Norwich bulletin., 1917-12-15
Sunday Morning Talk
THE SET OF THE SOUL

One ship drives east and another With the selfsame winds that blow; Iris the set of the sails And. not the gales
 Which tell us the way to go.
 Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
 As we journey along through life; 'Tis the set of a soul,
 That decides the. goal. And not the calm, or the strife.
 Character. should be judged by ten- dency rather than by attainment. It is not so much the goal one has reached as the direction in which he is going that counts. If one con- tinues to head right, he is bound to ar rive in the end. The Apostle Paul new CT claimed that he had reached his | goal but he was perfectly sure he was on his way to- it. Not as though l | had already attained" he said, either l were already perfect, but I follow mate arrival of anyone who will stead fastly 'folloW -after'' his ideals.
 Two ships at sea may apparently
 be following the same course; they are bucking the same gale and blow ing through the same sort of waves As a matter of fact however, the two courses sailed may be very different One craft may be steadily beating to Windward into the eye of the gale, while the other is falling off to lee ward and steadily losing distance. It takes but a slight difference in di- rection to make them bring up at widely different ports: +. F.. So it is with individuals. The diff ferent purposes and motives with which men pass through life are bound to tell in the final outcome. In spite of many faults and failures one l,or ft,4 ~ .x, him any may be toiling up the steep ascent to heaven. In spite. of occa- sional good resolutions and generous deeds, the other may be constantly de-
 terierating in character. Human tray elers seem to be meeting about the
 same obstacles along the way but the set" of souls is very different. The older theology made a sharp
 distinction between those who are saved and those who are lost. Would it not be nearer the fact, we ask, to think of the race as divided into those who are being lost?s, What we are able to observe in this world is ten- dency in character. Great moral pro- of which stretches out beyond our vii sion. The question is not, what is this one now? but what is this one becoming? ,.
 Present attainments may be disap- pointing unless one can look beyond the present to what is coming by and by. The very imperfections of life are beautiful when they. are prophetic Benjamin West said that kiss by his mother for one of his earliest pictures made a painter of him. Doubtless it was a poor enough little daub but of boundless promise to the mother heart A teacher looks at the copybook page a lad has written and praises it
 warmly. She tells Johnnie that he has done very well. We look at the scraw- ing letters and wonder whan she can see to approve in them- The beauty is in the improvement the page shows over that of yesterday. The teacher can see that the lad is improving; that some day he is going to write reallly l fine hand. y There are defeats enough for any one who is striving to live a right life. But defeat is dish0nOrable only when it comes from, lack of effort or COW : ardice.~ Ultimate victory remains for anyone who. undeterred by past mis- takes, makes each tomorrow find him farther along his course than today. THE PARSON.