Brookings weekly register. (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1898-1903, 1901-03-28
sRooKNas BRooKNas COUNTY SOUTH DAKOTA 49,

take the Keeley cure because many
people have been benefited by such
treatment. as TO claim that all people
should join the church because 1t has
helped some, or that all people should
wear glasses because some people are
near sighted. or that T. at we should
all 60 around on crutches because
some cannot walk without them. In
stead Of aping the manners of these
afflicted ones, let us be proud and
thankful that we can see without
theological goggles. walk without
ecclesiastical crutches and are not
afraid to stand out in Gods clear sun
shine unprotected by any religious
cloak to cover our sins or to shield US
from the legitimate results OF our own
acts. At the same time let us be very
considerate toward those who have
Inherited or acquired opinions and
prejudices for which they are In no
wise responsible. l once had dear
friend, Scotchman, who believed In
infant damnation, predestination,
foreordination, a personal devil and a
local hell, and all the rest that belongs
to Calvinism. He had love for
whiskey-I have been told that this,
like Calvinism, is Scotch weakness
and sometimes he got very drunk.
Profanity with him had become fine
art. He smoked cigarettes. These
last two habits are not to be charged
up to his Scotch ancestors, but to the
Sioux half-breeds with whom he had
associated for many years. His wife
was full-blooded Sioux squaw that
he married when he was 80 far frnm
civilization that he did not believe V
would ever reach him. He had !
large family of half-breed sons and
daughters. Now, there was man
fully believing in the most atrocious
theological doctrines imaginable, ad-
dicted TO some of the worst habits
ever INDUCED in by civilized men, liv-
ing for years under the most discour-
aging social conditions and yet he had
heart SO big and SO tender that all
the ''old timers" for a distance of a
hundred miles along the Missouri
river where he lived, knew that II mis-
fortune Of any kind overlook them,
all they had to do was to get word to
MACK and he would spare neither
time, money nor horse-fiesh in their
behalf; and with so clear and keen a
sense Of honor that his word was as
good as gold from Pierre to Bismark.
Yes, let us be tolerant towards those
who do not hold the same opinions
that we do and who indulge In habits
Of which we do not approve, for they
often possess traits Of true manhood
for which we would look ia vain in
the polished hypocrite that preteuds
to think just as we do and whose
worst vice is pretending to be man
when he does not possess one manly
Characteristic.
This whole question of morals is a
far more simple one than the theo-
logians would have us believe. Olsen
numbered from all useless verhiage it
means simply striving to come as near
as possible to doing what we know to
be right. That is higher standard
than anyone has yet attained. Why
look for higher?
know Of no faculty or the human
mind that better deserves cultivation
than the imagination, but morals and
imagination should never be mixed.
Our moral code should never be
based upon, or in any way connected
with our flights of imagination into
the unknown past or unknowable fu-
ture. When we attempt to learn
something Of mans relation to this
universe by looking backward, we
learn much that is useful, much that
is intensely interesting, but we learn
nothing of mans primary origin. III
we trace the fossil forms backward
for q million years into the Tertiary
period we come to time when man
did not exist in his present form, but
we find that there we're closely allied
primate mammals. Ten millions of
years ago in the early Mesozoic there
were no mammals, but there were
still many huge reptiles. A million
years more and the reptiles have dis
appeared, but there are monstrous
amphibians; yet another million years
and the fish are the only vertebrates
found. When we come to the Silurian
we find that fish have nearly disap-
peared and only invertebrates are left.
At the beginning of the Cambrian,
variously estimated at from twenty
i've to seventy-fivs million years ago,
we find that there are still many
highly organized trilobites that are at
least half way up the scale Of develop
ment from the lowest animal forms to