Connecticut western news., 1894-08-16

Matthew IX., Is, IT. "And no man putteth
 piece of undressed cloth upon an old gar
 ment, for that which should i'll it up,
 taketh from the garment and a worse rent Is made.
 Neither do men put new wine into old wine
 skins else the skins burst and the wine is
 spilled and the skins perish but they put new wine into fresh wineskins and both are preserved" k Old and New. Very common adjec. tives these. daily on our lips and the one or the other may be prefixed to al- most every noun. They characterize ordinary home objects with which we are familiar. A picture, a chair.a book, piece of crockery are either old or new. Did some benefactor offer one choice of garment, old or new, it ! would be the most natural order of procedure to choose the new for the new is probably more desirable. Or should he give one option of an old CT new piano, one would not hesitate in selecting the new, and yet Is the old | unworthy? It has stood the tests of | time, 1t bears the stamp of we'll known maker whose house has prospered and whose fame is fair; so why the new? The new has probably been made with experience learned from the old and is | therefore of more approved design. Is 1t the rule to prefer the old house to the new, the old carriage to the new, old ways and manners to the new? We must not be understood as desiring to show disrespect to the old in asking these questions and suggesting answers. | We have love for the old and perhaps | in all our homes there are treasured ob- | iects which have come from former generations that served we'll their pur- pose in their day, and which because of their associations we preserve with low | ing care. There is here beautiful sen ] timent and to foster 1t is to enrich life. How lovely 0 character may become that keeps bright spot in the heart for these things, sacred relics of the past But in cherishing this sentiment | of the affections there must not be for gotten the unchanging law wherein | like seeks its like, wherein the new seeks the new and the like must have | it's like and the new must have the new or else rent be made.
 The garment of century ago, the \ h table of that day, the instrument of not, cannot, meet the requirement of the present.
 This rule of the new demanding the new passes beyond ordinary home ob- jects and enters the sphere of discovery and invention. No man in building a house, intelligently puts to use u @ clumsy tool with which his forefathcr built cabin in the forest. No man in blowing the soil of many-acred farm, intelligently employs the primitive blow and single OK with which his an- cestor was accustomed to turn the stub- born furrow. The handy tool for mol. ern building must be had and the dex- terous machine for modern agriculture No one in hurrying to his destination will ride in post-stage when railway car is at hand. No one will cross the ocean in & laboring craft of old design when.a modern greyhound of the sea is near. No one would engage an ancient man-of-war in naval conflicts unless he wished to see it quickly sunk. Those little Spanish caravels floating in our waters last summer, models of what | Columbus used So, needful to the life of his age, serve no other purpose than that of wonderful curiosities; they are \ of no practical use. No one will sub- stitute a parchment for the modern book. No one will light his hall wit h the antique lamp and oil of sperm when better material Is available. If you oc- casionally meet one who prefers to live in the environments of Q former age the exclamation comes, how out of time!
 But in professional and student life | the same law operates. Will anyone now subject himself to the surgery of a hundred years ago? Surgery and med- ical practice are ever improving, be- coming adapted to better age, and can person knowing this still pref, r the old? The study of all science is ever revealing new things. Does any one now believe the ancient solar theories, how that the heavens wheeled about the earth? How out of place are these ideas in this advancing world Who prefers to accept knowledge on any subject as 1t used to be to know ledge as 1t is now?
 But this rule of the neY demandin 2 the new passes also into principles of government. A crude people could en- dure the despotism of Rome and pros per. but time has shown better ways of ruling. Where crudeness disappeared a new character developed and new government had to be evolved; and where barbarism still Is, there too Is despotism. Our country represents the highest civilized life yet developed, it has therefore developed the highest form of government. Let one attempt to put over us, who have once tasted good government, monarchic rule how quickly would the air be filled with re- ports of rents made worse and bursting wineskins. If anyone doubts this last application of the truth let him look al the late episode with the neighbor islands of the Pacific; does that not wit. ness to the truth of Jesus words when with these homely figures of the cloth and wineskin he sought to lay down the unchanging principle that the old
 cannot contain the new? The modern age demands the modern forms; these
 forms do not fundamentally differ from the old but are better because develop, ed by experience gathered from the
 old. The progress is not revolution
 but evolution. The blow remains a
 blow but is better blow; the ship re-
 ualHS Snlp DuL IS DetCer snip : astronomy remains astronomy but is a . better astronomy; government remains
 government but IS better government
 Some one will ask here, why devote SC
 many words to show the truth of SC : simple rule, no one denies an axiom
 1t Is self-evident; law so widely ap.
 piled must be nature's law, the design
 of the Creator; this progressive princi
 pie sweeps the universe. Is any chilJ
 so senseless as to try to stop the cur
 rent of the Amazon? Is any man SC
 void of understanding as to put out hi, hand to stay the irresistible tide of al things to new existence? But we hare tried to prove self-evident truth to demonstrate an axiom for when this rule is carried into the sphere o christianity where its operation is nc
 less true and where it's movement is nc