Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-04-05
TuE SUPERSTITION OF LENT.
Is THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST A
MYTH!
a Brief Survey of the Position of Lead
ing Religious Thinkers of the
Present Day.

we have been requested by several persons
was the account of the temptation as re-
corded in the Gospel of Luke. The tex.
was from Heb, iv., Is: For we have not
High Priest that cannot be touched with
the feeling of cur inirmities; but was
tempted in all points like as we are yet
without SIM" Mr.. Merrill said:
Several months ago the clergymen of this
city received a courteous note from the manag
ing editor of the REcoRD-U MON, inviting them
TO furnish brief abstracts of their sermons for
publication on Monday mornings. Although
appreeiating this courtesy, it is not easy for the
busy pastor, having three or ur services and
often luneral on sunday, to comply. Local
liberalism, however, has aysiled of the oppor-
tunity 10 gain a wider hearing. Content for a
time with legitimate work II has gradually
gained courage to ventilate views that are not
Christian. Numerous statements have been
published which are squaTely on agnostic
ground. Theoretical 9gnosticism is practical
atheism. 1t does not matter that much rhetoric
is used TO maintain a halo of Christianity; the
statements that have been freely made con-
. lining religion closely to the human reason are
unqualified, and, to the initiated, have no
double meaning. If this were all, however, no
one need turn aside for moment to consider
it; but in addition to plain denials of all super
naturaiisn in religion, persistent attack has
been made of late upon the orthodox faith.
&Q n
qualified liberalism, while most of the honored
names quoted as lending respectabilty to it are
unltarians, more or less conservative, while
three or four of the distinguished men were
actually members of the orthodox church No
arguments are produced: the calm assumption
OF dogmatic superiority is supposed to sustain
al assertions.
The trnth is that there are no facts of science
up to this time which have taken these ques-
tlons OF revelation out OF the hands OF Biblical
Interpreters, and Germany is still the great field
minds III Germany are stirred as they have not
been stirred for five and twenty years. while
the majority of these great thinkers are still
conservative or moderately liberal, as the fact
Is. it IS not the mark OF great mind for mere
onlookers here in America to hurl such terms SIS
loose thinkers, 'unenllghtened" and the like
at them.
On Monday we were told that the temptation
Is but an ''anciently recorded myth" whose
@ sntnority has ceased to controI @ the Thoughts of
protracted fast upon the mount may be ac-
eepted by the unenlightened as authority
for their penance but
popular education has made readers and think.
ers in every rank and ihe last results of science
and reason percolate to the very bottom of So
ciety."
Revelation is not necessary to religion, but
Religion is matter of experience" ''We
are Christians by inheritance and tradition, etc.
l am sure that do no in Justice in bringing
these fragments together. use them in kindly
spirit, not 10 make an attack upon liberalism,
but TO show that this liberalism which seeks to
is unscholarly, and therefore untrustworthy
There is a scholarly liberalism which is seeking
to determine, as closely as possible, the human
and divine elements in Scripture which all men
can respect There is also an unscholarly skep-
ticism which denies the possibility of revelation
while 1t seeks to veil in mist the goal Of atheism
to.which 1t logically tends
Take, first, the two sentences, in one of which
The temptation is called legend, while in
the other it is denominated a myth" The
utterances show total unfamiliarity with the
German schools of liberal criticism, both of the
past and the present. Myth and legend are not
Synonymous terms. The myth has its origin in
the imagins ton; the legend has basis of fact.
The myths of the Morse god Wodin have no
foundation In fact; the legends of St Francis
d Assist gather about the person of that illus
trlous man II the temptation of Christ be
myth It cannot be legend. II is we'll known
fact that the mythical theory of Strauss was de-
Tolshed by the legendary theory adopted by
Renan. surely, II one is to throw such terms
as superstition" and loose thinking he
should be familiar with at least the order of
succession OF the great periods of German criti.
cism known to any junior in our theological
semluares as the natural. mythical, legendary
and historical or historieo-natural schools of
criticism.
Notice next the assumption that this diffusion
eoi knowledge is enabling the masses to-day to
determine these questions for themselves.
