Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-04-24
EACH MAN A BROTHER,
DR.. Thomas DenounceS Selfshness
and Pleads for Catholicity
of Spirit.
The Greatest Good to the Greatest
Number the Chief End of All
Government.

The subject of the sermon of the Rev.
DR.. Thomas last Sunday was The Uni
versal Good" His text was: Look not
every man on his own things, but every
man also on the things of others Let this
mind be IN We which was also in Christ
Jesus" Phil; IL, As
Each human being" the speaker said,
lis born with certain needs, and CORE
spending with these, certain natural and
necessary rights. The great world is open
to him for his employment bat he is so
constituted that he can not live alone On
ly when he enters into combination with
his fellows are great intellectual and ma
terial gains possible. Hence egotism and
altruism must go together. Humanity has
suffered much from the evils of kingly
government and ecclesiaSticism. In the
eighteenth century lived man who re-
v.olted against the aristocracy and the re-
hglous tyranny of his time. This was the
French skeptic Voney. He studied his
tory and the languages. and his celebrated
work Ruins was inspired by visits to the
old east where he pondered over the past
as it was reflected in the crumbling walls
of ancient times
''Volney in this book described the trials
of a nation in which the masses met and
divided the producers from the drones
of its civilization. On one side went the
few rich; on the other the many poor.
The governing few 10 replying to the cues
lions OF the governed told the lat
ter that their right to govern came from
God; that they were necessary to the ma
ton for its management. The masses re.
piled that they could manage for them
selves and gave unto every man his free
dom of thought and conscience in so far
as he did not interfere with the rights of
Others
such was Volney's appeal from the
kings and priests for the people In
his system God found expression in nature,
and natures laws and code were placed
above those of the church and state. This
same movement is that which marks the
worhngmen' union of Germany which
now controls 100000 votes.
Not free from extravaganza and errors,
political and religious, it is nevertheless a
forward movement of humanity, and at
bottom has some foundation in reason and
the nature of things; it is protest against
certain errors and wrongs, and an effort to
reconstruct society upon the broad basis
of reason and right of man; it looks in the
direction of the good of all, and as snch
should command the attention of all
thoughtful. and benevolent minds and
hearts. 1T is in one sense also a religious
movement 1t appeals to the god of reason
and right as revealed in the constitution
of nature and man, and as such it should
not be denounced as infdel, out in so far
as 1T Is true to these principles approved
and encouraged. 1t is an attempt to trans
late book of whose authorship there is no
doubt, and of whose truth and authority
there can be no question.
And all this is not to weaken but to
strengthen the real truths and claims of
Christianity Lei it be once understood
that Christianity is the friend of man. the
friend of the poor, the friend Of labor, the
friend of truth and justice, the friend of all
that is good and right, and the great,
struggling heart of humanity will be drawn
to Christ. 1t is the sad fact that the pro-
fessed religion of Christ has been too often
the friend of oppression, and cruelty, and
superstition, and ignorance, and the enemy
to reason, and progress, and liberty, and
justice that has filled the world with unbe-
lief and driven mankind away from the
church and religion.
And when Christianity takes her own
natural and true position In the world in
reference to all the great questions of rea-
son and right, then will it bring to bear it's
own great truths of the spirit, of the heart,
of the kingdom of God within. Christian
ity should have no quarrel with natural
religion, no quarrel with science, no quar-
rel with reason, for all these are her
friends and helpers and a part of herself
Christianity teaches love to God and man;
it teaches universal brotherhood, and it
comes to the heart as living power, as
the power of God to cast out selfshness
and entnrone conscience and benevolence.
1t says look not to self alone, but to
others, and have in you the mind of
Christ.
''The great battles of the world are being
fought now in the fields of the true and the
right, not with swords and cannon, but
with reason and conscience, and it is only
as the power of Christ, the power of moral
ideas and principles, come to rule, that
the evils of society can be corrected. IF
all the boss mechanics and the carpenters
in our city who stand apart in hostility
could have the mind of Christ in true
loving brotherhood and an unselfsh desire
to do right and to look each to the inter-
ests of the other there would soon be JOY
full agreement. If the poor and the rich
had the mind of Christ there would be no
hatreds or jealolsies, but only love and
the desire of each to help the other, and
in such a spirit our world is at last to find
its highest good when there shall be COM
mon sympathies and interests and all
shall strive for the universal good And
then will the kingdom of heaven be on
earth.
Evolution of the GaIlows.
Evidently the strong arm of tree serv-