Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-04-15
HONESTY In RELIGION.
"A Unitarian's View on Subject
General Religious Interest.

"A Unitarian's View on a Subject of
General Religious Interest.
Rev. o. 7. Massey, of the First Unitarian
Society, spoke from Corinthians xiii, 81:
Providing for honest things, not only in
the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight
OF men," The speakers plea was for hon
esty, and especially for honesty upon SUBJ
Iects pertaining to religious faith. No
comprehensive survey of the times can fail
to discover a remarkable disintegration
progressing in the religious sentiment. and
because of this there are questionable COM
promises constantly being made which
present many of the adherents of our
churches in no enviable light In the
fashionable world, in many instances fealtv
TO religion becomes simply fealty to an or
ganlzauon, valued not so much as the en-
bodlment OF a religious faith, as the repre-.
sentatlon of social power. Methods
which in business life almost deprive q
man OF any standing in the exchange. are
practiced in religion without any seeming
knowledge of the moral turpitude that is
illustrated IN them. Men do not sign
promlssory note with mental reservation.
but they do not scruple both implicitly and
explicitly TO do that in their subscriptions
to religious obligations which would brand
their names with deserved infamy in
common, everyday. mercantile practice.
The speaker alluded to the same moral
obliquity in other departments of life.
Good men in Arkansas did not think il
essentially wrong to forge election returns
and steal ballot-boxes in the desire to secure
some ultimate end that approved itself to
their minds, but when their iniquity bore
fruit IN an atrocous murder they found
that Nemesis trails after every iniauity.
And SO also of prominent men bearing
high credentials to character, who think
that Tor corporate ends Legislatures may
be corrupted, but who find vengeance of
tate following and manifesting itself in
social disturbance and discomfort.
Returning to the subject of religion, the
speaker then said he had no word of crit
cism upon any honest belief, wherever
entertained. But when he was apprised,
as he constantly was, either by personal
confession or unimpeachable testimony, of
the considerations that compel men to
outward conformity to rites they unhesi-
tatingly reppdiate, he did not think that
in its consequences their conduct is too Sc
verely characterized when it is brought
into close relation with moral delinquen-
cies or other departments of action or that
Its consequences can be estimated at too
enormous value. Mr.. Massey stated that
there was something in the air that indi-
Gates the new spirit of the age in which we
live, and referred to standards of criticism
which are the amplest ones by the vast
majority of the educated and accomplished
that are making it impossible that religion
can be much longer hedged by privilege,
dispensed by prescription or interpreted
through tradition. But he did not believe
that faith was dead. IL the records of
history, in the discoveries of science, in
the accomplishments of art, in the specu-
lations of philosophy, and the visions of
prophecy he found a satisfying belief as
these are taken up into the knowledge of
man and translated to his experience as
the manifold ways in which Gods pur-
pose and providence, his person and lowell
ness are made ineligible to our final I'M
.derstsnding.
lone accent of the Holy Ghost
The needless world has never lost