The daily sentinel., 1911-12-07
Do Not Little
Interests Make
Little Men =?
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r race rae Il is better soS'' than an t ever
was. and the proportion of
good men, pursuing lofty ideals, is
larger than 1t ever was before. The
world grows better year by year. Yet
there are dangers that are always
threatening our hard-earned civillza
tions, and wise men will face them.
At least. there are tendencies and
habits that stultify us, that dwarf the
mind, hinder us from high fulfilments,
and stand in the way of character
commensurate with our birthright as
children of the great and infinite God
There is also danger that, while we
gain over our predecessors in charac-
ter and civilization, we lose what we
have gained by the growth of de-
generating customs of the mind. Rome
gained immensely over all the ancient
civilizations-bu Rome fell. There
is no doubt that we have gained i'm
mensely over all past civilizations. But
we can fall, as Rome did. And it is
harder for us to keep what we have
gained. We need greater, nobler men
man hlh NNNA AAbAANr III We lAeANt q
far more elaborate and complex civil
ization, democracy which demands
Tor its very existence men of both
honor and great minds. America re
quires great men, serious-minded men,
men who can think and plan and
solve great problems, utter wise coun-
sells. face great evils calmly and
courageously, deal with the growing
skepticism and doubt of many men.
Danger That Threatens.
But right in the face of this in
creasing demand OF the highest civil
ization for greatness of soul, vigor of
intellectual ability, concern for great
problems in all the people. one of the
greatest dangers that threatens our
people is consuming engrossment in
little, mean, commonplace and petty
things-things unworthy of great
souls, to say the least, but also Just
the things that fail to breed the strong
men the church and nation need to-
day. In the midst of great problems
we run after trifiing pleasures. With
a call to high thinking we deprive the
mind of all power to grapple with
great thoughts by feeding with
scrappy and insignificant truth. In
time demanding the most heroic con-
secration we are dallying with sports.
When great tasks are calling for souls
religiously gifted, and prophetically
inspired, we are forgetting God and
Gods thoughts and starving our souls
on commonplaces.
One has only to turn to two or three
habits to see how real this danger is.
Thus, the reading habit of today
makes us sometimes seriously ask
II the generation will not lose the
power to think. For In our reading
we want little, scrappy. short, piquant
magazine articles that have neither
intellectual grasp nor serious moral
purpose Subscribers complain of
long, serious, logical. Intellectually
vigorous, abstract articles that call
for mental exertion in the reader--tbe
articles our fathers could both read
and enjoy They want the editorials
to do what little thinking appears in
the paper. So, too, we are being de
luged with little books. Short stories
Stll ny lut llOuSdhu, lulu
with neither power nor deep and ar
tistic Interpretation of life, sell by the
hundreds OF thousand. Our religious
productions are noteworthy for large
type, wide margins and blank pages.
and, with some notable exceptions,
are very thin and watery stuff. Yet
they are what the people buy and
read Where is the race of men who
read great books and followed great
theological political, economic and
literary discussions in the reviews of
the last generation?
Sometimes it looks as If the church
es were yielding to this mental and
moral inaneness when one reads the
list of sermon topics advertised in the
Saturday papers. SO many of them
are petty, dealing with little, trivial
concerns, the titles evidently made
catchy and sensational to entice a
congregation of idle curiosity seekers.
And what can the preacher do for
them after he has got them with such
topics? Often, too, we notice that the
advertisement assures the reader that
the sermons will be short. But the
themes that make great, vigorous men
and minds cannot be treated in fifteen
minutes. Have our people lost the in
tellectual ability to follow high i'm
perial line of thought for forty min
utes. as once crowds hung upon great
sermons by the hour christian
Work and Evangelist.