Bigotry Opposed to Progress

BIGOTRY OPPOSED TO PROGRESS. BY A. WOOTTON. It is beyond the power of man to estimate to what extent the progress of the world has been retarded by the practice of judging a matter before hearing both sides, as instanced by the many cases during the past ages, where men have been forced by the alternative of death to deny truths that now are universally accepted : while others, possessing more moral as well as physical courage, have suffered imprisonment or death rather than deny the truths they had discovered. Many scientific truths that are understood by every school-boy of today, were rejected by the medieval Christians because, forsooth, they were taught in the schools of the despised Jews or the heretical Saracens. This spirit of intolerance and bigotry, somewhat modified, has been transmitted as a heritage to many of the present age, so that instead of following the injunction of the Savior to "love your enemies," many are ready to revile and persecute even those whose religious opinions differ from their own. It seems hard for men to give up dogmas that have been instilled in their minds by early teaching and the traditions of their forefathers for generations, but men of this age ought to know that the antiquity of a doctrine does not prove it true; that many of the greater truths are those of recent discovery. This certainly is true of discoveries in the sciences, and may it not be just possible that religious principles that appear new to this generation may be the truths of heaven? Although we may speak of a truth as being newly discovered, we cannot consistently speak of a new truth, for all truth is as old as the heavens and as eternal as God himself; while error never was and never can be truth.

Men may cling tenaciously to erroneous doctrines like a shipwrecked mariner to the wreck, but eventually the waves of truth will overwhelm them, and, unless they give up their hold, they will perish with the wreck. Who would be content in this age of railways, to travel with the old slow-going stage-coach, or to light his home with the antiquated tallow candle when the electric lights are blazing in the homes of his neighbors? This is exactly the condition of the man who shuts himself in his narrow creed and refuses to investigate the doctrines of those who differ from him, no matter how far that difference may extend. SONNET. Below, the sea lies blue and cold as steel, And smooth as satin stretched from shore to shore, Save where a shimmering fish leaps, or an oar Reeking with crimson rises, or the keel Of some ship lets a rough path backward reel; The sun—a flaming thing—sinks low and lower And beats upon the West's unclosing door; The shadows downward creep and reach to feel, With long black fingers, if the day be dead; Above, the sky glows like a pearl alight With a rose-diamond's shifting gold and red; And o'er the eastern mountains, soft and white. The moon steps, trembling, from her silver bed — A virgin bride—to meet the lips of night, Ella Higginson.