The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1884-12-31
oRREsP NCE.
The Personal God.
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 10Th, 8

hlLAOEIJ1 MAJ bOO' INtLJ or
Me8Sr8. EditorS,- Matthew Arnold
maintains that the personal God of the
Hebrews is but literary, unverifable
term, and it were better far to take
refuge in the worship of stream OF
tendency as being more scientific than the
poetical terms which theologians have
thrown out toward the divinity whose
greatness they are utterly unable to
compass. Thus we are to find in the
mere onward and upward flow of things,
in the progress of civilization, the advance
of art and science the potentiality of a
worship more to the purpose than our
grand creed, that God is our Father and
Heaven is our home. Civilization, itself
a product of skill, is the Joint advance OF
art and science-is, forsooth, to be the
new Divinity. But though it effects a
general improvement of mankind out
wardly, promotes human power of hap
piness by higher organization of the in
dividual and of society, the advance is
not necessarily growth of moral order
Some developments of science are posi-
lively evil, abounding in base arts, sensu-
Gus literature utterly currupt We try
to make distinction ia favor of civiliza-
ton to prove that the street Arab is a
specimen of broken down civilization,
who was never civilized, and is to the
Hottentot as ruined house to builders
yard, and we gloss over the hideous de-
pravity and appalling misery of the
dangerous classes In our large cities, but
in vain. Civilization does not of itself
destroy impurity or superstition, and
does not make for righteousness The
ancient Etruscans, like the modern
Chinese, are examples of skill and deli
cacy in goldsmit s work and ivory cary.
ing. We have not surpassed the Greek
in oratory or in sculpture, nor exceeded
Rome in policy and law. Arts of skill
and elegance Aourished and still flourish
in connection with abounding cruelty.
proAigacy, and impurity. Far from re
ligion or m.,ral order depending upon or
growing with the growth of civilization
all the great advances Of civilization
were marred by a separation of secularity
from piety-by divorce of purity from
manners.
II we are to seek for the God we are to
worship amid the stream of tendency.
then the New Testament has had a
doubtful origin, and the Christ cannot
come nor any good thing out of despised
Nazareth. For the holiest life ever looked
on by the world and the purest code OF
morals, which have so marvelously in
huenced the world for righteousness and
of which we are looking for some new
manifestations of spirit and power, are
not found in the luxurious and refined
cities of Athens or Co1inth or Rome, but
amongst the Jews A nation in the rear
Of civilization rather than the vanguard,
not eminent for skill in art or science
IT it be said Epictetus and Marcus
Aurelius were also moral heroes and may,
in some respects, be compared with
Jewish saints--it is to be answered that
these great men furnish the strongest
evidence that their virtues were rather
by intuition and indestruotible conscious
ness residing in human nature Certain.
ly not the product of civilization nor in.
spired by the worship Of tendency, for
civilization and the whole stream Of ten
dency in the age Of the Antonines could
not evolve any, except a low type oi
morality.
History Proves that Piety is not Es-
tablished by Civilization.
Across its stage we, see pass before our
eyes those ages Of prodigious incredulity
and high culture, which have left track
behind, less luminous than inhamed in
the prolongation Of time and have shone
with phosphoric light in history. Fixing