Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-01-17
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By Henry F. Cope.

By Henry F. Cope.
$50 teach us to number our days
that We may apply our hearts unto wis
dom. "-Ps xc.. II.
1t is only natural and it is quite
necessary that men should stop at
times and ask, are we moving forward
or drifting back, are we on an incom-
Ing or an outgoing tide? OLD as the
question is, it has a perennial interest
for every generation. But these times
of review and stocktaking always bring
out the pessimism monger with his cry
of the good old times and the present
evil days.
Many people seem to be born with
, an inward persuasion of the total de-
pravity Of the whole universe; some of
them are doing their best to demon
strate their beliefs by their practices.
, We need deliberately to free ourselves
from any such paralyzing prejudice,
from the notion that there is an inev-
liable moral gravitation of humanity
toward the pit.
AACAC dIC wv pOSStDlC FAS"S VI SAAAS
world: One, that it is normally who'll
ly bad, with occasional heaven sent
CLEANS Of goodness to throw it's night
! into greater relief; the other, that 1t
is normally right, that wrong and Sin
are unnatural and that the trend Of
humanity is upward and heavenWard
i, The law of the moral world is such
| that neither of these views can be
| adopted as always absolutely true );
there is no external law or force COM
polling us, in spite of ourselves, either
| to be good or to be evil. Even more
sublime than the fact that the trend Of
mankind is forward and upward is the
! deeper fact that we are left ever free
J to choose what way life shall go.
There is another natural law in NOR
ais that must be remembered; that is,
| that a man goes in the direction which
he is facing, he goes according to his
| faith. If he believes in the possibility
| of goodness he perseveres in its way ::
| if he believes in the inevitability of evil
he submits to it's way.
We are each making our own world,
! each determining whether it be better
or worse to-day than yesterday. There
is such a thing as a world spirit, tide
| in human affairs, but we are not dere-
I licts drifting helplessly upon its on
sweeping flood, or we ought not to be.
Neither must we think we can take
our course in life alone. Each helps
| to determine other lives by influence,
by example, by that mysterious some
thing that binds us together, so that no
one can adopt the philosophy of despair
and give himself to its way without
helping to make it true that all are
moving to darker days.
To believe that the race is doomed
| is to doom it, Yet many have declared
! the good tidings of religion in such
way as to make it seem that perd1t1on
! was the greatest certainty of all. 1t is
q good thing that man shall know that
he is not perfect; no one but perfect
! fool ever thought he was; but 1t is an
evil thing that we should come to think
that we have nothing but augmenting
tmperfection before us.
The principal danger Of moral stock
taking is that we manage to pass by
| the things that are most worth preserV-
ing, those that are our really valuable
| assets. and charge against ourselves
| onlv our debts and dangers Blindness
to the good we have will work as much
/ harm as blindness to the evil that may
| be-
No man was ever the worse for the
discovery of good in him; every power
of betterment we have gives promise OF
vet better things and greater power.
| We need not only to fight our weeds,
we need to foster and cherish our flow
ers of virtue and love and goodness.
II will make all the difference wheth-
or YOU 90 through the days that come
simply looking for disease and deprav-
| ity or go looking for the things of beau
! nv and Joy. You find that for which
Won, look. This will be q year Of dark
ness and defeat or of light and larger
living according to whether you have
larger faith in the good or In the bad.
Have faith in the good in yourself ;
trust that good. Believe in the good
in others. Let your life tell for the
inward life of all because you set your
| face toward the heights, you believe
that every good life may be lived again,
that all good that has been may yet be
In larger measure, that the infinite
might that moves the world is the life
| of love and goodness.
] nnmmrzM GAINS