Red Wing sentinel., 1859-08-13

! w WV 6No tlo lOilOWlng extract from
the sermon Of Rev Dr. Bellows. (Unitarian)
before tho Divinity School of Cambridge,
which is attracting SO much attention and
producing such remarkable sensation
throughout the Christian world. 1t is in.
deed remarkable admission considering its
source:
/ r" After this. review Of the present symp
toms of the life Of the time, (which he had
pronounced, not irre!gious, but eminently
unreliglous. he closed by indicating the d.
rection in which the want, unive, sally felt,
was to he supplied. This was by the re-
cosnltion Of the Mwch, as the legitimate
and only complete religious instructor of so,
clety. Granting that God can and does
commune with separate hearts,-still he
claims that the Word Of Cod s,he Holy,
Spirit codM speak to the Church alone.
NO prophesy could be Of private interpreta-
ton, and to separate individual men IT was
Impossible that the whole Of Gods will for
men could be unfolded. Dwelling earnestly
on this idea, he asked not for victory for
the Old Catholic Church, but for develop,
menl OF the New Catholic Church, which
should INDEED inform modern civilization
with its religious life. The work of the
Church, he saidlis so to speak to the world
IN the orotund Of the great historic Incl.
dents: so to preach by emphasizing the
commemorative days and illuminating the
holy symbols, and pausing on the successive
events which mode the doctrines Of Christi.
anity, as gradually to thunder into the deaf
ear OF humanity the saving lesson Of the
Gospel. No lecture room cln do this no
preaching. man can do this !; no thin ghostly
|ind'v'duallSm or congregat,onalism can do
this: 1t calls rior the organic, instituted, RI
tuallzed, impersonal, steady, patient work
OF the Church-which taking infancy into
its arms, shall baptizc it not as a family Gus
tom, but Church sacrament, which shall
speak to the growing children by imagina-
tive symbols and holy festivals and not
merely by Sunday School lessons and straw
berry feasts which shall confirm them and
take them into the mo*e immediate bosom
Of the Church, as they attain adult wears
and are about to step beyond the threshold
Of domestic life which shall make marriage
and burial, both rites of the immediate al
tar, and give back to the communion ser.
| vice, the mystic sanctity, which two centu!
ries has been successfully striving to dispel,
without gaining by its nationality anything
except the prospect Of it's extinction. ,..a~
:" A New Catholic Church--a Church in
which the needed but painful experience of
PEotestantisln shall have taught US how to
maintain dignified, symbolic and mystic
Church organization without the aid Of the
State, or the authority of the Pope-their
support being now supplied by the clamor
Gus wants Of our starved imaginatiohs and
suppressed devotional instincts. This is the
demand Of the weary unchurched humanity
OF our era. How to remove the various ob
stacles, how to inaugura'e the various steps
to it, is probably more than any mans wis
aom IS adequate to direct just now. But
to articulate or even to try to artlcnlate the
dumb wants Of the religious times is at
least one step to it, It is cry for help,
which God will hear and will answer by
some new word from the Holy Ghost, when
humanity is able and willing to hear it.