Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-16
THINGS IN GENERAL.
The Dlsagreements of Scientists as to the
Definition of Matter - swedenborg's
Ideas of the Future State-Tolstops Fierce
Attack Upon Tobacco.


as queer as what people won't believe. The
credulities and the scepticisms of the human
race, taken together. show up. in not alto
gether lattering light, the vagaries of that
which we are pleased to call our mind. What
is there that hasn't been believed, or dIsbe-
lieved!
The other day heard q paper read upon the
ories of matter. For it is a fact upon which we
do not often enough reflect, in our considera-
tion of the "certainties" of science, that
scarcely any two scientific people agree as to
what matter really is. Some of them called
materalists, tell us that mind is nothing
but matter IndeedI And what then is
matter? Why. matter isis. No
body knows what matter 49, Some
of the philosophers say that this table on
which am writing is composed of a great
many millions of whirling circles, like rings of
tobacco smoke, gyrating like a circus dancer,
tumbling inside-out under my pen. Everything
in the world that can be touched and,seen is but
combination. big or little of rings of infinitely
microscopic smoke. And there are people .ho
believe that-and other people who disbe-
lieve it!
Some Revelations From Swedenborg.
A good friend of mine brought me in, not
long ago. a volume of the theological writings
of Swedenborg 1t is the one which has good
deal in it about the Day Of Judgment. and
about the condition of various kinds of people
in the next world. was greatly interested to
discover in it that our Dutch acquaintances will
wear wooden shoes along the golden streets of
heaven, and that our colored brethren will be
attired in the celestial country in red bandanna
hand kerchiefs. Why not7 And yet people
smile at this-while other people hold it for
honest fact.
been reading, in a little book entitled The
Spiritual Sense of Dan:e's Divine Comedy"
some remarkable assertions about the Christian
doctrine of hell. Dr. w. I. Harris is the au-
thor Of this very philosophical little treatise
the DR.. Harris who is well known in educa-
tional circles. And he says that the doctrine OF
hell underlies everything that is worth while in
modern civilization-all the progress. all the
liberty. all the splendid, humanitarianism of
our day. 1t all rests-he might have
said-as the Court OF Arcopagus. did in
old Athens. upon the cave of the furies,
This may seem as hard to take in as the
gyration theory of matter, or as wooden shoes
In heaven. But great many difficult, and
seemingly impossible, things look that way
only because We don't quite understand them.
DR.. Harris makes his position very plain. Hell
means the return upon man OF the full con-
sequences of his evil deeds. That signifies
absolute personal responsibility A man stands
out by himself as responsible individual. as a
man. The emphasis is laid on personality.
And the chief element of personality is held to
be character.
The Teachings of Mythology.
Now, see where we are. In the mythology Of
the world into which the Christian religion
came, the next life was a shadowy sort of exist
ence, in which the social and political distinc-
tions Of this life were continued. The inequali-
ties of human society lasted on. The doctrine OF
hell set a negative to that EVERY man accord
ing to his deeds" became the conception of the
differences OF the eternal world. The rich man
thirsts intoleraby for taste of cool water.
Lazarus is in felicity. Things are quite turned
about in ''the first five minutes alter death"
Only real kings wear crowns, on the other side
You see how that exalts personality, and thus
teaches the ideal of personal liberty
And, all the hindrances of fatalism being
taken away. what an inspiration to all endeavor
to uplft men! Any man is seen to be capable
of anything. Every man may stand upon the
heights. Jacobs ladder, round upon round,
uplifts itself beside the feet of the low-downest
human animal that breathes, higher and higher.
straight into heaven. And he can climb il, If
he will, with his dead self for the steps of the
celestial stairway, into manhood, and into
saint-hood, and hero-hood.
1t is worth while, after all. to believe in hell.
The undue,-and untTue,-teaching of eyerlast-
ing punishment has obscured the Christian doc
trine of hell, which has nothing TO do with ever
lasting punishment at all. EVERY man accord
ing to his Deeds" That is true to-day, and tomor-
row, and forever-in Pittsburg, and in heaven.
Professor of Things in General is reminded
that this is Monday morning. Sunday stopped
last night at IL o'clock. And religion must be
carefully kept for Sunday, like our best clothesi
Some people seem to think SO.
Count TolstoI a Pessimist.
Well. have you noticed what Tolstoi says now
about the iniquities of our generation-about
the cause of them? Count Tolstoi has been for
some time upon the pulpit platform of the
world n N
things IN general are out of order. He ac-
counts US pretty far gone from original right
eousness. He has his opinion OF u.s. And i. is
quite true that this is not the very best of all
possible worlds, yet Else there would be an
end to progress. There would be nothing to look
forward to. Tolstoi, however, lives in Russia.
l see that "E B. Lanin," in the Fortntghtty is
still showing up Russia as the particular
chosen abode of the devil and his angels upon
the surface of this planet. 1 hope that even
Russia is not quite so bad as that. Still, it
must be a bad place for an optimist.
Atlsst, the Russian reformer has found the
root of all evil. 1t is tobacco.
Smoking. he says, begins by destroying the
conscience. People drink and smoke, not
merely for want of something better to do to
while away the time, or to raise their spirits;
simply and solely in order to drown the warn
ing voice of conscience" There, my tobacco
using brethren, you have it. without mincing
of speech or moderation of statement. Your
menacing finger behind cloud of smoke
This assevertion is backed up by proof evident
to everybody. Behold the smoker! He cares
for nobodys comfort but his own. He
rides roughshod over the most elementary
rules of social life. "No one would take the
liberty to flood with water room in which
people sitting: to scream and yell in it; to
turn on hot cold or foetid air, or to perform
any other acts tending to disturb or injure
others; and yet out of a thousand smokers
scarcely one will hesitate to fill with noxious
fumes a room, the atmosphere of which is be-
ing breathed by women and children who do
not smoke"
But this is in Russia.
Smoking Damaging to the Mind.
This, however, is not the last note of this
was speaking the other day
in this Monday Meditation about how eduea-
ton damages the mind. Smoking, it appears,
damages the mind still MORE Some minds it
stagnates, others it stimuates-unduly. The
man who smokes cannot think. There is as big
. cloud inside his head as there is outside. |
He is irresponsible. He smokes and is drunk. |
Smoking, the Count maintains is the cause of |
,wo-thirds of the extraordinary transgressions |
of this century. The race is dunk. by far |
he greatest part of all that is done in this |
world of ours, both by those whose profession !
It Is to guide and teach others. and by those |
Who are thus guided and taught, is done in "a |
state of inebriety. Is it conceivable that people
rot drunk should calmly set about doing all the |
extraordinary things that are being accom-.
olished in our world, from the Etfel Tower to |
military service? 1t is utterly ihcon-
,evable."
And yet even this. as 1 said at the begin. |
ling. some people-so curiously is the human |
mind constructed-wlll quite decline to credit! |