Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-02-02

- especial care and respect he insists that happiness promoted
by moral grace, not by material prosperity; yet AL his prac-
tice is to promote MATERIAL ADVANCE, and all biz habit is to
vaunt it. When things go wrong, man excuses hmse n the plea
of his poor weak human nature in the full tide of sued he boasts of
his wondrous works; but the works upon which he KfWs himself are
seldom great MORAL ACHIEVEMENTS. 1t is }his divergence be-
tween his precepts and his practices which has resulted in the muddle
mindedness that is now apparent in all that he undertakes.
In nothing is the muddle mindedness of man more obvious than in
his favorite r~onouncements with regard to his own destiny. He in
sts that ma was made for misery as surely as Chat the sparks fly up
ward. He takes jobs word for that; but Job, lat the time he uttered
the exclamation, was horribly tormented and consequently not in a
normal state of mind. The announcements Of a man in such a condi-
ton cannot be accepted as evidence of anything but HIS OWN
PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES
All the evidence is against the morbid minded who assert that we
are not made to be happy. Moments of misery we are certainly des
tined to have, but the constitution of the normal healthy human being
makes for happiness inevitably. The strongest bent of oufnature is to
enjoy ourselves and avoid suffering, and every healthy function of
mind and body helps the endeavor, The great pleasures of life may be
rare, but there is a fine variety of MINOR PLEASURES which we
might enjoy in our time, and the effect of these is cumulative, 90 that
in the aggregate they should make up a happy life.
But man, having decided that mankind is made for misery, pro-
ceeds to MAXI the misery. His capacity for happiness he brushes
out of existence by al accumulation of bad habits. He teaches that
there are two great laws of life, the law of good and the law of evil.
He has no illusions on the subject of right and wrong. He knows that
right doing makes for happiness and wrong doing makes for misery;
yet he has SO ordered the world that the last thing he can expect of him
self is THAT HEeSHOULD DO RIGHT.
He makes laws for the general god and fosters customs which
NUILIFY THE IAWS. By this dial method he is enabled to
change wrong into right and right into frong to suit his convenience.
LII tC IhNi III NhfohR w "ohNh " NoIANp 9" 'O"pS SoS "'h
iron bound emphasis. To preserve the Honor of the women of his own
family is a sacred duty; to attack the homo of OTHER WOMEN is
an agreeable pasime. He makes stringent rules for the conduct of
women, then offers them tempting inducements to misconduct them
selves, and if they yield HE Furnishes THEM.
He pndes himself on his intellectual possibilities, which are limited,
and suppresses his spiritual powers, which are infinite. He has glm-
merngs of the divine but even his God must conform to the exigen-
cis of an argument. In one mood he says that God does not willingly
afhct us; in another mood he ascribes all that we suffer to the will Of
God.
When he pinned his faith to the religion of love, he gave himself
a fine opportunity to retrieve his mistakes, but since he adopted the re-
Egion of love he has made himself conspicuous by his efforts to destroy
at its source such CAPACITY FOR LOVE as there may be in the
terest animosths? The simplest of religions, it requires of him moth
ing but that he should love his neighbor as himself. By the cultivation
Of this most agreeable of feelings he would bring within his reach all
the good in life that he yearns to obtain.
But instead of teaching the religion of his choice in all its pure per-
lection he has overlaid it with rituals and dogmas and subjects for
ENDLESS CONTROVERSIES which result inevitably in ecsmies
of hate. Instead of requiring of every man that he should know his
religion and use it for practical purposes as he knows and uses the al
phabet and the multiplication table-that he should, by promoting the
happiness of those about him, be continually adding to the source of
happiness in the world at large-man has created a class apart, whose
special business it is to attend to these things and RELIEVE HIM
OF THE RESPONSIBILITY.
At an early date, and with the help of his class set apart for the pur-
pose, man had made by his religion a mass of contradiction impossi-
bic for any sane, honest person WITH AN ~UNMUDDLED MIND
to accept, but if any questioned his DEGREES he argued the point with
redhot pinchers. 1t was not the love of the Lord that he was concerned
about at that time, however, but the safety of his own institutions.
THIS JueeLERY OF MAN WITH RIGHT AND WRONG is VERY
INGENIOUS, BUT THERE is NO SAFETY IN 1T, NOR COMFORT, NOR
HELP.