The record-union., 1899-03-31
present DAY THOUGHTS.
BY G. Grosvenor Dave.

The New Lent.-The impression may
possibly be a mistaken one, but it GER
tainly seems to me that there is less
attention paid to Lent than formerly.
The forty days, when the flesh is to be
denied this thing or that-when the
| joy of life is to be starved out that the
| life hereafter shall be made more GER
| tain-when trifiing privations are sup
posed to please the One who has the IN
teresitS of a great universe to watch
over-that sort of Lent is passingl away,
| believe.
There is MO sign of retrogression
about this; for the underlying principle
of the old Lent seems to have been con-
Germ about ones self. 1t was by no
means an imitation of the great soul
whom 1T is supposed to reflect. 1t grew,
| if possible, more reearnest as the end drew
near; but he attended this celebration
and that, he cheered his disciples by the
way, he ate and he drank, he went
calmly to his earthly doom. There may
have been at one time a fasting of forty
days and forty nights in preparing for
his hfe's work on the earth, but there
was no such term of preparation for
| the world hereafter.
| Let us without a moments hesita-
tion rejoice that the old Lent of sack
cloth and ashes, the old Lent of outer
raggedness and snowy neglect of self,
the old Lent of abstention from earth's
pleasures, the return to them having
the greater zest after forty days of de-
malls passing into the garnet of dis
used and m;sused ideas. There let it
stay, together with other vague inter
pretations of Gods wiu-like the
slaughtering of heretics, compulsion in
believing, Sabbath. sourness, damnation
| OF infants and all sorts Of man-made
characteristics that hide the great sim
pie, center truth that Creator must
love his creatures.
Each generation of men interprets
God anew. The Interpretation must of
necessity be an advancing one or fail to
keep up with humanity-itself an ever
advancing thing We who are still
young can remember the old emphasis
placed upon individual saivation-how
the important fact that each had a soul
was Sc insisted upon that the getting
Eof that soul saved and securing for it
eternal rest" in some remote heaven
was made TO appear the only worthy
OBJECT of man, woman and child But
now? Less of that sort of emphasis and
more of belief-a belief growing out of
the revelations of science-that human
ity is one and indivisible that the gain
of one is the gain of all, that the loss of
one is the loss of all, that the sanctified
soul living 10 itself and for itself is an
enemy to humanity rather than a friend
| to grace, that the burden of humanity
is not a thing whose blame is to be
lazily and idly shifted off upon the
Prince of the Power of the Air. but one
whose demands for attention and help
are made, and made properly upon the
weakest of US who are able to feel in
teresit in others.
! What. then, is the New Lent? 1t is
neither limited by clocks nor by moons
by clothes nos by churchly DEGREES.
There are no times and seasons for do
ing right, nor for holding self in check.
The watch in your hand is not the
guide as to when the time for doing
good is near. The time is now. and will
endure till the last conscious breath
leaves the weary body. The New Lent
Is the age we live in, and that age i.
not judged as to its goodness by the use
OF either fish, flesh nor fowl
The religion of living for others is the
spirit of the New Lent. 1t is seen in
the increasing pervasion of society.
with desire to serve 1t accounts for
college men and women spending their
lives and their splendid ACCOMPLISH
ments among the squaid and the poor.
1t accounts for the children of fortune
turning away from the fripperies of
wealth and the falsities of social hum
bug to the uplifting of the ideas and
| ideals of their poorer sisters-bv such
practicalities as cooking classes nurs-
ing classes and classes in first aid to
the injured Or the sick or the poisoned.
1t is seen in the clearer understanding
that life given to the service of the
least of the little ones of the great bu-
man family is not lost" but is simplv
part OF the great demand of all unon
all for the best OF all that our hands
and hearts and souls can do. II is the
spirit Of the New Lent that will make
lusty fireman, with wife and children
dependent upon him, go fearlessly into
danger and to death in order to save
frail invalid who would die shortly m
der any circumstances 1t is the New
Lent that believes no expenditure too
great in order to add a moments han
paness to the worlds afflicted ones.
=
| And what else? The New Lent pays
| less and even less attention to forms
and ceremonies and more to the reali-
ties OF religion. 1t makes increasingly
less demand for a denominational label
on every deed that is done. It confines
our understanding of God less to the
leaves OF man-written revelations and
lets IN on our larger souls the messages
of God that are written in the courses
OF the stars, in the rocks. the plants.
the beasts, the history of the races of
men.
Is this belief, slxetched out so briefly,
wrong or right? If right even in part
let US rejoice. IF wrong in part LET us
| still cling to the belief that such things
shall be some day; for according to our
/ beliefs so are we nodded. and accord
ing as we are SO in large measure are
our neighbors. No barking back to for
mer ages as a better day" is fitting;
the present is forming the future. and
every living soul who reads may help
| to bring the New, Lent into actual ex-
/ istence
Irvington, N. Y, March u, 1899.
STATE WAR CLAIMS.
/ Ira n sY1n rfo co.