Country Morals Vary But Little With City Standard

1910

By Rev. Eliot White

The question whether moral standards are the same in city as in country probably cannot be answered alike for every comparison of urban with suburban. Some cities are notably narrow and backward, like overgrown villages, while some country places have so much civic sense and alert pride that they rank high in what we might call moral incubation, being true hatching places of better social ideals and keener ethical perceptions.

At the same time several elements in the comparison make it in the large possible to contrast city and country morals. For example, the power of neighbor opinion is considerably less in the city than in the country. By this I mean that dwelling near another person in the city does not mean necessarily acquaintance with or notice of him; whereas in the country, neighbor censors neighbor, often than not gossips about him or her and therefore exercises a certain degree of restraint upon him. Much of the laborious and often petty casuistry that harasses the typical country place and that the city dweller finds intolerable, is due to this.

Religious intolerance, with its magnifying of theological trifles, for the same reason flourishes in the country, while the city forges ahead and away from it like an express train from a stage coach. People have other and healthier occupations for thought.

At the same time the city independence has its faults. Isolation is a terrible strain for the young man or woman. The country may mean gossip, but it means united support and "company" as well, and to be transplanted from such rootage to the lonely places of the great city involves some of the severest temptations to which a character can be subjected.

The moral standards probably in themselves vary little between city and country, much as they may differ in application in the two places.

Franker instruction by parents end schools on physical matters should help boys and girls "find out things" in wholesome fashion, instead of through whisper. Festivals, open-air dances and romps are needed to feed the hunger for companionship, color and joy. More freedom under wise supervision for the children and youth of both sexes together has promise of nobler development and moral standard for both city and country of which we can all as Americans be proud.

Great Crowd Hears Sermon on Retribution

California, 1907

Powerful Discourse in Mammoth Tent

Probably 2000 people attended the meeting at the big tent at Twelfth and Harrison streets last evening. Dr. Bulgin has demonstrated since coming to Oakland that he is glad to take up and discuss frankly the questions that are puzzling thinking men. His topic last evening was "Hell." The speaker based his argument on the authority of the Bible, and on that authority declared that there is a hell, which is as real as is heaven, and that it is just as essential to the great plan of God as is heaven.

The text of the sermon was "Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own place."

"The Bible teaches that there is a hell as much as there is a heaven. If there is no hell, there is no heaven. If there is no eternal punishment, there is no eternal happiness.

"The God we worship is not a man-created being. He is the great law. What is God? A spirit, infinite, eternal and unchanging, a being of wisdom, power, holiness, justice, truth. Rob Him of these attributes and you have no God.

"The holiness of God demands a hell. We are not holy. If we refuse to become so, then we must take our place with those who are not holy.

"I believe in hell because I believe in God's word. The background of God's love is His justice. God doesn't damn you to hell; you damn yourself. He has chosen that you go to heaven.

Sinners Prefer Hell

"Hell is the sinner's own place by preference. No man deliberately chooses hell, but he shows his preference for it by not choosing the alternative. Every man in Oakland has Jesus Christ on his hands, and the question is 'What will you do with Him?' Not to choose Jesus is to choose hell.

"Hell is the sinner's own place by the eternal fitness of things; men enter the places they are fitted for. The pure and the impure cannot live together in harmony. How can holiness and unholiness live together in heaven? What kind of a place is heaven if there is no hell?

"Hell is the sinner's own place by wages. It is the wages of a sinful life, and he ought to have it. To get hell you must earn it in the slavery of sin." Here Dr. Bulgin pointed out to the young people the awful cost of a sinful life.

When Dr Bulgin has argued that hell is the sinner's place by birthright, he pointed out that God's word says explicitly that a man may be born again and thus stay out of hell.

Tomorrow afternoon Dr. Bulgin will address men only and in the evening will preach on "Sociology."

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, June 1, 1907, p. 13.