The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-06-30

Will prayer anu nymn.
The Convention was then called to
order by President Throop, as there was
some business still to be enacted. Res
olutions were read thanking Rev. Mr..
Goodenough for his papers read before
the convention, and it was resolved to
publish the same. The Pasadena par
ish was formally thanked for extending
such kind hospitality toward the visit
ing brethren.
President Throop then introduced to
the audience Rev. Eli Fay, DID,, pas
tor of the church of the Unity, Los
Angeles, who spoke at length upon
"Our Attitude Toward the Churches
of Other Denominations" In the
course of his sermon the Doctor re.
marked:
REPORT OF DIR. FAY's SERMON.
Our purest food and drink,-air, is only
relatively, and not absolutely pure.
Herewith and from various other ways
every sensible person is expected, and
every sensible person expects, to take
his inevitable peck of dirt. He is fortu-
nate who gets off with peck. On the
face of the earth there is probably not a
family, institution of learning, business
corporation or national government whose
administration of it's own affairs could
not be greatly improved, nor many in
which improvement is not crying ne
cessity. In the multifarious mechanism
of the world there is not machine that
viewed, microscopioally, would not be
found very defective, nor is it probable
that there is single time-piece that is
absolutely correct. There is alteration
among the heavenly bodies, there is CO.
centricity among the laws of nature. or
the fourteen hundred million human be-
ings on the earth, it may be doubted
whether there is one who is physically,
intellectually and morally in all his rela-
tions absolutely sound and well. There
are snalogues OF wide and varied appli-
cation and of far-reaching significance
and they could be easily multiplied
Perfection! We can scarcely comprehend
the meaning of the term, except as we
perceive that the imperfect is perfect in
its way. In the largest view of the case,
there Is dire stness, and order and grand
seamanship in the zigzag course Of the
vessel that against severe head winds.
brings her to her own port. A child in
learning to walk frequently stumbles and
falls, and yet then and thus with all its
bruises and tears it is as perfect in it's
sphere as is sage, saint or angel in his.
There is not the slightest evidence that
God expects us to know the absolute
truth, to do the absolute right, to attain
to the absolutely pure, or to love only
the absolutely holy.
Every department of God is so stayed
and buttressed, SO fortified against con-
tingencies, so invulnerable even to the
exceptional that the divine train does no
| fly the track even If the hair of every
passenger be not parted exactly in the
middle, and we cannot accentuate too
strongly the principle underlying this
fact, as it is the key to the entire situa-
| ton.
| We liberal Christians deny point blank
that man lives and moves and has his
being under an unvarying round of celes-
tial red-tape or divine punctilio. We deny
point blank that everywhere man is walk
ing tight rope over a frightful chssm,
by misstep or even tremor certain to
be dashed upon the rocks below. We
deny point blank that true spprehen-
sion of our natural condition must occa-
sion on our part intense and perpetual
anxiety and perturbation. We're that the
case, our life plan would expose to ter
rible impeachment him with whom it
origin ated
The character of God can be INDICATED
only on the ground that in this world and
in all worlds, the whole general sweep
and tendency of this is from good to bet
ter, from better to best, etc.
In closing, DR.. Fay used striking
simile: "Sone time ago saw that a
town on the Mississippi river in front Of
which many years ago the people drove
a considerable number Of piles, had oc.
casion to re-suryey the river bank for the
purpose of putting in permanent i'm
provement, and to their surprise, they
found that the long row Of piles that for
years had been the landmark of that Sec
ton correspondent with nothing afoat or
ashore, and finally they demonstrated
that the river bottom near the eastern
river bank in which the piles stood, had
slid so far out into the current and SO far
down stream that with safety to the town
could no longer be used as base line
for any reckoning. So it is with theolo-
gy. Years ago certain piles were driven,
and the men who drove them fondly ex-
pected that they would stand forever
where they placed them. But lol in TAX
ing our observations it is found that not
only are they out of line with reason and
fact, but that they were driven in bed
of quicksand, which by the accumulat-
ing current of modern thought is moving
down stream. And the best interests of
our town, the church of the living God
require that we should let the old piles
go, and re-surveyinR our site, and read
1