The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-01-02
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.

easy to accept the record of the super
Natural in the New Testament, but to ac
cept christianity itself as the glad tidings
q Infinite mercy to men; if the record of
the Evangelist can be resolved into an
IaIIuclnation of the disciples, or a myth,
11e faith of the New Testament may be
readily classified with the ethnic reli-
glons. The modern church has won no
more signal triumph in the realm of
SpoIogetlcS than IN its defense OF the his
Iorlc trustworthiness Of the resurrection
CT our Lord. OF course, there are those
VINO deny 1t, but we risk nothing in say
Ing that any impartial student of the long
oebate will be amazed at the way skepti-
CA position after position has been taken,
az Inc devices to which assailantS have
teen driven, and will rise from the study
with Its own faith in the resurrection of
Jesus and In the glorious consequences
involved in it confirmed
1.-THE formulas, confessions. and cate
chlsms which modern sect-founders put
Iorth, as crudely as earnestly, with equal
zeal ana narrOWneSS, are all likely to be
cast into the crucible of revision, or more
Kelly into the sea of oblivion, y according
ID the Chicago LIUigg Church Up. F,5
People do not know what they believe,
and do know that they are not to believe
%hat they did in the days before the
foundations were upheaved. Many of
IIaem believe nothing. The most popu-
lar puIplteer is he who says: Would
that all this Christian dream were true!
but-who can tell? There is so much
beauty IN it, but we cannot accept a
superstition. Well, let us float on down
Inc stream OF time, who knows where il
VIII bear us?' But there are three points
upon which the recasting spirit of the
Tune viii not have any influence: and
these are just those points which in Gods
mercy were preserved in the reformed
church of England: d The Ancient
Creeds, as the sufficient confession of
1aith; % The Episcopal Regimen, as the
bond of unity and the organ of historic
continuity; and O. The Holy Sacramento.
s the source and supply of life through
esus Christ, by the Holy Ghost The
nineteenth century can no more rob us of
these than the seventeenth, and the
church, holding them with firm grip, as
she does, performs for the Protestant
world the Office of conserver, saviour and
custodian
The theory of atheistic evolutions that
the world of matter was evolved from
primitive star dust and that life and
mind were evolved from matter without
my creative act of God, and that all that
- can be accounted for without the exist
ence and agency of God, has found little
sympathy among the great majority of
thinking men, says the Central Christ
1Tn Ad0Ocdte of st. Louis Meth \ .sand
eradicable faith in the existence of God
IS the creator of all things. Geology
Inltes with theistic evolution in putting
& new Interpretation on the six DAYS Of
creation. But whether those DAYS were
periods of twenty-fOur hours each or so
many ages Of time, is not an essential of
christian faith. So, Biblical criticism has
luOdlhed or suspended MANY beliefs
bout the Scriptures; but it has not i'm
paired faith in their divine inspiration
and authority in all questions of doctrine
tnd-duty. Nor does it follow because
1 Christians are less strenuous than for
lnerly about certain tenets of dogmatic
theology and creeds OF mans MAX
ing, or because the five points of
CalYlnlsm are made less of, or because
Questions of church organization, or
church millinery, or church ritualism are
esteemed of less vital importance than
5ormerly-it does not follow from all this
mat falth IN the essentials of religion has
Weakened. On the contrary, the removal
81 these burdens and hindranceS to faith
mas tendency to produce greater loyalty
10 Hlm who is the foundation of faith
The faith of the church may be less dog
matte than formerly, but it is none the
less tervent and true on that account
Decline in zeal for creeds is no evidence
ofdeeline in faith. For these reasons we
oenot share IN the alarm which so many
seem to feel over the departures from
certain tenets of ancient creeds and
lhe decay OF reverence for the elaborate
systems of dogmatic theology which men
nave framed and profess to deduce from
The Scriptures. Nor have we any fear
hat the new methods of Biblical criticism
Will destroy faith in the essentials of
Christianity
Commenting upon the ''new orthodoxy
and Unitarianism, with special refer
once to the recent addresses of LYMAN
Abbott and others before the Unitarian
Club OF Boston, GeOrgeS S. Merriam writes
IS follows in the Boston Christian, Ro0jS
Ter u nit: THE difference, then, seems
10 us TO be at bottom difference of intel
jectual nlethod, orthodoxy, even in its
newest phase, approaches the problem of
existence from the side of God. DIR. An
Dott put the sovereignty of God at the
foundation of his thought as emphatic
ally as did Calvin. His reasoning moved
out from the personality and character of
God as its center, Mans origin, nature,
obligation and destiny were interDreted
primarily from the conception of God.
Modern Unitarianism, we believe. is dis
posed to look first at tho known and
near facts. 1t studies man. Its aim and
nope are TO reach God through
man. 1t is the realm of humanity. and
in the material universe encompassing
humanity, 1t finds a field for study which
- substantial, fruitful inexhaustible
N other words, orthodoxy starts from
metaphysical conception, embodied by
the Imagination, and enYeloped with a
profound religious sentiment. Unitarian
ism starts rom the world as observed
and human life as experienced, envelop-
ing these facts in profound religious
sentiment. The root of the difference was
touched by Professor Tucker when he
said that he seemed to discern in Uni
tarians greater respectfully toward new
facts than he found in the orthodox. That
IS just 1t. The vast thrush of new facts in
our generation-what we broadly name
sclence'-has profoundly pressed the
Unitarian mind. And in the readiust
lnent of the mental attitude it reaches ont
Tor the firm ground of actualities; it
studies nature and man. Orthodoxy
conscious of priceless love aud hope in
herited and possessed under such syrnb
IS God and Christ broods over these
ideas, refines and purifies them, and then
tries TO interpret the universe in accord
snce with them"
On the subject of the proposed Congress-
of Religions at the Columbian Exposi-
ton, the Chicago Standard (Babt.) saws:
Deeply interesting and instructive would
it be, if representative men of these SO
widely differing races and faiths were to
assemble, day after day, not for contro-
versy, not to magnify differences, not to
intensity alterations, but to consider
manifestations of the common moral
and spiritual life,i and prove to each
other how real and how deeply rooted in
the very nature of man is, above all, the
spiritual brotherhood of the race. Doubt
less there would be at first collision of
system with system, each counting its
period by centuries, and each confident of
Us right to universal sway. The Jew,
the Mohammedan, the Brahmin would
hot come to such a conferanee asking to