Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1914-06-26

please some old-time friend or because
of the pous custom of the past. Let a
man read the gospels and study the
words and character of Jesus Christ
with the freest mind and a judgment as
devoid of prejudice as he can make it..
If the Galileean master be but one of
the heroes of history, let US know it.
If his precepts and commandments be
not suited to the enlightenment of the
centuries, let US discover that If they
have been mistaken who have seen in
him the image of God, we do not want
to follow their mistake. We want to
see him face to face, and if we rever-
ence him, we want to reverence him
with all our being, as one who com
mands the homage of our souls, and
not feebly testify.
This have read in book, he said,
and that was told to me,
And this have thought that another
man thought of Prince in Muscovy. 3"
The enemy of faith is not thought,
but lack of thought Baal is not God,
and YOU will not conclude so if you
think. There is a spirit in man, and
the breath Of the Almighty giveth him
understanding. The idealists and the
poets of the ages have not been fools.
There has been reality back of their
insights. The world did not choose its
scriptures by mistake, and in the thick
of life, meeting its battles bravely and
summoning your will for the duties of a
man, you will not throw away book
which testifes the moral law and whose
every page is a summons to high cour-
agd and buoyant hope. You will need
it. Life will press its need upon you,
and the more you test it and live by it,
the more compelling will be to you its
truth. The Nazarene is not one of
many. God is still in Him, reconciling
the world unto himself. There is yet
no other name given among men where
by the conscience is so melted to
repentance, and whereby the forgiving
love of the eternal God is so ministered
graciously to the needy spirit.
"Our own particular generation has
need Of mature and thoughtful faith,
not the creature of tradition and author
ity, but the reasoned conviction Of men
who are determined to be men, put
away childish things and arrive at the
stature of manhood in religion not less
than in other matters. The passion of
the age is in two fields, first economic,
industrial, commercial, and secondly
social, charitable, and philanthropic.
The earnest workers of today seem to
be divided into two camps, the one
striving to promote the wealth of the
world and all that furthers industrial
and commercial progress, the other
eager for all that makes for social
reform and proposing often seemingly
radical and violent plans for the cor
rection of abuses and the establishment
of an age of even justice and general
welfare. There is much misunderstand-
ing and consequent conflict between the
two. To the masters of industry, the
builders of railways, the merchants and
bankers, the social reformers seem
misguided enthusiasts, enemies of bust
ness, impractical inconoclasts,, who, if
they had their way, would pull down
the pillars of society upon themselves
and everybody else. and destroy all
prosperity and civilization itself. To
the tsocial workers. on the other hand,
the men of business, at least in the per-
son of their leaders, appear little better
than thieves and robbers, blind follow
ers of a cruel social order, princes of
unequal privilege and priests of eX-
ploitation and oppression.
"On both sides there is strange
short-sightedness as to their lack of
sufficient goal. Business is not an end
in itself, neither little business nor big
business. 1t has to do with the means
of life, not with life itself. He was a
lOOl MHO Hdu HluSi SOOuo ioiu up
for many days, and rested his ambi
tion there. The truth that man can
not live by bread alone is commonplace.
Strangely enough the social reformers
who condemn the materialism of our
industrial and commercial life are often
equally materialistic. They too have
no sufficient goal. Their ambitions are
limited by food and clothing and the
supply of material wants, only they are
concerned with these in different pro-
portions and far different classes of
society. The things which the Cen
tiles seek are their goal. not less than
in the offices of great corporations
They deal in the same terms, although
in different measures.
There is further question, high
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