The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-10-15
WONDERFUL THINGS
IN DAILY PAPER
So Declares Rev. Frank Fay
Eddy in Sermon on
Sunday.
FILLED WITH HISTORY.
HISTORY OF THE DAY
Pastors Theme Was From
Common Sense to Poetry
in Religion"

AT the services of the First unitar-
ian society in Unity hall Rev. Frank
Fay Eddy preached on the theme,
"From Common Sense TO Poetry in Re
hgion. Unity quartette rendered the
anthem, ''Just as / Am,' the duet be-
ing taken by Mrs. Bessie Spiers- Brown
ing and Mr.. Poll. The solo was sung
by Mr.. Poll, who sang ''For All Eter-
nifty
Mr.. Eddy took his text from Isaiah
LV:l2, ''For ye shall go forth with Joy
and be led forth with peace: the noun
tains and the hills shall break forth
trees of the fields shall clap their
hands. The second Isaiah was a
great phophet because a great poet.
His imagination runs riot and his
dreams of Israel's future can only be
expressed in figures of speech. The
greatest value of phophecy is poetic
anyhow, To foretell with literal exact
ness events, discoveries or inventions
may be interesting as an exhibition of
how with bold guesses and ingenious
differences men may anticipate the
facts to be. But such foreshadowing
of the future adds no value to life.
But he who plants a dream in human
hearts by putting it in the form of
Il promise waves creative wand,
plants the seed of an ideal in the soil
of life
Poetic Faculty Is Universal.
Mr.. Eddy continued by saying that
the poetic faculty was practically uni
versal. Consequently men must live
In man interpreted universe. 1t must
be for him n place where the soul
march of the ages left its imperishable
traces and made its trails. The mis-
take of those who have been regarding
creation through, the microscope and
the telescope is that they forget that
the great majority of men look through
the natural eye and to them the uni
verso is full of symbols and portents;
is not mere phenomena and law.
by common sense, - Mr.. Eddy said,
''we usually mean not so much that
which is common knowledge as that
which is exact and undeniably true
and the plain inferences to be drawn
from such obvious truth. And by poe
try we usually mean using and inter
preting phenomena of all kinds sym
bolically, fguratively and suggestive
ly."
AS to Modern Newspapers.
In conclusion Mr. Eddy said: GA
wonderful thing is the daily paper OF
our modern life. 1t comes TO our break
fast table or our desk vibrant with tho
sidedness of our time. 1t is filed with
news from home and abroad; with news
of Cuban intervention, of Chinese up
risings, Of business failures and rail
road projects. Yet here is. not all of
the news down in black and white.
The soul with poetic sympathy and
spiritual understanding will read be-
tween the lines and the living messages
expressive of a teeming world of souls
in the strain and stress and action.
Here we have the history of the day,
history damp from the press, crude and
necessarily inaccurate, but he who
reads and finds only doubtful facts,
bargains and market quotations mis-
reads it.
'Great literature and all kinds of
great art express in more direct and
to souls than the newspaper with its
aim can be expected to do. And in
harmony with all that is great, time
less and beautiful the church must
speak its message The newspaper has
its place in busy and complex social
system. IT has to deal with the pass
ing facts Of the day as facts and has
little to do with their spiritual inter
probation. Its guide must necessarily
be common sense.
Pulpit Has It's Place.
bub lHe 100 has itS pIdcG anu
its mission even in the most practical
age: It is related to the newspaper as
an interpreter. but occupies distinctly
different field, The newspaper. not
even the Sunday newspaper, ought to
be competitor Of the pulpit. If there
is any relationship between the in
crease of newspaper readers and the
decline of sermon hearers, a mistake
has been made somewhere. And if the
mistake has been on the part Of the
sermon makers as is likely enough in
running useless tilts against the wind
mill of common sense or in fighting
quite as useless battles for common
sense in religion in place of theologi
cal and NEUROLOGICAL absurdities.
''It is and has been the business of
the pulpit to speak the language of the
soul, To deal with man as a poet as
well as cultivator of turnips; to sym
bolizc and personify; TO awake respon-
siveness to sublimity, truth and beau
ty in Nature and human nature; to
arouse aspiration and spiritual ambi-
1,, p,a 1-,.i l.,