IRLF SB E7M D7M Hearst Fountain Song an6 Sermon Elizabeth Xowe TiClatson Company San jfrancisco, Gal. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1905 by ELIZABETH LOWE WATSON In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. TO FRANK H. WOODS COUNSELOR, GUARDIAN, FRIEND Contents To OUR GUARDIAN 7 CONSOLATIONS 8 SOUL OF NATURE : A PRAYER 11 RESURRECTION 13 THE SOUL'S NEW YEAR 14 To A FRIEND 18 SUNRISE IN RELIGION 20 THE TRUE PERSPECTIVE 23 GIVE AND LIVE 24 THE COMING WOMAN 24 DIVINE DYNAMICS 27 A REVERIE 29 THE MOTHER'S PRAYER 31 THE CHRISTMAS CHILD 33 Is HAPPINESS THE CHIEF OBJECT OF LIFE?. . 35 A LESSON 38 THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE 39 THE VALUE OF PSYCHICAL EXPERIENCE. ... 42 TEMPLE OAK 43 HYMN LOVE'S MINISTRY 45 HYMN DIVINE GUIDANCE 46 THE SUNNY SIDE OF THINGS 47 MY IDEAL HOME 50 GOD STILL WITH Us . 52 CONTENTS SPRING PICTURES 53 BROKEN IDOLS 55 AN ANGEL'S REBUKE 57 A SIGH 60 GENERATION 61 FRAGMENTS 65 THE GOSPEL OF THE FARM 68 IN MEMORIAM 72 GUARDIAN ANGELS 74 PROGRESS 76 THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS 80 OUR TREASURES IN HEAVEN 88 THE Music OF LIFE 90 EVANGELINE 94 SOUL QUESTIONINGS 97 THE VOICE OF GOD 100 LINES 103 INVOCATION 104 HOPE'S MESSAGE 107 TRUE LOVE 108 TRAILING ARBUTUS 109 To THE KING'S DAUGHTERS Ill AMERICA 1 14 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL 1 19 PHYSICS AND RELIGION 137 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR 155 LORD, WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME To Do?. 177 TEMPLE OAK HYMN . . . 177 VI Song and Sermon TO OUR GUARDIAN Dear Heart! Star of our Sorrow's night! Only the wordless music that we dream Pours forth from orbs of golden light In a mellifluous, eternal stream, Might fitly voice our thoughts of thee, Or tell the story of our love, From touch of earthliness so free God's angels its every act approve. How then can humble harp of mine Give even faintest breath of that which lies A summer radiance all divine, Too deep, too sweet, except for tear-cleansed eyes ; Its glow gladdening every day, Its fragrance in every flower that blows ; Exempt from change and all decay, Melting to song Time's ever -falling snows. It can not be, silent I wait, Or walk the way thy love marked out for me, Save only this, I dedicate The fairest fruitage of my toil to thee. 7 CONSOLATIONS Judge not your life by the little part That lies too near to view aright, But with a calm and trusting heart Await the future's clearer light. By looking at a tiny seed How few can prophesy the flower? Who knows how far a kindly deed May yet extend its subtle power? Take not your journey's reck'nings while Within the valley's veiling mist, Nor in the mountain's dark defile Where light of sun hath never kissed; But press straight on without delay, And what has seemed a trackless wild Shall open up a flower-decked way On which God's tender thoughts have smiled. 8 CONSOLATIONS Through winter's storm and rayless night, The Earth in perfect safety rolls, Guided by her attraction's might, And thus it is with human souls. When all life's surface writhes in pain, And by some cruel fate seems driven, We still are held by Love's bright chain, Safe anchored in the breast of Heaven, We can not controvert God's will, Within its circle all abide; There is no depth He does not fill, There is no height to us denied. As atoms into crystals build, Moved by some silent, unseen power, Or sunlight's fairy pencils gild The satin cheeks of opening flower, So does the weakest man obey A law of life that slowly brings, From all his fellowship with clay, A shining Soul that soars and sings! SONG AND SERMON Then, though we may not understand, The mighty, veiled Alchemist, Whose sweet, unuttered thoughts command The birth of pearl and amethyst, O, let us fill, with heart content, The place He deems for each the best, Of Love a willing instrument, Trusting to Time and God the rest. 10 SOUL OF NATURE : A PRAYER Soul of Nature ! Life divine ! Make our hearts Thy holy shrine, Let our human discord be Mastered by Thy harmony. O, Thou mighty Architect, Whose plans the endless years perfect, Building systems infinite By Thy silent, changeless might, Thou whose thoughts are suns and stars ; Thou whose Law no error mars, To Thy boundless love we turn, Toward Thy perfect Truth we yearn ; Very weak and blind are we, But in trust we lean on Thee. Soul of Nature! Everywhere Shine the symbols of Thy care; In the sea depths vast and blue, In the smallest drop of dew, In siderial spaces filled 11 SONG AND SERMON By the beauty Thou hast willed ; And Earth's clods, to Thy caress Respond with perfect loveliness, Lily, rose, and violet, Gems in golden sunshine set. Soul of Nature! Source of things! Quench our thirst at living springs! From this island of the sky Unto Thee Thy children cry. By the magic of Thy breath Banish bitter dreams of Death; Let its language, for Love's sake, Be made plain to hearts that break. Help us all to understand Love can make Earth Beulah-land, Where our angel friends will be Glad to bear us company, Building Heaven now and here, Day by day and year by year, 'Till our lives, O Soul divine, Have become at-one with Thine. 12 RESURRECTION Arise ! arise ! O Soul, and sing ! The Lord of life hath come in might, And all the world is blossoming Beneath His kiss of love and light! The hills doff rusty robes of brown, And, draped in living tapestries, With sunshine for a golden crown, Give answering smiles to cloudless skies. The air is filled with winged delight, A-thrill with joy the dullest clod, The trees all decked with garlands white Breathe smokeless incense unto God. And thou, O Soul, with eyes to see And ears that like fine harps are strung, With heart that shrines Divinity And knows Love's universal tongue. Shouldst voice a rapture all divine, And fair as any flower be The garments that about thee shine, Thou heir to immortality! 13 THE SOUL'S NEW YEAR My Soul awake! that thou mayest see What Heaven kindly proffers thee: A bright New Year, which thou art free To make Joy's own eternally; A leaf of Time, all glistening white, Unsullied save as thou shalt write Thy thoughts and deeds as yet undone, Thy noble triumphs yet unwon, And all the blessed things that wait For thee within the Future's gate. Why shouldst thou let the buried Past Its spectral gloom o'er the New Year cast? Dead joys shall resurrected be, Like souls when from the flesh set free, Purer and in a fairer dress, Aglow with holy happiness. Then dip thy pen in living light, And on the snowy pages write What thou'lt be glad to read again, And have to all the world made plain, With angel eyes onlooking too, So good, so beautiful and true. 14 THE SOUL'S NEW YEAR If thou hast suffered mighty wrongs , Which silenced Life's melodious songs ; If Hate hath thrust its poisoned dart Fiercely within thy inmost heart ; And Envy snatched the fairest flowers That bloomed within Life's summer bowers; If Slander with its viper-sting Hath turned to bitter Love's sweet spring, And left a shadow, cold and chill, Where once was Hope's ecstatic thrill ; . If Death hath laid his mighty spell On friends beloved, until there fell An awful darkness, with no ray Of light from Life's eternal day, Though all these griefs, O Soul, were thine In the Past, a Power divine Will make of them a source of good. All great truths feed on martyr blood ; The sweating brain and bursting heart Doth energy divine impart To Evolution's onward roll Within the realm of thinking soul. Forget thy wrongs in eagerness The wrongs of others to redress, Then shall thy songs again outpour 15 SONG AND SERMON Clearer and sweeter than before. And let the hate that's aimed at thee, By thy own magnanimity Be turned to love, then balm shall flow And thoti be stronger for the blow! Be generous ; let Envy's sneer Call forth from thee sweet Pity's tear; Rejoice that thy flowers look so fair And sweeten all the common air, They will not the sooner die! A noble life will refute the lie By Slander hissed. And take no care That deeds be told by trumpet blare, Goodness immortal springs, though thrust Ten thousand times into the dust. And Oh, what power can slay true love? Each stroke, each trial, can but prove Its deathlessness ; a light divine That doth e'en through the Grave's gloom shine. It melts tear-mist from mortal eyes And draws their glances to the skies, Unlocks the gate that darkly swings 'Twixt broken hearts and angel wings 16 THE SOUL'S NEW YEAR And blends our prayers with answering breath Of friends transformed by wondrous Death. Then Soul, be strong, and bravely write Upon the New Year's page so white Thoughts that shall glow like living light, Deeds that shall advance the Right. Oh, tune anew Love's silver lute, And strike the gentle chords long mute; Let every day of the New Year be Brimful of Truth's sweet melody A joy for all eternity! 17 TO A FRIEND The sorrows of the world are its moral in- spirations. The necessity of toil has been the cause of countless noble differentiations. Man, the greatest of all toilers, recreates the earth and builds highways to the throne of God. The psychic experiences of one age become the Sacred Scriptures of subsequent periods. Let us be reverent toward the Past, as good sons and daughters are toward their mothers. Let us be patient with the Present, since it, too, is simply a learner. And as for our bodies' limitations, our business failures, our hunger and nakedness, why, these, too, are links in the economic chain of Divine Law ! My dear friend, your eyes are a little dim with unshed tears from wounded self-love, so they do not clearly discern the glory of this golden day, the brightest flower in the wreath of Father Time! A secret sob over some van- ished dream that was permitted to visit your soul, not as a permanent joy, but as an incentive to search after a higher reality, has choked the stream of musical thoughts in your brain. Give 18 TO A FRIEND way! let the tear fall and be dried by a kiss from some ever-present guest from the eternal shore. Let the sob break over its iron bounds, and lo, you will find it was only an imprisoned note of song! What are lawsuits, and mortgages, gains and losses? Eddies on the stream of Time, bubbles that glass a momentary grief or joy, soon to be pricked by the lance of Death, then, ah, then, the un-fleshed Soul, clothed upon with all best thoughts, set in the midst of new opportunities; hands grasped by those that we dreamed had fallen into dust ; the doors of the Universe thrown wide open and angels of Love singing, "Come home!" God? Why, my friend, I feel God's immanent in everything! Our little lives His greatness share, And all our wayward wandering Is compassed by His tender care. As earth was born of solar fires, And still exists on Heaven's light, Faint note amid celestial choirs That sing through spaces infinite, 19 SONG AND SERMON E'en so are man and lowliest flower That breathe Love's incense from the sod Brought forth and fed by Spirit power, And are at-one-ment with our God. SUNRISE IN RELIGION When Nature, through her drowsy dreams Is thrilled by fair Aurora's kiss, Her Soul awakes in wood and streams To countless signs of conscious bliss. And soon her whole life is astir, Glad tremors run o'er land and sea, While myriad wings of satin whir In haste to join Love's symphony. The tears that stained Night's dusky cheek, With diamond glow bedeck the Morn, And all God's creatures, strong and weak, At break of day seem newly born. 20 SUNRISE IN RELIGION And so in Nature's dual life We see the changing seasons play ; The sleep of Soul, with dark dreams rife, From which, aroused by Truth's white ray, Sweet Hope from dull despair upsprings, Revealed are beauties hid before, And Aspiration's eager wings Toward God and Anglehood upsoar. And now, o'er Eastern hills of thought, A silent flood of radiance rolls, While Western slopes the smile have caught And flashed it to our inmost souls. The purple gloom of ages past, Gives way before Truth's rising sun, And waking hosts are marshaling fast At sound of Freedom's signal gun! As lilies lift their fragrant lips From dimpled lakes to greet the Dawn, A sweet and pure apocalypse Of beauty from corruption drawn, 21 SONG AND SERMON E'en so, from superstitions grim, The blessed blossoms of our Faith, Float up in fervent prayer and hymn, A joyous triumph over Death ! The altars built by Grief and Fear, Dread symbols of eternal woe, Are cleansed of blood and briney tear By Heaven's precious overflow! And in each human heart inheres The Christ divine awaiting birth, When dried shall be pale Sorrow's tears, And purest joy possess the earth. And where the preacher once proclaimed The wrath of God and burning Hell, Good men of ancient creed ashamed, Make haste His tender grace to tell. And Nature, long by priests decried, f Unveils her beauty to our sight, A patient and unerring Guide To all that is divinely right. 22 THE TRUE PERSPECTIVE In every fold of her fair dress, We find the hieroglyphs of God, And lines of perfect loveliness Inscribed on every common clod. O'er all the boundless realm of life Are stretched Love's beauteous, brooding wings, And through our finite sin and strife A ceaseless song of progress rings. THE TRUE PERSPECTIVE The soul will yet so far master its mortal environment as to be able rightly to estimate all human experience and cease its moan over the Inevitable, which will then appear in its true character, the eternally Beneficent. Our short-sighted ignorance is the only bar- rier between us and our infinite possessions. And Wisdom is the only riches, for Wisdom is the sum of all knowledge, the application of all truth, the willing performance of all duties; in short, the harmonious adjustment of the finite Ego to the infinite "I Am." 23 GIVE AND LIVE They who love their gardens know How to make their posies blow; Pluck and give, and more and more Shall be added to their store. Thus it is with Love's red rose, The more we give the more it grows, Till the heart rilled to the brim, Overflows with love to Him Who is life of all that lives, And that Life forever gives. THE COMING WOMAN Lo! She is surely coming up the highway of the Age, A suitable companion for Philosopher and Sage, Her garments full of healing, her heart of heav- enly grace, And Love's surpassing splendor brightly shin- ing on her face ! 24 THE COMING WOMAN Her brow a mimic mountain of sweet, unsullied snow, Where thoughts, like morning glories, perpetu- ally glow ; Her eyes cellestial windows that the happy Soul looks through In eager search and yearning for some noble work to do. Her lips are touched with fire of purest eloquence, Of brave, resistless pleading in Humanity's de- fense, And her bosom swells with pity for the un- fortunate, Be they victims of vile priest-craft or of an evil State. Yes ! She is swiftly coming, and behold ! within her hands She bears a precious passport to all Life's Treas- ure-lands ; A Title Deed of Self-hood and full freedom to pursue All the highways and byways to the Beautiful and True. 25 SONG AND SERMON Oh, never shall she barter her fair body for her bread, Nor ever in shining shackles the downward path- way tread, For white- winged Aspiration shall e'er bear her safe from sin, And side by side with brothers all good fortune she shall win. Rejoice! for she is coming! The proud mother of a race That shall love to do her honor and crown her in her place ; In councils of the nation and the holiest of homes Shall shine her love and wisdom when the com- ing Woman comes! 26 DIVINE DYNAMICS Our lives are one with the rolling spheres, And over all God's will hath sway; The labors of uncounted years Have brought the harvest of To-day In all its many-hued array. The Past, engulfed in Error's night, Was but an ugly chrysalis Where Truth prepared her wings of light, On which to soar from Death's abyss And bear mankind to endless bliss. The funeral pyres of martyred men, Who died for harmless heresies, Still mark the way where Truth has been Encamped along the centuries, Protected by the pitying skies. How slight the pangs Cervetus bore Compared to manhood's noble pride! Howf dear the names forevermore Of those who have for Truth's sake died, The Christs whom Hate hath crucified! 27 SONG AND SERMON Thought's golden shuttle swiftly sped, As by a great, unerring hand, Hath woven Truth's unbroken thread Into Life's pattern, vast and grand, Nor ever paused at priest's command, Until at last, our glad eyes see, As on a mighty, pictured scroll, A proud and tender prophecy Of Truth's bright future far unroll, Her throne the enfranchised, deathless soul. 28 A REVERIE The Summer-tide flows full and sweet O'er rose-wreathed banks at Sunny Brae; An emerald sea breaks at my feet In billowy bough and leafy spray That fill the air with tremors fine, Like music-thrills from harps divine. White clouds flock up high hills of blue, Like sheep by unseen shepherds led; Bright humming-birds sip honey-dew From crimson roses overhead, And golden-winged butterflies Flit noiseless where the sunlight lies. And here, on Nature's tender breast, My tired heart its burden flings; Her lullabies shall soothe to rest My soul's too eager questionings, That seek in Summer's opulence Some healing balm for woes intense. Oh, wind-harps that are never mute, Your songs are sweet, but still I miss The soft tone of my darling's flute, 29 SONG AND SERMON His happy laugh and loving kiss, And tender looks from precious eyes That made this place a paradise! God infinite! the thing I ask And which, methinks, would meet my want, Must seem to Thee so small a task, So slight a thing for Thee to grant! Restore to the flute the sweet young breath That was so lately lost in death And let the love that made life dear, Hold me in its embrace once more! So small when poured thro' heaven's wide sphere, And yet for me such ample store, That with it life seemed crowned, complete, And all my labors rendered sweet! But hush! great Nature gently bends From beauty's raptures to my soul And whispers : "Griefs like these are friends ; All life is one eternal whole Through death God draws your heart above, And fills it with a holier love! 30 THE MOTHER'S PRAYER "Come, break the bonds of selfish grief, Behold your darling's glorified ! And let your sorrow find relief In this: Their joys are multiplied! Believe, love's summer will not wane, And faithful hearts shall meet again." THE MOTHER'S PRAYER O God, hold me in Thy great palm, And fill my soul with sacred calm, While this sweet miracle is wrought Which shall embody Love's first thought! O'ershadow me, e'en as of yore Thou didst the mother-heart that bore A Christ-child, divinely pure and good, Bright link 'twixt earth and Anglehood! And if I pass through scenes of strife, Oh, guard with peace the precious life That stirs with secret joy my bosom And germinates to deathless blossom ! Write on my Soul all things most fair, And let th' unconscious being share The beauteous images that shine 31 SONG AND SERMON Into my heart from Life Divine. And when Day's Sabbath hours come, slow Tripping through twilight's tender glow, Make Thou a temple of my heart, And on an altar set apart From all earth's meaner, baser things, Let angels lay rich offerings Of noble inspirations given To teach my soul the songs of Heaven. Father! Thou seest the anxious fears That oft are mirrored in my tears, And only Thou canst know the pain By which sweet Love is born again, To find anew its rosy rest Upon a woman's throbbing breast. And Thou, the loving and the just, Since granting me so great a trust, Wilt not the Wisdom-flower withhold When most I need its fruit of gold. Oh, kiss with peace my prayer-thoughts wild! Oh, bless me through my little child! And may I feel that in its birth Thou art new-imaged on the earth! THE CHRISTMAS CHILD O Prophet-dream of the long ago, Fulfilled in the Undefiled, Whose Presence we feel in Love's sweet glow, Our beautiful Christmas Child! Our hearts hold fast to the Angel lore That gives him heavenly birth, We worship the holy Mother that bore A Christ to sorrowing Earth. Out of the gloom of two thousand years Shines ever that fair Ideal, Pleading with us, through our doubts and fears, To unfold in ourselves the Real. "I and my Father are one," said He, "And ye are my brethren too ; And I will draw all men unto Me, Through the Beautiful and True." As Earth cometh forth every morn Renewed from the womb of Night, So with each babe in the world is born Again the blessed Christ-light. 