The Washington times., 1894-04-08

cation pay money to hear Mr.. Ingersoll sing
the old refrain? The price Of permit would
buy much beer and many ham sandwiches
with which to make sacrifices, not only fol
yourself, but you could have the pleasure ol
co-worshfpers who perchance have not the
wherewith to purchase.
The fact is that Jesus was the great
preacher against form, ceremony, and pre-
conceived dogma, but His whole life, all His
words, were to bring the presence OF God to
the everyday consciousness OF men. The re-
| ligion OF to-day Is the tearing down OF the
dogmatic structures that His would-be fol-
lowers have builded out Of their own miscon-
structions of His teaching, but 1t is to bring
God nearer to humanity, not to put Him out
sight.
IN the all-wise ordering of things from time
to time the iconoclast has been an effective
instrument in the destruction Of dogmatic
Journalism that threatened the entire obscura-
tion of the true religion of the inner life;
Rabelais, VOltaire, Hume, Paine, Ingersoll-
all greatly endowed men-and all equally
unaware that they were as much the instru-
ments in an eternal purpose us the sunshine
and the rain. 1t is necessary that false and
idolatrous affairs should be thrown down, let
it be by force, by argument, or ridicule. What
man has builded out of his own assumptions
man will destroy. Truth alone abides. This
necessary work in the world evolution be-
comes tragic when this instrument for the
destruction OF affairs builded to false gods
succeeds in destroying that altar dedicated
to the true God builded within his own SOUL
The idealism that finds its limit in the graft
flcation of the senses and in that knowledge
have fallen to US from the thoughts of other
Indc tfnh hall. ~ ntb
or rather the permission granted to others to
enjoy like fruition, though it had for its
advocates all the wit and oratory in the
world, would fail to satisfy the longings Of
one soul ill whom the great inquiry has been
| instituted.
But enough of negation. Let US see what
the wild waves" ever surging in the vast
ocean Of world consciousness, are saying to
or through the believers in the Eternal Yea. +"
Religion is one, because God is one and
| humanity one
Thirty years before the birth Of voltaire q
lay brother among the barefooted Carmelites
condensed his creeds, all his compleXity of
human conception, into one expression: 'The
presence Of God" He labored for fifty years
TO realize only one of the thirty-nine as
sumptions about God that for 1,5O0 years
have constituted, with slight variation. the
governing formula of His so-called visible
church. His simple letters have survived and
have been printed in many languages, ire
spective of form or creed. He believed and
lived in the daily practice of his belief that
the Creator Of world and man was still in and
about the work Of his own hands, and that all
He had made was holy. The trend OF re-
lgious thought of to-day is q return to the
simple faith of Brother Lawrence. making all
the scientific discoveries. all the material pro-
hIIf vii
aries thereto. the standing ground for a
iirmer faith and loftier aspiration.
The pulpit is beginning to preach the relig-
ion of individualism as the prime factor in a
possible socialism of peace and good will
among men. Thirty years ago Emerson said
every man takes care that his neighbor shall
not cheat him. But a day comes when he be-
gins to care that he do not cheat his neighbor
Then all goes well. What day dawns when
we have taken to heart the doctrine of faith
To prefer as u better investment, being, TO do
ing; being, to seeming; character, to perform
ance. And have come to know that justice
will be done US; and if our genius is slow. the
term will be long.
One of the noblest specimens of manhood
this country and this civilization has pro-
duced; who filed his temple, his Episcopalian
pulpit, his bishopric, to overfiowing. and who
was called to leave temple and bishopric
while in the full plenitude of his matured
powers, left this behind him phillips
Brooks:) ''The universal blunder of this
world is in thinking that there are certain
persons put into the world to govern and GER
tain others to obey. Everybody is in this
world to govern and everybody to obey.
There are no benefactors and no beneficiaries
in distinct classes. Every man is at once
both benefactor and beneficiary. Every good
deed you do you ought TO thank your fellow
man for giving you the opportunity to do,
and they ought to thank you for doing it.
Man began in barbarsm, which is disintegra-
ton. He develops into organized society,
and finally comes into feudalism, which ac-
cepted the power of one man over another
man.
Feudalism had its vague shadow of duty
and mutual service. but it soon gave place to
the epoch of individualism, to the splendid
era OF personal liberty, which has been the
great thought worked out in these last CEN
turies. Now men are coming to see
that beyond and above individualism
there is something higher-mutualism
Sometimes il is called socialism, some
times communism, applying to this or
that plan for attaining the end. the name of
the underlying principle sought. Don't you
see that in this mutuaism the world becomes
an entirely different thing? Mems dreams
are after the perfect world of mutualism;
mems follies may anticipate it. Men will
think of it in the midst Of the deepest sub
lection to the false conditions in which they
are living now. and this life. where service is
the universal law is but the coming in of the
life of God upon man. the coming into the in
lets of our life of the great oceanlife that lies
beyond.
Great souls think like thoughts though in
dinaranr tonDues and fauuht rndar fo,,IIy
different environment. Fifty years earlier |
than this Mazzini, the Italian patriot gave |
utteran ce to this: ''Workingmeni We live in |
an epoch similar 10 that of Christ. We live |
in the midst of a society as corrupt US that |
of the Roman empire, feeling in our inner |
most souls the need of terminating and trans |
forming it. and of uniting all its various |
members in one sole faith. beneath one sole |
law. in one sole aim-tne free and progress |
sive development of all the faculties of which
God has given the germ to his creatures.
We seek the kingdom of God on earth as it is
for heaven, and society an en-
deavor after the progressive realization of the
divine idea. But ChriSt'S every act was the
visible representation of the faith he preached;
and around him stood apostles who incar-
mated in their actions the faith they had ac-
cepted. Be you such and you will con-
luer."
Another divine whose name stands high on
he honor roll of the church, Frederick W.
Robertson: 1.-THE sacraments are honored
when they consecrate all the things and all
he acts of life. The commonest Of all ma
terials was sanctified to US in order to vindi-
,ate the sacredness of all materialism in pro-
est against the false spiritualism which af-