The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-30

| from the arch enemy of pure Democ-
 racy, the practical politician For 1 your inspiration. let me point you to the achievements of two American 1 graduates--young men both of them Joseph Wingate Folk. graduate Of Van- derbiit University in Tennessee, Dis trict Attorney of St. Louis, who has won his fight to the conviction of bribe giyers and bribe takers in that munich pality, and William Trayers Jerome, graduate of Amherst College in Massa- | chusetts, District Attorney or the City of New York. who is winning his fight against gambling. and has just forced great telegraph corporation to cut its | wires to the pool rooms of that city The advantages of careers in practi- cal philanthropy should like to touch | on here But I'll dwell on certain functions of that later on, and not change the batting order even though l 1t might enable me to bunch my hits. You must believe in something. It's as natural for a man to believe as 1t is for him to eat and drink. And it's | just as necessary for him to have something to believe as 1t is for him to have things to eat and drink. Can the ! faith which first breathed in the un- scientific atmosphere of the first cen- ! tutry survive in the scientific atmos- phere of the twentieth century? For the answer to this question, we must not go to the speculator in his study. but to the scholar in his life. where he 1 does combine in his own personality the highest training. knowledge and practical comprehension of modern science with a profound and reverent Christian faith. A general survey Of the progress of human knowledge shows how, step by step. the crude fam cies of a timid, ignorant and supersti- tious people have been replaced by tho | exact facts and laws of science. The I same survey would also show that re- lligious truths have become clarified and their essential truths brought out more distinctly as the world has advanced. The moat striking fact, however. would | be this: that the generation in which we live--the generation which has ac- cepted the doctrines of modern science lis more strongly influenced by the teachings of Christianity than any previous generation, and multitudes of
 men and women find that the accept ance of scientific teachings in no wise disturbs their personal religious life. Our partial knowledge justifies the prophetic hope that no scientific dis covery will contradict the essence of Christianity, and that the end of all questioning will be the re-establish- | ment of faith With this kind of re-
 assurance. yet me urge upon you to
 hold fast your faith. Have at least
 four articles to your creed-God
 Christ, Salvation. Immortality. Betake
 yourselves
 Not to the domes where crumbline arch and column
 Attest the feebieness of mortal hand
 But to that fame most catholic and | solemn
 Which God hath planned.
 To that cathedral boundless as oui
 wonder,
 Whose quenchless lamps the sun ana
 It's choir the winds and waves, its or
 gan thunder,
 Its dome the sky"
 And beyond sun and stars and six,
 of your horizon, there will loom up itI
 four towers as mountains of religious
 certitude-God, Christ, Salvation ans
 Immortality. Let this be for you {
 working hypothesis You can put Ii
 the details as you grow. Only hay,
 these piers to tie to. Many feature l.of mans faith change with his de
 velopment; but It's foundations mus
 be kept secure. Nor should old one
 want to return to the old ones later
 Growing faith on firm foundations |
 perhaps more desirable than a firm
 faith on growing foundations.
 The conservation of this faith and it
 unconscious preaching through his per
 sonality I regard as the fntellectua
 mans greatest service to the church
 A word of faith from such man |
 worth tons of talk from one abou whom there hovers the slightest .sus picion of professional religiosity. Ma. nn of xyna nnffQ Wffhtn him al the braye thinker the honest doubteI the devout believer
 Tradition says that the cackling o
 a goose once saved Rome, and it's al
 historical fact that the ringing voic
 of a German professor once saved Prus sia. This professors nation had bee burned and ground into the dust by tn Great Destroyer. Some of the peopl had survived, but their Governmen had been broken up: their institution had been annihilated; their tradition had been disgraced; even their hope
 seemed almost gone. Then it was tha
 a great voice rang out over Europe de ] claring that there was one way an ! only one way, in which the power an , Influence of Germany could be revivet , Few things since the advent of Chris
 tianity have been more sublime tha , the cry of that German professor voice The roll of French drums an the rattle of French infantry came 1 through the windows as he spoke Tn , French marshal in charge tried to clos f his lecture room, but Fichte replied , You may shoot me as you shot Paln ! but while live, my voice shall not [ 1 silent" and for fourteen lectures | f rang the changes upon the doctrine which this was the thesis: "Educatio I as hitherto conducted by the churc ! has aimed only at securing happines D in another life. This is not enoug = inasmuch as men need also to be taugl s how to bear themselves in the presel . life, so as to do their duty to the Stat 8 to others, and to themselves. A sy, 3 tenn of national education. properly at 1 Justed and conducted, will work { g powerfully upon the people of the ns y ton that in a few years they will l e completely transformed Nothing b, l education can secure us from the mi; , cries that overwhelm us. On you E depends" finally exclaimed the orato whether you will be the end and lai 9 of a race worthy of little respect an z likely to be despised, or whetheri yo ' will be the beginning and germ of ' new time that will be glorious beyou
 all your imaginations. and from whlc 2 posterity will reckon the years of the | welfare" This was the beginning T that systematic and elaborate educs 5 tional policy which first made Prussi : the schoolmaster of civilization, tn . Mecca of students from ali quarters U the world, and finally made Prussia q z superior to France in 1870 as Franc ! had been superior to Prussia in 1S0s
 The end of the century presents
 AN ea-