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Show ELOOJIENT ADDRESS Of ELDED WiABEY IN TJBEANJCLE A large congregation at the taber naclo yesterday afternoon, listened tc ono of the most eloquent and interest ing addresses that has been heard In that houso of worship in many months. The speaker was Eldoi Charles R. Mabey of Bountiful and hif subject was, "Tho Modern Fatalism and the European War." The service was conducted by Elder Heber Scowcroft and the following musical program was rendered: Organ Prelude Sam F. Whltakei Chorus, "In the Time of Roses" Tabernacle Choli Solo and chorus, "When My Feet Have Wandered" Douglass Brian and Choli Organ Solo Sam F. Whltnker Solo and chorus, "If I Could Know" Melba Read and Choir The Invocation was offered by Eld er Henry W. McCune and the address of Elder Mabey followed tho second selection by the choir. In opening his talk, the speaker stated that as tho subject of the European war was a delicate one, he did not wish to be understood .s being partisan in any of his argument. His father, he said, was a native of England and while that would have some tendency to turn his sympathies toward England, he had served three years as a Mormon Mor-mon missionary In Germany and had learned to love the people for their many splendid qualities. Mr, Mabey'6 Address. Continuing, he Bald: (I A l:.... .v - il , ., yuini-isu uuu me current literature litera-ture of the warring powers and clippings clip-pings from tho daily newspapers reads for the most part like ravings of human beings who dwell in a world from which tho Christ of love has been driven. Still, I venture to say that not all tho wrong has been committed on one side, that all belligerents bellig-erents have violated international law as best suited their needs. There is no international law when those who make it are concerned. "Believe It if we will or decry it if wo must, the entire world and, especially es-pecially that part which is most sorely sore-ly afflicted at this time, has been undergoing a change whose cause lies deeper than militarism and all of its offshoots. The cause of the present pres-ent war, with its attendant disregard for human life, must unquestionably be founded on a more solid foundation founda-tion than the wishes of the rulers of the nations engaged. Kings and emperors em-perors cannot carry on wars now without tho people. Neither can they step over all the rules which our rare culture holds dear, without public opinion behind them. Any nation is as high morally as its individual citizens citi-zens and no nation can rise save its citizens rise with It. 'I speak of more particularly of that morality which aspires to the doing of noble deeds. If tho general tone of morality of a people rises no higher than the level of spitefulness, of breaking our word, of imposing our will upon the weak, the nation certainly cannot go any higher. If a people has been steeped in certain teachings for two or three generations, those teachings will, perforce, per-force, be tht mainspring of all action. "And that is just what is taking place in France and Germany and England and tho United States today. The whole world haB turned away from the simple faith of the fathers. Tho bible and its precepts, which for so long has been the soul guide, has been thrown aside for the more alluring allur-ing and ingenious boolcs of the day. Anyone who is acquainted with tho mode of thought of the world must admit ad-mit that a spirit of hopeless fatalism has taken possession of the hearts of men and taken from them all the finer fin-er fruits of the soul. Faith is dead and sorrow sits enthroned where God once sat He who believes in tho miracles of the "good old book" and accepts its story as told from cover to cover is looked upon as a hopeless lunatic. We have dissected with knife and scalped the human soul and found out just what end to tickle In order to produce love, or hate, or covetousness or pride." "God is pushed out of the way altogether al-together and a demon called 'chauce'i rules the destinies of man. This fatalism fa-talism permeats to the very marrow, all modern life. In France, perhaps, its greatest exponent has been Emile Zola, who closes his book 'La Bite Humanaie,' with a description of a railroad train crowded with soldiers, dragged by an engine whose driver has been killed, dbing at headlong speed into the night. The train Is the world, 'we' are the freight, fate is the track, death is tho darkness, God is tho engineer who is dead. "But if Franco has had her writers writ-ers who have steeped her people in this kind of false doctrine for a half century, Germany may claim her legion of such. Religion as a vital force has disappeared from her national na-tional life. The beautiful story of Jesus is a myth. The pure toachings of Kant and her older philosophers are under disfavor. Two of her great thinkers now occupy the front of the stage, so much so that their ideas havo almost become a cult. These men are Nietsche and Haeckel, both of whom denounce Christianity as being be-ing the Gospel for the weak, and not a true expression of the goal of man. Haeckel says "We now ifcow that each act or the will is as