The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1924-11-13

that He Would Not Like to Live In
A Country Where The Church Is
Not Known, Where Preachers and
Sunday Schools Have Never Been
He Also Claims That Prohibition
Came Only After Big Business In
terests Gave Notice To Their EN-
plOyees, Forgetting That the Pro-
hibition Movement Was Started In
The Churches and BY Bands of
Men and Women Brought Up In
the Churches, Yet He Is Of the
Opinion That Churches are Deca-
dent. While We Do Not Subscribe
to Anything He Has Written We
Give His Article Space in The Col
umns of The Republican.
To the Editor of The Republican.
At the moment the church is in the
limelight of publicity and criticism by
both laymen and ecclesiasts. Before
the armistice secular journals were
very few that would publish anything
derogatory to church methods or doc
trines, but recently they have gladly
received such articles as are morally
instructive and tolerant in spirit be-
cause the public mind is hungry for
information that is based on funda-
mental truths that do not admit of
controversy or dispute.
The rulers of men for centuries
taught their subjects to believe in the
Divine right of kings, believing that
by keeping men in a state of awe and
ignorance they could make them more
submissive and more readily exploit
their lives Of the profits Of their la
Dor, and like the civic rulers of the
past, the church assumes Divine and
exclusive authority for the moral and
spiritual guidance Of men and usurp-
ed the Creators power to save souls
for a heaven Of bliss or send them
to a hell where they would eternally
blister.
But the enlightened minds of today
discredit all that is miraculous and
the teachings Of all pretenders Of Di-
vine prerogatives who can not prove
their doctrines by some truth, by
some Of Gods immutable laws by
which He has revealed Himself thru
out all nature.
This universe was created by law
and is governed by law and man is
no exception. So whatever our relig-
ious creed or belief may be, if it con-
tradicts any of Natures laws it is I'M
tenable and retards our spiritual and
mental progress.
The power of the church today is
static and not the dynamic force it
can be and should be for the better
ment of men i'll their daily lives in a
world that is present and confronts
them with obstacles that they are
here to learn about and to overcome.
Life is a schooling place in which
to gain wisdom through study and
experience and to acquire nobility
Of character by resisting destructive
temptations. A certain amount of
material prosperity is essential to
mans moral, mental, physical and
spiritual well-beng.
SO long as men live in ignorance,
in semi-poverty in the sub-cellar of
hfe's being and live to crafty their
animal desires, to feed their minds
on superstitions, religious fallacies,
rather than facts, just so long will
they delay life's objective and the
Divine purpose which brought them
here.
Every school boy knows that he can
not enter the eighth grade until he
has passed his exam. in the grades
below. Such is the school of life. But
the church don't grasp its opportuni-
ties. 1t fails to reach men in their
metaphysical, mental, moral or
spiritual-because it is too despotic,
Anticipated and impractical.
Man is instinctively religious and
he hungers now more than ever be-
fore for spiritual truths and he needs
higher education, both moral and
mental, that he may comprehend and
incorporate in his life only such real
tiles as are profitable, permanent and
spiritual.
The crying need of the world is for
better men and better women, and ii
they ever grow better they must have
notwithstanding of the fundamen-
tai verities which make for their
well-being here and now. And the
church gives them a sermon of one
hour per week. A sermon that
makes some men sleep and many
yawn because it is too trite, yet old
and time-worn and inapplicable to
their business and industrial lives.
The church needs business methods
put into religion and for the welfare
of men we need religion that we can
put into business. To illustrate: For
over fifty years the clergy and many