Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-04-02
PAGE EIGHT
"The Greater Glory"

beautiful winters afternoon. Nor d,
we want the old hackneycd reference
about standing in the presence of T.;
great mystery-for we stand con
stantly in the presence of great mys
teries one after the other from the
time we come helplessly into The
world down to the moment when W.
gather our cloak Of faith about u.
and lie down to eternal dreams No
we want instead to think Sanelv an(
happily of the significance of this
hour and its service and lift up oul
faces to catch a vision.
"My friends, all of us were born
into very beautiful world, i; world
of Kindness, gentleness, love, fellow
feeling, generosity, righteousness.
The moment that we came through
the mists of birth, we found soft and
tender mOthcr-arms ready to receive
us; we found gluff, blunt, but all
protecting father hearts ready to
fight for us and provide for Us and
shield us. As little children we wan
dered through the mornings OF our
lives and grasped the flail dclcacy
and beauty of the things with which
a good God had trimmed His world.
There were buds and butterflies and
flowers. There were mystic areas of
country and romantic reaches of sea.
There was a vast span of turquoise
sky where fairy clouds idled in the
long drowsy days and the myriad
stars brought the rlrronality of the
Creator very cloi" ~ Night. We
came to know the swcctrt,a Of wild
rose and brialboom hidden in untrod-
den places; the songs of insect lovers
piping out Cf .,llc; the crcak of Il
mothers r),l:rr in the afterglow; the
soothing lulabyc that brought the
next day quickly the other side the
span of slumber and of dreams. We
grew up in an environment of youth
full friendships, mutual respect for
one another, the culture of our kind
and of our race which in the last
analysis has for its foundation and
its cornerstone, the Sermon of the |
Man of Gallilee upon the Mount. TO
most of us it has been given to know
the mystery and the wonder of love
and if there have been hcaltaches and
shadows and disappointments in our
lives, they have only served to throw
the joys and successes and attain
mcnts and happinesses into hish-light
and make US appreciate how much
more life contains of good than bad,
how much more of pleasure than of
pain, how much more of glory than
of unrequited sorrow.
"This, my friends, is the sum and
substance OF life to all men every
where. For all of us there has come
one night when we were happy-in-
sanely, deliriously happy-and the
memory of that night in some mca-
sure has colored all of the days of
our lives that have flown and even
now it paints the present with
thousand little tints and touches of
and casts q losettc mist
Of faith over the future. Some of
us have been given to know baby I
arms about our necks and sweet damp
baby kisses. We have the memory
of little hands pressed against Win
lows or waving us goodbye and soft
of little children sleeping
beside us in the night. Our lives
have been made up of day after day l
Of discoveries-eXquisite, infinite '
romanccs, hcroisms, 5
,omradeships, beautiful realizations I
born from each chrysalis of antici- c
patton. Perhaps no man hath seen
God at any time but there have been {
when we felt Him neal 4
perhaps in the hush of dew-jewelcd i.
in early childhood when we
lid not recognize Him as God; per-
laps in the long droning afternoons
If middle life; perhaps in the after -,
glow of life's evening when the sun ',
If our days is sinking and our :;
thoughts are turned toward father J.
md mother and Home. But God y
walks yet in the gardens of the earth =
which He has made and watches that y
II is well. r
And among the things which God
as made along with mother-ar1ns IL
'alting US at Dlrun ana 1auherioVe 70 Ii
are 1or us and protect Ii, until we s
re able to care Tor ourselves, along f,
nth the beauties Of the universe, the
OF our fellows, the n
OlacL OF religion, the love OF woman w
he glory OF honest attainment; IL
ing with all the great and good ant!
xquisite artcraft in nature,-is u m
eautiful process to case the shock
separating from these things, u al
lessing which the run of mankind
GEMS to miss and the thoughtless
ever see. 1t is the calling-away be- al
ire US, in endless rotation, one be- p
ire another, of relatives, friends, l..
ear ones, so that gradually there f f.,
re more of those with whom we ~
ould Of choice rather be-on the n
her side Of the Veil in the world h,
hich is waiting than in the world oh
C are leaving behind. r,
ut is a mastery process, pro- he
sion divine in conception, infinite in tb
; gentleness and compassion. One is
7 one our dear ones leave US, ma
} before us, until there are more of
YER There than remain here with I'M
and ot some nno spof op1 plopn -.