| OCR Text |
Show TWO KINDS OF REVIVALS NEEDED. (By Geo. E. Lockwood). We need in this country a revival of religion and of patriotism. We need a revival of religion because be-cause it furnishes the only code of ethics that has ever proved of any practical account. We have overproduction overpro-duction of about everything in this country but character. Washington truly said that religion is the nursery of character, and character is the cement which holds our civilization together. It is one of the grave penalties of a period of luxury and ease that it destroys the tendency to serious thought. For that lack of serious thought we are paying the price today. to-day. Whenever things go wrong under un-der a representative form of government govern-ment it must be charged up to the selfishness and indifference of the people whose responsibility it is to create and renew this government. About half of our citizens do not even take the trouble to vote, and if they were not pounded into action by political organizations the percentage would be less than half that. Every complaint against corruption, corrup-tion, incompetency, greed and graft in government is an indictment of the citizenship which tolerates and endures and even supports the sort of officialism under which these abuses develop. If only those who have done their full duty as citizens, the sovereigns of a republic, were to complain about these evils, the noise they make would be inconsiderable. The complaint that the oncoming generation is less serious and more indifferent than the old, has some basis, but not so much as is generally believed. The character of the young is formed by the mature and the old, not so much by precept as by example. ex-ample. It was commonly taught and believed be-lieved during our more prosperous years as a nation that "getting by" with the least possible, effort was an evidence of cleverness. Hard work came to be regarded as at best a necessary evil, and any sort of hardship hard-ship for the individual something to be resented in outcry against the social soc-ial and economic system under which such a thing was possible. But work is not a curse, but a blessing. It is essential, to the development devel-opment not only of the body, but the mind. It liberates, develops and inspires in-spires men. The unused hand withers. fore they can realize the essential need of religion. We need a revival of religion and patriotism. And religion, under wrong-headed leadership, is seeking too much to divorce itself from patriotism. pat-riotism. The one great emotion cannot can-not destroy the other without destroying des-troying itself. In patriotism is wrapped wrap-ped up the loyalty to home and kindred, kin-dred, to principles and ideals: behind it in our history is the; moving tradition tradi-tion of heroism and sacrifice that runs from generation to generation. The two go together, and he who would separate one of these vital loyalties from the other, would destroy des-troy both. The unused heart hardens. With use all these organs are developed and strengthened. The best school Americans ever attended was the harsh college of the wilderness, which presented obstacles to men which made it necessary for them to toil and think and struggle. If youth of today is less serious-minded, serious-minded, less purposeful, less courageous, cour-ageous, less independent than the youth of a generation ago, it is because be-cause it has, on the whole, been its misfortune to have things too easy. Few men either think or work unless they are driven to it by a necessity which seems malevolent, butis actually ac-tually beneficient. The present period of depression will make more men than it breaks; will make them in character though it break them in fortune, for-tune, and thereby give them a usefulness useful-ness and thoughtfulness and happiness happi-ness that is of more value than material ma-terial wealth. We are told that the oncoming generation takes no interest in religion, reli-gion, because it is too little related to life. Religion is something that no one does anyone else any particular personal favor by studying or accepting. ac-cepting. "Religion deals with 'the origin and destiny of men beyond the horizon, behind and in front, to which their eyes can reach, and within with-in those horizons helps work out the problem of the individual's relation rela-tion to truth and to his fellowmen. If either youth on age is not of its own initiative interested in such a problem, prob-lem, it is because the distractions of the temporary completely absorb them. Many of them will have to meet the sorrows and difficulties in life which sober and make thoughtful be- |
