The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1898-05-18
LYNN LABOR CHURCH
SPEAKER-HERBER N. CASSON.
Easter-The Festival Of Evolution


Easter-The Festival Of Evolution.
Text: Nothing can be more wonder
full than the majestic, unbroken, sublime
and eternal procession Of causes and ef-
fects.''
After religious festivals have been for
gotten, when the mythologies of Greece
and Rome and America have been alike
forgotten, we shall still have festivals to
commemorate principles, not people,
facts, not traditions, to inspire and in
struct, and not to Intensity Ignorance
and prejudice
Christmas will always be the festival
Of childhood. July 4th will commem-
crate liberty everywhere. Harvest HON
will be the jubilee of autumn. And
Easter will be the festival of spring,
life and evolution.
Since we discovered the fact of evolu-
ton we have had a new heaven and a
new earth. We now perceive that the
universe is not Punch and Judy show
but magnificent grand opera.
We proclaim with gladness that his
tory records mans rise, not his fall; and
that the garden of Eden is in front of
us, and not disastrously behind.
Evolution makes known the great
principle of growth. The only difference
between man and beast and bird and fish
and tree and stone Is development The
original fire-mist contained us all.
The miscroscope can detect no differ
ence between man, a monkey, lizard,
a crab. a pine tree in their earliest
beginnings. The late Prof. Drummond
was one of many scientists to announce
this fact
Nature is the mother Of us all. All
the animals in the forest, the air and the
sea are mileposts that point out the
long distance man has travelled upwards.
See how the locomotive has evolved
from Stephenson's foalr-mile- hour
machine, to a New York Central flyer,
that dashes four miles in three and one
half minutes.
See how the printing press has evolved
from Guttenberg's rule and slow process
to the New York World Hoe press, that
prints and folds SO, 400 eight-page papers
an hour.
Just so has the human body evolved
There still remain in every human body
70 bones, muscles, or nerves that serve
no useful purpose and are only remnants
from former stages of existence.
1t is one of these remnants that causes
appendicitis, which proves fatal to so
many
Ages Of struggle, of experiment, Of
cooperation, Of affection, have made us
what we are Every man is a walking
Westminster Abbey
The universe spent millions of years
preparing the earth for plants and jel-
ly-fish. It took ages of delevopment to
create a horse. If there had been any
Tories in those days they would have
said: "This is the end of evolution;
you can't improve on horses"
There are remnants Of animalism in
our bodies, and there are remnants Of
barbarism in our society. What is most
Of our modern religion but kind of
mental appendicitis? What is our SEN
ate but political tail-bone? What are
our aristocratic societies but the survival
of the ancestor-worship of antiquity,
when every man prayed to his grand
father?
1t is not wise, in these scientific days,
to boast of our ancestors. Better let
the dead past bury its dead, and prepare
the way for posterity. -.
Evolution shows the value and sacred
ness of human life. It puts us In touch
with every living thing and makes us
feel at home in the world. 1t explains
the problem of good and evil, which
theologians could never do. 1t reveals tn 2
plan of the universe and proves that We
are moving up, not down.
For the yeast of evolution works, as
hitherto forever;
We are in the morning hours of cur day;
Down the overwhelming vista whose
long stretches end in twilight,
We shall come on new perfections, NEE
new music on the way"
This Easter festival teaches us that
every Thinker must break the shell OF
the Past. Tories are nothing but bad
eggs. If you were to feed some New
England Republicans on yeast for a
month, they would not rise an inch.
No man can use the wings Of thought
with the shell of prejudice on. How
comical it is in many churches on East
er Sunday to see bad egg standing in
the pulpit and advising all the eggs in
the pews to keep their shells on if they
want to get hatched!
What does a man know about lift