Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-11-07

certainly done harm to; and that just in
so far as you aided in advancing the Cos
pei of sham and of mental obliquity and
moral darkness, you would be doing harm
to therace. We are on the steepest sort of
a declivity in the road to ruin, when
Christians who are regarded as the most
advanced in culture, evidently look aghast
at the earnest exercise of the thinking pow
ers, and patronize what they do not
believe from policy.
| do not ask you to engage in any
crusade against religious errors and alb
surdities There are those, both teachers
and taught, whose reason and neral sense
are not shocked by these notions, and as
they are honest and earnest, they will
gradually attain clearer perceptions of
spiritual things, and it is better that they
should have modes of belief which are on a
level with their own plane of develop.
ment
But l do urge you utterly to reject
such notions yourself, and not want me
to encourage them, or to seem not utterly
to reject them because you love peace, or
because yours is the wisdom of expedi-
ency instead of that of Christian love;
but to try so to understand, and teach,
and so TO urge and encourage me to teach
the Gospel of Christ, that the cross shall
be an offence to pride and cruelty and
selfishness, and not the clear head, the
honest heart, the lowly mind, and the
self-sacrificing spirit.
utterly reject the sacerdOtal notion
the largest hearts and ablest minds, they
are the true priesthood-on them God
hath laid His ordaining hand. The Christ
ians of this day are called to meet grave
crisis. According to the ability which
God hath given them hath He laid upon
them the duty of aiding that Christianity
shall not be so presented to the world as
thatit shall be a rockOf offense the more
gigantic, the more clear the intellect, the
more loving the heart, the more noble the
soul,
We are verify guilty before God for
much of the prevalence of skepticism.
On the supposition that we are even sim
cere in our belief, Christians should be
noted for their honest, earnest love of
truth, and hatred of all shams and hypoc-
risies, but to the world they present the
appearance, often, of being committed to
pucrilities and superstitions which are not
whit more defensible at the bar of
reason than the practices of the African
medicine man. On the suppOsitiOn that
there is a God, men of moral principle
should be prompt and public in acknOwl-
edgement of His authority, but many of
our most upright citizens seldom go near
a church because sometimes their tastes
are offended; sometimes their moral sense
is outraged, and sometimes their attend
ance would, they think, sanction doc
trines and claims which are repugnant
alike to their reason and moral sense, and
an insult to the rest of the Christian world.
l want you, in the fear of God and the
love of men, to ask yourselves what yOu
can do that Christianity may be religion
for the strong as well as the weak, the
clear-headed as well as those whose minds
are under the control of their sensibilities.
Plato, in his Republic, thinks lying, TO
the moral, TO correspond to poison to the
physical man. 1t ought to be Stunned
and detested, but still, like poison in med
iCine, is often necessary. He would
have the right of lying confined to the
head men in the republic, and everybody
else should always tell the truth. When
l was a law student, which was not long,
one of the first lessons my preceptor gave
me was entirely in the spirit of that doe
trine. One of our Bishops ayowed to me
the legitimacy and necessity of that doc
trine, and SO did d. d., who was really
a man of learning. Many of the
Fathers" so called, would lie without
scruple for conscience sake, and many of
the miracles" we read Of in ecclesiasti-
cal history are thus to be accounted for.
The greatest danger that threatens us is, |
think, not infdelity, but DISHONESTY. We
voluntarily seem to believe what we do
not believe; because such beliefs are
useful. | humbly and joyfully sub
nit that now you cannot shut
men up in ecclesiastical cells
darkened and pictured according to your
notions of policy. The beliefs of the
highest minds are1bound to be the beliefs
of the common people. You cannot have
your nice little coteries in which scepticism
is fully avowed, and your priests and re
ligiOus officers to hold in awe the vulgar,
and to comfort the wcak-minded. There
is nothing covered that shall not be re-
vealed, nor hid that shall not be made
known; what is told in darkness will be
spoken in the light; what is heard in the
ear will be preached upon the hOuse-tops
Morality and social order, as well as true
reverence, demand perfect honesty in re
ligion. The devil is the father of all lies,
and receptions, and pious frauds. The
Il 4 6 ha
preaching of the Cross is to them that
perish foolishness, but to us who are
saved it Is the power of God and the wis
dom of God will not much longer DO
much service. 1t commends itself to
every mans reason and conscience that,
when the believers in any system consist
of dull intellects and bigoted hearts, it is
self-conyicted Of falsehOOd, and that the
more subtle and comprehensive the intel
lect, the more intense the yearning to
know, the more apt will be the soul TO see
and embrace the truth.