songs of peace.

GOD'S GREATEST GIFT TO MAN

Thursday, October 26th

God's greatest gift to man is that of intellect, or understanding.

The understanding is the power by which man acquires his knowledge of the
several kingdoms of creation, and of various stages of existence, as well
as of much which is invisible.

Possessing this gift, he is, in himself, the sum of earlier creations--he
is able to get into touch with those kingdoms; and by this gift, he can
frequently, through his scientific knowledge, reach out with prophetic
vision.

Intellect is, in truth, the most precious gift bestowed upon man by the
Divine Bounty. Man alone, among created beings, has this wonderful power.

All creation, preceding Man, is bound by the stern law of nature. The
great sun, the multitudes of stars, the oceans and seas, the mountains,
the rivers, the trees, and all animals, great or small--none is able to
evade obedience to nature's law.

Man alone has freedom, and, by his understanding or intellect, has been
able to gain control of and adapt some of those natural laws to his own
needs. By the power of his intellect he has discovered means by which he
not only traverses great continents in express trains and crosses vast
oceans in ships, but, like the fish he travels under water in submarines,
and, imitating the birds, he flies through the air in airships.

Man has succeeded in using electricity in several ways--for light, for
motive power, for sending messages from one end of the earth to the
other--and by electricity he can even hear a voice many miles away!

By this gift of understanding or intellect he has also been able to use
the rays of the sun to picture people and things, and even to capture the
form of distant heavenly bodies.

We perceive in what numerous ways man has been able to bend the powers of
nature to his will.

How grievous it is to see how man has used his God-given gift to frame
instruments of war, for breaking the Commandment of God 'Thou shalt not
kill', and for defying Christ's injunction to 'Love one another'.

God gave this power to man that it might be used for the advancement of
civilization, for the good of humanity, to increase love and concord and
peace. But man prefers to use this gift to destroy instead of to build,
for injustice and oppression, for hatred and discord and devastation, for
the destruction of his fellow-creatures, whom Christ has commanded that he
should love as