The theocrat. [volume] (Zion City [i.e. Zion], Ill.) 1914-1949, 1919-08-16

selves to lead the procession or the band.
These affirmative souls do everything in a
soprano voice.
They hoe potatoes or pillow corn in sopra-
no; they saw wood or build house in
soprano; they keep books, wash dishes,
mend socks, or raise babies in the leading
voice
We want more soprano singers of
major strain in every realm of life. Too
many are willing to stop at an abject place
and play second fiddle and sing bass quite
''base," and hide in the crowd, and dodge
the responsibility of pushing out and max
ing things 60
Give us men of affirmative minds = con-
structive men. who will run a bank or a
railroad train in soprano tone,- daunt-
less, heroic men and women wisely am
bilious, resourceful and determined; men
and women who take responsibility and
scorn to fail,-who aim high and thrust
the whole force of their lives into the at
tainment of their worthy goal
There is never any limit placed on hui
man attainment except the weakness of our
own subjective purpose: for great charac-
tiers themselves are the fruit of heroic de-
cision. Only to the base,is anything base.
The masterpieces - the models in music
sculpture, painting, oratory, and SO FORTH
delight us, because we feel they are genuine,
ideal, expressions of the true souls of their
exalted originators, and they consequently
find response in our souls.
| They feed and please us, they soothe,
heal and refresh our animal spirits, and
restore the true rhythm of health in our
vital centers by harmonizing us with Heaven
and putting us in tune with the Author of
life and His laws. They are decisive. The
element of command is in them. They
speak in soprano tone as authoritative ex-
amples, and we acquiesce and yield assent.
The muddles equally disp1ease and vex
us, because we see them to be clumsy and
inveracious. We consider them as proof
of low ideals, heartlessness, mendacity, and
almost unforgiveable ignorance. The he
roic element is wanting.
We see through the repulsive representa-
tons the undeveloped conditions or counter
felt pretensions of the soul of the actors,
and we loathe the false emotion as revealed
in the faulty expression.
Beauty, whether of face, form or scenery.
gives us the same pleasure as the master
pieces of art and science. We feel it is an
expression of the true, right or just elements
in the character of its recipient and it's
| Originator. We are charmed, captivated,
and yet pleased in our captivity
~Ihe same emotions are produced by real
herolsm gallantry, magnaninity, generosity.
and III some limited sense, by every pro-
nounced Christian disposition. We feel
we have met the Master. We have seen
model; we have stepped behind the cur
tain we have tasted the power of the world
to come. We discovered limited realiza-
ton of Our best ideals, and hope was re-
vived and strengthened and Heaven was
made more Of reality.
| This heroic attitude is the true atnos-
| phere of great souls. We feel here, an ex-
preston of what we should be in our own
true lives is before us. This emotion was
life, ideal and genuine, and God came in
and vivified us through the prospects it
| inspired. Limitedly we see the saviors,
and are satisfied, and urged on to new at
ta1nments, personally.
This is the orthordox element in our
recognition of genuine, generally, and the
worlds tendency towards hero worship.
We admire, we almost adore before we are
e1WdiC VI IL uCIC, dlu VIC COIIIIIISIlu SVGII Ill
spite of ourselves. This Divine capacity
for grandeur, and Our natural appreciation
of the heroic and the sacrifcial, is easily
perverted into an idolatrous hero worship
that is both foolish and dangerous.
Though few obey the commandment fully,
yet the Christian religion is clarion to all
men to come to this exalted standard and
actuallze the ideal in their daily lives,-t to
determine to shake off the mediocre and
| the inferior, and raise into real excellence.
All else is ignoble and unworthy of the al
truism of the Gospel we profess.
! No animal can live and accomplish it's
genuine life-purpose except in the truest
exercise of the nature of the aboriginal
from whence it sprang. No plant can thrive
and reach its best possibilities unless it fol-
lows the highest example of its vegetable
parent; and, by the same law, no soul can
live and meet its truest and noblest ends
except it emulate the Divine Original from
Whom it fundamentally sprang, and in
| Whose Image and likeness it was elemen-
tally and potentially created
| God, nature, and man at his best, are in
perfect rapport. and, consequently, mans
ideal hopes, natures possibilities, and Gods
commandments are in perfect unity.
| Selt-conquest is the greatest victory.
| TO Stay ourselves is to save ourselves.
! Humility exalts, and the cross crowns the
sensible soul.
| In measure as we die to the artificial, false
and parasitic life of the flesh. we arrive at
I, the true, original and satisfied life of the
Spirit AS the Nazarene'c Dhi1OcODhv ChO,uc