The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-25
CULTURE OR LOVE"
The Greek and the Christian
Ideals Compared.
THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE.
Dr.. Levi Gilbert Speaks OF the Insolu-
bic Enigmas Of Religious Cues.
tions-Church News.

ReF. Lew gilbert preached last evening
10 large congregation, at the First Meth
odlst Episcopal church, upon Culture or
Love? The Greek or the Christian Ideal 2"
The text was from:
Corinthians xiii-H know all mysteries and
an knowledge but have not love, am nothing.
For we know in part.
Paul, said the speaker, had great respect
for learning, but great scorn for the friv-
oious. disputatious intellectualism of the
hippant Corinthians. The partially of
our knowledge ought to induce in us the
greatest modesty. How impossible is it to
Keep pace with the wide extension of in
vestigation and discovery in every direc-
ton. Men are specialists of the minutest
speciality. The bulk of books is getting to
be enormous We are but just entering
upon the possible revelations of science.
How little do We actually know after all
our opinions and speculations are
eliminated. How soon do we come
to the limits of our knowlege
when we ask: What is matter? What
is spirit2 What is mind? We know the
essence of nothing-not of blade of grass.
The larger our circle of light the larger the
circumference of the outlying darkness.
DR.. Gilbert pointed out how religious
but said there is an education in all mys-
terry. 1t is not necessary to understand
all dark things but to obey plain truths
the word that is nigh thee.
We need not be agnostics. We do
know, though we know only partially.
How many PHILOSOPHERS and philosophers
have attempted the solution of life.
Pythagoras, Thales, Zeno, Anaxagoras,
the Sophists, Socrates, the Cynics, Plato,
the Academy, Aristotle, Stoicism, Epi-
cureanism, the Sceptics, the Scholastics,
Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume,
Leibnitz, Berkeley, Kant, Fichte. Schilling,
Hegel, Schoppenhauer, Comte, Spencer,
Lotze. But time is coming when all
our boosted systems of knowledge will be
as nothing.
There is tendency in exclusive scien-
tific pursuit to deny place to the feelings
the intentions, the soul-to reject mystery.
Our present knowledge will not be dishon-
ored but overwhelmed. Compared with
love that abideth forever it is as nothing
There is an aristocracy of culture in our
day as in the past. We say, s'The masses;
the Hebrews, sThe people who know not
the law; the Romans, 1.-THE Ignoble
Herd; the Greeks, ''The Many" There
u
erary and aesthetic product. which finds
little attraction in the uniettered multi
tude. which for the sake of its own gratifi-
cation withdraws from struggling, toiling,
SHINING, suffering, starving, dying men.
We need deeper, broader, more brotherly
impulse. Greek roots and Latin conjuga-
tions may perish, but men must live.
There is tendency to selhshness in the
Nm of -to1D 70,
worm and recluse-prefering the society of
the great on our book shelves and disdain-
ing common men and women. So in the
sacred name of cultivation a man becomes
fossilized in his inhumanity. Culture
must be for the sake of others.
This love is what is demanded by orr
age, with its complex civilization, growing
poverty, vast cities, fierce competitions,
class distinctions. Here is call to our
century if it has strength, the arts of life,
an elevating faith, a pure religion to
make its possession shared by all inferior
races; to prove that the wisest, richest,
greatest of all has truest grandeur in be-
coming servant of all. Otherwise a civil.
cation without love is cruel and rapacious.
one of standing armies, warships, riied
cannon and gatling guns. The solidarity
of the race must be recognized. Whatever
measure of intelligence, native force, learn
ing, ability, refinement, religion, insight
and power any possess must be conse-
Grated and shared.
"The airs OF heaven blow Ger me,
glory shines before me
Ofwhat mankind shall be-
Pure, generous, brave and free.
"Tte love OF God and neighbor,
And eausl-handed labor;
The richer Lie where beauty
Walks hand in hand with duty"