The Universalist. [volume], August 21, 1897, Image 1

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VOL. XrV.‘j%WUKR3?"-l CHICAGO AND CINCINNATI, SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 1897. NO 34
____ i ... .. . ...’ ’ _
The 'Q'lnivsicgzjilist
A RELIGiOUS AND FAMILY WEEKLY
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CONTENTS.
CHICAGO. SATURDAY, AUG 31, 1897.
Pace One.
Life and Work of Trained Nurses.
Shall We Educate and How?
Col. Ingersoll and the Western Christian
Advocate.
President Jordan on Evolntion,
Universalist Thought.
Pale Two.
Sermon-Higher Uses of the Imagination.
The Highest Evidences of the Trnth of
Christianity.
John Murray ami Thomas Potter.
The Persistence of Moral Ideas.
New Books.
Page Three.
The Sunday School Lesson.
Page Four.
Editorial:
Supernatural Enrichment of History.
The Creed (Question.
The Religious Press.
Universalist Personal.
Pace Five,
Church News and Correspondence.
Page Six.
The Family Page. Farm. Harden and Dairy.
Page Seven.
Our Boys and Girls.
Page Eight.
Chnrch Notices and In Memorlam.
OUR CONTRIBUTORS.
LIFE AND WORK OF TRAINED
NURSES.
RY FRANCES EATON POPE
Of Tile New York Hospital.
I._Wliat it is to be a Nurse.
Many think a nurse’s life one sweet
poem of “gently stroking fevered
brows” and “wetting parched lips,”
being repaid by “sweet smiles from
the grateful patient.” But we who
know the course of fevers, realize the
back-breaking and prosy period of
hard, earnest work that must ensue
ere we earn cur poetry in that thank
ful, “sweet smile” of the convalescing
patient. So don’t start out with the
mistaken idea that a nurse’s career is
a serene, beautiful and easy one.
The calling of nurse is a noble one,
but remember she has many hard
ships to bear, many obstacles to over
come. Keep this in mind, and you
will be fortified against the dark days
which come into her life, as they
must with that of every one, be the
vocation what it may.
Let us look the matter in the face
and see what “to be a nurse” really
means. To begin with, the essentials
of a good nurse are:
Love of God and of fellow crea
tures.
Strength of body and mind.
Cheerfulness.
Belief that cleanliness is next to
godliness.
Refinement of character.
Good education.
Knowledge of human nature.
Quickness of comprehension and
action.
Patience and perseverance.
Then there are perhaps the family
prejudices to overcome. The leaving
home is a great question to be
weighed. It may mean a complete
change in your life, and is something
which you only can decide — and
this decision should be made care
fully and prayerfully. Unless you
are in perfect physical health, don’t
attempt it. You will never make a
good nurse if you cannot bring in
sunshine to dispel darkness, and this
cannot be done by one who is herself
not in vigorous health.
Do not forget that there is a “pro
bationary term,” sometimes of more
than two months, which will seem
like an eternity. During this period
you feel fully convinced the world
hangs on the matter of your dusting
and bed-making, and you wearily
* ask yourself “Is this what I came
here for ?” But keep up your cou rage
—all this and the semi-military dis
cipline which you undergo through
out your hospital career, you will ap
preciate later, and realize how neces
sary it was to your training.
Having successfully passed through
the “probationary term and donned
the pretty uniform” which designates
you as a nurse, you feel suddenly
overwhelmed with the responsibility
of your self-chosen life. But to this
you grow accustomed after a while,
and take pleasure in thinking that
the patients in the ward look upon
you as their mental support, as it
were, and that a pleasant manner on
your part may serve to shorten the
weary hour of pain, while one of
hurry and impatience may make
these same hours drag woefully.
It may be that, as a novice,you will
be surprised and dismayed for the
moment,on finding yourself in a ward
full of people in no way your social
equal. Perhaps your life has hither
to been so guarded that you have
never come in contact with the
‘‘masses” and the revelation that you
must care for these people may come
upon you with a shock. But re
member if you are not willing to min
ister to any and every one of your
fellow creatures in distress, you are
not fulfilling your highest mission
as a nurse. Keep in mind lan Mac
laren’s creed: “Love the man next
to you,” and you will be astonished
to find how much more good in the
heart of man—even the lowest- -than
his fellow creatures give him credit
for.
Once your hospital course is fin
ished, an entirely new field of pro
fessional action opens to you. You
are confronted with the fact that
hereafter you are not only responsi
ble for the success of your own pro
fessional career, but are also charged
with maintaining the reputation of
your school. As you enter on the
work of a private nurse, you will
realize that for the time being you
are a reigning power in the house.
