The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-06-12

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The highest reward of faith is faith.
of truthfulness. truthfulness:; of
courage, courage. The kingdom of
heaven is within you" Heaven is not
merely extraneous and outside reward
for right doing, it is the intrinsic and
&lside necessity and complement of
righteousness. Good thoughts. good
sworks, good deeds are the seeds from
which spring the trees OF life. Let
man then come to the realization Of
his highest self--not to say. Lord.
now I am good; give me heaven as a
reward" but rather to say, For the
heaven Thou hast permitted mo to en-
ter through my struggles, o Lord I
thank Thee" The tallest angel near
the throne receives no higher wage
/ than coin of righteousness. Heavens
most bejeweled crown is the crown
Of character. Goodness is God.
Yet, though this profound truth
should have its way with us, it by no
means viii crowd out that other world
| old incentive, the call Of duty. Herein
is the strength of double caIl-the
call Of the work, the call of God
Come up higher" Is ever the call from
above to our too low lives 1t is your
You can not stop at mere salvation.
You are not merely to seek TO save
the soul you have. but to save a soul
that IS worth saving. What would you
think of an athlete who cultured his
body merely for the sake of saving It I?
He seeks not to conserve and save, but
to enlarge and develop. The scholar
at his books with no higher aim than
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bscility were sorry spectacle. Nor
less AFFECT and contemplate the soul
that seeks only the salvation of its
little self. Come up higher" is the
insistent invitation. Through struggles
and disciplines, cross bearings and the
bitterness of tears, strain towards a
nobler. higher life. 1t Is your duty.
This Is very Anticipated gospel, I
know. Duty, we are told is quite old
fashioned divinity and soon It shall be
elected from our modern Pantheons,
that more comely divinity Persuasion, |
may take its place. NO man." said |
an advanced preacher not long ago. |
'can make much OF austere duty. The !
oughts and ought nots no longer speak |
convincingly. Sinai is q long way off. |
We must persuade man" Indeedl |
What a deliverance! Here impiety |
and imbeeility seem mixed in equal |
proportions. Analyze conscience as I
you will, and give it whatever physical |
origin you will in your fippant phi
losophies, the eternal granite truth |
abides, writ large in the constitution
of the human soul as IL IN letters of |
fire across the sky. that man, in this
voice we call duty. feels the impact of
heavenly forces upon his soul, and
only as he yields to the mighty urge
comes the realization of the highest
self
The mighty movements that have
convulsed the world have received
their great inspiration from this SUI
preme Imperative. Whenever men have
gone forward in any enterprise, moved
by a great sense of duty, they have
gone resistlessIy. Let the human soul
be mastered by the conviction that |,
God Wills that q work be done, and
that soul is almost godiike in is
strength.
God Wills It," and the Crusade rolls
its lava flood against the walls of the
Holy City.
God wills It," and the timid shep-
herd girl is transformed into the war
rior maid against whose valiant lead
ership the English flung their strength
in vain.
God Wills it." and the obscure
Cromwell is forged into a live thun-
derbolt of heaven to strike down kings h
and ancient wrongs.
DUTY. an Intellectual voice? Beneath
the sky of God there is no other voice
SO sovereign--no voice that speaks TO
our souls soul.
~ slept and dreamed that life was
beauty: /;
I woke and found that life was duty"
Both the dream and waking was
true. The danger is in these days of
smooth content that we shall close
our eyes to the morning truth and for
get that life is duty. I
DUTY is ever heroic, but 1t demands Il
no impossibilities. ID
$50 near is glory to our dust,
So close is God to man,
When Duty whispers low Thou must
The youth replies, can"
You can, you can. Mark you, 1 did ]
not say YOU can do 1t easily, unstriv- s
nRly. but you can. 1t viii take striv-
ing, battling. God in heaven only
xnows how fierce ofttimes. but you
IAN do your duty. I
one other great conviction I men !
ion: Through seIf-realization are the I
durable satisfaction of life. This
phrase, THE durable satisfaction of I
ife," coined by one of our college
presidents is well worth our remem-
,ering. Life, beyond question, has it's
pleasures along low levels. There is T
pleasure in drunkenness, else men =
would not get drunk; there is pleasure
n debauchery, else men would not be
there is pleasure in
money getting, else men would not
wear out their lives to set it. Let us .
admit that there Is a pleasure to be
ound on planes of mere animalism
ind of sin. If the DEVILS bait were
not good to taste, no soul would grab
it the hook. I
But while there are satisfactions I
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