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Show . . 'LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT."- In the following able editorial The Salt Lake Herald takes issue with the Princeton minister who condemns the hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light." "The Rev. Dr. W. A. Patterson of Princeton. Ind., believes the beautiful old hymn, 'Lead, Kindly Light,' should be excluded from all the Christian j churches. He says it 'may mean anything that any man chooses to make it mean, be he Christian, Pantheist Pan-theist or Buddhist." Dr. Patterson ought to travel ; around for' two or three years and broaden himself out a bit. The chances are that he has lived in a little town so long that he is unable to see anything outside of a very narrow circle. "What difference does it make if a Buddhist, a Pantheist, an atheist, a Chinese, a Jap or a cannibal can-nibal king can get comfort out of 'Lead, Kindly Light j' For he.a-en's sake let them get all the comfort com-fort they can, but because they might possibly comfort com-fort themselves with it, does that constitute a reason rea-son for denying Christian people the blessed satisfaction- they derive from hearing the beautiful words and the music thai accompanies them? "Dr. Patterson might as well say we should stop eating bread because some heaten have been known thus to sustain life for a considerable period. And we should go in out of the sunlight because the same sun that warms us also warms people who do not believe in the Christian religion. That sort of doctrine might have been accepted as the true stuff seven or eight centuries ago, but it is far, far' out of date now. Dr. Patterson was born some' hundreds hun-dreds of years too late. As it is, he's going to have a mighty hard time inducing people to give up a hymn that, with a large majority of those who have heard it, is a favorite. "'Lead, Kindly Light, cheered and comforted President McKinley in his dying hours; it brought tears to the eyes of thousands at his funeral. And it has given cheer and comfort to taany hundreds of thousands of people since it was first sung. The thought in the hymn is true and pure and ennobling. It gives the singer and the hearer a belief that somewhere, beyond 'the encircling gloom,' there is a light and a power that will lead them, though the way be dark, though they be far from home, safely to n brighter, a more blessed haven of eternal rest. "The dictum of no preacher can tear 'Lead, Kindly Light'' from the liearts of the American' people." |