The Republican., 1897-04-22
Some Rambling Thoughts.
Copyrighted by Memo"

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Some Rambling Thoughts.
Copyrighted by Memo"
If were to question each reader
there would be very diverse answers
as to what constitutes the greatest
power in the world. Electricity, steam,
dynamite, volcanic eruptions, would
all doubtless be prime favorites. But
l name a greater than these-AN
IDEA. Ideas are silent but their
power no rending flash of lightning
ever equals. To speak of material
things even-the house you inhabit
the clothes YOU wear, the prepared
food you eat, the monuments you ad-
mire, are nothing but ideas material
lied. Far back in the ages some poor
shivering savages added riven piece
of wood to the front side of his cave
for an extra protection. Another of
these forgotten benefactors found fire
and conserved it by ideas that held it
in subsection, so that it no longer de-
strOyed, but warmed, cheered and
heightened his days. Then again one
| of these ancestors of ours thought how
to add strength to his arm by means
of a club at the end of it. And since
ideas are Orderly.-much as stairs by
which we climb-the higher one pos
sible because the lower one has been
passed, so these early discoverers are
the actual precursors of the home
comforts we enjoy and the machinery
that puts puny man above all powers
of nature, organic or inorganic. The
old methods may pass away, both of
| protecting ourselves from the inclem-
ency of the weather and of entering
into conflict with opposing forces but
the new methods are simply built
upon the old that have served their
purpose and led to higher things.
~
But when we come to ideas that
are not merely material but mental
and spiritual, the power to turn and
change and reform is even
more remarkable and wonder
full in its silence and its might. The
government to which you owe allegi-
ance, the peace and orderliness of life,
the spiritual impulses that sway us
are all the outcome of ideas that have
taken their origin like some mighty
stream in an obscure and hidden spot
that leads on to growth as it flows.
Take the idea of God, for instance
when the savage saw the power of
the wind and water and the seasons
his idea was that they were living be-
ings who could be pleased or irritated,
and he named them variously and
worshiped them. But gradually grew
up the conception in the national
mind, of a power over and above these
material signs of power and that was
wOrshiped as the God over all other
Gods. Yet while the tribe or the ma
tion remained stationary God was for
it alone and not for other peoples.
Each nation pre-empted to itself the
right and control of the true God or
| Gods. For long ages the thought Of
| the Fatherhood of God and the broth
erhood of man did not so much as
dawn upon the human mind;-nor
even the Hebrew mind. But when
fierce wars, followed by peaceful ad-
ministratiOns broke down the walls of
partition between nations, the idea
gradually began to grow among
| thoughtful minds that it was possible
| for nations to cooperate with one
another and this very tendency to CO.
operate paved the way for the preva-
| lence of the All-Father idea that now
entered the human mind. And now
is sweeping through the heart of the
world, the feeling that God and his
revelation is in some measure found
among all peoples and all religions
| What further ideas are yet to be re-
| garding the length, the breadth, the
height of Gods nature of mercy and
| tender interest, no man can yet tell.
| But this we know, the human mind
! is growing broader, and the human
| heart is warming into brotherliness
in our day; we also know that you and
| are living NOW, and it is ours to
live, think, and act broadly as be-
cometh the dawn of new century.
Again look at our government. We
strive here for the maximum of liberty
and the minimum of restraint upon
the individual, but itwouldbe absolute
| foolishness to assert that the breadth
of our constitution is all due to the
clear vision and emancipated minds
of the founders of the Republic.
Rather let us acknowledge that the
ideas they had were simply an orderly
development from thoughts that had
been stirring human hearts for ages
under all sorts of diverse conditions;
back to Magma Charta, back to Al
fred the Great, back to Challemagne,