SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 360, 29 October 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

REVELATION THROUGH CHARACTER.

It is quite impossible to drop the plummet of thought to the bottom of the word character, bo deep and so manifold are the meanings of this highest and most enduring of all the aspects of human life. The noble characters in each generation are the profits of God. It matters little whether they aro gifted with speech or not; there is an eloquence m their spirit, their aims and their lives which no language can compass. Speesh is effective and convincing only while it is audible ; character makes golden tongues out of silence itself. .

The supreme and convincing to the great truth of the endless lifo are the good, the pure, and the self-sacrific-ing, whdfse aims and spirits are so harmonious with eternal life that they are inexplicable without it. They bring eternity with them and make time part of it. Their whole dealing with life involves its continuity; and there flows from them a stream of faith. Righteousness is never so real as when it finds its illustration in a human life. Character is also a re/e lation of the spirit and methods of God. There is no higher function which a human soul may take upon itself than this : to make men see and love God. It imparts to those who rise to its opportunities a sanctity and beauty past all power of speech to express. Character, it has been well said, is salvation, and it is salvation not only for ourselves but for others. We are saved by the character of others, because that character breeds character in us. There are many to whom God seems afar off; they do not daubt Him, but they cannot lay hold of Him as a companion in the hour of need. To such-' natures it is a blessed providence when some human soul becomes a translator an 1 revcaler of that Divine Helper, who has not yet become a Divine Father in the thought and feeling of a weak and sinning child. A beautiful human soul always suggests Cod, an the shining in the still water at night makes us instantly aware that a star is abovo us. We do not need to look at it, we know that it is there. Whoever in this confused world has the supremo blessedness of living close to a beautiful human xoul cannot look into the pure depths of that soul day after day without a constant vision of God. In such a relationship, there is not only a growing purification, but there is also a deepening reverence ; a consciousness that one is living near a shrine and that a human fellowship is silently becoming transformed into a divine fellowship. Human love can bring to one who evokes it no higher tribute thin this consciousness, nor can it lake on any higher form or manifestation than this revelation of the divine love. When it rests here, it seems rather of heaven than of eaith and it entries in its heart the assurance of its own immortatity. (F).