The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-12-20
How People May Know.


"How are we men and women of today
| to know the feeling Of joy and gratitude
and reverence which they of that long
ago knew? How may Christmas become
a religious festival to US? AS it is, with
all that may be said by anyone in its
favor, it is only a habit. 1t is no Gus
tom which we have established. 1t does
not flow annually out Of the deep springs
of gladneSs and gratitude in us. II we
had not found the custom here, 1t would
be absolutely impossible for US TO create
it out of our own social consciousness
or our common life today. We do not
exchange our greetings and our gifts be
cause we must, because in no other way
can We find expression for the feelings
which the facts of the world or Of our
life produce. There can be no such sense
of joy or gratitude with US in the
thought that the sun is coming back with
spring and summer in his train. Why
nOt2 Not because we are so much wiser
/ than those men and women of the long
ago, but because the return of the sun
! does not and cannot mean to all Of US
now what 1t meant to all then. 1t is
no longer true that the sun shines and
/ the rain falls equally for all In per
hitting the great forces and resources of
| nature to be mOnOpOlized by and for the
benefit of the few we shall some time
! discover that we have gone very far
toward drying up the very springs Of
| religion.
There is only one way by which the
| springs of religious feeling-the springs
/ of reverence and gratitude and jOy-can
again be set free for the gladdening of
| the world and the enrichment of life
and that is exactly the way which Jesus
instinctively followed, the way of brother
hood; not the false and counterfeit
! brotherhood which masks under the name
l of charity, but the brotherhood of one
family, the brotherhood Of equals.
/ Christmas is the festival of the family,
and il just as surely calls for the exist
| ence of a world family, a society family,
a family that includes all, as it calls
/ for the smaller family of blood Tela-
l tiOnship.
Men and women. you and can make
| no greater mistake in this or any other
/ world than that of thinking that it is
| enough Just to take things as we find
| them, lust do the customary things that
| world following the line of least resist
/ anCe. We can make no greater or more
! disastrous mistake than to think that
/ our chief function is to be heirs of those
who have preceded US. We never sue
] coed in living our own lives at all, we
/ are simply weak and unthinking imita-
/ tons of some one else, mere manikins
/ and not men and women, unless we reso-
/ lutely determine to have religion which
I is our OWn-nOt a religion made up OF
/ precepts or beliefs or forms on tradi-
| tons, but religion which registers itself
| in a sense of JOY and gratitude and rever-
I tLEe arising from what We Know from
| what We have touched and handled and
/ lived and tested. We have no right to
/ take God for granted. In religion we
may safely take nothing for granted We
must be able to say; 81 know" Our
/ religion, be il little or much, is made
/ up solely Of what we ourselves know
| of what we feel of what is real and
noble and beautiful and true to us
! do not you know, every man and
/ woman of YOU, that the kind of world
and the sort Of life We are maintaining
/ today cannot possibly produce and is not
producing either any such vivid and up
/ tftIng consciousness OF divine reality as
/ flowed maturity into the psalms of Israel
or any such eXubeTant and spontaneous
] gladnCss as biOssOmed ages and ages age
I into a yearly festival, so joyous so rev
/ ereHt, so full Of gratitude. that il has
I remained to this very day and cOnsti
! tutes altogether the SaCreduess expression
| OF our lives2 We deceive ourselves if we
I think we can grind our moral or spiritua
/ grist with the water that is past W.
/ Cefraud and paupeTize our own souls II
/ We expect 20 make the mere customs OF
/ other days afford US a medium through
/ which we may pour forth the WORSHIP
of our souls. Forever must new wine be
\ put into new bottles. Forever must new
| forms and new. ways be created by which
/ the eveF-neW religious vision and con-
/ victiOu and need of human life may glad
/ den and glOrify the world. We cannot
/ live in the world Of yesterday if we would
/ sing the songs or pray the prayers
/ or think the thoughts or follow the ways
I OF any who have gone before us. If We
/ try to do that, we are faithless to OuI
I most sacred trust. Not backward. but
/ forward must we travel Not another's
/ feeling Of Joy or gratitude or truth OF
! SaCredneSS, but our own must we have