The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-03-25
PROMINENT MEN IN
BIBLICAL HISTORY
Word Pictures Relating to
Epoch Making Incidents in
Lives of Heroes.

The services Of the First Unitarian
society yesterday in Unitarian hall
were largely attended In the course
of the service Mrs. Browning and Mrs.
Smith sang beautiful duet and Unity
quartette rendered an anthem, in which
solo parts were taken by Mr. Poll and
Mr., Mahan. The sermon by the pastor,
Rev. Frank Fay Eddy, was upon "The
helncarnations of Truth. y
Mr.. Eddy began his discourse with
number of word pictures relating to
epoch making incidents in the lives of
some of the great spiritual heroes of
the race. He described King Jehoiakim
burning the role on which were writ
ten The rebuking prophcsies of Jcre-
mloh; Socrates before his Judges;
Buddha deserted by his companions un-
der the Bo-tree; Paul arguing with the
Jewish apostles in Jerusalem; Marcus
Auerlius penning his meditations by the
camp fires on tho Danube; Mobammed
fleeing from Mecca TO Medina; Luther
mailing his theses on the church door
at Wittenburg; and Emerson reading
his resignation to his congregation in
Boston.
fAll these occurrences, said Mr.
Eddy, "were. at the time Of their hap
pening, mere unimportsnt incidents. 1t
IS only in the consciousness Of the ages
that they take on themselves dramatic
significance. For us the resentful jew
ish King who contemptuously burned
the words of the prophet and the snecr-
ing Judges of the greatest Greek, stand
pjlloried in the world s contempt, while
the greatness of Jerusalem and Athens,
with all their stored grandeur, exist
for unreal and pebulous as a back
ground against which our heroes of the
spirit are seen In relief.
Jeremiah sees the dissolution and
decline Of his people, Speak he must
against Baal worship and the luxury
and degeneracy of the court. Troub!er
of Israel he may be, but speak he must
or there is no inward peace for him.
AS messenger of Jehovah, spokes
man of truth, silence would be per6dy
'sSocrates argues his case as calmly
as if it were a Hypothetical instance
porpounded to one of those companies
of young men who were wont to gather
about him, He aims not at acduittal,
he bcgs not for clemency, but only to
show the real significance of the event.
In doing so he, however, quite ignores
the authority of the court. His work
here was TO expose the fallacious values
given to life as compared with its real
values.
"Our spiritual heroes always strug-
gle against the established, the ancient.
Iuc ioljuhl, buN HNN
are protestants. every one of them.
the Buddha, rebelled against
priestly Brahmanism; Paul saved Chris
tianity from being absorbed by ritual
istic Judaism; Marcus Auerelius taught
the greatness of man as free moral
agent and valued his crown as a small
thing compared with tho integrity of
his soul; Mohammed led a rebellion
against the Journalism of Judaism. the
idolatry of the Arabian tribes, and the
of the Christians; Luther
waged his war on the authority of the
church; Emerson proclaimed that the
free soul must not compromise.
"a common motive we can discern
in all these seekers after truth They
and. all aspiring, souls attempt to
achieve an inward harmony with the
eternal order, that is, with truth and
''Thelr messages may seem diverse
enough, but always proclaim the spirit
ual sustenance our human souls obtain
by leaning upon the eternal over~soul
call it God, the divine reason, nature or
the moral order. or what we may.
"What we call truth is that newt
spiritual, which is fixed in the consti-
tuition of the universe. Because so
fixed, it is deathless and unconquerable.
One great idea may have q thousand re-
births in as many centuries.
"Truth will live in almost any house
except that of authority. The priests
and the scribes say, this is the law
and the prophets and all the phari-
sees shout, yea, verify, thus saith
Moses. But truth has flown to be
in the heart on one Jesus,
the hereto.
'EThe trouble is that men are always
trying to reduce truth to its lowest |
terms, to exhibit it in some unchange-
able and permanent form. We arc all |
eager to put our own particular tag !
on truth as rancher is to rope and |
brand r stray maverick.
"But there is where truth escapes
is If we are content to say there is
ruth in that, this is phase of truth |
,r one of the forms in which truth
nanifests itself, we are safe enough.