National Republican., 1883-01-04
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
Those Of a Religious Character Considered by
Rev. Joseph Cook.

the eminent lecturer, Rev. Joseph Cook, OF
Boston, had reason for pleasure at the cor
dlality with which he was received and at
the close attention given to all of his utter
ances.
Rev. DR.. Sunderland introduced Mr.. Cook,
a task he performed with more than ordinary
pleasure, as one who had exceeded even the
apostle Paul in his missionary travels and
labors.
In beginning the lecturer, in reply to DR.
Sunderland, disclained the credit of exceed
ing the labors Of the great apostle to the
Gentiles. In his time travel was so ardurous
that the swiftest Roman chariot could not
have gone from limit TO limit Of the empire
in an hundred days. Now a letter will make
the circuit of the earth in ninety days. He
had made tho circuit of the earth, and at his
return he wanted TO preface his lecture with
a few words of concentration. God he
thanked that to-day there are no hermit
nations that there arc no secluded peoples;
that there are no moro foreign nations; that
one of the chief religious signs of the times
is in the fact that no people can live behind
screen, and among the nations now (by Chris
tian influences which have pervaded tho
world) brought into fraternal relations, Chris
tiauity is everywhere winning its way TO
deeper and more reverent attention. And as
Christianity in its infancy was able to over
turn the idolatry of the Roman empire, now
III lts COLOSSUS GROWTH VIC ully eNpecJ IL 10
overturn and displace the paganism of Asia,
and eventually to fill the world. There
is encouragement in the fact that reliable
statistics show that the increase of Chris
tianity in the world in the present century is
equal TO its entire growth in tho previous
eighteen centuries. In 1900 there were only
about 50,000,000 of copies of the bible in ex-
istence in fifty languages; now it is printed
in nearly 800 languages, and there is more
than one copy for every ten Of the inhabitants
of the planet. The growth of the Christian
churches in the United States is full of en-
couragement' In 1900 they enrolled one in
! fifteen of the population to-day they include
100000 of the 50,0O0,000, or one in FIVE.
These 100000 are the membership who
have made solemn public professions of faith
in Christ. In this century the cause Of
temperance has received q great inn
pulse; the cause of missions has take or
ganic form, and the contributions for the pur-
pose Of advancing Christianity by missionary
effort, aggregate more than S11,000,000 yearly.
| In the last quarter of q century the abolition
of slavery has been accomplished. To-day
| fourteen millions of children are taught in tho
| Sabbath schools; Christianity is to-day more
philanthropio and aggressive than ever before
and in the character of the population he felt
a solid foundation for his confidence that
government of the people, by the people,
and for the people is TO be perpetual. There
is an idea that part of this spiritual life Is SUI
perfcial-hypocritica Admitting that one
in twelve, as in the first group Of disciples,
may be a Judas, the other eloven-twelfths
now, as at the beginning, may be depended on
| to carry forward the cause until all shall
know the Lord.
In the magnificent colonies of Australasia
the cause of Independence of the church from
| patronage and control by the state is making
| progress. Japan feels the need of theocracy
| pervading the masses of the people, and enno-
| bling them SO us to make democracy safe in
| its self-mastery. In that country, through an
interpreter, he had before large audiences
assailed buddhism and advocated Christianity,
and was listened to with profound attention.
In India, which has more than twice the
| population Of the Roman expire in its prime,
the educated classes are abandoning brahmin-
ism, and the way is opening there for rapid
advance of Christianity.
The same proofs needed in Boston and in
London were welcomed there--proofs of God,
of his personality; proofs that the first cause
was not himself caused proofs that God was
good, though in his wisdom he had permitted
evil to test character T; proofs that Christ had
| supernatural attestation of his mission that
the character of Christ forbade his possible
classification as mere reformer. His advo-
cacy of Christianity in Calcutta was us eagerly
| welcomed as in Yokohama. While infidelity
has to-day the world for its field so has
Christianity; as bad books encircle the world,
so do the good, and the chief usefulness of his
journey had been in narrowing in the spirit
ual seed sown by good books that had pre-
ceded him. book which deepens tho souls
sense of its dependence on the infinite will
have an audience surprising that of the most
important decree of a Caesar
The question now to consider, the speaker
said, is Christianity holding its own with the
scholarship of the west. The chief material
istic writer, Herbert Spencer, has for his dis
tinguishing characteristic, faintness, evasiye-
| Clott arf1f in loft ion nn1 fo x.aN
recognized in England asan authority. While
skeptical scholarship says we do not know,
even goes so far that we do not know any
thing. Christian scholarship finds that man
may know little, and that little enough for
practical application.
Throughout Europe German specialists are
recognized as the highest masters IN philoso-
ply, and the German philo7phy of to-day
has left its impression on every man of 40
years. and this philosophy is thoroughly anti
materialistic, and no man who is abreast of
this advanced thought will be influenced by
the shirt-sleeve rhetoric now endeavored to
bs forced upon our young men, being tho
chips and scraps swept out of the back doors
of the best German workshops. 1t has be-
come an axiom in Germany that if man is
q materialist or agnostic educated people
ought to know that that man is not educated.
There is not the slightest proof that matter
, originates power. Life precedes organism and
follows it, and it is far less wonderful that we
should continue to live hereafter than that we
should live at all. Philosophers of Germany
are giving much attention TO the question Of
the spiritual body. We have in our natural
body something that thinks and feels, subtler
than thought, that shines through us and is
seen at times, as in the face of stephen, in the
face of Moses ON Horeb, in the face of our
Z Saviour on the mount of beatitlcatiOn. In the
light of this thought may we not ask, Have
we not here and now u spiritual body
That shines through all our earthly dress2
To-day there can be found no trace of the
mythical theory Which twenty years ago
seemed so formidable to the church; and while
the other religious systems OF the east are full
of myths no such theory applies to the scrip
lures. Infdels now admit that Paul's epistles
to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians
were in existence before A. ID. Co. He had
himself recently visited the Coliseum at
Rome, built in 72 by captive Jews, brought by
Titus from Jerusalem at its overthrow in the
year 20. over from the Coliseum is tlre Arch
Of Titus, built in honor of his triumph, deco
rated with the golden candlestick and
other holy vessels of the temple These
dates are fixed Nero died in 90, Paul
was prisoner under Nero and was ex.
ecuted by him. Paul wrote his epistles
When did he write them2 Before he died
In his epistles he speaks Of fourteen years be.
fore going up to Jerusalem, after having spent
three years in Arabia, bringing his personal
knowledge of the evidences of Christianity
down to the year 81, when in his epistle to the
Corinthians he says there remained 250 wit
nesses of the facts, written Of by him. His