The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-02-02
AN ERA OF NEW CREEDS.
THE DAY OF FOSSIL THEOLOGY
HAS PASSED AWAY.

VINO Try to Limit Gods Mercy and
Mans Hopes - Christ the Typical
Progressive Leader-Future Proba-
ton and the Fate OF the Heathsn
-Heretics the Real Pro
gressists.
CCopwioht 1907
NEW York, Feb. The "Nunc
/ Dimittis' can be readily found in the re
vised version, if you read ten verses of the
second clapter of Luke, beginning a. the
25th. The song is printed as poetry, and
may well pass for such.
The situation gives pleasant picture of
an old sal It. The baby Jesus is brought
INTO the temple to undergo the important
ceremony of being bought back from
God. This required the payment of
what in our money is equal to
81 10 cash down. Simeon, who has for
years looked for this moment, rushes up,
clasps the babe, and breaks into the beauti-
tifIl expression of Il sour naturally and
habituaIly devcut and Thoroughly content.
AMI be it said, by the way. cha no hypo-
critic can catch the tone Of the true devotee.
1t can't be- done. It is as impOss be as for
the schsmer of score of political cam
palg IS to have the expression Of eye belong
i3g TO a pure, inexperienced girl
| The lesson presents what was then a
unique spectacle-a progressive old man.
| And this Simeon was a very old man
which makes MS stand all the more remark
able He welcomed the new f it'll at tbs
tottering altar of the old. He blessed this
heresy that was to shatter the cree tn, :
had sustained his youth, his manhood. ami
his old age.
1t is a popular fallacy as ancient as it is
ridiculous, which would never be tolerated
on any other plane but the qu ,si-rehgious,
that conservatism and devoutuess are one
and the same thing.
Oldhnen ARE proverbially conservative.
We'll and good. This is natural, bus what
happens II they allow nature to 60 to ira
b. 'sal Isogths! Take a business firm, and
pu at IS head an old man who does not
understand modern machinery; who has no
| sympathy with the present met DDS of adj
vertising and selling; he kills the concern
unless his wide-awake young part
ners shelve him above harmful activ-
ity into "a merely ornamental sign
| board. The veterans who are abreast of
the times, who change with each decade
and become a part of it, and who cast off
theig skin of superfiuous conservatism, are
the men of powers. They command the
| reverence of their age, as no young man
cause he keeps ahead of EagliSh politics at
the wonderful age of so, becomes the ire
| mendous force he is.
The same law holds in the spiritual world
\ man is not necessarily a monument of
piety because he believes as his grandfather
did fifty years ago. What is good enough
| for Moses is good enough for me-" is the
poorest logic present-day christian can try
to defend. Such a fossil can only take his
appropriate label in the grand cabiuet of
ancient theological remains. Why. Christ is
born anew every generation, almost every
year. Look for fresh swaddling clothes
upon the sacred babe and you will find
them. If science needs to be remodeled
once in ten years, or less, to keep abreast of
our agile thought and quick discovery, how
much more must the christian religion be
| recaSt, recut, and reset to suit the IN st
modern spiritual need. c rist is nothing
to-day unless he is the unearthly premier of
a mighty party that is still tagging behind
his example and his encouragement.
We do not mean to fall into the common
American trick of swearing against age
As a people we have no reverence to spare
Our sturdy fathers and peaceful grand
fathers had themselves hot, inpatient blood
in their own day. They are but what most OF
us will become, apostles of a decadent
method Of biblical Interpretation. We honor
their religious battles, their scars and
|
lighting the ground we stand on,
and we must acquire in our turn the
broad estate our children shall possess. II
may be hard for the blurring vision of age
to see that the church has its Zalinsky gun,
its spiral torpedo, its smo1eless powder and
| a dozsn new methods of Christian warfarC
not dreamed of a score of years ago; anG
when these lettering sages stand shoulder
to shoulder with our young and Well-armec
spiritual marines, then the battle is already
won along the line of evolution. There are
two things necessary to the SUCCESS OF tru b.
The one is its preservation; the other is it,
progress; coat of paint on a ships hui
doesn't make her go.
Here is this American board business, The
most scandalouS case of christian mismal
agement in modern times. How does il
come aboute Simply by allowing a few
missionary troglodytes official existence
Moody says it is much better to kill MAI
than to have one man kill a church. Why
in the name of Simeon, has official execu
ton been stayed, modern thought outraged
and discredit cast upon the foreign mission
airy service, which is really a great chris
tan organization with one of the noblest
ends and most inspiring histories
ever known to christianity! Simply
because a pGSSe secretary with n pre-
adamite swarm of corporate members stick
like ia grippe" to a position that was
dD1uuOueu TWO nuHureu ana IOTJy years
ago by live followers of Christ Johr
, Hales, the most eminent doctor in the early
English church, declared he would renounce
the Church Of England if she insisted on the
, doctrine that other men would he damned
He said that men believe other people
to be damned only when they desire
them to be SO. Jeremy Taylor held tbs
same mild doctrines in 1917, and the
modern, thoughtful christian holds them il
honor of Christ, and is not ashamed to say
SO. To disqualify man to preach the life
Of Christ Co Senegambians or Coreans on
mere doctrinal bubble ABOUT future proba
tion-a something that no one in this worlC
knows anything about but which seems a
least consistent with the character Of (
decent God, aud which We may humbly
hope Is true-is unchri,tian and unmanly
Who shall dictate how good man shall
think.
We are all heretics of the previous cen
fury, and please God, a hundred year
heace, a race of greater heretics snail spring
up to our confusion.
Christ Is the eternal hereto. He burie!
the dead creeds just as much as he resur
! reefs the immortal truths. Intelligence anC
common sense are pitted against unchari-
table conservatism that masks its tempera-
ment under the plea Of devout and estab-
lished exegesis.
If the oldest Interpretation Of the script