33 SONG AND SERMON For lo! was it not love, first and last, That made Him a Saviour true? And it did not perish with the Past, But liveth ever anew. And now at the Christmas-tide He comes, With out-stretched, bounteous hand, Scattering blessings in all the homes Throughout this beautiful land. Oh, welcome Love's holy festival, In which the whole world takes part! A little season the Christ shall dwell Again in the great world's heart. Behold how the good deeds multiply, Miracles are wrought again! For joy the widows and orphans cry, Love melteth the hearts of men! And Heaven rejoiceth with the Earth As the light of that day dawns mild On which we celebrate the birth Of the holy Christmas Child. 34 IS HAPPINESS THE CHIEF OBJECT OF LIFE? Happiness is the fruit of right living; hap- piness is the natural consequence of obedience to the laws of your constitution. You can not, therefore, separate happiness from the good, and we can affirm that in this sense it is the chief object of life. Not the happiness of the body, of the sensuous nature alone, for he who enjoys only the sense of the flesh knows not great joy; it is only he who finds this a step and uses it for mounting to higher altitudes who knows the joy of living; he who has triumphed over self, who has fought bravely with temptations and won the victory. Then, sweeter than the shout of happy soldiery when victory for them is de- clared, prouder than the trumpet-blare which cries a great man's power, is the consciousness of that man who has seen what is good and true and been able to climb to it and to live it in his soul. This must be the grandest object of our life; to conquer that which is pernicious in ourselves, and that which militates against the highest nature of the soul ; to conquer all things 35 SONG AND SERMON below us, convert chaos into beauteous forms of life and bring from discord sweetest harmony. To work all life's fallow ground; to tear up the virgin soil where now may grow only weeds, and sow it thick with golden seeds that abound with life most beautiful, impatient to burst forth into bloom and sacred fruits ; and where there are desert wastes afar, o'er-sweeping which are scorching winds of bitter passion ; to turn into these the fresh, full, silvery tides of spiritual being until the banks shall overflow and water all those scorching sands ; until the very at- mosphere shall call from the flashing music of the tides their soft tributes to send them back again in sweet baptismal rain, and from this mighty labor of the soul to see those wastes made to blossom like the rose! At last to wrench from nature crude her won- drous secret; to convert her ores and precious stones into things more fair, that shall stand for attributes of spirit life; to see the chill, dull atmosphere of mortal being glittering with ten thousand starry thoughts that have their birth in God's own bosom this it is to labor well and to earn rich happiness. And this, whether 36 IS HAPPINESS THE CHIEF OBJECT OF LIFE? we know it or not, is the object and aim of every human soul. Though now; we lose our way ; though we now see not into the mystery by which we are surrounded; though vain seems all our labor, and impossible to attain the heights and the vast plains out-lying there beneath the gorgeous sun of wisdom's day, still the steps are possible; they were carved by the law of God. By and by the mist will melt away and the rough stone of life, which like that stored in nature's mighty warehouse, awaits the artist's hand to give it form, will by the slow drop- ping of our human tears reveal a diviner shape. And in these ways so wondrous and so little known to us, God works His will with men, un- til at last that blessed vision which glows be- fore us all, and which we name our hapiness, shall be fulfilled, and each soul know why it is here, why it has waited long, why toiled and struggled against a cruel fate a fate that at last becomes its servant, and shapes the higher life to which it was born, and of which it is the natural heir. 37 A LESSON 'Twas only a linnet, such a little thing! Now softly alight, then on gay lilting wing, But I leaned from my window to hear him sing, And life seemed the sweeter, all day long, For joy clearly rang in each silvery note That thrilled and rippled from the wee, swell- ing throat As he sang at rest or on bright wings afloat, Gladdening God's world with that one song. 'Twas only the fragrance of a hidden flower That came floating to me in a morning hour, When, waking again to Grief's unvanquished power, I wondered why the days should go on; But, oh, the visions that the flower's breath brought ! The memories of love and treasures of thought, Till my soul on the wings of Hope was up-caught And the triumph o'er Selfishness won. O my beautiful bird of the blithesome song, Thou hast taught me that one needs not to be strong To lighten life's burden of sorrow and wrong, 38 THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE Lifting our thoughts from dust to the skies ; And thou, dearest little, half-veiled violet, If thou hast power to banish regret, May not even I do some worthy thing yet To help Life in its heavenward rise? THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE With fearless front and flashing eyes, Fair Science searches land and sea, And plants her scepter in the skies, Queen of the world that is to be. She is not Pagan, Christian, Jew, But bears to each some beam of light, Conserving evermore the true, And pointing ever to the right. She slays the dragons of the Past That bar the way to truth divine, And into problems deep and vast She drops her mighty plummet-line. 39 SONG AND SERMON She works her miracles by rule, And puts the juggling priest to shame ; She proves the godless man a fool, With quenchless fires her altars flame. By her the desert-waste, redeemed, Yields rich supplies of fruit and bread, And where the noisome vulture screamed The starving millions now are fed. She holds the light'nings in her hand, Or bids them on Love's errand flee; E'en Time and Space own her command, And bow before her sov'reignty. Nor does she pause where matter rolls Its pondrous barriers in her way, But on the border-land of souls Eager, expectant, seeks Life's day. And now with lifted torch she parts The veiling shadows of the grave, And pours upon our bleeding hearts The tides of Truth that heal and save. 40 THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE She beckons to the slaves of Fear, And cries, "The Truth shall make yon free!" Beneath her spell Thought's flaming sphere Is rounding to infinity ! The God of old tradition dies, The God of Nature takes his place; One Fact can conquer countless lies, And love divine redeem the race. 41 THE VALUE OF PSYCHIC EXPERIENCE Let us continue the writing of sacred scrip- tures. Let us listen patiently to the psychic experience of others. Let us reverently remem- ber that the greatest souls in history have been those who have defied space and time and things of sense, in the consciousness of the existence of the soul. Let us strengthen ourselves in the heat of the combat of life with the thought that over all is the reign of law; and that as immortal spirits we have a right to truth, a right to to-day's experiences and that from the prophet's vision to the seraphic smile on the face of our dying friend ; from the faintest whis- per to our inner soul, from the unseen, to the grandest song of spiritual triumph that was ever sung, we have need of psychical experiences; they shall be to us strength in our hour of weak- ness; light in midnight darkness; and when be- reavements come, when our dear ones depart from us to enter the silent portals of death, they shall be to us the promise of reunion in years to come. They shall be to us the assurance that divinity reigns throughout the universe. 42 TEMPLE OAK This noble Oak! It has withstood The tempests of a century, Defying earthquake, fire, and flood, Growing in strength and symmetry, Until we sit within its shade, As in a temple, pure and sweet, Above, the living arches laid, And soft mosaics at our feet. The acorn was a humble thing, Cast from some laden parent-stem, Light freight e'en for a robin's wing, Yet richer far than any gem, For lo! it held the mystery Of Life in Death, and knew the way Through some sweet, secret chemistry, To climb from darkness into day. See what a breadth of space now lies Between its birthplace in the sod, And where the topmost branches rise, Like arms outstretched in prayer to God ; 43 SONG AND SERMON Yet had we watched the miracle, With sleepless eyes the whole time through, No one the story e'er could tell Of how or when the great Oak grew! And 'tis with man as with a tree, Pushed from below, drawn from above, He rises to his destiny, Guided and guarded by God's love. The season's sweep of cloud and sun, The Summer's smile, pale Winter's blast, The swing of Time's great pendulum That swiftly marks the Present Past; Are but the heart-beats of one Life, From which all lesser life-forms spring, The least, with that sweet glory rife Whose birth did make the stars to sing. HYMN LOVE'S MINISTRY (Tune Portuguese Hymn) O, infinite Giver of every good, We thank Thee for love that all change hath withstood, That stretcheth forth hands, strong, to help and to save, And riseth triumphant o'er Death and the Grave. As sweet as the fragrance of dew-laden flow'rs, Or glad song of birds in the morning's first hours, Are the ties of love 'twixt Thy children below, That help us Thy wisdom and goodness to know. Omnipotent Spirit, we fervently pray Thou 'It strengthen our hearts for Love's service alway, That hatred may end and fierce warfare may cease And the nations of men share the blessings of peace. 45 HYMN DIVINE GUIDANCE (Tune Italy) Come Thou Spirit of love, Help us Thy grace to prove Each passing day. Be Thou our constant guide, Subdue unholy pride; Teach us, whate'er betide, Thee to obey. " fr k Spirit of Truth descend, Our fainting souls befriend When sorrows come ; Thou Comforter divine! Our hearts to Thee incline, And let Thy pure light shine Where'er we roam. Spirit of nature, fair, Teach us Thy joy to share, In all good will. Thy truth shall make us free; O'er death give victory; And Faith's sweet prophecy Thy laws fulfil. 46 THE SUNNY SIDE OF THINGS It is only by contrast that we can properly estimate anything. We fancy that we are poor, then, seeing some worse estate, we pause, in- voice our possessions, and straightway find that we are affluent. And really how grand is the poorest man's inheritance! If he only have soul- perception, eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind to understand, the whole round earth may be his to enjoy, the wide glory of the heavens wait on him. And though countless millions share the splendors, they shall never grow less by as much as one ray of light, one note of song, one breath of fragrance, one thought of love. On the contrary, each individual soul by its refrac- tion of the light, memory of the song, sense of the fragrance and enactment of the thought shall add to the measure of all delights. The soul eternizes every evanescent form of visible na- ture, every dream of the infinitely productive mind. What a boon is the discernment of beauty; and then to be born in the midst of ever varying, ever inspiring loveliness ! Nothing exists with- out adornment. The tiniest insects are gorgeous 47 SONG AND SERMON with jewels and proud regalia. The multitudin- ous leaves bear illuminated inscriptions ; the very dust-grains that are brushed aside as vulgar are flashing crystals, fragments of suns and stars. "As a man thinketh, so is he." Emerson says, "We have what we are." The hope of the world lies in true education, the development of all the mental faculties. Not in the absorption of books or other people's opinions, but the apprehension of realities. The evils under which humanity groans are not a necessity. Ignorance and selfishness are curable. The brute forces of the world are be- ing rapidly subdued, and the effort necessary to that end has accomplished that which is much more admirable, it has lifted man himself to places of divine power, benevolence, creative genius, and developed attributes formerly as- cribed to God alone. Christ-love incarnate in thousands of human hearts is answering to the cry of want, build- ing missions, kindergartens, industrial schools, "open-door homes," and diffusing light, warmth, and good-will throughout the length and breadth of the land. To the Soul there is no Past. All the days 48 THE SUNNY SIDE OF THINGS that I have lived are a part of my Now. No power can banish me from the beauty I have once beheld, nor silence the music I have heard, nor rob me of the love that has enriched my life. Mother's cradle-song sounds for me still ; not an accent of her soft voice has weakened, not a smile of her patient face has faded. The sweet-brier and wild anemone, those poems of my childhood, are here in this room, aye here in my soul; the delicate pink of the one, the delec- table fragrance of the other, all here. Had I friends dearer than life a little while ago, but vanished now? Nay, not a word, not a caress, not an eye-beam but are mine still, and ever will be! I may wander in deserts, I may languish in prison, I may toss on tempestuous seas, I may lie down in the shadow of death with no one in the flesh to minister to me, but mother's lull- aby will murmur in my ear; love's kisses will thrill my heart; baby-hands will lie like cool rose leaves on my bosom ; friends will not be far, and just as the darkness seems deepest, Nature's Soul-light will break over the battle- ments of clay and the veil of tears will be rent, and night and loneliness will be no more. 49 MY IDEAL HOME A palace or a cottage, it matters not to me, For 'tis love that makes the home-life, wherever I may be, The sound of gentle voices and smiles of faces sweet, And round of sacred duties with tenderness re- plete, The bird-song and the flowers, free to every one, These are the priceless treasures of my Ideal Home. And were I rich and honored or lowly-born and poor, The dimpled feet of children should dance around my door; Their winsome ways and laughter, so joyous, light, and free, Are e'er the sweetest music in all this world to me; And when Time's purple shadows around my pathway come, The light of their life's morning shall still keep bright my home. SO MY IDEAL HOME 'Tis not unbounded riches nor masterworks of art, Nor name, nor fame, nor beauty that doth con- tent the heart, But the sense of unstained honor, a life-path bravely trod. Firm trust in human nature and confidence in God, With love as a strong anchor wherever we may roam, And peace and joy awaiting in the harbor of sweet Home. 51 GOD STILL WITH US Beloved, God hath not left His world ! Behold His signs and wonders Are now as great as when He hurled His Word through Sinai's thunders. 'Tis true that even now as then Some human eyes are holden, And angels come not to all men In visions bright and golden ; But when our souls are riper grown, The things we deem ideal Shall to our better self be known As all that is most real. As stellar gardens of the night, With golden blossoms burning, E'er draw our glances to the light And fill our hearts with yearning; So in our darkest, doubtfullest mood, We touch Truth's fair dominions, And nearer draw to Angelhood 'Neath Love's sweet, sheltering pinions. 52 SPRING PICTURES Oh, every Age is edged with gold Of Hope and Promise thrilling, And prophecies, both new and old, God's laws are now fulfilling. SPRING PICTURES Sweet, the sky is once more splendid And a perfect sapphire hue, While below in flowers are blended Green, and red, and gold, and blue. Here among my vines and roses Tiny birds have built their nests, And a cautious peep discloses Jewels 'neath wee mother-breasts, While among the swaying branches Faithful bird-mates flit and sing, And the sunlight softly dances In and out on leaf and wing. 53 SONG AND SERMON Hill-ward great trees warmly hover O'er fair flowers at their feet, E'en as sometimes might a lover O'er a face to him grown sweet. And the Spring, though late in coming, Old-time promises has kept, Lilac blooms and insects humming, Lilies that so lately slept, Now rejoice in resurrection From the sun-enkindled sod, Teaching us the law's perfection By which souls shall rise toward God. BROKEN IDOLS Yes, one by one they fall, Oh, must I part with all The idols of my youth? What day-dreams have I dreamed! How fair the future seemed! How cruel is the truth! Love's little souvenir, Lying beside me here Upon a gilded shelf, Entwined with memories Of blessed yesterdays, Lives longer than Love's self! For such a woe what balm? Where smiles the harbor calm Waiting to shelter me? Alone my spirit braves The bitter, mocking waves Of a wild, wintry sea! Hark! What is it I hear? A low voice, silvery clear, Like the skylark's when it soars 55 SONG AND SERMON Above the clouds and sings, Poised on tireless wings, Till life in song outpours! But, as one who has heard The raptures of that bird, And knows the meaning well, Yet not by any art Unto another's heart Can e'er the meaning tell, So I may not repeat The message, soft and sweet, That fell like fragrant rain Upon the bitter dust Of lost hope, love, and trust Until they bloomed again! But not in mortal form, With human passion warm, And iridescent glow, And not with clasping hands, And glance that understands The silent "yes" and "no." 56 AN ANGEL'S REBUKE These children of the skies Unto their Source must rise, Cleansed of their earthly part; My love shall live divine, Star-pure my hope shall shine, And peace possess my heart. AN ANGEL'S REBUKE Behold our Mother Earth, her history is like our own! From chaos, impenetrable gloom and poisonous vapors she rolled into her appointed orbit. 