The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1894-10-13

that what have to offer on the pres
ent occasion will conine itself as
closely as may be to the succession of
ideas marked out by the Committee
of Arrangements, and | will call your
stand it." Another says, "My object
is to make the world BETTER" another
has another method or purpose; and
80 if you could have gathered in a
room large enough-:t would not be
very immense-to hold our people
and each man should come riding
his hobby, as the men and women
now ride their bicycles, and leave
them out on the streets when they
came in, it would be sight to go and
look at them. Now, in the midst of
all this variety, how is a plain, simple
man going to answer the question
you have asked me to answer? What
is the purpose of a denomination
made up of such vast variety of in
dividual purpose9 do not complain;
] think | see some reason for glory
ing in it. At any rate, have had
the same disease of universal with
out the ''ism," l confess it. have not
got over it yet entirely, but have got
so far convalscent that can really APP
preciate plain, simple, straight for
ward and direct way of putting things
and I have lived fifty years to get to
that point.
Another man speaking at this same
Liberal Congress in Erie to which ]
have referred, who has positive gen
Jus for putting things pointedly,-I
don't think he has rhetoric or poetry
enough to suit me, but he does put
things like needle point,-he says;
"Uniyersalism stands for good over
coming evil in the universe, and the
object of the Universalist denomina-
ton is to build up that faith in the
world" That seems a little more
easily understood than one infinite
rushing around after another infinite.
"Universalism teaches that good will
will overcome evil, and the object of
the Universalist denomination is to
build up that faith in the world" I
have asked number of our brethren
here today what their purposes were
and about as good an answer as any
is that the immediate purpose of the
denomination should be to live up to
it's name, to fill out the word. 1t is a
most marvellous and inexpressibly
grand thing to be man or a woman,
to have the faculties of human Great
ures. There has never been any new
one invented since the first; the first
was SO complete pattern that all
others have been moulded after it.
There is no other material to make
men and women of, but in spite of all
editorial sanctums, denominations,
political parties, or what not, the
only thing worth living for is to fill
up the outlines that God Almighty
wrote in the faculties of a man. And
so when you have a word that is cap
able of holding all the thought and
all the progress that the soul can at
tain to,why not put it forth7 For sure
ly the best defense of the parent is the
energy and ambition of the child.
The fathers of our faith wrote the
outlines in the word they accepted,
and the question for us to ask our
selves now is whether, having gone to
their reward, their work shall be in
vain; whether the progress toward
filling up the measure of that great
word is in a steady course of unfold
ing, swayed only by the fluctuations
and vicissitudes ever manifest in the
march of human affairs; or whether
there is reason, on the other hand, to
fear that out short-lived denomina-
tional prosperity is already upon the
wane; whether we have nothing to
look forward to save an evening of
degeneracy and the closing of ray
less and starless night of denomina-
tional decline; or whether our church
shall go on and live up to the name,
looking vitality into all questions I'M
til we find where the trouble is and
remedy it at any cost.
And allow me here to say what the
bare mention of such an ill-omened
alternative forces to my unwilling
lips; that if the vision of the divinest
spirits among us shall turn out to be
only the baseless fabric of dream;
if the ideal cannot come to pass, and
either at the hand of radical destruc-
tivism or of conservative mossback-
ism on the other hand, these things
turn out to be chronic and we die out
O. the modern religious world, the
name of every man who contributes
to such dire result, by word or deed,
e Il I l. L