Los Angeles herald., 1907-01-14
PRECEDENT AND
PROGRESS, TOPIC
Rev. c. c. Pierce Tells of Those Who
Are Ever Learning and Are
Never Able to Come
to Truth

precedent and Progress" was the
topic yesterday morning of Rev. C. c.
Pierce, pastor of the Memorial Baptist
church. He said in part:
Nothing Is more in evidence to him
who even casually observes the facts
and phenomena of life than that while
there are those who are forever seek
ing to help this world along there are
others, and sometimes a majority,
seeking to hold 1t back. While there are
those who with unvarying eagerness
seek to learn the great lessons of life,
which are constantly being taught,
there are many more who are forever
learning and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth There are
those who are forever standing on the
mountain tops, welcoming the advent
Of the dawn, and heralding anything
that gives the hope of progress, while
there are others, and sometimes it
seems majority, who linger still in the
valley, where the shadows of the past
are still dense, and with faces turned
toward the days that are forever gone,
bow down in abject servility to prece-
dent.
Among those who are forever learn
ing and never coming to a knowledge
of the truth are great many very
good people in our churches. Some sup
pose they know it all now and that
there is nothing more to be learned.
Some suppose that our ancestors, en-
doWed with divine wisdom above us,
were commissioned to dole out to the
human race all the wisdom 1t would
ever need, and that he who oversteps
the ideas and teachings of the past is
a hereto. There are some, many in all
our churches, who seem to have lost
the very ability of learning anything.
They read no books of the present
hour in world quivering with life;
they repeat their little theories and
suppose they have all there is.
Some are afraid to learn. They have
heard old fogies repeat so often the
platitude that there is a conflict be-
tween science and religion that they
suppose of course 1t is true. Some have
fallen into a comatose condition in their
religious life and never make a single
step Of advancement
"Of course, the true attitude of a
Christian in this world is that of an
open-hearted learner. He should say
with Paul: Not as though l had al
ready attained. either We're already
perfect but 1 follow after, that 1 may
apprehend that for which I was already
apprehended of Christ This involves
the attitude of life which welcomes all
that Is new in the hope that something
better than that of the past be dis
covered. This involves the generous
and tolerant attitude which considers
and weighs all things, so that that
which is good may be selected. This
involves the scientific attitude, which
will enable one to investigate and learn
from actual contact with things, and
which will lead to experiment in spirit
ual as we'll as in material things.
"Then, too. all about us we see those
who, beholding the power of true re-
ligion in the individual life and in hu-
man history. walk blindly through the
world, admitting none of the claims of
religion into the soul. Such are the
most blinded of all and furnish the
most conspicuous and numerous exam
pie of those with all opportunity Of
knowing the very best things of life,
seem ever to learn and never come to a
knowledge of the truth"