The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1916-08-04
PATRIOTISM AND RELIGION

| Said William E., Gladstone: 81 go
to church on Sundays not only be-
cause | revere religion, but because |
love England" Is that good reason,
or merely good rhetoric?
Was Daniel Webster right in his
contention that free institutions
could not long survive the loss of the
American Sunday and the neglect Of
moral instruction in the church once
each week? In other words, is it pa
triotic to go to church?
/ should be willing to undertake the
affirmative side of the argument. /
believe that the church and its mes
sage represents foundation stone of
the republic, and that good churchmen,
therefore, are serving not alone their
own spiritual welfare, but the well
| fare of the State.
AS a conservator of public morals,
the church is entitled to regard. Life
in churchless community would be
unattractive and lack certain prime
elements of safety and stability. Most
of US would not care to have business
interests or to own real estate there.
| have strong feeling that / should
move out inside of six months, if
could get away, or if the sheriff had
not come along before that and closed
up the place.
The reason that some communities
seem, for time, to dispense with re-
ligious institutions and take no harm
is that they can live, for period, on
their inheritance from the past The
moral momentum gathered by genera
tons of God-fearing men and women
has not yet spent it's force. Respect
for law and order survives the initial
impulse that gave it birth. 1t can
be counted on to carry over for gen
GRAFTON or two.
Morality, however, never reinforced
by supreme motives, tends to become
weak and bloodless thing. The de-
cay comes, not all at once, but grad
ually. The faithless son of faithful,
sabbath-keeping parents may still
maintain an air of moral rectitude
that is sort of hang over frosn his
ancestors. He is not going to hand
down to his son, however, the same
bias toward virtue that he himself re-
ceived. There is going to appear on
that family tree, by and by, limb
that has cut loose from moral and re-
ligious restraints altogether.
have talked with good many men
who have ceased to go to church. For
the greater part they are likeable fell
lows. There is the "tired business
man." for instance, who needs all of
Sunday to recuperate his physical en-
ergies. Tired as he is | doubt wheth-
err he does any more work, or gets any
more exhausted in the doing of it than
such men as John Wanamaker or Will
liam H. Taft or Woodrow Wilson Or
Charles E. Hughes. AS matter of
fact quiet hour in church on Sunday
morning might rest him.
There, too, is the man with a griev-
awe. He knows that all preachers
are a hopeless and belated Let because
twenty years ago he attended a serv-
ice and heard rabid sermon on hell
fire. Come again, brother. The con-
gfegation doesn't have to breathe sui
phur fumes every Sunday
There is a man whose father made
him go to meeting when he was boy
and he got enough Of it, ard it's a
case of "never again" with him. He
might reflect that his parent encour-
aged him as child, likewise, to eat
three meals day. But that is no
good reason why he should, in man
hood, abandon the practice of eating
altogether. He makes as big mis-
tape by starving his spirit as by starv-
.ing his body.
The church is an imperfect insti-
tuition because it is made up of woe
fully imperfect men and women. But,
after you have admitted all that, it is
still the guardian of mighty treas
ure. 1t is the true champion of ev-
cry civic virtue and every private pa
triotism Mr.. Man, you owe the
church support.-Christian Advocate.