The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-04-15
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.

Ministers and I-aymen.
"How much the hope of immortality
throughout the Christian world has been
dependent upon belief in the Gospel ac-
count of the Resurrection, and to what
strength it would have grown without
that alleged fact to witness and uphold it,
we are of course unable to say" remarks
the Christian Register (Unit.) of Boston.
"But it is undoubtedly true that, with
the advance of knowledge, thinking peo-
pie lean less exclusively on this single
piece of historic evidence and find new
intimations of Immortality to help their
longing desire from the many fields of
thought freshly opened to their investi-
cation. The question as to the historic
accuracy of the story of Christ's resur
rection, as it stands in the Gospels, be-
comes therefore continually OF less inn
portance. Easter ceases to be merely a
celebration of this one event, as if the
whole faith of mankind were staked
upon it, and grows to be festival of
mans universal belief in the endless
life."
The following is from the New York
story of French Christian who, to long
argument of deistical friend against the
immortality of the soul, replied tersely:
Probably you are right. Probably you
are not immortal, but l am The reply
usually passes for nothing more than
happy repartee, but are we so sure that
there is not profound philosophy in it?
we have been, perhaps, accustomed to
think OF the soul as a generic thing pos
Sessing Immortality, but may it not be
true that there are differences in souls
that go deep enough to raise the question
whether, in some, anything is left capa-
bic of surviving death? Nay, may we
not go further, and at least question
whether in each of us Immortality may
not be matter of degree; that some are
more immortal than others because in
some there is more and in others less
which is capable of surviving death? =
This Easter fantasy-for we prefer
TO treat it as vague and shadowy thought
rather than as clear, well-detned doc
trine-wiQ also, perhaps, enable US to
understand better why Immortality seems
SO absolutely certain TO some, so hopeless
dream 10 others, and to yet others SO
beautiful but ever evaneScent and ever
reappearing vision. The measure of
our faith in Immortality may, perhaps,
depend upon the measure of our possess
sion OF lmmor tality. Certainly it does
not depend upon logical accumen or phil
osophical depth on the one hand, nor
upon conventional rectitude on the other
1t seems hardly to depend, at least not
wholly, upon the religious belief in which
the soul has been trained.'
"Why, then, fingers the coming King
domY" asks the New York Ihdependenl.
''Simply and solely because the church
fails TO do its duty. A century or two
ought to have sutficed nineteen centu-
rleS have not been enough to evangelize
q quarter of the inhabitants of the earth.
If China is pagan yet, l. is not at all from
any lack of power in the Easter miracle,
but solely because the church has not
gone out into all the world to preach that
epiphany of angels and that opening of
the sepulcher before which the keepers
did uremble and became as dead men. If
our cities, here and there spangled with
churches, are yet more Swallowed and
blackened with haunts and bells, the
smoke of whose crimes hides the spires
the fault is all, all with the church in it's
forgetfulness of Its mission and duty. If
where Christianity most prevails millions
treat 1t with indifference or positive aver
sion, the fault all belongs to those who
were told by their risen Master to go into
all the world and preach the Gospel to
every creature, and who have not done
1t; it is the fault of those who have not by
their life commended the Savior to their
neighbors about them"
The New York Evangelist Pres.) saws:
when the church ordains man to It's
ministry he takes a pledge of fidelity.
He must answer atfirmatiyely the Dues
tons: do you believe the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testament to be the
Word of God, the only infallible rule of
faith and practice? 2-Do YOU sincerely
receive and adopt the Confession of Faith
of this church as containing the system
of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures?
This is his doctrinal test. If he fails to
abide by 1t he breaks faith. But ordina-
ton pledges the church also. In ordain-
ing one who accepts this doctrinal test. it
binds itself to exact additional ones of
him, without his consent, at any future
time. If 1t afterwards insists on a spe-
chic Interpretation OF questions originally
drawn with wise latitude, and threat
ems to cast him out for not adding to his
pledge, still Loyalty observed, the accep-
lance of the specific Interpretation not re-
quired in the pledge, then the church
breaks faith, it dishonors itself and its
Head. These are constitutional obliga-
lions, dating in their present form from
1TSS. Both of them were recognized, in
principle, at the time of the Adopting Act
in lT29. The obligation imposed upon
the church was emphatically illustrated
and formally reaffirmed at the Reunion
of 1863. Under the influence of the lofty
Christian and fraternal spirit that ruled
the hour, all parties at that time heartily
and solemnly agreed to basis which
bound the church. to be and to remain
satisfied with sincere subscription in the
form above quoted and made this basis a
condition OF Reunion. On this basis we
are now living, To insist that one whose
competence and honesty are unchallenged
shall now be judged by particular in
depreciation of the subscription formula
is to violate the basis of agreement under
living the ReuniOn.p
Between the higher critics themselves, -
remarks the CongregdttonaLiSt of Boston,
ministers discriminate. Toward those
who reverence their own knowledge and
are irreverent toward God and those who
have sincerely worshiped Him in the
past, they are hostile. Toward those who
are modest in their estimate of their
abilities and work, courteous toward the
work of others, reverent toward God and
evidently laboring to discover Him more
clearly in His Word, that men seeing
Him may grow more like Him, minis
tiers are friendly, and as the results OF
scholarly investigation are becoming
populariZed, they are becoming higher
critics themselves. so, as into this mar
Vicious movement of knowledge which
characterizes our time, there shall come
the deeper sense of unworthiness be-
cause God, holy and supreme, is more
clearly seen, and as there shall come the
deeper spirit of prayer for more light and
tor the spiritual renewal of men into the
likeness of Him whose glory is thus
newly revealed. the Bible will more than
ever before pervade and control the
thought of the world because the Bible
enlightens and represents the conscience
of mankind, Not less study is needed