FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   >>  
h leads up to the very throne of the Almighty. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God might begin anywhere and at any time in any human heart. Note what Matthew Arnold has called the secret and the method of Jesus. He says, The secret of Jesus is that he who selfishly seeks his life shall lose it: he who throws it away for good and God finds it. Do we need to go very deeply into human life to discover the profound truth of that saying? Seek all over the world for good and happiness, and forget to look within, and you do not find it. The kingdom of heaven is within. It is in the spirit, the temper of the heart, the disposition, the life. And the secret of it is in cultivating love and truth and tenderness and care, those things which bring us into intimate connection with which we mean when we say, Be unselfish, and that in doing this we find our own souls. For the man who gives out of himself love and tenderness and care, of necessity cultivates the qualities of love and tenderness and care; and those are the ones which are the essence of all soul-building. And he who looks outside for the greatest things of life misses them; while he who looks within, and cultivates the spirit, finds God and happiness and truth. This gospel, then, that the kingdom of God is at hand, is always ready to come, is the gospel which we proclaim. And now I wish to extend that idea a little. The form in which Jesus held his dream of human good has changed in the process of the centuries. We no longer expect a miraculous revelation of a kingdom coming out of the heavens to abide on earth. The form of it is changed; but the essence of it we hold still, the same perfect condition of men here on earth and in the future which Jesus held and proclaimed. Now let me hint to you a few of the elements that make up this hope for man which we liberals proclaim everywhere as the gospel, the good news of the coming kingdom of God. In the first place, we proclaim the possibility of human conquest over this earth. What do I mean by that? I mean that man is able and he is showing that ability ultimately to control the forces of this planet, and make them his servants. Within the last seventy-five years this increasing conquest has changed the face of the planet. We now use water power not only, but steam, electricity, magnetism. All these secret forces that thrill from planet to planet and sun to sun we use as our household and factory drudges, our every-d
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   >>  



Top keywords:

kingdom

 

planet

 

secret

 

tenderness

 
gospel
 

proclaim

 

changed

 
happiness
 

coming

 
conquest

spirit

 
cultivates
 

things

 

forces

 
essence
 

condition

 

factory

 

proclaimed

 

future

 

perfect


drudges

 

longer

 

process

 
centuries
 

expect

 

miraculous

 
revelation
 

heavens

 

control

 

electricity


servants

 

ultimately

 

magnetism

 

showing

 
ability
 

Within

 
increasing
 

seventy

 

liberals

 
elements

household

 

possibility

 
thrill
 

deeply

 
throws
 

discover

 
profound
 
heaven
 

forget

 
selfishly