Show the old settler my dear san Jua ners there is dignity and substance in a mans belief when it is the point at which he has arrived by his honest agres aggressive sive effort when his professed belaief is something he has adopted for lack of courage to acknowledge his true convictions it has in it nothing that is dignified nor deserving of respect As I 1 go through the trees to find wood I 1 strike a log with my axe and I 1 know by the sound whether or not it is solid or hollow or rotten meeting with men and determining what is in them is very much the same process the man who has arrived by his own study and thinking at t a definite belief in things funda fundamental e a belief which he is agres sive to maintain and able to defend is one in many the genuine believers whether or not they have arrived at the truth are a slim minority that minority does not include the facea the cults and creeds and who are obsessed with age 11 old traditions or worse still superstition and this does noi not include clude the men and women who have the discernment to appraise things for their true meaning and who in their secret souls are compelled to believe the truth but who are too timorous or too renegade to acknowledge it their belief is a thorn in their side they would like to get away from it but their under understanding s banding com coin them to recognize and fear it t the minds which are arc as positively warped by tradition as the skulls of flathead flat head indian babies arc deformed by the cradle boards where they were bound in infancy iro not able to frame a consistent belief what they may call heir belief is more than the stereotyped dogmas devised ity some one else ion long a ago 0 and riveted so ini immovably movably in in their c childhood mind that they are i no ia nore able to think for themselves and arrive at a consistent belief than a man is able to walk when his feet are in a cast there is a cheap multitude who ire are too frivolous to think too toc apathetic to entertain any concern for anything so ion long 0 as they have what they want to eat and drink they are as thoughtless is the pollywog polly woj in its diminishing pool that wags its tail bi blissfully ib oblivious livious to the fact that in three bays the pool will vill be dry and it will be but a little black plaster in n the mud but these people who tell more inore truth than they intend to tell when they say this is the anva way y T prefer to believe they are in the same class with the jews who before they took a stand for or against the christ inquired have any of the leaders of the pharisees Pharis ees believed in him when they knew that the ahari sees had bad not believed then chev preferred not to believe many of the chief rulers believed in him but would not confess him lest they should hould be put out of the synagogue when kin king agrippa told paul almost thou persua dest me to be a christian lie he better have said 1 I believe what you say but think of what would happen t to 0 me if I 1 should admit it the dignity of belief whether it be in the truth or in but the best approximation possible to make to it is proved by the cou I 1 necessary to profess it and justify it before men otherwise it t reminds us of what st james s says athe the devils also believe and tremble by albert R lyman i |