The record-union., 1894-09-08
In RELIGIONS REALM.
Expressions From the Various Re-
igiOus Newspapers
The Religious Thought of the Day as
Expressed In the Sectarian Press
Some Matters of Interest," to Both
Ministers and Laymen.


city which recommend that the Sunday
Jaws known as ''blue laws" be treated as
oead-letter statutes. mo advice could be
worse than this" it says. "The surest
way to encourage disregard of law is to
teach the people that some laws are
made to satisfy a demand for them, but
That they are meant 10 be dead-letter.
especially vicious is the counsel that the
enactment OF any laws should satisfy the
public conscience, leaving men to ignore
u IN practice. The counterpart of dead
Aormality in religion is dead law in the
administration of governments kind of
state sanction of hypocrisy. The pur-
pose of Sunday laws is to protect the first
day Of the week as day of rest, for the
highest good of the individual and of the
state. These laws ought to be fair to all
classes TO secure this purpose, and they
ougt 10 be enforced for the good of all.
Without such laws the liberty of the
working classes would be destroyed"
''The best preaching for the times is
the preaching for all times" says the
interior (Pres.l of Chicago, which adds;
OI all speakers, the preacher has to deal
Win the most commonplace truths, be-
cause they are the most momentous.
dis work Is not to map out the surface
currents OF the ocean, but to give his
lime to deep-sea soundings. He cannot
afford TO be merely the student of the
earth's gravel and drift, the debris of
vanished glaciers and the hotsam of lost
rivers, but it is to go down into the gran
ltic, azoic heart of the world, and to
weigh 1t in his scales. When man hab-
1tually turns aside from these themes to
make the shifting events of the day the
staple or his discourse, he is unworthy OF
his place and does not understand his
privilege. The novelist of tomorrow
viii deal with the old, old story as
surely as the novelist of yesterday did So
II he does not he will have no readers.
hen Michael Angelo was importuned
10 leave ffeScolng and come down to
painting in oil for the easel, he said that
was the work of billiards. A minister
OF the Gospel should be Michael An
gelos not a Carlo Doce, making, as Cole
ridge put it, 'Christs in sugar candy 1t
may be something to carve fairy story
upon cherry pit, but it is grander
thlng to rear cathedral in stone. The
best preaching for the times is the preach
ing for all times"
PROTESTING against the levity with which
some OF the daily newspapers treat min
listers OF the Gospel, the ChrGStian In
qtarer (Bapt.) of New York saws: ga
stranger hearing them spoken of would
suppose them an Indifferent class of men.
destitute OF any business capacity, unfa-
lnlllar with political matters, with no
practical tact, kept to look at very much
as gold tsh are kept in public tank, and
almost as useless. But such is not the
record OF the a American ministry for an
hundred years past. There has been no
class OF men, no profession, no form of
-GClzenshlp which has SO taken hold of
the public veal as has this, and to-day
there is no class to which the public owes
Il larger debt. Our government, our in
stltutlons, our civilization are ali founded
on Bible religion, of which the clergy
are the authorized eXponents. We need
not stop 10 argue such palstable fact
Ihe truth or Gods Word filters itself
down into everything we have that is great
ana good IN natural government and civil
lioerty. Our fathers, as Professor PheIns
Justly remarks, had faith in the Bible
Ihey believed il, as no abstraction. con-
cerned rather with other worlds than
with this. They embraced it as the most
intense reality they knew of, as neces-
sary to their daily welfare as the daily
sunshine. They grounded their domes-
tic, literary and civil institutions upon it.
no less heartily than their churches.
creeds and their pulpits. :"
Speaking of the social prescription of
the Jews, the New York EDa,70eJiet
(Pres.) says: 1t is far from unlikely thar
our civilization is seriously the loser
Leaving out of sight the conceded busi
ness ability OF the Jew. there are qualities
IN the jewish personal and home life
which would greatly enrich our own,
The atectionate confidence which pre-
walls between father and son, mother and
daughter, are as far beyond the usual
relations OF parents ana children in Gem
tie homes, as the tllial respect and duty
OF the Jewish child is superior TO that
which we see in GENTLE children-in our
watering hotels for example. The jew
Ism intellect is very good; the standard of
cultivation, especially for women. in the
better Jewish circles. Is far better than i'm
any GENTLE circles except of the highly
cultivated few. In family and neighbor-
mood loyalty they have much to teach us.
Their ways are not always our ways. and
there Is no question that the vulgar lew
is very disagreeable. So is the yuIear
Semitic; but 1t so happens that. partly
because they are more apt TO be- more
prosperous, partly because by reason of
their social prescription, they are yery.
very much in evidence wherever thew 90
and SO Ignorant, ill-mannered Jews are
much likely to be obnoxious than Gem
tiles OF like character. But where the
prejudice against Jews as Jews TO be re-
moved, 1t would probably not be LONG he
fore, in spite of centuries of social banish-
nent, the best among them would be
found TO be brilliant ornaments of the
pest Gentle society, and all of them val
oaDIe members of the circles into which
they would naturally be drawn"
"The trouble with our social fabric to-
day. says the New York Erami1ae,
tPres.), "is that so much of it's good con-
duct IS poor, thin veneering, which
IS often, on the slightest provocation, is
broken through and the untamed savage
IS openly revealed. Men cannot be happy
nHtlI Ll0y are good and fbav "a m oot no
gooa-through aud through, intrinsically
good-untll, by the touch of divine grace,
they are made a new creation' in Jesus
Christ. No enduring improvement in
society can De secured until this radical
change is effected. When il is accom-
pilshed, the task of cultiyating, refining,
broadening, spiritualizlng, becomes both
possible ana comparatively easy. 1t is
not, 10 be sure, the task of a day. nor a
year. nor an age. to lift up our fallen and
degraded humanity as a whole. but the
social science OF Jesus Christ can ac-
colnplish 1t. No other can, because it
alone strikes at the root of ali that is evil
in human life and character. We must
not be understood as desiring 10 dspreciats
the value OF even temporary makeshifts
in helping men forward, it is a good
thing, no doubt, to remove the means of
gratifying an evil appetite itself 1t is a
good thing TO save men from freuuentino
dangerous resorts by supplying safe
places of recreation and entertainment:
but far better is it TO implant within the
man himself such love of all that is
pure and good that he will instinctively
shun the Impure and evil"
''The great newspaper" says the New
York Cait5chmdn p. e., lis not that
which gives the most details of the pres.
ent world-liie, but that which sees and
describes what the tendency OF the pres