Sacramento daily record-union., 1889-09-08
In RELIGIONS REALM.
MATTERS OF INTEREST TO MINIS
TIERS AND LAYMEN.
Expressions of Opinion by Newspapers
Representing the Various Denom-
inations, on Many Subjects.

The Rev. DR.. Henry Van Dyke asks in
the Presbyterian, "Why should weretain in
our creed what none of us believe, what
all our teachers of theology reject, and
what serves only to bring reproach upon
our doctrine among them that are with
out"
Cardinal Gibbons has started a move
ment for the erection of a memorial at
Baltimore TO Cecilius Calvert, second Lord
baltimore, the pioneer of civil and reli-
glous liberty in America. The Cardinal
proposes to appoint at an early day COM
mittees for the collection of funds to erect
the memorial.
The Christian Inquirer (Bapt.) saws: at
seems incredible, but it is reported as a
fact, that it was impossible few years ago
to find a Protestant minister in Waterbury,
Conn, city of 10000 inhabitants, to per-
form marriage ceremony. A clergyman
engaged in the practice of medicine there
very pertinently asks, in a card: Would
it not be well to so arrange vacations that
there should be one minister, at least, con-
stantly in city cf this size? Certainly.
it would. 1t is hard to understand how
any clergyman will leave his congregation
unprovided for when he goes away for re-
creation"
How many instances in the Bible that
show that the one who prevails in PRAYER
Is the one who is alone with God as he
praysl Moses is by himself beside the
bush In the wilderness. Gideon and Jeph-
thah are by themselves when commissioned
to save Israel. Abraham leaves Sarah be-
hind when he pleads with God for Sodom.
Joshua is alone when the Lord comes to
him as an armed man. One John is alone
| in the Wilderness another John is by
himself in Patmos, when nearest God. 1t
is when alone under the fig tree in PRAYER
that Jesus sees Nathaniel. All religious
biography. our own closet communion and
success with God, show what Christ means
when, as If 1t were the only way to pray,
he says "And thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou hast
shut thy door, pray to thy Father which
is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in
secret shall reward thee openly"
In the death of Horatio Bonar, at a
good old age, the world has lost one of the
best known, most deeply loved and most
justly esteemed hymn writers of the pres
ent generation. His compositions have
for years occupied conspicuous place in
| almost every Protestant hymnal, and are
adapted alike to the statellest ecclesiastical
ritual and to the simplest gathering of un-
lettered worshipers in the backwoods
They possess in a high degree the three
essential qualities of perfect hymns-pure
spiritual feryor, melodious wording and
genuine poetic worth. DIR. Bonar was for
many years strong pillar of the Church
in Scotland, and commanded there the
greatest regard for his many admirable quail
tiles of heart and mind. To the bulk of
! the Christian world he is known only il,
his writings, but in them his name will
live as long as the aspirations of pious
souls are expressed in sacred song.
Mr.. Chapman, the eloquent London
preacher who first made known to Angli-
cans and to England the heroism of Father
Damien, and sent him generous help in his
great work in the Sandwich Islands, thus
describes, in recently published sermon,
the gifts needed for visiting the fatherless
and widows " in the true spirit of Christian
sympathy: at requires heart touched
with the worlds pain, at leisure from itself
to go out to suffering; it required hand
delicate and gentle; it requires body
which will endure fatigue, that fatigue so
readily borne in the pursuit of pleasure; it
requires an ear always open and purse
which regards its contents as loan from
Christ. And it means persever-
ance and continuity; it means a supple
| tact, refined dealing, Difference to misfor-
tune, constant intercession, never being
wearied in well-doing, refusing to be dulled
by the monotony of pain, daily supply of
divine hope"
The Church Of To-day (P. E) SAYS: !:
Father Huntington, the son of the sanity
Bishop of Central New York, had but iusi
returned to his work on the east side when
the daily print announced his presence
among the strikers at Streator, Ill, where
he had gone to help allay the turbulent
element among the strikers. Father Hunt
ingtan is himself a Knight of Labor and
the dispatches tell us that when he spoke
to the Western miners they listened to his
words of wisdom and godly counsel, and
withdrew at once violent and extreme
statements that had been put forth. The
influence of this self-denying minister of
Christ among workingmen is very great.
Here in this big city he is known in nearly
every labor organization, and its working
men put implicit confidence in his word,
for they feel that in him they have a true
and steadfast friend. Would that there
were more of our clergymen who took
such an interest in the great social ques-
tions of the day~
The Chicago Standard says: "There are
important reasons why building erected
or ha yuprchi of Cod IL
spects be regarded as peculiar and unique
among editices reared by human hands.
Superstitious reverence for sacred places
is of course to be discountenanced; but
there is mean and a golden one, be-
tween that extreme and the opposite ex-
IRENE at which the house of worship is
simply viewed as public convenience,
just as any ordinary place of gathering
might be. When that Baptist house in
Providence, r. l., was erected for the
worship of God and to hold commence
ments in that was going perhaps as far in
the direction of secularization as could be
approved. At all events, the place where
Christians meet to worship God should be
for them, and they should try hard to
make it for others, unlike all other places
of assembling whatever. Sometimes we
have doubted if the customary service of
dedication as practiced BY US Baptists was
really as much setting apart of the edi-
fee to its sacred purpose as it ought to be.
For the most part the dedicatory part of
the service is, more or less assumed, taken
for granted. The prayer of dedication is,
we suppose, understood as filling that
place. Often it is appropriate and suit
able in a high degree-not always, and,
even when it is, scarcely answering the
end, since it is but one voice heard, while
the people take par. only so far as silence
means assent"
"Farmton" says, in the Aduanee: "I am
always interested, as student of social
and ecclesiastical economy, in noticing the
methods of the offering of courtesies to a
minister who is occupying an unfamiliar
pulpit. No law controls. Some churches
seem as hospitable to the strange preacher
as the spring time to robins; some
churches seem as inhospitable as an empty
barn in December. In some churches at
the close of the service | have found the
deacons and other officers about the
pulpit to give me word of greeting. In
other churches the sexton and | were
alone left On going away for an exchange
of pulpits, / find at one church brother