The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-10-16


that the thunder kills, and not the
Aud of course, if the preach
er does not rant and below and thun
der enough, he thinks he must be get
ting cold in the cause, and is not the
preacher for him.
And now let me ask, are you not re-
minded of the 'sNazarite" movement,
the camp meeting, the Salvation army,
and of those periodical excitements
that are sometimes miscalled "revivals
of religion ?" Such people seem to be
skeptical of any mans religion which
is not as noisy as their own. Devo
tional fervor is an excellent thing, and
l would to God we had thousand fold
more of it, and the real Christian will
be devoted to the service of God and
man. But an excess of merely outward
devotion tends to make religious feel
ing spasmodic, and not uniform-now
up and then down-to- day at zero and
tomorrow at the boiling point. Some
thing like the ague and fever, and that
disease is not supposed to be very favor
able to the advancement of pure re-
ligion among men, nor exactly adapted
to the production Of death-bed repent
ance.
Another man thinks that religion
consists of moral principle only. He
means to be a good man and to act
rightly, whether he is sound in the
faith or not. He never says much, but
keeps right on in the even tenor of his
way. He is known as good moral
man, though not as noisy professor of
religion. He has the notion of Pope,
the poet, better than a hundred bulls
of the Pope of Rome, that ian honest
man is the noblest work of God" He
had rather be honest, true-hearted and
good, than dishonest, long-faced, ~
ing, cross, mean professor of godliness.
He has no patience with your little
hearted, close-handed Christian, al
though willing to do any poor soul a
favor. If he has any creed at all, it is
the glorious Golden Rule. His model
man is the good Samaritan. If mem
Der of any church, he wants the preacher
to preach less about faith and profess
sions and more about good works. If
inclined to be censorious anywhere it
would be upon that point. And l
think we must confess there are very
few preachers who would justly escape
his rebuke.
And does he not represent another
class of the people? Verify, it is SO.
They are the class who make religion a
set of practical duties. Faith, profess
sions, forms and theories, are not re-
garded by them as of much worth. They
have got around to the practical side OF
Christianity, and they mean to stay
there. And they have, indeed, very
amiable ard excellent position and
if only one Christian trait could be had,
it would De, by far, the most lovely OF
all But, after all, man has mind
as well as a heart, and he may have
the truth as well as the practical good
ness. "Faith without works, is dead, .
and so works without the faith that
prompts them, would be very few and
small. Gas a man thinketh in his
heart, SO is he." Religion is theory
and practice, as the SUMS ray is both
light and warm. Make man believe
theory and he will act it out in the
life, and if he does not act it, you may
be sure, whatever his pretense may be,
he does not truly believe it. Here is
the great difference between barbarism
and civilization; barbarous belief is
always barbarous in it's results, while
genuine Christian civilization is full of
light, and love, and joy. Let the world
be taught truth, and that world will re-
spond with love.
Still another adheres with great per-
| tinacity to doctrinal faith. He views
the gospel as composed of the bone, the
muscle, and the nerve of doctrine.
Forms are nothing to him, sentiment
is nothing to him, devotional feeling is
nothing to him, practical goodness is
nothing to him there is nothing in all
the wide world to be compared with
essential doctrine. He is all faith in
the sense of dogmatic opinions, and so
has no room for anything else. Men
must think Alright, which is just as he
thinks, whether they feel rightly and
act rightly or not. The heresy of faith
is more odious to him than the heresy
of corrupt life. He scents out infdel-
ity quite as readily as bloodhound
tracks runaway slave. The creed
must be right, at all hazards. A false
thought is regarded by him as the very
objectionable sin. You must be ''evan-
gelical," according to his standard, or
you shall not see heaven. The errorist
of opinion is denounced as the worst
enemy of God and man. Gods great
mistake in creation was, that he did
not cramp all minds in the same stere-
otype mold, and measure all men and
women on the same iron bedstead of
abstract faith. Such seems to be the
position of the doctrinal dogmatist.