Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers

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TO BE WORTHY, NOT RESPECTABLE.

In other words, to be like Henry George, and not like the owner
of a trust.

WEALTHY, NOT RICH.

The man who has a good wife and good children, enough to take
care of them, but not enough to spoil them, is WEALTHY. He is
happier than the man who is RICH enough to be worried, rich
enough to make it certain that his children will be ruined by
extravagance, and perhaps live to be ashamed of him.

TO LISTEN TO STARS AND BIRDS, BABES AND SAGES, WITH OPEN HEART.

This means to enjoy the noblest gifts that God has given to man.
He is happy who takes more pleasure in a beautiful sunset than in
the sight of a flunky with powdered hair, artificial calves and
lofty manners, handing him something indigestible on a plate of
gold.

TO STUDY HARD; TO THINK QUIETLY, ACT FRANKLY, TALK GENTLY.

To exercise in this way the brain that is given to us is to lead
the life of a MAN, a life of self-control, a life that is worth
while, that leads to something and helps forward the improvement
of the race.

In the words which we have quoted at the top of this column
William Henry Channing has given a recipe for wise living. ----

WHO WAS CHANNING?

He was a good man, and a wise man. He was one of the most
eloquent clergymen ever born in this country, and as sincere a
friend of individual man and of the race in general as ever
lived.

He was an enthusiast and an optimist--admirable combination.

He was born in 1810, and died in 1884. His biography has been
written by Octavius B. Frothingham.

Channing saw the world through generous, charitable eyes.

He was an ardent admirer of Charles Fourier, and appreciated the
philosophy and social law-giving of that gigantic intellect.

The quotation we print above is an index to his whole character,
just as one flower tells the story of the beautiful garden in
which it grew.

Channing, unlike many sayers of fine things, was personally as
fine as the things he said. He was worthy even of his own best
thoughts, and that can be said for few fine thinkers.

Admire him. Read some of his sermons and other writings if you
have the chance.

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD--PARABLE OF THE BLIND KITTENS

The notion that small things, the petty details of life, such as
money getting, marriage questions, etc., are uppermost in the
modern human brain is entirely false.

If an editor asks: "Is marriage a failure?" he receives just so
many answers, and then the interest dies out.

If he asks: "Should a wife have pin money?" or "What is the
easiest way for a woman to earn a living?" he ceases to receive
answers after a short time.

But to questions concerning the immortality of the soul, the
existence of God, and man's destiny here and hereafter, the
answers are endless. Letters on such matters have been received
here by thousands. Every day the mail brings new and intelligent
contributions to the questions that have kept men praying,
thinking, fighting and hoping through the centuries:

"IS THERE A GOD, AND WILL MY SOUL LIVE FOREVER?" ----

Very interesting are the expressions of faith which fill a
majority of the letters. Interesting also are the letters of
doubters atheists, agnostics and the many intoxicated with a very
little knowledge, who have decided to substitute their own wisdom
and doubt for the belief of the ages--the belief in God and in
personal immortality.

Many think science has discovered that we could get on very well
without a God. But science has done just the contrary. And
here, if you please, we shall build up a sort of parable: ----

A Man had a box full of motherless blind kittens. He was very
kind to them. He put their box on wheels and moved it about to
keep it in the sun. He gave them milk at regular intervals.
With loving kindness he drove away the dog which growled and
scared the little kittens into spitting and back raising.

The kittens trusted the Man, loved him and felt that they needed
him. That was the age of faith.

One day a dog got a kitten and tore it to pieces.

The kitten had disobeyed orders and laws. It had crawled away
from the box.

Another kitten, with one eye now partly open, got thoughtful and
said: "There is no such thing as Man. Or, if there is such a
thing, he is a monster to let little Willie get torn up. Don't
talk to me about Kitten Wiliie being a sufferer through his own
fault. I say there is no such thing as a Man. We kittens are
bosses of the universe and must do our own fighting."

That speaker was the Ingersoll kitten.

A kitten of higher mental class opened both eyes just a little
and actually made observations.

Said he: "I am a scientist. I discover that we owe nothing to
Man's kindness. We are governed by laws. This box is on wheels.

