The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-05-07

III you nave prokon loose through tne
force OF your own hard thinking, why II
would be Just as easy and rational for the
newly Matched chicken to creep back into
the shell as 1t would be for you to return
to the creed-shell from which you have
escaped into the larger mental life that Is
now yours. And when you think Of the
gloom which the traditional church
teachings have brought to you, when you
think OF the dread and terror they in
you are apt to hate the very
name OF church and religion.
But right here you are apt TO 60 to the
other extreme to your injury and loss.
Religion interpreted in the largest and
truest sense Is the attempt to adjust our
elves to the highest life forces in the
Others may receive its best development
and noblest fulfillment. The essential
root OF religion Is the sense of personal
relation TO higher power OF which We
are the offspring. This leads to the idea
OF duty-tbe thought of things we ought
10 do for our own and others
highest we'll being. You may not
believe in a personal God. You may
not believe that there is future life as
an individual entity for man. But you
do believe j. = and you do believe in
making the | ess and noblest of the life
that now Is. 1 it not your duty then to
understand, ap yreciate and reverence man?
is 1t not your duty to make most OF this
present life for yourself and Others? III
you come to know something of
the real inner nature OF man you
cannot help finding In him some
thing worthy of admiration and
respect, which is the beginning oflove
and reverence. To love man with a pure
and unselfish love is to love the Being Of
Ia snh - ha IN
learn that your own purest, highest, most
wholesome and abiding Joy is not fonnd
In selfish seeking regardless OF others, but
is secured most surely by consecrating
yourself to the work Of helping Others in
some genuine and wholesome way to more
enduring bIessedness and better life.
Now l want to, ask you the
Providence IL you think you are
doing all you ought to do for the develop
ment of your own better character?
want to ask il you are doing all you ought
to do to help the intellectual and moral
life OF people in this community? Are
you doing all you would like to do to
make this life happier, more wholesome,
in other words doing as much as you
would like to do or as much
as you might do TO make of this
little corner of earth, garden spot of
humanity where virtue will find needed
encouragement and nurture and where
noble character shall not only blossom
into fragrant loveliness, but bear fruit in
as can tell what am here for, it is TO
help toward doing just that. AS pastor
of this Unitarian society just that sort of
work is my simple duty. Neither the
Unitarian Church as a denomination nor
this individual society has any pet doc
trine or churchiy creed or ecclesiastical
ritual to advocate as a matter of denomi-
national pride or narrow utility.
There are those who have no use for a
church unless il offers inducements in the
way OF special favors. Hundreds of peo-
pie want the church, the preacher or the
priest to tell them just what they are to
think in matters OF religion.
So far as an organized membership is
chnrch which claims to hold
advantage of the one which pretends to
to no such monopoly and offers no bribes
to favoritism. The Unitarian Church
does not claim to hold the only key to
Heaven. Neither does it preach a gospel
of favoritism.
1t bases ITS doctrines of salvation neither
upon the favortism of God or Jesus, OBJ
tanned through special pleading, sacrifi-
cial rites or mental juggling.
Its doctrine of salvation is broad enough
to take i'm everybody-indeed IL is little
in any scheme of redemption
except that which refers to the redemp-
ton Of the whole human race. The
that you must be baptized face up
or down, sprinkled or immersed
In order to be saved. 1t does not insist
that you believe that three is one and one
is three in order to be saved. 1t does not
say believe thus and 50 about God, Jesus
and the Bible and thou shalt be saved. 1t
offers no short cut to heaven. Ii teaches
that people must live in a pure, upright
and noble way every day as q means of
salvation from lower life to higher.
The essential characteristic of the Uni
tartan teaching is that God is kind to
all men always, and that He is ever ready
to help and bless his children. Another
of the Unitarian faith is
that common sense and common morality
are as applicable to the study and practice
Of religion rs in the affairs OF our daily
business and social life.
People frequently ask what Unitarians
believe. My reply will be that they belive
primarily in the exercise of ones own rea-
son and common sense about religion.
People who want a creed or church or
priest to lay down in so many words just
" hat they are to believe and what to re-
ect are out of place in Unitarian church.
A church that says here is the whole
ruth, believe it or be damned ,discourages
thought. 1t therefore dishonors mans
intellect and in so doing dishonors God
'or the power to think is that which
makes us God-like-it is the divinest part
)f our nature.
To the men and women of thought who
want a reason for accepting opinions and
or doing things, to those who have
escaped from the tethering strings of
lncient error in regard to belief
lbout God and man-to all these the
Unitarian Church offers a cordial welcome
md an open fellowship.
But why, 1t may be asked, should this
lass of people join any church at all?
Why should they care to affiliate with
my church or help to support it But
he fact that person has got free from
errors Of faith and supersti-
ion is no reason why he should do moth
ng for the help of human prog
ess. His freedom is ell the more reason
Why he should be of greater service to
mans higher life.
The free man ought to be better man.
ught to be more useful man in the |
ommunity than the one who is not free.
let the people who claim to be the chill |
Iren OF light show fruits worthy of their
lain. Let those who claim to possess
dvanced thought prove IL by an advanced
life of purity and wholesome helpfulness