The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1923-01-03
WE'VE GOT TO GO BACK
(Sherburn Advance Standard)

ed after us when we said our Now lay me-; or
we shall be crawling back Inundated and crushed,
and with generations of climbing to do before we
attain our former moral prosperity.
Substitutes for God and for religion have been
numerous in the last few years, but they have
been more unsatisfactory than the substitution of
paper clothing for cloth garments by the Germans
during the war;
There have been legions of substitutions for
churchgoing. These, too, are proving Dead-Sea
fruit, and 10, we have hands a rising gen.
Grafton can't handle without God, without re-
ligion in the home-active, worshipping, reverent
religion like that which made as stand bit in
awe Of the fathers who led each day to some
sort of conscious contact with the throne of grace
and to a realization that we ourselves needed to
give little earnest attention to our souls well
fare.
Some of the old hymns had strange contradc-
tions confusing and misleading phraseology.
For instance, says:
Though forget Him and wander
Still He doth follow wherever 1
stray.
Back to His dear loving arms would
flee," etc.
The third line quoted is an open contradc-
ton to the Immediately preceding. But the
strayer from recttude has had great deal more
consolation than coming to unrepentant
sinner, by stopping at the second line, "Still He
doth follow" He doesn't do anything of the sort
He stops at the deadline of right, and waits for
us to come back The popular Interpretation of
the old hymn has been:
Though l forget Him and wander away
what's the difference? He'll tag me around and
take care of me anyway"
Typical bad-boy and bad girl philosophy when
the child losses it's head and says:
"Humph! No matter if am naughty! My
parents will love me just as much and be as nice
to me anyway. They're crazy about me-"
This generation is wondering how it is going
to manage to keep its children out of reform
schools. Mothers and fathers lie awake, and
worry, and weep, and wonder why this child is
thus or that one the other way. "Why, we would
MT have dared talk that way to our parents!
What do you suppose has got into them?"
The answer is simple. Some day they will
even admit it themselves. The parents parents
were backed up in most instances by the AL
mighty, whom they accepted their guide
through lfe acknowledging that guidance in
humble and formal reverence every day in the
presence of those children The parents were
sent to church and Sunday school in their youth,
and accompanied thither in the great majority of
cases. The line of communication with God was
kept open. These modern parents have cut the
wire. Movies in which religion and Sunday obser-
vance are usually rdiculed Except for melO-
dramatic purposes) are patronized; and the faith
and worship of the forefathers are practically set
down some od-fashioned folly.
Parents who had religious upbringing and
are weakly forsaking it are those who now gnaw
their nails in the night and wonder what's got into
the children 1t isn't what's got into the children,
but it's what's got out of the parents God has
been left outside their lives. They will have to
go back to Him. He knows they know right
where He is. He has not forsaken them. He has
not forgotten how to bring up children. He does
MT wonder what's "got into" the present genera
tion
There is going to be lot of bitterness and
heartache and heartbreak among parents and a
lot of ruin among young lives before turn
again and face the dazzling light. The Almighty
isn't going to change his rules. They fair and
just and kind rules. They work out perfectly
when followed. They were made for all time.
The present generation cannot expect them to be
repealed for generation of spoiled and undis-
ciplined children
"Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice"
When the struggle against the old-fashioned
religion has exhausted itself, and the withered,
besmirched souls of your children and mine are
strewn along the pathway we are now foolishly
Itreading, the next generation will go back. 1t
will have to. 1t will be glad to-
l.. :. The teacher does not chase the children all
about the lot catch them, and hold them, and cram
the lesson into them. He rings the bell; the pu-
pills know school is in session; and they know
where. They must go to the fount of learning,
and study. No more is God going to pursue us
all about the wayward orbit we have chosen He
is right there in the old place all the time,
waiting patiently and lovingly for us and hoping
we will return without the loss of generation
or SO of precious souls.
| There is sort of silly crusade on among the
! humorous publications of the country, declaring
that an attempt is being made to destroy the joy
in the world. Nothing could be further from the
truth. The attempt is merely to try to guide the
public mind, without the loss of joy, to more
wholesome, more intelligent, more nerve-resting
and genuinely satisfying pleasures than the jazz
and the clamor and the insane rush after rainbow
ends that is bringing so little lasting pleasure