Los Angeles herald., 1905-10-30

w. Greenwood !
!. + + / + + .+.a.aa
and until every drop of blood drawn
with the lash shall be paid by another,
drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still must
it be said, the judgments of the Lord
are true and righteous
Horace Bushnell became prophet
of God through a vision in the watches
of the night. That vision changed his
whole life, for In the night he dreamed
dreams and in the morning he saw
visions.
The Man of Visions
Jesus Christ was the man of vision,
the supreme optimist. The fulfllment
of his ideal was anticipa ted by Jesus
with a persistent, unswerving hope, He
believed in the sure victory of the
Kingdom of God. AS DR.. F. G. Peabody
says:
He believed in people who did not
believe In themselves. He discerned
good in people who seemed to them
selves irretrievably bad He inspired
people to be what he desired them to
be-
With a. transcendent optimism, he
lowers and is sure the Holy Ghost will
guide them into all truth. Through all
the obstacles of bigotry, stupidity
hard-heartedness, hypocrisy and &c
clesiasticism which confronted MIN.
Jesus remains a consistent optimist
confident that the world is ready for
his message and that the fullness OF
time has come.
The supreme truth that this is Gods
world gave to Jesus his spirit of social
optimism.
In the doubtful tax gatherer Jesus
saw a Matthew, writer of the GOSPEL.
In Boanarges, a John, beloved disciple.
In the woman possessed by seven
devils, a Magdelene. This is ever the
spirit of reform movements, which see
in every man and woman a vision Of
the truer possible self.
The man lying In the gutter Is but
a poor drunkard to the outward eve.
but to the vision full of faith he is
a John B. Cough or a Jerry McCauley.
Where the vision faileth, the indi-
Vidual perishes.'
Has our nation kept her high vision.
Is the outlook pessimistic or optimistic? =?
Hope is not blind, optimism does not
shut its eyes to facts. The review of
the past few years is full of warning.
which may well make us thoughtful.
"A spirit of profound unrest broods
over the masses, their discomfort in
creases, strikes multiply, the gulf be-
tween capital and labor widens, moth
ing is more evident than the rising
power Of the people.
This is cause of profound thank
fulness, the natural working out of
the Sermon on the Mount, but the
d-tf Op f1n t.
ganized Christianity and hence a
menace.
ITO bridge this chasm, and bring
church and masses, employer and en-
ployed together is one of the most
serious problems confronting us. The
drift of municipal corruption has swept
over us threatening to submerge the
nation. Our times have gone money
mad.
Taint of Dishonesty
"a distinguished preIate of the
Roman Catholic church declares that
of all of our sins as a people, dishon-
esty is most pronounced. The taint of
it, he says, is everywhere from the
manipulation Of stocks to the adultera-
ton of food and drink, from the halls
of congress to the policeman's beat.
Corner the market. water the stock,
pocket the bribe, take any road to
riches, only get there.
zone corrupt man has held up an
entire state. Still more alarming has
been the supine attitude of some of
the ministry toward corruption.
"Pessimism points to child labor and
the awful wrongs of little children
worked for thirteen hours a day. from
80 a. nl., to $50 p M, and sometimes
10 at night, with but twenty minutes
for dinner.
"Pessimism points to the trusts and
strikes, the greed or capital and sor-
rows of labor, the entrenched. all
powerful omnipresent, INSCRIPTIONS
liquor traffic.
Reluctantly we must admit that
ideals have gone down; divorce has
become a social scourge; the fiat and
apartment house and the club are TAX
ing the place of the home: juvenile
crime has increased almost fifty per
cent; young desperadoes from 3 to IL
and is years of age crowd the streets
of our cities and fill our jails; one of
the crying need of our modern life is
for mothers.
"Ideals of reverence have lessened; {;
the age has been called a laughing,
mocking, cartooning age All this be-
cause the vision has failed; the people
haV drifted away from the lofty ideals
which made the young nation invulner-
able.
Vision of Hope
Nevertheless, the vision is one of
hope. The world is growing weary of
it's follles; the time is ripe for wide
spread revival of righteousness, which
already is sweeping on like mighty
river.
I'VE are ready for a twentieth CEN
tury crusade; our goal, not the holy