St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-05-14
COMFORTABLY AND AGNOS.
TICISM."

IL wish to write about things L do not
understand. Who made the earth and
seas and everything? What makes the
sun hot? Where was before | came to
mother?" wrote in her diary little
HELEN KELLER at ten-born deaf and
mute and blind. The blind mute but
expressed the universal wish which has
stirred the thoughts Of men ever since
men began to have the power OF
thought. Where did l come from?
Where am I going? The mystery OF
the past,-the dark out Of which we
came-giYes US little concern; we have
passed whatever that is. 1t IS what is
coming that we think about and try 10
know, learning at last, with SOCRATES,
that 1--WE know that we cannot know"
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS and
JOHN BURROUGHS write IN the current
North American "about the things L
do not understand the woman with
her intuitionS; the scientist with his
cold reason, accepting only the Facts or
this world Oh which to base belief. Both
bear tribute to the forcefulneSs OF the
problem which ever controntS human
ity; which countless men solve daily,
but send back to the survivors no mint
OF their discoveries; which men in all
ages have been offering their fellows
solutions of, and yet about which men
are ever questioning.
Notin the words she uses, the thoughts
she makes them express, but back OF
them, in the motive thought, we read
| that Mrs. PHELPS has found nothing
satisfying to her mind in any solution
| of the problem yet given to men which
defines what our lives hereafter shall
b., OF how occupied; but her life has
| taught her to believe with mistaken
| faith in some life somewhere after what
men call death. Asked why she is sure
| of this, she replies that it must be so
| because life here is at its best failure;
perfection, the end of production, is
never attained here; there must be an
other life with happier environment,
where the effort towards perfection may
be continued; God is not good If this
life is all. In the same vein of thought
it was that HELEN HUNT JACKSON, in
the poem written few days before her
death, resigned contentedly heart and
hand to death because There must be,
somewhere, work to do"
1.-The atmosphere of our times is fast
| being cleared of the fumes and deadly
| gases that arose during the carbOnifer-
Gus age Of theology" writes JOHN BUR
RoUGHs. Science has come TO take the
place of superstition as teacher OF men
of what life is and its conditions are.
She has taken us into the workshop of
nature and shown us the forces there,
and defined them and largely conquered
them, and the earlier fear of them has
vanished with the familiarity Of contact
and knowledge of them. Men have
learned that law governs them and
everything; immutable, memorable law
Science has reversed the relations men
thought the world sustained to the
universe. 1t is no longer the center fol
which the sun and stars were created
it is only one of myriads. Mans sense
of Importance shrivels as the sense OF
the universe daWnS on him. THAT con
ception must react on Christianity =
l mean its creed and Dogma" says
TENNYsoN; sits morality will al
ways remain invulDerable." 1.-THE
universe is going its own way" say
BURROUGHS. with no thought of US;
to keep in its currents is our life; t.
cross them is our death. This discover.
sends the cOsmic chill with which 81
many of US are familiar in these days
it makes the religious mind gasp TO
breath, but we must face it and still tin'
lite sweet under its influence" Blu
science knows no other plan of re
demption than the survival of tn
fittest; knows no other day of creation
than this day, knows no other fall 0
man than the present daily fall of vic
and ignorance, knows no heaven or hel
save those we make ourselves, know
no Immortality save the persistence Q
lite and force. and, finally, knows n
God save the infinite Power that fill
and floats all things" And so we a
continue to think and read and write @
"what do not understand" and reall
know at last that, whatever ma
| come ga man can do his dutV'