The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-09-24
STERLING J.FOSTER
ANSWERS QUESTION
How Fortune Could Be Most
BenefcientIy' Used
THE DIVINE THOUGHT
DIVINE THOUGHT
Colleges, Investigation, Research and
Diffusion of knowledge viii Fol
low Establishment of Church
and Preaching of Truth.

ucldlly uSeu. tie TOOK his leNl lioHi lHo
eighth verse of the ffty-ffth chapter of
Isaiah: For your thoughts are not my
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord"
DR.. Foster spoke in part as follows;
The recent death of an aged millionaire
who gave nothing for couses of charity,
has aroused interest and curiosity in the
question, how such a vast fortune could
be used for the highest welfare of society.
This question was submitted to large
number of leading men and women
throughout the country and their replies
are significant. One would elevate mil
lions for Investigation and research"
another for endowments of institutions
of learning; others for general education,
and still another for the spread of the
doctrines of Socialism. A late writer,
commenting upon these replies, notes the
fact that none of them consider the
church. or religion, as the best means for
accomplishing the desired results As
read these replies and noted this tendency
to ignore the church, the words of the
text came to me, My thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are my ways your
ways, saith the Lord" and 1t is perfectly
clear to me that none of the methods
suggested would serve the end proposed.
Basis of Methods.
| They are based upon the false assump-
ton that ignorance is the cause of evil
or that changed conditions are all that
are needful to change mankind. "Investi
cation and research" diffusion of knowl-
edge" "endowments of colleges how
have these means, all worthy as they are,
how have they succeeded in the past or
how are they succeeding In the present
in ushering In the millenial time, when
''sin shall be no more?'. Have all learned
men and women been paragons of virtue?
| Have all scientists and historians and
PHILOSOPHERS been noted for their sense of
justice? Have all great painters and
sculptors and musicians and actors been
pointed to as pure and true to the simple
and most rudimentary principles of vir-
tue? Are all statesmen, wise with the
wisdom of the ages, incorruptible and free
from sordid views? To ask these ques-
| tons of the merest apprentice in the
school is to cause him to smile in de-
rision. Bacon, the father of modern learn
ing, is called the ''wisest and meanest of
mankind" Goethe, the patron saint of
| German letters, was VIGOROUSLY immoral
and time would fail me to tell of painters
and artists and musicians and actors and
teachers who have broken all the laws
of God and man. Men are not governed
| by what they know, otherwise there would
be few grafters In politics or business.
Cause of Wrong Doing.
Those who have been held up to the
scorn of men during the past months,
who have been exposed In all their dark
| infamies and deep corruptions, with few
exceptions, know the cause that lead to
| the downfall of ancient Rome, of the
anarchy of the French revolution, of de-
generacy of modern spies. All of them
| know the consequences of evil, In hun
dreds of examples that had come under
their own observations, and yet, all the
voices that spoke to them from the past
or the present were drowned in their lust
for wealth or place or power; and here
and now in this city, the multtudes who
furnish the criminals and outcasts, to say
nothing of the more respectable forms OF
evil, can hardly plead ignorance as the
moving cause of their wrong doing.
How then in the face of all the history
and biography of the past, can men claim
that knowledge can save the race?
Education is all in the right direction,
but the knowledge of letters of science,
PHILOSOPHY, government, taste, will never
correct that deep fault of our nature out
of which springs the transgression Of
the moral law"
Intellectual culture does not touch the
blindness, the ingratitude, the seishness.
the cruelty, the wilfulness. which brings
guilt, the bitterest experience of woe.
Recommendation of Socialism.
Again, some of these wise men would
change all the environment surrounding
society and thus usher in the golden
age, "expend millions for the spread OF
the doctrines of socialism, and when poy-
erty and wealth are both abolished, and
man is freed from the fear of starvation
or the idleness and luxury of riches, he
will exhibit all the virtues. so suspicious
ly absent now This were a consumma-
ton. most devoutly to be wished, but 1t
fails to stand the test of experience or
observation, and surely does not meet
the test of the teachings of Jesus.
Are all men, placed in the most for
tunate environment or surrounded by the
most propitious conditions, living today
lives of conspicuous honor. to say moth
ing of piety? Are there no drunkards
among those who are neither poor nor
rich? Are none of these in the divorce
courts? Are none of these guilty of crime?
And sadly must we answer, that evil Is
confined to no class or condition or en-
vironment. do not attempt to depreciate
the value of sane and wholesome out
ward conditions in increasing virtue and
decreasing evil, but as the mighty rem-
edy, as the divine panacea for the evils
of society, these are pitifully made
quate.
Past Programmes Failure.
All programmes devised by man have
failed in the past, and we have no rea-
son 10 believe that they will succeed In
the future. my thoughts are not your
thoughts, nor are my ways your ways,
saith the Lord
When supreme wisdom undertook to lift
up the race and to war upon evil. we
do not find Him endowing colleges or aid
ing investigation and research" or pro-
mitigating a scheme of collectivism or So
ciaism. He probed deeper and exposed
the evil in the heart, In the soul in the