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Show G0M REtlGjOUS LOGIC Declares "Miracles" Are Without Foundation in Reason. Emphasis and comment upon the unerring un-erring certainty of universal laws. with equally emphatic statements that reason can find no logical basis for "miracles" or "special providence." featured the address ad-dress of the Rev. Elmer I. Goshen at the First Congregational church yesterday morning, tins being the third of his lectures lec-tures on "A Thought Program for Today." To-day." Cpon the first phase of his theme, Dr. Goshen said n part: . "We live in a universe that is guided everywhere by law. From tiie meanest weed by the wayside to the embroidery of the stars in the sky; everything is under the con trol of law. Law shepherds the planets; law leads the seasons in a procession pro-cession that is always the same: law holds granite peak and trembling mountain moun-tain da'sy, each in its place: law leads the water drops as they trickle down the mountainsides, and law controls them when they nestle in the bosom of, the mighty deep. Back of everything, through everything, guiding everything, is j law. ueasuu uiMiiui i uiei o is a su- preme intelligence in the universe because I law could not exist without it. Law is I not self-existent. The crudest law on the statute books proves beyond any possible doubt that some lawmaker made it. And i when we find a perfect system of law, I as we do in the universe, then, as a matter of iiv-re intelligence, we know that there is a law-giver great enough to ac-1 ac-1 count tor the law." I Pointing out that dogmas of Christian 1 j theology, ''seeking to present tlie plan of God's dealings with man.'' were formulated formulat-ed at a time when men knew next to nothing of the natural laws that govern the universe, hence did not take into account ac-count natural phenomena. Dr. Goshen reached the positive conclusion that so- I called "miracles" had no place in a mod- I em thought program and made the state- I ment that unless the church, as a whole, j shook off the shackles of superstition that j had dominated it for centuries, it would soon lose Its uplift force and die. "It is a painful sin and a disgrace," he doclareji, "thai in nine-tenths of the pul- ; pits, in nine-tenths of the Sunday schools ; they st ill preach and teach that Joshua made the sun stand still." ' j The speaker also laid stress upon the j statement that as no physical law of the i universe can be broken without the vio- lator paying the penalty, no spiritual law-can law-can be broken with less certainty of punishment. The laws of cause and effect, ef-fect, of compensation, of like begets like, are Just as true in the spiritual world as is the law of gravitation in the physical world, and the sooner .humanity realizes that every one pays the full consecpuences 1 of his own act, the sooner will the world j of thought move surely on toward the sunlight of truth and understanding. I The subject of Dr. Goshen's address i next Sunday will be "Man. His Relation to the Universe and to Law." |