Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-04-12
SPIRES OF THE SPIRIT
Your Address, Please
By DIR. FREDERICK BROWN HARRIS
Chaplain Of the United States Senate

How often one is con-
fronted with the requirement
TO tell where he lives. Nor
mally the information Is
quickly and freely given. But
when one fills In. for in
stance, the registration blank
at a hotel. how little he tells
as to where he really dwells.
In every city the telephone
directory supplies the an
swer in copious tones as to
where untold thousands have
their residences. But how
little information is really
included!
The other day a tiny miss
with golden hair. adorable
in her fluffy pink frock,
whose wide, trusting eyes
were pools Of whitest inno-
cence in a world Of blacklist
infamy, asked the writer
where he lived. Little did
she realize how superficial
was the playful yet correct
answer which satisfied her
curiosity.
So you live here. in Smith
vile, said a supercilious ac-
quaintance to a man he had
met in q country town. So
you live here in this wretched
backwoods place where folks
talk little things all the year
and plant their cabbage by
the moon. No, said the
dweller in Smithville. I do
not live here. I only eat
here, sleep here. work here.
I really live in Greece where
Plato taught and Phidias
carved and Epictetus wrote.
! live in Rome where Mi
chelangelo wrought in form
and color, where Cicero
penned immortal lines, and
Dante sang undying songs.
You see that dweller in an
ugly town was claiming an
address quite different from
that sleepy village.
After long yearning a
friend of mine went at last
to see where his father had
lived. He gazed at the mean
little habitation and at the
cramped rooms his parent
had known so long before.
Afterward he confessed that
he had brought away more
disappointment than salts
faction. Thinking of how tall
his father really waS-how
big in his sympathies and
spiritual apprehensions, he
exclaimed, Il did not really
see where my father lived.
He lived not just in that
little cottage, but out on the
hills where God talked to
him; down the rough roads
where he once travelled as
mail messenger; in the mead
ows bright with buttercups;
by the forge where God made
him stalwart of body and
soul; touching the hem of the
eternal in the little white
church; under the stars by
the sea where it RACES,
there's where he lived" That
all means that you can put
into a visible dwelling.
whether it be a palace or
a log cabin, only a small
fraction Of the total life of
any son of the eternal.
We find in the account of
the brief ministry of the
Great Galilean who died at
SO. the record that one day
He was suddenly asked,
Where do you live?" And He
replied, Come and see." The
literal truth was that that
MatchleSs One had no adj
dress. He had no place to lay
His head. Usually he found
a temporary tarrying place
in the home of someone else.
But seeing where that One
who was Mans Best Man &C
tually lived, we find ourselves
peering at a stately man
sion Of the soul, as lofty in
it's reaches as the love of
God and ample in its under
standing Sympathies as the
need of man. His address was
His Fathers House, which He
declared had many rooms or
stations where life went on
from strength to strength
and from glory to glory. That