The record-union., 1892-09-24

them. Like the mass in Roman Catho-
lie churches, they are merely spectacular,
or are as dull and juiceleSs as indiner-
ence and heartlesSneSs can make them.
1t Is not always, therefore, that increase
OF ritual proves an escape from dizziness.
The effort to abbreviate the sermon may
result, to use vulgar proverb, III a
jump from the frying pan into the fire."
Whatever may be the wish of the
Methodist Church in the matter of
changing its polity, it cannot afford to
accomplish by indirection what should
be done, if done at all, openly and with
out resort to the cunning arts OF the
politician" observes the New York
Evangelist (Pres.). SIT may be good
thing to admit women to its councils, but
it is a bad thing to admit anybody in a
questionable way. Having by a constl-
tutional amendment admitted 1aymen'
to the General Conference as members,
1T was understood without debate that
'laymen' meant male members of the
church. An attempt was made to secure
the constitutional vote necessary to
change this so as to include female mem
Ders as well. A majority was secured,
but not such a majority as was
necessary to effect a constitutional
change. The point being referred
to a Judicial Committee of the
Conference, the committee decided, in
accordance with the popular under
standing, that women were not eligible.
But the friends of the new measure, haV-
ing majority in the Conference, passed
a vote, the effect of which was to effect,
by an Interpretation of the Constitution,
what they could not secure as a change.
1t is as If our presbyteries, falling to Sc
cure revision of the Westminster Confess
sion, should by mere majority interpret
TO l. 4
meant. All of this in a nominating con-
vention of some political party would be
considered very smart but it is doubt
ful If Christian people generally will con-
slider it quite honest. In etfecting a
change so radical as this, the Methodist
Church owes it to itself and to public
opinion to act in accordance with only
the highest motives and by methods that
cannot be called in question. 1t is to be
presumed that such women as will be an
advantage to the body would prefer to
wait than to be admitted clandestinely by
a side door,"
"a paragraph which has just fallen
under our the New York Churchman's,
p. E.) observation in newspaper notes
that in 1910, the heart of President APP
pleton (of Bowdoin) was cheered by the
admission of single Christian student,
there being then no professed Christians
in the college'-'one sign of many says
the writer, that the religious, as we'll as
the political opinions of Jefferson were in
the ascendant in the first decades of the
century, But if the students were not
religious, the colleges were; in their con-
stitution, their discipline, and their Off
GERS. No man could get learning with
out religion as the medium through
which it was dispensed, and many a
graduate realized in after life that in
getting wisdom he had got religion too.
Moreover, we believe it to be easily de-
monstrable that the colleges which have
held fast to their religious character, in
defiance of popular clamor, have in the
past sent forth, and are now sending
forth, as many distinguished men, in
proportion to the whole number Of gradu-
ates, as the most liberal universities of
the period, and this in the face of i'm
measurably inferior apparatus and equip
ment, the penalty of their steadfastness
We believe it to be also demonstrate
that such graduates make their mark,
not as specialists and experts but as
'all-round men, ready for the business
of life, as life is; its duties and RESPONSE
bilities, and bringing healthful and
steady pressure to bear upon their gener-
alton along the true lines of human
progress