The record-union., 1893-04-08
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
Expressions From the Various Re-
ligious Newspapers.
The Religious Thought of the Day as
Expressed in the SectarIan Press
Some Matters of Interest to Both
Ministers and Laymen.

some OF our correspondents, we see,
are IN favor of sending missionaries to
Roman Catholic Countries says the
La0ang Church (P. E. of Chicago. aside
from any question of our right to do so,
1t seems to US that there is a practical
question to be considered, viz, whether
we can afford to do So Have we got so
much missionary money and so many
missionary men and women, that we can
reach every heather tribe and have some
to spare for Mexico and Brazil? Granted
that the Roman Catholics ought to be
converted from their errors, do we need
TO go to Cuba and Spain to find them?
lhey outnumber US, five to one, near at
nome, where we have the best opportu-
nifty in the world to convert them! At
lne present rate of progress how long
Will 1t be before we have them all con-
Verted and get them all into the Protest
| ant Episcopal Church? But, it is argued,
the Roman Catholics of Mexico and Spain
are different from those of our country
they are very superstitious and degraded.
mat may be true, and if so, it becomes
| their own brethren of more advanced
races to labor for their enlightenment.
surely, we have enough to do without
| becoming responsible for them. There
are millions of human beings who never
heard the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
| VINO are given over to devil worship,
whose condition, both physical and spir-
ltuai, is lndescribably pitiful. We have
undertaken some missions among these
IorIorn and degraded people for whom
| Chrlst died, and we have not shown very
great zeal about it either. The Church of
England, as If she had not enough to do
IN dlscharging her responsibility to the
! heathenism over which, in every cline,
floats the flag of the British Empire, is
called upon to set up new church in
Spain. Such misdirected zeal and mis-
management would ruin any enterprise,
secular or religious"
"In the United States the danger,' ac-
cordlng to the same authority, lis from
| the failure OF Professionalism. Rome has a
splendid organization. Professionalism is,
as a whole, unorganized. There are
bodies which, to the DISTINGUISHED obser-
yer, differ in nothing important, and are.
IN TACT, fond OF declaring that their differ
ences signify nothing. Yet they remain
apart. They contest the ground with
each other even in the smallest villages.
| Thus they scatter and waste what strength
| they may have, and, in the presence OF a
| strong organization, are like bands of
guerillas. Worse than this is the decay
| Il
OF moral power. Any one who candidly
| considers the religious conditions of MANY
| OF our Western towns and villages will
| be mournfully impressed with the lack of
| dehniteness in teaching and belief as
| touching the very fundamentals of Christ
lanlty, the divinity of our Lord, for ex-
ample. In too many cases the divorce
between morality and religion is all but
| complete, and the latter is resolved into
| an exercise of the emotions, while the
| former hardly rises to the level of nat
ural ethics. We repeat, the serious prob
lem which confronts religion in the West
at least, is the deterioration of it's own
character, its lack of unity, the growing
Vagueness of everything which concerns
belief, the loss of moral power"
Discussing DR.. Rainsford's reformed
saloon scheme, the New York Christian
| OttloH says: Medical men are not agreed
upon the question whether alcohol liquor
| ever serves the purpose of food. Some
| who do not think it serves properly the
| purpose of food nevertheless think it use
| ful, at least Tor men past middle life, when
taken in connection with food. But we
do not think that there is a single physi-
clan, of recognized scientific authority in
the world, who does not reprobate the
| custom OF drinking alcoholic liquors be-
| tween meals. Wine and beer NAV be
useful-we do not say they are so, it is
| still debatable Question-but they can
be useful only as an adjunct to food.
Now, in the saloon they are not an adj
juhct to food; even when a free lunch is
| served the food is only an adjunct to
| liquor. The saloon-keeper may be the
most plous OF saints, the walls of his sa-
| loon may be covered with Scripture
apothegms, the moral atmosphere NAV
be as pure as that of prayer-meeting,
and the physical atmosphere as pure as
that of May morning in Central Park,
but still the fact will remain that the men
and women who congregate there will
congregate to drink between meals, and
plety cannot make that other than unhy-
glenlc. Plety cannot prevent the alcohol
| thus taken into the stomach from passing
undigested INTO the blood, and so to the
| brain and other nerve-centers, to do there
nothing but evil. The object of temper
ance reformers should be, not to promote
| moral reform saloons, but to abolish the
| saloons altogether; not to abolish the
| liquor traffic, but to put it under such
regulations as will prevent it from issu-
ing in saloons. If we could abolish all
| distilled liquors to the drug-stores, and
all wines and beers to the restaurants and
the hotels, and sweep away the bars and
the saloons, and the habit of treating, and
| ''stand-up" drinking, and drinking be-
tween meals, altogether, we should get
rid of nine-tenths Of the poverty and
| crime which the liquor traffic, as now
conducted, inflicts upon the community.
But we shall not get rid of anHproportion
of it by establishing reform saloons. The
saloon, a place which encourages men to
drink between meals, can be reformed
only by being abolished"
1.-The great trouble with our virtue as a
people," says the New York Examiner
| (Bapt.l, lis that it is a spasmodic virtue.
We are tremendously good-in spots.
We are wonderfully high mnded-by
spells. We have the most exalted ideas
| OF personal morality and civic virtue-at
times. But these virtuous periods, though
| fiery and impetuous and lofty in their
! ideals, are brief in duration and of infre-
quent occurrence. 1t is in the between
times that the hard, plodding work of
legislation and government is DONE and
in these between times we are not as a
people specially remarkable for goodness,
or lofty ideas, or tervid moral feeling.
| We may average up as well as other peo-
pie, in the long run, but we can hardly
lay claim to superior virtue. Is not this
a true bill? Will not the indictment hold?
Must we not confess that this is not an