The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-09-12
The Religion of a Rising
Generation
(Harper's

on the comparative merits of nc rIS-
ing generation, and its grandparents.
Nothing could be more illustrative Of
than the spirit Of the original indict-
ment by one COrnelia A. p. Conner,
and the spirit of the various epiieS
it evoked. The striking feature OF
the first, "A Letter to the Risl'.s; Gen
Grafton was a certain ligl-h~nded
careleSsne SS of statement; 4 capri
cious %plunging about in a sea Of Pc
sonal preferences and opinions, all set
down with as much aplOmb and sure
ty as if the had been a statement of
the law Of gravity; as against the So
Der, quiet. well-thought-out, and con-
Bourne, still a college boy, and Anne
Hard's very able and conscientious
THE Younger Generation: An Apollo
gia." If one wanted testimony to the
fact that religion is today a more
seriously felt thing than it was to Il
grandfathers, that mental integrity is
increasing win clear-sighteduess, we
should set side by side Mrs Corners
Letter with these two
It is Mrs. Corners contention that
the quality of the human product is
falling off; that there are no great
men, and the places they have left
vacant are filled by smaller, less able,
OIl0n 1QuCH less AOIcSl 11lCl. II
sons Of these great men make as
much money in a year as their fathers
did in ten, and show less character
in a lifetime han their fathers did
in a year. There has never been a
time when low standards in business
and politics, she thinks, have SO as
sailed the honor and integrity OF the
whole by tempting them, through fear
Of loss. to acquiesce in the dishoa-
esty of Others.
These statements lead US to believe
that Mrs. Conner must mistake many
of the signs Of the times. The fact
that a great deal Of dishonesty and
greed is being and reJri-
manded does not altogether prove
that it did not exist before, only it
may have existed more securely and
with less public disapproval. A very
rich man in New York, who a
come down from a small farm in
Maine. and worked his way up to be-
ing the millionaire head Of a large
and lourishing business. once said:
r'If my grandfather had had my ca
reer and my success he would rave
been fairly worshipped by his town
up home, but I am nothing to them.
People don't care about money and
success any more NO; they care
about something infinitely higher and
more spiritual. We are not building
monuments to mere riches nowadays.
Jane Adams is admittedly the great
est woman the most influential, the
~ ost admired in Chicago, and not be-
cause she made money Or read meta
physics, or posed as an intellectual,
but because she gave her life to max
ing life livable for those less FORUM
ate than herself,
Mrs. Conner tells us that never in
the history of the world have the
young been so thirstily avid of pleas
ures and~so selfish and SO hard in
their getting Of pleasure. Does she
think Miss Milho1land and the college
women who helped her were selfish
and hard when they went out to help
the shirtwaist strikers and to protect
their rights? What would our grand
mothers have done? They would
EhVe said it was none of their bust
ness, and that it would n o be at all
ladylike to be seen on the streets and
in the police courts with people Of
that class.
Then Mrs. Conner comes to her
most serious charre: The present
generation have ira of the mind
and body only. More fundamental to
personality than either is the train
ing Of the soul, and this is profoundly
neglected today. Mrs. Conner attrib-
utes this profound neglect to the ORR
gin of Species and the sad discovery
in 1860 or thereabout that the world
was not made in the yea 1904 B. G.
The parents, she says, managed to
retain ingrained principles Of conduct
despite the loss of a faith in verbal
Inspiration. Thus you have she
writes to the rising generation, the
distinction Of growing up with a spir-
itual training less in quantity and
more diluted in quality han any
christian generation for nineteen
hundred years"
Really? And yet we would say that
the most amazing things in the world
today is the growth and spread of
the spirit of Christ; that religion
| which is worship in spirit and in
3 truth and which is founded upon a
sense of mans responsibility to man.
Fewer men are willing today to &C
$ Fcept a heaven So long as other men
: are doomed to hell, here or hereaf-
| ter. Fear. conVentionality. safety,