Year: 1869




full of superstitions, bigotries, intolerance
and injustice. We read that there is a
God OF Infinite Attributes, without whose
concurrence the most trivial event cannot
take place but the history of the past does
not confirm the word. From the time
when Abel fell victim to the jealousy o.
Cain, the relations of man to man have
been marked by injustice. Nature hersel
ignores all principles Of equity. A babt
is born. From the moment its eyes ope!
upon this world of material beauty, it i.
subject to conditions which determine it.
happiness or misery. 1t is born without its
own consent. Perhaps itfowes the fact Of
its existence to the animal instinct of it,
parents. Helpless, it may be still unpro
vided for. No welcome awaits its entrance
into this world, no care trains it in the
way it should 60. Our religion teaches
us in vague and sentimental sort of way
that Heavenly Father will compensate us
for the derelictions of an earthly one. Dc
the alleys, lanes, and by-ways of great city
justify this teaching. Are there not mil
lions of children, innocent themselves OF
evil, whose heritage is ignorance, sin and
misery.


Do we not train boys for the Penitentiary
and the gallows, as faithfully as we train
them for the pulpit and the Professor s
chair. Do we not train girls for the man
sions Of sin, lawful inheritors of shame
and contumely? Ought we to be surprised
that one course of training should be as
eficacious as the other-that the prison
and the gilded mansion should claim its
dues as we'll as the pulpit, the chair of
State, or the labratory of scince


Last Sunday evening, the Rev. Mr.
Ames delivered lecture on "The Coming
Man" He asked if the man of the future
would be an improvement on the man of
the present. One school of philosophers
answer in the negative. Christianity, says
this school has done nothing for the race
Eighteen centuries of gospel have not pro-
duced one Christian community. The
civilized man is only a finely dressed savage
He has gained brain and lost muscle he
takes his prey with spiders web instead
of war-club but he takes it Just as surely
and uses it just as cruelty. Another school
Of philosophy gives hopeful answer Pro-
gress is real. Man is better to day than
he was yesterday, and he will be better to-
morrow than to day. This answer is based
upon the statement-not original with Mr..
Ames-that this is Gods world. Man is
Gods creature; therefore, he is good
creature. The Maker knows what He is
about. He knew what He was about when
He created man, and has never regetted
the act. Therefore, since God the creator
is good, things created are bound to come
out right.


With due Differences to Mr. Ames, we
feel inclined to characterize this method of
reasoning as puerile. We don't see the
use OF going to the expense of lighting a
hall to ask such questions and give such
answers. If it is settled fact that man
is to become good because the being who
created him is good, why trouble ourselves
with details of progress or processes of re-
formation. The result is secure; we have
only to wait and it will come out right
There may be millions meantime born to
misery, to die in dispair' but we may still
comfort ourselves with the reflection that
their Creator knew what he was about
when He made them, and has never re-
pented Of His part in the transactisn.-
This skin deep philosophy is on par with
the ordinary twaddle retailed to us from
the pulpit. One would think sometimes
that the moment man writes Reverend
before his name he ceases to be reasoning
animal. To enter upon the discussion of
the question of mans progress whether by
answering that he must progress whether
he does or not, is begging the whole ques-
ton. The people who wasted their time
by going to this lecture wanted to know if,
in the opinion of the speaker, our rapid
fight is downward or upward. They de-
sired to know if the changes going on in
our religious beliefs are approximations to
the eternal truth, and if the unwritten laws
which are the worlds opinion Of what is
just and right, are wiser and better than
the laws which this age is discarding.-
That we are escaping from the iron grasp
of certain laws which hitherto have been
held to be essential, is patent to the unthink.
ing mind Will that escape result in the
benefit of the race? Will the removal Of
shackles that have CALLED while they have
restrained, open the way to higher civ.
ilization, to better relation between man
and man, to finer conception Of justice
and the consequent advancement of the
race? Men and women are freer now than
ever before. Thought is freer, action il
freer. We are more tolerant of vice, more
charitable even to crime. The Judicial
mind goes beyond the act and considers
the cause. We do not say that God is
unjust, bu: we recognize the fact that He
permits injustice; and this consideration
weighs in our estimation of an offence
Perhaps the iron rigor of the law that
stamped the scarlet letter upon the brow
Of the offender, is better than the easy
sentence passed by the enlightened mind
of the present day. We want to know II
the man and woman that result from this
free civilization will be better than that
which the past has produced. Platitudes
about Gods goodness arc stale. There u