'Mid flames and seething billows of un- redeemed elemental forces she toiled for count- less years, and then came forth gashed and scarred on her whole round bosom. Every inch of surface has been a battle-field, a burial- ground, a thousand times, and still the work goes on. Shall we despise the grandeur of her mountains because born of mad upheavals? Shall we mock her majesty because it grew through epochs of toil and pain? Shall we stop 57 SONG AND SERMON our ears to the music of the sea because once dead silence reigned, and close our eyes to the glory of the Summer day because it came from depths of rayless midnight? Then why regret our own infancy with its attendant helplessness ; or youth, because it has eras of its own, as necessary links to manhood and womanhood as the first blade of corn to the full ear? Why regret the learning of that alphabet of grief by which we are enabled to interpret the sub- lime tragedies and crowning sympathies of hu- man life? The things that have been named as proof of eternal pain are so only to the weak and ignorant. The wise and strong behold even in life's follies the best of teachers. If we stumble and fall, we should rise again, not execrating the path but looking more carefully for a safe place wherein to rest the foot. He who wastes time in bootless regret is stealing from God's pure treasury. Regret is worse than hardness of heart if it saps our courage, and is useful only as a spur to higher endeavor. Let the dead leaves of last year lie undis- turbed! Nature will take care that they serve 58 AN ANGEL'S REBUKE some wise purpose. They enrich the ground and are resurrected in eternal changes of life and beauty. So our dead hopes, our vanished dreams, our faded flowers of love are not without their sacred use. Higher and purer possessions take their places, and if we turn not back, but look forward and upward, we shall see a new glory of buds and blossoms, a glow of unborn days flushing the ever-widening horizon, and grateful for the past that cradle of all giants of truth, goodness, and love we shall meet the future without fear, trusting in the immutable good forever ! 59 A SIGH O Nature, let me lean on thee In some soft nook close by the sea, Till I, from thy infinity, Draw comfort for the inward smart Of heavy blows upon the heart, That fall when friends must live apart. Thy bosom doth before me rise In mountains bared to loving skies, That kiss with dreams of Paradise The half-slumbering world, which swings Unconsciously on airy wings, Life's real, amidst imaginings. Fair mother! thou dost love me still; Thy moonlight's soft, magnetic thrill All whitely clothes me, like the will Of some sweet angel that hath known The weaknesses to which I own, And hath the greater, wiser grown, So folds his glory-robe 'round me, As thou in night-time's secrecy Dost clothe the mountains and the sea. 60 GENERATION O Nature! little do I know Of thee ; and yet the ebb and flow Of our poor human joy and woe Thy all-encircling laws control; The body's need, the deathless soul, The smallest part, the mighty whole; And so again I lean on thee In this soft nook by the singing sea, And know that thou will comfort me. GENERATION 'The world is going wrong," you say, "And has been ever since creation! Come, let us kneel to God and pray For all mankind's regeneration!" Nay, nay, my friend, the world's all right, And God heeds not our supplication ; All that is needed is more light Upon the law of GENERATION. 61 SONG AND SERMON This wondrous power to enshrine In form of flesh the good or evil, And with the parent-life entwine The attributes of God or Devil ! A subtle, unsubstantial breath, With kiss of love as consecration, Leaps through the boundaries of death, A thing of life, a soul-creation! Yet, like the source from whence it springs, Be it Gehenna or Elysium, Our secret thought it ever brings Before our oft-astonished vision! A moment's hate may crystallize Into defiance of all duty, Or thought from Love's sweet paradise Become a never-fading beauty. We sow our passions, rank and wild, Amid the poor Soul's strong delusions, And then expect a holy child As fruitage of our life's confusions! 62 GENERATION Men .sacrifice their soul to sense, And trample on the rights of women, Then make this plea, in self defense "But, surely, all men are human!" And women, weak, irresolute, Allow the awful desecration Of that which love should e'er transmute Into a blessed consecration. And from the fountains, so defiled, Flows life's dark stream of troubled waters, The Christ crushed out of every child, While Sin claims all Earth's sons and daughters. And thus we go from bad to worse, Few hoping for amelioration, While preachers prate of "primal curse," And paint the scenes of soul-damnation! And yet, my brothers, God is just, And speaks through every law of Nature; As manifest in grains of dust As in the fairest human creature! 63 SONG AND SERMON And when these laws we rightly ken, And yield ourselves in full surrender, Our world shall shine with noble men As yonder skies with starry splendor! Then shall the God within control, And life bloom bright with aspiration, And Christ, in every new-born soul, Hasten the whole world's true salvation Love crushed to earth shall rise again On purple wings of healing power, And white-robed peace triumphant reign O'er all mankind. God speed the hour! 64 FRAGMENTS Man standing in the presence of his possible angel, looking forward, will not allow himself to be counted dead, but when the change comes and he passes from the crements of clay, shall find himself in new relations, with new concep- tions of his personality and relation to the di- vine cause which we call God. Just as the human consciousness permeates the body, so the divine consciousness permeates nature; therefore we recognize Infinite person- ality, and the soul of man one with God, and all activities of nature but the manifestation of divine will. From ape to angel is better than from angel to devil. We see in the history of the globe, which is God's scripture, that man's falling has all been forward, and that all the evolutions of life have been like the evolutions of the stars, full of measureless harmony, and the destiny of the soul is equal in its grandeur and in its ex- panse with the universe itself. 65 SONG AND SERMON Nature's method of educating the soul is to visit the reaction of the action upon the soul. To suffer the consequences of our acts here in the physical realm gives us knowledge of the nature of the forces by which we are surrounded and with which we have to deal. Nature's pun- ishments are always for education and reform, and never for the satisfaction of any vengeful ire. So should it be with man, and crime should be dealt with in such a manner as to bring the criminal to his spiritual sense and reveal to him his true relationship to his fellow men. When a man commits a crime as the result of his organ- ism, he should meet with such restraint as will educate his soul to higher things. The consequence of our acts we each should suffer. This is legitimate, and by this we learn wisdom and self-government. All the little tasks of life can be made profit- able. Let us weave garlands of flowers over every cross we bear, and instil a divine life into every word we utter. Let us be real, honest, and 66 FRAGMENTS sincere. Let us cease to tear down ; let us cease to hate, and let us believe in one another, and also believe in the divine appointment of our soul to fulfil some mission in this world. Re- member, self-trust is the first secret of success. Make yourself that which is greater than all else, a comforter of your kind; a lover of hu- manity, and the greater the lover, the more suc- cessful is the life ; and if you love mankind, man- kind will find it out. When you think of the great men of this world, remember that you are as needful as they, and that there is an empire within your own life ; there is an undiscovered country here which hath power, when you have made yourself ac- quainted with it, to make you feel that you are at-one-ment with the greatest man or woman that ever lived. 67 THE GOSPEL OF THE FARM When from the unknown Somewhere I was willed into being here, And from an unknown Something Summoned as mortal to appear, It happened in the country And in the Autumn of the year, When the farm's fragrant treasures Were being swiftly gathered in From garden, field, and orchard, And stored in cellar, mow, and bin, E'er the festivals of snow-flakes In the far northern climes begin. Oh, opulent October! Tis then the ripened leafage glows With fascinating splendor Such as no other season shows, When the maples and sumachs Rival the beauty of the rose! How well do I remember My happy, heartsome, childhood days 68 THE GOSPEL OF THE FARM Among the sugar-maples, Where I studied Dame Nature's ways, As free and full of music As the robins and saucy jays! A little house of bass-wood, Its walls hewed logs of creamy white, And its three small, square windows, By day poured full of Heaven's light, And the breath of wild sweet-briar When stars peeped through them in the night ! Mother, the central figure, With her patient, all-tender face, Written full of a story, Which her children loved to trace, In more than common wording On all its lines of perfect grace. And I never smell the clover, Or hear a robin redbreast sing, Or the tinkle of a cow-bell, Or the low gurgle of a spring, Without an inner vision Of her love's tender, brooding wing. ; 69 SONG AND SERMON Perhaps these are the reasons Why the farmer's life seems to me, Crowded with homely duties And with stern trials though it be, Rich in unpainted pictures And in unwritten poetry. Pray tell me what sweet singer, Or writer of a wonder-book, Has revealed all the beauty Of just a single, little brook, Its low banks fringed with cowslips And a song in every nook? What pen or brush of artist Has ever told the story yet Of just a vine-clad hillside In the westering sunlight set, A dream of haze across it Faint as a maiden's first regret? Or of empurpled mountains That pillar the gates of the morn When Earth wakes from sweet slumbers 70 THE GOSPEL OF THE FARM With all her loveliness new-born? Or wheat-fields' golden billows, Or the tall, tasselated corn? Behold the living gospel Of God's bounty in the waving grain, And list the angel's message In the soft patter of the rain ! What precious revelations When all the skies are clear again! Oh, happy are the mortals With ears to hear and eyes to see The music and the pictures Offered to all, forever free, Fresh from the heart of Nature God's perpetual ministry ! 71 IN MEMORIAM Dear mother! Thou, whose holy, happy kiss First woke my being to Life's conscious bliss Thy last farewell on earth so lately said, Hath made it seem that all true love is dead. I gaze far through the silvery mists of Time And see thee in thy lovely, rose-wreathed prime, Dispensing blessings to the clamorous brood Sheltered by downy wings of motherhood, A world of sweetness in thy fond caress. Ah, little knew we then love's preciousness ! For 'tis by the slow grinding of the years, And steady dropping of grief's scalding tears, That pearls of mother-love grow spotless white And altogether priceless in our sight. O, womanliest of women ! thy life Doth show no flaw, as daughter, helpmeet, wife, And gentle ministrant! Above all art; Strong, self-poised, with sweet humbleness of heart ; Bearing life's crosses with a smile, And always "hoping for the best" meanwhile ; Leaning trustfully upon the great Unknown, 72 IN MEMORIAM Whose love through thy own life-work sweetly shone ; And tending the little sheep-fold carefully Through all the wild storms of adversity Desire and duty always one with thee, Thus life's discords resolved to harmony! And when thy weary feet trod the sunset slopes That led to the fruition of life's hopes, The golden seeds which thou with tears had sown Sprang forth in affection's flowers full-blown, And made thy way to the golden gate's great arch Seem almost like a queen's triumphal march! And as thy sweet face grew more dim to me, Among the shadows of Death's mystery, From out the vast Elsewhere, methought there came The sound of soft voices calling thy name, Like a welcome home to one most dear; And now I must feel Eternity near For still thy love holds me, sweetest of ties; Still shall I question and wait for replies. Oh, will the shadowy curtain of Death Be lifted a little, by Love's sweet breath? Will there come as of yore thy love's pure light Into the darkness of sorrow's wild night? 73 SONG AND SERMON Hush, selfish heart! let that haven of rest Be free from the storms that roll o'er thy breast ! Since to thee, my mother, sweet peace is given, I'll turn ever a smiling face toward Heaven. GUARDIAN ANGELS Above life's cradled innocence Where first we heard love's lullaby, Not knowing danger or defense, Our guardian angels hovered nigh. For royal prince or lowly born God measures not His mead of love, But unto all, as comes the morn From light's celestial founts above, So come these silent, unseen powers, To guide, to warn, to bless and cheer ; Their tender thoughts like fadeless flowers, Filling with sweets life's atmosphere. 74 GUARDIAN ANGELS To King Belshazzar at his feast, In strange handwriting on the wall, As free to greatest as the least, With winning words or warning call. They crowned the dark-browed Socrates With pearls of wisdom, love, and truth, Unveiling life's deep mysteries To hoary age and eager youth. And o'er the hills of Palestine Love's starry banner they unfurled, Pouring from Heaven the song divine, "Peace and good-will to all the world." And unto Peter, John, and Paul They came according to their need, E'en as to-day they come to all, Inspiring holy thought and deed. Along life's shadowed paths of pain, They walk beside us day by day, And by their sacred love restrain When blindly we would go astray. 75 SONG AND SERMON And if we sometimes turn aside From virtue's sunny paths of peace, In sympathy they still abide Until our wayward wand'rings cease. And when, "life's fitful fever o'er," The last great change on Earth shall come, They'll meet us on the farther shore, And give us tender welcome home ! PROGRESS If ye scan the wondrous pages Written by departed ages On our common mother's bosom in a language all her own, Ye will learn how God's desire Wrought through earthquake, flood, and fire, Drawing all life ever higher, and within the spirit-zone. 76 PROGRESS Note the progress of the planet, From fire-mist to globe of granite, Which in turn becomes a garden where bloom the rose and violet; Behold the ever-changing splendor, Winter stern and spring-time tender, Steadfast hills and restless ocean with more to be unfolded yet. Take the lesson of creation To your hearts for consolation; Look beyond the stormy present to the swift approaching calm; Nothing good can ever perish, Every holy hope you cherish vShall yet ripen to fruition; let this thought be healing balm. Oh, ye doubting sons and daughters Sailing on Life's troubled waters, Know ye not that God is with you, guiding by His holy will? Oft when ye were weakly, thinking That your little craft was sinking, Has the breath of the Almighty softly whispered, "Peace be still." 77 SONG AND SERMON And from heavenly heights above you, Angel friends who fondly love you, Oft pour forth their pure compassion on your wounded hearts below, And in sympathy draw near you, With some silent thought to cheer you, Bringing strength and noble patience, such as only they can know. Every sore and bitter trial, Every loss and self-denial, Every bravely fought temptation in the paths of life you tread, Brings the heavenly helpers nearer, Makes them seem a little dearer, Keeps the mental vision clearer as ye strive for goals ahead. Meekly do your daily duty, And your life shall grow in beauty, Though to-day it pass unnoticed by the noisy multitude ; Not a sigh shall go unheeded, Strength shall come when it is needed, And your speed shall be increasing toward the beautiful and good. 78 PROGRESS If your guardian angels find you Faithful to the work assigned you, Though it be a task most humble, fraught with sacrifice and grief, They will crown with Love's sweet blossom Every sorrow of your bosom, And with Truth's pure, living waters they will heal your unbelief. 'Round you spread Life's fair dominions, O'er you brood Love's snowy pinions, While Truth's ever-wid'ning circles welcome every human soul. Then with faith in Reason founded, And with trust in God unbounded Be your lives to Wisdom rounded; haste ye to the shining goal! THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS When the ancient command, "Know thyself," has been obeyed, we shall have found the key to perfect happiness. When man has risen to that altitude whence he can measure himself, dropped the plummet of his thought to the depth of spiritual being, and lifted the prophetic eye to the possibilities of time and space as related to his being, he shall have discovered all the avenues open for him that lead to happiness. For it is to know ourselves and our place in God's temple that shall give us full assurance of ourselves, and when this shall have, come to us, we will no longer thrust ourselves where we are not wanted. The pains we suffer here now are the poniard- points of those heavenly guardians of our life who will not allow us to go far astray without timely warning; and we may be sure if a dis- cord falls into the music which flows from phys- ical health, it is a warning that we have stepped outside of the circle which is drawn around our lives by the law of the Infinite ; we may be sure, if, feeling the promptings of the appetites and 80 THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS passions, we forget the good company that we are bound to keep that is, the immortal soul, the divine part we shall have warnings, and they will likely come in loss of self-respect, and in pangs that can not be rightly reported by the mere physical senses. The emotions of the mind as far surpass the feelings of the body as the powers of the mind surpass the execution of the body in the most delicate adjustment of its mech- anism. It is only when the whole man is in harmony with himself, and with the laws under which he exists, that he is happy in all his parts. It is only when he lives in accordance with the highest that is in himself that he enjoys the greatest happiness. There is what we may call pleasure in the gratification of the appetites. When we are hungry it is good to eat ; when we are thirsty we enjoy the sparkling waters of the mountain spring; when we are cold it is beautiful to feel enwrapped in a robe woven by nature herself for the benefit of her creatures. It is good for us to feel our body cared for; there is pleasure in everything that ministers to the needs of the body. But all the pleasures that are possible to 81 SONG AND SERMON the physical senses are as nothing compared to what the mind is capable of feeling. You know that some of the greatest produc- tions of the human mind have come to us from darkened prison cells. You know that the most beautiful blossoms of the rarest genius have sprung forth to the light of the world from the dark periods of cruel persecution. You have seen in this the masterful triumphs of the soul over all its physical environments. Even in these facts we find the most positive evidence of the su- premacy of the human spirit and its title to a continued existence after the dissolution of the flesh, in the fact that a man is never at his best except when