The Newtown bee., 1904-08-19
SOCIAL TOPICS.
SCIENTIFIC REL1a1oN.-BYo o. o. WRIGHT

SClENTlFlC RELIGlON.-BY 0. Q. WRIGHT,
 Belief in God, and in future exis- tence is one of the fundamental facts of human history. We may account for it as we will, there stands the fact. Faith is a universal principle in the conduct of this life, underlying the eternal law of morality and all true religion. And as Thomas Carlyle said: 1.-The chief thing about man or a nation of men is religion"
 A fact is fact whether it be a phy- sical, mental, moral, or religious ex- perience. Science takes the facts in the case, whatever they may be, and from them deduces the underlying principle, and finds thereby the law rule of our conduct. Faith is a fact, and living force in the world, just as truly as gravitatiOn, chemical affinity, logic, social affection, or reason. Relig- ion is factor of human conduct and character, in the same sense that ed- ucation is. The Church stands in very much the same relations to society as the school does, looking at them of course from the same scientific point of view. Natural religion and revealed religion in any case must be from the same source, and so illustrate the same essential laws of life; and it must he that the same method which is according to facts and principles will apply to one department of life as well as to the Other-the moral, and spiritual as we'll as to the physical. fact in science has ever djscredited a fact in religion. If the purification of religion comes from science, the publication of science, in a deeper sense shall come from religion. The true ministry of nature must at last be hOnOred and science take it's place as the great expositor."
 Looking the facts of human experi- ence square in the face from the pure ly economic standpoint, would say that religion, strictly speaking is the science of wise and good living. Our actions are right, or they are wrong; our conduct is good, or it is bad; and our feelings dO.lnOt .and cannot alter the essential facts. There is a science of the moral, and of the spiritual life, as there is a science of the physical life. Body, soul, and spirit, we exist according to the same universal laws; and we must be governed by the same unfailing principles, whether we believe in God and future state of existence or not. The science of re- ligiOn should therefore tend always to promote our health, wealth, and happ- mess by putting us in harmony with the course of this world; in sympathy with our fellow-mortals; and in con- sistency with our own complex being.
 Admitting if you please, that our religion is simply product of human invention, growing out of the necessi- ties of our nature and environment. Would you therefore throw it away, and have no religion? Is it not, as matter of fact, the test of all the at tainmentS of our race? What should we do without it? What could take it's place? What has always been the effect when men have tried to do with out religion? Martin Luther said: Take away the schools and the churches, and the mass of the people will soon become like bearsand wolves. 1" And history illustrates this fact, again, and again. Religion is the first great necessity of the human soul. Society cannot exist without the knowledge and love of God. The brotherhood of man grows out of the Fatherhood of the eternal Creator and Redeemer.