Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1905-04-14
THE GREAT SEARCH.
How should man /

L hEI NtbEhI SEhhCH.
How should man be just with God"
job tx, ..
This cry, How may be right is
the cry of the ages. Human history is
the record Of our attempt to answer
It. Man is naturally a truth seeker,
and this is the search of all truly great
souls. The enduring monuments of
literature are those that have in some
measure answered this question. All
things that have been worth while
have helped us to know and to realize
the right Health, happiness, freedom,
morality, all are but parts of the right;
all are but sections OF the sublime
whole for which man ever seeks. The
search manifests itself In different
ways; it may be as science, the passion
for the knowledge of the right rela-
tons of things; as justice, for right re
lations amongst men; as philosophy, as
ethics, as religion. Back Of all our
life is the instinct of progress; we push
toward the perfect. And perfection
but in bringing all the things that are
into right relations with one another.
The idea that any man can be right
regardless of others we scout as alb
surd. The ideal civilization we work
for here, even the heaven we long for,
is simply a condition Of living where
the things that separate, deSpoil, and
introduce discOrd are no more. The
hope of the race is to be in right rela-
tions with all things. All the great
religions are as the footprints Of peo-
pies who have sought the truth that
would lead them to be right and just
with one another, with the world, and
with the great unseen powers behind
all being. Our universal sense OF
wrongness is but part of our passion
for rightness.
The sense of imperfectiOn and the
desire for improvement have marked
all religions that have influenced men
In the Jew this desire for righteous
ness was supreme. Job Is but type
Coming to himself amongst the ruiz
of all the things he counted most pre-
cious. he fOrgets their loss in his deslr,
) to solve the great problem. What L
right and how may reach it? Some
where he knows there is solution t.
all the riddles of his friends and tn,
questions of his own heart. An order
ly universe is not crowned by beinl
whose life must ever remain an unsolv
ed riddle Men are not adrift in 70.
, with no hope of taking bearings. L
: men have marked the natural wOrlt
with lines of latitude and longitude fol
the guidance of its travellers, the mora
world Is not without Its markings.
Jobs very question contains the onl!
answer that has ever satisfied man
God himself is the great meridian o
all morality. From him we may meas
; ure all rela tionships and get then
: right. That Is the essential messag,
of the Bible; it strikes that first o
all in "In the beginning Cod
Every life Is right in the measure tina
' | IL uuJWSlS IiStlI w liiV uhN a. iiS " ~
. amongst the nations they have th'
, kingdom who do his will. The worlt
/ has made progress in precisely the pro
= portion that this will has been realized
The promise of the present is that thi
great standard, this universal law b!
which all may find the right, has beer
made known to all through n life. On,
of our own has set forth God. On,
, has lived who has shown us how t.
= live. For every problem there Is nov
2 an example of its solution. For ever!
difficulty there is something better fa
> than declaration of duty; there is til,
great Doer of the deed. He has com'
near to man than men might come nea
to one another. He reveals the right