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Science, "So fight I, not as one that beateth the air;" this was not the understanding of John, who wrote, "I write unto you young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one." Christ and the Apostles suffered no illusion on this subject. They did not regard sin as nothing, nor did they teach their followers so to regard it. To them it was a very real and a very terrible entity.

For ourselves, we wish to repudiate with all the vigor of which we are capable this pleasing but treacherous optimism. It is a very Delilah who summons man to go to sleep in her lap with assurances that there is no enemy near, only that she may deliver him over to his enemy. Sin the Westminster Catechism defines as any violation of or want of conformity to the law of God; sin John defines yet more tersely as "lawlessness;" sin Paul describes as the supremacy in man of the lusts of the flesh over the higher will of the spirit. Sin as thus defined and described is real, actual, aggressive, the terrible tragedy of human life. It is no mere nightmare, which will disappear when we awaken; it is no mere absence of goodness which glides away noiselessly and without a struggle before our higher aspirations, as the darkness disappears before the sunlight. Sin is lawlessness; sin is the spirit of a self-will setting divine law at defiance, or the spirit of self-indulgence acting in serene indifference to law, as though there were no higher will than one's own. Sin is to be feared; sin is to be fought: in one's self and in society. The serenity which smiles and folds its hands and says sin is nothing will never conquer sin. This spirit will not close saloons, nor lessen gamblinghalls, nor rescue fallen women, nor emancipate the slave, nor overthrow despotic government, nor purify governments that are corrupt, nor in the individual vanquish his appetite, his lust, his pride, his selfconceit, his self-will. Sin is real, actual, terrible, a spiritual reality. It is an incident of a world of men whose wills are free to follow or to reject God and goodness, and who often choose to reject both. It cannot be argued out of existence by any such syllogism as, God is infinite and God is good, therefore there can be no evil. There is evil; and no philosophy can be intellectually or morally sound which denies its terrible reality.

In this illusion lies the power of Christian Science; its doctrine of metaphysical healing is subordinate and secondary. There are a great many sweet and pious souls who wish to believe only good about mankind and only pleasant things about life. They never read the novels, the past history, or the current records which depict in strong colors the evil passions of mankind and their consequences; they even think, or try to think, that whatever portrays immorality is immoral. Their motto is, Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise, and to them ignorance of the darker and more terrible aspects of life is always bliss. A philosophy which declares that there is no sin, it is only nothing, and no misery except in imagination, and none, therefore, which imagination cannot cure, that all evil is a "mortal thought," and to meditate on God as love and love as infinite is a panacea, brings to such optimists a welcome relief from the pains and burdens of life. It is like an anodyne to one in pain; it brings no cure, but it brings a delicious forgetfulness. There are other souls whose bane is spiritual laziness. would be glad to "sit and sing themselves away to everlasting bliss," but they have no inclination to fight their way thither; they enjoy fondling their own aspirations as the father likes to play a little while with his baby before the serious business of the day begins; but they have neither the courage to fight evil in others nor the resolution to fight evil in themselves. The doctrine that there is no evil to be fought, that there is no higher virtue demanded of us than fondling our own aspirations, that to dream of goodness is to be good, that to meditate on God as love is to conquer sin, comes to such dreamers as a welcome relief from the summons of reformers without and of conscience within to a strenuous life. The attractiveness of Christian Science is not in its prescription for physical disease; it is in the opiate which it furnishes to the troubled sympathies and the troubled consciences of the sensitive and the sentimental.

They

For half a century at least the doctors have been treating man as a physical machine and disease as a physical disorder, and have been prescribing drugs as the only remedy. Christian Science

as a method of medicine is a natural reaction against the materialism of medical science. For nearly half a century the pulpit has been emphasizing the love of God, and saying little about his righteousness; the apotheosis of humanity which American democracy borrowed from Rousseau the American pulpit has caught from democracy; in its reaction against the legalism of the older Puritanism it has been comparatively silent about the laws of God and the reality and terribleness of the spirit of lawlessness. Christian Science offers a further opiate to a public conscience which needs not to be lulled to sleep but aroused to action. The remedy for Christian Science is not in a direct attack, but in portraying the reality and terribleness of sin in society and in the individual, in summoning the soul to a successful battle against it, and, by a rational doctrine of the divine presence, inspiring a stronger, more reasonable, and more spiritual hope of redemption than Christian Science can ever inspire by calling on us to shut our eyes to the facts of life while it cries out concerning sin, It is naught, it is naught.

The Spectator

Blessed are the men and women of fine enthusiasms! A materialistic age cannot wither them, nor the world's custom of slamming doors in their faces rob them of their infinite courage. They are as a fresh breeze on a summer day, and while sometimes they blow a little too hard, they keep us thereby from stagnation and pessimism and inertia the while we are holding on our hats and wondering how long it will last. Such are the seers who build Utopias, and Icarias, and

Altrurias, and set the world a-thinking and a-moving. They do not become disheartened, like the rest of us, when their plans fail, but go to work again and make other and finer and better ones. Their

faith and hope prophesy their eventual triumph, even if they have to wait a long time to see the downing of the day they so eagerly and c ently expect.

These reflections are the result of a twenty-cent luncheon. If they are not

worth their cost, that must be put to the discredit of the Spectator and not of the luncheon. It may possibly seem strange to associate an enthusiasm for ideals with a cheap lunch-room; but stranger juxtapositions happen in this kaleidoscopic world. If the shortest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, as Mr. Beecher used to say, why should not the reformer open an eating-house instead of hiring a lecture-hall? At any rate, that is what these New York reformers have done.