Nothing could be more superficial Nothing
'cou.d snow more clearly the supreme egotism
that so clearly fails to grasp the profound prin-
ciples which underlle these questions that
have SO long agitated German thought The
masses
IN the least to determine these grea. questions.
They are but the data which the historians and
Philosophers of the world use as a part of the
subject matter in the great debate As between
s lentlsts and theologians, the investigator who
discovers great scientific fact is the very last
ngn to say what bearing ii is to have on the
theoiosical questions OF the day. He is
&c enlist, not a theol 81 n !
Let us not make tne mistake of assuming
LHit the diffusion of knowledge renders the
q erage mind more fit to discriminate between
- fundamental of oia o,I
philosophy. You might teach all the youth o!
sacramento TO cut bolts and turn grindstones;
you would not nave city OF mechanics If one
high school graduate is not Etled to handle the
great facts OF metaphysics million of them do
not help the matter. Popular education is do.
ing wei It's work, but il is not German Uniyer-
s;ty work. and it does not help aan by one iota
60 act as umpire between a keim aud Weiss
IN great intellectual contest in Germany.
Snly MINDS trained in the prime les of psychol-
ogy and profoundly familiar with the laws of
thought can decide between intellectual giants
axe man even of the intelligence Of Col.
onei lngersoll, and how thorough is his famili-
arity with the scholarship OF hese questions?
In his most popular lecture, "What Shall | Do
20 be Saved ?' he claims that we know nothing
definite IN regard 10 the Gospels because we
have only the Greek and English copies while
the Disciples were all Jews and wroie in He
brew. ANY Sundsy-school teacher knows that
with the exception OF one Gospel, which was
written IL the Aramaic dialect, the entire New
Testament IS original in Greek; while the ad-
vanced ttbtrdt criticism claims that all were
fty to an original loga written in Aramaic.
such ignorance is uDpardonable; were any
preacher guilty OF it he would be driven from
his pulpit. ana yet thousands of liberals swal-
low II without grimaee. Surely IL takes more
than the 'percoiaii0ns of scientific facts to en-
aole the masses to argue questions that have oc-
cnpied the best minds of Germany for genera
tons with the liberal claims still unsettled
even III the estimation of the critics themselves.
Turn now 10 the statement that: Religion is
matter OF experience" This is curious dis
covery. II would surely astound the tneo-
logfans of Harvard. Emerson said il his raph-
sody over Plato: "Al philosophy could nestle
10 the brain OF Plato and think from thence"
1T seems now that all religion may nestle in the
experience Of some modern Plato. A man may
.sexpeneEee, religion, IS they say, and if the
now account tor camp meeting back sliders, but
we cannot account for religion. Al the risk
OF bringing Herbert Spencer TO the Judgment
bar OF local liberalism, / must quote from his
First Principles of Philosophy, page IL;
Religion in all It's forms is distinguished
from everything else in this, that its subject
matter Is that which passes the sphere ofex-
perience. Now since liberalism will not admit
with orthodoxy that an apprehension of God is
an original datum of consciousness It would
just as little accept the statement that II we are
TO nave any weli-de6ned knowledge of God it
must De through special revelation; that IS il
we are 70 nave any satisfying religious faith Ii
must come from above and, Therefore be super
natural. We get little smattering of philoso-
phy whieh seeks 20 give true position TO reason
10y when we really mean reasoning1, and under
.an inflated sense OF the importance of our in
dividusl reason we declare that we will have to
do with nothing that transcends our reason
When Nh; spencer trips US up with the assertion
that philosophy, If 1t does not avowediy stand
on some datum underlying reason must
acknowledge that it has nothing on which to
stand. Men talk about ''assailing the reason"
and then, taking refuge in experience, seek to
ignore all the facts which condition experience
Reason wiz not be greatly developed under
such weak assaults. The trouble with too
much OF our modern liberalism is that 1t is
stost on a shoreless sea, and so it matters not
whether Il have rudder or compass A con-
sistent. philosophical, liberal Christianity ex-
ISIS to-day. Ii has creeds, but they are an ex-
preston OF It's faith; they are not the conditions
of salvation. Il is rational faith and stands
firmly on grounds OF reason. il has no quarrel