The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1906-10-06
RIGHT THINKING NEEDED.

RIGHT THINKING NEEDED.
The confusion that exists in these
days in almost every line of human
thought must have some we'll defined
reasons for cause. Right thinking
is now the exception rather than the
rule. In religion, in politics. in finance
and in social habits and customs men
are led to adopt most weird and fam
tastic theories. Every community, al
most, has a discoverer of some new
religion or some new political theory
or some remedy for making over the
social fabric. Never was the demand
for old-fashioned thinking more urgent
than at the present time There never
was a time when there was a greater
need for following the simple COM
mands of the Savior of mankind than
today. Everywhere men under the
false belief that they are making them
selves free by abandoning the teach
ings of the Founder of Christianity are
5ANpAA6 oOOuI ia IAS udIhIlSSS III vain
attempts to find a resting place for
mind and body. Under the much cx-
plotted new thought" with it's broad
liberality and its brotherly love, men
have been attempting to build up a
system without the aid of Christian
doctrine. Indeed, it is extremely I'M
popular these days to be old-fashioned
even in religion, but results show that
1t is extremely unsafe to have anything
else. In this connection an editorial
appearing in last Sundays issue Of the
New York Herald, written by Cyrus
Townsend Brady, is full of suggestion
and worthy of thought. He recalls the
words of the Savior when He said:
Take heed and beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees and the Saddusees."
One OF the most striking features
about the words of Christ is that they
so far transcend circumstances and
environment that the application Of
them reaches to the end of the world
and to the end of time. Not less per-
tfnent today is that warning which
was uttered two thousand years ago.
America is not Jerusalem, but the
Saddusees and the Pharisees are still
with us and the caution is as neces-
sary now as then.
The Saddusee was a man who sub
stttuted circumstances for principles,
who was governed by conditions rather
than convictions. whose watchword
was "expediency," whose policy was a
tine-serving truckle to the powers
that be and the determination to fit in
with environment at whatever cost
The saddusees was made by things
about him lid as determinative
force he amodnted to little. 1t was
not until the Saviour interfered with
vested right and attacked material
privilege that the Saddusee conspired
with the Pharasee whom he hated to
cruelty Him.
The Pharisee was man who put
law in the place of morals, who dis
regarded the inward and spiritual to
acclaim the outward and material, who
cared nothing for cause but everything
for effect, whose watchword was "le-
gality" and not righteousness, who
substituted for the living voice of con-
science a minute prescription for all
sorts and conditions of neil and cir
cumstances, whose whole idea was not
us thing right or wrong but what is
the law that governs it?" When the Sa-
vior with sublime disregard for petty
regulation insisted upon moral prin-
ciples and transcribed any attempt to
crib, cabin and confine them in obso-
lete and infinitesimal edict he united
with his hereditary foe. the Saddusee,
to cruelty Him.
Who is the Pharisee today? Not so
much the man who covers his wicked
ness with a specious cloak of morality
and a scrupulous attention to little
things as the bank president who
would not have in his employ man
who smoked cigar but who would
not scruple to rob bank Of millions
he was Pharisee in the minor sense
but the man who makes the law the
measure Of his actions and whose opin-