he triumphs over the demands of the physical, and transcends the fleshly environ- ments; when fetters, however heavy, weight the body down lightly ; when walls, however thick and impenetrable, can not imprison the soul ; its shining wings pass through that adamantine barrier as light through the crystal pane of glass, and, tremulously, dipping in the ethereal realm of the spirit, it soars out to meet its source the Infinite Soul and companions itself with all that is most beautiful, and tender, and fair. 82 THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS And we would say to you, whatever the sphere you are trying to fill, whatever you suffer or enjoy, however grand or narrow and mean this life may seem to you, it is not the ultimate, but the beginning of something better. Your happiness is not complete now, however rare your achievements, however harmonious your environments ; but there is the prophecy that you will be crowned by and by with a larger, purer, and fuller life. Whosoever you may be, our message to you, and the key we give you to unlock in future time the storehouse of happiness, is this : You have not been called to this work of yours without a purpose, and if you do not fit the niche altogether where you now are, if there are calls you have not yet obeyed, nevertheless no work of your hand has been in vain, no thought of your spirit has fallen fruitless and wholly worthless to the ground, and every effort of your being is always tending upward. One source of happiness is this fact of prog- ress, this thought that this little life we are liv- ing here is not in vain ; for intimations come to us that we are to be great discoverers, that 83 SONG AND SERMON the universe shall be made glad, by and by, for something we each shall have done; the thought that our lives, now so narrow and imperfect, are related to the workings of this boundless uni- verse, and that all these pangs and struggles and disappointments and hunger and thirst are but the promptings of the Divine designed to spur us forward, and prepare us for the grand lesson which we have to learn. The very necessity of getting your bread means something more than the labor of your hand and the effort of your brain to-day; it is a training for a nobler work by and by; it is a stroke given to the block of marble that shall in future image the beautiful ideal. Every effort that you make, I care not how short it may fall of your aim, or how great the failure of your life may seem, is a necessity. All this effort to subdue nature in the different realms, in this warfare occasioned by the neces- sities of the body all this is simply developing the native powers of the soul and fitting each of you for this grander work that waits further on, which shall be full of satisfaction as you ascend the scale of life. 84 THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS Your happiness will never be complete until you know that you are immortal, until you have risen to a full and clear knowledge that you do not live simply as mortals, your threescore years and ten, but that you are destined to fill a place for which this life is but a preparation, and that immortality is yours by natural inheritance. Therefore, I do not believe the Materialist to be happy. He who believes that his nature can be satisfied with what he finds here and now, and who says, "I live only in this material world ; I know nothing of the spiritual/' has yet to feel that thrill of divine happiness which is truly the gift of immortal souls. And when you have risen to this, and feel truly that you are not merely men and women, but you are angels in embryo, God's immortal messengers ; that the life you now live is but the preparation for that other life, and that the happiness which you now feel is only a part of that perfect happiness which shall be the blossom of your perfect being ; when you have risen into all the chambers of the mind ; when the intellect has burned through every ma- terial want ; when the affections are purified, and rendered so crystal clear that they shall reflect 85 SONG AND SERMON right thoughts, and yield only to pure prompt- ings; when it shall come to pass that the moral law in you finds its fitting embodiment, and your activities are but the expression of God's will; when your love to others shall crown your life with noble deeds; when the wings of your intel- lect shall find their way to every realm where it is possible there remains a truth which shall be a blessing to the soul ; when you live in all your being a perfect life; when you are able to give forth that note of music for which you stand to-day a symbol, that beam of light which you represent in the great realm of God's life and glory, that thought of joy for which you stand in the divine history of the world, when all this shall come to pass, there will be no nerve but will thrill with happiness, there will be no faculty but what will sympathize with every atom of your being. Then these angularities will dis- appear ; then the thorns that pierce will lose their point, and will blossom into beautiful flowers ; then the words we speak will not wound; then the deeds we do will drop into life's symphony as a part of its splendid song ; then the paths we tread will be bright with perennial flowers ; then, 86 THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS Oh, then, the heartaches of this world shall be healed as by the touch of a God; then the dis- cords that we hear on every side shall cease; then the meanings of the sea will not symbolize the distress of generations gone and a mournful prophecy of those that are to be ; then the thought that angels tread this way will not seem a fancy and an idle dream ; then our world will not seem apart from those shining spheres, whose revo- lutions in space make up the melodies of time ; then, Oh, then, our story of love will not have so many blotted pages; then, Oh, then, life will not be selfish passion and burning regret; but that prophecy which stirs in every heart, and which keeps our courage good in the darkest night of human woe shall have been fulfilled, and the secret of happiness told to every listening ear. 87 OUR TREASURES IN HEAVEN The sunny days of Youth slip by And we are sad to see them go ; The flowers that we have gathered lie In scentless dust, where none can know ; Yet they are ours no whit the less, Embalmed by blessed Memory, And shrined in the Spirit's consciousness, They share its immortality. The yearnings of our later years, That lead us on and ever on; The blasted hopes and blinding tears, The battles lost and victories won, How can the soul be profited By all these bitter blights and stings? 'Tis thus, believe, that we are led To try the Spirit's folded wings. The tears we shed for Truth's sweet sake, Are sacred in our Father's sight, And every forward step we take Is tending toward His glory-light. Each pulse of pure, unselfish love, 88 OUR TREASURES IN HEAVEN That to another's joy is given, In world below, or world above, Is truly Treasure stored in Heaven. Each noble thought that thrills the heart Is like a golden shuttle thrown With shining thread, to take same part In patterns of the great Unknown. And what we think and feel to-day, The love and hate to earth-life given, Weaves rainbow hues or somber gray Into the robes we wear in Heaven. Like diamonds do our good deeds shine, Like pearls our tears of sympathy, While day by day the Life Divine Becomes a sweet reality. And when the screen of sensuous things Dissolves in Wisdom's stronger light, Renewed are all Life's gushing springs, While glorious visions greet the sight. Sweet Love in all her forms of bliss, Once more repeats her sacred vows, While Truth enwreathes the lips we kiss SONG AND SERMON And virtue crowns the saintly brows. And thus eternal Cycles run, While God's kind care to all is given, And each pure life on Earth begun Is laying treasures up in Heaven. THE MUSIC OF LIFE A whole universe rife With the music of life, From a globule of dew distilling at even, To majestical bars Of the many-hued stars, In their merry dance through the mazes of Heaven ; The soft lapping of waves, Where the ocean-tide laves, The silvery sands, at the feet of the mountains ; And the patter and plash, Where the cool waters dash Afresh from the heart of the half-hidden foun- tains. 90 THE MUSIC OF LIFE And the deep liquid roll, (Like the voice of the soul) That e'er rises from the broad mountain-born river, Where it blushes with shame, Or it blossoms to flame, Pierced with bright arrows from the sun's golden quiver. And when cloud-armies hurled Their pent wrath on the world, With wild, screaming winds, and the loud roll- ing thunder, We were filled with deep awe Of life's musical law. By Nature unrolled in a song of such wonder. And no words can describe The sweet songs that abide In the wild woodlands with their uncounted choirs, Where the bird-notes combine With the Aeolian pine, And rhythmical swaying of emerald spires ; The low humming of bees, 91 SONG AND SERMON In the blossoming trees, Or down in the heart of the sweet-scented clover ; The soft whirring of wings, Like unnumbered harp strings, Or rapturous sigh of a passionate lover. These are some of the chimes And the natural rhymes That mankind in the mundane life doth inherit ; But there are songs more sweet, Far more full and complete, That truly belong to the kingdom of spirit Aye! the clasp of a hand, Like a fair Fairy's wand, Or the masterful touch of a mighty musician May wake hearts' crimson keys To Love' sweet melodies, That can never be silenced by any magician! The soft glance of an eye, Hath oft given reply, To some question that swayed our innermost being, And the smile-light that caught On the crest of our thought Has a pure praise-note to the eye All-seeing! 92 THE MUSIC OF LIFE And no song can compare With the penitent's prayer, As swift from the heart's haunted chambers out- pouring. Straight heavenward it springs, On sweet hope's shining wings, E'en to the presence of rejoicing Saints soaring No power may translate From the soul's rich estate, The full meaning of all these wonderful meas- ures ; But when love conquers strife, The glad music of life Shall yield to our spirits its manifold treasures 93 EVANGELINE Where is the soul of my beautiful sleeper With the still, waxen form and snowy white face? Are her dreams disturbed by the lone-hearted weeper Who tearfully bends o'er her low resting-place ? Into whose eyes are her sunny smiles shining? Over whose spirit is her glory-light shed? Around whose neck are her baby-arms twining. Upon whose bosom rests her dear, golden head? Oh, where is the land that echoes her laughter, What heart was made glad by my Angel's new birth? Will white winged thoughts my mother-love waft her, And woo her again to the sorrowful Earth ? Is her home so bright she never can miss me, And call for me down through the aisles of the air? 94 EVANGELINE Will she never come and tenderly kiss me, When my spirit is bowed by grief and despair ? And when the still sky is filled with star splen- dor, And soft shadows over the Summerland creep, Does some angel breast, with mother-love tender, Give my darling repose and rock her to sleep? Dear God ! Thy ministering spirits are near me, To answer the questions that make my heart sore! Through the voice of my soul their whisperings cheer me And bring me sweet comfort from life's Ever- more ! "Free is the soul of thy beautiful Sleeper, And fair are the visions that dawn on her sight ; Unknown to the woes of earth we will keep her, Unharmed by its sickness, untouched by its blight. ''Sweeter to us j-5: he./ musical laughter Than harp-tones or hymns in our Star-home above ; 95 SONG AND SERMON More sacred to thee thy spirit's Hereafter Since Death hath there planted thy Blossom of Love. "And oft we will bring thy precious Evengel A ministering spirit to loved ones below, Till free like herself, Life's imprisoned angel Shall climb to the heights where her sunny smiles glow. "Conceived in prayer and born as a blessing, She belonged not to Earth, but loaned for a time, All the good in thy soul sweetly expressing, Then smilingly soared to her own native clime." 95 SOUL QUESTIONINGS "Where is God?" proud Reason cries; "Everywhere!" the Soul replies. He is near and He is far, Throned in atom, sun, and star ; Infinite Intelligence Manifest through things of sense, Felt in every breath we draw, Seen in universal law, Heard in music of the spheres And the silent march of years ; Loved in justice, virtue, truth, Free from any shade of ruth, Found in Nature's perfect plan, Served when man serves fellow-man! Where is Heaven, that fair goal Of the ever-striving Soul? By what path may we ascend To the joys that never end? When shall cease this eager quest After peace and perfect rest? Soul! in thee that pure estate Is enshrined, secure as fate ; 97 SONG AND SERMON Its white light locked in thy breast, Love the power at whose behest Barriers melt, walls give way, Night departs and dawns the day! Love keeps bright our hearth-stone fires, Changes lust to pure desires, Disarms hate and ends all strife, Defies Death, transfigures Life. Nobly borne, our griefs e'en bring Sweetest joys, as gentle Spring Brightest blooms from winter's snow, Thro' toil and strain we stronger grow. Work, not idleness, brings rest, Blest are we when we have blest. What is Death? that fearful change Making dearest faces strange; Life's shadow, love's wildest woe Ever our relentless foe, Blighting all things by its breath. Is God good while Death is Death? Doubting one, lift up thine eyes ! Death is but a glad surprise Waking us from troubled dreams To a cloudless morning's beams! 98 SOUL QUESTIONINGS Seeming death is higher birth. Cradled here by Mother Earth, We learn Nature's nursery rhymes Till grown ripe for grander chimes That from Spirit's starry keys Sing of life's eternities. Here our teachers, Toil and Pain, Want and Weal, make problems plain; Here in forms of matter dressed Truths of spirit are expressed; Here through hope, love, and regret Do we learn life's alphabet. Then doth come Death's snowy kiss, Hushing hearts to quiet bliss, Like the sleep of chrysalis E'er unfurled the shining wing, Then with sudden, joyous spring Up our quickened powers soar Faint and weary nevermore! Deep on deep, and height on height, Opens to the wondering sight; Dear ones whom we thought had died, Safe and smiling, glorified! Something still for us to do, 99 SONG AND SERMON Wisdom's ways free to pursue, Still ahead some shining goal, God and Heaven in the Soul ! THE VOICE OF GOD The Voice of God? We hear its roll Through every tumult of the air, And in the veiled, secret soul, That kneels in ecstacy of prayer. It pealed in every trumpet-blast, That marshalled Freedom's mailed host, That fought the battles of the past, And won the vantage-ground we boast. It trembles in the victim's cry, When lust betrays young Innocence, And struggles in the stifled sigh That calls for chivalric defense. 100 THE VOICE OF GOD It mutters in the discontent, That threatens throned tyrrany, And warns the evil government That wastes its blood and treasury. It sings through every Marseillaise That bubbles from the people's breast, And ripples through America's Great hymn, which freemen love the best. 'Tis heard from all the feathered throats That chant a welcome to the Spring; Through leafy forest-aisles it floats, Life's tender love-thoughts whispering. From battling clouds, its cannon-tones Unite with rhythms of the sea, And sweep through iris-tinted zones In Nature's color-symphony! It thunders in the people's wrath, When greed becomes too over-bold, And summons Heaven's aftermath, When honor is exchanged for gold. 101 SONG AND SERMON It rides the whirlwinds of defeat, When craft and cruelty make war, And pours glad peans forth to greet Humanity's ascending star. It pleads in woman's silent tears, And little children's plaintive wail, And comforts every heart that hears The promises that shall not fail. It speaks in every prophet-tongue, Foretelling triumphs for the right, And in the truths by poets sung, That hasten on the Age of Light. It breathes in golden silences, When souls are borne to realms above, And solves, at last, life's mysteries, This voice of God ; true voice of Love ! 102 LINES The tempest-twisted Oak strikes deeper root Than sheltered shrub; and flowers bloom The brighter for their wintry sleep; life's fruit Is never ripe this side the tomb! With bleeding feet we press life's up-hill way To shining levels that await; And cooling streams, and the light of love's long day, And clasping hands beyond death's gate! Life's pattern is too large for us to see Its perfect beauty from lowlands here Of finite sense, it fills Eternity God alone can make its meaning clear! 103 INVOCATION Spirit of the universe, Thou source of all life and joy, Thou who doest pervade eternity, the years that are gone have recorded Thine act and fulfilled Thy law. The hour in which we now live is glowing with Thy presence, the future is also Thine, surcharged with fire of the spirit and the glory of eternal truth, brooding and beckoning us ever onward and upward, we thank Thee for the soul-blossoming, and the ripening of spiritual fruits in past time; for that law through which are wrought miracles of beauty and joy ; for that law which has been mani- fested throughout all time, and which glows in human spirits with unspeakable softness, mold- ing life, tempering its sorrows, and thrilling us with the thought of Thy presence, and the knowl- edge of the soul's immortality. We thank Thee for that eternal justice which shall reign through- out the ages and crown with success every hu- man effort for good, and meet to every soul its dues. Thou seest Thy children in their present stage of growth, full of yearnings and prophecies that the future must fulfil ; and Thou knowest 104 INVOCATION how we grope after the light, even though the light is in our midst, since we have not the perception to behold it. O, quicken our con- sciousness that we may perceive the bounteous gifts of this hour, and fill our souls with grati- tude. We thank Thee, Divine Spirit, for the year that is just dead ; for its joys, for the splendors it has achieved, for the inspiration with which it was endowed, for the consolation that came through its ministration, for the peace that came into each and every human heart with its holy whisperings of faith. O, may we in view- ing the past learn divine lessons, and be filled with gratitude in the contemplation of the golden Now; may we see how rich we are in oppor- tunity. O Divine Spirit, to the weak send the angels of power, that the New Year just open- ing its lessons may be enriched and glorified to us. O, may those who, to-night, stand upon the brink of spiritual darkness, feel the staying hand of the angel of light that shall lead them into the broad and sacred paths of virtue and peace; may those who sit clothed in sad mem- ories, born of the past year, become illuminated that they may learn the significance of sorrow 105 SONG AND SERMON to their souls and understand the heirogliphics which the year has engraven upon the spirit's tablets. O, decipher for us their meaning translate this shining lettering upon the face of the present that we may not mistake our way. Guard and guide us by the tender love of those gone on before. We thank Thee for their mes- sages of hope and encouragement. We thank Thee for the instruments Thou hast raised up to do noble service for the freedom of human souls. We pray Thee, if it be possible, that in the future where the earth has been steeped in human blood, the blossoms of peace may spring, and teach men how divine a thing is sweet fra- ternity. O, wipe from the eyes of the mourning the falling tears; whisper into the ears of the discouraged hope, and bathe us in the spirit- light of a new revelation, such as shall unfold to us the glorious possibility of the least in Thy kingdom, and the joy that awaiteth the faithful. 