The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-30
DUTY OF RIGHT ACTING
An Able Lecture by the Rev. Mr..
Goodfriend.
THE HIGHEST EXISTENCE
Man Must Think, and Think Right, II
He Would Do His Work Well.
The Side OF Morality Is the
Side OF Progress.

At the Emmanuel Presbyterian church
last evening the Rev. Mr.. Goodfriend
delivered a lecture on 1.-THE Duty of
| Right Thinking and Acting
THE highest existence in the universe
| is mind. Man stands amid universal
| nature, the child of genius, endowed
with reason and memory that answer
| to the faculties of God. Man must
think if he would do his work well. The
farmer ought to study the soil. the sue
| cessive seasons. the adaptability of the
seed to soil and climate, in order that
| he may have a scientific cultivation of
| his farm. The manufacturer should
| study the materials which nature pro-
| vides in raw form, to be wrought out
| into thousand forms Of utility and
| beauty. The teacher should study not
alone the problems but that greatest
| study of all-the nature and capacity
OF the child. Every human being should
study the Kingdom of nature, the bene-
| ncent laws that control the world, the
| bounties of earth and sky supplying his
every need. the circling seasons for his
happiness and comfort
Man must become a thinker if he
Wooiu We LdFoflte OF nature and her
| laws. What pictures hang in the sky!
What sunrise and sunsets! Behold the
glory of God in creation. in the gentle
zephyrs that stir the forests, in the
Walllng storm, in the roar of the ocean
and in the calm OF the whispering
breezes. All nature is a voice crying
out to man, Come and study the pur-
poses OF my existence 1t is mans re-
ligious duty to read Gods handwriting
nf ba mil f, 1ielo
to the grand anthems of sun and stars,
backed up by the strong bass of the
mighty ocean. He who hears in ma
ture the voice of God and learns the
wisdom contained in design and pur-
pose of all creation will find himself an
inhabitant in the holy sanctuary whose
| architect and builder was God To that
man the farm, the factory, the pulpit
will become holiness unto the Lord
Let US remember that God did not ere
ate these things for mere display or
amusement. He did not make the
world so grand, so sublime without q
great purpose. This world of nature
is to be school, a grand university.
The animal cares for naught but it's
feed. The Arab, the Hottentot, the
slothful Indian is content with material
things, with that which feasts his stom-
ach and satisfies the cravings of the
body. But surely the civilized man, the
man who thinks, will hunger and thirst
after knowledge, after God, and will go
| forth amidst the beautiful earth and be-
meath the blessed stars, strong with the
strength of a mighty intellect stu
dent under God.
Let Voltaire and Gibbon level their
| satires on humanity and let them say,
This world is the habitaton of a miser-
able race, fit only for mockery and
scorn, but let them know that God and
man are misrepresented in these things.
1t may be that to the infidel the world
is a Stygian pool, a midnight but not
so to him who believes in the fatherhood
of God and is a student of the mind and
laws of Him that created all things
Plato says, The child, is the charioteer,
driving two steeds up the long hill of
life; one steed is white representing our
best impulses; one steed is dark, stand
Ing for our worst passions Life there
fore, is very much what we make it,
1t depends on ourselves. on what we
wish to be and becomes whether the
word Is a prison or q palace life a
drudgery or a joy. Man is glorious and
happy when he goes on improving his
mind and heart and develops the religi-
GUS principles which assimilate him to
God. The selfish man, the unbeliever
must ever be cold and cherries.
Happy is the man in whose heart
CLOVIS the ambition of a Paul, Luther,
Lincoln. These are beacon lights
along the path of the worlds history,
showing us the possibilities, even in a
short lifetime, of the student Thoughts
form character. Thinking upon vice
and vulgarity will transform an angels
face into demon: thinking upon God
and His wonderful gifts to the children
of man will make ones face to shine as
did Moses face when he saw God
After all, our civilization is built
with thought. Thought is the only thing
that will remain in its imperishable
glory. We need more thought and bet
ter and purer in the heart of the nation.
They are the life nerve AS a nation
thinketh SO is she Wealth is not al
ways in mines. in stores, in factories,
but in brain. I would far rather have
the intellect of a Plato, a Socrates, a
Bacon. a Shakespeare and the heroic
zeal and courage of Paul than all the
wealth of the Rothschilds. Our ma
tion's riches are to be found, not in her
immense territory in her vast re-
sources, in her mines and forests, but
in the thoughts that crown the Anglo
Saxon civilization.
I'm the future the historian will write
less about sinewy prowess, about mill
tary skill and battles, and more about
have created strong public sentiments
for the right, about the useful arts and
inventions and the conquests of man |
over nature.
ut may seem strange that while vol |
umes had been written of the plots and
quarrels and feuds of kings that names |
like Shakespeare, the builders of the
Cologne cathedral, the inventors of
printing, of gunpowder of the mariners
compass, received hardly a passing no.
tice. In the future the thinkers of the |
world, the benefactors of the race, the
reformers and martyrs of humanity, for |
human rights and freedom-they will !
receive the applause, the grateful recog- |
milton of an enlightened people. In pro- |
portion as the people of a nation become |
thinkers. thinking thoughts that bind |
mind and heart to God, just to that de-
gree will the nation be strong and pro-
gressiye.
Our nation is sadly in need of two
things. First, of an intellectual ballot, |
and, secondly, of a moral ballot. These |