St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-04-12
THE NEW RELIGION.

L. a
Reformation of the Nineteenth Cen
tury." The subject of the opening
lecture will be The State of Religion
at the Beginning of the Century" and
those which are to follow will be on
''Channing, and the New Spirit, y "The
New Learning of the Nineteenth Cen
tury." 1.-The Religion of Our Poets"
The New Orthodoxy" and 1.-The Fut-
ure of Religion"
Unity church is of what is known as
the Unitarian denomination, which
name covers multitude of beliefs and
unbeliefS, and Mr.. CRoTHERs IS one of
the ableSt opponents of the views which
are popular with thinkers of his school.
His scholarship is profound and broad,
his manner is attractive, and his Eng
fish combines the greatest beauty with
the utmost simplicity. There is no diff
ficulty i'll graSplhg his meaning, and
yet he always speaks of the deepest
things. 1t is. perhaps, condemning him
with feeble praise to say that he is
easily the foremost intellectual light i'll
our local Protestant pulpit. He is more
than that. His lectures would count
anywhere among the best, both in their
substance and their form. There are
other men elsewhere who have
more fOrceful personalities, and who
are more effective in rousing their
hearers to action, but the GLOBES
wide acquaintance with contemporary
pulpit orators leaves it unable to
name another who excels him i'll
sincerity of feeling, in boldness of
thought and in grace of diction. If st.
Paul were an intellectual center, instead
OF addressing few dozen intelligent
women and a score or so of men at his
weekly services, the chapel where he is
heard would be thronged to overlooking,
and the riches of knowledge which he
freely dispenses would be the general
possession, and the subject of constant
comment and discussion.
st. Paul. however, is not an int lect-
| ual center, and even the publicity which
the press may give to Mr.. CRoTHERs'
| good work will probably not result in
his appealing to any but few. The
GLOBE is not inclined to call these a
select few, as is sometimes done. They
are people who appreciate keenneSS of
mind and beauty of style, and who are
capable of making life'S journey with
no stouter support than is afforded by a
somewhat Sublimated and shadOwy
viaticum. The new religion, as the
GLOBE understands it, does not put into
the hands of its disciples any staff
around which the fingers can even be
imagined to close. 1t eliminates the
foundation stones of superstition on
which most of us feel safest. and substi-
tutes, as incentive for high living and
consolation for disasters, a general
feeling of elevated thought and phil
oSophlc submission. 1t is not Just 10 the
great mass of thrObbing human-
ity which demands something more
substantial than this, if it is
to breathe freely, to label those
who find it sufi cient as belonging
to superior race. They are different
| from ordinary men. in that certain of
their intellectual faculties are unusually
predominant. But the best men, and
those who have done the most for the
world, have not been the ones whose
minds were the most acute. The syl-
lOglSm of even Christ Himself can be
successfully criticised by the schoolbOy
who has advanced no further than to
master the innOcuouS StanZaS of WHATE-
LEY'S logic, and if the eyangelistS are
honest chroniclers, His views on physi-
olOgy were of a rather elementary char
acter But the human organism is COM
poSite, of many elements; and even with
| those who nave no faith in His divinity,
His SteadfastIy setting his face to go to
Jerusalem, i'll spite of the fate which
| there awaited Him, wins for Him love
and devotion to which the masters of
reasoning and the monarchs of biolog-
| zeal chemistry would strive fruitlessly
| to attain.
1t does not seem fair for such reasons
as this to give any peculiar palm to
| those of us with whom superstition, so
called, counts but little. The time has
never been and will never be when
weil-rounded men and women can get
| along without religion. And religion,
as the wayfarer conceives of it, is i'm
| possible without superstition. The con-
| illusions OF modern science conceive of
| religion as having its birth in belief
i'll the existence of ghosts: and faith
| ever since then, to paraphraSe Pro-
! feSSOr HUXLEY, has been the power
| TO believe things which are incredi-
| bic. From the time when the cave
man recognized and did homage to
who he fondly thought were hover
! ing about hlm, to the nineteenth century,
when thousands of men and women
/ plant themselves in an oasis in the
| American desert and raise vast temple
| TO the god revealed to JOSEPH SMITH,
the need and reality of beings not
! human actually existent and possessed
of undefinable powers have been felt
| and have counted more than any other
| social agencies in the development and
progress of society.
The forms which these beliefs have
taken have varied with times and locali-
ties. The Oriental Imagination has put
CARDS onitS deitieS very different from
| those which the Laplander or New Zea-
| lander would consider proper. and the
| growth and experiences of communities
have deposed dynasties of gods as they
| have those of earthly kings. But the es-
| sential basis of all these beliefs has per-
I
sisted and will persist till the end of
time. Out of them all has evolved the
predominant faith of the ruling races of
the world to-day, and that is the So
called conventional Christian religion.
Looking at this merely from scientific
standpoint, its Dermanency and strength
not only in its essence, but in its theo-
logical dogmas, seem as great as though
STRAUSS and RENAN had never lived.
1t does not weaken its hold in the slight
est degree on the representative man,
whether it is reduced to form of myth
worship, or whether it is stripped of its
historical accuracy. Men do not believe
that there is aGod-they know that there
is one-and the evidence of their own
consciousness is absolutely unimpeach-
able in tribunals where they themselves