Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1884-05-09
OUT OF LINE.

OUT OF LINE.
Emerson says very beautifully of the
Sabbath that the cathedral music of
history breathes through it a psalm to
our solitude;" it runs like an open high
way back to the very beginnings of his
tory, and in every generation the feet
OF worshipers have added to its sane
tlty. Equally venerable is the Christian
church. or, rather, the practice ard
habit OF worship which it represents.
NO age has been so low in the scale of
civilization, or so devoid of spiritual
fellowship, that it has lacked its smok-
ing altar, its shining temple, or its up
per room filled with seekers after truth
and righteousness. In every genera
ton the invisible God has seen His hu-
man children on Bonded knee asking
His presence and powerin the manifold
troubles OF their lives. or standing with
uplifted faces to praise Him for His I'M
speakable mercies. There is aome-
thing in this unbroken worship, running
parallel with all history, and rising
steadily from the awful dread of instinct
to the alteration of the highest intelli-
gence, which touches all those who
study the highest needs of humanity
with reverence and awe. Only the To-
norant and the low-minded sneer at
churches; to all others the mere act of
worship, however imperfect and made
quaue, is sacred thing. Along this
avenue of visible alteration of the un-
seen God all the highest and the hottest
have walked; forth from these shrines
men and women have gone to all the
glorious martyrdoms; out of this wor-
ship have come those restraining forces
which have held back the baser pas
slons, and those commanding aspira-
tons which have led the march of CIV
ilization. 1t has never been enough
that men should acknowledge God in
the secret chambers of their own souls;
the needs OF the great world have de-
manded public declaration of faith and
service, aud the private alteration has |
sought for visible shrine and audible !
worship as surely and by as true law |
of nature as the sap ut the root of the |
tree seeks the revelation of itself in
flower and fruit.
This habit and practice of external
worship of the invisible God is found
to-day wherever church spires point
heavenward or church bells send their
solemn music into our homes; these
spires testify to the faith in God, vener-
able as history, and these bells repeat
the invitation, old as time, but renewed
forever and forever.
But there are large numbers in this
age who have forsaken both church and
worship, whose religious life, if they
have any, is concealed and hidden. The
army of those who rarey cross the
threshold of the church has no leader
ship nor organization, but so far as
numbers give strength it is mighty
host. This great detachment of the
moving column of humanity has sepa-
rated itself from the main body, has
deserted the standards, that in every age
have led the upward struggle toward
righteousness, love and the victories of
truth. The non-church-goers are out
of line with the noblest life of the past:
they have broken ranks with the Hottest
souls in history: they have separated
from the historic development of hui
mainly. Have they good and sufficient
reasons for step SO momentous to
themselves and to the worldP
j. There are in every community a
few persons who have tried to think out
their relations to an invisible God, hon.
cstly and intelligently, and who have
come to the deliberate conclusion either
that there is no God to worship, or, if
there is God, that He is deaf to the
cries of men and dead TO their needs
For the atheist and agnost'c the Chris
tan Union has only words Of the deep
est sympathy. To be alone and father
less IN an immeasurable and incompre-
hensive universe is surely sorrow enough
to any intelligent mind and sensitive
heart. 1t is the daily and Eourly real
nation of that terrible dream of Rich
ter S in which, ut the black m dnight,
he saw the dead rise TO an Immortality
more terrible than death, and heard the
piercing cries of the children for their
Christ, and saw TIE Christ descend into
their midst more desolate and miserable
than themselves, bearing from the lone
ly universe the awful message that they
and He were alike orphans in it. To
surrender all the consultations that come
from the divine heart of love, all the
strength that flows from the Infinite
Power, and the inspiration and LOYALTY
that are born in the consciousness of
the Divine guidance of human life from
the day when Abraham went for h, not
knowing whittier he went, TO sow the
seeds of mighty civilizations-carries
with.it sorrow too deep for words,
loss too great for thought.
?. But the candid, honest, intelligent
dfsbelievers in God and in Christianity
are comparatively few; the great body
OF those who stay away from the church
because they profess to reject the truth
which the Church teaches are neither
candid nor intelligent The talk about
these things that one hears in railroad
cars, in places where idle men congre-
gate, and even in resorts of far high
er grade, is the very reverse of candid,
serious, truth-seeking discussion. 1t is
frivolous. captivus, credulous, thorough
ly unintellectual Touching the deep
est and most sacred things in life, il
LAYS no tender, reverent hand upon
them, but strikes with the coarse, bru-
tai hand of materialism. Get half a
hundred non-beleyers together. and ask
them to give their reasons for rejecting
the truths of religion. and you viii be
fortunate if you find five who can give
you reason which is even respectable
from an intellectual standpoint; the
vas: majority will only bring out more
clearly. as you press them for the rea-
sons of their attitude, the fact that they
have never thought the matter out at
all. but that in rejecting the highest re-
lationship of life they are acting from
prejudice. passion. ignorance, or hope
less inability to understand spiritual
things. Their reasons will impress q !
spiritually-minded person as do the ar
OF Mr.. Ingersoll-as the talk
OF those to whom the whole subject they
are discussing is as incomprehensible as
is symphony Of Beethoven TO one who !
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