New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1896-02-12


the altar that candid admission Of Gie-
clan scholarship that the conception of
God was as yet unfathomed. A few
bald representatives of comparative bar
barism essay the task Of solving the mys-
terry and from depth of superstition
and stirs our pity the message comes
"Lo, this is God; let us adore him.
And today you know that I tell the
truth the bulk of Christendom replies:
s'That God will we serve" Do you get
my meaning fully? This is the God
whom the savage intellect portrayed, ,and
that intellect was inspired by few un-
scientific glimpses Of natural law It
was this god, heralded by the thunaers
and illumlned by the Lightning, the
! benefcence of his sun, moon and stars
modified by the terrors ofthe whirlwind,
pestilence and storm; life's few slant
beams of gladness offset by frowning
shadows of grief; the radical dawn of
birth melting into the dreary rmidnight
of death; the lone star of hope mostly
hidden by deep clouds Of despair. And
these were the pigments with which the.
savage painted the picture of his God,
so vaguely imagined, but SO Ions and
universally accepted. Itwas not strange
that under the spell of that half-smiling,
half -frowning picture, speculation should
give birth to mixed progeny of hopes
and fears, Where ignorance assumes to
be wise. superstition finds hot-bed tor
every noxious need, and who, standing
within the light of history, can doubt
that the fields of investigation have ma
tuled weeds rather than healthful grains?
Under the terror inspired by the low
cred brows of our God-picture, mankind
has tremulously prayed for mercy. There
was something in the frown that told
man he was accursed. The terror of the
scowl outranked the hope of the half
concealed smile; he must WOO, if per-
chance he might win escape from threat
ening hCrrors. [ am not dreaming. I
am not manufacturing man of straw.
Read your Bible and from the shivering
Adam in Eden, hiding from the wrath of
his maker, to Christ, shrieking on Cal
vary, "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me, you will find the lengthen
ing shadow of spectral dread which
even virtue, Christ virtue, could not
Danish. From this distorted picture of
deitym an turned hopeless gaze upon
his own beshadowed soul. He could
but feel that that frowning face BODIED
him i'll. All, whittier fly? No city of
refuge offered its friendly shelter. The
universe was Gods; he filled it, and he
was angry. What could the savage brain
invent? He knew only the savage stand
ard of character; he was wont to pur-
chase peace from his enemies with sifts;
God was, according to his level of I'M
derstandlng, only greater enemy, and
therefore he must increase the value Of
his gifts. Salvation beyond the grave
was an after thought; the bulk of evi-
dence goes to prove that man sought at
first only physical salvation; he desired
life and hence he sacrificed other life IN
order to avert the stroke from himself.
That thought runs all through our bibli-
Cal mythology. Deaths angel could not
smite the first born while blood was on
the doorposts. A life for a life, said the
savage, and somehow he believed that
Justice could not demand of him the
life which had been substituted by anoth-
er.
So the notion evidently became popu-
lar that the sinners sin might be atoned
by substitution. Voices were heard oc-
casionally appealing from savage instinct
to nobler ideals. But 1t is so mach easier
! to pay a tariff on sin than to practice re-
forms that the faint protests of the pro-
phets we're drowned in the deep sea of
tradition. There is just reason to believe
that the young prophet, Jesus, abomina-
ted the whole sacrifcial system and
| hoped to end it by his preaching or, if
need be, by proclalming himself the last
sacrifice and end of the law for righteous
ness. His disciples evidently so under-
stood him and proclaimed the death Of
the Mosaic institution. Butsuperstition
was not yet satisfied; it must cling "a
while longer to the God Of the savage,
and, if it lost faith in the blood of beasts,
it must substitute the blood Of a man.
Fanaticism had already at times offered
human sacrifice but this final act Of bar
barism must drench the affairs with the
gore of a Goldman and thus toncn the
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