Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-08-11

George Herbert.
The highest form OF Christian life is self
denial. for the good Of Others. L Rev. DR..
Park.
It ia belief in the Bible, the fruits of
deep meditation, which has served me as
the guide of my moral and literary life. [
have found it capital safely invested, and
highly productive of interest.
What we call miracles and wonders of
art are not so 20 Him who created them !;
for they were created by the natural move
ments of His own great soul. Statues,
paintings. churches. poems, are but shad
ows OF Himself, IL Longfellow.
Samuel Morley. NJ. P, in laying the
gregationsl church at Westgaee-o
said the English had act to so to India for
h athenism it existed at their own doors,
nearly one-half of the people neglecting
public worship.
A worthy Quaker thus wrote | expect
to pass through this world but once (; if,
therefore, there be any kindness l can
show, or any good thing can do to any
fellow human being, let me de it now. Let
me not defer or neglect 1t, for | shall not
pass this way again.
We can all set our daily deeds to the
music of grateful heart, and seek to
round our lives into a hymn, the melody
of which will be recognized by all who
come In contact with us, aud the power of
which shall not be evanescent, Ike the
voice Of the singer, but perennial, like the
music Of the spheres.
Morality Is the body, of which the faith
in Christ is the soul-so far, indeed, its
earthly body, as it is adapted to its state
of warfare on the earth, and the appointed
form and instruments of its communion
with the present world, yet not terrestrial,
nor of the world, but celestial body, and
capable of being transit cured from glory
TO glory, in accordance with the varying
circumstances and outward relations of
It's moving and infarming spirit.-[Col-
eridge.
It is only point, but nevertheless a
point worth noting, that the Rev. Charles
Van Norden, when installed recently over
the parish in Springfield, which had previ.
ously mad DR.. Washington GLADDEN. for its
pastor, refused to be bound by anything
narrower than the Apostles and Nicene
Cceeds. THIS is substantially what DE-. W.
E. Msrriman has recently affirmed for a
Congregationalist pasish near Boston. 1t
is what the men of the "new theology {"
are generally affirming with abundant
heartiness. IL is the significant note of
great change in religious thinking, an adj
vance from the UNCONVENTIONAL point Of
view,-[Churchman.
Christ can do nothing for me except as
he does in me. He cannot bring me to
heaven unless he can bring heaven to me.
He cannot impute righteousness to me I'M
less he imparts it TO me. He cannot fur.
nish me a life ready made. He clothes me
az he is clothing the trees this April morn.
ing. TIE mother who does her boys sums
for him does him no kindness the mother
who inspires him with a patience TO do
them for himself truly serves him. Christ
has not come to provide something to take
the place of fearing God and doing right.
eousness he has come to inspire in all
who will learn of Him the fear of God
that works righteousness. l should owe
nothing to one who bought pardon for me
and LETT me ungodly and unrighteous
owe every thing to one who has bought for
me redemption from ungodliness and all
unrighteousness, and who raises me up and
makes me TO sit in heavenly life in Christ
Jesus.-[Rsv. Lyman Abbott.
1t is a superficial allegation often made
that religion but solves the riddles of ex-
riddle as mex plicable. Were it true that
it only resolved the many into one, it
would SO far have followed the inspiration
of philosophy, which is to resolve phe-
nomena into laws, and laws into single
law, and which knows that the ultimate
ground of all must remain inexplicable to
science, since, if capable of being explained
into aught besides, it would not be the
ultimate. But this is the least part of the
sophism. Religion does not substitute
riddles for riddles Sac answers a thou.
sand painful riddles, each of them Sphinx
ready to devour us, by lifting them into a
higher region, and she resolves them, as
has been well said by Auguste Nicholas,
into one sun-lke mystery, which, if itself
too bright to be scanned with undaz.
zed eyes, yet irraiiates the whole
world bssides. The ages and nations
bear witness to that mystery it is the
mystery Of power and of healing; of life
and OF love. The knowledge of God rasi-
ies conscience and enlightens 1t; conse-
crates reason while humbling it; sets the
will free by teaching it to substitute for
the thralldom OF petty motive glad sub
mission to a holy law. L is the mother of
progressive wisdom and of spiritual civil
izatIon it gives the man the power TO act
righteously and to bear patiently; it
changes an anarchy of warning passions
into royal commonwealth of graduated
powers. For ages it has dried the eyes of
the widow and guided the orphans foot.
Yet these are but its lesser gifts, for its
higher boast is that it creates an inner
world of sanctity and peace, hidden
life of the creature with the Creator, the
pledge of a glorifsd life with Him. The
spleen OF an ungrateful and hasty time may
fancy that it can sweep such gifts away
but true philosophy will rebuke revolt
as self-destruotive and so dishonorable
Whatever the theorists may affirm or deny,
Christianity processes to be essentially
life, the life of individual man
and of social man and, despite the scan
dals produced by those who have but
taken religions name in vain, human expe-
rience has attested her claim. We live in
an experimental age; skeptic would do
well to become an experimentaiist, and
test religion by living it. Amid his in
quiriss he should include a careful one as
to whether he has been sincere and a
reverent inquirer. We have been told,
and not untruly, that "honest doubt has
in it much of faith. Bat doubt is not
honest when it is proud, when it is reck-
less, when it is as confident as if thought.
less negation were solid conviction, or as
spathetic as il Divine truth would be less
of gain to man than the struggles that
elicit the strength. Isis in the light, not
the darkness, that men struggle, and it is
the Christian life that gains the name of q
warfare. The warrior must have solid
ground beneath his feet. Nineteenth
Century.