Perhaps the Straight Edge people would not care to be called reformers. They sensible, simple way, doing their duty as really seem to be just trying to live in a sensible, simple way, doing their duty as it comes to them, and not making much fuss about it, even if they do print a paper. Their enthusiasm for the co-operative life is of the quiet and unobtrusive sort. Nevertheless, they are reformers. They are seeking to live in a wholesomer, better way than the grasping, selfishly strenuous world's people. And one of the first of their reforms is in the matter of food. "Nothing that ever squealed" is the motto on their bill of fare; and squealing apparently means also squawking, bleating, and lowing. The Spectator is willing to admit that a vegetarian luncheon is probably a good thing for most of us. Not, perhaps, if one is dreadfully hungry. There are times when only a porterhouse steak will fill the void and make one believe in the essential goodness of things; but as a feited, especially in summer; and a midgeneral thing Americans are meat-surday meal of good home-made bread, well-cooked potatoes, corn, tomatoes, and fresh fruit is calculated to make one "see straight and think clear." Then, too, these new co-operationists meet the common objection that a man generally goes away hungry from a vegetarian restaurant by the reassuring suggestion, "Pass up your plate a second time if you are not satisfied."

But it was the quality of the "help" that most pleased the Spectator in his visit to the new community. In the average restaurant one expects either servility or indifference from the waiter. The attitude of servility comes when there is a prospect

of a liberal tip; that of indifference or impertinence when there is reason to think that this will not be forthcoming. Here there was neither attitude. Pleasantvoiced, refined-looking girls were doing the work of supplying their guests with food, in something of the spirit in which the Master must have waited on his disciples; with a simple, quiet dignity that made one think that these waitresses must have well in mind Herbert's lines,

Who sweeps a room as for thy laws Makes that and the action fine. The Spectator learned that occasionally an impatient patron failed to appreciate the character of the service he was receiving and spoke inconsiderately to these young ladies, and that the offender was then pleasantly reminded that the cooperative spirit did not require or permit that kind of speech. Individual initiative, suggestion kindly worded and willingly received, and not "bossism," is the plan of work among the Straight Edgers.

The genial Straight Edge printer was at work at his case in the room next the restaurant. He was a kindly-looking man, with honest, straightforward eyes and a bronzed, collarless throat as his most conspicuous features; perhaps the kind of printer that Walt Whitman was in those early days in the sleepy Brooklyn printingoffice before he went on the road to see the world and get material for "Leaves of Grass." One could imagine that this Straight Edge man had a large fund of patience and forbearance to draw on, and would need much of it if he remained the head-no, the nucleus around which these co-operative workers had gathered. The Straight Edge motto is, "The application of the Teachings of Jesus to Business and Society." The Spectator asked the kindly printer man whether this meant accepting the Tolstoi interpretation of the nonresistance precepts. "Not exactly," was the reply; "it means that we must get along smoothly if possible. You know some great fighters don't believe in violence. Look at our politicians, for instance; they don't fight with clubs; they use diplomacy, the soft hand; and they generally accomplish their ends better than the men of violence. Then, too, we

believe in following the example of Jesus by being ourselves. If Jesus were here to-day, he would live his own life in his own way, act out his individuality through the methods best suited to his present surroundings. This we are trying to do. The teachings of Jesus to us are embodied in the precept, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'"

The world, alas! has been trying and failing to live up to that precept for nineteen centuries and part of the twentieth. Is it possible that this new co-operative society can make an ethical precept exercise the cohering power of sentiments such as have held together the religious societies of the past? Can the Straight Edgers escape the difficulty of the usual co-operative scheme in the lack of a binding motive? Sweet is the idea of harmony and love and common work for a common end, and alluring is the vision that leads one to enter these societies. The test comes when we find that we are doing the hard work and that our neighbor co-operator is a shirk-and this in an age that is but faintly affected by the thought of a Great Assize in which all industrious workers are to be rewarded and all idlers are to get their deserts, an age when an objective heaven in the future does not make the appeal that it did to the monkish co-operators. And when the inevitable moment comes when we get dissatisfied with some of our companions, there is lack of an overruling authority, within us or without, to compel us to make the best of our grievances and stay. The bright dreams of most of the co-operationists are sooner or later dispelled by the untractableness of human nature and the allurements of the ordinary human world. But the Spectator thinks that while this is true, neverthels these co-operative experiments pay while they last; that even if they do inevitably break up in the end, they furnish their own excuse for being in the genuine happiness they bring during their golden prime to the few choice spirits who really appreciate them. And thinking thus, the Spectator is glad that the Straight Edge has helped to touch New York's materialism with a ray of idealistic light.

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The Spirit of the New World as Interpreted by the Pan-American Exposition

BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

Illustrated with drawings by A. Fleury and photographs by C. D. Arnold

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No one who takes with him the memories of other great fairs the first impressions conveyed by the Pan-American Exposition are unity, harmony, and lightness. Years ago, before we had studied our own skies and knew our own architecture, the effect would have been called foreign; it is, in fact, significantly American. There are traces of Europe in it, as there are always traces of the past in every form of art and industry; for civilization is not national but racial, and each age builds for every age which succeeds it, and every people contributes something of its own making to the sum total of influences, institutions, and products of many kinds which we call civilization. The New World is not a new creation of a new race; it is the product of ancient races working out the problem of

life in a fresh field. As the individual touch of the man of creative spirit on old materials produces the new work of art, so the striving of individual races with novel conditions modifies their ancient inheritances and fashions a new order of art and life.

The Pan-American discloses this readjustment of old races to a fresh environment; this adaptation of ancient arts to the nature, the skies, the atmosphere of a new world. The older civilization lies behind the Pan-American, and gives it a rich and universal historical significance; but it is essentially an American creation. The wor American has never received, however, a broader or deeper interpretation; and the thoughtful visitor will find in the beautiful unity of the Exposition a parable which Americans of English

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