Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-09

comparatively little OF the articles of faith
now being SO hotly attacked and warmly de-
Tended by the ministers Of the different
Presbyteries. It has not been good form for
many years to preach the Objectionable doc
trines, to shake up the sinners, and frighten
the timid into fits, and make children AFRAID
to go to bed, as used to be the case in old
times, when minister was judged by MS
capacity to raise the hair Of his hearers with
terror and dismay. That the horrors OF
eternal woe are not now definitely defined is
shown by the case of a devout and intelli-
gent member Of the church who defended 1t
hotly upon all occasions. When confronted
by the doctrine as held of the damnation Of
non-elect infants she Indignantly denied
that any such cruel and unholY dogma
could be held by any who professed or called
themselves Christians, and was crushed and
dismayed when the Confession Of Faith was
shown to her as her own creed 50 deeply
loved and revereneed.
ABHoRRENT TO THE MOTHER.
No mother can hold to such creed in
spirit and in truth. No mother can believe
that her innocent child is condemned to
eternal punishment before 1t has opened its
eyes in q world Of misery and woe. The
temptations OF sin, the tendency to evil are
bad enough, but that the child Of her love
and hopes should be stamped as satan's
own by predestination Is too lnonstrous and
horrible to be entertained in the nineteenth
century, though the limited intelligence and
intimidated reason Of the seventeenth may
have acquiesced in, and perhaps accepted 1t,
as manifestation Of love and beneYolence
and justice.
To those who accept creeds without
thought, and believe doctrines without ques-
ha ruil = he aprll y
amount to such deliverance as will give
them much concern or comfort, but to the
honest, conscientious church people it will
be great and welcome gain to know that
the great mystery of the "fall of man" and
predestination to perdition, and the election
of the great majority of mankind to eternal
hell fre-all dogmas of q superstitious age
are no longer left as Q reproach to the
church, and as an imposition uEon the con-
science of its ministers, many of whom,
while they have subscribed to 1t, do now
rebel against it and favor its revision, or its
abolition.
DOUBT AS TO ExPEDIENCY.
Eminent ministers are found on both sides
Of this great question, but those opposed to
the revision ale, in the main, only doubtful
of its expediency. They are afraid to let go
of the old standards, Still the confession
now is what might be called dead letter
relic OF the past that may be cherished as
an heirloom, but as q standard of lie and
faith it is in common parlance played out. /"
People put their old family spinning wheels
in the parlor, but they never spin, and so
the Westminster Confession may be stored
away in libraries as a relic of ancient civil
ization when fear was the moving force in
stead of love.
There need be no fear concerning Truth
even if ''the standard" should be revised OF
rejected. As the Professor at the Breakfast
Table said: 'gTruth is tough" and can
stand any test of discussion. Let the re-
vision go on. In the long run nothing will
suffer, but the scarecrows of superstition,
and the monuments of creed 50 terrible
that it embittered lie and made of those
who held it sincerely. the sour, solemn,
gloomy, morose and stubborn people de-
scribed in history as the ancient Puritans,
but whose creed their descendants have
long outgrown. BESSIE BRAMBLE.