Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1885-05-01
The Heal Reason why Men DONE 60
tO Church

[Told in plain English by the Boston Sunday Herald
1t is useless to try to blink the truth that
the main reason why such masses Of people
do not go to church to-day lies in the simple
fact that they take no sort of interest in what
they hear thOre, however we'll put or rel-
giously important Their minds are switch
ed in another direction, aud will not rally to
attend seriously to any thing else. What they
are bent on il upon getting ahead materially,
and by the time Sunday comes their forces
are thoroughly spent in the struggle to ac-
complish this. When their wives fall desper-
ately i'll. or a dear child sickens and dies,
they feel for little while the need of some
higher help. But the gap il soon bridged,
and over il dashes the old lightning express
or rumble the heavy grain aud cattle trains.
Certain old fashioned ideas they certainly
have outgrown. But sheer nonsense IL il TO
assume that too great pressure of intellect is
what ails them. Keen. witted they are in Ger
tain directions, but binder than bats and
moles in others. They are simply material
ized. Indeed, notwithstanding they belong
to the glorious niueteeth century, might it
not be seriously questioned whether, in point
of sheer intellect, they will average with
such men as Fenelon and Pascal, as Berkeley,
Butler and Coleridge, who still thought there
might be something in religion.
Indeed, il is not religion alone these peo-
pie have so little response for. Everything
shares the same fate with them-art, beauty,
poetry. Outside of business and politics,
their talk is as sawdust and ashes. To get
away with them on vacation ia to feel all
the sublimty taken out OF tho mountains, all
the azure out of the sky, all the whispering
awe out of the forest. Still, poor fellows,
they are only partially responsible, hunted
and harried with cares as they are aud ex-
4 A.
terial perceptions Of the brain. Victims of
an age doing q vast and important work in
developing one set of the resources OF the
earth, they are preparing the way for some
thing better to come. Only do not insist on
glorifying them as the highest types human
nature can flower into.
Meanwhile can they do anything wiser
than put themselves every Sunday some here
where they may hear a word or two that may
serve TO change the current Of their thoughts,
and give them an inkling at least Of class
of natures like those of Jesus and Paul, who,
though poor, yet made many rich, and hav.
ing nothing, yet possessed all things? The
old paradox may at least set them thinking,
and, even though the impression do not last
long, still it may prove temporarily sooth-
ing as did according to the fable, the music
Of Orpheus TO the wild animals he played to.
Indeed, no less a man than the great Lord
Bacon recommended this very effect as one
of the advantages of religion, when he said
''In Orpheus' theatre all beasts and birds as
sembled aud, forgetting their several appe-
tites, some of prey, some OF game, some OF
quarrel, stood all socially together, listening
unto the airs and accords OF the harp, the
sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was
drowned by some louder noise, but every
beast returned to its own nature. Wherein
is sptly described the nature and condition of
men, who, as long a. they give ear to pre-
cepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched
with eloquence and persuasion of books, of
sermons, of harangues, so long is peace aud
society maintained but, If these instruments
be silent all things dissolve into anarchy aud
confusion"