Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-02-01
ADVANCING CIVILIZATION.
HAS CHRISTIANITY DONE NOTHING
FOR W0MANw
Her March of Progress Began With the
Christian Era-A Thoughtful
Address.


preached sermon at the Congregational
Church, in answer to the query, Has
Christianity Done Nothing for Woman p
which has been the subject of much COM
ment during the week.
The preacher read, 10 show the state of
Roman and Greek civilization at the begin
ming Of our era, the first chapter of Ro-
mans and the fifth of First Corinthians
The text was: John tx, 8: why, here
in is marvellous thing, that We know not
whence he is and yet he hath opened
mine eyes,"
We of the busy walks of life, whom
miscellaneous duties crowd and jostle, are
| very humble learners at the feet of those
! isolated spirits who, from the quietude of
their scholastic retreats, report the pro-
gress of the best research. The greatest
minds claim to be put gatherers of peb-
| bles on the shore of the limitless ocean
! of truth; we, their humble followers, are
happy if we be permitted to brush the
sand from those self-same pebbles, note
| their curious markings and the beauty of
| their form and coloring. II we initiate
| the great, we, too, shall be humble men;
| we shall not put on airs of superiority;
we shall seek TO hold up the honest truth
in its Just proportions, and suited to the
helpfulness of men. We shall not hawk
about our own pinchbeck wares and i'm
pose them upon an unsuspicious public
as genuine gold; nor shall we hold up
truth, dug from Gods own mine, coined
| from Gods own mint, and claim that by
soma subtle alchemy we have produced
that which is the gift of God alone.
We shall also be honest men; rebnking
! falsehood, dishonesty and vice; calling
things by their right names; warning men
that the course of compromise and selfish
ness has but one ending, always-moral
humiliation. The honest man will hold
up The truth in a form not to make the
moral man feel satisfied with himself; but
to make the immoral man dissati6ed with
himself and seek for something better.
Any preaching other than this is dis
honor to the preacher and disgrace to the
platform he seeks to call pulpit. The
function of the pulpit is yearly growing
more defined and pronounced; and he has
failed to catch the true spirit of the time, is
blind to the real genius of the age, who
thinks that the nobler work OF the moral
reason lies in the fostering Of intellectual.
conceits rather than in the redemption of
human character = man lifted from the
dust.
am amazed as l glance over the daily
press, read the periodical literature OF the
day, in the midst of pages reeking with the
details of vice and crime to note the effort
that is made to undermine the work now
being done by the Christian church; to
erect the natural reason to the one solitary
watch-tower of being; 10 strip from our
| civilization its Christian garb and eliminate
from it its Christian character. The Chris
tan world yields none of its credentials,
but it prefers to-day TO hold up our so
called" Christian civilization and say,
| why, herein is a marvellous thing, that
ye know not whence he is, and yet he hath
| opened mine eyes,"
Alarmed by the unanswerable power of
| this appeal to fact, the foes of revealed re-
| ligion are now busy in belittling Christian
| ity as the one overshadowing factor in our
civilization, trusting that men will be as
superficial in their hearing as they in their
writing and speaking. And so they say to
the appeal of Scripture, Give natural
reason the praise; we know that this man
is sinner"
do not forget the service liberal Christ
ianity has rendered to the world in forcing
Christian thought along more practical
| lines into richer fields of life. 1t has, too,
past into literature, and give it honored
profit. So long as it recognizes the sun,
walks in the light of it and helps others to
walk in the light of it, have no quarrel
with it. Imay think It's now in the ''sere and
yellow leaf - | may realize that it plants
more flowers than trees and bears more
| blossoms than fruit; may think it spends
more time in analyzing the sunbeams than
| in bringing men into the sunlight-that is
| its concern, not mine. But when it throws
dust in my eyes and declares that it has
put out the sun, then | must utter protest.
| And if some modern imitators should wed
| a hobby, they should not expect a reyerent
J public to take their progeny of decisions
| to their hearts, at whatever cost. Surely a
man must have heart of flint who would
seek to weaken the most potent agency in
| the moral realm, at a time when our youth
are subjected to such terrible temptations
as this age affords. Especially is the Church
of Christ in California the very furthest
from preaching dogmatism. Its one sole
aim is to rescue men from sin and make
them better The man who, in the pursuit
of an intellectual vision, would tell
our youth that Christianity thus be-
ing presented to them is a dream,
has no right to call himself the friend of
| man: has no right to present himself as a
! guide to our sons and daughters. And the
literature of the day is teeming with the
babblings of such. In the few words l
have for you this morning upon the debt of
gratitude due from woman to the gentle
Nazarene, it will be necessary to notice the
old and stale criticisms upon the power
and influence of Christianity.
The high position accorded woman by
Judaism was still more exalted by Christ,
who condemned unsparingly the wrongs
she had suffered under Moses, as He de-
clared because of the hardness of your
hearts," Henceforth they twain were to
be one flesh, as it was commanded Sin the
beginning" Christianity has not yet elm
mated selishness from the human heart,
but, Just so far as it has done so, woman
has moved on side by side with man at
every step of progress.
But it is claimed that ''the ethics which
has moved the world is quite independent
of Christianity and would subsist though
it and all religions were swept into obliv-
ion:n and by implication we are lett to in
fer that their reforming power would be
the same. This is only another way OF
putting the old hackneyed claim that there
is not moral precept taught by Christ
that was original with Him. This
is only weak dilution of the
philosophical statement of st. Paul: For
when the Gentiles, which have not The law,
do by nature the things contained in the
law, these having not the law, are a law
unto themselves. Which show the work
of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness and their
thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else
excusing one another" And st. Peter
bore like testimony to the truth that God
did not in all the ages leave man in moral
darkness, But in every nation he that
feareth Him and worketh righteousness is
: accepted of Him. But they, while bear
ing such testimony. were not so simple as
to teach men to still cling TO the moonlight
glow of natural reason when they might
walk in the clear light of the sun Of
righteousness. Now, all these statements
about the superior power of the natural
reason are mere defamation and "a very
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