The Hawaiian gazette., 1910-08-02
Or. White Declares Public Con-
science Is Becoming More
Acute Every Day.
TALKS ON ENlGMATlC TEXT
"Rite, Right Wright" - These
Tree Words Sum Up Essen
tiaIS of Christianity.
(From Mondays AdvertiaOr.)

Iellgloni OF, II tnat statement De
trife too strong, three things certainly
with which true religion has to deal at
every stage"
Thus spoke DIR, Frank Newhall White
at the Central Union Church last night,
using for his subject the three words,
Critic" 'Right," "wright"
Religion, in the first place." he
went on to say, has to do with rite.
Time was when men thought that that
was pretty much all there was to re.
ligion. In fact, if the decisions were
to go by majority vote in the world
today, that would stand as the accepted
definition of religion. The heather ma
tions still outnumber the Christian, and
the distinctive note of heathenism is
the practical divorce of religion and
morality-the failure to see any neces,
sary connection between the ceremony
of the temple and shrine and the every.
day conduct of man toward man-wor.
ship and living as utter strangers, the
one to the other. Nor has that idea
been wholly absent from Christian his
tory.
''Cardinal Richelleu-was it notf-of
whom some wit put it that he was
guilty of every vice and crime in the
calendar, but wonderfully piOus. If it
could only be claimed that that calen'
dar were ancient and forgottenl The
mischief is that, however, vigorously
we may repudiate the notion that re-
ligion and rite are one and the same
thing, language is poisoned with 1T.
The religious man-who is he3 Why,
in popular thought, he is the man who
scrupulously keeps for rest and worship
one day in seven, who is always to be
found at the services of the church,
who is active in the work of the church,
who frequents and whose voice is heard
in the meetings for prayer, who avoids
certain amusements and habits tabooed
} by the church as worldly, and whose
/, language is tinctured with Biblical
: phraseology.
!, "The distinctive thing about him as
religious man is the ceremonial
stamp"
: Doctor White went on to say that
the common saying that it does not
matter whether or not n man is relig
( ious so long as he does about right is
} relic of some vicious legacy. He said
most of the criticism of the church
comes from within and not from out
siders. Critics of the church rite, he
declared, have said the ritual is no
more than an eggshell. Doctor White
himself said he thought the comparison
was an apt one, but not complete The
empty shell is worthless, but when the
valuable part of the egg is there the
shell is indispensable.
''True religion is more than wor-
ship" continued Doctor White; "but
true religion will worship: the religion
that does not worship is not religion
True religion is more than prayer, but
religion will pray-it must pray.
f'Rite is worship of God. Right is
God s own will. 1t is the way God sees
and does things. It is the law for hui
man life. Right-the thing we can't
coax or bride or frighten; the thing
we can It flatter or drive into altering
its sovereign verdict; the thing that
: never asks what is convenient, or easy,
or profitable, or popular; the thing that
listens to no appeals and accepts no ex-
cuses the thing that, while the tides
of taste and sentiment come and go,
and human standards drift and disap-
pear and reappear, is unchanged for the
centuries, the same yesterday, today and
forever-the thing that is a man Is best
friend because it will never make terms
: with him, because he can make no terms
with it except those of his own uncon.
ditional surrender.
"Why is it that the world refuses to
| fha rynr1ink np
cess and stamps its most conspicuous
figures as its chief offenders and viii
lains9 Why is it we say, that however
apparently decisive the issue, no ques-
tion is really settled till it is settled
right Why is it, think you, that on
the one hand, a legislature definitely
elected to carry into effect the great
humane reform, but, under the suspi-
cion of bribery, proving false to its
trust and thus precipitating a great
class struggle, and on the other hand,
mob of aggrieved workmen blowing
into eternity men who presumed to fill
places they had forsaken, both stand
pilloried by the wrath of an outraged
peoplef
"Why is 1.-THE time -honored law of
supply and demand to the contrary not
notwithstanding the man or men
, who corner wheat and corn in a year
of scarcity, who would deliberately cut
off the coal supply of millions to force
the settlement of dispute in the
mines, who drive the price of wheat to
the last point the trade will bear, vino
undersell the small dealer and force
him to the wall that commodities be
manipulated, and who adroitly monopO
lie great public franchises-why do
these men have to take their place
alongside the thief who picks your
poeketl Why is it that the dividing
up of forty-six millions Of unearned
profits in Amalgamated Copper between
two spectacular dventurers-prolts
that represent no service rendered-is
not only highway, but highhanded, rob
beryW