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Every Day That the Sun Rises—This World Is Better
Copyright, 1912, by Ameri- an-Journal-Examiner. Great Britain Right# Reserved
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YOU do not know this earth or its
beauty, unless you have seen the
sun rise—often.
The dark night softens and
loses power. The stars, soon to he
conquered by the great star nearest to us,
grow dim as a greater light approaches. Those
other stars, each in its distant spot, tell of the
work that is done by light and power on end
less millions of planets throughout the infinite
universe.
Blackness changes to gray that is almost
black. The trees become distinct. The birds
wake up and with twittering and fluttering pre
pare for another day.
Toward the east the sky becomes softer, the
light of dawn spreads across the fields, and then
come the first rays shooting upward against the
round surface of our earth to tell that the great
sun is coming.
R R R
To the eye and the imagination of man
nothing is more beautiful and impressive than
that rising sun, increasing imperceptibly and
yet with marvellous speed from the faintest
beginning of light to the full splendor of bril
liant day.
Billions upon billions of times the sun in
%
his rising is reflected in the dewdrops on the
leaves, in the spray that the ocean w aves throw
into the air. in the eyes of waking creatures.
A night that was black and a planet that
was asleep are changed into a wonderful day
of light and into a wonderful earth of activity
and eager labor.
Throughout the ages, the thousands and
the hundreds of thousands of centuries, that
wonderful sight has been repeated every day—
the sun rising and doing his work upon the
planet, and setting to continue that, work—
always rising, always setting, never still, never
absent—and every second improving the
planet given to us.
R R R
The sun’s heat and light, his bombardment
of * ur planet by imperceptible bodies neces
sar\ Io our existence, his influence upon our
atmosphere and our vegetation have changed
th- earth from dreadful chaos into the planet
that we now know and inhabit. And the sun's
Each day, for millions of years, never failing, the beau
tiful sun has risen upon this continent, or upon the great
waste of waters that covered what is a continent to-day.
Each rising of the sun found the earth better, nearer the per
fection that is the earth 9 s destiny.
What the sun in the heavens is to this material planet,
education, the sun of knowledge and progress, is to the
human mind. Its rising drives away the clouds and promises
the new and better day.
work continuing through the thousands of
centuries ahead of us w ill make of this planet
a most beautiful and perfect garden, ready for
the perfect civilization that will exist bore one
day, realize the dreams of the boldest dream
ers, and put to shame those that have dared to
set a limit to man's n°"’ p r and to the grandeur
of the home that is given to him.
R R R
What the sun. our great father and giver of
light, is to the material earth and to material
man, education, THE SUN OF KNOWL
EDGE. is to the mind of man and to his spirit
ual life.
♦
Truth and knowledge, like the sun, have
travelled around this earth through the cen
turies.
From the east so the west knowledge b s
gone steadily—a brilliant sun growing in
brightness with the years.
Toward the sun of education men turn their
faces hopefully, and the hope will not be dis
appointed.
The sun that lights our planet and the sun
of knowledge that brings light to the mind of
man both dissipate clouds and drive away
darkness.
R R R
This planet of ours was a dreadful abode
in the old days before the sun had done his
splendid work. Monsters inhabited it, flying
lizards, giant dinosaurs bigger than ten ele
phants. Fearful swamps and morasses covered
it. The air was so heavy, so filled with noxious
gases that no creature now living could pos
sibly have breathed on the earth in those days.
Day by day, year by year, century by cen
tury. through millions upon millions of years,
the sun has worked, and we have a planet now
upon which man can live and upon which he
has .JUST BEGUN the task of arranging for
himself a harmonious home worthy of a think
ing being.
R R R
Education has done for the mind of man
what the sun has done for the planet beneath
our feet.
Education has driven away the clouds of
brutality, superstition, ignorance and hatred—
some of them at least. And the clouds that
remain grow thinner day by day. and the light
through them grows clearer.
Men in the beginning were as barbarous
and vile, comparatively, as was the old earth in
the day of dinosaurs and pterodactyls.
Read the history of men, especially the his
tory of their religious beliefs—reflecting men’s
ow n vices and virtues—and you see a picture
almost too dreadful for contemplation.
In history you can look upon men when
they were all cannibals—except a few’ too
feeble and timid to kill and eat their fellow’s.
You can look upon nations calling them
selves “civilized" as we call ourselves civilized
to-day. and you find those nations believing
that they could please their gods by sacrifices
of living beings—even of living human beings.
You find the man of power slaughtering
helpless slaves and burying them beneath the
cornerstone of a new house “to bring good
luck and propitiate the evil spirits.”
And later you found conditions as vile—
infinitely w orse, in fact, since they existed side
by side with intelligence and knowledge fairly
well developed.
You found in Europe in the Middle Ages
and later men possessing all the knowledge
accumulated by the Greeks and Romans
BURNING ONE ANOTHER ALIVE.
You found the hearts of diTcront religions,
each in the name of a Being w ho had given <
His life for the poo”. burning, torhirir* ■-■y
enuring all4hat failed tn agree w»fh their vic’v
—ALTHOUGH THEY HAD THE SAME
GOD.
You could sec men burned alive b n ca”'2
they discovered new’ truths you could see
threatened with death because fhwv ba r - d n ’ 1
to announce that 4 hc earth v?s rnuid Y”»’i
could find human brings nrricrdinv 4 o ex ■-
else the now 7 ers of God—savages in A
jungle, witch doctors fooling a chief jpfo
lieving that ho had syallmrri r riHynfor,
or equally nronosterovs leaders of reliri«n m
Europe of various denominations leading
rulers to believe that tbpv could giv n eternal
happiness for a financial consideration. nr
punish with eternal hell and damnation the
withholding of that financial consideration.
R R R
4
This was a vile earth, in the savage days
before our beautiful sun had begun to put it
in order. It is had enough still w ith its desert?
and its swamps, but it shows signs of im
provement.
This was a vile earth of ours, before <he
great and beautiful sun of education had be
gun to put the human mind in order. It is h 1
enough still, with its prejudices, its supersti
tions, its hatreds, its wars, its billions for bat
tle. its coldness toward the poor.
But it is a better world than it was; th? H
is breaking; those that nave their faces turned
toward the sun of knowledge see the clouds
disappearing, know that the full day is com
ing and hope that it is not far olb
R R R
Among those that in the old days made and
w orshipped the gods of their ow n manuf?" 4 ”
or invention, the most dignified perhaps were
the sun worshippers. They worshipped Gi?
most beautiful thing within the range of their
vision.
M e do not any longer w orship inanimate
objects. And those that are intelligent do not
worship any imitation of man. any revenge!?’*,
repulsive, torturing and hating creature. Me
are not sun worshippers, but we are in a n ent I
sense worshippers of the new sun. the sun of
knowledge and education, the sun that will
make men equal, that will put light in the dark
places, the sun that is destined in the years to
come to answer upon this planet that most
beautiful prayer. “Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.”