Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-01-17
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By Henry T. Cope.

| So teach us TO NUMBER our Gays
that we may apply our hearts unto wis
dom."-Ps. xc., IL.
1t Is only natural and 1t is quite
necessary that men should stop at
times and ask, are we moving forward
u 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 gravitatlon of humanity
toward the pit.
There are two possible views of this
world One, that it is normally who'll
ly bad, with occasional heaven sent
| CLEANS of goodness to throw its night
into greater relief the other, that it
is normally right, that wrong and sin
are unnatural and that the trend Of
humanity is upward and heavenward.
| The law of the moral world is such
| that neither of these views can be
/ nd tod ok a
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
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 its way,
We are each making our own world,
or worse to-day than yesterday. There
| is such a thing as world spirit, tide
| In human affairs. but we are not dere-
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 a
way as to make 1t seem that perdition
was the greatest certainty of all. 1t is
a good thing that man shall know that
he is not perfect; no one but perfect
fool ever thought he was; but it is an
evil thing that we should come to think
that we have nothing but augmenting
imperfection 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
only our debts and dangers. Blindness
| to the good we have viii 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
yet 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.
1t will make all the difference wheth
err you go through the days that come
simply looking for disease and deprav-
ity or go looking for the things of beau
ty and Joy. You find that for which
you look. This will be 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
upward 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,
I'LL GOTTEN GAINS