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Show "SHNCilflCSTION NOT FOR SOUR-FACED ELECT, BUT THE OPTIMIST," HE SAYS "I believe In God, I believe In man, I believe In the power of the spirit. I believe It is a sacred duty to encourage ourselves and others; to hold the tongue from aay unhappy word against God's world, because no man has any right to complain of a universe which God made good, and which thousands of men has striven to keep good. I believe we should so act that we may draw nearer and more near the age when no man shall live at his ease while another mlTers " and least of all, to rejoice ia belonging to the favored few who are saved by grace undeserved, is to miss about as far as possible the true blessedness of sanctification. "The truth of the matter is that only the optimist has faitn enough to be sancti8ed. And he doesn.'t Tinow it. God transforms him stealthily, cell by cell. He lives in the sunlit way and never gets so blase and sophisticated as to lose his ideals. "God gives the freedom of the universe uni-verse to the optimist and carelessly tosses into his lap the keys of the city of golden streets and love-lit azure ways, where heroes of the spirit wear their garlands won on the battle fields of truth and where true priests of soul set not apart but mingle as man with man. The optimist finds somewhat of these things glorifying our daily life, and in so tar as, he finds them not, he puts them in his vision of the future, content that they shall be when in the eternal years or God the perfect plan is wrought out. Verily, sanctification is not reserved for the elect, least of all for the sour-, faced elect. Sanctification is for everybody ev-erybody for everybody who has faith enough to be an optimist, i "Well said, fair maiden, out of the enveloping darkness and unbroken stillness of your earthly days. Sanctification Sanc-tification is yours and ours, if we believe be-lieve much and do somewhat in the spirit of our faith." "Sanctification and Everybody" is the subject of a sermon to readers of THE TELEGRAM which the Rev. Frank Fay Eddy, pastor of the First Unitarian church, has written, and which is printed today. This is in the series of sermons written especially for TELEGRAM readers by pastors of city churches. Dr. Eddy says, after repeating re-peating the foregoing-paragraph: "Do you know who said thatt Helen Keller. Her world is still dart and soundless. Many things she lacks which most of us with normal faculties re- gard as essential to our happiness, but, she is an optimist and radiantly happy. hap-py. There is reason for her joy, for once she was dumb and stricken, and all about her was the darkness against the yielding but impenetrable walls of which her bound soul struggled unavail-j ing. Then out of the darkness a hu-i man hand stretched to meet her own.! Only the hand of a single teacher and friend, but through the electric touch of j hand with hand a spiritual circuit was completed. From ringer tip to palm flowed the mighty things of the uni-j verse. The beauty of love and the glory of truth, the tender wave beats J of human sympathy and the majesty j and calm or God's strong providence flowed into her soul through the mediating medi-ating soul of her friend. Surely she has cause to rejoice. "Helen Keller adds to the creed 1 have quoted above another article upon up-on which she says all the rest depends, in these words: 'To bear with faith ovary tempest which overfloods it, to make it a principle in disaster and through affliction. Optimism is the spirit of harmony between man's spirit and the spirit of God pronouncing his works good.' "Live it. That is what this loyal optimist means. Optimism is the essence es-sence of faith. Optimism equals sanctification sanc-tification in the arithmetic or God. The universe is so arranged that every optimist op-timist is sanctified. He may not know it. Usually - he does not. All pessimists pessi-mists are given to overmuch introspection; introspec-tion; they are ever studying their poor souls. Not so with the optimist; opti-mist; he has the active interested faith of Edward Everett Hale, 83 3'ears voung the other day, and is too busy looking out to morbidly look in. "It is a curious thing that those people who insist that they have experienced expe-rienced sanctification, using the term in its religious significance, are just the ones who most obviously missed its real meaning. Their spiritual pride is a delusion and a snare. To set one's self apart from the world that is regarded re-garded as being bad enough to belong with all flesh to the devil by some kind of a mortgage, to pull a long face and talk about sinners and an angry God, |