It rolls around in the sunlight of its own volition. True, I do
not know who shoves it, but no Man could do it. Further, I
discover that there is such a thing as the law of 'milk-passing.'
Milk comes this way just so often. Its coming is nature's law.
It has always come. It always will come. Good-night, I am going
to sleep. But don't talk to me any more about a kind Man. It's
all law, and I am certainly great, for I saw the laws first."

That was the Newton kitten, but he lacked the Newton faith.

We have no time to tell what the Darwin kitten said. He was very
long-winded.

But this happened. The kittens grew up--such as did not perish
through their own fault. They got their eyes fully opened. They
saw the Man, recognized him and asked only to be allowed to stay
in his house. "Excuse us," they said, "for being such foolish
kittens. But you know our eyes were not quite open."

"Don't mention it," said the kind Man. "Go down cellar and help
yourselves to mice."

That's the end of the parable. We are all blind kittens, and our
few attempts at explaining nature's wonders and kindness only get
us into deeper and deeper mysteries.

We discover that the earth goes round the sun. But the greatest
scientist must admit his inability to tell or guess why it goes.
"Give me the initial impulse," he says, "and all the rest is
easy."

The blind kittens in their wagon say: "Give our wagon just one
shove and we'll explain the rest."

The kitten gets hold of a law of "milk-passing" and substitutes
that for man's individual kindness.

The feeble-minded agnostic seizes the law of gravitation and
thinks he can discard God with gravity's help.

But the great mind that defined gravity's law was a religious
mind--too profound to see anything final in its own feeble power.

Newton was no atheist. None better than he knew the mysterious
character of his law. That it has worked from all eternity
"directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the
distance" he knew and told his fellow-creatures. That is all he
knew and all that any man knows about it.

To-day Lord Kelvin, a worthy follower in Newton's steps, is asked
to explain WHY gravity acts. He can only say:

"I accept no theory of gravitation. Present science has no
right to attempt to explain gravitation. We know nothing about
it. We simply know NOTHING about it."

Darwin asks, without answering his question:

"Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of
gravitation?" ----

To our doubting friends we say: Doubt if you must. But doubt
intelligently and doubt first of all your own blind kitten
wisdom. Remember that you at least know absolutely nothing.
Study and think. Read. But don't let the half-developed wisdom
of others choke up your brain and leave you a mere clogged-up
doubting machine.

Whatever you do, never interfere with the faith of others.
Spread KNOWLEDGE, spread FACTS. Keep to yourself the doubts that
would disturb others' happiness and do them no good. Tell what
you KNOW. Keep quiet about what you GUESS.

HAVE THE ANIMALS SOULS?

"For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts;
even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the
other; YEA, THEY HAVE ALL ONE BREATH; SO THAT A MAN HATH NO
PRE-EMINENCE ABOVE A BEAST: for all is vanity.

"Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the
SPIRIT of the beast that goeth downward to the earth."
--Ecclesiastes iii., 19-21.

The surface of the earth, the air as high as we can study it, the
depths of the sea, swarm with animal life.

The earth rolls around the sun bathed in its warm light.
Millions of creatures die with every revolution of the little
planet which is their home. And man "going to and fro in the
earth, and walking up and down in it" rules the little animals
and the big ones and calls himself sole heir of immortality. He
says: "For ME this earth was made and balanced in its wonderful
journey; for ME alone the marvels of future life are reserved."

He digs up the strange creatures from the slimy depths of the
ocean, studies and labels them.

He dissects one animal to study his own diseases. He skins
another to cover his feet with leather. He eats one ox and
hitches its brother to the plough. He uses nature's explosive
forces to bring down the bird on the wing. He sweeps the rivers
with his nets.

The stomach of the well-fed man is the graveyard of the animal
kingdom.

When his dinner is finished, the man well fed strokes his stomach
contentedly and says to himself:

All is well. For I have a soul and THEY have none. They
have died to feed me. I am happy and they should be satisfied.
----

What is the nature of the spirit that directs our humble animal
brothers and sisters? They cover the earth as long as we let
them, give place to us as the human race increases, and, without
any thought of organized resistance, die that we may live.