106 HOPE'S MESSAGE Out of the Winter cometh the Spring, After long resting spreads the strong wing. After cold silence happy birds sing, And flower-lips smile back to the sun ; Out of the darkness into the light, Away from old wrongs hastens the Right, Out of Hate's weakness into Love's might, Thus do the New Year's glad rhythms run ! Lean out and harken ; over the hills Thunders the ocean! its deep voice thrills Like touch of the Infinite who wills The flight of planets, the birth of all souls! Lean out and listen; everywhere Is life's wild tumult lashing the air! Now it is cursing, then it is prayer, And high over all Wisdom controls. Fast-fading splendors down in the west, Lengthening shadows over Earth's breast, Yet Sunrise, somewhere, keeps her still blest 107 SONG AND SERMON And morning glories crimson her sky ; Faces vanishing every day; Lonely, so lonely, life's up-hill way, Yet who the heaven-ward march would stay When we know that Love keeps guard close by ? TRUE LOVE Love knows no change but this, Ever to grow in bliss As the years go rolling by ; And when its flowers have fled The ripe grain waves instead, Food for our souls on high. And Love is never free, But e'er in unity With highest Law it moves ; Quenched are unholy fires, And dead all gross desires, In him who truly loves. 108 TRAILING ARBUTUS And Love can never die, In-linking the "You and I" Through all the bright To Come, Its sacred altars shine Among the stars, divine, Making our soul's true home. TRAILING ARBUTUS Where'er dew and sunshine have wrought Their marvels of tints and perfume There lieth impearled a sweet Thought, Like a Soul embodied in bloom. And when Winter his white hand lifts From the lips of flowers I love, There's a voiceful murmur that drifts O'er every meadow and grove. And when I go early to meet These fair-mantled comers of Spring, I find on the rocks at my feet The daintiest, shiest, wee thing 109 SONG AND SERMON That ever fair April let fall 'Mid the wealth of her jewelled showers, The bravest and sweetest of all Her wondrous boquet of flowers. The Trailing Arbutus, e'er sought 'Mong mosses and mantling leaves, Holding to her pink heart the thought That only true patience conceives. For months did she silently hold Sweet hopes in the bud of her breast. The wealth of her perfume untold, The tints of her beauty unguessed. The clouds brought her burdens of snow. And bitter rains beat her bowed head, Still stronger did the brown buds grow And farther the soft tendrils spread, Until to her solitude came The sound of hushed foot-falls above ; 'Twas the Sunbeams with lances of flame Bringing gifts of beauty and love. 110 TO THE KING'S DAUGHTERS Then straightway the wind-spirits caught The Soul she was ready to give, And softly repeated her thought, "Be patient and brave while you live." TO THE KING'S DAUGHTERS The harp of love hath many strings And needs the touch of master hands, Though every soul in secret sings In strains God only understands. I fain would chant of circles old, In boundless realms of blue, above Whose ever-radiant members hold An endless festival of love. Far through the spaces infinite They send their gifts of beauty rare, On waves of never-fading light, That all the universe may share. Ill SONG AND SERMON In circles dance the silver stars, In circles wheel the golden suns. In circles weave the rainbow bars, In circles Life's swift river runs! And one of many Circles, we With kindling eye and smiling lip, Oft celebrate rejoicingly Sweet days of loving fellowship. And each recalls the happy hours, When leaving common, daily care, We gathered up our thoughts and flowers And bore them to our Circle fair And felt our burdens strangely lift As one by one the little band Exchanged with us love's greetings swift, By glance of eye or touch of hand. With mirth and music have we met, And when Death's silent shadow fell, With mingled tears of sad regret Together whispered our "Farewell." 112 TO THE KING'S DAUGHTERS. And ever as the years sweep by, More brightly burns love's sacred flame, And stronger grows the blessed tie That makes us workers "In His name." O, may our power for good increase, And each succeeding cycle bring Fresh blessings of His love and peace To every daughter of the King! 113 AMERICA. America! we hail thee as the hope of all the world ! The stars in growing number on thy banner bright unfurled Are the shining letters of the grandest prophecy That ever thrilled the hearts of men longing to be free ! O, land of matchless rivers and mighty mountain chains, Of countless virgin acres in valleys, hills, and plains, 0, promise land of plenty to the poor of every clime, Thou are the choicest jewel in the crown of Father Time! Yet thy Past is but a span, so very young thou art, But still it proved thy power and royalty of heart, And precious blood-baptisms and trials as by fire Have made thy soil thrice sacred and led the nations higher. 114 AMERICA Unto thy clear-eyed genius have land and sea and air Delivered up their treasures to scatter every- where, Till the wildest elements by thee are tamed and taught To bear man's countless burdens and gird the world with thought. But more than all the splendors of all the stars above Will be the reign of justice, good-fellowship, and love, When man meets man as brother and selfish hoardings cease, When war and hate are ended and the Nation studies peace. O, fair America, to thy future now we turn In anxious, prayerful waiting, while hearts with high hopes burn, To see thee wisely perfect the blessed work begun, And make glad this Century by deeds of justice done. 115 SONG AND SERMON Build thou a true Republic, the noblest of the earth, Where men with equal rights will strive for equal worth, Where no race, nor creed, nor station, shall lie beneath a ban, And even frailest woman may have equal chance with man! Dethrone the false god Mammon, abolish selfish wars, Share Nature's bounties freely as light of sons and stars! Let the crimson flag of War forevermore be furled, That Liberty and Peace may enlighten all the world ! 116 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL. A Lecture Delivered at Metropolitan Temple, San Francisco, Sunday Evening, November 29, 1885. It has been said that "Dead men tell no tales," but if one might tell the story of human progress from Adam, the first man, to the angel, or per- fected spirit, it would be a very long story. If the history of this progress were written, all the volumes in all the libraries of the world could be duplicated in number and in size. We must start out with the affirmation of the great Leibnitz that "Logical truth is equivalent to actual truth; rational possibility is necessarily reality; ideas are identical with things." When we speak of creation we use the term relatively ; there was never anything created; nothing has ever been taken from or added to the sum total of life, and never will be. In the Genesaic record it is stated that after God made everything, on the seventh day He 119 SONG AND SERMON rested from His work. Now, so far as we know, there never was a day of rest for God, and crea- tion was never finished. We look upon the solemn splendors of the heavens which to our finite gaze appear ever the same, and we say: "The heavens are perfect; there can be nothing added to their glories ; these activities which to our consciousness make no sound are perpetually the same; the golden keys of this magnificent in- strument ever yield the same harmonies, there are no variations." We are mistaken; the very heavens are still in process of making, and as for the earth, we know this is true. Everything which we can observe is undergoing changes which we note are from the simple toward the complex. Leibnitz maintains that all monads contain an inherent, inward energy by which they develop themselves spontaneously, and are, properly speaking, soul. We must agree with Leibnitz in this particular in all the evolutions of life there has been no increase of either matter or spirit. What we call life and death, organization and dis- integration, is simply re-formation in the realm of both matter and spirit. I say matter and spirit, and yet we know that when we have reduced 120 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL matter to its last analysis it becomes force or spirit. Matter is infinitely divisible, and when we come to the last divisibility which we can cognize it becomes a force invisible and finite mind cannot conceive of that condition of matter which we call an atom. It is only by observing the combination of these atoms, the phenomena of life as exhibited to our senses, that we know any- thing of their nature. By observing the atoms in their combinations, and tracing them backward to the first form of life that appeared upon the planet we find it a simple substance, a cellular tissue, forming the actual basis of all organic ex- istence. From protoplasm we advance by slow degrees to the realm of volition. The history of the earth and of mankind upon the planet as conceived by the majority of men in past ages is utterly opposed to modern scien- tific facts and theories. We are compelled to dis- miss the theory of creation as theologically stated. The six days in which God created the heavens and the earth and all that they contain, crowning His work with man in the Garden of Eden. We find in the infallible book of Nature evidences of vast stretches of time between the laying of the foundations of organized life and the final ap- 121 SONG AND SERMON pearance of man. For the confirmation of this fact we point to the processes of world-formations going on in the sidereal heavens. Already the as- tronomer has resolved the nebulous clouds into systems which are analogous to our own. Spec- trum analysis has proven the unity which exists between all worlds; that there is a similarity in the substances which compose the members of our own and other solar systems. In other words, as Alexander von Humboldt declares, "The universe is governed by immutable law." By slow and patient study that great soul untangled the skein of existence until he deciphered the fact that life is a unit, that the same principles obtain in all forms of being, and that it was by progressive steps that the earth was prepared for even the lowest forms of animal existence. And now the question arises (and we can give but a cursory glance at this inexhaustible subject), What is meant by the word "creation"? In what portion of the universe is enshrined the source of life, and what was it that first projected forms into existence ? Upon what are these forms dependent, and what was their origin ? We go back to Leibnitz and declare that every atom is a soul ; that inhering in all substances is the soul-princi- 122 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL pie, and that by the combination of these forces the first organisms appeared upon the planet; that organization and dissolution are the pro- cesses by which are evolved the highest expres- sions of Divine Will. Through these changes the atomic soul climbs upward into intelligent, individual, conscious identity, the atomic soul possessing perception but not consciousness. That which we call law is universal intelligence; for instance, the crystals form themselves intelli- gently. If you have visited the chemist's labora- tory you may have observed how the elements in different combinations, each mathematically pre- cise, form new substances; like causes producing forevermore like results. We trace backward the activities of the spirit, and find that the fire-mist from which the world was at first evolved contained all the forces which are manifest in life to-day vegetable, animal, human and spiritual. The primal soul began its work down in the very structure of the world prior to all organic existence. While we may not endorse in its entirety the "Darwinian theory," we do most assuredly en- dorse the idea of evolution as admirably illus- trated by that great man. 123 SONG AND SERMON By the combination of spiritual forces (and all forces are spiritual), an infinite variety of forms were projected. While man's origin may not be traced to any particular animal, we believe the soul-presence in the world to-day is the result of all the organiza- tions and activities of the past, and by association these original atom-souls have become identical with human consciousness. But to entertain this thought we must allow for creation an almost in- finite period of time. It is impossible for us in one, or even many generations, to see any trans- formations of species; by repeated experiments with animals very marked modifications have been produced. But it is impossible for us to imagine, without allowing an immense period of time, the monad transformed into animal life ; and quite as impossible for us to imagine the four-footed beasts transformed into the upright, thinking, moral and religious human being; and yet it has been aptly remarked that the chasm between the ape and the Australian bushmen is not so difficult to bridge as that between the bushmen and a Shakespeare or a Bacon we can as readily con- ceive of the one as the other. In this lowest human type we observe those traits which may 124 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL possibly develop into the qualities of the highest type. We can also trace in the highest animal type many of the human traits. In the bony struc- ture we see many indices pointing toward higher development. But it is only by spanning an im- mense period of time, and studying the fossil re- mains of extinct species that we are able to trace the development from simple to complex forms, the zoophyte transformed into the mollusk, the mollusk to vertebrate, vertebrate to mammal, and thus finally "from monad to man." The materialist objects to the idea of immor- tality for human souls on the ground that if we go on propagating our species the time will come when the universe will be overcrowded the Mal- thusian theory carried over into the spirit world ; there is not room enough in God's universe for all the souls that might be created! This objection may be met by a very simple illustration. Here is a pint of water; one portion we will leave in its liquid state, another we will convert into its gaseous elements, and still another we will ex- pand into vapor. In doing this we have not de- stroyed a single atom of our pint of water, and although we converted two parts into new forces, we have not in anywise added to the sum of 125 SONG AND SERMON simple substances which first composed the water. So it is with life in all of its forms; if in the process of what we call living we convert the grosser substances into sublimated matter, we have not necessarily added to the volume of mat- ter in the universe; we have simply transposed these atoms, giving them new relationships and new activities. So, as I have said, creation is a misnomer; but re-formation is forever taking place. What is life and what is soul? Whence did they originate? What is consciousness? These are great questions. Life is that all-permeating essence from which no substance can escape ; it is co-eternal with God. It is related to and governed by law, and in its first form and last analysis it is intelligence. What is it that enables the particles which constitute the lily to so combine and arrange themselves as forever to present the same appear- ance ? I reply, they are intelligent ; they may not consciously work, but they are related to the universal life, are governed by a law of intelli- gence. What we call law in the realm of nature is simply what the Spiritualist and Religionist may call God. It is that perception which resides 126 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL in every atom of matter, causing it to arrange itself with such perfection and harmony, such mathematical precision as is manifest in the min- eral, vegetable and animal kingdom. What we call man's soul is simply the result of all these progressive steps of creation, from the monad to spiritual consciousness; the result of the intelli- gent combination, the relationship existing be- tween the atoms which are governed by a law in- herent in each. Thus the history of man, when it is written, will be the history of the world. And man's being is a sufficient reason for all that has preceded him. His development has been the liberation and new arrangement of spiritual forces eternally existent. Therefore the origin of man and the material universe are identical, what we call matter and spirit playing together in infinite harmony, producing the beautiful and varied changes throughout the realm of life. It has been said that in every human con- sciousness there lingers a faint memory of Eden innocence and that the Golden Age in which man once lived has left somewhat of its glitter in the soul ; a fragrant flower of memory. And in a certain sense this is true; the Garden of Eden, where every human consciousness is born, is the 127 SONG AND SERMON Soul's sweet day of innocence which antedates the first act of conscious wrong. Therefore the fall of man, considered in this light, and in a certain sense, is a literal fact. But humanity as a whole never before enjoyed such freedom from sinfulness, such purity, as it enjoys to-day; and every re-combination of matter, every organiza- tion builded anew in the world, has a tendency to prepare for further dreams of beauty and give to life a still brighter glow ; the Golden Age is yet to be realized ; it is a future possibility ; it is a promise toward the fulfillment of which we are daily tending. There is constantly going on in the organic world refining processes ; from the basis of crea- tion in the electric fluids to the present time there has been a perpetual preparation for still higher forms of life. The Adamic man dates back of all history, even beyond the discovered fossil re- mains of extinct species of animal forms. But the journey has been forward all the way, through every form of matter, from mollusk to mammal, on and up to the present period ; link by link this perfect chain has been formed until it can truly be said that man is a microcosm, the epitome of the universe. In other words, this deathless soul 128 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL resident in the invisible atom has traveled upward through all these forms to the present time, bear- ing with it the results of the struggles of the ages and combining in its present consciousness all the activities of bygone centuries. So that to- day your bodies are truly the outgrowth of