You may cause the family to regard
you as a perfect godsend, bearing
responsibilities with which they find
themselves unable to cope—or, on
the other hand, you may upset the
whole household, inconvenience every
member, create discord among the
servants, and even uproot the faith
heretofore placed in the family phy
sician.
In other words, you are a great
power in a household of sickness; let
that power be for good.
Again, you will find loyalty to your
doctors a most important factor.
While in your hospital career you
may have worked with one or two
doctors, outside you will find your
self the aid to many. The true nurse
faithfully endorses and carries out
the orders of each, no matter how
much his methods and ways may
differ from those of his predecessors.
All this requires adaptibility.
If you enter the profession merely
for financial profit, great will be your
disappointment. There is so much
more in nursing than the mere meas
uring of medicines and ministering
of food—as the patient’s needs are
often quite as much mental as phy
sical—that unless you can supply
those wants you will be a disappoint
ment to yourself as well as to others.
Nurses must be ministers in every
sense of the word.
True, all can not be Florence
Nightingales, and the world will
never know of all the good deeds
done and self-sacrifices offered, but
to one who loves her profession, the
kuowlecge of work well done brings
its own reward.
Thus, viewed with all the high
possibilities involved, no other calling
can be greater or nobler than that of
the trained nurse.
Consider well before choosing it,
and then, having chosen, throw your
self into the work with your whole
soul.
New Yukk City.
SHALL WE EDUCATE AMD HOW?
BY HATTIE TYNCi GRISWOLD.
Professor Peck of the department
of the Latin Language and Litera
ture in Columbia University, New
York, has recently put forward the
following remarkable statement:
“Licked closely with many other very
serious educational mistakes, aud from
many points of view by far the most pro
foundly seriouB of them all, is that cu
rious fancy, which is almost universal
among our people, that education in it
self and for all human beings is a good
and thoroughly desirable possession. So
axiomatic is this held to be that its prin
ciple has been incorporated into the
constitutions of many of our states,
and not only is education made tree to
all, but in most states it is made compul
sory upon all. There is probably in our
whole system today no ptiriciple so fun
damentally untrue as this, and there is
certainly none that is fraught with so
much social and political perils for the
future. For education means ambition,
and ambition means discontent.
“A small andhigbly trained patriciate,
a caste, an aristocracy if you will. For
every really great thing that has been
accomplished in the history of man has
been accomplished by an aristocracy. It
may have called itself a sacedotal aris
tocracy, or a military aristocracy, or an
aristocracy based on birth and blood, yet
these distinctions were but superficial;
for in reality it always meant one thing
alone—the community of interest and
effort in those whose intellectual force
and innate gift of government enabled
them to dominate and control the des
tinies of states, driving in harness the
hewers of wood and drawers of water,
who constitute the vast majority of the
human race.”
The panacea of education for all
our ills, material and moral, has be
gun to be questioned in many quar
ters, and even such un-American doc
trines as these of Prof. Peck, while
not common, are not unknown. Di
vine discontent as it has been called,
has been encouraged, and the man
who was satisfied with his lot has
been viewed somewhat contemptu
ously in these later years. No doubt
thata certain kind of education brings
discontent, but discontent is an ele
ment of progress, and when not ex
treme is not to be deplored. And if
we cannot base our hopes for the race
on education, of the true kind, to
what shall we turn? Will Prof. Peck
offer us a substitute? It is far too
late in the history of the world to go
back to the idea of “driving in har
ness the hewers of wood and the
drawers of water who constitute the
vast majority of the human race.”
Carlyle shrieked in vain throughout
a long and miserable life, for the
strong man, who should Bbackle, and
then lead, the millions of his coun
trymen “mostly fools.” In vain he
lauded Frederick, and canonized
Cromwell; an unappreciative world
went on its way with a contemptu
ous smile for his outlived doctrines,
while it acknowledged the supremacy
of his genius.
And if with all his magnificent
powers, Carlyle was so powerless to
stay for an instant the onward march
of the masses of men, howBhall small
professors, and little men of various
callings, to whom we are occasionally
called to listen, hope to change the
current of modern life? Education,
of one kind or another, the world is
bound to have, and no little clan or
clique of scholars can make even a
momentary stand against it; butthey
can, if they will, guide it, and make
it a blessing rather than a curse.
No doubt there is great question
in the minds of the thoughtful, as to
our present methods in education.
