The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1908-04-09
Our Idols.

The alive and growing beliefs of to-
day may become dead and dying soph-
ism in the MONDAY sun of tomorrow.
Looking back on the past, hut dimly
illumined by experience, we see on
every hand the debris and wreckage of
many one-time worshipped iGols-be
liefs and faiths which were fondly
cherished, doubling not at all their per-
manent verities. This act of retro
spection would blight hope, enervate
endeavor, check progress and end NOR
tai existence in chaos, were it not for
that vitalizing and quickenlng mystic
rious force which permeates all being,
engendering hope and furnishing in
centives that sustain and guide all
earthly pursuits.
Man is prone to mistake appear
ances for facts; shaping and building
structures which he intends shall be
requisite for every need and emergen-
cy, remaining forever intact and in
vulnerable. When moral and intel
lectual edifices are once erected, per-
haps with infinite pains and care, and
looked upon, perchance for brief
time only, as the fiDished product of
all excellence it lie indeed hard mat
ter to modify or alter any portion of
the original design, much less to dis
mantle, and rehabiiitate them with
something like their former prestige.
This work of construction is ever GO
! ing on, never completed. A stage OF
temporary satisfaction may be at
Ifained but eventually it will give way
to unrest, doubt and distress, finally
compelling diagnosis which will un-
cover functional ailments that require
immediate attention. Responsibilities,
however, i'll these matters do not al
ways rest entirely with the individual
but may have come to him by inherit
ance or thru ulterior channels. Prog
eny receive legacies of mental attrib-
utes much in the same manner that
they do material estates. On going
back little way in the history of our
own country we find a stupendous
structure, labeled slavery, flourishing
in all its pristine ugllness, and thought
to be so firmly established, and by
many dlvinely appointed. as to defy
both the ravages of time and the icon
oclastlc intrusions of men.
Advancing short stage in our so
cial progress that frightful dragon
called civil war, obtrudes itself and W.
observe, maybe with horror, the awfu
rending and destruction of this here
tofore impregnsble stronghold, cast
ing hither and thither its mighty tim
bers, filling our land with diabolica
} noise and hideous sounds whose echoes
distinctly reverberated thru the re
: motest parts of the globe. When tn,
smoke of battle slowly rises above th'
scene we gaze with unspeakable aw'
upon the mighty desolation that ha
been wrought and find our only solac
in the belief that this method of eradi
cation was humane and therefore jus
tifiable and out of the ruins wOul,
arise shrine dedicated to freedom
where all men might worship wit
equal rights, freed from all unjus
laws or customs. Now, after severa
I, decades of intervening years, can v
truly ssy of that old idol, built on ar
t cient tradition and fostered by vii
: superstition, it has been really and il
: retrievably dismembered, demolished
!, never to rise again, or has only one Q
: its most brutal phases been destroyed
May we confidently assume and a
Q sert that its extirpation was complet
i and that it will ever remain an osailie