THE TRUE MEASURE OF LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3042, 31 March 1917, Page 18

THE TRUE MEASURE OF LIFE.

DR. HUNTER'S NEW YEAR SERMON. . The wonder of wonders, said Di John Hunter in a sermon at th Aeolian Hall, London, is to be alivs If we live for a million yearß there wil be nothing more wonderful than tha we have begun to be. It was onl, gradually that we began.to learn th powers of development and progres innate in human life. What was th ' true measure of life? The most super ficial way of measuring' it was to mea sure it' simply by its duration. Th true way was to measure it by its ful ness and intensity and condensation We live more in some days and week than in others. Life should be mea sured by its supreme hours an< great moments, when wo were most ii touch with what is human and divine The great hours of the heart may b but minutes, but they may represen weeks, months, or years of though and feeling and passion. When somi vision of beauty has come, some birtl of thought, some joy of love, some ox perience of sorrow,: some hardest tasl or painful sacrifice, then we haVi known what it is in a short time tt fulfil a long time. We live when wi truly live outside the element of time Length- of days brines oertain 'advan tages to the spiritual man, but men oxistence in and by itself is not un speakable bliss. Life is opportunity opportunity for service, and it is'shor or long according to what we do witl - it.' It is not more time that is want ed, but more energy, more intensity more fire. It was a life of but jusi over thirty yearß that wrought ths divinest work the world ever saw, yei it was a long life and a life that stil! I lives. . Tho.anoient legend eoncerninj: I Enoch'is'still true of some men am ! women—they have not seen death be- \ ■ cause their livos' have been translator \ into the larger life of the communitj I and the race. The God with whom we have to do is no wasteful workman and there should bo no thought pi

waste about thoso lives trWoh havo boon laid down for the general good.. Life was working towards one mighty goal, the evolution of the soul of man. To doubt personal immortality is to rob the whole process of evolution of its meaning. The present life was to train lis for a larger life beyond. Lifo here, at its best, is only the prophecy of something better. All our beat experiences quicken and justify that hope.