Tendrils of the Soul

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 430, 11 August 1928, Page 8

Tendrils of the Soul

THE QUIET CORNER

(Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant • City Missioner. 'YWITH what restive eagerness the wild convolvulus scrambles over broken fences in the deserted gardens of-many long forsaken homesteads. In like manner the lichen fastens its tiny teeth to the polished surfaces of rocks. All growth is associated with this eagerness. It is the answer to an inward urge. Through rocky crevices .new shoots will sprout, until they dislodge the very stones through which they grew. To use an ancient simile, the vine sends forth her delicate tendrils, which, like small hands, take hold of each available support. As with Nature, so with man, who represents her highest manifestation. As there are tendrils of the vine, so there are tendrils of the soul. Aspirations and hopes; ambitions and desires, which reach out beyond the narrow margin of our lives, into the realm of the unachieved. No soul so base but does aspire to some mean height. Paracelsus discovered that every spiritual attainment of man, however worthy of pity or contempt, represented a reaching upward. “He learned to sympathise” says Browning, “and be proud of all men J s dim struggles for truth,” which all touched upon nobleness, despite their error. Like plants in mines which never see the sun, But dream of him, and guess where he may be, And do their best to climb and get to him. Every step upon the upward way of 'men, from cave to thatched cottage, is marked by the tendrils of the soul. lAke tiny hands they have taken a feverish hold of every feeble superstition, while upon the upward quest of God. NEXT WEEK: “ WHAT’S TRUMPS?”