The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-05-18

MERE Is Goa, the world is
Il no more without life, spirit,
soul, than man is; but how naive
and conceited it is to think that
God is like a man, with head and
arms. and legs, and navel, and
beard! God is not a person in the
human sense, a character composed
of heredity and experience written
upon a nervous system and a brain;
he is the life and mind of the world,
the law of evolving purpose in
which the infinite worlds find that
unity which is the philosopher S
goal.
The Cosmos is like work Of art
variety in unity, the many in one
multitude of parts woven into a
whole All movement, process,
history, is a succession and merger
of opposites: heat and cold,
pleasure and pain, love and hate,
birth and death; and the meaning
of reality, or of life, or of virtue,
lies not in one of these, but in their
union; without unity of opposites
there is no birth, no life, no truth,
no beauty, no goodness, and no
universe.
Life and the world are a struggle,
a complex of warning elements; and
the wise man will see the necessity
of the struggle for development, he
will see the necessity of death for
life. of discord for harmony, per-
haps even evil for good.
livery particle Of the universe
II emulates the complexity Of the
whole; in every smallest fragment,
or monad, there is matter and there
is life; body and mind are in every
thing; in every substance there is
an inward urge, or form in the
Aristotlelian sense, which ultimately
shapes the thing in the image of its
inherent effort and purpose, giving
it form in the modern sense.
All things strive to reach a higher
stage of development; even the
inorganic" Is organic with life and
will, struggling and rising. In man
this power of growth is called the
soul; but everything. in different
degrees, has soul in it, as deathless
as in ourselves; only outward form
decays; and the inner impetus and
uplifting passion find another
vehicle when one breaks down, and
life, in the midst of death, leaps
over every defeat, and passes up
ward and on.
The best life is that which most
reflects the law and the unity and
growth of the world; morality has
its Bible not in book but in the
flowers and the stars. The harmony
of the spheres becomes social law
that binds citizens into order and
peace, and the unity of character
in which conflicting purposes fall
into order and unity
n
TINE light Of the heavens becomes
Il science among men, and in
telligence and wisdom in the soul;
these are more important than the
old virtues of obedience, chastity,
humility and devotion; growth lies
for us in the highest development
of the highest faculties of man; it
is not grace that illumines and
guides us to wisdom, it is knowledge
sought and gathered through many
years. Only through that knoWl-
edge can we achieve immortality,
which is not of time, but of under
standing.
The intellectual power is never
content nor satisfied with compre-
hended truth, but ever proceeds
onward to truths incompre-
hensible. 4. Our cognition will
never be perfect in so far as
understanding the highest object
is concerned, but only so far as
our intellect can understand it.
Let suffice that in this and lin
other states there be present to
Him the divine beauty so far as
the horizon of His vision ex-
tends.
To see Divinity is to be seen by
it. to be heard by Divinity is
just to listen to it. d. Such is
the virtue of contemplation that
sometimes it happens that the
soul not only abstains from in
ferior acts, but leaves the body
completely.
Man may be present in the body
in such a way that the better part
of him will be absent, and he
will by an indissoluble bond unite
himself to divine things, consider
ing himself to be too great to be
the servant of his body, which he
ought not otherwise regard than