Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-08-04
GODS LAWS IN MIND AND HEART

See, / have set before thee this
day life and good, and death and evil;
in that l command thee this day to
love the Lord thy God, to walk in his
ways, and to keep his commandments
and statutes and his judgments, that
thou mayest liVe."-Deut 30:15, 16.
The great study of the ages is the
human soul, yet 1t must be confessed
that though man has advanced with
the expanding discoveries in the
realms of science, art and literature,
until he seems to be dwelling in the
very outskirts of heaven, yet when
it comes to his knowledge of the soul
and OF the possibilities of that soul
when God has had His right with it,
we must confess that this soul re-
mains the unknown land, the undis-
covered continent here on earth. Hav'
ing weighed the stars and the planets,
having foretold eclipses and measured
the masses Of the starry hosts, it re-
mains for man to confess that he is
densely ignorant about the simplest
facts Of life. ~
We must reflect that man is so ig-
norant that he does not know what
kind Of knowledge is. of the most
worth. The scholar points to James
Russell Lowell as the fruit Of the uni
versity, but Andrew Carnegie who
thinks that four or seven years in the
lecture hall and the library lessen
the chances for commercial success
points to Abraham Lincoln with his
three months in a log school house.
Which man had the better form OF
culture, Lowell or Lincoln? So may
we carry the thought into all branches
of life which directly concern man,
and having made the investigation we
are forced to confess that We see
through a glass darkly, that no man
has been able to search out all the
facts concerning the greater God
above the starry fires, and of the les
ser god here below.
One Of the greatest tragedies OF
this life Is the fact that a man can
live his allotted 1paa Of years here,
and yet not discover for what pro
fession or occupation he was fitted,
until the shadows of the end have
closed round him. How many are the
untitled careers, uncoulpleted pro
phecies who must close their unsuc-
cessful years with the grave. This
is the mystery of life, that God has
thrown each man upon his own re-
sources, and made him master Of his
own destiny.
Yet there are guides for man. The
text gives the full plan of God. In the
Book of the Law we have set before
us life and good, and death and evil,
we have the statutes and the COM
mandments of God, and out of them
man can carve his career. And how
can we seek to understand the will
of God? We have an answer, found
in the parchments of the ages, for
history tells US of the dealings of
God with all generations. History
becomes to US a vast drama, set on
the stage Of the world, wherein is
enacted tie contest between good
and evil, between right and wrong,
between selfishness and altruism,
where the sinful and the disobedient,
being unfit for a moral universe go to
the wall, but where the righteous sur.
vive.
Again there are the rewards in daily
life for those who seek to live under
the laws of God and of country, there
are the penalties which attend those /
who are disobedient and who seek
to go rioting through the world AS