until at last sufficient distance has
been placed between the enemy and
the fleeing man. The various trees
were not very good protection but they
were the best devisable The trees
were not the things being defended
but the life which was bent on getting
into safe cover. The trees and the
enemy were all in the woods, but the
life struggling for safety was mightier
than the woods, and it was the thing
which was making for safety. The
winding course of stream which
worms it's way around hills thru
woods and across plains which seem
to be constantly presenting insur-
mountable obstacles, nicely illustrates
the action of the life which is born
from above. AS we behold the stream
with it's serpentine course, we almost
wonder how it is that it has not got
ten lost, and forgotten the great sea
the beckoning of which it has seen. A
stream never loses its way. 1t takes
a long time and covers considerable
territory sometimes, but it never
gives up, the energies of all its volume
push it forward, and some time after a
long and tedious struggle against the
uncertainties of it's course, it will lay
it's weary head on the great bosom of
the deep and in short time will be
lulled into peaceful sleep. The draw
ing of the sea and the force of it's
own body has held it on it's way.
Sometimes the opposing banks have
seemed insurmountable, but it has
only waited and deepened, until at last
it was able. to make its obstacle the
generator of strength sufficient to
conquer Again across its way, there
has been hurled steep precipices as If
to try its faith and confidence. Pre-
cipices never stop stream. With
one mighty leap it rushes into the
seeming abyss, only to find that the
leap of faith was the way to new life,
and all it's energies for the time seem
spent in dancing and sparkling midst
the spray Of a new hope.