Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-04-22
THE COMING MANS RELIGION.

UHdt Mr.. James Parton Said Before the
Nineteenth Century Club.
The parlors of Mr.. CORTLAND Palmer's
were filed Tuesday evening by members of
the Nineteenth Century club, who had
gathered to listen to paper by James
Parton on ''The Coming Mans Religion"
He said he had two kinds of thoughts re-
speeding religion-ibrary thoughts and
kitchen thoughts. In the library, religion
seemed the shame and the torment of our
species. How could the history of religion
be told except in sobs and shrieks? Relig-
ious controver5ies-how bitter and how
trivial! Religious wars-how cruel and
how long! Religious ages another name
for the Dark Ages! Religious literature
how silly and how false much of it was!
Religious women-how credulous! Relig-
ious men-how hard and how softI Could
any human being think we'll of religion
merely from the record it had left? But in
the kitchen we found lonely, laborious
woman, drudging from week to week, and
on Sunday morning religion compensated
her. Religion was home to her who had
no home. 1t was the one thing that made
1T worth her while to go through another
week of toll. What was this thing
that played such unique part in
human affairs-so cherished, 80 hated,
so despised, SO revered-to establish
or destroy which men would die? This
question would be finally answered by a
naturalist like Charles Darwin, who would
show that our religion was the measure of
our distance from the missing link. Mr..
Parton said that in the most developed re-
ligion now on earth there was scarcely a
device, an implement, an observance or an
etiquette that the wild Indians did not
rudely represent; even the host and the
elevation of the host was represented in the
Indian religious ceremonials. Religion
had improved the implements, but it had
added scarcely anything to the primitive
The lecturer told how he had lost
a school he once taught in Philadel-
phia because he stopped having prayer
when he had come to think that prayer
was injurious and impious. Wesley would
have had no career in England, Whitfield
in America, Cartright in Kentucky, nor
Moody and Sankey anywhere, if beer and
rum and vice had not gone before them
anu ueOaucneO ignorant m1ndS TO the point
of imbecility. Mr.. Parton denounced the
influences of religious schools, and said
that to thousands of students to-day re
hgioD was the great common nuisance.
The coming man would have a theory of
the universe, but his religion would not.
He would regard the first great cause
as a secular, not sacred sub
ject. The proper religion for an Amer
lean citizen was the United States of
America. To be a good American would
be the common mans religion. The sole
object of the true and final religion would
be to improve the quality of the human
life in this world. The drama would
probably remain in the form of the Sunday
exercise. The mass was drama or opera.
Suitable dramas, played by the members
of the coming church, would exault, inspire
and cheer the whole people.
On the conclusion of the lecture, Mr..
Palmer read letter of regret from the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in which the
latter said; Il shall probably never know
what the coming religion will be; aud so
shall go stumbling on in the old way of
loving God and my fellow creatures