The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-07-01
How Many Things in Our Exist
ence Are, After All,
Worth While.
WILLIAM THURST0N BROWN
AT UNITARIAN CHURCH
For Liberty, Equality and Fra
ternity Do the Centuries
Come and Go.


Worth?'
Among other things, he said
What are you worth? What Is your
product? What are the things in this
lie OF ours which have enduring value?
This man moves so many cubic feet Of
earth in tho city streets. That man sells
so many articles OF merchandise over the
counter Of a store. This woman COW
ers so many pages of ledger or day-book
with figures or accounts, writes so many
letters, does so much office work. That
woman performs the tasks her house
Keeping imposes. Some of us are hunt
ing 10 precedents In the law in order TO
win the case of our client In court Some
OF us are experimenting. on various forms
OF so-called disease.
Some of us are carrying out a pre-
scribcd course OF studies with view to
the education OF children We are an
swering In one way or another, the de-
mauds which society and custom have to-
gether created. How much does 1t all
mean How much real value is there in
II all? How Tar is IL a real tulhllment
OF our life? Is there something to come
OF all this effort which makes it worth
while, something that fits II into rho eter-
nal plan of things, something that COM
mands worthy verdict in higher court
than that OF popular opinion or unrea-
1t is not given 10 men ard women 10
part the curtain OF the future and read
its verdict upon the deeds and thoughts
and products of men. But II Is given TO
that power carries with II almost the
power 10 read the future What was IL
that counted in the past? What are the
things that have lived? Aud what are
The things which have not lived? Three
thousand years ago there were men in
Egypt who pondcred these same ques
Nile stands their answor-the massive.
silent pyramids. What say these mOnu-
mentS TO the world three thousand, four
thousand years attcrward? DO they
speak Of the Immortality of the Phara-
obs? Have they preserved i'm any way
the lives and hopes OF those who caused
Pharaohs thought and intended. And
while those stately tombs were rising.
stone on stone. at the cost of myriads
of enslaved men. the first prophet OF
bered In all the after years one who
spoke for God'-was cherishine a faith
In freedom and an Ideal of human worth
for the slaves who built those pyramids,
In comparison with which all the wealth
and pomp Of Egypt were and are as fleet
ing footprints In the shifting sands of
the .seashore. The pyramids are here.
but they are a Witness 10 the cruelty and
folly of men whose names only survive.
The world nowhere contains stone 10
mark the spot where the body OF Moses
returned To dust, but the truth and worth
OF the ideals he cherished and the faith
he held and gave his life for are fixed
as the stars in the skies of human rev
ereuce and esteem. Not Lfntil the human
soul is dead and our race has reverted 10
the beasts can Moses cease TO be an in
spirdtlon TO mankind.
Very Little Remains.
or the American cities of a hundred
years ago very little remains today. or
the American cities OF today, how little
will remain few hundred years hence
No work of human hands has promise
of Immortality unless it is capable Of ap-
the worship OF the soul, 1t is not a ma
terial monument that any OF us is build
ing. How eyanescent. how trivial how
shalowy seem the things we do, the
output Of our effort. In the long perspeC-
tive Of centuries! These things 10 not
stay. These do not possess the sub
stance of Immortality. What is 1T that
stays? What is 1t that makes up any
American city. so far as II has any in
spring meaning, any lasting worth?
as the word is capable OF thrilling the
souls Of men and women with gratitude
and hope and 1oy7 Is 1t the number or
size or splendor OF our houses7 Is II the
number or size OF our cities. the extent
of our territory, our commerce, our
wealth, our army and navy? Is II not
rather our character II we have any?
Must it not be some superior worth OF
moral life some splendor OF social or
civic ideal. some attainment OF gentle
ness and sympathy and justice that may
city or State or nation will make them
real heritage 10 those who shall come
after us?
These cities Of ours are nothing under
heaven but possible heaps of runs-and
not at all such splendid heaps OF ruins
Thebes, or Memphis. or Pompeii, or
mere piles OF useless debris, apart from
the moral power they possess. Their
journey, whether long or short, s TO the
dumping. ground of the worlds cast-off
,nf, q shnl~ cIp prig glal .aIr Iza
not the riches of the soul They can
give nothing. be nothing. 10 our sons and
daughters. that is for a moment worthy
OF their thought nothing that is not
sacrilege of their lives. a defeat of the
very ends of their existence, If they do
not give them higher ideals. noble anlbi-
tlons, and point the way TO worth OF char
slcter And this America of which we
boast, whose only worth or value nothing
In all our Fourth -of-July celebrations will
even remotely suggest-ths America,
tury like the morning star OF promise
to souls in every land 10 whom every
to stand for freedom. equality fraternity
this America which has cost such a tre-
mcndous price In blood and treasure. has
no meaning and no worth to any human
soul. can be only disappointment and
sham. will take It's place side by side
with the discarded and forgotten empires
of the past. unless i has for all men
a word of life. OF liberty. OF Justice, OF
brotherhood,
Abides Flight Of Time.
There is one product of human toll
that abides the flight OF time. There is
one treasure. and only one, that grows
not old. There Is one occupation. and
only one. TO which you and | and all men
are called All others are mere shad-
ows. AS surely as In any day that ever
was. SO surely now, your life and mine
count here or anywhere only as IL speaks
some word Of eternal Truth and Good
ness. only as it makes some spiritual de-
posit, only as IL erects the fair structure
OF noble character. only as IL takes on
something OF the grace and beauty and
virtue OF the Power above, beneath and
within us all that makes for righteous
ness. Liberty, equality fraternity-for
these, and FOR no material thing. our
hands can touch or our senses know do
the years and centuries come and go.
n I've 'ge apd groW Mnd he alone enfse Sas san nnH
promise of immortality, any hold on the
life eternal. who links his being with
ot i,,cr- x.,I,o /.