Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-05-27

ioH, tneIe WAS no such Su0nme conception
OF parental love penetrating the order OF
the universe: 1t is true that popular
.nought greatly misapprehends these phi
losophies and does not understand what 8
nelpfui influence for high living they ex-
erted among many whom history is proud
10 enshrlne III her immortal pages. The
stolc and the epicurean missed, however,
what was vital to religious faith, a sense OF
sonsnlp In the universe, of kindred relation
to the power that orders its processes, and
SO OF being possessed somehow of its at
tributes and its Immortality.
In its metaphysical relations it is per-
haps senseless to ask the question "How
would Jesus himself have interpreted his
conception to our intelligence ?" He
stands so grandly above the world as the
one great central figure in the moral
realm that men who are not churchmen
often look upon his character and attribute
to him intellectual insight and miraculous
power, endowments far beyond the or
binary possessions of men, so that he re-
mains forever the unique figure in all
history.
There IS an inspiring suggestiveness in
the thought that to goodness the universe
is fluid, and that moral power dominates
even IN the physical world. But when we
attempt to carry this thought further, and
speculate upon what intellectual basis
Jesus would have placed his transcendent
revelation, we are lost in q maze of ineffi-
Gent surmises. The principal of Newton,
a Copernicus, Kepler, La Place or a
Darwin were unknown to him. There is
no evidence except as regards his moral
elevation that he was not man OF his gen.
Grafton, possessed of but the restricted
knowledge of the age and bound by its lin
1fafJ0nS In his dor rtv AZ l..
the truths he proclaimed are as much
truths to-day as they ever were, and COM
mand as faithful an allegiance, but the
time has come when they need intellectual
supports as they never did before to pre-
vent the whole fabric of Christian belief
from topping to its fall.
The massive towers of the Cologne
Cathedral rise heavenward, and NAV be
held as typical of the purely emotional
character of mans faith; but the mighty
buttresses which hold the mighty pile to
Its position are no more necessary to the
material structure, than is to-day some
purely intellectual prop for the structure of
mans belief.
Mr.. Massey then referred to the sensi-
hveness among many of the better in
formed, occasioned by the new condition
OF things, about anthropomorphic concep-
tons of God, and to the strange accent of
resentment against ascribing what is
termed personality to the Deity. It might
be pertinent question, he said, to INQUIRE
how, while man remains man and esteems
himself son of God, anthropomorphic
ideas will not intrude, or how personality
can be denied to that principle or power in
the universe which somehow is endowed
in our apprehension of it with intelligence.
emotion and will. These things, said the
81 eaker, are only indications, however, of
how the philosophy of an age must DOM
mate the theology of an age, and that older
philosophers, patristic or other, are in
competent now to support the faith of the
inquiring minds of the present century.
The cry, however, is not so much re
pent' as believe" In the higher walks
OF lie, the lapse from strist morality is not
so alarming as is frequently pictured. From
profound study of nature, men have
come to proclaim it as a wonderful teacher
OF morality. They find that they cannot
traverse her requirements without incur
ring fearful jeopardy and say. figuratively,
that whosoever shall fall on this stone
shall be broken, but on whomsoever it
shall fall 1t will grind him to powder.
BUSINESS, too, Is a great ethic. Edward
Atkinson estimates that in transactions in
volving eight hundred millions of dollars
the loss is only ne-quarter of one per
cent. The Stock Board, even, is an exam
pie of wonderful business honor, an arena
in which trust. fidelity, pluck, patience,
foriitude and honesty are developed, for
the reason that transactions involving
sometimes millions of dollars and which
are often ruinots to one or the other party
are seldom repudiated. although they have
no other record than the turn of finger or
the scratch in note book.
What is wanted, however, is that this
morality which all things are teaching.
nature, and trade, and social and political
relations, as though God had not left man
without witness in the world, shall be
touched again with emotion and become
religion.
Mr.. Massey then led his hearers along
a lie of argument based on the latter phi.
Iosophy, in which he presented each one
as not " mere aggregate of phenomena "
as purely material science regards man.
Ii is surely but step now to conceive
OF the controlling principle of the universe
as mind, to feel ourselves related to il in
kind, to be included in its immensity and
its eternity, and so to verify find our home
again in our Heavenly Fathers house.
Morality now comes to our imagination
tinged with celestial coloring, and we can
say with Tennyson:
u Follow light and do the right. for man can
half control his doom,
Till you find the deathless angel seated in the
vacant tomb"