The Warriors | Page 9

more revealing itself as an appeal
to the Highest in the supreme moments of life. It is the unfolding
panorama of the concepts of the soul in regard to duty, conduct, love,
and hope. Literature asks: What do I live for? as well as, How shall I
speak forth beauty? How ought the soul of man to act in an emergency?
What is the best solution of the great human problems of duty, love,
and fate? The voices of Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and
Browning sweep the soul upward to spiritual heights, and answer some
of the deepest questionings of the soul of man. And hence literature is

no longer merely a thing of vocabulary, of phrase, of rhythm, of
assonance, of alliteration, or of metrical and philosophical form. It is a
revelation of the progress of the soul, of its standards, of its triumphs,
its defeats, and its desires. It is the unfolding of one's intellectual
helplessness before the unmoved, calm passing of years; of one's
emotional inadequacy without God for adjudicator. It is a direct search
for God. One finds wrapped within it the mystery, aspiration, and
spiritual passion of the soul.
Science, no longer a dry assembling of facts and figures, is an
increasing revelation of the imagination, the exactness, the
thoroughness, and the great progressive plans of God. Evolution has
become a spiritual formula. The scientist looks out over the earth and
sky and sun and star. Against his little years are meted out vast
prehistoric spans; against his mastery of a few forms of life, stands Life
itself. Back of all, there looms up the great Figure of the Originator of
life, and of the forms of life; the Maker and Ruler of them all. Each
scientific fact helps exegesis and evidence. Each new aspiration after
truth becomes a form of prayer.
Yes, the whole world is being subtly and powerfully drawn to the
worship of the Christ. Never before was there so deep, genuine, and
widespread a Revival of Religion. It has not come heralded with great
outcries, with flame and wind, and revolution and upheaval; it has
come as the great changes that are most permanent come, in stillness
and strength. Throughout the world there is being turned to the service
of religion the highest training, the most intellectual power. Wars are
being wrought for freedom; the Church and the university are joining
hands; the rich and the poor are drawing near together for mutual help
and understanding; industry is growing to be, not only a crude force,
brutal and disregarding, but a high ministry to human needs; the home
is becoming more and more the guardian of faith and the shrine of
peace; business houses are taking upon them a religious significance;
commerce and trade are perceiving ethical duties. Armies are marching
in the name of Jehovah, and a great poet has this one message: "Lest
we forget!"

7. Jesus calls us by the future of the race. Life proceeds to life. Eternity
is what is just before. Immortality is a native concept for the soul.
Beyond this hampered half-existence, the soul demands life, freedom,
growth, and power.
We stand between two worlds. Behind us is the engulfed Past, wherein
generations vanish, as the wake of ships at sea. Before us is the Future,
in the dawn-mist of hovering glory, and surprise. Looking out over
eternity, that billowy expanse, do we not see rising, clear though
shadowy, a vast Permanence, Completion, Realization, in which the
soul of man shall have endless progress and delight? This is the
Promise held out by all the ages, and the future toward which all the
thoughts and dreams of man converge. It is glorious to be a living soul,
and to know that this great race--life is yet to be!
At the threshold of each new century stands Jesus, star-encircled, with a
voice above the ages and a crown above the spheres,--Jesus, saying,
FOLLOW ME!

III. PROCESSIONAL: THE CHURCH OF GOD
[AURELIA]
_The Church's one foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord; She is His new
creation By water and the Word: From heaven He came and sought her
To be His Holy Bride; With His own blood He bought her And for her
life He died.
Though with a scornful wonder Men see her sore opprest, By schisms
rent asunder, By heresies distrest; Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, "How long?" And soon the night of weeping Shall
be the morn of song.
'Mid toil and tribulation, And tumult of her war, She waits the
consummation Of peace for evermore; Till with the vision glorious Her
longing eyes are blest, And the great Church victorious Shall be the
Church at rest._

SAMUEL JOHN STONE
FIRST: RECONSTRUCTION
The subject that is being carefully considered by