Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-24

QGI truth the very soul OF
the Christian religion.
1t means something or
1t means nothing. The something meaning
is that which lifts man to the level ofChrist.
The nothing meaning is that which lowers
Christ to the level of man. This is the
meaning which Mrs. Wards representative
Church of England rector is made to assume,
which plunges him into tribulation, and
from which he spends what remains to him
of life in trying. to get away. 1t is the
nothing meaning. 1t leads to and it is ab-
surdity.
Jesus Christ, he says, with the utmost
gentleness to his wife and with entire cour-
tesy 10 Jesus Christ, is only great man.
This is the final outcome of his long, sharp
struggle, and he Immediately assumes to-
ward Christ an attitude which, if Christ
were indeed only great man, would be
simply maudlin. One the rules of the Chris
tian brotherhood which Mrs. Ward founds on
q recoil from the Godhood of Christ, is that
every meeting, every undertaking of what
ever kind shall open with the special word
or formula of the brotherhood, 'This do in
remembrance of me-"
There is no objection to this custom on
the old orthodox idea of Jesus, the Christ, if
one finds in it help to right living. But
it is futile and grotesque as an attempt to
trick out mere Jewish peasant in the
heavenly robes of discarded Divinity.
Mrs. Ward will have Jesus of Nazareth a
mere man, but she cannot leave Him to take
His chances beside other great men.
SHOCKING DOCTRINE
We have as good men in our own dav
and country as the world has ever seen, but
no man ever spreads his hands over conse-
Grated bread before the people, and says
with reverent lips, "This do in remem-
brance of Lincoln" When the sermon is
ended and the prayer offered, no congrega-
ton is ever dismissed with the benediction,
$50 in peace, in the love of God, and in the
memory of his servant George Washing
ton" The very suggestion seems like
mockery, irreverence. One feels a moral
shock.
Do I seem to take undue advantage of
the word equally? Do seem to give scant
and refuse to give saving attention to the
explanation in which Mrs. Ward qualities
her statement, by making her agnosticized
rector declare to his wife that "God was in
Jesus pre-eminently?" No; for he imme-
diately adds, tas He is in all great men,"
mot otherwise-not otherwise in kind
than He is in me or you" The doctrine is
put forth as if it were the momentous mod
ern conclusion of a serried host of argu-
ments. 1t is placed upon the stage with the
usual accessories-low groans, means of
pity and misery, great deal of deadly pal
lor, piteous cold fingers, stupefaction and
stun, yearning, sunken eyes, shivering and
passionate hand-kissing, hollow cheeks,
feverish, quick, uneven breaths, rigidity of
silence and rigidity of self-control alter
mating with tumuituous speech, vibrating
protests of passionate faith ringing infer
entially even when not ringing audiblv,
CULTS which never could be bridged, fright
full separateness of experience, broken
words of fire and pain, nights of struggle
and spiritual wreck, haggard changes in
the beautiful set stern mouth-in all of
which the one note of nature is that "inf-
nitely more terrible than His actual words
was the accent running through words and
tone and gesture"
1t is much for SC spasmodic philosopher
to confess that the matter of her great revela-
tion was far more sane and sound than the
manner. Nothing certainly in the con-
soling and sustaining Scriptural assurance
of divine kinship requires the spiritual con-
tortions and bodily convulsions which prop
erly enough threw the sensible orthodox
vile into fainting fit. Mrs. Wards posi-
tion is not changed by her not only admit
ting Christ TO be great man, but proclaim
ing Him to be the greatest man.
THE CHRISTIANS VIEW.
1t is not changed when she declares Him
to differ from man in degree, though not in
kind. The something meaning overlaps
and absorbs the nothing meaning, and this
terrible communication from husband to
wife left the truth but half told. For what
is true of Christ is true also of God. There
is no difference between God and man ex-
cept in degree. We have the word of the
Bible for all who believe the Bible. We
have the word of the savans for all who re-
ject the Bible. God made man in His own
image, says the Genesis, and those who, like
Mrs. Ward, have but pitying scorn for us
who 'still regard the first chapter of Genesis
as valid and important counter on the
board of thought" may read their Genesis
out Of Herbert Spencer:
THE power manifested throughout the
universe distinguished as material. is the
same power which in ourselves wells up
under the form of consciousness. The power
which manifests itself in consciousness, is
but differently conditioned form of the
power which manifests itself beyond con-
sciousness."
The Genesis of Moses and the Genesis of
Science agree that the power which created
man is the same in kind as man himself. 1t
is a scientific confirmation of the BEbIe
Genesis which, if one must go mad, one
might go mad with joy over; and none more
quickly than he who, reared in the
old Orthodoxy, accepting its truths,
loving Its Spirit, emulatlng its self
az
ditioDs and impossibilities which have
accumulated to its hiding. If it be not
truth, it is yet to be explained how the ear
liest glimmer of the light upon the nature of
man should shine harmoniously with the
latest CLEAN of the light which science has so
and industriously kindled.
MRS. WARDS ERROR.
If it be not truth, it is certainly awonder-
ful elimination 70 the proving of error that
the oneness of humanity with Divinity.
vaeuely and variously hinted at in many
vays by many philosophers through many
ages apparently demonstrated by science in
these later times, should conform SO exactly
with the sages, the word incarnate in
Christ. outbreathed by Him as light and
immortality brought to light; good tidings
of great iov communicated to His followers
by the tbousand-fold touch of personal as
sociation. and by them preached to the
world through doctrine and enthusiasm and
martvrdom that humanity partakes of the
Divine natures; that man alone of all Gre
ated beings is in the image of God. He
took not upon Himself the form of beasts;
he took upon Himself the form of man,
thereby consecrating and certifying human
lty as the image of God.
This oneness of humanity with God Mrs.
Ward must have entirely forgotten when
sne made the oneness Of humanity with
Ohrist crucial point, an sgoniziHg truth,
the crlEla If ia. rnnki.