The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1891-05-03
In RELIGIONS REALM.
Expressions from the Various
Religious Newspapers.
The Religious Thought of the Day as
Expressed in the Sectarian Press
Some Matters of Interest to Both
Ministers and Laymen.


Some Matters of Interest to Both
Ministers and Laymen.
The Christian Advocate (Meth.) says:
1.-The conduct of adults in charge of chill
dren is sometimes very trying. A min
lister was once preaching a dedicatory
sermon, and in the middle aisle sat
woman with child; she was apparently
its grandmother. The child had a rattle;
when it ratified it did not cry; when it
cried it did not rattle; but did one or the
other all the time, and the grandmother
was Indifferent to the racket. After the
noise had continued for fifteen minutes
and two-thirds of the congregation were
looking at the performance, the minister,
pausing, said: Persons having the charge
Of young children should not allow them
to divert attention from the word of God
The venerable dame seemed TO think this
a part Of the SermOn--a sound and edity-
ing sentiment, but without application to
her. After five minutes more the
preacher said: 1T is astonishing how
thOughtleSS some persons can be In allow
ing children to distract the attention Of
whole congregation This. too, was con-
sidered another good sentiment. The
third time the minister said: IF the trus-
tees do not remove that child these serV-
ices will be closed The late DR.. Eddy,
who had preached i'll the morning and
was sitting in the pulpit, observed after
ward that the three sentences We're specl-
mems of the didactic, the hortatory, and
the admonitOry."
The Congregatiouolist says of the
French Canadians in New England:
"They are in the main completely under
the control of the Roman Catholic
IlrjngfG Thny a ra a - q 10 Ca1FfnraI
about the country, but have settled i'll
communities by themselves. In several
cities they are numerically in the ma
jOrity. They continue to speak their
own language and to follow their own
customs. They have societies to perpet-
uate their national traditions. In Lowell,
Fall River and other cities there are sec
tions in which, from the language heard,
the signs on the stores and shops, and
the appearance of the people, one might
easily imagine himself in a foreign coun-
try
the State and society will not make them
American citizens or bring them in con-
tact with u pure Christianity. They do
not extensively read our newspapers.
Their children do not attend the public
but parochial, schools. They are ignorant,
superstitious devotees Of the Roman
Catholic Church. They are homogeneous
a foreign element compacted together in
our midst. They are increasing rapidly,
both by natural growth in numbers and
by immigration. At no distant time they
are likely to form an important, and by
no means desirable, element in our pOlit-
zeal and social life"
The Adual1ce says: Through the pull
pit of the Church of the Messiah and the ac-
commodating interviewer, the Rev. How
ard MacQueary, exile from the Canton,
o., pulpit, had ample opportunity last
Sunday to unfold his views to the people
OF Chicago. That a Unitarian church is
the proper place for such views, and that
they are quite out of place in an orthodox
church, must be obvious to all vino have
read the reports of the sermons and the
interviews, even to Mr. MacQueary him
self. But it is not so apparent that Mr..
MacQueary has been favored with the
more light which is to break from the
Word To say that Christ's birth was in
the natural order, and that there was no
physical resurrection, is not new light; it
Is simply flat contradiction or denial of
the Word. The accounts of Christ's ex-
traordinary birth, says Mr.. MacQueary,
are too uncertain to be accepted as liter
ally true. But are they any more uncertain
than the rest Of the record? Are they not
i'll the best manuscripts? Is there sin
gle principle of exegesis or Interpretation
their rejection? Is not the extraordinary
character of the event to which they
bear witness the only reason for reject
ing them? Does not Mr.. MacQueary
reject the accounts because he has got
ten into condition of mind which op-
poses acceptance of the supernatural gem
orally? In regard to creeds he takes the
sensible view that they are necessary, for
they are simply another name for belief,
and every man must believe something
unless he is a lunatic.' The only ques-
tion,' he remarks, is what kind of a creed
it shall be- This is true, and puts the
whole matter in proper shape. Thus I'M
derstood, Mr.. McQueary is before the
world to prove that his emasculated Cos
pei, his expurgated Matthew, Mark and
Luke, are better than the old Gospel that
we generally believe and teach to our
children"
The Rev. Professor Herrick Johnson
says in the Interior (Pres.) of DR.. Briggs
case: us it not time we called a halt on
this sad and reprehensible business of
misrepresentation and caricature? 1t
will be reprOach to us if we are swept
off our feet by a cry of alarm The cry
of alarm cannot change facts or repress
truth. It may stampede a general as
sembly, or even the whole church. But
such a thing ought not to be possible in
this high noon Ofintelligent and balanced
faith. Such things belong to that dead
past where the church mistook her Door
fallible interpretations of scripture for
infallible scripture, and found out again
and again TO her sorrow that she had been
substituting eisegesis for exegesis; as
when she stamped the law Of gravita-
ton and 'age-long creative days as
'damnable heresies,' because they con-
flicted, not with the infallible word of
God, but with her Grant construction of
that Word
1.-THE glory of Professionalism is an open
Bible, free investigation, liberty of con-
science, and welcome to truth. Let us
not confound things that differ. There
are railroads.&c. higher critics, but there
are also evangelical higher critics.
natural. There is traditional authority
and there is divine authority. There is
human authenticity, and there is divine
authenticity. Suppose in this new field
of Biblical criticism, which is the study
of the Bible as literature, we are at last
obliged to abandon some traditional views
as TO authorship and structure. If in
SEPARATION be left us, though theory of it
is exploded; if divine authenticity be left
us, though a reputed human author
sink out of sight; If Scriptural canonicity
be left us, though historicity lessen some
what its proportions; if divine authority
be left us, though tradition bate a little its
confident claim; if the infallible Word of
the living God be left us, though God be
found through the church, and pos
sibly through the conscience and the re-
ligious feeling'-what matter?
And we dare affirm that DIR. Briggs
holds reverently and truthfully to all
fhpSp To 9TH f;o1 80 I,,4