The protest which the great men of
science made in regard to the purely
classical education of the English
scholar, a generation or two ago,
finds many an echo this side of the
water. And the idea of an educa
tion suited to the different needs
and capabilities of men and women,
flexible, practical, and with founda
tions laid in the nature of man, has
already taken root in the world, and
will grow apace. The question of
how to give children more that will
be of real use to them, in the few
years we have them in the schools, is
one which is agitating the educa
tional world to day, and which de
serves far more attention than it has
yet received. And the idea of
mingling moral education, with in
tellectual, has become a loud de
mand, so apparent is it that utter
wreck and demoralization await us as
a nation if the rising tide of immor
ality is not in some way stayed.
The subject of industrial and tech
nical education, is becoming one of
the social problems of the times,
and its solution is being sought for
by thoughtful, far-seeing men who
recognize the need of founding some
system of trade education which
shall tend to increase the standard
value of the national productions by
the higher technical training of the
average workman, and the more
widespread diffusion of a general
knowledge of the elementary princi
ples of manual and tool-labor among
the youth of the working classes,—if
not among all classes of students.
Of course it is understood that
this manual training goes hand in
hand with education in books, and
in no way interferes with it; rather
aids it, in most cases. France, Bel
gium, Austria and Germany, take
the lead in industrial and higher
technical instruction, and we hare
much to learn of them. Interest in
the subject is increasing in this coun
try however, and the next decade
will see many practical experiments
made. We are well supplied with
colleges and Universities now, even
in the South,and thenext great need
is for trade schools, where our youth
can be trained in hand as well as in
head. Philanthropists will be found
before long to endow such institu
tions. And we ought to demand
that the great principles of morality
be taught alongside the principles of
natural science in such schools. Let
our dcubts as to education apply
only to faulty methods, and let us
never for an instant lose faith in the
basic idea of this commonwealth,
however much the dry-as-dust pe
dants may decry it.
That there are born leaders of men,
natural aristocrats if you please—
men with the divine right—we do
not at all deny. We are looking and
longing for them today—for our need
is great. But we shall never find
them in the patriciate I fear—rather
from the people will they spring.
Columbus. Wis.
00L. INGEESOLL AND THE WEST
ERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
BY REV. JAMES BILLINGS.
It appears the army of the Chris
tian Endeavor people have been pray
ing for the conversion of Colonel
Ingersoll to their system of grace.
But as no serious effect has been
made upon his seared heart, the
supposition is that they did not “pray
in faith,” or that thefr prayers were
not righteous, or possibly, their God
may have been in some shady grove,
fast asleep, and they did not pray
loud enough to arouse him from his
slumbers.
Be this as it may, the wise editor
of the “Christian Advocate,” seems
to have solved the difficult problem.
It leaves the Colonel in a forlorn con
dition. While we pity the ignorance
and stupidity of those for wasting so
much praying for one “incorrigible
sinner,” this editor solves the mys
tery bo that no more prayers need be
made in that direction. The Colonel
has “sinned away the day of divine
grace,” and has committed the “un
pardonable sin.”
If this is a fact, it implies that
their God is not able to convert such
sinners. Or it may imply that he
will not. In either case, what does
the idea of an unpardonable sin
prove? It proves that finite man can
commit an act, that cannot be for
given, and if this is true, atheism is
true. And if he wiil not God is not
as good as man. Not as kind at
heart as the Colonel is. For he has
kept an ample stock of forgiveness
in his great, generous heart, for all
his bitter enemies. It would be no
improvement for any one to be con
verted, to believe in such a God, or
to a system of religion, that teaches
such a theological monstrosity.
There are thousands who can say to
their bitter foes, “Father forgive
them, for they know not what they
do.” In fact Universalism teaches
this. The highest code of morals
teaches man, to “love his enemies.’ ’
Therefore, if the Christian Advo
cate’s God, will not forgive the Col
onel, he is not as good as man. As
wicked as he is, we do not believe
that Colonel Ingersoll would let one
single soul, go down to endless woe,
if in his power to prevent. There is
too much goodness in his heart to do
it. What folly for professed re
ligious people, to pray to convert a
man to have faith in God, who was
letting thousands drop into a hell of
endless suffering, while they were
praying for the Colonel? And each
soul that went down during that
period was worth just as much as his.
WTe ask this candid question:
Which party, Col. Ingersoll, or the
so-called Orthodox, with which the
Christian Advocate is included, are
producing the greater amount of un
belief and skepticism in the princi
ples of Christianity?
