The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-04-08
FREE RELIGION.

lit DOSIOn LAWFUL lOl-
lowing as an extract from one of III. w.
Beecher's sermons. We suspect that he
wrote it for the Christian Union.
''The term Free Religion has been
adopted by certain persons to express
religion without doctrines, without
standards of authority, without super
natural origin OF development. The
word free refers to the absence of eV-
erything local, formal, temporal, and
implies an opinion that all religions are
yokes unsuited to the healthy growth of
the spiritual nature. Free religionists
profess an adherence to the plainest
truths of natural religion, such as are
common to the Jew and Pagan, Moham-
medan and Christian. Universal BROTH
erhood, overshadowed only by the Di-
vine Fatherhood, is the sum of their
theology. Love, which is the end of the
law, the fulfillment of the Gospel, and
the substructure of whatever wisdom
there is in any system of religion, is
held by them, they say, in unadultered
essence, under which form it can under
go no change either from lapse of time
or exposure to new climates.
'It is extremely difficult to define the
position of those who deal mostly in
negatives. They have so much freedom
that they cannot be bonnd to any def
mite statement. Indeed, so jealous of
liberty are they that they refuse to be
endorsed by one another, each man pre-
ferring to stand on platform of his own
making. But it would not be just to
dismiss so impalpable thing as Free
Religion with the remark that there is
nothing in it. The rarest gases may
furnish food or poison q big toad-stool
may serve for while to shelter real
prophet What, then, is religion freed
from local, temporal, and conventional
associations? Let us talk plain English.
1t excludes so much of the Bible as has
reference to local or transitory needs
that is, all the Old Testament except
those passages which inclucate love to
God and man without admixture of
Jewish tradition and theology; all the
New, except the general statements of
the truths already known to men Ieav-
ing us many of the Psalms wherewith
to chant Gods praises, and the Sermon
on the Mount wherewith to govern our
action toward men. Adopting free re-
ligion,' we shall no longer be perplexed
by miracles, by Christ's special devotion
to the lost sheep of Israel, or by his re-
puted resurrection and ascension. The
sacraments will become interesting rel
les of superstition prayer will be
shorn of the incentives ofspecial prom
Use; Christ will no longer be an inter-
prefer of God to man, but rather great
sphynx sculptured by superstitious He
brews. The prime failing of free re-
ligion is that it requires men to live in
a vacuum. No man can be religious
apart from conditions of time and place
and circumstance. Love to God is
founded on our conception of him; and
yet our noblest conceptions are imper-
feet and incorrect, being largely the re-
suit of such education as the times give
us. If man lives in philosophic age
he will have-whatever his position in
regard to prevailing Schools concep-
ton of God tempered by philosophy /;
if in a superstitious era, a disposition
to multiply supernatural evidences of
Gods power; if he is a sensualist or q
savage, he will give to his divinity some
thing of his own attributes if he is a
highly educated, Independent thinker,
living in the freest age and IN the freest
country in the world, he will be unable
to see God as he is, but must be content
with dull reflections from earthly mir
rors.
allow, then, if we cannot so much as
think of God apart from prejudice re-
sulting from time and place, are we to
serve him in absolute freedom Not, as
it seems to us, rejecting all external re-
ligion, all local and transitory forms,
usages, and partial truths but by using
these as the steppiDg-stones of spiritual
attainment.
''Recognizing the need Impartial truths
upon which to climb toward the COM
plete truth, we shall Immediately in
Quire if God has not foreseen this need
and provided for it. Is it not SUPPOSE
BILE that he, knowing us to be so much
the creatures and dependents of time
and circumstance, and foreseeing what
would be the needs of each age of the
world. would impart just that corrective
and guiding knowledge which would
help us to mount? Would he not from
time to time inaugurate dispensations
of truth suited to the advancing growth
of those who received his aid? We
may admit that the patriarchal, the No.
sale, and the prophetic systems of reIig-
| ion were local, temporary expedients
/ but none the less the true means of ho-
| illness for the race during the period OF
their use. The same is true OF Christian.
| ity; it is less encountered with ex.
ternals than were the former dispense.
tons, vet it is a practical adaptation OF
religion to the spirit and the events Of
/ this latter day. But Christ has set the
highest possible standard. The lives OF
the most godlike viii never rise higher
than that.
''There are some who think that meI
have in themselves that wisdom which
will lead them into all truth-who fee
no need of a revelation, or of arescuine
Friend, or of counsel given in answer
to prayer but their freedom seems to u.
no broader than the liberty with which
Christ makes free-a liberty which ac-
cepts the focal, formal, temporal hell
of q condescending Father. Thy roo
and thy staff they comfort me-
The Pennsylvania House has passed
bill exempting sewing machines in fam