Occasionally, as space permits, the Journal will present brief selections from leading periodicals and prominent authors, not as Scientific statement per se, but as indicators of the general trend of thought in its responsive onward march. To save all misconception, pertinent introductory will accompany items thus presented, where their drift is not clearly self-evident. In conscious perusal of such, it is both comforting and essential to know that the Power equal to nine-tenths of an error, is unquestionably equal to the other one-tenth. In this light, even "high attenuation" loses its terrors of fancied power. The following is clipped from a late Illinois daily.
The Rev. H. O. Rowlands preached a timely and pertinent discourse on "Leaving and Cleaving," at the LaSalle Avenue Baptist Church last night. The text selected was: For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.— Mark x. 7. "Spiritual truths are applicable to actual human experience," he said. "When, therefore, at the beginning of the new year we leave the old past we must adopt some means to carry us forward through the coming twelvemonth. There are always those who look back on bygone days and call them better. It is the better part to leave it and cleave to the future. God is good, the future is good, and a living dog is better than a dead lion, a living future than a dead past. Old ideas become supplanted. The anthropomorphic conception of God, the six winged angels, the literal hell of fire and sulphur, the heaven built like a beautiful city— these are matters in which the people are losing faith. But there is a real God of love and spirit, of mercy and justice; there are real angels, our mothers and wives and the providences of God; there is real hell, in the drunkard's home and the ill-health of the dissolute. Man's maladjustment to his environment is hotter and more intense than anything of which Dante dreamed; there is a real heaven of inexpressible joy, light, and love — our adjustment to God. It is well to leave the old ideas and cleave to the new, but not merely for the sake of leaving them but because something is gained that is better, truer, higher. It is well at this time to 'swear off,' as the saying is, though the New Year is frequently spent in making resolutions so numerous that it takes the other 364 days to break all, but it is good only when we leave the things which are bad and cleave to something better for nobility and strength." In conclusion a valuable lesson was drawn by Mr. Rowlands that but one resolution was ever necessary, and that was a vow to live as one ought. "And that," he urged, "can never be done by merely trying to leave a life of sin but by giving yourself and your actions to God."
