Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1910-03-03
life ONE D-N THING, ETC.

"There was time in the life of
Job when affliction and trouble fell
fast around him, that he might have
been justified in quoting the most
popular of all modern phrases, Life
is Just one damn thing after another,
said Rev DR.. William J. Hinley pas
tor of Pilgrim Congregational church
of Spokane. during an address de-
hvered recently before over 500 peo-
pie. who listened with rapt attention
throughout. But when il assumes
the proportions of a modern phil
osophy adopted by the business
world. and tackled on the walls of
thousands of homes and offices, it
shows there is a reason, namely, the
people want a broad religion.
"The phrase is a libel on American
citizenship and Christianity Life is
wrong when this becomes the motto
of all kinds of people in all walks
of life To you who have it lying on
your office desks, of framed i'm your
homes say Tear it down, or play
the part Ii savors of the teachings
of Socrates. and tells of the growth
Of an unhealthy opinion that this is
a DEVILS world. The poor and the
rich alike have accepted the grim
phrase as a doctrine and a philosophy
crystalized 1t is almost a household
term
well meaning and good friends
of mine have sent me both caustic
and sarcastic comment because / use
il as a sermon text. The old theory
that everybody was damned to start
with and that acts of Nature i'm the
visitatiOns of disasters that cost life
and property were Gods punishment,
is passing. You can whip a boy,
but not change his opinion. 1t is
the teachings of the old school of
I theology that God is cruel that paved
the way for the change that the
phrase Life is just one damn thing
after another is bringing about. The
world is beginning to see things in
different lights, and seeks the truth
above everything else.
From the viewpoint of the rev
erend gentleman, he is eminently
right, but we "opine" that his point
of view is wrong. If he will digest
the phrase from the everyday
position of the worldly man Cor
woman. for that matter) he Will come
to the conclusion that the reason
cards bearing this motto are so feel
ingly cherished by the busy man Oh
the now-a-day world. is that they ex-
press. without sacrilegious intent, the
conditions that obtain from the be-
ginning of one "a hours to the end
of another such period. In other
words. humanity strives and plans foI
its tomorrow's success-in business
art, letters. sports and pleasures
only to forever live in that atmos
phere of uncertainty thai surround.
life, from the cradle to the grave
and reduces the fuel which warns tn,
r fondest hopes of man into the ashes
Of disappointment and dispare.
= Every cradle asks us whence, an,
, every coffin whittier" We know O
3 but two certainties-birth and death
= With ali due respect to religion an,
{ our Christian teaching, I'VE know no
what the morrow may bring forth"
I The past is with us always. T,
8 some it is the black nightmare o
S regret, to others the glorious. sunli
: path down which they have travele,
f to today's threshold of a uncertain
b more glorious future We live 81
o hopel We know mott The word o
e no reverend gentleman. no book ha
& yet expounded wisdom so profoun