The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1922-09-23
DOWN TO FUNDAMENTALS

large extent been spiritual, but should be
material as well. It was the parable of the
builders-the man who built his house on
the sand, and the man who built his house
on rock. The one house was destroyed,
the other stood. In our social, political,
and economic life today we are building
too much on sand, and not enough on the
solid foundation of fundamental principles.
It is common observation that people of
this day and generation do not seem to be
well grounded in fundamental principles"
The home, the school, the church are
blamed for this shortcoming and the world
war is charged with accentuating it. Per-
haps each is responsible to some extent,
and all combined to larger extent, and
if SO should give attention to their failure
properly to inculcate the demonstrated
truth of the ages the basic relations Of
righteous and successful life. But what
ever their failure, it does not wholly excuse
the man or woman who persists in build
ing on sand. Each and all are endowed
with some degree of common sense and
powers of observation which would guide
unless they were blinded by selfshness
MAUI al laws dlC IlOL ocCIcIS. 1ucy dIe
everywhere in evidence in the simplest
relations of matter as we'll as in the most
complex transformation of it. Obedience
to them is instructive with the tiller of the
soil, the toiler in the mines, and mills. In
deed, obedience is almost second nature
from the smallest child to the aged grand
parents. And natural laws govern men
themselves in their relation and transfer
nations in the material world. The prin-
cipal reason why they do not govern the
relations of men as they should, is not that
men are not aware of them, do not recog-
nize them, but deliberately attempt to set
them aside and substitute for them their
laws They do this though they cannot
break a law of nature, rather will them
selves be broken by it.
Moral law is but natural law applied to
matters of right and wrong 1t is man.
made no more than natural law is. It is as
absolute, also. The fact that one man may
not see right or wrong as another may,
does not change what is right or what is
wrong as determined by natural law. The
idea that what is one mans food is an
other mans poison" is merely the embodi-
ment of fallacy as the food may not nour-
ish, or the poison act so quickly in some
cases as in others. The laws of nature con-
stitute some articles Of food, some as
poisons, and those laws cannot be changed.
So moral law dictates right and wrong as
certainly and as absolutely, though the
right may not be distinguished from the
wrong with equal discernment by all per-
sons. The failure is their fault, not that
of the law.
Both natural and moral law are funda-
mental to all so-called man-made laws
The principles laid down are basic, and in
man-made laws are merely extended or ap-
piled by direction. They apply without
these, but expression and direction are
needed because of the necessity to guide,
admonish, and punish, and to make plain
that this is done in accordance with law.
Yet if every man-made law were wiped
from the statute books the principles would
remain because laid down in natural and
moral law, for the reason that natural and
moral law were created by the Infinite, and
are as much part of His creation as the
world on which we live and the sun and
moon which warm and light it. The man.
made laws that should be wiped from
statute books are those that do not en-
body the eternal principles of truth and
justice, and those are best tested by our
social structure whether they be builded on
sand or rock.
To any intelligent man or woman it is
evident today that application of funda-
mental principles discloses the fact that
there is too much artificial and too little
substantial in the lives Of too many people
not only in their thinking but in their
liuinu tn too larna on oxtont o11rc 10 .,