The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-07-29
CHURCH CHIMES.
Matter to Interest Those Re-
ligiously Inclined.
GLADSTONE AND lNGERs0LL
Selections From the Great Discussion
Published in the North Ameri-
Csu Review.

the various churches to-day as follows
CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY
SAINTs.-Sslt Lake Stake of Zion, Angus NJ.
Cannon, president; Joseph E. Taylor and
Charles w. Penrose, counselorS. Services
in the Tabernacle at P. IN. Evening
services in the various wards.
ST.. Marks CATHEDRAL.-Holy Commun-
ion at 80 am. sunday school at 9 As am.
Morning service with sermon at IL m.
Evening prayer at pm.
FIRST PREsBYTERIAN.-Publi worship at
IL q. IN. and preaching'by the pastor, R G.
McNiece Sabbath School at u .. Young
peoples meeting at 6.45. Seats free ana
strangers welcome. -,
METHODIST CHURCH.-Rev. C. L Libby,
pastor. Preaching at II 81. II. Sunday
school at 12.l5 p M. No evening service
THE FIELD-INGERsoLL-GLA CON-
TRovERsY.
Lately We published in these columns
synopsis of Mr.. Gladstone's and Col.
IngersolI's articles which appeared in
the North american ReUiew on the great
issues of Christianity and Inidelity.
Doughty champions are they on either
side, as they wage with zeal and might
the war which has already gone on for
ages past. Their articles have provoked
endless criticism and comment from
various sources, and it is our present
purpose to present few selections OF
these criticisms and comments to our
readers. Eiizabtth Stuart Phelps. in
the North american ReUieaU for July,
says:
The first thing which impresses me
in the discussion between the Presby-
terrain clergyman, the American intidei
and the English Premier is that there
has been an extraordinary waste OF
nerve tissue in the whole business.
Controversial literature has its history
like other phases of art and that his
tory has taught US respect for the dig
nifty, severity and economy OF form.
These qualities are not present
throughout this discussion. They are,
in portions conspicuously absent. 1t
is q controversy of impulse rather than
of systems. Is not the main
trouble with the discussion the absence
of definition? Really when we come
to look at it, there is no such
thing postulated between the OPP
ponents. The simplest conditions of
controversy are disregarded from the
start. There are no common terms. 1t
is easy to ask, How can there be any
What can there be2 Between mind
which finds il natural to call heaven
poor-house and Jehovah an eternal
turnkey, and the mind OF devout be-
lever in the divine mission OF Jesus
Christ, where is the common term?
II 1t seems to me that just here lies
the chief mistake of much OF our pres
ent conflict between faith and skeptl-
ali 80 10,
this: We fire too much at random.
We do not insist on our first premise.
We spend ourselves on defective condi-
tions. 1t is an age which pre-emlnently
REQUIRES precision of terms. 1t is the
time of exact thought. 1t is the time
when no defender of the Christian faith
can dare to enter helterskelter fight
for it. It is the time of times when he
owes it to that faith to demand of its
foes every justice, every courtesy,
every consistency which the common
consent of scholarship grants to con
troyersy in all other departments of
thought. It is time when any be- |
lever in any agnostic who choose to |
discuss the Christian religion must be- |
gin by postnlating of something
Somewhere, Religious pro-
gress always gets the start of the
Ecclesiastical Council. The faith Of one
age becomes the creed of the next. The |
progress of truth is geologic, 1t is to be |
measured from the fossils to the form |
ing crystal, but he is poor student
who mistakes the fossil for the crystal. |
as we plainly see. The greatest
scientific genius of the age, one OF the
greatest of all ages, has been unHo!e to
fit the missing link to the snperb and
convincing chain OF inductive rPason-
ing involved in the theory OF evolution
The unbelieyer who does not know why
the sun sets, or why his children love
him, or how his heart beats, or where
fore the tide turns, may be coDtented to
coucede this common term: The larger
the truth the larger the mystery. We
NAV be peremptory to demand of him
If YOU cannot tell US why the spider
beneath your feet stops forever If you
step on it. how can you expect US
to explaiu the private reasons
of the Almighty for his public acts 2
a man should be we'll assured of
what he has in it, to start with, who
knocks his head against the most valu-
able faith of the human race. Pungent
thought he has; brilliant fancy;
cogent passion; magnificent rhet-
ORC. Logic he has not. In
Biblical scholarship he is generation,
at least, behind his times. He is with
ont any which qualities him or justifes
him for his toray against the Chris
tisnity of his age. To be professional
assassin of eternal hope, enc would
say. man should know enough OF his
weapon to select the most recent in
yentions and to put himself under
some cultivated training in the use of
them. No one can doubt that Colonel
IngerSoll is quite capable of doing both
of these things. The point to be noted
is, that he mas not taken the trouble to
do them. God is g spirit.
By the spirit he is to be unprecedented.
They that worship, worship in spirit.
He must be loved to be understood.
He is not so unlike other objects of
affectic in this, after all.
To CHRISTIAN believers God is too prec-
ions 80 be given no, because, in b ief,
the Bible is book requiring mora
scholarly, more candid, and more
trustfui interpretation than any to
which The unbelever of lis discussion
has had his attention drawn. =
Personal dearness is our sweet and
powerful % Gjudicium in Gods b half.
Like all love, it is an argument. Like
all experience, it teaches. Like other
developments. it develops. Logically
considered, the most serious difficulty
with the brilliant scoffer of this con-
f1ict ia that he dons not hrino If m +ha