The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1916-02-02
CHANGE YOUR MIND
u IHY should It be held disgraceful to
M change ones mind. To be sure

"A
M change ones mind. To be sure a
w person always doing that is hard
to live with. 1t is true now, as in ancient
days, that a "double-minded man is I'M
stable in all his ways" The tickle people
Often puzzle us, if they do not vex and
ALLEVIATE us.
Yet there are times when change OF
n nd is not only desirable, but demanded
by the facts in the case. The privilege
granted, by special dispensation of ma
ture, to woman becomes everyOneS duty.
Consistency is cleaning jewel, provided
one is in the right, but when he is in the
wrong, it is lump of lead. When con-
sistency means a steadfast course of error
in thought or conduct, it becomes vice
and not virtue.
One who, in the presence of new evil
dence, surveys his old position and has
the courage to say: II was mistaken" is
to be praised. The world owes much to
the people who have been capable of
changing their minds. Life would have
been stagnant affair without them.
New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth
They must upward still and onward
Who would keep abreast Of truth.
The mind is often helped by the intro
duction of some new viewpoint as room
is helped when we let fresh air into it.
Thought that is run in a hard and fast
mold is apt to lose power of appeal to
oneself or to others. It may sound well
to say, II never change my opinions The
declaration lends certain impression of
stability and power. Yet an opinion so
fixed that it cannot be changed is more
than liable to be milestone about a mans
neck.
Some people need to change their minds
about themselves. They ought to take a
larger and better view of their own cap
abilities and powers. Too long they have
skunk into hopeless attitudes. Half the
failures of life might be avoided if we
could learn to think optimistically, to form
the habit of victory, to expect to succeed.
How many, again, need to change their
minds in regard to their habitual sins, to
come into a new attitude of hatred for
them, new resolution to Danish them
forever If one has been thinking that
moral evil is not SO very evil after ALL
that wild oats are about as desirable a
crop as good spring wheat it is time to
give up that dangerous and untrue notion
He should cultivate a new point of view
1t is what the Apostle meant when he
declared: God commandeth all men ev-
erywhere to repent" To repent is, prim-
arly and fundamentally, to change ones
mind
Thousands there are who need to change
their minds about religion. Every preach
er meets scores of more or less hardened
sceptics. Some of them are letting some
ancient and foolish prejudice shut OUT the
whole sky of truth Long since they made
up their mind that all preachers were fax
ers, and religion itself an affair for inval-
ids and old women. They closed their
consideration Of the case twenty years
ago, and no new evidence will be admitted.
Is there not the barest possibility that
the sceptics may be mistaken? Might not
some of them come into newness of iife
into larger happiness han any yet know,
it, by the grace of God, they could change
their minds ?-The Parson.