Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1882-03-19
sERMON

The text Of which is:
People are getting dissatisfied with
philosophy. There Is no comfort in it
when you've got O dead child in the house.
TRY the survival OF the fttest' in the
death-roo "-Tatmage.
Sophistry should not come from the
pulpit. II the hope of salvation is
based on false promises, it were better to
die hopeless. This is so, if faith ema-
mates from reason. If we are to be
wheedled into belief by tricks of rhet-
oric that delude the feeble intellect. 1t
were better not to believe at all. The
unreasoning devotee excites admiration.
His ecstacy betokens sincerity. You say
he is a mailman, perhaps, because you
are if he is not. Nobody knows any
thing absolutely, hence it is possible that
YOU are foolish and he is wise. Perhaps
he is wide awake and you are viewing
him under the hallucination of a power
full dream. At any rate, if you credit
yourself with the wholesome use of your
five senses, and feel satisfied that he is a
fanatic, you leave the responsibility OF
his folly, not with himself, for he is
clearly. irresponsible and a creature OF
impressions over which he has no con-
troll, but with the great what-ever-you-
calI-it that makes him what he is. He
believes without reason, and you, with
reason, do not believe. He is happy
in the reasonless hope of a glorious
future, and you are Indifferent in the
premises, because you see nothing in the
way Of post-mortem prospect to be ex-
ercised about or interested in. You do
not exaIt yourself in the comparison,
however, because if he be a fool he is
happy in the foretaste Of joy. that which
he may never realize; while you are
merely Indifferent, being without specu-
lation, and having no solicitude or APP
prehension with regard to anything be-
yond the grave. As Schiller says, 1.-TWO
flowers there are in bloom for him that
finds them. They are f~ruition and hope.
Both you cannot take; if one you pluck,
the other you must leave alone" You
ask yourself whether you would be the
broad browed metaphysical theologian,
who is in the throes of intellectual
agony over cogito ergo sum, or the sim
. pie negro, who, after a days toll, starts
to sing the old hymn. When I Can Read
MY Titles Clear" and falls to sleep
while singing and. in a dream, which is
to him real and the substance of things
unseen, actually treads the golden streets
of the New Jerusalem and wakes with
the shout of hallelujah ON his lips? You
do not wish to be the philosophic theo-
logan, a prey to the doubts that arise in
his own mind, nor the ignorant negro,
who is blissful without any reasonable
cause. While you are half disposed te
congratulate the latter. and to sympa'
thize with the former, you wish to b
neither. You prefer neither to be happy
and q fool, nor distressed and wise. Thu
is ons-half of the sermon.
Now, in the second place, what abou
the alleged pulpit sophistry, which sug
gested the apology for some ~religionists
that. though they may be deceived them
selves, they do not attempt to deceiv
others-in other words. that they ar
single.minded, sincere and honestf Tai
mage 10 an acrobat and prestidigitator
His emphasis Of sensational utteranoes
such % bring crowds to his church as Il
circus, 10 s~xtravagant gesture, amount
ing almost to physical contortion
Nor does he, for the sake Of effect ant
that sort Of delusion which captures tn,
many, hesitate to distort language so a
to make things seem what they are not
Whatever he wishes to be 90, for tn,
immediate and selfish aim Of his har,
angue, he states to be true. people arr
getting tired Of philosophy" he says
1t would be refreshing to the people
to know by what line Of investigation he
has brought himself to this sweeping
conclusion. Possibly this is q discovery
he made when, in search of knowledge in
the Far West, he went through the dives
and bawdy places in Colorado. In fact,
to presume that he believes what he says
on this'score would be to underestimate
the intelligence Of the man. He knows
better. He knows that the conflict be.
tween science and revealed religion ia
growing in magnitude and intensity every
day. There is no comfort in it (philos.
ophY) when you have q dead child in the
house." He knows better than that, too.
In the philosophic mind death 10 robbed
Of it, terrors. Unchristian nations have
furnished abundant examples Of the Sc.
renity with which the mind disciplined
In whatever school of philosophy sur
renders himself or his dearest Of kin as
. sacrifice by death in recognition Of
what 10 duty or what is inevitable.
"Try the survival of the fttest in the
death ROOM This means, II it mean
anything. that Darwin, because of his
great force of intellectual insight and his
discoveries In natural history, will be
oomfortless because he 10 confronted by
the corpse Of his dear wife or child. A
though. perhaps. man Is more to be re-
GREETED when dead. because his descent
u possibly from the ~orangoutang. There
Is q natural and irrepressible grief that
shocks all tender hearts at the loss of
those precious one with whose lives our