The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1893-09-06
The Only True Test of Religion.

Matthew, vii. l6."
1t is perfectly safe to declare that the
man who is loyal to high moral ides
will produce life quite worthy OF oul
attention.
A low theory is sure to show itself in
low deeds. Great aims are apt to be fol
lowed by great achievements. Hitchinl
your wagon to star is not Pigment Of
the poets imagination; it is the exag'
gerated expression of divine possibility
II one projects his thoughts toward the
heavens he will at least kick the earth
from under his feet. Companionshir
with noble ideas makes vulgarity dis
tasteful.
Christianity claims the reverence Of
mankind because, it urges you to climb
high and acquire wider horizon. The
absorption of its truths is equivalent to a
re-incarnation, or a recreation, or re-
formation, for the baser elements die
out Just as savage races die out and a
nobler manhood supplants them just as
civilization supplants barbarism. We
estimate the value of Christianity, not by
the creeds of the churches nor by the
theology of learned scholars, but by its
effect on society. In like manner We
estimate the value of new invention
the telegraph for instarce-not by the
language of the patent which covers and
protects it, but by its ability to carry our
messages from one end OF the country to
another. If it will do the work we want
done it is priceless; if it fails when test
ed in that way it is worthless. Christ
ianity does work, and therefore, we can't
get on without it.
M. Paul Bourget in an interview given
in the Herald last Sunday has put the
whole matter in nutshell. He used
these words:
81 look upon the Christian religion
very much as M. Pasteur looks upon the
liquid he injects into patients bitten by
mad dogs. He does not know how to
cure hydrophobia any more than know
how to cure the evil which is in the
world. But he has learned, by expert
ence, that these injections furnish GER
tain immunity against the disease which
wonld follow without them. Therefore
he believes in injections-although he
does not understand their actions.
In the same way have come to recog-
nize that these men and women who
follow the teachings Of the church are in
great measure protected from the NOR
al disasters which, as l have shown in
my novels, and as Feuillet, Tolstoi aid
so many others have shown in theirs,
almost invariably follow when men and
women allow themselves to be guided
and swayed by their senses, passions and
weaknesses. For many years l, like
most young men in modern cities, was
contented to drift along in agnoticism,
but was brought to my senses at last
by the growing Relation that there is in
this life such thing as responsibility for
the influence we have upon others.
saw that the life OF man who simp-
ly said, 81 don't know, and not knowing
do the thing that pleases me" was not
only in itself and full Of disappointment
and suffering, but was positive influence
for evil upon the lives Of others. Since
then my belief has grown firmer each
year in the necessity OF the Christian
system for practical happiness in this
world.
Pasteur learned by experience" that
hypodermic injection of given kind
would mitigate il it did not eradicate the
evil OF hydrophobia. Perhaps he thought
1t would do so before he tried il, but
after he tried II he was sure. So M.
Bourget learned by experience-h even
admits that it was personal experience
that those who follow the injunctions
OF the Master are protected from the
moral disasters which are inevitable
when one has no such safeguard as relig-
ion affords.
In our judgment that is the crux oil
the whole problem. II Christianity can
not produce higher minded society
than infdelity or atheism it has nc
larger claims to our fealty than they
have. lit is just as safe, from q moral
and spiritual standpoint, to teach boy
TO run loose With Tut any restraint as it is
TO teach him that he must check his ap-
netitea and forever struoole IN keen his