The record-union., 1896-05-31
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS
BY MEMO.
(Convrighted.)

variably hopeful tone and are dedicated
week by week to better understanding or
the possibilities and grandeur or nfe.)
One of the regular and most kindly
readers of these Rambling Thoughts"
WAS looking over Cicero some days
Since and came across the following
sentence: 1.-The man who knows himself
will find within himself traces of the
divine, and while he considers himself
an image of the Deity, he will be careful
to avoid those feelings which would in
jure this great gift The writer was
asked for some Thoughts" on this
line. They are here; unworthy, per-
haps, of the great topic, and yet possi-
lily useful in a suggestive way, because
of their very incompleteness.
One thing demonstrated to the sat-
isfaction of open-minded people by the
Worlds Parliament of Religions at
Chicago in 1898, was that no one nation,
nc one age, no one church holds within
itself all of truth The idea, for in
stance, of the divine paternity is not
solely Semitic. Cicero, the Roman ora
tor, as shown above, earlier than 46
B. C. declared the truth. Confucius
the Chinese philosopher, more than 400
men go and worship on the hills, or
pray to those molten or carved images
for happiness? God is in you. Have
mo doubt in your heart!" And the Greek
poets, whom Paul quoted on Mars Hill,
had the same idea. If the universally
of a thought is proof of its accuracy
then we are all partakers of the divine
mature.
But we have reached a questioning
and analytical age. Nothing is ac-
cepted on the mere assertion of the an
clients, and the proof of a statement
is not admitted to inhere in it's an
tiquity. In fact, many ar idea, because
of its very age, is fair object of attack
by this virile generation. If one glanees
back, then, over the records of a quar-
ter of a century, it must be conceded
that a practical revolution has taken
place in our ideas regarding the crea-
tiOn of living things. Where once each
creature was thought to be the prod
uct of a separate creation, the scientists
are now pressing more and more to the
point of claiming that each variety of
animal including man, is merely a
higher development or a branch de-
velopment through ages of some lower
or concurrent form of life. Even our
pulpits in many cases hesitate no longer
TO accept and to preach, without be-
littling the Almighty, the broader as
poets of evolution as an explanation of
the growth of creatures, of society and
of religion. Evolution, as giving a CO.
herent unity to creation, instead of
leaving it a series of breaks and jumps,
is in the air. The very highest expo
nent of the most spiritual aspects of
New Testament teachings, the writer
of such a reverential gem as The
Greatest Thing in the World Professor
Henry Drummond, is an out-and-out
evolutionist in his ideas of the devel-
opment of our bodies. One might dilate
at length on the numberless little hints
regarding an ancestry of lower form than
ours: the undeveloped muscles for NOV
ing the ears the little horny point in
the upper and outer edge of the ear. the
fateful appendix vermiformis, the in
stinctive behavior Of the young and
other peculiarities that exist in the in
teTesting pages of our outer form and
inner being, or that are found most
markedly in the obscure records of our
lives when in embryo. But it would
be contrary to the writer's purpose to
facts. Those of mature years who
would pursue this line further might
read with profit Drummond's Ascent
of Man" 1t is the work of a deeply re
ligious thinker, is full Of the glory and
poetry of mother-love, and every man
or wpman who reads thoughtfully
would rise therefrom filled with a no
bier idea of the sanctity of the nature
we inherit.
But where has this line Of thought
brought US? To the conclusion that the
growth OF ourselves from a germ is no
more wonderful than the emerging of a
chicken from an egg or the development
of a tree from seed. If our intricate
anatomy is recognized as the handiwork
of the Divine, so, equally, must the oys-
ter be recognized, for, simple form
though it take, the devices within it for
removing effete matter, and repairing g
and building tissue are as marvellous
as those within US. In fact, at some
points animals have the advantage of
US; we cannot scent like dogs, nor swim
like fish, nor jump like feas, nor see
like eagles. But because the handiwork
is wonderful, il does not follow that the
divine nature is also there. If 1t were
so, We ought to rank these other crea-
lures as partakers Of 1t with US, which
is ridiculous and abhorrent.
AS the child grows it retains fewer
and fewer of those instructive impulses
which showed forth in its early hours.
Where instinct ceases thought begins.
Between the one and the other is a great
gulf fixed, which some few of the do
mestic animals have partially traversed,
but which to the great majority Of the
myriad forms of created life is as i'm
passable as the space twiXt here and
Jupiter; mans mind sets him on the
apex Of creation. Where centuries ago
the tailor bird, with its adaptive beak,
would sew leaves together for a nest,
and continues to do the same thing in
the self-same way, man has passed from
the slaughter Of beasts to hand-worlx
in making a covering for his skin; from
that TO the hand-loom; and thence to the
power-loom. Where the chattering
monkeys Of African forests make them
selves into bridges for their fellows to
cross. man nolds the most enduring
and intractable metals into beams and
cables that hold aloft the gigantic spi-
der webs by which the commerce and
comfort Of a people are effected. Where
the hippopotamus Is found to have an
ally in the flamingo, and the crocodile
an attendant bird that warns of dan
ger, man. by his superior powers, har-
nesses the wind, makes the electric cur
rents his messengers, the seas his bur-
den-bearers, the domestic animals his