The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-04-18

Easter from secular point of
view bids fair to furnish a diSserta-
ton which he who runs may stop
running to read standing still. Not,
however, to discover why secular
view of church function should
interest any one. If he should 60
to that unusual trouble sincerely OF
course the view would speedily
cease to engage his thinker so I'M
proftably, for he would perceive
that It was only the promise of
some uncommon commotion that
had appealed to him from the men,
tai spectacle of wording about to
poke a pen into religious bee
hive.
The love for innovations and the
enjoyment of unconventionalities
exploited by some one else are or
binary human prerogatives, which
no one has the right to call either
failings or virtues. Suffice it for
mere man to recognize that they
afford him and all of his kind a
large share of the pleasure which
this capricious life admits of.
AS matter of fact, though, the
secular mind is in no position to
discuss divine festival of any de-
scription in its strict religious sense.
The secular mind solemnly believes
that it is. In truth, it assumes
quite superior air, and intimates
that it has the whole affair COM
pretended in the hollow of one
hand, and that the same is but
mere incident to the many more eX-
tenSive things which the secular
intellect has gathered about it.
Secularism is not necessarily agnos-
ticism, but it resembles it in so far
as agnoSticiSm imagineS that each
great doctrine which it opposes is
only a small detail among many
which comprise the whole scheme
of agnoStic reasoning. Secularism
is prone to measure things with a
"yardstick" as wide as the uni
verse, and thinks it can mark
Christianity off in inches. The
question of God is to it as one
apple among basketful equally
worthy of consideration. And fire.
quently it judges the one apple
by comparing it with some other
one. The universal significance
of the Unreasonable thing which
it contends against fails to impress
it. 1t is small wonder, therefore,
that mere theoretical arguments by
agnostic or secular dissenters
against religious doctrines are so
generally superficial and uncon-
vincing.
1t is odd, of course, that the secu-
lar observer should presume that
he knows more about Easter than
do those whose teachers designed
the festival and who are them
selves perpetuating it. What he
really knows is Individually not
about it, but against it and apart
from it. Hence the secular view of
Easter must be full of irrelevancies
and void of descriptions. The soul
of Easter is its religious signifi-
canoe, which is never repudiated
by those who feel it, and conse-
quently can never be repudiated
automatically. What secular OBJ
servers may construe from it are
such irresponsible reflections as
these.
AS holiday, Invested of its
prime significance and accepted as
the world of fashion is pleased to
welcome it, Easter day is as valu
able as any other holiday, and no
more so. All holidays are alike in
that respect. They may be or
dained at a weeks notice by the
President of the United States or
be founded upon the doctrines of
Jesus Christ in the year 1t is
all the same from a fashionable
standpoint, for fashion, while it
may pose in church as religious
detail, is not Christianity by sew
eral lengths. The serene harmony
with which religion and fashion