Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-06-17


sian. The Messiah is to come and restore the
kingdom to the Jew" This writer informs
us that the ancient Esths had song in which
they recounted the heroism of kalcWlpoee
who sits in the realm of shadows with his fist
embedded in the rock waiting until his coun
try is in its extremity of distress, when he
will draw his hand from the hard heart Of
the living stone and return to earth to smite
the adversaries and oppressors of his people.
These same Esths had their notions of place
of direful torrents and helpless distresses--a
seven fold hell, in short They found express
sion through an Esthonian bard who sang
In the bosom of the forest,
Where the bushes fling their shadows,
Where the alder-boughs are dripping,
Where the birches sadly waver,
There of messy cairns are seven,
Not adorned by loving fingers,
Not by watchful eyes attended.
One contains our tears of anguish,
One contains our chains Of bondage,
One is DER our smitten heroes.
In the fourth walls gnawing famine,
In the fifth humiliation,
In the sixth the plague is lurking,
In the seventh utter ruin.
So that there seem to be strong grounds for
the conclusion that the idea of the return to
this earth of peoples idol or ideal was widely
entertained and is not confined to Jews or
Christians, merely Also the idea is conveyed
that there are other than the Hebraic and
Christian notions of hell or place of future
punishment. As to the growing resentment
&c tbis i1ao of hall bn fol1OvipCr re.r,Crt of
distinguished laymans sermon strkingly ex-
emplifies it. The Chicago Times of the 4th
inst. furnishes the subjoined
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was called to pre-
side at the Unitarian festival in Boston on the
evening of May 3lst, in the absence of George
William Curtis He began his remarks by
saying:
1t has occurred to me, ladies and gentle
men, that, many clergymen expected
to make speeches on this occasion, it would
be fair thing enough if one layman should
take the opportunity it affords him Of deliver
ing a sermon. | have heard great many
and never yet pronounced one Win you
kindly listen to my virgin effort! My text is
from the Apoc rypha, the book Of EcAesiasti
Gus, Doth chapter, 18th verse:
An eloquent man is known far and near,
but man of understanding knoweth when he
slippeth. Eccles Xxx; Is.
In the course of his sermon, DR.. Holmes
said
1t is a simple fact that the working beliefs
in New England have been steadily approach
ing the ground occupied by what is known as
liberal Christianity.
Old orthodoxy has been stripping itself like |
a circus rider who throws off one garment !
after another, as it has ridden round the ring |
of successive generations. First came off the !
scarlet hunting suit of the witch finder, then |
the Geneva cloak of the Professionalism, then
the Jewish gabardine of the Sabbatarans,
and know not how many more and already |
We see the fair outlines of our common hu-
mainly which has been more or less obscured
for long time by these DISCUSSES.
When | think of Increase Mather burning
Robert Colefs book against the witchcraft
delusion in the yard of Harvard College, of
which he was a President, and imagine his
successor of to-day taking part in similar
ceremony, feel as if you might as will read
the Stamp Act to the great grandchildren of
the 20 sons of liberty" as the old New Eng
land confessions of faith to the descendants
of the Pilgrims and the Puritans.
When | remember that the ancestor of the
little child, by whose thread of life alone l
hold to the generation yet in the tender bud,
disposed Of the infants on trial before their
final Judge by making Him say that, although !
In bliss {
They may not hope to dwell
Still unto them He will allow t
The easiest room in hell.
When remember that Jonathan Edwards,
the great champion of later New England G
spoke of children, with certain {
rare exceptions, as ''young vipers and inf S
nitely more hateful than vipers in the sight t
of God" exposed every day to eternal burn T
lngs'-and think what universal cry of out Q
ragged motherhood would silence this Herod Il
Of the pulpit in the Boston of to-day | can b
believe that almost any cherished dogma that s
stands in the way of a true catholic union of e
Ill believers in the eternal gospel of righteous
ness may fade out obsolete, if it is not blot il
led out as inhuman, and therefore ungodly "
May |, without committing any one but h
myself, mention few of the stumbling blocks
which will stand in the way of some who have
many sympathies of what is called the liberal fe
chool of thinkers l believe they are quite as b
mich anthrOpOlOgical as theolooical Sona ~.