Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1899-03-29

and ashes, the old Lent of outer ragged
ness and snowy neglect of self the old
Lent of abstention from earth's pleas
ures, the return to them having the great
er zest after forty days OF denial-is pass
ing into the garnet of disused and mi5used
ideas. There let it stay, together with
other vague interpretations of Gods will
like the Strengthening of heretics, COM
pulsion in believing, Sabbath sourness,
damnation of infants and all sorts of man
made characteristics that hide the great
simple, centre truth that a Creator must
love his creatures.
Zach generation of men interprets God
anew. The Interpretation must of neces-
sity be anadvancing one or fail to keep
up with humanity itself an ever advanc-
ing thing. We who are still young can
remember the old emphasis placed upon
individual salvation-how the important
fact that each had soul was so insisted
upon that the getting Of that soul saved
and securing for it "eternal rest in some
remote heaven VAS 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 cut OF the revelations of science
that humanity is one and indivisiblc,
that the gam of one is the gain of ALL that
the loss Of one is the loss OF all, that the
sanetined soul living to itself and for it
self is an enemy to humanity rather than
friend to grace, that the burden of hui
| manity 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 weak
est of us who are able to feel interest in
others.
What then is the new Lent? 1t is neither
limited by clocks nor by moons, by clothes
nor by churchly DEGREES. There are no
times and seasons for doing 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 is
not judged as to its goodness by the use
of either fish, flesh or fowl.
The religion OF living for others is the
spirit of the new Lent. 1t is seen in the
increasing pervasion of society with a
desire to serve. 1t accounts for college
men and women spending their lives and
their splendid accomplishments among
the squalid and the poor. 1t accounts for
the children of fortune turning away
from the fripperies OF wealth and the
falsities of social humbug to the uplifting
/ of the ideas and ideals of their poorer sis
ters-by such praciiealltles as cooking
| classes, nursing classes and classes IN f1rst
aid to the injured or the sick or the poi
soned. 1t is seen in the clearer under
/ standing that life given to the service of
1 the least of the little ones of the great hui
man family j. not lost, but Is simply
/ part of the great demand of all upon all
/ for the best of all that our hands and
hearts and souls can do. 1t is the spirit of
! the new Lent that will make lusty fire
/ man, with wife and children dependent
/ upon him, go fearlessly into danger and
! to death in order to save trail invalid
/ who would die shortly under any circum-
stances. 1t is the new Lent that believes
! no expenditure too great in order to add
moments happiness to the worlds at
tlicted ones.
And what else? The new Lent. pays less
and even less attention to forms and cere-
/ monies ana more TO the realities OF re-
/ ligion. 1t makes increasingly less demand
/ for deuominational label on every deed
/ that is done. 1t confines our understand
/ ing of God less to the leaves OF man-wrlt-
ten 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, sketched 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 moulded, and according as we
are so in large measure are our neighbors.
No barking back to former ages as "bet-
ter day" is fitting; the present is forming
the future, and every living soul who reads