The herald., 1895-05-05
By Christianity, According to
the Belief of DR.. Heron
INDIVIDUALISM ALL WRONG
IN Immediate Step to Be the Union OF
Various Reform Movements
The Social Oneness Of II uman Life Really
Adds to the Responsibility
of the Individual

last, given yesterday evening. by Pro-
lessor Heron in Illinois hall. His sub
ject was The Christian Revival of the
Nation, and his audience of hundreds of
alen add women sat in absorbed silence,
except when point. quietly and subtly
presented was followed by the most
spontaneous and appreciative applause.
Today Professor Heron will speak three
times-this morning before the congrega-
tion of the First Presbyterian church, in
Illinois hail. on Christ as the Revelation
of Human Life; this afternoon at 2:30 in
the Y. NJ. c. A. hall, to men, upon The
Coming of the Kingdom. and this even
in Simpson tabernacle on the same gen.
cral subject as last evenings lecture.
Tomorrow morning at 10:3O in the y.
M C. A. hall Dr. Heron will be heard
once more on social regeneration.
In opening his lecture last night the
speaker said both terrible and hopeful
fact of the history now being made is
that tie American people are under a
national conviction of sin.
God created and sent one nation to be
an example and witness OF the power
and wisdom of Christ unto the political
lvation of the world. He appointed
and anointed this nation to seek and full
dom. We have failed. We have be-
trayed our trust and forsaken our
mission. God Is disappointed in
apostate people. We have done those ma
terial ana political things we ought not
to have done, and have left undone the
social and righteous things we ought to
have done. We have wasted our substance
in riotous national living, and have been
faithless to the freedom which our fathers
received as the gift of God. We nave used
the liberty wherewith their sacrifice made
us free to rob and oppress one another.
We need and will have the atonemenG of
such sacrifice. The naGon is sick at
heart and the body polite full of
disease and corruption. Except the
nation repent and the energy which
has gone into mad speculation
and competition for material wealth be
changed the material things we have
gained will be taken away from us, and
there will not be left one stone upon
another of our great temples OF religion.
Religious and economic statistics are
no answer 10 this call to national re-
pentance and we cannot escape the call
by chanting the holy watchword of the
fathers of our nation. Except this nation
be born again, and yalsen from that
blind fatal sm which Is the optimism of
apostates and hypocrltes TO a regenerat-
ing national consciousness of God. it can
not receive the salvation and the glory of
the Christian state
We are idle 10 place the guilt of one
political sin and sJcial shame on some
other political party, some other sect of
religion than our own. In one way and
another we are al social sinners, and all
in need OF political redemption. None of
us are socially righteous, nor ave any of
us been true to our nation or political
witnesses Of Chris to {he people. We are
all caught in .he tolls of the
false social doctrines that are con-
verting the liberty of our fathers INTO our
own social despotism and slavery and
making us the destreyers OF our brothers,
We can none OF us, individually, extricate
ourselves fron the social pain and shame
or escape the political guilt We should
seek and find wherein our own party, our
own church. the practice of our own
political or religious creed has brought
the nations war and perpleXity, and
turn the focus Of our relations and inhu-
ence toward the social regeneration that
is to be the new birth of the nation.
Nothing else than great political revival
of the religion of Christ, a profound re-
cupeI alton of the church which bears his
name, can solve the American problem of
society.
, Civilization is founded upon what peo-
pie believe concerning God and human
life, and is built by what people feel.
Each new development of society has
been but the manifestation of a purified
religious faith and an increased religious
ficts gone, is a holy war between those
who believe in God and those who
do not; between those who have
faith in the right, and those
who put their trust in the wrong; be-
tween those who believe IN the law and
power of sacrifice, and those who believe
in the power and law of selfishness. The
revival of the faith OF those who have
believed in the right that God has re-
vealed in Christ is the national salvation
for which we wait.
Mr.. Heron gave cursory review of
as chronicled by John Richard Green in
his history of the English people. and
rather more than reference to Mr.. Kidd S
social evolution, showing that great re-
ligious revivals are, bling recognized as
OF great historical Importance. Con-
to distinguish between the spirit
ual and the intellectual man then
the intellectual man is always
lower order of being chan the spiritual
man. Just as the distinctly physical man
is of a lower order than the intellectual.
1t is only scientific to look to the in
creased apprehension of spiritual forces,
to the revival of faith and quickening of
the religious feeling for the remaking of
society. 1t may be said with historic
spirit, then, and in strict accord with
actual facts, that through great revival
OF the religion OF Jesus Christ. society is
to be saved. Through yielding to the
per onal touch and power of the life
forces in Christ will the forces of our
civilization be regenerated and har-
monized.
No mere individualism,s religious or
political. can save the world. The con-
version OF the individual to Christ is
phase now empted Of much OF it's real
meaning until the social ideal of Christ
shall be conceived in the heart of society.
The s1cial oneness Of human life does not
subtract. but infinitely adds thereto. Sin
is nothing more nor less than various
gross or refined forms and degrees of liv-
ing Tor ones self instead of for others;
and the only individual salvation is in
following Christ in bearing away the sin
OF the world. We are all member one
OF another. limited by each 9th
ers limitations rightly bearing the
inputaton of each others guilt, all
.x.'iators of common Inheritance of sin
fi,nl the past. The education of life does
not consist in the number of things one
knows. but IN the discovery and appro-
priaton of the forces which unfold and
empower life. Education is spiritual
and moral process. Much of the present
eismentary education is sadly ignorant
triiing with young life, and the higher
g tcation when not a mere intellectual d.
le'ianteism is largely what might
lie called an intellectual sensu-
aiity. BY learning how to ap-
rrehend and use the educational method