Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-27
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRAcEwELL.

sacrifices. one wonders how Christian
ty has survived"
That Is about as plain as Mr.. Mencken
could put 1t, isn't it7
n X
There is no Joy in such ideas of God.
We all know it, yet how many Chris
tianS hold such beliefs? The God of
Jesus Christ: that is what I am sure
we have to get back to-" So says our
author, pointing out that If we were
perfect we would worship God as a
spirit. but that for most men it Is
necessary to address Him III terms OF
personality.
There is no real love which hasn't
unconventional way of putting the SUBJ
lime truth-that Love is service, and
that it cannot always be happiness in
our everyday concept of the word.
Our relationship with God and our
fellow men is the relationship of the
home, and not the law courts"
These are few quotations, in order
that the reader here may be able to
SAVIOR little book which will be lost
by the waySide in the great welter of
modern publishing. But to those who
happen to find 1t, it will come as a
genuine good word.
in their childhood faith that the
Church as an institution still contains
men Of open minds who are willing to
believe that God still lives, and, living
may yet have a few revelations for the
world of aspiring men.
Whether ministers recognize the fact
or not, many good men and women are
suffering under a belief that somehow
God hasn't functioned for the past 1000
years: that the faith given unto the
saints has been static, resting on its
laurels, as 1t were.
This, of course. is a mistaken notion
but We have an idea that If you pricked
the minds of a hundred men and
women at random who commonly are
called good Christians" you would find
some such frozen belief.
4 X
Now, If there Is anything of which
the modern alert mind is surer than
that God, too, advances with His crea-
tons we scarcely know what the idea is
All around us we see a great and
curious system in being, stretching
from the dandelion beneath our feet to
the new star which has just been dis
covered. 1t goes out so far and "up'
so high that the mind Of man is stag
gered. Infinity? The mind of man
cannot grasp it, but he can admit It
So he admits God, II one may put it
that way, as Napoleon did, who, looking
up at the stars, asked, Gentlemen
who made all that?'
Some one asked Disraeli what was
his religion. The religion OF any SEN
sible man." he replied. But what is
that?" "A sensible man never says, y
he smiled. Now, the world is full of
such men, and has always been. Some
Of them go to church and some of them
do not. Some of them believe" in the
common acceptance of the word and
some do not. Yet all of them are at
heart religious.
Take Mr. Mencken, who recently pub
lished hfs Treatise on the Gods" which
no one could call an orthodox Christian
work. In 1t he is constrained, as If
against his wishes, to admit that the
Old Testament contains the world s
most sublime poetry. and that the story
OF Jesus, as told in the New Testament,
is the most beautiful story we have.
Revealed religion has nothing to fear
in an advancing world. yet nothing is
commoner for its votarieS than for them
to roll themselves up tighter than bears
in Winter caves, or to stick their heads
into the sands of theology, as ostricheS
do in the real Sand or draw into their
shells Of dogmaS, as tortoiSes into their
carapaceS on a sudden alarm.
Religion does not have to be craven
and such of its servants as the Rev.
Mccormick never are, but speak right
out their faith In all honesty. They
meet life where 1t must be met, after
all, whatever ones pretensions-in life
itself