Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1935-12-06

of the human family have always
been curious. to know how, when.
and where the. manners, customs
and habits familitr to everybody,
began. It is not merely curiosity
that prompts scientific Investiga-
tors to go back to the beginning of
things. Every bit of evidence that
things which we are inclined to re-
gard as modern are really very old
helps to a better understanding of
what we call, for lack of a better
name, ''human nature"
The more l dig into the history
of the human race the more firmly
II am convinced that human ma
ture, in its main essentials, has not
changed. since the beginning of
time.
BEGINNINGS -. one mystery
My indefatigable friend Joseph
N. Kane, spends his time in dig
ging down to the beginnings Of
things. Some years ago he publish
ed a thick book called Famous
First Facts" in which he told who
was the first person to do or invent
or discover many of the things
that we regard as what have always
been done. Now he has a new
book called "More First Facts"
I have gone through it carefully
to see if Joe has found out the
name of the first man who ever
ate an oyster. I think it was Dean
Swift who said that that man,
whoever he was, was a real hero.
But Joe Kane hasn't got his name
in his book.
LIFE spore hunting
There are still millions of ques-
lions about the beginning of things
to which science has not found the
answer, but every year we come
nearer to the truth. The origin of
life itself is a mystery which has
not been solved.
A great Swedish scientist, Svend
Arrhenius, put forward a theory
that life first came to earth in the
form of spores carried through
space from some distant point in
the universe. Scientists admit that
may be true. The American Pro-
fessor Compton's discovery of "cos-
mic rays" which lombard the
earth from somewhere in ~interstel-
lar space, suggests that such a thing
is possible.
When the biggest balloon ever
made went up fourteen miles into
the shakespeare, a few days ago,
the observers carried not only in
struments for detecting and mea-
surfing the cosmic rays, but appa-
ratus designed to collect spores, if
there were any, in this realm be-
yond the earth's atmosphere.
+ II
DEITIES -. many
From the earliest days, peoples of
all races have been puzzled over
the beginning of things, and in the
beginning Of things, and in the
absence of facts they have develop
ed folk myths to account for mat
tiers which they do not understand.
Out of these attempts to explain
origins came many of the ancient
religions. The most familiar of
these is the Greek mythology,
which has been preserved because
the world has access to more writ
ten records of ancient Greece than
to those of any other race. The
Greeks imagined an elaborate sys-
tenn of gods and demigods to whom
they attributed not only the orr
gins Of everyday phenomena but
all of the good and ill that happen
ed to human beings. In this they
were like all other primitive peo-
pies, in ascribing human attributes
to their duties.
l think a good deal of hat idea
of God as nothing but a superior
and all-powerfu man persists in
the subconscious minds of a great
many people still.
SPIRIT u~nchanging
My mother, who was brought up
a devout Presbyterian, taught me
the Shorter catechism' when | was
"a child. I still think that classic
document contains the most per-
lect definition of God: God is a