New-York tribune., 1872-12-06
THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM BEFORE Us

THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM BEFORE US.
One of the foremost clefgymen in the United
States set himself great and difficult task
year or two ago, which was TO visit every part
of the country from the eastern seaboard TO
California and Oregon, to ascertain for himself
The actual mental and moral condition of the
great masses of population, both foreign and
native. and the effect so far of the Christian
religion upon them. 1t is not often that any
of us take time or thought to lift ourselves
enough out of the daily currents and counter
currents of trade and politics to see the coun-
try as it is, markedly and simply gigantic ex-
pertinent ON which other nations look with
curiosity, and latterly with doubt; it needs
such a patient, thorough investigation as that
which DR.. Dickson undertook, to comprehend
the action and reaction upon each other OF
the differing races, degrees Of civilization, So
cial habits, and religious faiths which enter
the country with the great incoming tides OF
emigration.
We in the cities shut up in our own sect
limits, are apt to think the contest between
God and MammOn is q question OF theater or
church-going, of immersion or sprinkllng, OF
Pope and Protestant. We do not realize that
this land of ours, stretching from sea to sea,
wherever the new republican civilization is
trying, holds men of every religious belief
under heaven; that the disciple of Jesus has
here to contest with not only base modern
corruptions of his own faith, but with the most
ancient and subtle and obstinate of Pagan
creeds The orthodox church-gOing Christian.
attending weekly Sunday school and annual
fairs, sending his few dollars occasionally to
carry the Gospel to Greenland's rocky noun
tans or India's coral strand, seldom lifts his
eye far enough above the limits of his own
village to see the seaports on the east, or the
vast outlying plains that skirt the country on
the Pacific coast, through which the multitudes
of Mormons and free thinkers, representing the
most ignorant and most cultured grades of
European peoples, pour In on one side to meet
the hOrdes Of Asiatics entering ut the other.
Between the two among the great slopes and
cafons of the West, are our own savages, un-
converted after three hundred years contact
with Christians, and the yet more barbarous
white, who has gone out with whisky flask,
revolver and bowie-knife to wrest the land
from him. There is no subject for historian
or philosopher Of deeper import or wider in its
bearings than that of the effect upon each other
of these elements in ourAbody polite, and the
final result.
Secular rs our point Of view may be, We
know, as every rational man knows, that the
civilization of these meeting masses of peoples
depends not on newspapers. not on public
schools but on the direct influence upon them
of pure liberal Christian teaching it does not
matter whether how OF where, by church or
layman, Baptist or Presbyterian, provided men
learn from it to lift their thoughts to the
level of Christ's teaching of love for God and
humanity, and to cleanse their daily doings by
tho example of His life. Naturally we look
for Christian churches TO believe this even
more strongly than we do, aud to act on such
belief-as, indeed, they all do in feeble,
faint way, by sending out missionaries, etc.
DR.. Dickson reports fifteen hundred men
at work, emissaries of his own church (the Pres
byterian.) Fifteen hundred appears to us a
small army to oppose to such mighty forces
of superstition infidelity and heathenisn. But
the statements made by him further are still more
surprising; that even these men are suffering
for the necessaries of life, owing to the scanty
support provided by their Church. Many OF
them are men of exceptional ability and
might grow rich as lawyers, agents or survey
ors, but with self-sacrifcng spirit which We
thought had died out in the old ages, bear
cold and hunger aud disease rather than desert
their Masters cause. The Doctor, whose own
charity appears as warm as his insight is vivid
and keen, scoms unable TO understand how 80
powerful and wealthy body tho Presby
terian Church can suffer these things to be.
We suggest that if he study the architecture
Of some of our city churches the reason will
appear plain enough. Somebody must pay the
cost of every luxury if the city pastor must
worship God surrounded by Garg0yles and