Article March 1, 1913 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from T. Rhondda Williams, John Clifford

[Universalist Leader.]

In the midst of this world of changing fashions of clothes and thought there are millions who pride themselves upon wearing the same set of opinions which they wore twenty years ago. If the ideas of these people were like clothes, and could be seen and compared with other clothes, they would go into the junk almost instantly. Unfortunately, ideas and opinions are invisible; and, contrary to every other form in things, they are called sacred. We change the garments we wear, the automobiles in which we ride, the houses in which we live, the food which sustains life, but we consider it almost a crime for one to change his opinions. In churches, in political parties, in ethics and morality, no person is dealt with more harshly than one who today puts deliberately aside some thought or belief which he accepted yesterday. They call him turncoat, traitor, betrayer, scamp. That which should be encouraged in the interest of growing personality we discourage. Even the trees put forth new shoots each day. The fashion of the forest changes with the seasons of the year. Only man is victim of a preposterous and superstitious consistency which demands sameness of fashion in his higher life. Some time an age will be born which will understand the difference between the outward forms and fashions of ideas, and those inward principles of faith, hope, and love which really abide forever. In that day men will be encouraged to change their ideas for better ones as readily as they do their clothes. Men will then understand that underlying all fashions of garments and ideas there is the expression of an unfolding personality, divinely endowed and forever trying to find a better fit and a more comfortable dress and greater freedom for self-expression.

[British Congregationalist.]

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