The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-05
M E fy " o MEN
 A N D T H i N c 5

talk l made in presenting the statuettes of Vulcan to the distinguished aeronautic visitors at the recent banquet at the Tut iwiler on behalf of the Chamber of Com lmerce.
 was only asked to make the presen- tation as was getting into the carriage for the parade. and had no time for preparation, and was obliged to draw largely on memory for some bits of my u ology which had lodged in it from my college days. The talk. like the great majority of those I make, was born of the moment.
 am sure that I took liberty with both the Latin Vulcanus and the Greek Hep haestue, for every school boy knows that the Romans took over bodily the god Of the Creeks The old Romans were some appropriators. They might well be called the "ecectics' of their day. I think it Ia good habit to adopt anything which has merit,
 haven't the time or the disposition to try and untangIe the myths and legends made the effort. and the harder l worked the more tangled they became; and find ing it easier to cut the knot by just sim ply using whatever happened to please my fancy whether it was born in Greece or sired in Rome. This is why I drew picture of Vulcan in my talk.
 
 When I entered the ministry I used to hear certain preachers spoken of as here tics because they called in question cer- tain doctrines of their church or got their theology twisted. I was much wrought up over the matter until I learned that heresy was not flower which bloomed alone out of a religious soil, but that a man could be unorthodox in mythology. The theolegians are as much in agree ment as are the classicsts when it comes to the gods of ancient Greece and Rome.
 Tn treating of Vulcan, our tutelary di- vinity, I am going to treat him as 8  Roman, meaning thereby that I will fasten upon him any tale or legend with out thought of whether it originated in the isles of Greece or was put out from the Eternal City, I have found to my cost that whenever a man tries to speak with authority about the pagan god he gets in hot water just as easy as when he dogmatizes about religion in these days when the church is split up into so mand denominations
 Several times of late l have sat down to write stories and at the beginning they were clear in my mind, but as idea after idea was transferred to paper 1 would have doubts as to their correctness or validity, and rushing to the encycio- pedias, histories or special treatises, would scon find that the more l examined the less sure I was about anything, and in disgust would simply give up. l have about arrived at the conclusion that to consult the authorities is to be lost in a maze of doubt.
 ltOiil you hiOW ttch Nlio AiiPN oO much that they are embarrassed by their Knowledge or rather have become so overburdened with theseifl flerent angles ot their learning, that they have lost faith in their ability to find the true facts, and so wander aimlessly in their teaching without having any message out of which the average man can get the least help. l have heard some preachers raise more questions in a haf-hour sermon in the minds of their hearers than they could quiet in a week, just because they them selves were lost in maze of doubt.
 All of this comes surging over me as 1 swept off my feet in such rush of thought along serious lines. but the hu- man mind is capable of strange and swift transformations. If the Greeks and Ro- mans of old who, to say the lsast of it. created very human gods and made them like unto themselves in their loves, and hates, is it any wonder, then, that we, too, crave friendly universe with per- sonal God behind it. Whom we call our Heavenly Father, believing that He loves and cares for His children.
 Pick up the mythologies of Greece and turn to what page you please and you sense at once the amorous witchery of the earth maidens and the irresistible laughter of the humanzed gods of Olynl- pus. | have an ambitious work set ting out the underlying morality of the Greal and Roman religions; but may be dull or prejudiced, if you please but somehow miss the moral note, and am unable to find the sense of true worship. r. is however, humanistic and artistic.
 
 thinkNI am appreciative of the culture of Greece and the grandeur that was Rome, but like a friend of mine, feel an odd sense of anger when I hear worthy ethical rationalists talk. as they do. of Jesus and Socrates" That sort of thing also freezes my interest like q bucket of ice water True, Socrates may have drunk the hemlock for conscience sake. yet yoking him up with Jesus is notes in my soul.
 1 Laugh if you will at what some scof- [fers have been bold enough to call 'the tangled Trinity" yet if religion be man. made and gods are born out of differing environments and likened unto men, say that I cling to a Heavenly Father, g beloved Son and a Holy Comforter, and