Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1879-07-10

which not only held many details oil
belief, but which lived largely by a
hostility to each other. As great
statesman dare not be partisans, and
do always attempt to escape from
and live above the mercenary men
who frequent the shambles in pur.
suit of votes ~ men like Stuart Mill,
and Sumner, and Gladstone attempt
to seek only truth for all, and jus.
tice for ell, and would not buy of.
fee with gold. 80 it is probable that
some Of the great ones in letters and
learning have
STOOD APART FROM THE CHURCH OF
ROME
and the church of England, and
from other exacting forms of faith,
because they admired more relig.
ion which loved ten thousand shapes
of creed and worship with an equal
affection. The judges in our high
courts when they happen to be
members of any church cease soon
to be partisans, and the Romanism
of fancy or the Unitarianism OF
Story are to be learned from the re-
cord OF baptisms rather than from
their manhood deeds. Their relig-
ion, but not their sect was visible.
Ii literature be the greatest form of
truth it must pass by the Incidental
and transient.
We thus find causes quite plaus,
ib!o that have operated to make the
greatest minds Of the times take
their stand outside the church.
Among these causes we do not find
atheism or even skepticism of prin.
ciples to be worthy of any special
mention. 1t is not true that the
greatest minds have sighted the
Christian religion in its essence, but
it seems true that for special causes
alluded to they have not been well
disposed toward the definite and
voluminous creeds of the sects. This
state of mind has apparently come
from three causes-the church
asking for greater credulity than
such educated intellects can com
mand; the pulpit's differentiating
from literature those who are most
spiritual the tendency of literature
itself to deal only In ideas the most
universal. These three facts will
explain the phenomenon to some so
alarming.
WHAT WOULD BE THE PRACTICAL RE-
SUITS
of this assumed relationship of schol-
ars and churches? The results
would be bad if all our youth who
have read a little and have felt some
of the inspiration of learned pur-
suit should stand out of the church
SO as to be in this so-thought good
society, but how much evil of this
kind is "a be feared we have no
means of knowing. 1t is more easy
for us to estimate other results in
this large play of cause and effect.
The church is itself being modified
by this incessant pulsation of broad
literature all around it. When the
books of an age were all Roman
Catholic books then the Roman
church had no one who dared revise
its thoughts and acts. And when in
more recent times tho books of the
world were Calvinistic or Puritanic
then that large branch of tie church
stood without any critic. In New
England in early days there was es.
tablished censorship of the press,
and no book dared appear which
might contain any heretical senti'
ment. An edition of Thomas A.
Kempis was suppressed, and a com.
mittee ordered to revise the book
and look out for priestly sentiments.
One of the patriotic poems of the
day had this sentiment
"Lst men of God in courts and churches watch
Ger such as do a liberation hatch"
One burning and shining light de-
clared that for putting down error
the "holy tactics of the civil sword
should be employed" This censor
ship of the press remained in our
land until l75o-only a little more
than a hundred years ago. For
hundreds of years books had to be
Roman in Catholic lands; Anglican
10 English, and Puritanic in Amerl-
ca, and therefore it is a new expe
rience for the Christian era to have
around it literature worthy of The
name of humanity-a literature free
TO express all the thoughts and emo.
tons of its best souls. 1t must be
true that the books of to-day are the
most
PERFECT EXPRESSIONS OF THE HUMAN
MIND
OF all that have appeared in the 1900
years OF our era. Science and even
Atheism can utter all its inmost re-
Elections. Tyndall and Huxley and
Darwin and Mill and Harriet Mar.
tineau have all been as free children
of thought as are the children of play
that gather flowers in the fields. II
one desires to bury a wife or broth.
er in the rites of love and friendship
and without any of the forms of re.
ligion there is respectful hearing
accorded and flowers are sent in by
perhaps Christian hands to decorate
the coffin over which Atheism is to
speak in only the name of an earthly
career and earthly ties and vacan,
home and deaths awful silence
Never had thought such full liberty
before and the influence OF such un-
burdening of the heart must deeply
affect the whole public.
1t is then new thing for ouI
Christianity to have rolling all around
it this ocean of liberty. The result
may not be bad-that of leading
young persons away from all worship
but it may be good that Of leading
the many churches toward revision
and amendment of their faiths; ,ha,
as literature is in its very essence
broad, SO that faith of God and Of
Jesus Christ may also be made broad
to fit itself for new and nobler com
partnership. Instead of being cause
of alarm it might be grand blessing
to all the churches, Roman and Prot
estant. that such men aud women as
Cousin and Guizot ana Lamartine
and Carlyle and Mrs. Jameson and
countless hosts OF liberal spirits, full
alike of learning and love and genius,
all moving about in the world not