The Spiritual Mind

      But this does not imply that one should not dwell upon spiritual thoughts at the proper time, should not, in effect, be more spiritually minded than anything else, for to be spiritually minded is to have a sense, a conviction, an assured knowledge of the reality, solidity and security of spiritual things. "To find in the unseen region of a heavenly existence a source of motive power, a vast auxiliary, an inexhaustible reservoir of strength, coming in aid of natural conscience, which alone is insufficient to direct or reclaim us, but which we enforce from the divine works, irresistibly triumphs with our first moral victory. A supreme uncreated excellence and glory must haunt, elevate, sanctify, and draw us to another citizenship than that which we hold amid these clay built abodes; before the spiritual mind, which is life and peace, can be unfolded within us." Apropos of this, it is Bishop Huntingdon who says "that spiritual serenity is spiritual strength; it comes in by no softness of sentiment, but by thorough work. It comes by a faith that emboldens and energizes the whole soul " Spiritual or not, every one has his own life to live, and to live alone, alone as he came into being, alone as he will go out into the next stage of being. "There is something awful in this terrible solitude if we look at it. ... One may indeed strive to break in upon the stillness of our solitary being, by crowding others around us, by the fever of excitement, or the sweet influence of a loving sympathy, but in all the pauses of outward things the solemn voice comes back and the vision of our single, proper, solitary being overshadows the spirits.' We have each one this burden of a separate soul, and we must bear it. How do all deep thinking persons, even in the daily routine, live apart from others, and more or less feel that they do so. Even ordinary life hears voices which add their witness to the truth if we will listen to them." It is in this inner solitude in which we all live that our habit of self-respect, of something more, of self-reverence, takes rise.

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