Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-09-23
SUNDAY READING.

attracted the eyes OF the reading world has
written something concerning the subject OF
religion. Especially is this the case with the
higher class of British writer's. There is such
a vein of natural, as contradistinguishedf from
formulated piety, running through Dickens's
works as to awaken no little resentment in
certain quarters more or less fanatical. II
has been complained that Dickens never deals
with any clerical characters save to make
them the vehicles of extravagant burlesque
and ridicule. But while this is true, in a
measure, so also is it true that he holds up to
scorn the meanness and rascalities of lawyers
and persons in official station. 1t seems to us
that the writings of this master inculcate no
little of the real christian spirit, however, and
it must be confessed that We greatly prefer
his writings to those of a more doctrinal or
polemic sort. But Dickens never slipped into
any debates upon religious questions. He
seems never to have cared for any of the
wrangles which divide ritualists and low
churchmen, church of England folk and non
conformists, ecclesiastics and scientists. But
almost the entire race of modern British mag
azine writer's are more or less involved in the
discussion of these subjects. Even Carlyle
has his tilt with such real or imaginary dis
putants as come under his eager eye. Thirty
years ago or more we find him dealing in his
quaint, riddle like fashion, with such out Of
the-way subjects as "Natural Supernatural
ism; and in chapter on Church Clothes he
is caught saying: "By Church Clothes, it
need not be promised that mean infinitely
more than Cassocks and Surplices and do
not at all mean the mere haberdasher Sunday
Clothes that men go to church in. Far from
it Church Clothes are, in our vocabulary,
the Forms, the Vestures, under which men
have at various periods embodied and repre-
sented for themselves the religious Principles;
that is to say, invested the Divine Idea of the
world with sensible and practical active
Body, so that it might dwell among them as
living and life giving Word. These are I'M
speakably the most important of all the vest
ures and garnitures of Human existence" etc.
Always meaty in the way of underlying ideas
US that the Divine Idea Tor religious instinct)
is universal and that it is always to be found
bound within the tangible and circumscribed
body of creed and SO presented to the hu
man understanding. In answer to the simple
but direct and somewhat puzzling query, Why
should |, who never saw Him and who can
not conceive of Him as person, Glove" God /!
the sincere ecclesiastic answers, naturally, if |
and the author of all your happiness. And |
yet, in the face of all England and the world, |
a writer in The Nineteenth Century asks, in
Ill seriousness, if this God given life is worth
living; and proceeds to say, in the opening
paragraph of a paper upon that question that
: The apostles of modern progress claim many
virtues for the present, which the unenlight
med observer may be somewhat slow to detect
n it. But it has one distinctive feature at
my rate, the reality of which can be denied
oy nobody, and which has needed but little
from the imagination of the Opt
mist. That feature is the singular liberation
u |
IN most excite intolerance. Every belief
hat life was once supposed to rest upon, we
ee men calmly questioning and preparing to
asst aside, and yet we most of us keep our
we are neither afraid nor angry.
Doctrines are swinging before us in the bal
nee that seemed but yesterday to be fixed as
not to be weighed at all ; and yet j
o Brennus adds a sword to make his own {
Gale heavier There is, in fact, a greater in
sllectual struggle going on about US, than t
he world in its whole history has ever before
the difference that is at the heart I
it is wider and more profound. And yet, c
ever in any past period has the philosophic i
nd the theological hatred been felt so little t
r been so well suppressed by the disputants;
hilst among the world at large that intelli- /
entity watches the movement, and with deep ?
terest abides the result of it,prejudice seems b
most completely to be laid to sleep, and to T
ave given place to true judicial calm. Our t
'owed desire is simply to discover where b
nth lies, not to discover that it lies either Il
ere or there. Truth is the pearl We want, b
I'd the divers may seek for it either in cess s.
,ols or crystal seas. Let them only prove b
US satisfactorily where it is to be found. Il
is not by its locality that we shall judge of C
value" Here then is admirably stated b
6 central fact of modern religious discussion S