HAVE THESE ANIMALS SOULS?

You have seen the bird grieving over the destruction of its nest.

You have studied the pathetic eyes of the lost dog, and the sad
submission of the tired, beaten horse.

Is there not soul in those stricken creatures, and spiritual
feeling deeper than that displayed by many men?

First came all ANIMAL life, as we know it, and then came MAN.

Science and religion agree on this point, at least.

All owe their being to the same eternal FORCE. On this point
again religion and science agree.

Is the life in animals merely a passing dream, or does it express
in its humble way the promise of life eternal?

In Italy a scientific villain experimented on a dog to ascertain
the power of maternal affection.

The dog was most cruelly tortured. Its newborn puppy was beside
it. Its nerves were racked, its spine injured, BUT WHENEVER
PERMITTED TO DO SO, THE POOR TORTURED, ANIMAL MOTHER TURNED ITS
HEAD TOWARD ITS WHINING CHILD AND LICKED IT AFFECTIONATELY.

Until it died there was nothing that could overcome maternal love
in the heart of that poor dumb mother.

Is there not soul in such love as that?

JESUS' ATTITUDE TOWARD CHILDREN
A SUNDAY SERMON

"Suffer the little children to come unto me; and forbid them not;
for of such is the Kingdom of God."--Mark X., 14.

Jesus gave to the child its place in the world's society.

With all the power of divine authority He built around the
feeblest among us a wall that has protected them through the
ages.

Before His day the child existed only by sufferance. It had no
rights.

It was but a counter, an infinitesimal atom. It was considered
simply the property of the parent. Its father had power of life
and death over it. The homeless dog that roams the streets
to-day is more effectively shielded from cruelty than was the
friendless child before Jesus came to live and to die for the
weak and poor.

The law had said:

"The parent is ruler of the child, and may dispose of it as he
sees fit."

But Jesus said--and these are the most beautiful and affecting
words in all the moral law of the world:

"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I
say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the
face of my Father which is in heaven."--Matthew xviii., 10.

No threats so terrifying as those aimed at men who should harm
little children:

"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about
his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the
sea."--Matthew xviii., 6.

It is impossible now to conceive the horrid indifference to
childhood's rights which preceded the birth of Christianity.

Infanticide was not the exception, but a settled custom. So much
so, that in Rome the "exposure" of children in desert places was
almost a virtue, since it gave the child some slight chance of
surviving.

Not a few, but thousands and tens of thousands of children were
thus "exposed." They fell a prey to wild beasts, or to the human
beasts, still more ferocious, who took the children to make
slaves or criminals of them.

Jesus came, and a miracle was worked--a miracle that no man will
deny.

This was the miracle:

Jesus said:

"For I say unto you, their angels behold the face of my Father
which is in heaven."

Jesus spoke, and thousands of millions of men, through nineteen
centuries, have believed, and obeyed the command.

Every man was warned that the child dying goes straightway into
the presence of God, and there, looking upon His face, bears
witness to the treatment meted out to him here.

Well might it be said of the man who mistreated such a child:

"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about
his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Every man should study with awe and reverence the sad, lonely
misunderstood life of Jesus, the friend of children. He had no
home, and for companions only a few humble fishermen, to whom He
spoke in simple parables, as to children.

"The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests
but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."--Matthew
viii., 20.

It was this childless, homeless Man that ever used His marvellous
power to protect children.

It was He who gave to children their definite share in the
kingdom of God.

Before His coming the wisdom of the world was devoted to telling
the child ITS duty.

But Jesus explained to grown men THEIR duty toward children.

The family life was His ideal.

All men were His brothers, and, with Him, sons of God.

The loving kindness shown by God toward helpless men and women
THEY should show to helpless children.

Neither the rights nor the WISDOM of children must be despised:

"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou
hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes; even so, Father; for so it seemed
good in thy sight."--Luke x., 21.

Wherever Jesus went, children followed Him, and the tiniest
little soul, in its mother's arms or tottering along in wide-eyed
curiosity, could arrest His loving attention.

