A Meditations By Kaxton CLEAR stream does not flow from a foul source; nor does an honest, patriotic, and wise government spring from the ranks of a corrupt, selfish, and ignorant people. We have long since discarded the old time fallacy that all government is handed down pure and spotless, from the skies. If governments are divine, they are humanly divine, and can never be more divine than the humanity from which they spring. The divine right of Kings is no more an exploded myth than the divine right of presidents. Republics arise from the conflict and intelligent adjustment of an intensified individuality. The office of kings grew from the assumed authority of the father. If the children had not learned to honor and obey their father, he would not have become a king. Herein consists the only divinity there is in the origin of kingly authority. Republics and Kingdoms are alike evolved out of the crucial struggles of humanity; the latter growing out of the arbitrary extension of the father's authority over his children, and the former springing from the struggles of the governed against the despotic exercise of that authority. Both are alike rooted in human selfism and limited by human weakness. Every form of government, whether theocratic, patriarchal, monarchical, or democratic has been, and of necessity must be, purely and absolutely a function of humanity. No government can be higher, better or purer than the humanity from which it springs. When the people get it into their heads to bow down to a certain idol they compel their leaders to do the same thing. Aaron setting up the golden calf in obedience to the popular demand is historical, but Moses destroying the popular idol is only ideal. The so-called rulers of the people are all of Aaron's type. There is not a Moses among them. Russia's object-lesson to the world shows the absurdity of any attempt to satisfy a popular demand for reform with anything higher than the sordid humanity in which the demands found birth. In our own country the popular heart has turned toward wealth with idolatrous adulation, and the fawning attitude of the people toward the favored possessors of wealth has so poisoned the minds and turned the heads of public servants that official corruption has cast a cloud upon the nation's honor. If the people had not bowed down to the golden calf, their servants would not have tried to seize it by the tail. Mercenary thought, born in the souls of the millions, has swept over the world like a blighting simoon, and few indeed have escaped its influence. Count Tolstoi saw its withering effect upon the purest ideals of the race, and in resisting its influence has gone to the opposite extreme, repudiating all rights of property. In despotic governments the growth of corruption has been so intolerable that nihilism has sprung up, and every form of government has been repudiated as inimical to the welfare of humanity. Meantime every exposure of official corruption places a club in the hands of nihilism and adds strength to its sinews, while the foolish popular cry for reform legislation goes on apace. * A senator said a few days ago that official corruption would never cease in this country until some millionaire has been put in jail. But will this stop it? No. To attempt to save a corrupt government by punishing criminals, is like trying to save a putrid carcass by killing the maggots that are feeding on it. If there were healthy life in the carcass, there would be no maggots to kill. The whole trouble with our government arises from the taint of avarice which its vitality has received from the sordid popular commercialism which now dominates all classes. If the people everywhere and under all circumstances are continually proving the truth of the addage that the golden key unlocks all doors, is it a matter of surprise that in the resulting struggle for that key of gold all conscience and honor should be forgotten? Let the people once turn their worshipful gaze from the golden calf, and fix their hearts upon worthy ideals, and very few would be found bartering their honor for an opportunity to swing onto the gilded tail. If wealth were prized for its uses only, no one would care to encumber himself with more than he could use. But the man who begins to amass wealth soon finds that he is all but worshiped by the poor either secretly or openly; and he therefore immediately sets a false value upon his possessions. He taxes his powers to get more and more, not for use, but for the glory it brings him. We have now reached the core of the problem of problems confronting the thought of this age; "How can a more efficient distribution of the products of wealth be secured and abnormal accumulation be prevented?" It cannot be done by punishing or by hampering the man who accumulates. It cannot be done by abolishing the rights of property. It cannot be done by any forceful measures. Too many sacred things have a price set upon them. The scale of valuation in the popular mind must be re-adjusted. Life, honor, friendship, love, health, beauty, freedom of thought and action, peace, good will, fellowship, knowledge, skill, ability to do good, and many more ideals that lie in the line of human attainment must go away up in the scale, and money must go down to the level of bread, butter, clothes, houses, and such commodities as are the true accessories of a full life, but not a part of life itself. If no man could buy anything more than such accessories with his money, the desire for a vast accumulation would pass away. If the mental attitude of the people were normal, everything else would right itself as if by magic. The fact that to correct popular ideals and purify popular thought is a vast undertaking and one requiring patience and many years even to make an appreciable beginning is not a sufficient reason for going astray after imaginary short-cuts which can only aggravate the evil in the end. The false attitude of the people toward wealth has deprived them of their only defense against its corrupt use, and they will reamin defenseless victims until their attitude is corrected. Ο N Sunday morning, Feby. 11, as he was preparing to go to his meeting, Dr. D. L. Sullivan suddenly flew away from the physical form and rose to a higher plane of life. He was a brave, true, good man whom everybody loved as he loved all the world. He was always buoyant, sunny, cheerful and enthusiastic in the cause of Truth. On Tuesday afternoon a large throng of his friends gathered at his home and many loving tributes were spoken in appreciation of the beautiful life he led. A young woman in Texas whose mother had been healed recently wrote: · “We would like to thank you and Mrs. Barton for what you have done for us, but words cannot express what we think of you two. If all the New Thought people were as honest and as good healers as you two are, the whole world would be converted to Chsistian Mental Science." Advance sheet of the program for the annual con vention of the World New Thought Federation. FORE-WORD: Chicago, Ill., Oct. 23, 1906. In preparing this program, the committee in charge has endeavored to so arrange the subjects that there shall be an unbroken continuity of thought and that a published report of the meeting shall be a complete history and text book of the practical application of the New Thought. All the speakers, whose names will be announced later, will be expected to preserve this continuity as far as possible, and if they succeed in this, this year's convention will be a complete Normal Course in the New Thought. PROGRAM: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1906. 9:00 a. m. Business Meeting. 2:00 p.m. Address of welcome, by a representative of the city of Chicago. Reply, by the president of the Federation. Address of welcome, by a representative of the Chicago New Thought Federation, Reply, by the first vice-president of the World New Thought Federation. 8:15 p. m. 1. The Uuiversality of Truth. 2. Individuality the Logical Result. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24. 2:00 p. m. 4. The History of the New Thought up to the Time |