The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1869-12-01

Howard had,-the spirit of Jesus,-lives in a
multituee of kind hearts, consecrated to the
noble deeds of charity-gentle women who
90 as angels with relieving hands into the
presence of suffering, poverty, and death;
strong men, who, amidst the affluence which
God has poured in golden showers upon
them, are soft of heart for the distresses and
the wants of Others Stoicism is virtue no
longer. New springs of sympathy and tender
love have started in more hearts than can be
told, making green the meadows of life,
bringing the bloom of floral beauty where
once the desert sands of sorrow lay hot and
glaring.
Chistian ideas have penetrated into busi-
ness, into governments, into the relations of
states and nationalities, into outward affairs,
generally, from which they were formerly
excluded. Religion is no longer set aside as
a Sunday affair, mummery OF prayers and
ceremonies, but is brought down to our
everyday life. 1t has, indeed, got but little,
as yet, into corporations; but corporations,
proverbially have no souls, and therefore
not much capacity for religion The day
will come when corporations will have souls,
and then religion will control them.
1t is sometimes said that people will not
stand much theology nowadays. Much of
what used to be dignified with the name of
theology is happily gone-that dry scholas-
ticism which had nothing in common with
the Bible but Bible words. We need shed
no tears that such jargon-the old meta
physics of the pulpit-has become dead
language; it never had life. There is better
ground for lamenting that the people seem
to be less hungry for the plain bread Of
simple Gospel. Like very children, they are
often most pleased when fed with unwhole-
some confectionery rather than the substan-
tial food of saving truth. Perhaps it was
always SO, and the only trouble now is, that
they get what they cry for more than former
ly. Discipline is relaxed, resulting in grow
ing class of spiritual dyspcptics, unable to
digest single solid doctrine But this is
disease which will work its own cure.
3. That the world is becoming better is
seen in the concentrated and united action
of the present day. The repelent forces 10
society are weakened. Christianity, teach
ing charity, brotherhood, sympathy, COM
mon Father, is uniting all the healthy ele-
ments of the world into resistless host,
bearing on their banners, like the regiments
of Napoleon, the sure presage of glorious
victory. The nations which have long held
apart are now joining hands with the rest of
US. The distant East aud the Christian West
are meeting, not in the shock Of deadly
strife, but in the friendly blending of their
several streams of wealth and civilization.
Great monopolies are feature of the pres
ent day-an evil in themselves. but a natural
result of this tendency to concentration.
They mean something, and for good ulti-
mately, We have reason to believe. There is
coming a wonderful sanctifcation of wealth
Already, the first drops of the needed shower
have refreshed the dry sel6shness of life.
When Christ has the hearts OF those who
have the gold, then the hungry shall not go
unfed, nor the ignorant untaught.
The tendency to united action is seen in
the increase OF lay work in our churches.
The time was-and not long ago, either
when even assistance in prayer meetings
from those not in the clerical profession, or
in official station, was scowled upon as i'm
proper and intrusive. In Franklin, Conn,
old DR.. Mott, brother Of President Mott, of
Union College, though thoroughly good
man, and settled over an intelligent people,
used to resent it as an affront if any one be-
sides himself and the deacons proposed to
take any part but that Of listeners in the
weekly meetings of the congregation. He
would pray and talk, call on the deacOns
to pray and talk, and then shut the gates
down and dismiss the assembly, SO that when
the fire burned in the hearts of his flock,
they had to use craft, and remain until the
Doctor had taken his hat and cane, and then
have prayer meeting among themselves.
4. Ours is an age of great things. Tele-
graphs across all lands, and under all seas;
long steamship lines; railways spanning con-
tinents newspapers, sending out hundreds
of thousands of copies; immense armaments
powder; wonderful bridges; telescopes, pen
etrating to infnity; a thousand such things
show us on how large scale mans life is
now ranged. And these are all things ofuse,
not great play-things, like the hanging gar
dens Of Babylon, the Sphinx of the Nile, or
the Colossus of Rhodes The beauty of
utility has as much grace as any other, and
more worth. The world is stronger; the
fable of Briareus. with his hundred arms,
has become a sober fact; only the myth is
too small to meet the reality. Ii is a day of
great and sudden changes; violent explo-
sions in society shake the world to its centre,
air is clear again, it is found that only rub
bish and misery have been blown of, and
things have settled upon better foundation
than ever. 1t is but lately that reports came
to US of monk in coarse robe, and with
sandaled feet, moving voluptuous Paris to
tears and peuitence by his tender, impressive
sermons. And now. on the eve Of an ecu
menical council, his bold protests against
prevailing eorruptions in the Roman Church,
excite US to think that this eloquent Father
HyacInthe who under his austere garb hides
person full of magnetic power and a heart
warm with love for humanity, may soonstand
forth a second Luther.
s. We are living in an age of great expee-
tations Before Christ came the world was
astir with the idea that an illustfious person