The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-02

and may be accomplished by an i'm
proved moral tone in society, by higher
standards of morality, decency and
right living. But to make these insti-
tutions an annex to the church is to
degrade the church to their own level.
If there is no power and charm In the
gospel simply presented and forcibly
advocated in the spirit of faith, hope
and charity, then the church is doomed;
then the church is wrong and Ingersoll
is right.
Apparently the Protestant church
shows pronounced symptoms of disin-
tegration. But it has its hopeful signs.
Never has it been more wonderfully
fruitful in religious movements, like
Chautauquaism and the Young Peoples
Society of Christian Endeavor, move
ments, all more or less wise and effect
i've. Organizations moral, intellectual,
social and fraternal have sprung UP
through the church, and it is these that
are holding Professionalism together dur
ing the fierce storm of doubt and con-
troversy that is beating upon it.
The end of the century also brings
unparalleled unrest and uncertainty to
the world of labor and capital. The
formation of gigantic, monopolistic
combinations is filling the great work
ing classes with anxiety and trepida-
ton. Trusts are a distinctive feature
of modern life, they are so absolutely
novel to the human race that there is
no light of experience that can be
thrown upon the outcome. Perhaps
that statement may be qualified. Thus
far but few trusts have been able to
prolong their existence for any con-
siderable period. Many of them have
actually melted the very competition
they We're designed to suppress. The
great, swollen, disqualification of
the trusts is a danger that continually
menaces them. Unless they can con-
troll competition absolutely they can
not keep up the fictitious value of their
inflated and watered stocks and bonds.
A day of reckoning is pretty sure to
come. and it may bring with it the con-
vulsions Of fearful panic. The law
of supply and demand cannot be set
aside by any combination of capital,
however vast and unholy. That law
alone is likely to prove in the long run
a bar to the life of any trust.
Despite all the dangers that seem to
beset society there is no occasion for
pessimism or despair. There is a rising
as well as a setting sun. Religion is
not dead. Literature is not utterly de-
PRAYED. 1t has experienced very much
the same diseased conditions before and
recovered. The appearance of Rud-
yard Kipling, like a star. in a stormy
night, gives promise that the clouds
are breaking. The Spanish American
war revealed individual heroism of the
purest and noblest type. Humanitys
silver cord is not loosed nor the golden
bowl broken, nor the pitcher broken at
the fountain, nor the wheel broken at
the cistern. The winter of doubt and
debauchery will pass: it is passing even
now. The poisonous dregs of the last
decade of the Nineteenth century will
be thrown out and the cup of life filled
afresh from purer streams of motive
and aspiration. There is coming a time
freer from folly and fuller and fi17ner
of faith. Human society may suffer
it's depressions and discouragements,
but it will live to fulfill it's splendid
destiny. We believe this because his
tory and analogy teach it; we believe
it because Easter is here, with its
promise and assurance, radiating the
very altar of Christianity, and singing
it's triumphant songs of transcendant
joy and imperishable hope around the
world; and tens of thousands of
churches this morning are athrll with
It's inspiration. C. H. E.