We believe that the Colonel and
his party are making a great mistake
in calling this modern-orthodox the
ory Christianity. They both claim
that the dogma of endless punishment
is a prominent doctrine taught by Je
sus Christ,and they call this heathen
idea Christianity. They claim it is
a Bible doctrine, when it is a fact in
history that it is of pagan origin, in
dependent of any Bible writer, and
it remains pagan still. It is a dogma
taken for granted, as the truth, re
vealed by God in the Bible, resting
upon the credulity of the ignorant.
The orthodox and the Colonel are
circulating this abominable doctrine
as Christianity.
Then there is the unreasonable
doctrine of the Trinity. It is one of
the main pillars of orthodox theology.
Its principal support is taken from
I. John, v: 7, a passage that made its
first appearance in the fifteenth cen
tury. A passage found in no Greek
manuscript until this late period.
The doctrine iB paganism. It can
have no honest claim from the Bible,
yet the orthodox and the Colonel
call it Christianity.
Then there is the orthodox idea of
an invisible personal devil, once an
angel, that caused a rebellion among
I the celestials, and was expelled from
heaveu. Orthodoxy teaches that he
is omnipotent. At the side of every
child, as it steps over the line of in
nocent childhood and becomes ac
countable, he tempts the child to sin.
And he always succeeds. He has
never failed but once. In the case of
Jesus Christ he did not succeed.
And why did he fail? Orthodoxy
teaches that he failed, because Christ
was God, in the second person, equal
to God the creator. This enabled
Christ as God the Son, to resist the
temptations of his Satanic majesty.
This absurd pagan idea of the
devil, and the trinity, is called Chris
tianity. And Col. Ingersoll willingly
lends a helping hand, and calls it by
the same name. Though he does not
believe a word of it, yet he sanctions
it as Christianity, when, it is a fact in
connection with other items of heath
enism, and is not a respectable coun
terfeit. It does not come as near the
truth as a piece of iron washed with
gold reading fifty dollars. The fact
is,—no matter how it looks, nor what
it reads it is bogus, and nothing else.
And no sensible man, like the Colonel
has any moral right to circulate it as
the genuine issue.
When the common orthodox system
is compared with the Christianity of
the Bible, there is scarcely an item
of doctrine that resembles the Bible
teaching, on various points. It was
paganized by the Roman church; she
and her Protestant daughters with the
helping hand of the infidels are cir
culating the base bogus, as the genu
ine in this age. This, we affirm, is
wrong in the C olonel and his party.
Things should be called and circu
lated with their nameB.
We do not blame Colonel Ingersoll
for his honest unbelief. Because he
has a popular ally, in what i'b called
Evangelical. He is to be condemned
for not obtaining the truth of what
Christianity teaches. Jesus taught
that God is “our Father.” The uni
versal Fatherhood of God, and the
brotherhood of humanity was a grand
cardinal principle in his teachings.
And it constitutes the firm founda
tion of Christianity.
Jesus inquired of the self-righteous
“What man of you, if his son ask for
bread will ye give him a stone? Or
if he ask for a fish, will ye give him
a serpent?
“If ye,then being evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how
much more shall your Father in
heaven give good things to them that
ask him. Therefore, all things what
soever ye would that men should do
to you, do you even so to them, for
this is the law and the prophets.”
Matt, vii, 9-12.
Does this read much like the Or
thodox creeds that contain the
doom—endless punishment? and the
doctrine of innate total depravity?
This is a fundamental doctrine of or
thodoxy, that an unconverted heart is
totally depraved and is a fit subject
for endless woe. This is called
Christianity by the so-called ortho
dox, and the Colonel is helping them
to palm off this bogus as the teach
ing of .lesus Christ.
The Colonel knows that he has not
been converted to the orthodox theol
ogy, and he knows that he is not
totally depraved. That is, he has
not enough of that depravity as to
give a stone for bread to a hungry
dog. Or a sentence of endless suf
fering, to the worst human being.
Yet he calls this system Christianity
when it has no resemblance to the
teachings of Jesus Christ.
We might notice many more items
of doctrine that the editor of the
Christian Advocate and Colonel In
gersoll call Christianity, but enough
to show that one is as deep in error
as the other in knowing not the
truth.
Hico Texas.
PRESIDENT JORDAN ON EVOLU
TION.
“Evoli-tion: What It Is and What
It Is Not” is the subject of a paper in
the August Arena bv President Jor
dan, of Stanford University.
