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The Importance of Religion in Man RELIGION is the one progres sive force in this world. Relig ious feeling gives to man the power that has lifted him above the other animals, and that has lifted his graze from the earth g’wr’ and its selfish interests, to the sky, to the stars, and to highest abstract speculation. Os all the animals that live and feel and suffer upon this earth, man alone looks upward The eagle flying in the daytime. q nd the owl fl v ing at night, look always downward for some thing to kill and to eat -they have the power to fly, but nc power to send their thoughts * o the glorious, inspiring sun, or to the stars that shine above them. Man aJone through the ages, gradually landing erect, has at last fixed his gaze upward, and for a few thousand years in the tens of thousands that he has lived on this earth, his chief interest has been RELIGIOUS. Religion has freed men, during the evolu tion of religious thought, from brutalities, superstitions, hatred and cruelty. Religion freed the slaves, abolished infanti cide. and gave to the serf the right to own the land on which he worked. And the power of religion has only begun its work. In days to come man’s true religious feel and conviction will free children from the torture of poverty, of hard work, and all misery, just as the early Christians saved the children from the curse of infanticide by holding the mothers responsible and declaring that no child could go to Heaven that had not been baptized. Religion in time will give to women their rights, full protection, including the protection from oppressive labor, and realize the teachings of Jesus, who was the first and the greatest of all advocates of the rights and the equality of women. Religious feeling is as varied in its expres «ion as the races and the individuals that inhabit the earth. And every religious feeling has its value, whether it be the dull mental groping of some negro kneeling before an idol, the vague feeling of Napoleon on the ship that carried him to St. Helena, pointing toward the stars and saying to his companions and his jailers, “AU that means something,” or the feeling of such a man as John Brown, actually taking seriously the'words of Christ, “One is your Master, and all ye are brethren.” There has been no progress on this earth, except progress born of religious feeling using the word religion as expressing man’s duty to his fellows, and especially to the weak and the poor. Religious feeling and enthusiasm lend power to the brain and develop all of its facul ties. Religion is the highest expression of the imagination of man. and imagination is man’s greatest force in all the work of life. When nations and individuals become in ’’fferent to th* 1 h : Q-hest things, fix their minds exclusively on this earth, its selfish interests nd pleasures, they go down and soon are for gotten. The man living upon this planet, able to look up at the stars and the clouds, whose chief interest is not in the power, the justice and the law that rule throughout the universe, is as much to be pitied, and as low in the intellectual scale as some dog that never looks upward— unless to bark at a cat, or a squirrel in a tree. Bible classes, organized for young men, are of especial value. It is a pity that they are not more numerous, more largely attended. A man may begin the study of the Bible in his childhood and read it to the last day of his life, always finding new inspiration, new thought and new meaning. The most beautiful and powerful writing that has ever been done is in Isaiah. No man can pretend that he has studied his own language unless he is familiar with the Bible, both the Old and the New Testament. To those that are unfortunate, the Bible offers consolation that never fails. Millions of mothers condemned to see their children die in infancy have found comfort and strength in Christ’s words, “Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in Heaven.” For those upon whom the troubles and borrows of the world press heavily, there is more The Great Napoleon, Agnostic and Hostile to Religion, r Yet Pointed to the Stars From the Deck ol the Ship on the Way to His Last Prison, St. Helena, Saying: “Say What You Please, Some One Created and Controls All That” He Said at St. Helena: “There Is So Much That One Does Not Know, That One Cannot Explain.” Lord Rosebery, in His “Napoleon, the Last Phase,” Says: “One of the Books That Napoleon Loved Most to Read Aloud Was the Bible —and He Was, We Are Told, a Great Admirer ot St. Paul.” This Editorial Is Written By Request to Be Read in a Young Men’s Bible Class. WHX ~n„ ■ 'WI IB' TLwL I ' HL-Wx I BH* 'I • ,f ‘ MWbI : xWIB 7 wI I S al 1H \ f ' r " ? comfort in the Sermon on the Mount than in all the books of philosophy that have ever been written. “Blessed are the poor in spirit * * * “Blessed are they that mourn * * * “Blessed are the meek * ♦ * “Blessed are the merciful * * “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you.” f Copyright 1912, by the Star Company. Great Britain Right* Reserved The greatest preacher of equal ity, a believer in the rights of man more powerful and earnest than all the French philosophers, a de fender of women and children, one whose heart was always with the sorrowful, was the founder of the Christian religion. There is comfort for the poor and unhappy and a warning for the rich and those overcon fident in their own wisdom, judg ment and power in the Bible. “Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. “Your riches are corrupted and your gar ments are motheaten. “Your gold and silver is can’ a red; and +he rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it weie fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. I “Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: And the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. “Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.” If a man appears on this earth with a new idea of kindness, a message of hope for the poor, a plan to take the burden and the sorrow from the backs of the weak, he is mocked and jeered by those that consider themselves wise. It is a good thing for the over-confident who sneer at !*wn''».'>www u J-" wwrm I-' three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross.’ “Likewise also the chief priests, mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said: “‘He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross and we will believe Him. “ ‘He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him; for he said, I am the Son of God.’ i “The thieves also, which were crucified with Him, cast the same in his teeth. ” Every Bible class, and every man and woman in or out of a Bible class, should study over and over that last scene in the life of Christ—the crucifixion. The brutality and ignorance of the mob that demanded the free dom of Barrabas, the political agitator, when they might have freed and heard Christ; the journey to the hill outside Jerusalem called Golgotha, meaning “the skull”; the poor women collecting money to buy and give to the con« demned a drink that should stupefy them and diminish pain, and the touching picture of Christ, putting the rim of the cup to his lips and refusing to drink, refusing to diminish the sor row and horrible suffering that he had willingly brought upon himself for the sake of others. In all the history of the world there is no picture such as that on Golgotha, the patient, upturned face of the sufferer destined to change the world, the Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross gambling for his scanty garments, the rabble hooting, the thieves on either side de nouncing Him because the miracle they hoped for did not come; the faitnful women, Mary Clecpahs, Mary of Magdala, Joanna, wife of Khouza, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, watch ing patiently until death should come, and give His body back to them. i Many are the wonderful scenes of heroism and self sacrifice painted in history by men willing to die for the truth. But there is nothing to compare with that one great picture, the crucifixion and the hst words of Christ: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Until a man has studied the character of Christ, and the effect of his teachings, no other study is worth while. Unless a man possesses a deep religious feeling, no other feeling is worth while. A philosopher, drunk with his own conceit and scientific research, may say of the Divin* Being: “I have no need of that hypothesis.” But the boast is false. Every wonder in Nature, and every proof of permanent, un changing justice and law, demonstrate that there is need of that “hypothesis” and that, as Voltaire said, in his sardonic wav, “If there had not been a God it would have been necessary to invent one.” Religious feeling opens the mind, lifts the spirit from the earth, changes man from a self ish animal to a cosmic being in sympathy and in touch with universal life and thought. " Pity the man who is the centre of his own universe, and who fails to realize that thought is given us to study and revere the infinite with which religion alone can bring us into contact and spiritual fellowship. hope and earnestness to read in the Bible of the jeers and the in sults poured out by those that surrounded Christ dying: 1 ‘And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads. i “And saying, ‘Thott that destroyest the tem ple, and buildest it in