452                 A. M. E. REVIEW.

means our full emancipation it will indeed be a pearl of
great price.
       And we as rich in having such a jewel as twenty seas,
            If all their sands were pearl,
       The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
  Waving for the sake of argument, the possibility of prov-
ing the comforting religious doctrine of the immanence of
God; I assert upon purely philosophical grounds, that belief
in God is the best workable hypothesis the brain of man has
ever evolved for the daily guidance and solace of man. Na-
ture or matter, universal and eternal, actuated and controlled
by the omnipresent and omnipotent spirit is a "safe and
sane" view of existence.  Phenomenal matter and noumenal
spirit is a conception at once sound and satisfying.  This
quality of nature is reproduced in man. In his bodily make-
up a man is but a portion of universal living nature. Mod-
ern science unites with ancient Scripture in declaring "Man
hath no pre-eminence over a beast--yea they have one
breath," But "the spirit of the beast goeth downward and
the spirit of man goeth upward." In his consciousness (in-
tellectual or spiritual powers) man partakes of the nou-
menon. Now the true object of education should be to make
individual conduct conform to Nature's laws.     Therefore
educators should understand the dual constitution of man.
Matter is not life, though we know not life except through
matter. The musical instrument is not music yet we can
have no music without the instrument. So the body is not
the man, though on this plane of existence, we can know the
man through the body only. The real man is the conscious-
ness and says, "cogito ergo sum," "the spirit that goeth up-
ward," the noumenon in us,
  It is evident then that education to be permanently profit-
able, to reach the ideal mentioned (the conformity of individ-
ual conduct to Nature's laws) must affect the real man.
The more mentality and spirituality an individual possesses
the greater is he. "The mind is the standard of the man."




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Date:  07/1911