The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-06-02
Charity to the Erring.

In dealing with the errlng, MARSH
measures should not be resorted to;
milder means will effect far more.
Make use of the milder means most
perseveringly, and even if they do not
succeed, wait patiently; never hurry
the matter of cutting off a member
from the church. Pray for him, and
see If God will not move upon the
heart of thu erring. Discipline has
been largely perverted. Those who
have had very defective characters
themselves, have been very forward
in disciplining others, and thus all
discipline has been brought into
contempt. Passion. prejudice and par
TALLY, am sorry to say. have had
abundant room for exhibition, and
proper discipline has been strangely
neglected. If those who deal with the
erring had hearts full of the milk of
human kindness, what a different
spirit would prevail in our churches.
May the Lord open the eyes and soften
the hearts of those who have a harsh.
unforgiving, unrelenting spirit toward
those whom they think in error. Such
men dishonor their office and dishonor
God. They grieve the hearts of his
children, and compel them to cry
unto God in their distress. The Lord
will surely hear their cry, and will
judge for these things.-Advent Re
view ana Herald.
How BradIauGh Became an Atheist.
1t is not generally known that
Charles Bradlaugh. the noted English
atheist and free-thinker. was in his
youth an earnest Christian and a Sun
day school teacher. BY a strange
irony of fate, the very man whose
duty it was to confirm young Charles
as defender of the Gospel, drove him,
we are told, entirely from the Chris
tan fold. The Jamaica Post, Jamaica,
makes this fact the subject of the fol-
lowing reflections:
IF the question were asked: What is
the peculiar mission or the distin-
gushing work of ministers Of religion?
even a child would be able to give
the answer: To preach the I4Ospel, n
to lead their people into the knowledge
and love of God. And yet, strange to
say, more than one minister, in their
very zeal for Gods work, have driven
members of their congregation into
infdelity, and thereby made them
selves propa gators. not of godliness,
but of atheism. Within the last few
weeks biography of the late Charles
Bradlaugh. from the pen of his daugh-
ter. Mrs. Bonner, has been published,
and a perusal of that work makes it
abundantly clear that a well-n1eaning
but foolish, choleric and narrow
minded clergyman was responsible for
the great Tribune's hatred of Chris
tianity, and indeed of religion alto
gether 1t might be unfair to assert |
positively that the Rev. John Graham
Packer made Charles Bradlaugh a |
ATHEIST; but undoubtedly |
his bigotry, his intolerance of honest /
doubt, and his uncharitable conduct, |
FASTENED Bradlaugh'S transition from |
faith to critical negation. |
At the time when doubts first began to |
assail him, Charles Bradlaugh was a !
mere lad-somewhere between seven
teen and eighteen years of age. In |
short, he had just reached the stage
when questions do present themselves
and demand an answer. But he was
not yet an unbeliever-only an en-
quirer He had the temerity, how
ever, to ask his clergyman for an ex-
nine Articles which were troubling
him. And how did that clergyman
treat that young thinker? He de-
nounced him from the pulpit as an
ATHEIST, got him expelled from the Sun
lay school, where he was teacher, and
,ontrived also to get him expelled from
nome. Is it at all surprising that, after
having received such treatment from
a minister of religion, Bradlaugh
should have become embittered, and
begun even to entertain doubts as to
he truth of Christianity altogether?
Clergymen occupy a very responsible
good care that their work is not i'm
zeal and want Of Christianity on
heir Darto