At the risk of sounding philosophic cal I think it advisable to go into the question of man's dependence. During a time of penance we ought "to be able to stand even a little philosophy, especially if it helps us 1o understand our position in the natural-order of things and our relation to our creator. Many of the also notions on religion and morality originate in false concepts of dependence and independence. Young people are apt to think that when they reach the age of twenty-one they can do just as they please; that they become absolutely independent. That age does give them a certain amount of legal independence, but it does not take the police court long to convince them that the: have not a great deal of moral independence.
If you take the evident facts as they appear before your eyes every day, you will see that as individuals your independence is very, very limited. Man is born into this world the most helpless of creature: y the time he is able to stand on his own feet most other animals of the same age have attained to pnysica! independence. For long long years a child is so dependent on others that he would soon die if left to shift for himself, And when he does grow up how much independenc= does he really have? To keep himself alive, clothed and fed he is absolutely dependent on the minera the vegetable and the animal kingdoms. He would starve to death if he tried to be independent. In the Civic and social order he is so hemmed in by laws, regulations and conventions that there is very little independence left to him. However, these things are not of great portance in determining his position as man. The important thing is that he is dependent in his very being, in that which constitutes him a member of the human race. For his being and continuance in being man is far more dependent on God than he is on the air he breathes for his physical life.
You have not within yourself the reason of your existence. You did not give yourself existence. If you did, you would have the power to keep on giving yourself existence. You could keep yourself in existence forever. Obviously you cannot do that. When the time comes you are going to die and there is not one single thing you can do about it It you throw the problem back upon your parents, the same difficulty arises. If they had the power to give you existence, as existence, they should have the power to keep you in existence. But you know they have no such power. If you try to escape by passing the blame on to the poor innocent apes and tadpoles, the same difficulty persists. No in. dividual of any group has the power to give existence as such. They all have a limited, dependent existence. You are logically forced to a prime cause, self-existent, independent, upon which all other things depend for existence and continuance in exis-fence. That being we call God. You may call that being any nome you like. The name is only a design tion for reality.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.