, 1877-07-22


| orthodoxy ITSELF" Unitarianism and its
brilliant successes begot Harvard College.
Harvard College tainted the iternry circles
of Eastern Massachusetts, who were skephc-
ally Indifferent as to dogmas and doctrines,
and these literary circles set fashion Of
talk, and thought, and belief which Boston
not only adopted but exaggerated. Then
came the Civil War, in which the Northern
churches made the mistake of not graphing
with slavery. At thus time, says Mr.. Cook,
Orthodoxy lacked leaders, and heterodoxy
had men at the front on Cons SIDE" This
passage is worth remembering for its plain
talk;
Now who In Boston wns forcnlos. as IN Abolf-
tfonlst in the days when orthodoxy was little too
slow to keep pace with Con? Why, THEODORE
PAnkEn; and by following Con he obtained fol-
lowing. MT only for his slavery ideas but for
those principles OF bis which stood in conflict with
accredited Christianity. What made THEODORE
PAEKEn's pulpit high7 The 1owness Of other
pn1pits. Why were other pu]pits low! Some
Of them faccd the South. [Laughter.1 There
were South-side vica taken in Boston occasionally
By the orthodox pastors. (Laughter.] What effect
had all this upon the youth Of the land? II ever
had struggle to retain my respect for embodied
Christan'ty-1 never had my struggle In retaining
my respect for the real Christianity Us it exists In
the Scriptures; but il had any struggle to re-
tain my respect for embodied, accredited Chris
tanity it was durin: those years Of my education
IN which could look towards Boston. the seat Ut
culture in America, and find hetcrodoxy at the
front on Cons side to slavery, and orthodoxy
doubling, as il halting between Con and Mammon,
her cars flied largely with cotton and gold dust,
and WEBSTER her Archbishop.
There are other causes for skepticis1n
which A1r. Cook onumerates, and among them
fashion and mortgages. "Whenever an
aristocratic church insists on it that people
shall have something to wear or not 60 to
church at al, it repels the poor" "We have
churches that, when they erect new house,
dedicate to Con only mortgage" Here is
much truth, in two nutshe1ls. If the poor
are to be called upon to help support fashion
and pay mortgages as conditions of church.
going, they must Of necessity stay away, as
they can't afford it; and staying away, they
lapse into indifference, and eventually fall
into skepticism. Mr. Cook does not dwell
upon this point RS closely as he should, and
we are rnther surprised also to find, in read
ing over the seven columns of this lecture,
that he has omitted two very important
influences that operate on New England
theology: First, the east wind that
blows over the, salt marshes and
shrivels it on week days, and the ex-
pansive beam that every Sunday morning
distends it, thus keeping it continually vibrat-
ing between two extremes, unsettled, con-
flicting, disgruntled. His keen powers of
analysis might have traced the subtle work.
ings Of these ocean breezes and inland escu-
lents. He might have told US how the sug-
gestions Of kelp, CLANS, king crabs, barna-
cles, slimy piers, and pitchy cordage con-
tanned in every breath Of a Boston east wind
carry contamination to Massachusetts theol-
ogy, even to the Berkshire Hills, and, on the
other hand, what mysterious influence is en-
gendered overnight in an earthen bean-pot
that dulls the minister's eloquence on Sun
day and sends his hearers to Saints Rest
long before he reaches thirdly It may be
that Mr. Cook has not given thought to these
causes which operate on the New England
physique, and, through the physique, upon
the spiritual man of Massachusetts, from the
bean town of Beverly to Albany -Four Cor
ne1s, whore the east wind is dispersed by
the western brcezes Of the great lakes that
refresh soul and body and make people in
crease in grace and Drawn. This is New
England problem we Of the West wonld like
to sec solved. The columns of TEE TRIBUNE
are open to the great lecturer.