Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-22
UNITARIAN VIEWS.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE Or LIBERAL
CHRISTIANITY.
Which is the Inclusive Sphere Views
Expressed in Rev. C. p. SIassey's
Sermon Yesterday.

AT the services of the First Unitarian
Society yesterday, Rev. C. P. Massey spoke
from Corinthians, H., IA: But the
natural man receiveth not the things of
the spirit of God for they are foolishness
unto him neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned."
Mr.. Massey had announced his subject as
Christian Science and Liberal Chris
tianity-Which is the Inclusive Sphere?"
His handling of it, while it was compre-
hensive and distinguished by certainty as
to individual conviction, was yet character
lied by marked generosity of sentiment
and disposition to include all faithful
ones within the great commonwealth of
the Israel of God. The following extract
from the discourse may indicate as well as
any other the general drift and scope of
the argument:
The speaker had stated that, in his esti-
nation, Christian science was ever dis.
posed to bring within determined lines the
truth which liberal Christianity is willing
to entertain in its glorious suggestiveness,
and so went on to say, as far as anything
can be demonstrated to be q science, liberal
Christianity is willing to give it coun-
tenance; but as an intelligent lady once
said to me, to call that science which pos
sesses none of its characteristics is simply
a contradiction in terms. l spoke of some
things in religion, in science and in phil
osophy which are felt to be true as specu-
lations, and which furnish foundation
to build spiritual belief upon, but which
cannot from their very nature be brought
within lines of positive demonstration
Take first that glorious conception that
Jesus is natural fact, an illustration OF the
highest law of nature, of the supremacy of
spirit over flesh, of mind over matter. Here
is theory of truth that lifts US to that alti-
tude of thought on which we can conceive
that by mere access of moral power such
power as by purity of life we are each capa-
bic of acquiring many things in this world
that resist the touch of any less subtle in
huence will yield TO exalted character, as
though swayed by a wand of mighty
power.
Such belief held tentatively and specu.
latively, but reverently, makes Jesus our
elder brother, 8 man of like passions with
ourselves, not separate from US exception
his exaltation OF essential being, and so in
cludes US with him as children of one COM
mon race, and makes US equally with him
sharers in the races possibilities. But
Christisn science has not been contented to
stop with this grand and lofty confession
of belief. 1t has abandoned one question
able teaching to take up Immediately with
another Jesus is not God in the old ac-
cepted sense, but He is a man possessed
to all intents and purposes of superhuman
powers; the secret which gave him control
over the vast arcana of nature was his ex-
clUsively, and has persisted with him, and
so we can no more imagine ourselves as
placed upon an equality with him, than
though every repudiated circumstance of
his birth, or ministry was absolutely true.
| need hardly ask you which is the more
comforting reflection, this one, or that,
which without thus arbitrarily emphasiz-
ing the essential difference between our
selves and him, who was forever the flower
of our humanity, includes us somehow in
his nobility and his Immortality.
Or, take that ascertained fact within the
province of Science which instructs us of the
large dominion of the mind-of the mind
which, as it is presented to our finite dis.
cernment, reveals itself as the only entity
in our organism, of which our very bodies
are vanishing parts. Perhaps it is not any
eXtrayegant assumption this, for that fac
ulty Il our being which is already com
petent to weigh the stars and calculate their
courses, and bring their very constituents
to our knowledge spectroscopic analysis.
To magnify this mind of ours, to teach US
that the spring of all action, the fountain
of all thought, the seat of health and dis
ease is there, is surely inspiring and emo
bling and calculated to fix our religious
faith upon firmer foundations. But when
we try to trace this inter communication
between the mind and the body to its mi
nutcst function, we find that what may be
true as theory, is not capable of being
absolutely demonstrated, or, at least that
the connecting links cannot, in all in
stances, be absolutely discovered.
DR.. ]. M. Charcot, the eminent French
physician, after wears of patient investiga-
ton in the hospitals of Paris, states en-
phatically that he cannot predicate with alb
solute certainty the mutual relation existing
between special portions of the brain and
special portions of the body, and yet does
not Christian science assume to erect this
hypothesis of general connection into 9
demonstrated science, and undertake to
effect its cures upon an assumed certainty
of knowledge? Here again l feel tina
Christian science would limit a truth
which liberal Christianity would simply
hold for its inspiring suggestiveness. Be
cause the knowledge already obtained O
how far mind controls the body cannot be in
definitely extended, no spiritual implication
is therefore lost. In that wond-ous worlC
the brain with one inhabitant, the soul o.
man can be conceived as sitting upon
throne of power, before which materia
things become Immediately subject; and
doubt much if any faith can Guido our owl
in ever proclaiming how the dominance o
the mind exists, but can only be based
on moral power. before which all thing
upon the heights and within the depths ar,
equally subservient.
Or taEe laatlv that damn nf pbilOsa
phy-that our knowledge of the ex
ternal world is only a relative knowl
edge, derived through sensation, anC
that as far as any absolute certainty il
concerned IL NAV have no existence out
side of the sensations which present it L
our thought.
As a supposition, speculation, a bypo
thesis, held experimentally aud reverently
what mighty power for spiritual instruc
ton this belief may be conceded TO possess
1t gives US faith TO believe that all this ex
ternal universe, this realm of matter, o
physical resistance, is indeed but a shadow
destined to vanish absolutely away, and
that all that is destined TO survive is som,
principle Of being, of which in our mos
exalted moments we feel ourselves to be
part. And I ask you if anything is really
gained by any spriDging TO the absolute
negation of what our senses are constantly
reporting as SOliu anu suusldUldi. 1ucd
philosophy never intended to go thi
length, its object is to show the RELATIVELY o
human knowledge, not to disproye til,
world of sense. Such ideas carried to al
extreme can breed only mischief among
men. To boast everything as God even
may lead to sad results. But the truth
suggested by ideal philosophy may b.
greatly valuable. Its specuIstions may a
least repress our tendency TO dogmatism
by instructing Us that appearances ma,
after all deceive, and that truth is yer,
subtle thing, evading many q bosstinl
proclaimer Of II, and coming only con
sciously to him, who in some moment o
moral exaltation, and from some mountain
of transcendent vision, sees the King in al
his glory and the country which is, per
haps not so very far off.
HE is IN STYLE.
Hr. Mulcahy and His Dude Shirt-hi