Nome industrial worker., 1908-02-21
JUDGE 6. E. s. WOODS
 COMM NCE WENT ADDRESS
Students of Washington State University Hear Splendid Oraton Path of Social Progress Is Pointed 0ut--Truth
 Defined and Described

dO not regard tnlS as an OCCASION when I am to fill a line of your printed program and occupy an hours time in saying agreeable things to you. regard it as a great privilege to be able to speak to the coming genera tion, and I consider it my solemn duty to say those things which 1 truly believe-those things which I hope may be of some help to you, so that you may begin your life where 1 end mine.
 It is as If torch bearer began mil lions of years ago running down the ages with his light, at first but a feeble spark, which as he fell breath less he passed to another and he in turn to another, the torch growing and flaming more brightly until at last it has been committed to our hands, and l as one of the humblest runners of my generation offer into your hands this torch which l must let fall You are the torch bearers who must in your turn take up the running You are the warriors for the coming fight-the endless fight which the human race is making for a higher and sweeter life.
 What shall we give to the young men who are going down to battle: With what shall we arm them? We will give them Truth for their shield and Freedom for their shining sword.
 And what is Truth? It is that which always is, which altereth not, which is the harmony of the universe. their orbits is part of it. The light of the sun and the life of the earth are Truth; and the death of the moon and the life and death of man are Truth. Truth is that which was from the beginning, and is, and ever shall be unto the end. It is that which in the midst of change in all things, changeth not. It is itself the very rule and order of change. To know Truth is to know that eternal change is the order of the universe. All tt ings have been changing, and are now changing, and will forever change the earth and all the inhabitants thereof, man and all his institutions. There is nothing which can be kept unchanged or which ought to be kept unchanged; for if there be no change then Death has indeed come. While the earth lives, man will live and must continually change; and all those things which are of him and from him must change except ill so far as they are founded in Truth.
 You do not step from this hall out into the streets of Seattle, you do not take up your own paltry struggle for existence; but you step out into the universe, and you take part in the evolution of man. You take part in the evolution of mind. Evolution itself is part of the great universal doctrine of change. It is part of the invincible Truth which is to be your shield.
 l the doctrine of evolution brought only despair to the world; that it's fruit was bitterness that it takes away God and heaven and the immortality of the soul. But Truth is the har- nony of the universe, and 1 deny that the truth can ever be bitter to the children of men.
 If we have lost a god that was a dictator of the skies, choosing men and races of men according to his whim, and visiting vengeance upon the poor ignorant insects at his feet, we have gained the idea of a Creator who is impartial in all things and beneficent in all things; who has set in motion eternal laws which make man himself creator of his own des- tiny, maker of his own heaven and his own hell. It is said that by Truth we have lost the idea of redeemer, the Son of God, sent to save mankind ; but say that if we have lost the idea of an interceder before judge who could be swayed by prayers and peti- tions, we have gained the idea of Christ, our dear and sweet brother, who was man as we are men, close to .ns, one whose patience and love and charity we may hope to emulate. And as the supreme triumph of Truth, ris- ing like pean of joy to the everlast- ing skies, we exchange the tradition of original sin and Adams fall for the glorious discovery that the human race has never, in all the millions of cons of Time. fallen by the estimation of hair; but has steadily pushed upward, from the feeblest and hum bIest beginning to the present, when the mind of man is seeking in humil- ity and not in pride to un1avel the mysteries of the universe, filling the hearts of men with poetry and beauty,