How beautiful is the picture that the Bible story presents to the
mind!

Jesus is at Capernaum, on the sunny shore of the Sea of Galilee.

The Disciples--simple, honest men, often excited as to precedence
and filled with deep longing to stand first in the Master's
esteem--ask Him:

"Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"--Matthew
xviii., 1.

Around them is gathered the typical Oriental group, and many
olive-skinned women, with their children:

"And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the
midst of them and said: 'Verily I say unto you, except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into
the kingdom of heaven.

"'Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little
child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

"'And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name
receiveth me.'"

Teach your children to think of and to love the divine Soul that
pleaded their cause. Teach them that in all the words He uttered
there can be found only love for them. No threats, no warnings--
only love.

STUDY OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD

"Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said . . . .
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Declare, if thou hast understanding."--Job xxxviii. 1, 4.

Since men have lived on earth their feeble intellects have
struggled to realize the majesty of God.

Succeeding nations and civilizations have expressed through laws
or religions their puny conceptions of the power that controls
the universe.

As mental and moral standards have improved, there has been
constant improvement in the conception of God.

The Greeks and Romans imagined a variety of gods, and attributed
to these the vices and weaknesses of men.

The Fijians worshipped a god who devoured the souls of the dead,
inflicting torture in the eating, but mercifully releasing souls
from pain when the meal was ended.

The ancient Mexicans went to war "because their gods demanded
something to eat." Their armies fought "only endeavoring to take
prisoners, that they might have men to feed those gods." ----

Even with the birth of the one great idea--THE UNITY OF GOD--the
personality of the universal Creator was but a reflection of His
worshippers.

He was a "jealous" God, a "man of war." "God Himself is with us
for our captain."-- Chron. xiii., 12.

God dwelt in a city made of nothing cheaper than gold and
precious stones. For His own glory, He maintained a court
Oriental in form, with strange beasts to sing His praises, and He
tortured forever and ever creatures that He had made.

The present conception of an omnipotent God has changed greatly
since the old days, when cruelty was the rule and was admired.
There is to-day insistence on God's LOVE, on His JUSTICE, on His
MERCY that "endureth forever"--there is practically no teaching
of the old belief that a creature, born of circumstances, and
good or bad as circumstances may determine, is to suffer endless
torment under never-changing conditions of horror. ----

The writing of this editorial is based upon frequent reading of
the book of Job. In that ancient and wonderful book, as in no
other writing, the Jewish forces of poetry and of prophecy are
exhausted in the effort to portray God's majesty.

All of the old prophet's knowledge of the world, all of his
mystic notions of sidereal government, are used in the effort to
glorify his Creator.

"Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days?

"Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto
thee, Here we are?

"Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow?

"Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks?

"Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?

"Will he make many supplications unto thee? Will he speak
soft words unto thee?

"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast
thou seen the treasures of the hail?"

Thus through chapters of greatest beauty the primitive mind seeks
to portray for the benefit of other primitive minds the
omnipotence of the world's Ruler. ----

What hope has man of conceiving, even approximately, the great
law-giving Force that rules the universe? Shall we ever do more
than attribute to Him those qualities which our own pygmy minds
admire? Shall we forever conceive Him as a glorified
"individual"?

We believe that in the Book of Job there is suggested the method
of studying God that alone can aid us to a better, higher
conception.

The study of God must be prosecuted through the study of
astronomy, and this the old prophet foreshadows clearly:

"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose
the bands of Orion?

"Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst
thou guide Arcturus with his sons?"

Long years ago children were taught to admire a god who created a
leviathan, a unicorn, and "Behemoth."

Children of the future will be told:

You live on a globe twenty-five thousand miles round. It travels
ceaselessly through space at a speed of eighteen miles a second.
Compared to the huge sun that lights and gives us life, our earth
is but a pinhead, and the sun itself is but one tiny dot in the
ocean of space. Through that space the sun rushes on an errand
unknown, carrying us with it.

Everything moves, revolves, rushes ceaselessly, yet a balance
registering the one-thousandth part of a grain is not adjusted as
nicely as these huge behemoths of limitless space. Laplace shows
positive proof that the earth, travelling eighteen miles per
second, has not changed the period of its rotation by the
hundredth part of a second in two thousand years.