fatally determined de-termined by the organization of the individual and as dependant on the momentary condition of his environment environ-ment as any other psychic activity." If Haeckel thought he was giving anything new he should have gone back to the philosophy o f ancient Persia and India. Ho further states that the fate of those branches of the human family which have struggled for existence and progress for thousands thou-sands of years, is determined by the same 'eternal laws of Iron' as is the history of the whole organic world. The fate of tho individual Ib determined deter-mined by a mechanical causality, which determines every single phenomenon phe-nomenon with one or moro antecedent antece-dent causes. "I do not know much about Zoology, Zo-ology, which was Hackel'B chosen field, nor about other brands of science, sci-ence, but 1 do know something about history and the development of my own soul, and I think that both give the lie to those statements of the famous Jewish professor. Whatever Haeckel's science may leach, my reason rea-son teaches me that I am master of my own fate, the builder of my own soul's palace. I mould my own character char-acter in my own way. "Rome did not fall because of any Immutable Iron laws of fate, but because be-cause she broke tho laws of God. She might have remained the mistress of the world today had she dropped her rottenness and her sin Rome fell because of her lack of cleanliness, love of justice and order and sho began be-gan to fall just as soon as the seeds of hopeless despair took hold of her. If Haeckel Is in the right, what about the Jews? They have been an 'hissing, 'his-sing, a reproach and a byword' among all the nations down through the entire en-tire Christian era, still they retain their hegemany as a people. Not because of certain iron clad rules of fate unless it be that God said, "I will sift the house of Israel even as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the lost grain fall upon tho earth," but because the Jews have lived cleaner lives than any other people and have kept up the clean family life that was theirs in the time of Abraham Abra-ham and Isaiah. Had every other nation na-tion lived true to those good old-fashioned old-fashioned traditions, they too, might have preserved their integrity. "Of the other German philosopher. Nietsche: he has denounced all religion re-ligion and treated all moral laws is a remnant of Christian superstition. He evolved a new ideal 'the Overman,' who is to be developed by giving unbridled un-bridled freedom to the struggle for existence. The 'overman' will seek only his own power and pleasure aid knows nothing of pjty. "Such is the gist of the doctrine of the doctrine that is the guiding star of the German empire today. No wonder that Nietsche's mind became unhinged In the latter years of his life! No wonder that strange actions ac-tions have taken possession of a people peo-ple whom we had learned to love. This 'overman,' this marvelous creation crea-tion which" knows no pity and will seek only its own power and pleasure, pleas-ure, is to take the place of the meek and lowly Jesus, whose gbspel of love was destined to overcome the world. "Standing here, many thousands of miles froi i the noise of the conflict in Europe, 1 am not one who wishes to indulge in homilies of the morality moral-ity of those who are now under fire. My own experience as a soldier taught me that war creates a now atmosphere, atmos-phere, an atmosphere as distant from the ordinary life of sanity as my concept con-cept of hell differs from my concept of heaven. Men are not acting under nornial conditions and they do not do normal things. Men who would shudder shud-der even at the thought of killing a fellow in time of peace, go about this business of killing with a sang frold that astounds even themselves. So 1 am not going to be one of those who stand up and criticize. Have we in America always shown the highest qualities under stress, and are wo still showing them in our private lives? For no nation can possibly rise above the level of Its citizenry. Do we profess ono thing 'and live another? an-other? Do we think it is right to be one thing in church and another in business? " 'The might makes right' idea now prevailing in Europe must fail, powerful pow-erful and popular though it may be. Tho 'overman' cannot and will not be. and He, who came into this world upholding the virtues of the weak, will yet take his position of powor as 'king of kings and lord of lords,' "Take all the wealth of this world away, all the learning, all the knowledge knowl-edge of our proud civilization, all the show, all the glamour of position and tho pomp of place, and reserve unto the race, the high morality, the high sense of justice the spirit of lovo that comes from sincere belief In the meek and lowly Jesus and I will rebuild re-build the structure of civilisation, grander, nobler and more sublime than it is now. It was doue once when tho pure, thougn savage Germanic Ger-manic hordes, swept over Italy! centuries cen-turies ago and received of the light of Christianity and It can bo done again." Tho benediction was pronounced by Elder C. J. Brown. |