The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1911-05-11

4
attention and entry on the record.
1t suddenly seemed to me so natural
and simple that there should be an
idea, which must absorb the whole
attention., and exact the complete
loyalty, Of each individual mind,
that there should be a purpose which
must conStrain the undivided service
of every agent. The whole drift and
tendency of all experience seems
plainly enough to set in such a chan
mel, to such a goal. Experience
teaches. Experience, shall we say,
is the school of God, where God is
teacher, mans soul the pupil. Life
is the lesson. How simple! The pu-
pill must give single, whole, att'en-
ton, undivided loyalty, faithful, hon
est, service. The first lesson we ever
studied involved all this. The whole
sum Of the lesson of experience is no
more. Loyalty fidelity, service, this
is our work, our duty, from the be-
ginning, everywhere, forever. We
must study the lesson ere we leave
the nursery, and it is our employ
ment, I think, for all eternity.
l am bewildered to find express
The poet TennysOn reaches in rap
ture and divines that through the
ages" lone increasing purpose runs.
The poet Dante, at the acme Of his
straining vision and inspiration, finds
himself moved in unison with the di-
vine nature by ''The love which
moves the Sun and the other Stars"
The accurate analysis, the wide
discursus, of so-called modern sci
ence", leads but to the same safe
heaven, one order and one law, per-
petual, iuf1exible, invariable, univer-
sal
But what puzzles me here adequat-
ely to designate and emphasize, is
the simplicity, the plainness, of this
which even the greatest prophets,
seers, poets, priests, apostles, mar
tyrs, have so strained and reached
towards, as though 'tWere dim, re-
mote, or difficult.
Man to live must work. Is that
a secret Of the seers, which the soul
must strain, or yearn, or suffer, white
or even black, that does not know
that? It is this vision which so be-
Wilders me that so simple, mundane,
y
wages, making money, is sufficient to
command and exact the faithful SER
vice of each, the honest, orderly, ad-
eQuate cooperation Of all.
[ see it in this view: that to make
money each individual must become
moral. Parties, states must cooper
ate TO the ends of law and Justice.
Nations themselves must learn to re-
vOlVe in these fixed orbits Of law and
right and justice, that each individu-
al may have his honest bread. And
this is money, the despised the sor-
did the worldly, the unclean!
1t appears to me that this is the
only universal, true religion, which
will insure just wages, enough mon
ey, an honest living, to every faith
full worker How strange! All men
know that they must have money to
live, that they must work for money.
This is what all men are doing. It
is their religion. A mans religion
is, not what he says he believes, not
what he thinks he believes, but what
he does believe, and what he does is
the certain unmistakable proof of
what he believes. All men believe
that money is the first necessity Of
life. All men agree that they must
first find enough money to pay their
debts. This is their real religion,
yet behold, the innumerable creeds
and systems and theories and phil
osophies which cover the face of the
earth