The Warriors | Page 7

the world applauds to whether God approves; from the thought of
keeping our own life to the thought of preserving our own integrity;
from isolation from all other souls to a sympathy with them, an
understanding of their needs, and a desire to help their lives. It is a
turning from a delight in sin, or an indifference to sin, or merely a
moral aversion to it, to a deep-rooted hatred of every thought and act of
sin, to penitence, and to an earnest desire to pattern after God.
4. Jesus calls us by our sorrows, Jesus calls us by our dreams. He thrills
us by each high aim that life inspires. His voice is one of understanding,
of tenderness, of human appeal. How could we love Jesus if He did not
sympathize with our ideals? But here is a Divine One in whose sight
we are not visionary; who lovingly guards our least hope; who

welcomes our faintest spiritual insight; who takes an interest in our
social plans, and points out to us the great kingdom that is to be. Christ
lays hold of the divine that is in us, and will not let us go.
5. Jesus calls us by our latent gifts and powers. Which of us has ever
exhausted his possibilities? Which of us is all that he might be?
It is an impressive thought, that nothing in the universe ever gets used
up. It changes form, motion, semblance,--but the force, the energy,
neither wastes nor dies away. Air--it is as fresh as the air that blew over
the Pharaohs. Sun--it is as undimmed as the sun that looked down on
the completion of Cheops. Earth--it is as unworn as the earth that was
trodden by the cavemen.
No generation can ever bequeath to us a single new material atom. The
race is ever in old clothes. Nor can we hand down to others one atom
which was not long ere we were born. Yet the vitality of the universe is
being constantly increased, and this increase is also permanent. God
has a great deal more to work with now than a thousand years ago.
For not all energy is material. With each birth there comes a new force
into the world, and its influence never dies. The body is born of ages
past, of the material stores of centuries; but the soul, in its living,
thinking, working power, is a new phase of energy added to the energy
of the race.
This fact confers on each individual man a strange impressiveness and
power. It gives a new significance to the fact that I am. I am something
different from what has been, or ever shall be. In the great whirling
myriads, I am distinguished and apart. I am an appreciable factor in
universal development and a being of elemental power. By every true
thought of mine the race becomes wiser. By every right deed, its
inheritance of tradition is uplifted; by every high affection, its horizon
of love is enlarged. We can bequeath to others this new spiritual energy
of our lives.
This thought gives us a new zest for life. There is an appetite which is
of the soul. It is this wish for growth, for the development of our

powers, for a larger life for ourselves and for those who shall come
after us.
Is there any one who wishes to stay always where he is to-day?--to be
always what he is this morning? Beyond the hill-top lies our dream.
Not all the voices that call men from place to place are audible ones.
We hear whispers from a far-off leader; we are beckoned by an unseen
guide. Out of ancestry, tradition, talent, and training each departs to his
own way.
What calls is not largeness of place--it is largeness of ideal. To each of
us, thinking of this one and that one who has taken a large part in the
shaping of the world, there comes a feeling: Beside all these I am in a
narrow way! What can I think that shall be worth the consideration of
the race? What can I do that shall be a stepping-stone to progress?
What can I hope that shall unseal other eyes to the universal glory,
comfort others in the universal pain? We say: I do not want to be
mewed up here, while others are out where thrones and empires are
sweeping by! I do not want to parse verbs, add fractions, and mark
ledgers, while others are the poets, the singers, the statesmen, the rulers,
and the wealth-controllers of the world! We wish to step out of the
trivial experience into that which is significant. Each day brings
uneasiness of soul. "Man's unhappiness," says Carlyle, "as I construe it,
comes of his greatness; it