Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-12-11
The Saints and Who They Were.

| Who were the saints? A startling.
an audacious, once almost a punishable,
question: but when asked of the laity
today. it is likely to be answered with
half pitying smile or frank admis-
sion of ignorance. Yet, happily, the
words "saintliness' and SANITY" can
daily language. And who We're the
| saints?
| They were men and women Of flesh
and blood, who, without celestial aura
and crown. once trod this dusty earth,
| like ourselves. They were real people,
living real lives, with real results. If
we allow ourselves TO be led back by
the hand of history, sacred or secular,
whichever we prefer, to examine the
! work accomplished by these men and
women-now called saints-we shall be
surprised. In our age, so worshipful of
the material and the visible we shall
respectfully recognize their usefulness
and their joyous activity in every
| sphere of life. Even in earthly affairs,
they created and bequeathed to us the
best that we have and know
1t was not the church that made the
saints, but the saints, in very real
sense, who made the church During
the first centuries after Christ and His
apostles had vanished from the earth
1t was individual men and women, liv-
Ing in deserts, in cells and caves, that
guarded the new revelation 1t was
they who kept the spiritual lamp burn
ing. upheld the new standards of life,
and blazed the way for modern civili-
cation
Christianity has always been the re-
ligion of the individual and it's power
from the very beginning lay in its APP
peal TO personality. 1t was individuals
who first warmed hearts into christian
fervor And so the church. like all
corporate bodies, was gradually formed
by these separate particles coming to-
getlfer.
A curious error exists in the minds
of many people-roughly stated-that
all saints are the creation and the ex-
elusive possession of the Roman Cath
Ollie church, and that they are only
rightly called saints il they have re-
ceived the papal stamp of approval
thru canonization. This is incorrect
For proof we need only go back to the
Psalms of David. Sing unto the Lord
O We saints of his" ITO the saints that
are on the earth, and to the excellent
in whom is all my delight" 20. love
I the Lord, all we His saints These
words We're written thousand years
! before the birth of the church of Rome
The psalms further help 10 point out
to us that the early saints were select
ed and elected. not thru a procedure in
. CT hut 1,x- ~
of the multitude. Again and again it
has happened that a people has in
sisted upon the recognition Of one of it's
oWn-made saints, local or ma tional
But history, civil as we'll as ecclesiast-
ical owes great debt to the Roman
Catholic church for having from the
very beginning framed and hung in the
long gallery of time the portraits of
men and women who deserve to be
honored. Always keen to respond to
the elemental needs of human nature
the church early appreciated that
there is no more rooted instinct in
men than to admire what is better and
more beautiful than themselves" and
that IAN example is always better than
a. precept." Memorials of courage and
service help to fortify mems faith in
eternal truths. to increase the value of
life thu expectancy, and to prevent
minds from becoming blunted to the
great ends of living.
The only real democracy that the
world has ever known is the democracy
of sainthood, as founded by the early
christians ApocryphaI writings and
ecclesiastical art have pictured to us
the cOmpany of the hleSse6. go uroht
multitude, which no man could num-
Der. of all nations, kindred and people
and tongues" If we examine religious
paintings, we find the king and the
beggar, the queen and the peasant, the
prelate and the friar in the same group.
And in earthly relationships the same
is true.
From 1.-THE Saints" by Eleonora Kin
nicutt in the December (Christmas)
Scribner.