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Show RELIGION OF WILLIAM MORRIS REV. BROWN DRAWS LESSON FROM GREAT POET. "All Men Should Have Work to do Which Shall Be Worth Doing and . Not Overwearisome." At Unitarian hall last evening, Rev. William Thurston Brown, in speaking from the life of William Morris, said In part First of all, said Morris, we ct&Jm the right to good health, and we dare to say that a vaet proportion of people peo-ple In civilization scarcely know what it means. To leel life a pleasure; to en-Joy en-Joy the moving of one's limbs and exercising ex-ercising one's bodily power; to play, as It were, with the sun and wind and rain; to rejoice In satisfying the due bodily . appetites of a human animal without fear of degradation or sense of wrongdoing; yes, and therewithal to be well-formed, straight-limbed, strongly knit, expressive of countenance counten-ance to be, in a word, beautiful that also we claim. And where is the man who c'ares to dispute the Justice of this claim? And yet, the economic system under which we suffer nullifies this claim. It cannot be satisfied or fulfilled under un-der that system. If a man Is overworked over-worked In any degree he cannot en-Joy en-Joy health; nor can he If he Is chained chain-ed to one full round of mechanical work, with no hope at the other end of it; nor If he lives In continual sordid anxiety for his livelihood; nor if he is ill-housed, nor If he Is deprived of all enjoyment of the natural beauty of the world, nor if he has no amuBe-ment.to amuBe-ment.to quicken the flow of his spirits from time to time. All these things beleng to this claim for good health as the right of every man. . The next thing we claim Is educa- done under such conditions as trooKI make It neither over-wearisome obr oer-anxlous. .... "Turn that claim about as I may, ' .think of it is long as I can, I canaot find that it is an exorbitant claim; yet again I say. If society wonld or could admit it, the face of tho world would be changed: discontent and strife and dishonesty would be ended. To feel that we were doing work useful use-ful to others an J pleasant to ourselves. '. and that such work and its due reward could not fail us! What serious harm , could happen to U3 then? And tbe j price to be paid for so making the t j world happy Is Revolution." . j happy; and if that foe the case, then let us stifle all aspirations toward progress nay, all' feelings of' mutual good will and affection between men , and snatch each one of us what he can j from the heap of wealth which fools I create for rogues to grow fat on; or, better still, let us as speedily as possible pos-sible find some means of dying like men, since we are forbidden to live like men." j 'T have looked at this claim by the light of history and my own con-; science, and it seems to me so looked at to be a most Just claim, and that j resistance to it means nothing short of a denial of the hope of civilization. This, then, is the claim. "It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should be tlon. And In spite of the fact of our common school system, great gain though it be over anything our ancestors ances-tors knew, the education which these schools afford do not satisfy this claim. And no system of schools that is possible pos-sible under a capitalistic system, under un-der a social order which rests upon the basis of class government and class interests, - can possibly furnish the education which is the right of men today. The education to which we confidently lay claim is opportunity to have one's share of whatever knowledge knowl-edge there Is in the world according to one's capacity or bent of mind; to have one's share of skill of hand either In Industrial handicrafts or in the fine arts; picture painting, sculpture, music,, mu-sic,, acting, and 'the like. It is tho claim of Socialists that every man be given opportunity to develop all that he is capable of. and all the forces of society are working together, directly or indirectly, to warrant that claim. Its Justice cannot be disputod without with-out denying all that is finest in civilization civil-ization and blotting out all the noblest achievements of human history. This -clalm; for education carries with it the claim for abundant leisure. Does that seem too ideal a claim to make? It ought to be evident to tho blindest that even under our present wasteful system labor could be so directed di-rected and employed as to afford far greater leisure than Is et realized. And when once the slavery of profit-making profit-making is thrown off, labor will inevitably inevit-ably .be organized so . economically, that no heavy burden, need be borne by any individual. As it is. In spite of the bewildering multitude of so-called so-called "labor-saving machinery," not a man works' an hour less- on account of them.- They are a misnomer, and they are so, not because they might not lighten the burden of toll, but because be-cause they are In the possession of one small class of men and are used primarily pri-marily and solely for the ' production of profits for that small class. Under a happier and saner order of things they would be used for the .purpose of saving sav-ing labor, with the result of a vast amount of leisure gained for the community com-munity to be added to that gained, by the avoidance of waste of useless luxury, and the abolition of commercial commer-cial war. For Socialism, or in other words, genuine religion, contempfates a social order In which men shall be of more Importance than things. But there is another claim which we most earnestly make, and that is for work that shall be useful and regular. No claim is more vital than this, none more fundamental. Unless this claim can be satisfied, noither bodily health nor anything worthy to be called an education is. possible. No 6oclal order which does not make not only possible, but sure for all its citizens some sort of useful employment is a tolerable toler-able condition under -which to live. And this work which a man is entitled to have miiBt be reasonable work and it must be suited to tho capacities of the work. It must be such work as a good citizen can see. a. necessity for. If it be objeoted by some one that no one would consent to do the sort of work that involves danger or hardship, hard-ship, it should be replied that machinery ma-chinery is more and more taking the place of men in that kind of work, and further still that no work which represented a real service to the community com-munity and which did not Involve hopeless drudgery would lack for volunteers vol-unteers In a condition of freedom. He who says that men will efficiently respond re-spond only to the incentive of personal per-sonal profit ln.undertaklng.difficult or dangerous or disagreeable tasks shows a complete Ignorance of history. ' The last claim which we make for our work is that the places where it is to be done shall be pleasant. With the exception of a very. few occupations, occupa-tions, there is nothing prevents this being done excopt" the necessity of making profits on goods' for those who do not work. In other words, the goods, are cheapened at the expense of the people being forced to work In crowded, unwholesome, squalid, noisy dens; that is to say, they are cheapened cheap-ened at the expense of the workman's life. You cannot even Imagine the elimination of the element of profit, without knowing that It would mean at once a reversing of this soul-destroying order of things: making life the supreme thing and all else secondary. sec-ondary. I cannot better conclude this sermon ser-mon on the religion of William Morris than in two significant utterances of his. Said' he: "If civilization (as many think) forbids the hope of attaining at-taining such conditions of life, then civilization forbids mankind to bo ROLLER SKATING EXCURSION TO SALT LAKE AUDITORIUM Trains leave Bamberger Station at 6:30 Friday evening, arriving at Salt Lake Auditorium at 7:30." It Is to be a Holler Skate Special, stopping no place until destination Is reached, making the trip in one hour. 'Return train leaves Salt Lake at 10:43. Street car servlco will be provided at Ogden. Faro $1.00 round trip, with admission and skates free "to all excursionists. Requests to attend the auditorium skating parties at Salt Lake have been so numerous that this special has been put on to accomodate. They will be continued if successful. We aro providing transportation capacity for 1 four, hundred. A merry time is expected ex-pected and a largo attendance assured. Tickets will be ou pale at Mathew's Candy Store and at the depot. |