The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1916-07-13
BY EDGAR iLiFF.

Our desire to visit the tombs OF the
illustrious dead may be survival of
"ancestor-worship' which Herbert
Spencer calls the root of all relig-
IONS Taking ancestor-worship as
the root we find that all religions en-
body the following beliefs, exercising
a tremendous influence upon mankind
for veal or woe:
l. The dead are with US, haunting
their tombs, or their former homes
and sharing invisibly the life of their
living descendants.
2. All the dead become spirits
blending supernatural power with the
individual character they had in earth
life.
The happiness OF the dead depends
upon our respectful obedience to their
wishes. Our happiness depends upon
doing our pious duty to the dead.
A. All events in our world, good or
evil, fair and foul seasons, full har-
vests, food. famine, tempest and earth
quake, come from the supernatural
power OF the Gead.
5. All human actions, good or bad,
are controlled by the dead.
Dead Shape Destinies.
The universal belief is that the dead
and not the living control life and
shape destinies. We appeal more to
1.-THE father the gods" "the patri-
archs," than to living reason. The
most advanced nations share this be-
lief with the lowest. The coffin takes
precedence over the cradle. The sep
Mlcher upholds thrones and santifies
cruelties and infamies in the name of
divinely ordained governments.
These crude thoughts were being
held as ! sat In Sleepy Hollow look.
Ing at the group Of stones marking
The graves of Emerson. Hawthorne,
Thoreau, Louisa NJ. Alcott and the
celebrated Hoar family. The blue
hills OF Massachusetts were smiling
In the distance. The birds we're twit-
tering in the trees around me. Then
there came to my mind certain fav-
prite utterances of Emerson:
Says Life Is Study.
do not craze yourself with think.
Ing, but go about your business any
where. Life Is not intellectual or crit.
lcal. but sturdy. It's chief good is for
well.mixed people who can enjoy what
they find without question. To fill the
hour-that Is happiness; to fill the
hour and leave no crevice for re-
pentance or an approval. 8. Our life
might be much easier and simpler
than we make it: the world might be
n happier place than 1t is; there Is
no need OF struggles, commissions and
despairs. of the wringing Of hands
and crashing Of teeth. We interfere
with the optimism of nature.
I'VE foolishly think that We must
court friends by compliance to the
customs Of society. to It's dress, it's
breeding and its estimates. But only
that soul can be my friend, which
encounter on the line OF my own
march, that soul which repeats in its
own experience all my experience.
That which call right or goodness is
the choice Q my constitution; that
which | call heaven is the state de-
sirable to my constitution"
7 individuality 10 Feared.
{ II you think over this you will see
that 1t is revolutionary. It Is dyna-
mite under the strata Of society. 1t
Is this individuality which is feared
by cars and emperors, politicians and
rulers everywhere. 1t is the divine
spark which set all Europe ablaze in
lhe feudal ages, and produced the
French revolution. 1t produced the
United States of America.
When man in state of slavery or
political oppression conceived the