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

enough or deep enough to see that quanti-
tative difference may, by reason of inteIsi-
ty and immensity, become a qualitative
difference. God is in the beast, the same
God that is in man.. yet so differently in
degree that the beast is classified popularly
and practically as different in kind from
man.
We cannot mark the boundary line, but
we never fail to recognize it. Theoretically,
1t is elusive. Practically, it is insurmount-
able. Science amuses herself with detail
ing our oneness with the beast, but no Hu1-
ley makes contract with his horse. John
Bright never asked that sheep should have
the ballot Matthew Arnold did not urge
an intermediate school for elephants. The
most strenuous evolutionist is at one with
the most bigoted of Pietists in treating
talking animals as on an entirely different
plane from dumb animals.
WHAT GOD TEACHES.
In and out of the Bible God speaks to us
in terms of Humanity as needs must, leaving
thus to human reason wide scope for exer-
else as also needs must. God is represented
as our Father, Christ as our elder brother.
In this world, the son often becomes q
greater man than the father. The younger
brother often outstrips the elder in wisdom
and stature, in favor with God and man.
We do not on that account suppose ourselves
to be greater than God. We need not on
that account suppose ourselves to be equal
with Christ What we may learn from it is
that we partake OF, we share in, the Divine
nature.
believe and maintain that the world has
never seen better men than those whom we
know and honor, whom we love and live
with; and If the difference between the best
of them and Jesus Christ was not a quantl-
tative difference which amounts to a quail
tative difference, Jesus Christ was a very
selEconceited mani
Mrs. Wards ideal agnosticized Church
of England rector is a noble, devout
Christian, but he is no thinker. He is ever
at the mercy of words. Unable to get at the
meaning of the old forms he betakes him
self to new which prove but desiccated
travesty of the old; yet thinks he has enun-
ciated a new truth. Thou ar: the Christ,
the son of the living God, is the rock on
which was built the Church of Christ.
''Jesus of Nazareth become to us by the
evolution of circumstances, the most NOV
ing, the most eficacious of all types and
epitomes of Gods work in man" is the rock
of the new church. The statement is un-
doubtedly true as far as it goes but is it so
much more adequate and accurate state
ment that man should wreck his pastoral
Office and his domestic happiness on its pro-
ductlon? 1t is surely a far less fundamental
utterauce, far more partial and local asser-
tion than the one which it supplants.
TIE AGNosTICs' AIMS.
IA new social bond, new compelling
force in man and in society is the modest
goal at which the agnostic aims; that
diminution OF the self in man which is to
enable the individual to see the worlds ends
clearly, and to care not only for his own but
for his neighbor's interest; to make the rich
devote themselves to the poor and the poor
bear with the rich. If man only would he
could, you say, solve all the problems
which oppress him. 1t is mans will which
is eternally defective, eternally inadequate.
Without religion you cannot make the will
equal to its tasks. Our present religion
fails us; we must, we will have another"
With the roar of Jonathan Edwards still
reverberating through New England
theology, Old England's Agnosticism puts
forth its pronlnciamento on the eternal in
adequacy of the will as a fresh discovery.
With the voice of Christ ringing thousand
changes on the heavenly corrective, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, the voice
of Mrs. Ward clamors for a new compelling
force in man and in society which shall
make man care not only for his own but
for his neighbor's interest. With thousands
of churches and Young Mems Christian
Associations and all sorts of Societies of
Christian Endeavor, she gathers another
assembly as like as the peas in a pod. and,
because she calls her assembly THE New
Brotherhood of Christ" she imagines that
she is materializing a new religion. The
Agnostic's prayer at his first religious
service of the new brotherhood is "rather an
act of alteration and faith than a PRAYER
properly so called. 1t represents, in fact,
the placing of the soul in the presence of
God. 1t is essentially modern, expressing
the modern spirit answering to modern
need"
THE NEW RELIGION PURPoSELEss.
But before Mrs. Ward was born the old
fashloned churches were singing:
PRAYER is the souls sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed;
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.
The old religion fails us and we evolve a
new religion out of our moral consciousness.
presents not one single person or purpose
principle or idea which is not borrowed
from the old, only SO dismantled and de-
graded and betiuselled as to seem almost
deliberate burlesque.
Mrs. Ward turns away from the old re-
ligion, not because it has failed her, but be-
cause she has failed it Its spirit has pene-
trated and possessed her heart, but her in
tellect has not yet mastered its philosophy.
She is like one who got on comfortably
enough with the system of things so long as
the earth was the only world in the uni
verse, but whose mind shrinks and shriyels
before a universe of words. At the very
moment when the grand sweep and scope Of
Christianity seems outlining itself in the
light of day, the light of heaven shining
full upon our dark, revealing it to us as the
heir of all ages, the proof and promise of all
our future, she reverses her field glass and
sees in Christianity only something small
and local" GAIL HAMILTON.