Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1868-09-12
SUNDAY

truths breaking upon each age, nj
new or revived errors springing up like
wecd. in the soil Of humanity. AS
there are new arms of war and arts Of
peace, new scientific truths aud new
errors. new developments Of medical
skill, and new and more complicated
diseases, so there are now, intellectual,
social and moral developments of the
greatest value, springing up to bless
each age and secure human progress on
the one hand, and, on the other hand,
there are new errors and delusions
spripging out of the fret and whirlpool
of current opinions. Nor is it always
easy to say ab~stractly which is the
sweet and which the bitter. What is
food for one is poison for another. But
it is always safe to infer that every
valuable truth will produce goodness.
As q distinguished writer has we'll said,
it takes tro to make truth. The object
presented is one factor the mind tn
which it is presented is the other.
| Truth is the right relation between the
two. In abstract morals you can
hardly lay down a proposition that shall
be always and absolutely true to all
| minds or in all cases. Men nrc con.
~tiuuslly boasting that they have dis
covered new truths, when, at the ut
most, they have only exploded for the
thousandth time some old error. The
best test of q new truth is the greater
| strength of heart aud life derived from
it, aud the observance Of the known
duties Of life more puuctually and ex'
actly. That which does this is truth 10
US, while nothing that is contrary in its
effects can be.
Moral truth is the just balance OF all
intellectual truths. 1t is not any one
| extreme, but, as the a~ncients said, the
| golden mean, and that new force which
is alone tho proper conjunction o.
all the various forces Of nature in
their trucst relation. There arc
new medical facts and opinions daily
being preached. And there nre rs many
men fond of experimenting with these
MS with new moral and religious ques'
lions and opinions. But for II medical
theory to become an established truth
in our case, our system must be first o
all in o state Of aptitude to receive IT,
There will be q vacancy for it, II cores
poudence with it, and sensible strength
and no~urishment will then he derived
from it. Now n truth is to the sou
what n medicine is to the body. 1t is
not any potent substance that is new
and exciting some positive effect. Err
ror will do that often and more easily
than truth. But it is that which pro-
duces health to him who imbibes it,
| This it is that makes all tho difference
between a medicine and n poison, be-
tween a truth and and an error. We
say often and commonly that knowledge
is food for the m~ind-that is, it has the
capacity for becoming food when digest
ed. Yet every nurse knows that thai
only becomes food to either body oil
mind which actually is digcsted md
feeds. The dclicacies which the ricl
man cannot cat or digest, or the bread
which m army wastes, do not becom,
food to them. And 30 MI intellectual
instruction and moral mnyims are foot
for tho community in this sense. But
they have in them the capacity to be
come vital somewhere. and to feed man
kind when rightly digestcd and assimi'
lated, while that which surfeits or i,
rejected becomes no food to him who
cannot bear it.
But lei none mistake. No mere out
ward instruction is good to my mind,
strictly and trnly, until being assimi'
lated by nm inward vitality, it really
feeds the mind and the heart, and
strengthens the life for consistent and
true propriety of living. A man who
should hope to warm himself by heap
ing up unkiudled blocks Of anthracite
around himself on n wintry night, be
cause it contained carbon, would no,
more utterly fail Of being warmed thar
he who Grams his own Or his child's
mind with the dry facts and dogmas oil
some ancient system, additionally re-
ceived, will be likely to impart and sns'
tain the true principles Of n rirtnon:
and holy life to those affected by this
influence.