The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1899-04-26
DEMAND OF THE TIMES.
INTERESTING PAPER WRITTEN BY REV. WIN.
RICE ON "a HIGHER CONCEPTION OF
DUTIES NEEDED"

the times III WHICH we live, tudn larger,
higher conception of duties. Everywhere
and by every class of men the talk is
about rights You undertake to say
word i'm condemnation of the saloon and
the drink curse, and you are promptly
met by the cry of personal rights" You
speak of the evils of sensational and
filth distributing journalism, and from
every point of the horizon come protests
against meddling with the rights of the
press. Attempt to muzzle anarchy and
put stop to harangues against property
and government, and you are told that
you are interfering, with the rights of
free speech. You lift up your voice and
use your pen in denunciation of the OPP
preston of the money powers, and you
are charged with infringing upon the
rights of capital. III you appeal to the
workingmen to be loyal to the civil
authorities and refrain from deeds of
rioting and lawlessness and keep their
hands off their fellows, then you are ac-
cused of being unfriendly to the rights
of labor and are its enemy. Say one
syllable about the danger of loose views
of christianity and of sailing rudderless
and composites over an uncharted sea,
and you are at once set down as being an
enemy of the rights of free thought.
So it goes. In every direction, up and
down, the cry is "Our rights, our rights"
Now this word is un-biblical, and its
popular use is contrary to the spirit of
the gospel. The great, strong, mighty
word that loads down the scriptures is
"duty, duty" Itmay not always appearin
so many black letters, but in some of its
synonyms or equivalents it runs through
the old book from cover to cover.
Speaking of himself after the resur-
rection, the Savior said, ut behooved
Christ to suffer-" 1t is easy enough to
see duty there. 1t was duty that pillor-
led and Fashioned and glorified the
character of Paul, the apostle to the
Gentiles. Duty urged him on. Duty
hurried him over sea and mountain in
the service of his fellow men. He con-
ceived of himself as being a debtor both
to the Greeks and the barbarians, both
to the wise and the unwise. He rarely
ever entertained thought of what he
had right to claim for himself. The
burden of his heart was his sense of obi
cation to his struggling fellow men.
Duty is the word that makes mission
aries and martyrs. tits soldierly;courage
is its essence. Self-sacrifce lies at the
heart of it, 1t considers the other man.
1t looks out and not in. The men who
do its behests are the men who climb the
worlds Calvaries and die for the worlds
uplifting. There are times, of course,
when it becomes duty to contend for
rights, but too often the man who stands
on what he calls his rights is selfish.
He wants the world to revolve around
about him. He thinks only of his own
comfort and happiness and welfare. No
matter to him how his rights may hurt
others or damage society; he wants them
anyway.
1t is the outputting of this spirit,
this selfish clamor for rights, that
is violating and agitating our country
to-day and is threatening our security
with the curse of trusts. The capitalist
is saying: "My business is my own, my
property is my own, and / will allow no
man or set of men to interfere with my
rights to manage what is my own as l
please" The working-man is saying:
"My labor is my own, and l have right
to ask what | choose for it, or to refuse
to sell it at any price" Both of these
are wrong, because both are looking at
the matter from the wrong point of view.
Instead of considering what they owe to
society, they are thinking only of what
society owes to them. They forget that
ownership is and must be limited and
modified by social relations. AS matter
of fact, neither the one nor the other is
allowed to do as he pleases with his own.
Society lays its hand upon the property
of the capitalist and takes part of it for
itself in the shape of taxes, without ask
ing his leave, and it says to the working
man in time of war, IL want your strength,
your ability to labor, to fight my battles"
and he has to give them. Thus the law
of social need is higher than the law of
personal rights, and our recent out
breaks and disturbances in strikes were
largely due to the fact that this higher
law was lSuO Lllt tle-
mand a larger, higher conception of
duties, more sturdy application of the
law of mutual obligation. There are
duties to our country, solemn and bind
ing, which we may not neglect with
impunity. We owe it our loyalty; we
owe it our good words; we owe it our
prayers; we owe 1t our intelligent service.
To denounce it as some are doing, espec-
tally at this time, and have ever since the
war with Spain was declared, and Cuba,
Porto Rico and the Philippine islands
were intrusted to.our hands by the war;
and to that great trust, under the
province of God and in the name of human
progress and civilization, we are com
mitted. 1t is trust the nation did not
seek; it is trust from which we will not
finch; and Dewey and Otis and the
brave men whom they command will
have the support of the country in up
holding our flag where it now floats, the
symbol and assurance of liberty and
justice.
The acquisition of these islands was