Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-02-05

We do business six days in the
week, dea6ly-erious business. We
make money and gain the wherewith-
al to buy our wives limousenes and
send our daughters to Vassar. The
seventh day we ride our hobby. That
is, if we mix up with Religion as we
have it in the main in this country at
all. Old Jonathan Smith owns a mill.
Sixth days does he labor and multi
grab around in orders and invoices
and bills OF exchange and bank-bal-
ances and receive delegations from
the ppermakers's union and vote the
Republican ticket straight because
he believes in high protective tariff.
But the seventh is the Lord his Gods.
In it he does no work, he nor his OK
nor his ass nor his man-servant nor
his mald-scrvant or the stranger that
is within his gates. He goes to church
on the Sabbath. He acts as head
usher. He sings the hymns in a wierd
bass that sounds like broken bel
lows on the loft organ. He meets
the Board of Trustees after service
and discusses ways and means of
making up the pastors salary or
mending the roof over the bck par
sonage porch or raising the annual
contribution to be sent to the heath
en-. His daughter leads the choir
and sings weekly solo that gets her
name in the little local paper. His
wife leds the Ladies' Aid Society. His
superintendent teaches a class in the
Sunday school. His office bow comes
to Junior League in order to wall
nom afterward whit he little Jones.
girl who lives down by the water
works and his workmen use the
church chiefly as something to be ah-
sent from, in order to 20 fishing ~
monkey with the bowels of the Tin
Lizzie. None of them are hypocrites.
hach carries the precepts of the Ser
mon on the Mount into his dailv acts
and his daily ramifcations in great
vague semi-altruistic, typically-Am-
ercn way. Disassociated with the
uaiiy routine, we disassociate Re-.
hs1on, it can be termed a hobhv
But IN the Orient it is yerv. ve,v
diherent. Religion enters into ever,,.
thing. It comes first. It is tho cor
nerstone of society-filial relation.
1a family, the government, business
Mhlch is something the Anglo
Saxon cannot understand because he
mas never taken his religion that
way IN continuous two-hour doses.
All the same, we can meet on tho
common ground of religion.
1t is the one thing which all hui
mankind takes seriously.
1t is the Great Fundamental.
In the heart of all two-lerred
humankind, from superman to Hot
tentot, is the great yearning for sat-
osfaction in the vast mysteries of
life, birth, death, occult manifesto
ton, the reason for occurances in the
world of nature, the Infinite Power
which men call God. Governments
may rise and fall, empires may -four
lsh and pass away, kings may strut
across life's stage, great cities may
erect their Babel towers and tomor..
row the sands of time lie heavily
upon them. But the wonder after
God and the possibility of life after
death where the soul-heart of suffer-
ing mankind may get the justice
which even Nature denies him in this
life, goes on and on. This yearning
after the Infinite is the heritage Of all
mankind. Understand q mans reii-
gion and usually he is your friend for
you know him for what he is. Il is
the golden chain that binds us all 10
gether in a caste above the brutes
We can seep our habits, customs,
thoughts, futures together if we can
seep together our religions. This
instrument will do the business where
traits, treaties, doctrines and ,lli-
ances will fail us because religion is
primal, it is more than these.
Men wonder at times if it pays to
put cold hard dollars into Fovign
Missions. They go on the assumption
hat it is simply the extension of a
church, society, creed Thy are
Usually little men of little thoughts
md little horizons. They 10 not
lelve deeply into fundamentals. They
the end to be gained, the re-
ults to be accomplished. mean GER
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