The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-05-19
CANON FARRAR ON INTOLERANCE.

The following extract we take from
Canon Farrar's ''Early Days of Chris
tianity." It treats of subject on
which there is still need of decided pro-
test. The days have gone by when the
spirit of intolerance in religion is at
tended by the severer forms Of penalty
which once characterized it. We have
no more inquisitions, prisons and the
stake for differences in religious opin-
ion, but there is remnant of the evil
spirit still existing, and no doubt there
are many bigots yet in the world who
would make those who differ from
them in opinion suffer very severe
penalties. The passage below is one
of the many fine things in Canon
Farrar's volume, and it is called forth
by the popular use that has been made
of a paragraph in the second epistle of
John:
sit will be seen, then, at glance, that
Truth and Love are key-notes of the
epistle, and that the conceptions which
prevail throughout it are those with
which we have been made familiar by
the previous epistle. And yet one pas
sage of the epistle has again and again
been belauded and is again and again
adduced as a stronghold of intolerance,
an excuse for pitiless hostility against
all who differ from ourselves. There
is something distressing in the swift
instinct with which an un-C Christian
egotism has first assumed its own in
fallibility on subjects which are often
no part Of Christian faith, and then
has sped as on vulture's wings to this
passage as conservation of the feelings
with which the odium ueologicum dis
graces and ruins the divinest interests
of the cause of Christ. 1t must be
said though 1 say it with the deepest
sorrOw-that The cold exclusiveness of
the Pharisee, the bitter ignorance of
the self-styled theologian, the usurped
infallibility of the half educated relig-
| ionist, have ever been the curse Of
Christianity. They have imposed the
senses of men upon the words of God,
the special senses of men on the gen.
eral words of God,' and have tried to
enforce them on all mems consciences
with all kinds of burnings and anatha-
mas, under equal threats of death and
damnation. And thus they have in
CURED the terrible responsibility of
presenting religion to mankind in a
false and repellant guise. Is theologi-
cal hatred still to be a proverb for the
worlds just contempt9 Is such hatred
hatred in its bitterest and most ruth
less form-to be regarded as the legiti-
mate and normal outcome of the relig-
ion of lover Is the spirit of peace
never to be brought to bear on religious
opinion Are such questions always
| to excite the most intense animosities
and the most terrible divisions Is the
Diotrephes of each little religious clique
to be the ideal of a Christian character
Is it in religion alone that impartiality
is to be set down as weakness and
courtesy as treason Is it among those
only who pride themselves on being
orthodox that there is to be the COM
pletest absence of humility and of JUS
tice ? Is the world to be for ever con-
fiTmed in its opinion that theological
partisans are less truthful, less candid
less high-minded, less honorable even
than the partisans Of political and So
cial causes who make no profession as
to the duty of lover Are the so-called
religious champions to be forever, az
they now are, in many instances, the
most unscrupulously bitter and the
most cOnspicuously unfair +? Alas
they might be so with far less danger tC
the cause of religion if they would
forego the luxury of quoting Scripture
for their purpose The harm which
has thus been done is incredible.