The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1924-09-24
All the Forces in
the World Of Mas
terry Are Invisible

about him and caught the idea that
he was master of the world instead
of puppet and slave.
How far have we moderns preserv-
ed that vision of sovereignty? And
in the present muddled state of in
difference toward religion how many
have any clear view of religion as
the road over which that sense of
mastery arrived in human conscious
ness?
There is record of that great
transfer of title in Genesis toward
the end of the first chapter. Domini-
on passes to man? In the biological
search for mans beginnings it is
strange that so little attention is
paid to that first great transaction
which has made all history date from
Adam. The animal is the creature of
his circumstances. Man is the lord
of his circumstances.
The man who believes and prac-
tees the doctrine that he is the crea-
ture of nature is always in the pro-
cess of reverting to the animal sta
tus.
The man who believes that he is
the lord and master of nature is al
ways going forward to better destini-
es. The two doctrines run along to-
gether through the thinking of men
to this very hour, and it is not easy
to separate them nor even to distin-
guish them.
And it is precisely this sense of
control over nature and circumstances
that makes religion. Religion plays
all over the immense field of mems
emotions, aspirations, purposes.
Religion deals with the invisible
because all the forces that move in
that free world of mastery are invisi-
BILE. Love is invisible, of course. Hope
cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Faith is not a crow bar or pillar
of stone, but faith makes crowbars
and pillars of stone.
And here is another thing: In ev-
cry period of religious decline it has
been noted that this master sense, the
feeling of power and freedom has
been in decline.
When religion is morbid and per-
functory it is because it has lost this
staple ingredient of the religious con-
seriousness. Every great period of
human history has been period in
which that happy and glorious sense
of power has revived.
And here is yet another thing to
be noted: Whenever that great re-
vival comes it is marked by a womb
erful quickening in all the activities
and industries of the people. For,
of course, when men arise out of the
stupefactions and melancholies of
bondage and discover in themselves
the power to control and direct their
world they begin to control and d.
rect. Abraham quits Ur of the
Chaldes and moves westward with
his great dream. Moses sees the
flaming bush and starts for Egypt.
| Jesus Christ related human his
tory and inaugurated new dispensa-
! ton because in Him that sense of
/ mastery reached its grand climacteric.
Prison doors were to fly open, the
load of sin was to fall from mans
shoulders, rheumatisms, and leprosi-
es, and devils were to drop out of
the very blood and flesh and souls of
men, new yokes an learnings were
I to make all burdens light, even sor-
rows were to fly away and the tears
to vanish from all the faces that weep
because here was the perfect rev.
citation of the mastership of that with
! in man which is greater than all his
( circumstances.
81 can do all things" cries Paul in
a perfect ecstacy of freedom and
power.
Behold, old things have passed
away, they have become new"
Our sciences make a great to do
about matter and force.
| For long time we were in the
grip of the theory that matter is the
main thing and force a mere exhala-
tion out of matter There is the most
ancient paganism in the most modern
form-man the creature, circumstance
es the master.
But now science is coming round
Matter has been explored. Steel and
gold and stone have been examined;
an 10! every time you tackle a piece
of matter it turns into something
else.
And now we are told that matter
has been run down and located in
the molecule and the molecule has
retired into the atom; and when
science knocked on the door of the
atom called matter a little clun1p OF
electrons answered the knock
And what is an electron? 1t ISM
matter at all. Science says it is "a
point of electric energy"
AS far as the layman can GRASP
these subtleties, therefore, there ISM
any such thing as matter in the ole
hard dead sense of that word.
Some humorist has said that il
the last analysis matter is nothing
in a violent state of activity" An
other has put it this way: "Mattel
is motion. Whenever force set.
out to do something or go somewhere
then it becomes matter. So the wa,
to make matter is to get busy"
\ 1t is scientifically and exactly true
Forces are not the playthings o.
dead matter is the form and mani
festation of force.
/ am always thinking of that pro-
found student and teacher, DR.. Mark
Hopkins, who, in his "Outline Study