The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1897-05-07

the business of enlarging n purifying and
ennobling life, of showing men that the re-
ligion of Christ is an everyday religion, that
men mo bid farewell to religion as they
bow themselves out of church on Sunday. In
place of regarding Sunday and its worship
as the only sacred things In life and all
other things as secular, we are beginning
to abolish the distinction between the sacred
and the secular. We are beginning to regard
all things as sacred and all times as sacred.
AN AGE OF DOUBT.
A more certain sign of the times is found
In the popular characterization of this age
as an age of doubt. Ny W theory is that
the source of the doubt Is In tue seeming
material inequality between men. Nathan
lei Hawthorne, In one of his moments of
inspiration, imagines a new Adam and Eve
coming to the earth after a day Of doom had
swept away the whole of mankind, leaving
their works and abodes and inventions Gall
that bears witness to the present condition
of humanity untouched and silently elo-
quent. He presents these representatives
of a new race as entering with wonder and
dismay the forsaken heritage of the old
race. lie pictures them as passing through
the streets of the ~depopulated city and the
sharp contrast between the splendOr Of one
abode and the qualor of another fills him
with distressed establishment. They are
painfully amazed at the unmistakable signs
of inequality In the conditions of men. They
are troubled and overwhelmed by the evil
dence of the great and miserable fact that
n portion of the earth's last inhabitants
was rich and comfortable and full of ease,
while the multitude was poor and weary
and heavily laden with toll. Hawthorne
puts these thoughts and these feelings into
the heart of the new man and the new wo-
man, but they are really the feelings that
exist today in the depths of every intelligent
and thinking and pitiful heart. Who has
felt at such times the profound senti-
ment of grief over the fact that the good
things Of life are so unequally distributed,
that so much is given to one man and so
little to another man, and that as a result
of this they seem to be separated by an i'm
passable gulf, aud worst of all to be set at
eternal enmity. The result of this condi-
ton has been to bring about a state of uni
versal unrest. There is yeast in society to-
day. 1t Is the unrest of the masses. Try
to cover 1t up or conceal 1t as you may, it Is
an age of profound unrest. And perhaps
the worst symptom of this condition or the
worst result of this condition is that mans
inhumanity to man has been made to argue
Gods indifference and even His injustice to
man. This is n of the many sources of
prevailing doubt and unbelief. There can
be no question but that we do live in an
age of doubt, but let me emphasize the fact
that 1t Is doubt rather than agnosticism, un-
certainty rather than denial, unbelief rather
than disbelief, that prevails the age. The
doubt Of the age may be fifty symbolic ,dlby
the Interrogation point. Thoughtful men
look upon 1t not so much as a crime but as a
malady, a disease of the age, and in this
they find hope. Renan not long before his
death made q very striking remark. He
said, II fear that the work of the twentieth
century will consist in taking out of the waste
basket a multitude of excellent ideas which
the nineteeth century has hastily thrown
into it," Van Dyke, in commenting upon
this, says: ''The skeptic's fear is the be-
LEVERS hope" The skepticism of the age
has inspired sorrow and depressiona and in
the sorrow of skepticism the fields are made
white unto the harvest.
OPPORTUNITIES.
Now, a word about the opportunities
which this boundless century will offer to
the young man who stands as king among
his fellows. The very character and condi-
ton of the age are themselves a magnificent
opportunity. A day in this age is worth
more than years in the earlier stages of the
worlds history. Methuselah lived to the
age of 500 years. The average life of the
man of today is a little less than thirty
years, but l venture the assertion that the
man who wisely improves his time and OPP
portunities today may live longer, if life is
to be measured by results, than did Methu-
selah. Measured by achievements, Moses
lived longer than Methuselah, but Moses
lived only 100 years. Should you live to be
only 40 years of age you have privileges
and opportunities of usefulness and achieve
ment far exceeding those of the young men
in the days of Moses. 1t has been said that
the man does not live who rightly weighs a
single hour. Certainly tn, man does not
live who can adequately estimate the value
of a single day in these closing years of the
nineteenth century. Never before did a
day weigh so heavily. Never before was a
day worth so much. What then can we
say; rather, what might we not say of the
opportunities of the twentieth century young |
There is so much, judged by the |
past, yet to be achieved; so much yet to be
revealed, so much that can yet be accom-
There are new laws to be framed.
There are new tools TO be invented. There
- - oro 10 Ha H;eaoyaraI Thn.o 49, |