The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-09-13

FORCES OF nature. no 0elIlcdUOn OF Ie-
markabie human beings, as in the case
of Jesus; that the new religion viii not
deal chiefly with sorrow and death, but
with joy and life, that it viii believe in
no malignant powers and viii reject the
idea that man is fallen being; that il
VIII have no supernatural element but
IN all its theory and practice viii be COM
pletely natural; its priests viii be men
interested in religious thought and trained
to the best methods of improving the So
cial and industrial conditions of human
life; it will not attempt to reconcile men
and women to present ills by promises Of
future bleSsedness. Such promises have
done infinite mischief by inducing men
4 10 be patient under sUffeTings and priva
lions against which they should have in
Cessantly struggled. The new religion will
another side-that of resistance and pre-
VentiOn.
The Meaning.
What, in simple words, is the mean
ing of these epOch-making statements Of
the leading educator of America? In this
new religion men and women are no
longer going to think of any God at all
outside themselves. A greater gain for
this human world than that cannot be
imagined. This world of ours viii be-
come genuinely and nObly religious, rev
erent, loving, just, happy, strong, self
reliant gOdlike, only when it definitely
discards the last vestige of its supersti-
ton about some God among the clouds
and holds in its heart the sacred con-
seriousness that in our own hands, in our
own minds and wills lies the key to the
secret of life, to every happiness, to free
dom, service, justice, joy.
People are not going to care about
the word God. Why should they care
about an empty word, when they have
the consciousness in awakened WILL
aroused conscience, liberated souls, of all
that God can be? They are not going to
revere a church or a priesthood any more
Whatever sanction or sacredness is to at
"a 1Hs arTrr Of hat nav
ligion, which is as inevitable as sunrise,
TO anything you have or know must arise
out of what that thing is, and from no
other source.
''Think of the tremendous logic Of this
address of President Eliot! Whence has
the sanction of all our fundamental in
stitutiOus COme-nOt only government and
civil law, but our moral codes, our do
nestle institutions. marriage, the birth of
children, the home and its relations and
obligations?
For every one of them we have been
taught that there is q divine, superna-
tural sanction. We have been taught
that human government is divine tnsti-
tuition, established by God, getting its
authority and right by delegation from
'.That notion has as little to rest on as
the PtOlemaic astronomy or the idea tnat
the earth is flat and the stars are candles
Government is in no sense divine IN
stitutiOu It has grown out or brute
force-the brute force OF one class co
ercing another class into subsection. We
have never had other than class govern
ment and never will as long as classes
exist What we have today IS govern
ment by the commercial class, as cen
tJlrv or so ago we had government by
hereditary class. In the new religion the
only sanction for any sort of government
viii lie in the needs and possibilities OF
men.
Again we face the problem of right and
wrong. the problem OF morality. Inc
old and discredited RELIGIONS have taught
that KNOWLEDGE of right and wrong comes
BY revelation that in the scriptures or
the Old and New TesJaments are 10 De
found eternal standards of right ana
wrong. We know that Is not true Inc
moral law never was written on tablets
OF stOne-it is eteTnally fresh and plain
on the tablets of human life and social
well-being- Men nave gol TO ma CL,. Ille
justificatiOus OF their actions, the source
and inspiration Of their moral life right
here and now I'm the substance and tex
ture Of the world as we know 1t.
"Can YOU face that fact and not recOg-
nfze the necessity that this social order
from which we must get our STANDARDS
of moral action shall be permeaJed ana
filled with highest ethical purpose; that
its laws shall be just; that all its con
Gitions shall be equitable-indeed, that the
common social and political and economic
life shall itself become a religion, or else
the morality of the coming generations
" we cannot any longer have a God
who stands within the shadows as
Lowell wrote. The only God we can
nave is God who is out in the Opens
and no God can come out into the open
save as mankind, collectively by gOdllke
action embOdies such a deity We may
well amend the old saying Of Micah so
that it shall read; What doth man re-
Ouire of God but that ne do justice, and
love mercy, and walk humbly in human
Marriage is taught by the Catholic
church TO be one Of the sacraments, or
daiued by God himself and even women
of supposedly liberal mind are wont to
say their children were sent them from
God We ali know that is folly and
moOnshine. There Is no excuse for not
knowing that no God ever had anything
TO DO with the origin Of marriage or the
family or the birth of children. And as
sure as the earth turns on its axis, Just
nv the spread of knowledge we have got
to face the fact that a supernatural sane
ton for any Of these things is myth.
About Marriages.
Whom God hath joined together let
not man put asunder we have been
taught to say in most of our marriage
services and this in spite OF the fact
that about one in every five or six mar
riages now has to be put an end to by
the state in the interests Of common de
cency. If justice were done, at least half
Of the marriages contracted should be
terminated, or never entered into. If
sanction is TO be found for marriage and
t1e birth of children it must be found
fu what marriage actually is and IN what
children may in this world becOme-absO-
lutply regardless whether there be another
world or nOt-in conditions which shall
make married life successful and desir-
able in the process of making marriage
possible for all healthy persons, and in
some nobler and finer purpose by which
marriage shall be found good
cannot he found
mere propagation of the race 1t has got
to be shown that the race Is worth pro-
pagating before it will have any moral
value.
DO you not know that today and for
wears past religion has not been and is
not being taken Seriously ] don't know
why an alleged religion. which violates
every instinct of intellectual self-respect,
which lays on mems souls no heroic bur
den. which beckons toward the future
with no inspiring Incentive, which great
ems mems souls with no gracious and
beneflcent task. should be taken seriously.
IL cannot be by sane people. It can only
L. r.1ma~