The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1892-12-08
A TIME TO SPEAK: A TIME TO KEEP
SILENCE.

S1LEN CE.
We find that the Christian religion.
as it is taught to-day, and has for many
years been taught, is purifying, ele-
waiting, saving influence among all men
who in faith receive, and, in life, prac-
tice it. So much we know-that, how
ever false our theOlogies may be, and
however incorrect our views of all that
relates to God and man in their nature
and relations, we hold enough of pure
and vital truth to bring the hearts Of
men into sympathy with Jesus Christ,
and their lives into cOnsOnance with
his. Now, until man has something
as good to ay-SOmething more sound,
simple saving better based, more cas-
lily comprehended, working larger and
better results, let him keep silence with
his doubts, and withhold his hand from
destruction. Nothing is more basely
cruel than the destruction of any sys-
tenn of religious life that has good in
it, without having in hand something
better to put in it's place. The time
for keeping silence is when one has
nothing to put in place of that which
his words are intended to destroy.
We may not hold the truth in it's purity,
but we hold enough of it to make it
invaluable, and until we can present it
in a purer and more fruitful form, so
that those who may cut loose from
their old belief shall have something to
grasp that is better, it is well to hold
the tongue and restrain the pen.
What we want to-day is teachers who
are capable of compromising the stu
alton, who have learned what irrepara-
BILE havoc has been made in some of
their old beliefs. who, casting out all
those superstitiOus notions of the Bible
that have made it -talisman, half
fetch to millions of men, women and
children, can grasp the history, mean
ings and uses of the book. get at it's
central, saving truths, and proclaim
them. There is no question that Chris
tianity is as independent of our old
ideas of the Bible as it is independent
of our ideas of the Koran. or our ideas
of any book or anything whatsoever
We have in the Bible, when we find it,
the true religion; but, when we make
the existence of that religion depend
ent upon our ideas of the Bible. we do
it the cruelest wrong that we can infiict
upon it.
| And that, precisely, is the danger to-
day. The people having been taught
to associate the religion of the Bible
with a certain view of inspiration,
imagine that religion stands or falls
with that view. There could not be a
more natural or logical result of the
teachings of the last three hundred
years than this: and if religious teach
ers are not ready with their answer
when the time comes to speak-and
that time in great many communities
is now "a crop of infidels will be the
result The growing inattentiOn to re-
ligion among the more intelligent
masses. the lack of religious faith in
the literary class, the enmity-sOme-
times coarse and always aggressive
the scientists, show that the time to
speak, and to speak in earnest, has
come. But the speaking must be done
from the new standpoint, and with
thorough recognition of the modifica-
lions that science and criticism have
wrought in the materials and combina-
lions that have entered into the struct-
ure of our old systems of faith and
opinion. The old machinery and the
old doctrine will not avail in the fight.
1t is precisely those that are the sub
jects of dissent a teacher who has
nothing but these with which to meet
the foes of religion may as well retire
from the field of conflict.
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