Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-01-17

religions Of antiquity. The heather religions
had two classes like those of the Jews, the priest
hood and the poets and philosophers. The
heather poets matched the psalmists, and the
authors of Job, Ruth and the Cantices, &C., Of
the Hebrews. The heather philosophers matched
the Jewish prophets. The priesthood was ident-
ical in both cases. The religious faculty has the
same needs and EMPLOYS essentially the same
methods of expressing them in all ages and
climes. When we wish to get the highest and
purest expression of Judaism we 90 to
the poets and prophets, not to the ritual law
So the highest and purest expressions of heath
enism are revealed to us by its poets and philos-
ophers, not by its barbarous rites and priesty
mummeries. Jesus inaugurated new era, in
which the prophet should stand alone in the sa-
cred Office. jesus and the apostles are the types
of this ministry. But asithe church grew in
power and worldly splendor, it gradually slipped
back INTO the jewish pattern. The priesthood
arose and the prophetic Office declined, until the
priest was dominant and the prophet
sank out of sight, As the Roman church
stretched its powerful arms over nations and
centuries, the Jewish and heather hierarchies
were reproduced with increased power and
spiendOr. But even Roman Catholicism must
have its Augustine and Abelard, its Aquinas,
Roger Bacon, and Fenelon; the prophetic spirit
was sleeping, not dead and in due time burst
upon the benighted world like volcano, in the
persons of Huss, Zwingle and Luther, and the
line of prophets was thus renewed again, rs in
old Jewry and Greece. The ROmish idea is op-
posed to progress the Protestant idea Is
progress. The LATTER if true to itself, must adj
vance, the former must recede.
From this point, the speaker proceeded to il
lustrate the duty of the true preacher and
prophet of the present times, in helping forward
the great progress of the race in religious and
ecclesiastical liberty and reform, as opposed to
the savish rituals of the past He said IN con-
cluSun, the great mass of men demand that the
preacher shall speak from knowledge, and not
from tradition. Let him not repudiate theology
in one breath and.pubSh his theology in the
next. For emphatic instruction, let us turn
from the indecison and httleness of some men,
in this respect to the emphasis and grandeur of
nature. She is not dumb to the soul seeking
God. The faith which she teaches is that which
warns the heart like the breath OF God. A per-
feet June day is more eloquent of deity than all
the creeds. An October sunset is a more divine
hymn than the "Des Iyie." The rocks
that reveal to us these secrets are not
infdel TO the divine order. The flower
that mods in the breeze forgets not to
remind us of Him, who fashioned its graceful
cups, and painted it sunset hues. The bird
pours out his motives in selLforgetting love of
song to Him, in whose ear the singing of the
morning stars makes not sweeter praise. No,
friends, see no off, no "perhaps," in nature
| care not to take refuge from doubts in the
Apostles creed Or book of common prayer or
thirty-nne articles, but in that universal pres
ence that coniounds me within and without, in
mineral plant, and animal,-in mountain,
ocean and sky,-and most Of all, in the human
soul. | welcome every new advance in science
aud general knowledge as a contribution to the
knowledge of God The latest discoveries in
science teach the immanence of God The
Grandest CONGRATULATIONS are attempts to grasp
His nature. The true preacher of to-day reco2-
nizes in the earnest scientist his best earth
ly co-worker. Lay sermons" and "scien-
tifc fragments" are doing more for the
cause of truth than all the mitered church
men from lands end to lands end. Science
has shown that the great liberal doc
trine of the divine immanence is not religious
conceit. His infinite wisdom and love intimate
ly blended in every event in the world of matter
and the world Gilman, are not creations of lervid
emotion. Immortality hangs not in phiosoph-
iral balances Mt thp mercy of the SralnpI Truth