The Ogden standard. [volume] (Ogden City, Utah) 1902-1910, 1909-01-16

l Single race more tDan another has re-
| ligion come.
The service which Whitman would
| perform, the only service his writings
can perform, Is to help release reli-
| gion, in the minds of people from all
| dependence upon races or classes or
| alleged revelations. and show it to be,
as it is. the native growth of human
| lie itself We begin to see the depth
| and vastness and value of Whitman's
| thought when we face Jne fact that
| the time has come in the development
| OF the human mind when Christianity
| Itself can not and does not satisfy.
| Not only is it true that the cosmology
| OF the Christian religion, It's eXplana-
ton OF things. is outgrown and dis
solved for all thinking minds, so that
1t is literally true that all the schools
Of the world are today teaching our
children as truth the very things
which make the basis OF the Chris.
tlan church fairy tale, but 1t Is also
true that Christianity does not and can
not offer to the world an adequate re-
ligion. 1t does not possess and never
has possessed religion for the Whole
man.
The so-called religious tools and
symbols and machinery which we have
today in connection with the Christian
church are not only an inheritance
from an age as different from this
III all its social and political life as
can be imagined, but they are the
creation of q conception of religion
which is as completely dissolved by
science as the Ptolemaic astronomy is
1t Is but simple truth, then, that Whit
man utters when he says: The time
has certainly come to begin to dis
charge the idea of religion in the
United States from mere eccleSiasti,
clsm. and from Sundays and church
going, and to assign 1t to that general
position, chiefest and most indispens-
5ble, most eXhilarating, to which the
others are to be adjusted, inside of
all character and education and af-
fairs. The people. especially the
young men and young women of
America, must begin to learn that
religion (like poetry is something far,
far different from what they sup
posed. 1t is, indeed, too important
TO the power and perpetuity of the
new world to be consigned any longer
to the churches, old or new, Catholic
or Protestant, saint this OF saint that.
II must be consigned henceforth TO
democracy, en- masse, and to litcra-
ture. 1t must enter into the poems of
the nation. 1t must make the na-
ton.
1t was inevitable that Christianity,
as a religion, should have some notion
of the universe as the background
against which the nature and the des-
tiny of man might be portrayed. This
Is what any religion must do; what
all religions have done Every
thought. every theory of things. every
principle and precept, gains meaning
only as 1t stands against some sort
of background, And for all the teach
ing of the Christian religion there has
been, as there had to be, back
ground conception OF the universe.
Most of us are fairly familiar with
the Christian conception Of the uni
verse. Taking form as 1t did in a
distant age. when the knowledge. of
the world as to the facts of astronomy
and the other sciences was almost
nothing, 1t was inevitable that the
Christian cosmology would be pltiful
ly, almost ludicrously inadequate
That cosmology contemplated the
world as about four thousand years
old, and man as the creature of a di-
vine person, brought into being by a
mere fiat And If the past seemed to
the Christian mind so small. it must
he remembered that the future seemed
even less The expectation which un-
derlies the gospels and permeates
much of the other writing of the New
Testament scriptures Is of a speedy
elimination of the earth drama Most
of the first apostles and first Chris
tians died, as they had lived. In eX-
pectation that the earth was to be de-
stroyed and another and higher eX-
iStence for all believers was immedl-
ately to begin. So strong and wide
spread was this belief, and so near
at hand did the great event seem to
be- that most people seemed to think
there would be no more deaths. The
end would come so soon that the eX~
perience OF death need not be expected
by any one. And considerable part
of one or two of the letters of Paul
Is devoted to the task of reaSSuring
the waverins faith of many who, be-
cause their friends had died, felt the
very foundation of their faith crumb-
ling.
1t was, therefore, upon the canvas
OF this old and meager notion of time
and of the cosmos that the nature and
destiny of human beings had to be
oil hoI fA
ter into 1t. 1t goes without saying.
therefore, that the portralture of hui
man life and destiny would be one
which the growth of the human mind
could not retain. And that is exactly
what has happened. Influenced by
tradition and custom and accepted au-
thority, men have tried to fit their
lives and hopes and faiths into that
narrow mould, but the effort has been
increasingly unsuccessful and unsat-
iafying, until the time has come when
1t Is utterly impossible for any think
irf soul to do It, 1t is not merely
that science has proved the Christian
conception of creation and of the age
OF the world and of man to be un-
true, disclosing millenniums instead OF
centuries as the measure of the past
anu an origin OF man himself never
dreamed of In the older cosmology.
That in itself would be deeply signifi-
cant But by far the more significant
fact Is that the Christian forecast of
the future has been rendered even
60. The Cough Syrup that
DN rids the system of cold
by acting as a cathartic on the