The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1925-08-06
PUBLIC FORUM

This department of the Herald is
for the use of the public to discuss
matters of public interest. The ed
itor reserves the right to eliminate
any portion of any article that may
be libelous. The publication of any
article under this heading does not
necessarily mean that it is Endorsed
by the Herald editor:
~
To the Editor OF the Sank Centre
Herald:
Mr.. Alvah Eastman of St. Cloud
has been rendering excellent service
to his community by presenting upon
his editorial page in the Daily Jour
nal-Press excerpts from a letter writ
ten by a member of religious sect
in reply to an invitation from Mr..
Bryan to appear as witness against
frankly and lucidly has the writer
stated his position upon this question,
that am desirious that these extracts
shall meet the eyes of the readers OF
the Heard, and therefors request
that they appear in your next issue.
j. A. Dubois.
81 cannot resort to the unworthy
expedient of saying that other en-
gagements make it impossible for me
to comply with your request. That
would be false. The simple truth is
that l disapprove of the entire pro-
cedure from beginning to end. l
cannot believe that good will come
of it for l am very sure that the
spirit of this generation must feel
outraged by the spectacular methods
invoked to put muzzle on the teacn-
mgs of any sect or cult, however ef-
roneous those teachings may be.
Gwen though we have succeeded
in bludgeoning the world with VOL
steadism we can't hope to bottle up
the tendencies of men to think Tor
themselves. We cannot put harness
on their freedom of will nor can we
control their imaginations. TO at
tempt ito do so is to resort TO 1utlle
violence and men will go on thinking
their thoughts regardless OF any IN
hibition or dictum to the contrary.
Perhaps they would think more rignt-
Iy if less sensational and more 1uliy
American methods were employed 70
aid their thinking by presenting them
with the other side to their Thoughts
thus leaving them in full possession
of their own, freedom OF choice anu
avoiding for ourselves the aphorrent
and indefensible devices OF suppress
sion and persecution. :. ~
"Ouite possibly my belief In the
Bible is unshakable as your. own, YET
I am convinced that any lnslstence
upon the literal Interpretation OF some
biblical passages must run coun-
fer the very truth which sucn pas
sages were obviously intended 10
convey The word day. for instance,
as used in Genesis, did not mean ana
could not have meant our solar day OF
"a hours. The sun was not created
until the third day and could not
have controlled the duration OF the
time periods expressed by the 'hrst
and second days.
ssThe chronological order in when
the vegetable and animal works Oh
creation followed each other in the
Mosaic narrative is in extraordinary
agreement with the so-called RECORD
of the Rocks as Interpreted by many
biologists and palaeontologists. MOS
es could not have guessed the details
of such sequence with such accuracy
if he had not been inspired, for he
certainly possessed none OF the hu-
man knowledge of this subject now
available. 1t is for this reason that
Ampere, the scientist, insisted that
Moses must have been inspired.
s'I have never failed to admit
that God might have worked,
had He seen fit, by some evol-
unitiary process in His crea-
ton. But what processes to be
the official description of His modus
operandi is a gross caricature not
only of creation it's self, but of the
Creator, also. Despite Ernest Haeckel
whose books are still diligently
thumbed in all the public libraries OF
the country, there is nothing in evolu-
ton to indicate that homo sapiens is
the offspring of an ape, yet it is alto
gether possible that as far as our
bodies are concerned we have derived
them from some pre-exlstlng form
which took its own body in turn from
still an earlier form. All this is
nothing to me because | am still con-
fronted by the phenomenon of the
soul, which by its very nature, a SIM
pie spiritual substance, could not
have been evolved from matter under
any theory of evolution ever pro-
posed. /.
NIt's none of my business how God
made the body. Even the Bible sug-
pests that it originated in slime. My
interest is aroused at the point where
that slime became man when God
breathed a soul into a body fit. to re-
ceive a soul, and thus created man
in His image and likeness
aOnly a disordered nightmare OF
.vo,1tion can assert that there is any
confiict between science and relig-
ion The truth from whatsoever
source must be welcomed-must pre-
vail and will prevail
"Why should you or l ne agltaeea
nv the hysteria OF men VINO groteS-