The Watertown news. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1917-1919, 1918-03-11
REV. N. C. DANIEL TALKS
ON A TIMELY SUBJECT

OSSA
Congregational church delivered a
sermon Sunday on the REIMBURSEMENT
of Mental Values" from whic h we
quote:
No thinking man thinks the thoughts
he thought before the war. He has &C
CURED new facts. He has been COM
! PEELED to new valuations. Take for eX
ample national characteristics We
have weighed them in the balance.
Yesterday we denied the Britisher
humor. He couldn't see a joke, but to-
day humor is the chief thing ascribed
to Tommy in the trenches. We believed
| France to be brilliant, dashing, but
| not steadfast. Verdun corrected that.
Our estimate of Germany will never
| be the same The mighty have fallen.
At our chautauqua Mr.. Bryan adj
vised against maintaining an army.
He argued against the need. When
| required, an army fully equipped
would spring from the ground in a
night, he GRATED. Some of us believed
him. But we are in the war. Where is
the army of springers? We have read
justed values. Mr.. Bryan meant an
Arctic night.
But we have readjusted values in
human relations as we'll as national
trai is. The complexion of the worlds
economic life is altered Take for ex-
| ample, woman. What was her place
economically before the war? Haus-
frau? Beautiful doll? Somebody ex-
listing chiefly for mans comfort? In
! Europe that is changed. In America it
is changing. Europe has exploited her
woman power; 2O,000,000 women are
probably in war service. A woman
substitutes for every man in the field
WOmans place in the nations eco
nomic life has been given new place.
| Our little systems have had their day.
! The old order has changed
! The same is true of our social rela-
| lions. Never again will they be just
the same. Will Europe be affected
more? Some think So The class diff
ferences are greater. Therefore the
change will correspond. People from
gether. They labor for a common
cause, are bound by a common tie
They look with other eyes A little
while ago Mr. Schwab startled the
press by stating: "The laborer
is going to dominate the affairs of this
| world. This great change is
going to be a social adjustment" he
| caiH ga cnttlnnonnt &c 1vvo ho To
avoid when the parties can be brought
face to face" President Wilson de-
clared. The classes and masses have
been getting face to face" Now we
see the problems.
| But economic and social values are
no more affected than political. In
| every nation before the. war franchise
| was camouflaged. Holy the nations
effective, woman was denied it. But
pretense was from bad to worse. By
means Of age and property limits, null
| tiple votes, pocket burroughs, etc.,
the franchise of most of the men was
nulified, ineffective. Each nation was
''close corporation" So close, for
example, that it has been estimated
that for the last forty years the des-
tiny Of Germany rested in the hands
Of less than a hundred men. The
world has had a change of heart
| When woman gets full recognition the
world may have a change of head But
the world will not be again willing to
| last three years she has had on her
| thinking cap. Safety, she now be-
lieves, lies in the division of more eff
fective and wider franchise. However,
the readjustment fraught with great
| est weight is that of religion. Before
the war the religious situation was
not encouraging. The church was no
| longer indispensable. France had de-
| cided to control her clericals. One
thousand were quitting the church in
| Germany. The church everywhere it
was alleged had lost her grip The
people were frivolous, comfort loving,
faddy, ftfuE In the 18th century peo-
| pie increasingly denied God In the
10th they merely ignored Him. That
was before the war. Now the mental
attitude has changed. Those who have
carefully read accounts from the
front have had to readjust religious
values. Whatever man may do to God
when safe, fear to do in the war. They
neither deny or neglect Him at the
| front. Those who lost Him in safety
| and comfort find Him in sorrow and
! travail, horror and blood. A mental
| adjustment which appeals to thinking
men is this: What is the relation of
sorrow to sense? The unthinking say,
| "None. The relation is between sorrow
and the absence of sense, sorrow and
insanity" That is a common belief. Is
it true?. The evidence of this war is
against it. AS far as belief in God is
concerned sorrow has brought sense
Men seem like the proverbial cocoa
nut. There is hard shell guarding
the meat. The remedy is a rock. Moth
ing can enter until they are cracked
In America there is simple sect with
a singular creed. They profess not to
| believe in sickness. But let little Tom
my have trouble in his tummy? Sick