bodies long extinct. Your senses are the manifestation of soul-forces which have undergone innumerable combinations. Therefore the soul, as well as the body, is a natural product, and God Himself is one with Nature. And when the soul experiences the higher birth and is released from the bondage of the flesh, it can look backward through the dim vistas of the past and trace its course upward through all variety of forms. This is the key to what is called psychometry or the soul-reading of material substances. * * * * The soul of man is the encyclopedia of all past histories. The doctrine of "The survival of the fittest" carried forward in the light of Spiritualism pre- sents a philosophical proposition in regard to im- mortality. It is far easier, in the light of common, every- day experiences, for us to conceive of beings superior to man resulting from changes going on 129 SONG AND SERMON about us, than it is for the lower orders of creation to comprehend the intellectual activities of man. What conception has the faithful dog of the images in his master's mind ? Man at the present time possesses rudimentary organs of spiritual being which are slowly developing, as indicated in clairvoyance and clairaudience. Therefore, from Adam to angel there is to be traced, link by link, a law of organic and intellectual development which is quite possible for us to comprehend. Through scientific investigation and experiment the difficulties of life and the horrors of so-called death are being gradually overcome. We have at last demonstrated the possibilities of soul-exist- ence without the intervention of a miracle; the survival of the fittest portion of human nature is in accordance with eternal law and immortality is a logical sequence of earthly life. We con- ceive of a time when there will not be an atom of this planet which will not become so etherialized that it may become a component part of a spiritual organization. Follow thi& thought : Every day new forms of life are being projected; every day there are being liberated new forces, and new applications being made of mechanical principles. This planet 130 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL which was once fire-mist or a fragment flung from the bosom of the sun, is being slowly trans- formed, man himself helping to create a new heaven and a new earth, transmuting gross sub- stances into delicate instruments of power. Can you not conceive that, just as the lower forms of life, say the vegetable, are being absorbed by the animal, animal by man, and man by the spir- itual, that by progressive steps at last every atom of the globe will have been freed from its present gross appearance and evolved to sublimated form? I maintain that every substance in existence is the production of the Divine Will, a manifesta- tion of the Divine Life ; and every manifestation of human intelligence is the legitimate fruits of all the activities that preceded it. The effect of the dissolution of the body is simply to liberate inhering spiritual qualities, readjusting them to new environments, the volume of consciousness eternally increasing. The old myth that Adam was created out of the dust of the earth, and that "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul," contains a beautiful truth. The Infinite Intelligence thus breathes through 131 SONG AND SERMON human intelligence ; and we can philosophically consider that the day is sure to come when what is now faulty, sensuous, "of the earth, earthy," shall be converted into the spiritual and heavenly. Within the breast of every human being there is the possible angel, as in the monad there was the potential man. In the transmutations which take place in the dissolution of these physical bodies the angel is set free to seek in its new estate more suitable environment, the horizon per- petually expanding and all ways opening outward toward the Infinite. The old idea of a miraculous creation ; of a God that has the power, and sometimes the will, to destroy this world, is passing away, and we find ourselves in a wondrous universe where alien- ation from God is impossible ; where retrogression is nowhere to be found, and where Progress is the natural trend of all things. From ape to angel is better than from angel to devil. We see in the history of the globe, which is God's Scripture, that man's falling has always been forward, and that the evolution of life has been like the motion of the stars, full of measure- 132 FROM ADAM TO ANGEL less harmony. And from what we have already gleaned in the boundless fields of truth we may confidently hope that the human soul will yet be- come worthy of its illimitable inheritance. 133 CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR The subject of this lecture is Psychics and Religion instead of Physics. PHYSICS AND RELIGION. An Address Delivered at McVicker's Theatre, Chicago, 111., Sunday Evening, June 3, 1888. "I confess to you, there is something in my mind of sublimity in the idea that the world is full of spirits, good and evil, who are pursuing their various errands, and that the little that we can see with these bat's eyes of ours, the little we can decipher with these imperfect senses, is not the whole of the reading of those vast pages of that great volume which God has written. There is in the lore of God more than our philosophy has ever dreamed of. * * * "There have been times in which I declare to you heaven was more real than earth; in which my children that were gone spoke more plainly to me than my children that were with me ; in which the blessed estate of the spirits of just men made perfect in heaven seemed more real than the estate of any just man on earth. These are experiences that link one with another and a higher life. They are gen- 137 SONG AND SERMON erally not continuous but occasional openings through which we look into another world." "These glimpses of the future state are a great comfort and consolation to all those who are looking for the development of perfect manhood." Henry Ward Beecher. PHYSICS AND RELIGION. In our search after truth, Nature is our only infallible authority. If we would have a perfect moral standard, we must go to her, questioning her will, her law of life. If we would better our condition as physical beings, it is from her great, inexhaustible storehouse that we must draw all of our supplies. Study History and learn by what hard, laborious effort, grievous strife and suffer- ing men have discovered the fact that to violate a law of their own being is to bring upon them- selves sorrowful consequences. If man would enjoy the ineffable delights that flow from the fountains of life he must adjust himself har- moniously to his surroundings and advantage himself by seeking Nature's truths, breathing her pure air, drinking in her placid sunshine; and if 138 PHYSICS AND RELIGION he would expand the realm of thought, it is by studying again her pages as unrolled in the ma- terial universe, where, on every side, appear forms various, multitudinous, expressive of invisible force. Even what is called divine revelation is simply man's apprehension of higher truth; and all the Bibles of the world are records of man's spiritual experiences. To these Bibles there is something added day by day. None of them shall ever know completion; for the soul is infinite in its possibilities, and has eternity in which to un- fold them; and every glimpse we get of the life eternal, which is manifest as truly in these forms of matter, and as divinely in the operations of natural law as anywhere or in any way every glimpse is an added sentence to these sacred books of humanity, and are indices of that which is yet to follow. And while our subject leads us to dwell upon the psychical side of life, we would have you understand that we have great reverence for what men call matter. We know of nothing profane or unclean in all this universe. What we call matter and spirit are ever-changing places and interchanging compliments. The body is the necessary and beautiful comrade of the spirit, without which the spirit would be deprived of half 139 SONG AND SEXMON the pleasure which it now experiences through that medium. Indeed, matter and spirit in the last analysis are one and the same in God. The most positive form of matter, matter in its gross- est expression, is reducable to invisible force. The diamond and the granite yielding to chemical action are converted into the unseen and the im- palpable. On the other hand, the innermost thought of God sometimes shines forth even in our poor human life, in heroic action, sublime patience, willingness to suffer, and desire to grow morally strong, and in love ineffable. So, seen from the viewpoint of the true spiritualist, life in all of its varied manifestations, is a unit. We may call it Nature or God, it is one and the same. It stands for this mighty play of Force ; these ever- varying forms, these eternally iterating symphonies that sweep from the golden keyboard of shining worlds down into the silent depths of human thought and spiritual contemplation. I affirm then, that we are spirits now as much as we ever shall be; that this is God's world as truly as any glittering star where pauses the seraph in his happy flight this hour to listen to the deep and tender intonations of infinite love as they 140 PHYSICS AND RELIGION roll out from the soul-depths of boundless nature. And I furthermore affirm that whatever has been in the past, whatever is in the present, whatever shall be in the countless years to come, has been, is, will be subject to the law of Necessity; and that God, or good, law and order, has reigned, now reigns, shall reign forever, supreme, Sov- ereign over all. This which we call matter is but the medium through which spirit is manifest; you are all visible mediums of an invisible force. And the materialist, who declares that all that is real is this which we can cognize with our poor five senses has only learned the first letter of that long alphabet which is by and by to spell for us the infinite scriptures of eternal truth. Is there an architectural form in your beautiful city that was not first an impalpable thrill in some man's brain ? Is there in poetry or song, in the arts and sciences a single breath, one note, a demonstration that was not first an impalpable thought ? Do you not see, my friends, that every act of our lives is a psychical act, or proceeds from the realm of soul ? That even yon building is held in place by invisible force? The strength of the granite lies in the invisible force that holds the atoms and molecules together. Talk about the 141 SONG AND SERMON unreality of the invisible is pure nonsense. We know that we are thinking beings, yet we never saw a thought. We never saw the prompter of these actions that make up the drama of human life. If you say you do not know that you have a soul, I reply, You are a Soul. There never was a form of matter until the spirit demanded that it should be. The Soul called for the hand, the eye, the ear that it might acquaint itself with cer- tain manifestations of spirit through matter. Now with these few general affirmations let us proceed to the application of their truth to our own personal needs. There is no danger of our asking Nature any question which she is either unable or unwilling to answer. There is no danger of our making any demand upon her treas- ures of thought or material which she will not be able to supply. There is no danger of our coming too close to God's truth. Our only danger lies in our ignorance. All the evils which afflict this world had their origin in ignorance. When we grow up into the light of Truth, into the light of Nature's law and adjust ourselves in harmony therewith, physical diseases disappear,- weariness of spirit passes away, and we are one with the order and beauty of the universe. 142 PHYSICS AND RELIGION I said in the outset that what is called divine revelation, the sacred books of the world, are simply the history of man's spiritual experiences. That which the human soul clings to with the greatest tenacity for hope, for strength, for guid- ance is the psychical experience of some man or woman of ancient or modern times, who, in a lucid moment, in a partial or perfect trance, with the senses under subjection to the Spirit, heard with other than these outward ears, saw with other than these common eyes, felt with other than these bodily senses, a voice that had been hushed in the grave, a face that had been veiled by the shadow of death, a touch from the unseen. Is it not so? What are the sayings of the prophets to us except as they tell us of a life higher and holier than this, and point to the presence of the living God ? What was the vision of John upon the Isle of Patmos if not a psychical experience? Chris- tians who urge arguments against the facts and phenomena of modern Spiritualism are putting into the hands of materialists and scoffers weapons with which to slay their own precious faith. If there is good reason why our friends who have passed through the gate of death should not re- 143 SONG AND SERMON turn to us with blessings, guidance and good cheer, there was reason why those of old should not have returned ; why John should have repelled and doubted the vision. And good reason why Paul on the wonderful journey should have de- clared the heavenly voice a delusion, and rejected the cry, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Good reason why he should have declared this to be the result of a diseased nervous condition rather than an appeal on the part of an arisen spirit who felt that the truth that he brought to light in the world should be carried forward by chosen instruments to bless mankind. Now, I affirm that the law which rendered it possible for the ancient prophets and for Christ's disciples to feel a thrill from the world invisible, to catch glimpses of radiant forms of angels, to hear spirit voices, to foretell coming events, was as natural, as universal and as unchangeable as the law of gravitation ; and therefore any vision which comes to man from the psychical side of life simply demonstrates his power of adjustment to that law. The paucity of these manifestations, the lack of them in ages gone, the visits of the angels being few and far between, was not because the law did not exist, any more than our ignorance of the 144 PHYSICS AND RELIGION beauties of the stellar spheres rendered their ex- istence impossible ; but simply proves that human life is subject to the law of evolution, and just as man waited for a mental development capable of the higher mathematics and intelligent observa- tion of the stars ; just as he waited for the correct reading of geological formations and experimental chemistry, so he waited and still waits for the development of the psychical powers. In connection with this development we see many distortions of the truth. In nature, through all the transmutations of matter there is a cease- less effort to preserve the equilibrium of forces ; symmetry of form, beauty of outline, healthy growth and harmonious action are all the result of this eternal necessity. And glancing at the history of modern Spiritualism we find that the celestial world offers no exception to this law. One would naturally suppose that angel's visits, the demonstration of life beyond the grave, the sweet messages of hope and love that have broken the awful silence of death, the holy vision and precious promises that have blossomed in the great desert of our unbelief would be free from all unseemly disturbances, and that in the light streaming through the cloud-rifts of human sor- 145 SONG AND SERMON row only good germs would fructify. But here, too, is shown the correspondence between the physical and spiritual forces. For even as sun- light develops nascent deformities and dormant beauties side by side, vitalizes the spawn of rep- tiles and white lily-bulbs simultaneously, so the light of spiritual truth, falling through a great variety of mediums, is infinitely refracted and reveals life's distortions as well as its divine graces. Therefore we have ancient mysticisms warmed to life in the bosom of our spiritual philosophy; reincarnation wriggling forth from the dust-heaps of buried centuries, and egotism gone to seed in the notion that heroes, poets and master-souls of the past are again with us clothed in common flesh ! The flood of light pouring from the Spirit-world has dazzled us ; our credul- ity is drunk on this new wine; in short, we have lost our spiritual equilibrium, and as a conse- quence we must suffer a reactionary shock. We have sat worshipfully at the feet of inspired elo- quence, drinking in every word as infallible. We have cried "Give, give," even while our measures were running over. The more we got of super- mundane facts the more we craved, and this un- reasonable demand created an adulterated supply. 146 PHYSICS AND RELIGION We wanted the impossible; we got a simulation of it ! Aye, and in such doses as produced mental nausea the soul's involuntary effort to regain her equilibrium. And now let us ask if nature's method of growth is not, after all, the surest and best? In proportion to the spreading of the tree's roots do its branches extend, keeping the balance true; in proportion to the respect we pay to life's begin- nings will our faculties unfold for the enjoy- ment of divine ends. The facts of Spiritualism should not draw our eyes away from this world, but, on the contrary, when rightly studied, will they translate for us its hidden meanings. In my opinion these facts have not kindled a solitary hope in the heart, the tap-root of which does not extend deep into this life's daily duties. Let us seek humbly, go carefully on this dimly lighted way, assort and classify our facts, and, above all, deserve to live forever. Every failure along the line of mechanical in- vention and discovery, by inducing further study and experiments has resulted in grander achieve- ments than were at first anticipated. So will it be with every failure of honest endeavor to find out spiritual truth. 