The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1909-06-09

Except a man bc born again. he
cannot see the kingdom of God.
Marvel not that said unto thee. We
must be born again. This new birth
! is commonly called regeneration; and
this is the word which | will use this
morning. Regeneration is conceived in
The virgin womb of necessity, and born
in the OK stall of emergency. Rcforma.
tion is 4 poor eXpedient at best, as ii
does not have. as rule, A sufficient
foundation to build upon. Reformation
is resorted to with varying and uusatis-
factory results. In reformation there
is too much of old life injected into the
desired new life or, more properly
speaking. the reformed life. and the re-
formed life suffers from contamination
with the old life. The impure and un.
desirable elements remain; nor do they
die out of themselves nor become eradi
Gated by the power of the reformation
No man, says Christ, "putteth new
cloth onto an old garment - The new
and the old cannot be put together with
satisfactory results, This is seen in
everyday life, A man finds his apples
are spoiling and wishes to save them
from rot and decay. He goes to the
old bin whore they are stored and care
fully, one by one, places the apples into
the new bin, examining each one sep
arately, throwing out every ono that
is decayed or even specked, well know
ing that one specked apple left in the
new bin will eventually spoil the whole
lot of apples. What would it amount
TO if the man should Just transfer all
the old apples, good and bad, into the
new bin? And yet men talk about re-
forming the lifc, throwing out now and
then. maybe, an unusually offensive
habit but leaving some of the less of
fensive ones to grow worse under the
new conditions known rs the reformed
life.
Regeneration becomes necessity
from the pollntjng tendency that evil
has upon good, and the impure upon
the pure. Strictly speaking, there is
nothing that reforms itself and attalns
TO that for which 1T strives Nations
never reform themselves until revolu
tions come. and in the travail OF the
conflict new government is born. If
a new government is not born the old
evils remain, at least part of them,
which eventually furnishes an occasion
for another revolution.
They talk 10 lis about reform politics.
but my observation is that politics do
not reform, and if there are evils TO
be rightcd new politics must be born,
dhN lulS - ucudIlN uonc through new
parties being born Of the principles
which are sought 10 be established. In
this nation the first political rcgencra.
tion brought forth the Republican
party. the desired results seemed out
of reach of the old parties. try however
hard they might. In our own local con.
aitions, the only remedy left was regen-
new birth. Conditions be-
came unbearable. and out of the neccs.
sltN of the case n new party was
brought into being.
Society will never he what il ought
10 be, nor what is desirable. until it is
Efforts at reformation
nave been made spasm )dlcally. and are
being made. but society is much the |
same as il has always been. And TODAY |
society is not what il ought to be; nor
sill it be what it ought TO be until !
il is born OF principles radically diff. |
Ferent from those that govern il at the !
present time. The social evil. and the |
drink evil and the gambling evil. arc
rot to be rcmedied by resolution nor
oy the ordinary rcformatory methods |
There is something too radically wrong