Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-12

ucNcE So sHaIply, Dut Simply uecAuso
great many people have diligently cult.
waited such preference for darkness that
they have lost their sight.
! would suggest, then, to any one who
feels q lack of spiritual appreciation, ol
who finds it difficult to receive religious
truth, that some of the fault may be in him.
self 1t is always possible, of course, that
what we hold for true may be mistaken; but
Is certain that only the Saints will ever find
1t out If any man who is living far below
the ideal life thinks that he has discovered
blunders in the creed. the chances are that
he is like man with disordered sight who
sees black specks floating over the blue sky;
the specks are in his eyes, the blunders are
| In his own imperfect spiritual vision.
In addition to this close connection be.
intimate relation between truth and guild
ance.
Must Be willing to Be Guided.
The promise is that the Spirit of Truth
will guide US into all truth. And that i'm
plies that if we would attain the promise We
must be willing to be guided; and guidance
thence, means forsaking of forwardness and
hurry: This has to do, not so much with
right living, as with right thinking.
Whoever lives worthy life and has .
clear mind and heart open to heaven, and
yet accounts as untrue that which We hold
to be the most precious of all truth-there
are several things which may be said in
such case. Either what we regard as truth
is not truth, as he says; or what we regard
as truth we have not succeeded in teaching
truly, being message-bearers with an impedi-
ment OF speech, SO that he attacks, not the
truth, but our stammering utterance of it.;
or else there is something the matter with
his way Of considering truth, with his
method of thinking Perhaps he is not
willing to wait for guidance. He may be
in hurry. Whoever will know the truth
must not make haste. All hurried think
ing is wrong thinking.
1 read some time ago the address of the
president of scientific association in which
he complained of what he called the demon
OF scientific haste. All the young men, he
said, want to make brilliant discoveries,
and are not willing to do the plodding
work which can alone make scientific ac-
curacy or usefulness possible. We have
equal reason to complain Of the demon Of
theological haste.
Finding Out the Mesuine.
Thus, our reason for some'people's rejec-
tion Of what they think to be the Christian
religion is that they will not wait to find
out what the Christian religion really Is.
Men who have been in the habit of account
ing themselves heretical are not untre-
quently surprised to discover upon COM
parison of views that they really hold only
what most sensible Christians have long
that they were the only intelligent people
in all Christendom, the only lovers of rea-
son and of liberty of thought, and they find
to their amazement that the Church of
Christ cares for the truth just as much as
they do, and perhaps little more, and has
been growing year by year, and is still
growing, into better realization of the high
est truth.
The complaint which we make about a
great many critics of Christianity is that
they do not know what they are talking
about: They are inveighing against phase
OF religion which has long since been out
grown by the majority OF Christians. They
forget that revelation is of necessity pro-
gressive; that man can learn of God only so
much as he is capable of learning; that i'm
perfect ideas OF God are to be expected all
along. There can be no progress without
imperfection. But all the time, the great,
progressive, living and learning Church of
Christ is leaving imperfection in the back
ground
Progress Must Be Recognized.
All the men of science once believed that
the earth is the center of the universe; but
we do not cast that in their teeth to-day.
All the men of religion once believed in
theory of the atonement which made the
death of Christ a bargain between God and
the devil; but we have advanced to higher
truth since then. There is q church in
Rome which even to-day no woman is
allowed to enter The church is dedicated
to St John the Baptist, and women are for
hidden in it because once upon time q
woman asked for the head of John the Bap-
tist All women, that is, are estimated by
the conditions of life in the days of
Herodias. They are all accounted to be
In much the same way a good many hasty
thinkers, who never 90 to church, and have
no idea what the modern church is teach
ing, account all Christians to be close kins-
men of the theologians of the days of
bigotry.
1t is good plan, whenever any man is
tempted to fault the doctrines of the Chris
tian Church, for him to find out first what
Christian doctrine really is For nothing
amazes sensible Christians more than to read
the statements which men make, who ought
to know better, concerning the beliefs
which they say we hold about God, about
the Bible and about the future life. They
are as absurd as the questions which people
in England are tabled to ask about buffaloes
in the streets of Chicago.
Patience in the Doubters.
- Again, when real doctrine of religion is
lssailed, men who do not know how to
hink will not wait to hear how it is de-
ended. Unfortunately objections can
'arely be answered as epigrammatically as
hey can be stated. If man wants his OBJ |
ectiops answered he must have patience; |
he must not be in a hurry; and he must
lave, also. some measure Of understanding |
% comprehend the answer. You may deny |
N one minute that the earth revolves about |
he sun. You may say, "Why, look; use
your eyes; employ your common sense! |
Isn't that the sun? Wasn't it here an hour
Igo, and isn't there now? Can't you see it |
nove?"
But nobody can answer that denial in one |
minute, nor in two minutes, Nor can the |
yisest man make the real truth perfectly |
,lain, after any amount of reasoning, to the |
mind of Ignorance. The more difficult the |
ubject, the nearer its approach to the re-
lions of mystery, so much the harder is it |
o explain it satisfactorily to the man who |
s in hurry. The question may be absurd,
he objections may be ridiculous, but they
'annoC well De ulSpOSeu Oh oH-nanQ.
1t Takes Time to Investigate.
And great many people are in q hurry.
The demon OF theological haste is pushing
hem behind. They do not wait to hear the |
Christian reason. They tarry for a sentence
" two; but the reply is somewhat long, and
yearisome, and hard to follow, needs a
rood deal of patient thinking, and is not, in
act, particularly interesting; and presently
Id Pilates part is played over again, who
Questioned, "What is truth?" and then
stayed not for an answer"
81 don't know" is the easiest of all