Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1916-02-01
GREAT DAY FOR
ROTARIANISM IN WAUSAU.
Continued from LIST page)

and then hurried back to the main
street muttering to himself this thing
will out" After a while he ran away
and in final desperation his eyes turn
ed to a monument which had been
erected in that country representing
the life and manners of his own kin
and almost at once he set out to lead
his people to security and freedom.
And from the mountain side he breath
ed forth into the air the command
ments Now in all the world there
is no archaeologist so confident in
his knowledge that he will venture
to say when Ptolemy threw up that
pyramid as a great tomb, but there is
no person who does not know the text
of that law that Moses breathed into
the air to the Children of Israel. 1t
is the spiritual thing that lives.
Now America has come to, is under
going the third experience of her ex-
istence. First, there was the period
of colonization and settlement; or
ganization and government; material
expansion, and we have just lately
come to the end of this third period
1t is possible that we have allowed
pansion to run wild, there seems to
have come a real and new conscious
ness of spiritual life in America, this
consciousness has been lifting itself
little by little until now it is making
itself plain. This is a new conscious
ness of spiritual values and agencies.
This is due to three reasons which
briefly stated, although they should
be given in detail, are first, the widen
ing of the circle of human contacts;
you travel farther than your father,
and you travel oftener than your father
ever travelled; you use the telegraph
three times as much as your father;
you use the mail six times as much
and you have the telephone which your
father did not have; you have the au-
tomObile bringing the town and the
country together as near neighbOrs.
The second is the establishment of
a higher intelligence. Do you know
that among the children of emigrants
over ten years of age, not one in one
| hundred in America is unable to read
and write. The third great change
is the approximation of the new liv-
| ing conditions. You and the very
poor man and you and the very rich
are reading the same books and hear
| ing the same music, and wearing
| clothes of the same pattern, and sit
| ting before the same screen looking
upon the same moving pictures.
| There were never so many people with
| the same common experiences of life
as in America today. The widening of
human contacts, higher intelligence
and the making uniform of the exper-
| fences of life have produced a new
| consciousness that we are of a verify
| sisters and brothers in a new spirit
ual consciousness.
Another sign of the same startling
| change is the impression this has
made. Socialists call it the brother
| hood of man, as though, God forgive
| us, there could be any brotherhood
without much that is divine; the Soc
| ial worker calls it group conscious
| ness; the clergy have a better name
| for it and call it religion put to work,
and religion made practical, but the
| best name for - is that given by the
| sOciolOgiSts-they call it a conscious
ness of like mindedness. Do you know
| the great sociological discovery of my
| life, that every man desires the same
| things for his family that Allen D.
| Albert wants for his family, and as his
| life expands and his eyes develop
| Allen Albert comes to understand
| that the workman in his turn and
| every man has the same outreachings
| and the same hunger. That my dear
| friends is the secret of Rotary-the
| strange new understanding among
men that they are brothers alike i'll
| the new crusade, a crusade to make
| good. We are weary after yearning
| for the hope of a better day, we are
| going to bring it if God will give us
| strength. We are weary of the cancer
| that has entered into the fibre of our
| being, the cancer of social disease,
| and if the cancer is there, and again
| if God gives us strength, we are going
to fight it out in unit fitness.
| The speaker in conclusion told of
his trip into Mexico and up into Can
ada which were full of interesting
experiences. Mr. Albert closed with
the following: I'VE came home to a
country whose only problem is to
teach people to enjoy the blessings
| that God is showering upon them,
home to good citizenship and to a
country which God permits to be at
peace, home to a nation so rich that
it has not yet solved either of its two
problems How to realize it's riches
| and how to stop its waste and give it's
riches of living to all it's people. Home
out of two countries that are at war,
home to you and me because God has
chosen us out of all the people of the
world as He once chose the children of
Israel, because it has been given to
you and me in a little way the good
ness of God. 1 challenge you con-
fidently that Rotary in your civic life
in your church, in your everyday ex-
| periences to serve and to make your
selves as nearly worthy of these
riches as your best capabilities will
| permit" (Applause)
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