147 SONG AND SERMON Spiritualism, as I understand it, is the anti- thesis of supernaturalism and the strongest foe of superstition. There is no such thing as the super- natural. Everything that we think and feel and see, whether it be on the plane of the physical or spiritual, is in accordance with eternal law. Now, what has been the fruitage of the psych- ical experiences of mankind? Why, out of them have sprung all the systems of religion that the world has ever seen. Religion is the Soul's awakening to full consciousness of its own ex- istence and the effort to come into right rela- tions with the infinite Good. Religion is the Soul's hunger and thirst after Righteousness, the blos- soming of Faith into knowledge of God. And psychical experiences have had a direct and help- ful influence in unfolding the religious nature of mankind. Our sacred books are simply the histories of these experiences, visions, hearing of voices, exaltations, the apprehension of moral truths and spiritual relationships. And the world is never left without God's witnesses. According to our need, as we are prepared, ripened in spirit, the vision comes, the voice is heard, the Way ap- pears. Slowly but surely the river of Light presses its way along the centuries, through desert 148 PHYSICS AND RELIGION wastes and wildernesses of human ignorance and wrong, some sweet day to cleanse the last stain, and lift the last burden from the breast of the human race. Why should we reject the psychical experi- ences of to-day ? This is a very vital question. If you are a theosophist, and believe that you can project an astral body beyond the environment of your own personal sphere, you still cannot prove that that luminous form is not dependent upon laws of matter for its transit and appear- ance. If you are a mind-curist or a Christian Scientist, you are simply an interpreter of laws that are universal in the life of man. And all that has been manifest of truth in past times, and all that we hope for in the future is already resi- dent in the soul. I love to think upon the visions that came to John, Peter and Paul. I love to remember that a man like St. Paul, when in error, could be converted to truth by a voice from the unseen. I love to believe that the blessed Master, who had taught for three glorious years the divine doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, when the beautiful form was wrapped in the mystery of death, could, as a living Soul, project himself beyond the line of the 149 SONG AND SERMON invisible and so impinge upon the mortal sphere that the devoted sorrowing women who sought him might be assured that they had found their Lord. I love to believe that in life's great strug- gle, in the blindness of ignorance, in the agony of bereavement, there are those about us who have passed through the ordeal of mortal life and death, who can, like those of old, come so near to us in our prison-house of clay as to shed a beam of light across our darkened path and whisper into the silence of our despair the assurance that death is but the open door to a larger, purer, sweoter life which God has provided for all His children. I do not see why these constantly re- curring visions, these evidences of the power of ex-carnate spirits should bring consternation to any class of people. If you dismiss old prejudices and listen to the oracles within, God-implanted, do you not find the doctrine of a natural, active spirit world perfectly rational? Is there any- thing in the discoveries of Science that conflicts with the central claim of modern Spiritualism ? On the contrary, every advancing step of Science is preparing the way for the doctrine of a demonstrable immortality. Mesmerism, thought- transference, telepathy, all point to the possible 150 PHYSICS AND RELIGION power of the excarnate spirit. Have we reason to suppose that the physical brain is absolutely indispensable to the thinking spirit? On the contrary our experiences prove that intelligence is at times quite independent of the flesh. And what is the relationship of this psychical law to our every-day life? It suggests to us the possibility of our becoming while on earth, to a degree, free from the bondage of the flesh, which has been the barrier between our souls and much that is beautiful and true. It refreshes our spirits with new baptisms of hope; it supplies the miss- ing link between the bereaved heart and the de- parted friend ; it overturns the theological dogmas that have so long been obstacles in the way of human progress. The psychical powers of Soc- rates, Jesus, Paul and the apostles inspired virtu- ous action, poured balm upon wounded souls, and healed diseases of both mind and body. Every new revelation from the spirit world justifies our grandest hopes. Every fresh vision ac- centuates the fact of the natural life of the spirit, and reveals to us the fact that we are to begin our heaven now and here; that our toil and griefs, our gains and losses are but the necessary discipline through which the soul 151 SONG AND SERMON passes in ascending to higher planes of truth, beauty and joy. We are enwrapped by the spiritual world. We are inhabitants of it al- ready. The least soul inherits all the Past, is heir to all the future, and every breath of truth that kisses the face of being here is a signal from God beckoning us onward and upward forever. 152 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR. A Lecture Delivered at Sunnybrae, Cupertino, Cal., June 2, 1894. "We are called to be witnesses to the world of a freer, more equal, more humane, more en- lightened social existence than has yet been known. May God raise us to a more thorough comprehension of our work! May He give us faith in the good which we are summoned to achieve! May He strengthen us to build up a prosperity not tainted by slavery, selfishness or any wrong; but pure, innocent, righteous and overflowing, through a just and generous inter- course, on all the nations of the earth !" William Ellery C banning. Prophecy is but the right reading of cause and effect ; "events cast their shadows before" ; the principles of nature are adjusted according to an unerring, infinite, mathematical law, from the microscopic molecule to the birth and death of 155 SONG AND SERMON worlds. Events are the edicts of God, and Nature's acts of obedience. Therefore to prophesy one needs but to study carefully the signs of the times, and there are those at the pres- ent time who are feeling at their hearts' center a restless, uneasy, stirring under this same spirit of prophecy. There are those of free and un- clouded intelligence who are studying the events of to-day and forecasting in reference to the future of our beloved America. There are indi- cations of coming storms, which, I think, if we will lift our thought above our petty, narrow, every-day common interests, and lay our fingers upon the pulse of the world, we shall find are eloquent in prophecies of our future. I am not one to believe it is wise to prophesy evil. I am not pessimistic in my view of the condition of the world to-day. I do not think it is well to fill the hearts of the people with forebodings which we cannot relieve, but I do believe it is best to arouse them intellectually, morally and spiritually, to an earnest consideration of our American problems from the general standpoint of social ethics. You may wonder that I have chosen this theme for a Sabbath Day's discourse. It is be- 156 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR cause I believe that all days are God's days, and if there is one day that we should set apart for special thought and service to the Most High, I know not of a better work I would set to doing on such a day and at this moment than to try to kindle in the hearts of my hearers a deeper reverence for humanity everywhere, and if pos- sible inspire them with a desire to better the con- ditions of the people, not only in America, but over the broad earth, and also to arouse them to a realization of the power which is vested in them. The great fault of the present day is that we are too much absorbed in our individual inter- ests, and do not recognize where our ship of State is drifting, nor how our homes are en- dangered by this apathetic attitude. This is an era of broad measures. It is not a time for drawing close and narrow lines, but a time for widening the horizon of our thought, and for extending our sympathies in every direction. Therefore we cannot afford the policy suggested by the cry, "America for Americans." I believe that the starving peasant of France, of Germany or of "Darkest England" is as dear to the heart of God as any member of the British Parliament, or any member of the Congress of the United 157 SONG AND SERMON States. I believe that the wisest policy, and that which will be the most successful will be the one which takes into consideration all humanity. And the adoption of such a policy in efforts to solve grave national problems can only be realized by the growth of high ideals on the part of the pri- vate citizen. There is not a soul present but may wield an influence for good, if not in so wide a sphere as his neighborhood, certainly in the sphere of home. And our homes, after all, are but the miniature of the nation. Just so intelligent, patriotic and moral as are our homes, just so in- telligent, patriotic and moral will our nation be. Therefore to you as home builders, to you whose homes are in prospect, to you, young men and women, let me say that the sooner you regard with reverence the principles of true patriotism, the sooner you begin to receive instructions along these great lines of national interest, the sooner you begin to study political economy, the sooner will the great questions before this nation be set- tled in the interests of eternal justice. Upon each and every one of you rests the great obligation and responsibility of using to the utmost such in- fluence as you have for purifying the moral atmos- phere in which you live. I mean that atmosphere 158 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR of daily living, into which are crowded so many of the little things of life. If these little things be kept pure and ring with the note of true har- mony, they help to swell the symphony of freedom and brotherhood which we hope one day will en- circle the globe. Your politics and religion ought to go hand in hand. I care not for that pseudo- religion that does not color every act. If a man ever performs a religious duty it is when, with the ballot, he determines to a greater or less degree the happiness of his country. That we may understand this question and see clearly what our duty is, let us divest ourselves of all party and race prejudice, and consider how closely we are bound together. We are a unit, and it is impossible from the nature of things for us to ignore the condition of any individual, whether that person be in a state of degradation, of abject want and misery, or affluent and abound- ing in joy. For he is sending out influences which sooner or later will impinge upon our own indi- vidual sphere. The poor Chinaman, the German, the Frenchman, the Russian, the Jew, no matter of what race or how obscure, or how far removed from us in condition, has some influence upon us, and every act of generosity, every thought of 159 SONG AND SERMON sympathy which we send forth will affect the condition of those people, wherever they may be. Let us look upon humanity from the altitude from which we suppose God looks upon it. Not as this or that nationality, but as human beings with certain rights and wants, who hunger and thirst ; as beings whom love and moral influence may elevate. If the Christian scriptures mean any- thing; if the scriptures on the face of nature mean anything; if the scriptures in the human soul itself mean any thing, they mean that fraternity is a principle. The fatherhood of God is a mis- nomer without that twin-principle, the brother- hood of man. But that principle of the brother- hood of man means not only that an American is our brother, because we are Americans, but it means that anyone in the universe, spirit or mortal, is our brother, as God is our father. No man can afford to wrong his neighbor, no nation can afford to adopt a narrow and selfish policy, for nature will have her way, and only that which redounds to the uni- versal good will endure. How many times in the history of individuals and nations the selfish policy has been surrendered at an awful cost! From our viewpoint of to-day we can see that if 160 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR the North and the South forty years ago had come together and arbitrated their difficulties, they might have avoided the shedding of precious blood and the enormous expense of the civil war, which has left a blot upon our nation's history. It seems to me that the time has come for the arbitration of all great difficulties, whether per- sonal or national, and that we should no longer resort to brute force. When any corporation takes the position of stubborn, unreasoning re- sistance against any other body of people, the State should step in and settle that difficulty. In other words, we should have State committees appointed for the arbitration of these questions. They should not be left to the tyranny of private citizens or corporated bodies, and settled at the expense of innocent parties and against all com- mon interests. Is this not much better than set- tling them at the point of the sword or at the cannon's mouth? Human invention has reached such a state of perfection that modern warfare has become enormously destructive, and you mothers have a right to protest against it, and to refuse to bear sons to be slain upon the battlefield. A word further in regard to "America for Americans." I do not wish to ignore the 161 SONG AND SERMON gravity of the immigration problem. Free and unrestricted immigration has attracted a great horde of ignorant foreigners to our soil, and without proper parties to meet them upon their landing, to intelligently and unselfishly instruct them as to what should be their procedure after arriving here, they have been a great menace. Right here lies the cause of very much of the trouble under which the American people are now suffering, and is an element of danger to the whole nation. But what is the remedy? I do not think it lies in drawing lines of restriction. I do not think this is an age in which a Chinese wall would be successful, nor an age in which we can say to one class of people, "You shall stay at home, though you are crowded there, and starv- ing, and suffering awful degradation. America is for Americans, and we will not have you upon our shores." I know there are many here to-day who take a different view. I know there are many wise men and women who think we ought to immedi- ately restrict immigration and render it impossible for Europe to send its paupers and criminals to our shores. I answer by repeating my first proposition, namely, that a man in darkest Eng- 162 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR land, a woman there with a starving babe pressed to her bosom, is as precious in the eyes of the Infinite as any babe starving here in America. I believe there is room in America for these people who are coming. I believe there is a class already in America that is more dangerous, and of which we hear but very little, viz., the conscienceless, selfish, greedy politicians, who immediately seize upon these ignorant people and place in their hands a tool the ballot with which in time they may destroy our Republic. Another dangerous class to which we should turn our attention is composed of the foreign capitalists, who are greedily gathering into their hands millions of virgin acres, and then renting to the immigrants in such a way that all the profits of the poor man's toil go into the capitalist's already overflowing coffers. Let there be a law that no foreign-born or native-born capitalist shall invest his money in millions, or even thousands of acres of our soil, and hold it unimproved while people are starving for want of bread. Take back from the foreign capitalists these broad acres and turn them over to the poor immigrants who have no- where to lay their heads, and give them a chance to better their conditions and elevate the moral tone of their lives. 163 SONG AND SERMON Do you say there is no room for the laborers and nothing for them to do, when there are mil- lions of acres of untilled land and vast deserts that need water let in upon them ! Let the waters flow over and sweeten them, and where now are only barren wastes will grow bread for the count- less starving creatures of the earth. I think, if we study this question intelligently, we will see that it is not by the extermination of the China- man or the restriction of the poor foreigner that we shall save America, but that it will be by realiz- ing and making use of the power we already pos- sess ; by remembering the inexhaustable resources at our command, by wise distribution of the labor devolving upon the people, and by wise profit- sharing of this labor. Do not understand me to say that we can equalize the wealth of this country by an indis- criminate dividing up of what we now possess. Were we to do this to-day, by to-morrow noon the inequalities would begin to show themselves, and by another year we would have again the rich and the poor. This is because people are not equal, either in intelligence or industry. If we could equalize those two qualities, the greatest problem of America would be solved. Why? 164 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR Because men would see their opportunity, seize upon it and work steadily for success. I have no word of depreciation to utter against the capitalist. I believe in the capitalist. I believe that labor and capital are each necessary in their place. But I would ask the capitalist, Where did your capital come from ? and in what does it con- sist? Money is not wealth, my friends, it is simply a medium of exchange. Our wealth is in our cultivated lands and in our beautiful homes. In the power of our muscles, and above all in the intelligent activity of our brains. Wealth is the ability to appropriate and assimilate the blessings of nature. Wealth lies in those qualities that make true manhood and womanhood. What would be a fair thing between the brain and the hand? The brain cannot do without the hand, the hand cannot do without the brain. Would it be a fair thing for the brain to say to the hand, "I have made the plans, and I will take all the profits derived from your execution of them, ex- cept the bare sustenance that you must have in order to continue your work" ? No ! If one man can organize a plan, and another man is able to successfully carry it out, and wealth results from its execution, that man should share in the profits 165 SONG AND SERMON which he has helped to make. I believe that in this system of co-operation and profit-sharing lies the solution of the labor question. Wherever the profit-sharing system has been tried it has been a success. Set a dozen men to work and say to them that they will be fairly paid for the mere mechanical work, and all that remains after the expenses are paid will be shared equally, and they will do their work more earnestly and with greater interest than under the old system. The poorest man in the United States is the man who has the largest bank account and no sympathy ; who has the largest amount of money and does not know what to do with it. I have no sympathy with a post-mortem benevolence. I be- lieve in a living, active benevolence. A man who leaves to others the execution of his will in refer- ence to a vast property, relinquishing his hold only when compelled by death, deserves no credit for generosity. The widow's mite has more ethical value than his hoarded millions when thus bestowed. So let us broaden our sympathies, and let us, above all things, remember how rich we are, and do not begrudge any poor creature who is looking toward America for a better position, a hold upon the soil. 166 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR When it comes to the question of whether the population of the earth is becoming too great, first let us see if we can avert the danger by com- mon sense, and not by any arbitrary restrictions. In other words, bring a common-sense education into your schools. Teach your children self-con- trol. Teach them the divinity of the