The mind of the future, imbued with respect for the Force that
controls, conducts and makes the laws for the universe, will
attain more nearly to a conception of God. But a study of God
will remain man's chief and constant effort while he lives here.
That study is never-ending.

THE FASCINATING PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY

(If you read this you will probably feel that you have wasted
time.)

If you travel back far enough you can see in your mind's eye a
primitive man with long, red hair, shivering in some icy pool.
He has taken refuge there from a pursuing bear or other foe. He
sees that he must die of cold or of the bear's teeth. His dark
mind--product of a brain primitive and poor in
convolutions--contemplates vaguely the prospect ahead of him. He
hopes that after death he may through some mysterious kindness be
permitted to meet again the red-haired women and the wolfish cave
children left behind.

There, in the cave man's mind, is the first craving for
immortality. Born in that poor brain long centuries ago, it has
steadily grown stronger with man's mental development. ----

No man looks at death without looking beyond it. None but has a
craving for a future life, with consciousness of his personality
AND WITH RECOLLECTION OF FRIENDS, FACES AND DEEDS HERE.

Say to a man, "You shall be immortal, but you shall not know that
you are you." He will not give you thanks for such immortality.

So strong is man's craving for personal, individual immortality
that hell with its fires would be preferred by many to
annihilation. The strongest argument against immortality--weak
and ignorant at best--is but a frantic attempt of the mind to
prove negatively the existence of what it covets.

Fortunately for human happiness in general, FAITH, covers the
requirements of millions. They live and die contented, the
instinct within them fortified by the teachings of a faith not to
be questioned. ----

But what of the men and women who ask for evidence, or at least
for plausible argument, proving the reasonableness of
immortality? What can be said to please them?

Not much, alas! Probably because we are still so undeveloped
that it would be, for many reasons, unsafe to let us know how
great a future is before us. Strongest in hope is the
argument of Charles Fourier, based on what he declared to be
a natural law.

"Attractions are proportionate to destinies."

By this Fourier meant that a universal longing among human
beings was certain proof that their ultimate destiny involved
the fulfilment of the longing. The little girl fondling a doll
foretells maternity. The hectoring boy foretells the soldier's
career. No universal attraction, save with a destiny
proportionate. ----

The human race since it began to think and believe has thought of
and believed in immortality. The half wise declare that belief
in immortality and a spirit world came to savage peoples through
dreams, that it has been kept alive through superstition and the
power of religion. Trivial, certainly, is such an explanation of
a phenomenon as wide as mankind's existence. ----

A very consoling fact for the doubter is this. The strongest
minds born on the earth have almost invariably, at some stage
of development, rejected belief in immortality--only to return
to the belief, or at least to the HOPE, with fuller age and riper
wisdom. That no great mind has seen any positive argument
against the hope of immortality is certainly comforting to all
of us. Intelligence can always refute improbability and
falsehood.
----

What about the nature of immortality? The Indian hopes for dogs
and hunting, the Turk for a life of which the least said the
better. The Christian, borrowing his ideas from the writings of
the old Hebrews, looks forward to what may be called a solid gold
existence--everything made of gold or of something more
expensive.

We do not think that religious docility demands implicit belief
in any of the published details of our future existence. Gold is
not comfortable; jasper would not well replace the green turf.

Is it not more reasonable to assume, since immortality is to be
ours, that it is ours now and always has been? We cannot imagine
creation of the indestructible. Is it not sensible to take
literally that most beautiful invocation: "Thy kingdom come ON
EARTH as it is in heaven"?

We know that heaven cannot be above us or hell below; because as
we whirl round in each twenty-four hour period those abodes would
have to whirl also--quite unreasonable. ----

This earth would make a very good heaven--properly improved and
managed. Wipe out human selfishness, and the Sahara and other
deserts. Establish universal philanthropy, regulate the climate,
confine human manual labor to the pushing of an electric
button--all quite possible--and you have the sort of heaven that
man would select if left to choose.

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