By J.R. Miller
It is a great hour for us, when we become conscious of the splendor of our immortality. A very beautiful story is told of the way the young Princess Victoria bore herself when she first became aware that she might some day be Queen. One morning, when she was twelve years of age, she opened her book of English history and found a paper which had been placed there for her information by her tutor. She read it attentively, and then said to her governess: "I never saw that before. I see that I am nearer to the throne than I thought." After pondering a few moments, the princess said: "Many children would boast--but they don't know the difficulty. There is much responsibility." The revelation made a deep impression on her mind. More than once she said: "I will be good."
Every one of us is born to a life of splendor and vast possibility of beauty and power. We are born to be children of God, and to live forever. We have in us a boundless nature, that makes us greater than all things in this world. Yet some people never seem to become aware that they are much better than worms! They live as if they were only bodies, mere animals, made for this present earthly life alone! The aim of their existence never extends beyond what they shall eat, what they shall drink, and what they shall eat, what they shall drink, and what they shall wear. They seem unaware of anything in life higher or more important than these needs of their physical nature. They have no visions of life in any loftier sphere. Their pleasures, are only pleasures of the senses. They know nothing of intellectual or spiritual enjoyment.
A picture without any sky in it is defective. It has no uplift--it runs along on earthly levels, with nothing of heaven to brighten and glorify it. So the life with no sky in it, no vision of God and of heaven--is unworthy of an immortal being. The best is left out of it. It is only earthly, with no influence from above, drawing it upward, or within, inspiring good and beauty in it.
Men tell us that we have souls--but the form of the statement is incorrect. It indicates that the soul is something which we possess, as one might possess a piece of property or a fine picture, something outside of one's self, not an essential part of one's being. Really, however, our soul is our self. It is the central, vital, essential thing in us--that which makes us what we are. We are not bodies with souls; rather, we are souls with bodies. The body is not the man or the woman, that we are. It is but the house in which we live. It is not that in us which thinks and chooses and wills and loves. It is not that which is capable of growing into nobleness and beauty, and wearing at length the full image of Christ.
The body is a splendid creation. The lowest and smallest of God's works are wonderful. There is a world of beauty in the tiniest flower, in the insect that creeps in the dust. The human body is the finest and most wonderful of all material creations. But there is something else in every human life--that is finer, nobler, and more wonderful than the body. In the story of the creation we read that "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." It was this breath of God entering into the body, this living soul which God thus breathed into the creature formed of the dust--that made Adam a man. Our body is but our home. It is only a temporary home, too, for we shall leave it by and by, and we shall live then just as really without our body--as we live now with it.
Yet many people seem never to find their soul. They never think of themselves as more than a body. It is a great moment, when a man wakes up to the consciousness of the fact that he is a living soul, an immortal being, that his true home is not amid the things of the earth--but with God, in the heavenlies.
There is a beautiful legend of a company of beings from the celestial world who in disguise visited a great city one night on some errand of mercy. When their work was finished, they hastily departed--but in some way, one of their number, a fair young spirit, was left behind, lost in the strange town. When people began to move in the streets in the morning they found a sweet boy, with sunny hair, sitting on the steps of the temple. They spoke to him--but he could not understand nor answer them. He replied to their inquiries only with streaming tears and looks of alarm. Presently, however, a slave bearing a harp came among the crowd. The child saw the harp and eagerly reached out his hands to take it. Flinging his arms about it, he embraced it affectionately. Then he began to touch the strings, and wonderful music, pure, clear, and melodious, like liquid pearls--fell upon the morning air. This was the language which the celestial stranger knew. In finding the harp, he had found a way to express his feeling in language.
So it is when one finds one's soul. We are like lost children in this world, if we do not know our own truer and higher nature. If we live only on earthly lines--we are beings of celestial birth strayed from our real home and environment. Everything about us is strange. We do not belong here; heaven is our home. We do not know the language of those who throng around us. When we find our soul, we begin to be at home.
It is so when a man begins to discover his mental powers. He wakes ups to the consciousness that he has a mind. He can think. Beautiful visions begin to form themselves in his brain. He discovers that he has a marvelous gift of imagination. Or he has the logical faculty. Heretofore he has been plodding on at school, poring over books, wearying himself with task work which has never ceased to be dull and distasteful, finding no delight in his studies, without interest or enthusiasm in his work. Then one day, something wonderful happens. It is as if he were suddenly waked from sleep--to look about upon a new world. Everything is changed. His books begin to interest him, and as he reads on, a strange light shines upon the pages. His studies are no more dreary tasks--but delightful exercises. It is as when the angel, lost and dumb until now, sees the harp, and grasping it, begins to make enrapturing music on its strings. He has found his soul.
It is so with the artist, when after years of struggling and failure, he at length discovers his powers, and begins to put on the canvas or cut in the marble--the lovely dreams he had sought long in vain to interpret. It is so with the musician, who, after carrying in his soul through many days and nights a theme of melody, struggling unavailingly to utter itself, at last discovers a mode of expression and begins to pour forth notes of song. Speechless until his eyes fell on the wondrous harp, his soul awoke that moment, and his fingers began to evoke harmonies which thrilled and charmed every ear that heard them.
The same is true in spiritual spheres. Men live for years--an altogether worldly life. They go with their work, pursuing their earthly callings on and ambitions, in business, in study, in pleasure--yet unconscious all the while of the splendid spiritual world that lies above them, and all about them. They never see God nor hear his voice. They are unaware of the vast realm of invisible things which is theirs by inheritance. They have no eyes for the glories of the heavenly kingdom. The only world they know of--is the material world.
Then one day there is an awakening, and they become aware of a life far above them, with rich possibilities of joy and blessing. It is significant that the prodigal is said to have "come to himself" when in his degradation he had a vision of his true home and his father's house, with all the possibilities of good and of blessing that were there for him. Until that moment--he had been a child of God lost in the world of sin. Now he had found his soul. His fingers touched the chords of the heavenly harp, and holy music was evoked.
This is the real story of all Christian life. Faith in Christ, is finding one's rightful place as a child of God. Only in Christ, can we find our true self. He alone can restore our soul. Peace is the music of a life at rest in God. The whole being is full of harmony. All discord vanishes--as the lessons are learned, as the image of God is imprinted on the soul, and as the Spirit of God possesses more and more fully, his own place in the heart.
It is often in the hard and painful experiences of life, that men find their soul. We dread pain; but in the days and nights of keen suffering, many people develop strength and beauty of character, which had never before been revealed in them, as the photographer's picture is developed on his sensitized plate in the darkness. We shrink from sorrow; but in sorrow's dark hours--many a life for the first time finds itself, as the gold manifests its richness in the fire. We hold ourselves back from costly self-denial and sacrifice; but the Master says it is only in the losing of our life in love's devotion--that we really find it. Whenever we are divinely led in any way of struggle, cost, danger, or darkness--we may rejoice, for God is taking us on a path of self-discovery; and in the cost or trial, if we faint not, we shall find our soul.
We need not wait till we get to heaven--to find ourselves at home with God. Heaven may begin here any common day--it does begin when ever we enter truly into fellowship with God, when our will is lost in his, when the life of Christ becomes indeed our life.
