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Show KE1 RELIGION Of ' PRESIDEHT EUOT William Thurston Brown Be-Mievcs Be-Mievcs It Will Prove Epoch-Making Epoch-Making Event, RATHER RADICAL IDEAS OF SALT LAKE PREACHER Says Probably One-Half the Marriages Contracted Should Be Terminated. "The new religion predicted by President Eliot of Harvard; what it is, why it is inevitable, and what it will mean for society and the individual,' was dealt with in the sermon by William Wil-liam Thurston Brown at Unity church Sunday morning. In pnrt Mr. Brown said: .An address was delivered tho past sum-mor sum-mor at Cambridge, Mnss . by President Eliot of Harvard university, which mny prove to be the most epoch-mo rklng event since tho publication of the "Origin of Species" bv Charles Dnrwln In lhofi. If not tho moat significant utterance on religion since the Reformation. In that address Dr. Kliot snld that "the new religion re-ligion will not bo based on authority, either spiritual or temporal"; that "there will be no personification of the forces of nature, no deification of remarkable human hu-man beings," as In tho case of Jcnus: that tho new religion "will not deal chiefly with sorrow and death, but with Joy nnd life"; that It "will believe In no malignant powers and will reject the Idea that man Is a fallen being": that It "will have no supernatural element, but In nil Its theory and practice will be completely natural"; "iLs priests will be men Interested In religious re-ligious thought and trained to tho best methods of improving the social and Industrial In-dustrial conditions of human life"; it "will not attempt to reconcile men anil women to present Ills by promises of future fu-ture blessedness Such promises have done. Infinite mischief by Inducing men to bo patient under sufferings and privations priva-tions acralnst which thoy Bhonld hnve incessantly in-cessantly struggled. The new religion will approach the whole subject of evil from another side, that of resistance and prevention." Epoch-Marking Statements. What, In simple: words. Is the moaning of these epoch-marking statements of the leading educator of America? In this new religion men and women are no longer going to think of any God at nil outside themselves. A greater gain for this human world thnn thnt cannot be imagined. This world of ours will become be-come genuinely and nobly religious, reverent, rev-erent, loving. Just, happy, strong, self-reliant, self-reliant, godlike, only when it definitely discards tho last vesllgo of its superstition supersti-tion about some god amontr the clouds and holds In Its heart tho sacred consciousness con-sciousness that In our own h.ind in our own minds nnd wills, lies the key to the secret of life, to every happiness, to freedom, sen" Ice, justice, joy. People are not going to care n.bout the word "God ' Why should they care about an empty word, when they have tho consciousness in awnkened will, aroused conscience, liberated souls, of all that God can bo? They are not going to rovore n church or a priesthood any more. Whatever sanction or saercdnoss Is to nttach. under the regime of that new religion, which Is as inevitable as sunrise, to anything you have or know muBt arise out of what that thing is, and from no other source. Think of tho tremendous logic of this address of President Eliot. Whence has the sanction of all our fundamental institutions in-stitutions come not only government and civil law, but our moral codes, our domestic do-mestic Institutions, marriage, the birth of children, the homo and Its relations and obligations? For every one of them we have been taught that there Is a divine, di-vine, supernatural sanction. Wo have been taught that human government is a divine institution, established by God, getting Its authority and right by delegation dele-gation from him. Thnt notion has as littlo to rest on as the Ptolemaic astronomy as-tronomy or the idea that the eart.lv Is flat and tbo stars are candles. Government Govern-ment Is In no sense a divine Institution. It has grown out of brute force tho brute force of ono class coercing another class Into subjection. We have never had other than class government, and never will as long as classes exist. 'What wo have today Is government by tho commercial class, as a century or so ago we had government by a hereditary class. In the new religion the only sanction sanc-tion for any sort of government will lie In tho needs and possibilities of men. Problem of Morality. Again, we face tho problem of right and wrong, the problem of morality. The old and discredited religions have taught that knowledge of right and wrong comes by revelation, that in tho scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are to b found eternal standards of right and wrong. Wc know that Is not true. The moral law never was written on tablets of stone It is eternally fresh and plain on the tablets of human life and social well-being. Men have got to tlnd tho justifications of their actions, the source and Inspiration of their moral life, right here and now In the substance nnd texture of the world as we know It. Can von face that fact and not rcaotrnlzo the necessity that this social order from which wo must cot our standards of moral action shall be permeated and filled with highest ethical purpose, that Its laws shall be just, that all its conditions con-ditions shall ho equitable Indeed, thnt the common social and political and economic econ-omic life shall itself become a religion, or elw the morality of the eoming generations gener-ations wilt Inevitably decay as every past morality has done'.' We cannot any longer have a God who "stands within the shadows," as Lowell wrote. Tho only God we can have Is a God who Is out In tho open, and no God ran como out In the open"snve as mankind, man-kind, collectively, by godlike action embodies em-bodies such a deity. Vn may well amend the old saving of Mlcah so that It shall rend: "What doth man require of God but that he do justice, nnd love mercy, and walk humbly In human lives?" Marriage Is tautrht by the Catholic church to bo one of the sacraments, ordained or-dained by God himself, nnd even women of supposedly liberal mind are wont to iiv their children were "sent" them from God. Wc all know that Is folly and moonshine. There Is no excuse for not knowing that no God ever had nnythlm: to do with the origin of marriage or the family or the birth of children. And as sure as the earth turns on Its axis. Just hv the spread of knowledge, wo have sot to foee the fart that u supernatural ".motion of any of those things Ik a myth. "Whom God hath Joined together, let not man put asunder" we have been taucht to say In most of our marring services, and this In spite of the fact that abou one in every five or six marriages now had to b put an end to by the state In tho Interest of common decency. Should Be Terminated. If Justice were done, at least half of the maniiisres contracted should be ter-mlnnterj, ter-mlnnterj, or never entered Into. If a ."auction Is to be found for marriage and the birth of children. It must be found In what mnrrlncre aetually Is nnd In what Hill.-tren may In thl world become absolutely ab-solutely recardless whether there be another an-other world or not In conditions which Fhall mk married life successful and tfrslrahle. In the process of molclnc marriage mar-riage possible for all healthy sons, and In son-.e nobler and finer purpose by which mnrrlaso shall be found good. Thnt purpose cannot he found In the mere propagation of the r.vo. it has got to be ihnwn that the nice I.- worth propagating propagat-ing before It will have any moral value. Do you not know that today and for many years past religion has not been and' Is not being taken seriously? I don't know why nu alleged religion which violates vio-lates every Instinct of Inttilectual self-respect, self-respect, which lays on men's souia no heroic burden, wlilcji becson towoijj future with no inspiring Jnpenl'J- "renteno men s sou s with no Ijracm, nml " beneficent ta.k, shouM 'dK!? r!oulv. It cannot he hy fpane pe3Pfe, It ean only enslave and shrive and le;.l the Ignorant and n"olf .rlny which Is ih dry rot of elw The onlv religion that can be JfW. rlousiy la" a religion all of whoso sac jJjri n-j. all of whose moral n"'1? or who?e worth nrlso from the senw ;JKJ(J. In u. men and women, and nowhere " all of God there Is. nl of thre Is all of r,sPnn8,yi?ftnt,lSi We cannot know such a rnjllon, knowing that It covers atfTQr whole of Hfe. every day n,. Mg relationship, every occupaUon--wii2ll being norved by ihe resolut or 1 "HSlpt all me tonch or handle sacred by mJ Iir Juat the kind and free and Jtft |