AUGUST 16 1906 ] ( 3 ) 899 The Christian Register

ence .

about her round of household affairs , as the uncared- position , still are they brothers close of kin in the kind for hand would travel about the clock on Monday . of materialistic shell in which growth is hampered . Contrivances of various kinds , some of them question It is difficult , if not impossible , to argue with a bigot : able , manage to compensate somewhat for the weakening it is equally difficult to approach the intrenched position of motive power within ; but the time is drawing nearer of the other man who is his mental counterpart with a every hour when these will lose their effect , and the life different viewpoint . No friendly flag of truce can call must come to a standstill . Then no simple action like to a peaceful and candid parley . No hope of a better winding the clock can set the human machinery in understanding can bring opposites together . It is a motion as before . The mender of bodies must be called case of locking horns instead of shaking hands . The in , and fortunate is the man who finds himself “ going ” dogmatist and the materialist are worlds apart , and yet again as well as hitherto .

so near that an intimate bond exists between them . Both The same happens to the spiritual nature . The have the closed mind , and in a certain sense both are routine of life slackens and wears the powers of the unspiritual . The one sees the world through a mist of soul . The contact with men only upon one side , where supernaturalism , miracle , ecclesiastical interpretation , selfishness , greed , and even cunning and fraud are ac authority , and creed : the other sees only what his senses tive , blinds us to the better side of every man's soul . show him . His view is hard and unimaginative . He It draws us gradually toward the world's way of look- arraigns Providence as if he were scolding an erring man , ing at life and its custom of handling it . The soul or he eliminates him altogether from the universe . He " runs down ” as well as the body , and it is sometimes has no sentiment , no feeling for a religious nature that harder to get it back into good order . Sunday is an may create false systems of faith and worship , because of opportunity to " set " the clock as well as to wind it , the indestructible longing , the insatiable hunger after to get the true time as well as to refresh the vigor of . an eternal source of comfort and hope . He sees in the life . One glimpse of the Master , the Son of Man , the composition of matter all the potencies of mind , and after ideal of human nature , may often serve to correct the the brief day of consciousness on this earth only a black discouraging effect of active life , and bring back our gulf of annihilation . The ignorant groping and feeling insight into that divine likeness which is the true man after God if haply we may find him is to him foolishness . within all our customs and even behind all the " rules He cannot pity , he cannot love the spiritual instincts of the game ” in the world of affairs . Let us wind all that ignorantly lay hold on idols and forms of superstition our clocks on Sunday as our fathers did , -not that for comfort and consolation in this tragical life . we cannot do it on any other day , but that “ this is the Sympathetic imagination wanting to the sceptic is day that the Lord hath made , ” through the conven equally wanting to the bigot . The truths of science seem ience , the necessity , and the wisdom of human experi to him premeditated attacks on his creed . Conclusions

drawn from the study of facts by thinkers and investi To come clo home to th season , we are in the gators look to him like intentional , insidious attempts Sabbath of the year . The Jews had a Sabbatical feast at the undermining of old faiths and established beliefs in the seventh month . Many modern folk have it in proceeding from the enmity of a wicked and perverse the eighth . It is in August that most people who have generation . The grandeur of new discoveries in nature's any vacation take their holidays of rest . It is a time realm , the widening of the universe beyond the grasp of for winding the clocks , for storing new vigor in the the human mind , the majesty of her laws , the inexhaus motive power of life . There are foolish ones who per tible riches of her resources , all look like the acts of an sist in the ways of fashion and convention , but let us enemy to destroy the sacred possession inherited from who are of the light do that — whatever it may be — the fathers . The ark of the covenant must not be touched which will refresh and strengthen us for the work and even by the finger of God . It has assumed a sacredness stress of the coming year . However hard we may try quite apart from the principle that once sanctified it . to live a wise life , then we may be sure that the tendency So the great things coming to light in the realm of dis will be for the springs to uncoil , for the sources of strength covery and investigation seem only blows aimed at the to weaken , and for life in general to “ run down . " Let walls of some little Zion instead of new conceptions us , in this Sabbatical month , " wind the clock . ”

of divine power and grandeur .

Thus far both bigot and sceptic have lost sight of the principal fact of the universe as we apprehend it , —the spiritual nature of man .

Each would prefer a system , Bigot and Scoffer .

but does not consider the larger outstanding facts . Ha

tred of the proclaimer in the mind of the bigot often takes There is an effort of will by which the mind is shut to the place of hatred of nature's laws . Darwin was held new truth as the eye is voluntarily closed to the light of responsible for the evolutionary doctrine , Copernicus and day . The repression of all evidence that does not jibe Galileo for the truths they proclaimed . Huxley by cer with preconceived notions and inherited or acquired tain classes was the best hated man in England . Thus tendencies lead to singular relationships in the species the mouthpiece becomes odious , though it is impossible of mental bias or twist they give the brain . On this to disprove its sayings . ground the bigot and sceptic stand upon much the same The imbittered sceptic is no less personal and narrow . level , though the processes by which they have travelled He finds a sharp weapon in ridicule and sarcasm . He parallel roads are quite unlike .

loves to polish it to the keenest edge , passing by what is Bigotry is an ever - narrowing circle that shuts and locks beautiful , consoling , good , even in narrow creeds , with all doors , bars all windows , and becomes the centre of a light scorn . Go into some socialistic or communistic small and vicious environment . Scepticism of the ex meeting where an impassioned speaker , fed on German treme type , though it may pride itself on its scientific materialism , attacks the Church , and mark the distortion , liberalism with an appeal to reason and common sense , the ignorance , the brutality of the attack . All the nobler is often as firmly enclosed , as thoroughly hooped and instincts of human nature shrink from the mangled thing iron - bound as the variety of cul - de - sac in which the bigot he holds up to view , and the safeguard from its corrupting lives . They may both be desperately sincere , passion influence is that fact that the picture is so grossly over ately or doggedly convinced of the truth of an assumed drawn .