In Dr. Jordan’s conception the word
evolution is now legitimately used
in four different senses. “It is the
name of a branch of science. It is a
theory of organic existence. It is a
method of investigation, and it is the
basis of a system of philosophy.”
Organic evolution, or bionomics,
Dr. Jordan regards as the greatest of
the sciences, “including in its subject
matter not only all the natural his
tory, not only processes like cell-di
vision and nutritiou, not only the
laws of heredity, variation, natural
selection, and mutual help, but all
matters of human history, and the
most complicated relations of civics,
economics, or ethics. In this enor
mous science no fact can be without a
meaning, and no fact or its underly
ing forces can be separated from the
great forces whose interaction from
moment to moment writes the great
story of life,”
What is “Darwinism ?”
The word evolution is also applied
to the theory of the origin of organs
and of species by divergence and de
velopment, the theory that all forms
of life have sprung from a common
stock, which has undergone change
as a result of forces and influences
kni/,%n as “factors of organic evolu
tion.” This is Darwinism, and Dr.
Jordan says that this hypothesis is
as well attested as the theory of gravi
tation, while its elements are open to
less doubt.
In still another sense the word is
applied to a method of investigation
—the study of present conditions in
the light of the past.
Finally, the word evolution has
been applied to the philosophical
conceptions to which the theory of
evolution gives rise.
What Evolntiou is Not.
President Jordan then turns his at
tention to “some things which evolu
tion is not:”
“Evolution is not a theory that
‘man is a developed monkey.’ The
question of the immediate origin of
man is not the central or overshadow
ing question of evolution. ThiB ques
tion offers no special difficulties in
theory, although the materials for
exact knowledge are in many direc
tions incomplete. Homologies more
perfect than those connecting man
with the great group of monkeys
could not exist. These imply the
blood-relationship of the human race
with the great host of apes and
monkeys. As to this there can be
no shadow of a doubt. And as
similar homologies connect man with
all members of the group of mam
mals, blood-relationship muBt exist_
And homologies, less close but equally
unmistakable, connect all backboned
animals one with anotherc and the
lowest backboned types are closely
joined to worm-like forms not usually
classed as vertebrates.
“It is perfectly true that, with the
higher or anthropoid apes, the rela
tions with man are extremely inti
mate. But man is not simply ‘a de
veloped ape.’ Apes and men have
diverged from the same primitive
stock ape like, man like, but not ex
actly the one or the other. No apes
or monkeys now extant could appar
ently have been ancestors of primi
tive man. None can ever ‘develop’
into man. As man changes and and
diverges, race from race, so do they.
The influence of effort, the influence
of surroundings, the influence of the
sifting process of natural selection,
acts upon them as it acts upon man.”
Spontaneous Generation.
Evolution is often confused with
the theory of spontaneous genera
tion, but Dr. Jordan insists that there
is no necessary connection between
the two, as has been so often as
sumed, both by scientists and by the
laity.
“If spontaneous generation exists,
it is a factor in evolution. If it is a
factor, our explanation of the mean
ing and nature of homology must be
fundamentally changed. But it may
be that it should be changed. We
cannot show that spontaneous gen
eration does not exist. All we know
is that we have no means of recog
nizing it.’'
Evolution Not a Religion,
Dr. Jordan declines to accept evo
lution as a new religion.
“There are many definitions to re
ligion but evolution does not fit any
of them. It is no more a religion
than gravitation is. One may im
agine that some enthusiastic follower
of Newton may, for the first time,
have seen the majestic order of the
solar system, may have felt how fu
tile was the old notion of guiding
angels, one for each planet to hold it
up in space. He may have received
his first clear vision of the simple
relations of the planets, each forever
falling toward the sun and toward
each other, each one by the same
force forever preserved from collision.
Such a man might have exclaimed,
‘Great is gravitation; it is the new
religion of the future!’ In such
manner, men trained in dead tra
ditions, once brought to a clear in
sight of the noble simplicity and ad
equacy cf the theory of evolution,
may have exclaimed, ‘Great is evolu
tion; it is the new religion, the re
ligion of the future!’”
—There is a Woman’s Christian Tem
perance Union woman in Chicago who
refuses to join her sisters in praying for
money to save the Woman's Temple
from being sold to satisfy a mortgage.
She says that if the women hadn’t
erected a big building for which they
hadn't the money to pay they would not
be obliged now to trouble the Lord
about the matter. This is not an “or
thodox” position for a W. C. T. U.
woman to assume; but many of the
world’s people, so-called, will accept her
reasoning with fortitude.