body. Teach mothers and fathers that children of a better quality is what America needs. By cultivating the intelligence and moral nature we will settle this question of too much population. Only keep the light of liberty burning everywhere in the home and on the Nation's altars, and peace and prosperity will spread their wings over all the earth. To protect yourselves against the igno- rance and crime of the immigrant, see to it that he shall not remain in ignorance of the principles of a true Republic, and that he is not armed with the ballot, at least until you have become chivalrous enough to bestow it upon your mothers, sisters, sweet-hearts and wives. The enfranchisement of woman is rapidly be- coming a burning question. Thoughtful men are reasoning together, and asking themselves, "Why in the name of common sense have we not thought of this before? Here are women college bred, 167 SONG AND SERMON women fit to bring up our sons and daughters, and we have been so foolish as to think that they have no business with the ballot!" To extend the franchise to women would be an act of simple justice. No argument can be urged in favor of man suffrage that will not apply with equal force to woman suffrage. Since it is usually admitted that women are more moral than men, is it not reasonable to suppose that with their help better laws would be enacted? See to it my brothers, young and old, that your word of approval is spoken for this cause of woman. Legislation bearing upon temperance, social purity and child- labor will never be what it ought to be, nor will the interests of the home be intelligently dealt with by the State until women have an equal voice with man in the Government. What man is going to vote against his own pecuniary inter- est? What woman is going to vote against the moral safety of her home? With mother-votes would the "age of consent" be what it has been, and now is in many of the States? It has been said that the influence of woman has been power- fully felt in our government; that she has im- pressed herself upon the institutions of America ; but that impression is almost imperceptible, com- 168 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR pared to what it might have been had our fore- fathers left that little word "male" out of the Constitution, and made it, not a semi-republic, but a Republic in the full meaning of that term. Let us see to it that our government instead of manning itself for war and training its soldiers ready to make a defense with brute force, arms itself with stronger intelligence and a truer man- hood and womanhood. Let it arm itself in the way of multiplying pubHic schools, and by a compulsory educational law. Let it be compulsory that every child under our flag be taught the English language ; let it be compulsory that every immigrant who lands upon our shores wait at least ten years before he is given the ballot. Keep Church and State eternally apart. Not that I would have religion and politics divorced. That is quite another thing. The Church I care not whether it is Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic or Spiritualist would not properly use political power. If we were to have an established religion in America, I would as soon have Catholicism as Presbyterianism or Unitarianism. Why? Be- cause the moment you have an established church, conscience is stultified and hypocrites multiply. At various times an effort has been made to have 169 SONG AND SERMON Deity recognized in the Constitution of the United States. If God is to be confessed in the American government, if He is to receive national recogni- tion, let it be in the conscience of our politicians. Let it be in true statesmanship, instead of dema- gogery, and we shall soon see His glory spread- ing over the nation, without any assistance from the Constitution. God is a spirit. His will is manifest in every instrumentality that serves for the uplift of the people. Let our patriotism be like that of the much-maligned Thomas Paine, who declared, "The world is my country, and to do good is my religion." Regarding the prejudice that sweeps over the country at times against the Catholic Church, and the excitement, anger and hate that is thus aroused against that Church, with the fear that it threat- ens the life of our Republic, and that the day will come when that Church and the State will con- front each other in battle, to decide which shall rule, I want to say, I have no sympathy with any movement which kindles in the heart of the American people hatred of any class or sect. I believe the Catholic Church has a good reason for its being. I believe it has done a noble work, and that every faith should stand upon its own merits. 170 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR We may feel that we have good reason, from the past history of this Church, to fear its influence upon politics, and should guard against the evil exercise of priestcraft by carrying into our every- day relations with Catholics the recognition of the purposes and ideals held in common with them, arming ourselves with knowledge and meeting them, intellect to intellect, soul to soul. Wherever we find a good Catholic who is also patriotic, working for the good of his neighborhood and the nation, I believe, if he is inspired with American principles, and especially if he has been born under the American flag, that his sympathy will be with the Republic as against the Church, if it should become a question of Church or State. Again let me remind you that wealth is not the gold hoarded up in banks. It is not that which you call Capital in the sense of an arbitrary meas- ure. But wealth lies in the possessions which are ours by natural right. It lies in the resources of our country, and the workingman has the key to the future of this Republic. We can do without capitalists, if worst comes to worst; so long as we have hands that toil, so long as we have hearts that love, we can keep this earth glad and beauti- ful. Nature very seldom fails us. Sometimes 171 SONG AND SEXMON she blights our crops, sometimes the rivers burst from their banks and cover the cultivated lands. Sometimes storms of unusual severity cause de- struction. But after all, nature is not fickle and un- stable. These gusts of temper are but the effort to right herself, and to maintain an equilibrium, and she smiles upon us from out the clouds. Be hope- ful, and cultivate the optimistic spirit that says, "Good is at the core of things" ; "Oh, my broth- ers, God exists !" exclaims Emerson. And, oh, the blessed ministers He has sent us from age to age! The prophets and the seers, the statesmen and the toilers aye, the toilers are always in our midst; they are multiplying a million-fold that which meets the common necessities of life; they are converting waste places into gardens of de- light; crude materials into luxuries, ugliness into beauty. They have builded the iron and steel high- ways of the world; they have woven the wings with which Commerce flies the seas. So long as the toilers are with us and continue to cultivate clear heads and clean hearts, we shall not retro- grade. The whole earth is looking to America to see what she is going to do. There are those who prophesy that the days of our Republic are num- 172 THE NEEDS OF THE HOUR bered. I do not believe it. I believe that true patriotism beats in the hearts of all these young men and women ; it still warms the breasts of the old, and there is a moral force in every com- munity to find expression in the future. When the trial hour comes, that moral force, that patriot- ism, that love of liberty and that large humanity which has characterized us from our birth as a Nation, will leap to the front and press on to victory. 173 "LORD WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO?" Acts ix'&. Address Delivered Under "Temple Oak," Sunny- brae, June 2, 1895. "Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that, if you are here, the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and suc- cessful." Emerson. TEMPLE OAK HYMN. (Tune Auld Lang Syne.) We meet beneath our temple-tree Once more for praise and prayer Bright angels bear us company Our sacred rites to share. 177 TEMPLE OAK HYMN We turn aside from toil and strife To seek for help divine, For Truth, which is the bread of life, And Love, its holy wine. We lift our eyes unto the hills Whence daily strength descends ; All Nature with sweet rapture thrills, And earth with Heaven blends. Our well beloved, through death re-born, Toward whom our hearts still yearn, Sail crystal seas, this Sabbath morn, And to their own return. Oh, may our hearts be cleansed from sin, And as the seasons roll E'er brighter grow the heaven within The deathless human soul. Oh, Thou whose will is Nature's law, Great source of love divine, Lead us in Wisdom's perfect way And lift our lives to Thine. 178 "LORD WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO?" The will and purposes of God are manifest in the laws of the world. Everything that exists has come into being bearing its divinely authenticated credentials and fills its appointed place in the Infinite Economy. We have been in the habit of thinking that only the great men of the world were called of God. The victorious generals; the singers whose songs touch our inmost hearts; the poets whose measures beat soul-ward until we feel God stirring at the core of being; the philosophers whose maxims are the search-lights that throw radiance around our otherwise shadowed paths ; the prophets and inspired teachers who have led the world to truth and liberty; the men appointed to save and govern the nations. It is easy to be- lieve that God has called all these ; but how diffi- cult to realize that our little lives count in the great sum of life; that in God's measures our tiny drop of humanity is taken note of ! The purpose of my message to-day is to em- 179 SONG AND SERMON phasize the value of individual effort and to show how far-reaching may be the influence of the lit- tle things of life. Let us remember that we are called to live only one day at a time. The Past is irrevocable, and exists only in results which, however grievous they may appear to our finite vision, are nevertheless convertible into beauty and blessedness. To act in the living Present, finding what are our highest aptitudes and the means whereby we may follow them, is to obey the veritable call of God. By what humble instrumentalities are wrought life's miracles ! How slight a thing may determine the course of empires ! It has been said (referring to a preceding address by Walter Howell of Eng- land) that shadows prove nothing, and yet the fact that in the eclipses of the moon the shadow cast by the earth is round, comforted and sustained Magellan in his determination to circumnavigate the earth under tremendous trials and suffering. Victor Hugo says, "The pupil dilates in the night and finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune and at last finds God in it." Pain, which the savage regarded as an enemy and the sign of the presence and operations of a malig- nant spirit, is really God's signal of warning to 180 LORD WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO? man, and has led to the discovery of the laws of health. And often the sorrows of life, the pangs of the spirit, reveal to us a law of God by which we are lifted above things temporal into the realm of the eternal. God never requires of us the impossible, but always the best of which we are capable, and only that will content either our heavenly Father or our own souls. How is that Best to be developed? How can we overcome the degradations and moral diseases that afflict society ? How shall the mean- est and basest among us be made to see and obey the vision of the Best ? Some good people believe that the nervous system is the seat of the moral nature, and that only the well person can be good ; that the best a sick man can do is simply to refrain from being bad. And it has been suggested that the best method of reforming criminals is to feed them well and provide them with pleasant surroundings. I readily admit the value of suitable food and environment, but facts prove the fallacy of the materialistic idea. Our most dangerous men, the men who are a menace to the welfare of society, do not belong, as a rule, to the under- fed, badly housed classes. 181 SONG AND SERMON Children of the same parents reared under precisely the same conditions and influences show marked differences in moral character. The seat of power, mental and moral, lies in the realm of the spirit our appeal must be made to the Soul through the intellect. When once awakened to a realization of its power, the Soul has no limita- tions. How much greater it is than the body is constantly being demonstrated. Some of the most majestic figures in history were physically weak some of the world's sweetest singers have lodged in garrets and lived on crusts. Some of the most heroic and useful lives have never known a day of ease. We are here in the visible world, not to be subjugated by matter, but to master, to utilize, to overcome. Matter is the workshop and playground of the spirit. Think of Joan of Arc, who, following her Vision, led the army of France to victory, and, when betrayed and forsaken by friends, amid flaming faggots and in mortal agony, that intrepid and unconquerable spirit rose triumphant over her blind and cruel enemies, and shines to-day as one of the most glorious charac- ters in the annals of history. Think of the tens of thousands who have gladly suffered and died for right and freedom, noble examples of the power of the spirit over the body. 182 LORD WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DOf To be allowed a life of luxurious ease, to be spared both mental and physical suffering, is not always to be accepted as a sign of God's favor. One may be called to suffer that a whole world may be the wiser and better for that suffering. My thoughts turn this moment to a little woman who is an inmate of the King's Daughters' Home for Incurables in San Francisco. For eight years she has never left her bed except as she was lifted in a sheet, every nerve so sensitive, so racked with pain that the slightest movement is torture, and yet her room is full of spiritual sunshine. "God is so good to me" she cried, as I, coming in for a moment from the beautiful, joyous outside world, stood beside her couch of pain, wondering at the sweet patience that shone from every line of her white face. There was the music of sincerity in her voice, and I learned that she was always thus, finding God in every act of loving kindness, and by her gratitude and appreciation teaching her more for- tunate friends a lesson never to be forgotten. God had called her she had obeyed the vision in her helplessness she was helping others to look be- yond the vanishing material things for true happi- ness. 183 SONG AND SERMON The pitiful aspect of a little crippled beggar on the streets of Paris laid the foundations for a magnificent charity that shall bless many genera- tions. Want and pain have led to some of the greatest discoveries that have enriched humanity. Oh, listen earnestly to the voice of the Lord speak- ing unto you, and remember it is always to render service. Try to realize the nobility of your work in life. Each one of you is as divinely appointed as was Paul when he set out on his Christion min- istry to prove that though a man die, yet shall he live again. Better die than not to live in noble service. The least among you, the maimed of body, the weak of mind, by obeying the call, by seizing the opportunity nearest at hand, may do a work that none other in all the world can do so well. You have a place in the sublime economy of nature which no one else can fill. Do not let us underestimate the value of our daily tasks, the so-called little things of life. If one star among all the countless constellations should drop from its orbit, the universe would fall into chaos. And you, soul-star of the human firmament, must be true to your high calling or the moral constitution of the universe is hurt. Perhaps in reply to your cry, "Lord, what wilt 184 LORD WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO? thou have me to do?" He may not say to you, "Go thou into the great world and fight mine enemies with clash of sword and noise of battle," but, "Stay, thou, faithful to the sweeter, not less noble task of tilling fields that shall help to clothe the naked and feed the hungry." Mother, He may not say to you, "Go carve in marble a form of heavenly grace, or paint a picture that shall be- come immortal," but perhaps He will point to the babe upon your breast and help you to see that the fruits of your love, its dimpled, rosy flesh, its sweet and deathless spirit may, through your self- sacrifices and unselfish efforts, become a pride and joy to yourself and to mankind. Oh, for the clearer vision that shall reveal to us the dignity of our daily tasks the underlying spiritual necessity of work; work which we have sometimes thought a curse, but which is in fact the very price of living. As the unused muscle soon becomes atrophied, so the heart that heeds not the cry for sympathy grows callous and shriveled. Woe unto the man or woman who has come to believe that there is nothing for him or her to do ! The isolation and degradation of such a condition on the part of any human being is inconceivable. 185 SONG AND SERMON Have you vast sums of money at your com- mand ? The more need that you shall be up and doing to find for it the highest and holiest uses for every dollar must be accounted for. Your responsibilities are commensurate with your means. There are moral wildernesses into which you can let God's sunlight; there are vast desert wastes over which living waters may be made to flow. There are noisome city streets where your fellow creatures swarm and stifle, in ignorance of the wide, sweet fields and flower-scented air; hells where life is one long night of torture your call is to go there ; let love transmute your gold to such joy as the idle sensualist has never known. Hasten ! hasten to your God-appointed task ! And you, little woman, with the clamoring babes, you whose work is never done; you whose days are full of toil, your nights of sleepless vigils ; you, in that narrow round of duties do you know that the good God needs even you? Aye, and it is no menial service that He requires at your hand. Co-worker with Him, every thought of mother-love and every gentle service of the home adds to the fullness of life and brings you into closer and sweeter relations with the Infinite. We have dreamed of heaven as a place of 186 LORD WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DOf eternal rest; but if the spiritual world is, as I believe, under the dominion of natural law, our rest will consist of a change of activities, and we shall continue to grow in knowledge and power, and above all, continue in that loving service which is here, and must be Elsewhere, the most lasting source of pure joy. 187 RETURN TO: CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 198 Main Stacks LOAN PERIOD 1 Home Use 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS. 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