The record-union., 1895-03-08
In RELIGIONS REALM
Expressions From the Various Re-
ligious Newspapers.

Expressed In the Sectarian Press
Some Matters of Interest to Both
Ministers and Laymen.
"We are glad to see," says the New
York ChatrchneGn (P. E.), ''that the Bish-
op of New York's suggestion, made at the
last Diocesan Convention, in the matter
of clerical titles, has been carried out in
the great parish of Trinity Church. The
Rev. DR.. Dix has set an example which.
doubtless, will be widely followed. Trim
ity parish was originally New York par
ish, in fact if not in name. and as such
large cities as Liverpool possess a rector
of Liverpool, within whose parochial
jurisdiction are many vicarages, it seems
quite in accordance with usage that the
assistants whom the rector of Trinity
nominates to large churches both up and
down town should bear the name, as they
fill the office, of the rector's vicar. Curate
has been adopted in England TO denote
the wears or rector's immediate assist
ant. 1t is very happy word, for it re-
duces the denomination OF a clergyman's s
official title to its simplest terms. 1t
implies that the man who bears it has
not, excepting accidentally, any admin
lstrative authority. lie simply is IN
trusted with the cure of souls. Every
rector and every vicar is also curatus,
but each OF these is something more. The
one has actual, the other delegated, adj
ministratiye and controlling authority in
parish. The term curate is of course
the most honorable name, because it con-
notes the most essential functions of the
IS a
in accordance with Christian feeling that
the lowest IN rank should bear it,
The New York Independent observes
in reference to the proposed election of a
primus of the Protestant Episcopal
Church.: For ourselves we condemn the
whole plan and its unconfessed reason.
1t is against the very spirit Of Christian
lty. 1t invites what our Lord repeatedly
condemned, the discussion and decision
as to who should be greatest. Nor is il
of any use TOR the Protestant Episcopal
Church-Protestant still, and Protestant
to remain-to try to ape the Roman
Catholic Church. Rome and Avignon
have in time past shown its Popes and
anti-PopeS. II will not be at all for the
dignity of the Protestant Episcopal
Church to be setting up anti-Popes, to be
making the Church of Rome its model,
and copying 1t in doctrine, service and
organization, 1t has no use for such
an antelope, for it has no authority to
give him. His dignity will be a hollow
one, purely nominal, without the power
OF enforcing anything; dignity of title
and Yestment, nothing more. The pri-
mus at Washington, or at New York, or
at Chicago, can issue no DEGREES, no au-
thoritative encyclicals: he can bind no con
science. he can announce no doctrine, he
can command no obedience. A church
built on authority, whose theory is au-
thorlty, requires dlgnitaries to possess
and WELD the authority. a dignitary
who has no authority, who is mere cor
NtutdRS, will be varnish and veneer until
he becomes zoe tntperGns. If it be the
purpose to make genuine authoritative
Pope out OF the prlmus, TO magnify the
power OF the episcopate and the supra
eplscopate, then it is well enough to
make this amendment to the Constitu-
ton, but it should be made with a full
understanding of what it involves, the
change of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, with its equality of Bishops, of
Bishops who have rather dignity than
authority, TO a church whose Bishops
shall rule the priests, and whose primus
shall rule the Bishops, and which shall
be preparing itself for absorption into the
older Latin Church"
''It requires very little familiarity with
the New Testament" says the LiUinq
Church (P. E. of Chicago, "to make it
plain that human wisdom plays but little
part in what is there presented for our ac-
ceptance. When in succeeding centuries
the church was called 10 grapple with the
great heresies, the same principle is still
evident. At the Council of Nice, for in
stance, we do not find contest of wit
and learning. On the side of heresy that
was indeed its character. The Arians
had command of a whole arsenal of logi-
mol a~fT llrgrv
the assault with The same weapons. 1t was
not necessary that mem bers of the coun-
Gil should very wise men or deeply
yersed IL all the learning of their time,
for what they were called to do was not
10 think out the truth; they were not
there to set forth as dogmas the concep-
tIons OF the brightest minds among them
Their office was simply to bear witness.
Men were present from all parts of the
world, representing churches widely
separated In space and which had not
been In close contact since their founda-
tion. Each could bear witness to the
faith and worship which had been
received in its own community from
those who had gone before. The men
who composed the four great councils
may have been far less wise than the
philosophers and theologians of modern
days, but they were perfectly competent
witnesses to what they had received as
what their predecessors so many centu-
ries ago were called TO do. No one could
say that in this letter they lay claim to
any special wisdom, and as they do not
make this claim for themselves neither
do they make 1t for those before them"
THE pulpit lines must be projected and
must lead somewhere" says the Interior
(Pres.) OF Chicago. They formerly were
projected into the deeds of PHILOSOPHERS
that were regarded as theologies; but
there is no doubt that people have lost
Interest IN such of them as are not
wrapped closely around personal life.
People are always interested in whatever
Is helpful. We never tire of conversation
about the sunshine and the rain and the
fruit-promising blossoms, and the face OF
the sky, so far as il IS seen to influence
these things. If the explanation of sys-
tematic theologies no longer interests the
people, 1t IS because it no longer helps
them. The new pulpit must help-that
as the reason for the pulpirs existence. 1t
has no other. But why dId the old pulpit
prove so helpful Was it the logic
that was projected, section to base and
base to section, like the new cantilever
bridge, out into the very thin and
unstable air of theological theories?
Hardly 80. It was always Jesus Christ
and Him crucihed; that and nothing
else. Whatever the new lines may be
and wherever projected, their beginning
and their return must be in Jesus Christ,
and Him as divine Savior, or they will
have no anchorage in human interest.
This is the truth. 1t has been proved
both by positive and by negative expert
ment scores of times. People like bril-
lance, they like artistic effects, they like
both minor and major music, and like
lEH--