Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1908 — PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE

REM AUK ABLE PROGRESS OF THE NEGRO.

By British Ambassador Bry[?].

In South Africa and the West Indies negro education Is advancing and the ayts and customs of civilization have made way. Nowhere, perhaps, does the progress seem to be quite so satisfactory, or, at any rate, / quite so Interesting and full of promise, as in Basuto land, where a Kaffir people of several hundred thousand! souls is developing, under the guidance of British officials, but retaining Its own tribal system, Its owj chiefs, Its own language, in-, dustrlous and prosperous In a ter-

ritory which land speculators and mining prospectors are not permitted to enter. Oar upward progress has been slow as well os gradual, and yet our ancestors had the advantage of living In A climate and on a soli which*-compelled exertion and gave that stimulus to progress which the Inhabitants of tropical Africa did-not receive. Progress will, we trust, be far more rapid among the colored people now than It was Wong the races of Northern Europe or among the aborigines of America, because all the influences which a highly developed civilization exerts are at work around and,on them. But when we remember how short a time has elapsed ahHS® freedom and responsibility, the factors that make , manhood, wgre attained, and how short even the time •lnce the progenitors of the colored people were living, as savages In the African jungles, we shall wonder not at the defects we see, but rather that those defects are not far There must be patience, and with patience hope. OUR IGNORANCE OF OUR DESTINY.

By Maurice Maeterlinck.

In the invincible ignorance where we are our imagination has the choice of our eternal destinies. A first hypothesis is that of absolute annihllatioa A second hypothesis, ardently caressed by our blind instincts, promises us the preservation, more or less integral, through the Infinity of time, of our consciences or of our actual ego. Remains a double hypothesis of a survival with consciousness or with a con-

■clousness' enlarged and transformed, of which that which we possess to-day cannot give us any Idea, which it rather, prevents us from conceiving, just as our Imperfect eye prevents us from conceiving other light than f’that which passes betweeiv-sub-red and ultra-violet The hypothesis resolves Itself Into a simple question of consciousness. To say, for example, as we are tempted to do, that a survival without consciousness is equivalent to annihilation, is to argue a priori and without reflection this problem of consciousness, the principal and the most

obscure of all those that Interest us. It J 3, as the metaphysicians have all proclaimed, the mqst difficult there is. Inasmuch as the object of consciousness Itself Is what, we would know. ; t - That which debars us and for a long time will debar us from treasures of the universe Is the hereditary resignation with which we sojourn to the limited prison Of our senses. Our imagination, such as we have today, Is accommodated too easily to this captivity. It does not cultivate enough the Intuitions and presentiments which tell It that It Is absurdly Imprisoned and that It should seek egress and search for the most grandiose and the most Infinite circles which It represents to, Itself. It tells Itself more and more seriously that the real world begins thousands of leagues farther away than the most ambitious and timorous dreams. MY LIFE DOES NOT BELONG TO HE.

By Leo Tolstoi.

The end of life I No such end exists, It canpot exist, and no science can discover It The law of direction, the path of life? Yes. Religion Is wisdom, If you like replies to this, ft answers that It gives the lie to all the ways that do not follow the one tnith. By the negation of false directions it Indicates and Illuminates the only true. way. This is how it presents itself to me: The law of organic

Use Is strife; the law of life, reasoning; conscious life Is .union, love. Above the organic life, above the life of struggle. Is born the life''of reason linked to the first The end Is evident; tp destroy the struggle and to establish union where there was discord, at first among men, then between men and animals, and finally between animals and plants. * ; -- I would wish to accomplish the will of God, and to desire nothing so passionately as that one thing. Is It possible? Yes,-ft Is possible. COUNTRY’S DUTY TO THE INDIANS.

By Bishop Hendrix.

It Is not enough to make the Indians owners In severalty of their lauds and to teach them to till the soil and to trade; to teach them the laws of health and sanitation. That is simply to civilize them. One duty Is to do more—we must Christianize them. The Indian must know of a revealed religion and not simply the religion of nature. He must learn of the Holy Spirit, and not alone of

the Great Spirit. It Is not the bringing of the Indian to civilization that is needed, but the taking of civilization to the Indian, not as veneer, but as the fruit of Christianity. We owe him more than rations;-we are his debtor to give him the Gospel that saves. Already 60,000 Indians have become American citizens. They have needed paternal missions to make them strong for citizenship.

AMBASSADOR BRYCE.