New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-07-04

couldn't breathe: he gasped now and then ne was
plates there was the ship. and covered hlm
with hot plates till begun to feel him growing
warm Thon poured brandy into NM LOT heS
DAYS and nights and man from forrard watcned
and nursed him. wrapped him in poultices as big
as sheet. aud changed them every twenty minutes
to take tho soreness out of him and so he lived.
| Then after n moments pause, entirely ignoring
her own grand part in the matter the captain wne
added earnesy But he sSadI nave b msea strictly
temperate: So when he needed tho brandy, IL
brought him right up" 1t was the best temperance
al dunno about The brandy said the captain
quietly. Il guess brandy couldn't have done much
for me- without my wife; put an aws sence
THE ONE RELIGION Truth Holiness and Peace de-
sired by the Nations and Revealed by Jesus tlrist
Eight Lectures delivered before tho University OF
Oxford in the year Iss on the losnaaUa y '1ni
Tutor of Brasenose College, etc. svo PIP S'z L.
p Duttor Co.
The significance Of these learned and vigorous
lectures lies largely the advance which they in
dcatc in the dealing OF Christian thought with the
morality, religion and philosophy OF PagsnisIn
! The tine has been when it was deemed orthodox TO
insist upon the most complete isolation OF Chris
tlanity from every previous form of faith; when 1t
was thought essential to the defence OF christianity
| to maintain that il had nothing IN common with
even the best of its predecessors and when the great
heather systems of antiquity were subjects Tor de-
nuncIation only.
Time and deeper study have materially modified
such views. If the comparative study OF religion
has brought out in sharper lines tho error and cor
ruption of Pagauism, it has also brought to light
better clements. If it is has shown that men were
in error it has also shown that they were seeking
for truth and for God If il has demonstrated the
infinite superiority of the Christian system, 1T has
also shown the universally Of the religious crav-
ing. IL has shown that the germs of certain great
religious truths are common to Christianity ana
to other and older systems and that the errors oil
those systems really branch of from these funda-
mental truths This fact once grasped enables us to
throw the whole field of un-Chrst'an or ani-Chrls-
tian belief into masses and thus to obta clearer
general view For example, starting with the
truth of Thesm we find Pantheism and Anthropo-
mOrphic Deism occupying respectively the extreme
left and night of this central doctrine. Pantheism
exagserates the ideas of ininity and universaty
Deism, the idea of separate personality. Pantheism
represents God as infinite without personality
! Deism rs personal without infnity. The outcome
of Pantheism appears in the various developments
of Dualsm and Gnostlcsm; the outcome of Deism
in lsamism and the developments of Pelaganisin
Mr. Wordsworth's second lecture and the table at
the end will be found eminently suggestive on this
point.
Advanced Christian thinkers are now ready to
lights up the darkness OF Paganism any evidence
that God did not leave Himself without witness in
the pre- Christian ages. They can admire ard CON-
mend Sakya Mount, an Epictetus, Marcus
Aurelius while they note their defects accord
! ing to the Christian standard. They thank God
that these men what they were, instead OF
denounclng the men for being no better. 1t has
been well said that antithesis IS so unfortunate
and pernlcious as that of natural with revealed
,oI;,. hut foA DAM tha
reality of any of Gods revelations of truth to man
merely BECAUSE they have not descended through
single channel" The failure to recognize this re-
suits in the common of treating the ancient
faiths merely cuIiosites, and practically exclud
ing from them the positive action of God. Let u.s.,
saws our author, at any rate as Christians, avoid
this folly. We cannot be content with mere
museum of eligous beliefs however scientifically
arranged. To Christians the religion of
heathenism is rather mysterious half. ruined tenn
pie and in which it is more meet to fall down
and worship than to wander unawed and I'M
abashed, noting each column and capital each
change of style and variation of artistic fDish,
without thinking Of Him for whose glory it was
reared"
These defects attached in some measure to what
! has been perhaps, up to the publication of Max
! Muller's Origin and Growth of Religion" the
representative English work on this subIect-Arch-
deacon Hardwicks Christ and Other Masters
This work fastened upon the evil rather than upon
the good clements of heather belief and, as Muller
! observed, the author, "in his Arguments against
! the tenets of Buddha or Laotse, seemed to treat
those men IN the spirit of policeman who tells
| blind beggar that lie Is only shamming blindness
Apart from all this, however, since the publica-
ton of Hardwicks work and the Boyle Lectures of
! +. ID. Maurice q vast amount of new material has
accumulated for the comparative study OF religion.
There is upon the face of the globe of any
thing like even thiId-rate Importance which is
unvisted and and undescribed. Marvellous dis
coveres in the ancient histories of Egypt, Assyrla,
Babylonia, carry us back two or three thousand
years before the birth of Christ. At the same
moment we have unbiased and authentic accounts
of the great religions of the East; and rereadng
of the old classic mythoogies seems to bring the
whole mass into focus and to present us with a
lively picture OF the unity of the religious instincts
and aims of the great family of mankind. For the
first time in the history of the world, the whole
fed of natural theology can be surveyed, with
fair certainty of our not being deceived.
! This will sufficiently indicate the standpoint and
general drift of these admirable lectures, which will
richly repay study. 1t only remains to indicate
| their general plan Beginning with a comparison
and contrast OF the Christian and Biblical idea OF
God with the chief nonC Christian and heretcal con-
ceptons which claim to take its place. the writer
| discusses SUCCESSFULLY three great positions which
seem to be assumed as fundameu tai in all religions.
! First That God wills to make Himself known to
man that He is God of truth and giver of reve-
! lations. Second, That Sin separates man from God
and that atonement for it must be made by sacri-
fee. Third. That men may find peace and favor
| with God in this life, and better life with Him
after death. Under these propositions he proceeds
to show First, That mont Christian religious systems
assume specific witness to these general
yictinns: while they fail often by their own admis-