Universalist Thought 1
3k OUR OWN WRITER8, J
Territorial Expansion of the Anglo-Saxon
Eace.
The great territorial expansion and
numerical increase of the Anglo-Saxon
race is mostly the work of the last hun
dred years. From the British Isles, a
narrow strip of our Atlantic coast and
a few Canadian settlements, it has taken
possession of the whole of North Amer
ica, the whole of India, Australia, the
whole of New Zealand, Burmab, Singa
pore and other Asiatic settlements, a
large part of Africa and many islands of
the seas; and wherever the Anglo-Saxon
has gone he has carried with him a bet
ter civilization, giving lavf and order
and stimulating industry and commerce.
He has not only founded great states by
subduing a wilderness, as in North
America and Australia, but be has put
new life into decaying civilizations as in
India and Egypt. The numerical in
crease of the Anglo Saxon nations has
been as rapid and wonderful as their
territorial expansion; having increased,
during the last hundred years, from
twenty millions to one hundred and
twenty millions the greatest territorial
expansion and numerical increase which
history records. The increase in wealth
has been equally notable, the Anglo
Saxon nations now possessing more
wealth than all the rest of the world
put together.—Rev. C. L. Waite.
Difficulties in our Missionary Work,
One difficulty in our missionary work
is that many fear that they shall not be
independent. There is need of covering
up our individuality. We should not
go forward in a happy-go-lucky sort of
way. We should have a leader. We
need some directing power. We need
some man who can direct the work of
the Universalist Church, A young man
should reach out and be a great mission
ary. A man owcb something to the
world and to the church. We all need
the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and throw
out an influence that will raise others up
and save them from sin. I do not be
lieve in ecclesiastical apostolic succes
sion, but I do believe in the apostolic
succession of doubling up the fist,going
into the fight against that which is sin
ful. I have no time to battle errors of
Orthodoxy, but I have time to promul
gate the truth as we believe it. It is
time to stop talking about Jesus, and
time to breathe in Jesus. When we have
thoroughly breathed in Jesus we shall
have to talk no more of the necessity
of missionary action— Rev. O. W. Biek
nell, D.D.
How We may Learn of Jesus.
The trained eye of the mountaineer
will determine at a glance the relative
height of the most prominent peaks
that surmount a continuous range that
seems to define the limits of the physi
cal universe. The eye of the tourist, on
the other hand, the one who merely
visits the stupendous spectacle of na
ture, looks upon it for a day or two and
then hastens on to other scenes, is
wholly unreliable; hie estimates of dis
tance and altitude are invariably erron
eous. Only a long acquaintance with
these mighty sentinels—to dwell among
them in storm and sunshine, to feel their
cool shadows when the heart is on fire
with pain, to draw strength from their
strength when to surrender is easier
than to contend—that is to know the
mountains. Something after the same
manner do we learn to estimate the rel
ative value of the utterances of Jesus.
Better today than yesterday, better to
morrow than today shall we comprehend
the permanent elements in the teach
ings that fell from hiB inspired lips. The
retrospective view, and every parable
and precept, command and exhortation,
is arranged in itB true relation to all
others, and the promise is fulfilled "Ye
shall know the truth,” know it by the
consciousness of freedom which this
knowledge bestows. — Rev. Florence
Kollock Orooker.
Universalism and the People’s Problems.
The religious principles to the promo
tion of which the Universalist Church
is dedicated, are not only in harmony
with the highest ideals of home life and
social excellence,but thev are peculiarly
adapted to the solution of the people’s
problems. Upon no narrow or partial
is tic basis can the prosperity of the
people be adjusted. Nothing less than
universal practice, can satisfy a nation’s
needs. Religious sentiments undoubt
edly produce an effect in every depart
ment of the mind, and influence the
judgment on all questions. It is not
difficult to understand why a believer
in one-sided plans of salvation Bhould
incline to one-sided theories of govern
ment, nor why a believer in vicarioue
atonement should accept any one of the
various political doctrines or socialistic
beliefs which promise wide spread pros
perity for the masses without regard to
individual thrift and personal responsi
bility. A mind that understands Uni
verealiem will not be likely to look out
upon the social and economic struggles
of the time with a pessimistic pang on
the one hand, or a fanatical fancy on
the other. Such a mind will not be in
clined to cherish too low an opinion of
the God-given power of the individual,
nor too much credulity for the merit of
immature, man-made schemes for the in
dustrial, social and political redemption
of the human race.—C. Forrest Svett.
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