The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-06-15

{ THE REV. JESSE K. BRENNAN.
OF ST. Marks Episcopal Church, who thinks
an untruth never justifiatle.
shows US vale of sorrow. wheEe even in
dustry does not always reap what it has
sown. and where the best hopes of men are
troll. We see much of moral and intel
Hsent purpose in the world that its absence
IN Il, many places comes with a certain shock
{ Thus the old old question
Are God and nature then at strife
That nature lends such evil dreams?
has found no modern answer. The poet
and the scientists alike fail US The writer
OF Genesis gives US his explanation Let
US see whether it does not go ct least as
far as any other. He tells us that the
ground is cursed for mans sins.
The crude Interpretation of this is that
the soil actually changed its nature as
resultant of the fall. But surely there is
deeper meaning than this. 1t is that
nature is not morally Indifferent. but. like
mirror, reflects the kind of face that
looks into it. To sinless perfection nature
would respond to make n perfect home and
perfect world. Given by supposition a per
feet Adam and Eve, and the world would
be an Eden. Given. on the other hand by
superstition. two wretched sinners driven
out from the face Of Cod, and the face of
the world grows hard and tragic and
nature becomes a scourge. Christening sin
This is the deeper meaning of the story of
Genesis.
IF it 10 true ii follows that Just so far
as man rises In the scale of being toward
perfection. Just SO far nature becomes for
him bcnefcent and kinds And the physical
evils Of the world are the concomitant of
spiritual evils and the resultant of such
evils. We see that if this be truth. it is a
great and stimulating truth. 1t removes at
least part of the contradiction between the
ideal and the actual
1t does more than this. Ii brings ou-
moral and physical life into harmony l.
makes nature the great preacher of right
eousness. We cannot test the truth of Cen
esis by observation experiment For.
While If he said that
shows perfection. it may also be said with
equal truth that We nowhere find the per-
But We can test this theory by approxima-
ton, as the scientists do theirs W. can
show that as the human life improves ma
ture tends 10 approximate toward the per
feet environment.
What q dreadful thing is winter to .he
savage, shiVering in scanty clothing and
to the weli-fed. well-clothed. warmly housed
child Of modern civilization, How Dowerless
is disease 10 the healthy, right-Iiving man.
Given world inhabited only by such :npn
and women, and disease would disappear
The very germs of many diseases would
perish from the earth So good farming
gradually eliminates weeds and injurious in
Sccts. SO right sanitation would eliminate
the mosquito with its deadly ability TO car
Untimely death would also in such n world
be eliminated. Men and women would pass
gently from the earth in extreme old age
and no tears would be shed over a departure
so appropriate and so peaceful.
The high-wrought wisdom of n really
spiritual civilization would provide against
flood and drought, even as already we have
provided against pestiience and famine in
the more advanced civilization of the
globe. Nay. it is probable that in proper
ly regulated civilization. administering ma
lures forces wisely, there would be no
droughts nor floods.
The moral of this is what Christ taught
long ago: Seek ye first the kingdom of God
ard his Righteousness. and all other desira-
Die things will come inevitably. This prom
Use is TO the race ard not merely to the .n-
The spiritual individual in an unspiritual
environment must always be a martyr 20
his sense of duty and to the sin of she
world. The cross is the symbol of all such
lt"es. But what religion has right 20 pro-
claim Is that obedience TO her b.hests would
result in word from which the cu-se on
the ground would be removed: ard nature
ard God harmoniZed.
For us Eden is dream that lies not in