Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-01-12
In RELIGIONS REALM.
MATTERS OF INTEREST TO MINIS
TIERS AND LAYMEN.
Expressions of Opinion by Newspapers
Representing the Various Denom-
nations. on Many Subjects.

The Boston Morning Star Gree VIII
Baptist says: IheChristian Herald thinks
the Star incompetent to apply the New
Testament to the solution of the colored
problem of the South, because we have
never seen a slave nor smelt the smoke of
battle' The Herald has discovered some
news laws of Biblical interpretation
Smoke in the eyes sometimes fingers long,
If ours are clear of it because of never
having been filled, perhaps we can see
clearly to read the teachings on the sacred
page. We have yet to find text on which
to found the right of caste to invade the
Church"
The Christian Leader Univ says: "The
great and high business of preaching the
gospel suffers frequent degradation at the
hands of those ordained to preserve it in
lasting honor. Here is Dr. Talmage, Of
Brooklyn, travelling like Snowman with
his manager over the Bible lands, and
preaching each Sunday vapid and per-
functory discourse to be cabled at night to
the American newspapers. The proceed
ing is below the level Of a menagerie. No
self-respectipg clergyman would permit
himself to be used for such purpose; no
man who had not sunk the sacred office in
his preaching to be made merchandise of
in that fashion. 1t is too solemn for farce /;
it is too absurd for worship"
The Church of To-Day (P. e. says: eve
sincerely regret that there should have
appeared in the Church Of To-Day any
word that seemingly reflected upon the
agitation Of civil service reform. No one
is more DESTROYS to see that reform con-
summated than we No one more earnestly
deplores the corrupting effect of the spoils
system. If there is any difference in opin-
ion between DIR. Alsop, whose letter we
publish in another column, and ourselves,
it is as to the method by which the church
should deal with this question. If we I'M
derstand him, he would have the clergy
preach against the iniquity of the doctrine
TO the victor belong the spoils,' and thus
arouse public sentiment against the abuse
of official power. We submit that the
sentiment of the country, as expressed by
the leading men of the two great political
parties, is all right upon the matter. One
has only to read the message of President
Harrison, and the recent speech of Mr..
Cleveland, at Boston, to see that they ex-
press but one and the same sentiment.
The trouble is in the practice, and the
clergy have their share of responsibility
in the matter, inasmuch as many of them
are still led by party prejudice, and vote,
not according to conscience, but after the
leadings of habit and association. The
best way, then, for the church to preach
civil service reform is for its ministers first
to forsake the party which sets at naught
its professions and throw their votes and
influence with the party that more nearly
fulflls the law"
The Church Year (P. E. says: "a short
paragraph which has lately appeared in
several of our exchanges has set us to
thinking of simple but important mat
ter in which the church so far has failed
to guard her interests and utilize her
power for good. Here it is: The sum
of 100000 has been set aside from the
profits of the Methodist Book Concern to
be used for the relief of superannuated
preachers The Book Concern gives S15,-
600 yearly to the support Of denomina-
tional interests, and its one hundred years
of existence it has contributed in this way
the round sum of $l,600,000.' The
church ought, surely, to own her prayer
book and her hymnal. The first is prac-
ticaly owned by the publishers, the only
restriction, as we understand it, being the
requirement that each edition shall be
officially certified as to its correctness by the
Standard Book. The profits are the publish
ers'. The Hymnal is her own property, and
a royalty is, very properly, required on its
publication. This royalty in the first year
of publication realized, we believe, some
thing near $4,000 to the fund for the re-
lief of disabled clergy and the widows and
orphans of deceased clergy. Why should
not the prayer-book be subject to a similar
royalty, to be used for the same most ad-
mirable and necessary purpose, of enabling
the church to keep from want those who
have spent the best years of their man.
hood, and have broken down or worn out
in her service? The wise forethought of
our Methodist brethren has realized from
the ownership and sale of their Book of
Discipline" alone many thousands of dol
lars. which has served to keep from actual
suffering and want many of her ministers
who had spent themselves in their service,
and furnishes an example most worthy of
imitation. So doing, two most just and
needed purposes could be accomplished by
the church-the absolute ownership of
her book of devotion and the relief of her
disabled clergy"
The Rev. B. B. Tyler writes from New
York to the Cincinnati Christian Standard:
"My sympathies are with the working
people am opposed..to adding one ounce
to their already grievous burdens. l am
in favor of making life brighter, sweeter
and better to every workingman and wo-
man in America The observance of the
first day of the week as reason Of rest
will contribute materially to this end, but
this can only be secured by legislation, and
by such education of the people as will
lead them to conform, in their lives, to the
laws of God and man. Being in such
thorough sympathy with the American
Sabbath Union, regret to see their cause
immeasurably weakened by such a para
graph as the following in the Constitution:
sThe basis of this Union is the Divine au-
thority, and universal and perpetual obli-
CATION of the Sabbath, as manifested in
the order and constitution of nature, de-
clared in the revealed will of God, formu-
lated in the Fourth Commandment of
the moral law, interpreted and applied by
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, trans
ferred to the Christian Sabbath or Lords
Day, by Christ and his Apostles, and ap-
proved by its beneficial influence upon
national life From my point of view, it
would be exceedingly difficult to embody |
in any single paragraph such confusion
of thought, wretched exegesis, and lame
logic as in the above. The Lords Day |
ought to be observed by all Christians as a |
day of worship, because of Jesus Christ |
our Savior, and not because of Moses, the |
Hebrew law-giver. AS Jesus is above
Moses in nature and authority, so is the |
Lords Day above the Hebrew Sabbath in
It's nature and authority. The Hebrew |
Sabbath was observed in memory of the
close of creation. The Lords Day is
sacred to the memory of Jesus Christ, and |
His triumphant resurrec-
ton. How the plea for the Lords Day is |
brought down, degraded, belittled even by |
this appeal to Moses and the Fourth Com
mandmentw
On ''The Touch of Nature in Religion"
the London Lancet says: "Many persons
who cannot clearly discern the spiritual |
l.