The Windham County reformer. (Battleboro, Vt.) 1876-1897, 1893-03-17
Richard Harding Davis Declines.
Please excuse me from answering any oil
the questions you suggest. They are toe
solemn. Sincerely yours,
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.

Moncure ID. Conway on the Coming The
ology.
The human mind, inspired by the heart
shapes in the future an ideal that survives
the decay of dogmas. He who disbelieves
in the worlds supernatural direction usu
! ally transfers it to some natural providence
which will cause right and truth to tri
umph. Even the pessimist believes that in
aworld organically bad his philosophy is an
exception, and that when it prevails (there
| is Just good enough in the world for that,
| things will be BETTER
Our modern optimism buds on an old
tree. An oriental poet reminds us that
when thorns are green and tender the
camel may browse on them, but when old
and hard they tear his lips Consolng and
nourishing at first was the ancient pious
doctrine that men should regard their lot us
| divinely appointed and be contcnted there
with but it hardened into the sanction of
expressions and thorns for those who tried
to improve the lot of the poor. And if the
PRESENT optimistic sentiments should pass
from poetry to practice benevolent effort
must be chilled.
For why should we do work which 1.-THE
process Of the suns" is doing for us? If hu-
fn1anity is Progressing by a dynamic destiny
al9ng prqvidential, or other purposed
gINoyes. OF reforming efforts are superser.
NTeabls aIa must decline with increase of
knowledge. But what we witness is the
unprecedented increase of reforming and
humanitarian efforts. While it has become
a heresy even in cultured Christian circles
to believe in devil the instruction of hui
man hearts against the worlds tares shows
deep belief that the tares are permitted
by no providence. IAN enemy hath done
this"
This separation between heart and head,
between practical and theoretical religion,
is the pregnant phenomenon. The discov.
cry of evolution has revealed that we are in
a predatory and cruel world, while increas
ing refinement has made the human heart
more sympathetic. The earth has become
conscious of its agonies. Sectarian parti-
tions, originated by extinct issues, yield
before the humanitarian enthusiasm, which
is graphing with evil as if it were satanic,
just as theology has reached the conclusion
that satan does not exist, and that evil is
good in the making"
Thus the only fervid and vital religion Of
our time, in its crusade against evils pro-
nounced "providential'' by theology, is left
without any creed corresponding to it's hui
zeal. Science has taken away
its devil; common sense has discredited a
deity permitting evil while professedly
hating it, and the religious affections can
find no shelter under an unknowable which
is necessarily unlovable.
a new theology must arise. Whatever
traditional dogmas it may preserve, it will
those that imply divine sanction
Of Biblical cruelties and of the like In ma
ture Humanitarian religion is an incar-
nation like that which once led the suffer
ing world to worhsip goodness and love on
4 cross, rather a loveless omnipotence. The
new plan of salvation" means the human
zation of the world, including its dogmas
md deities When religion and theology
'eunite there will be born, believe, some
to the ancient Zoroastrian philoso-
ply of a good mind contending with, and !
through mans cooperation steadily sub
LUNG, inorganic and unconscious forces of |
nature which it never created, and for
whose distractions to human development
/ is in nowise responsible
MONCURE d. CONWAY. l.. II. d.