The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-10-30

| YOU burns like fire. He looks upon you
| as worthy of nothing else than to be cast
| into the fire."
! The reader will observe that the gentle
Edwards-the founder of Congregational.
ism Eefers not to the wicked, but to the
| natural man." and this. of course. in
cludes the natural, 'non-elect infant"
And why not?
Certainly If the "natural man''-as the
Calvinlstio system claims-is already lost
aud damned, the mere matter of the vic
tim S age is but an unin portant incident.
Oliver Wendell Holmes was justified in
| saying:
I'm our lunatic asylums we frequently
see persons sent there in consequence Of
what are called mental religious disturb
| ances. I confess that l think better of
them than of mnny who hold the same
to enjoy lifts very WE'LL outside Of the asy-
lums. Any decent person ought to 70
mad il he really holds such opinions. 1t
is very much to his discredit, in every
| point of view. If he does not. Anything
that is brutal, cruel ana makes life hope
less for most OF mankind, and, perhaps.
for whole races; anything that assumes
| the necessity of exterminatng instincts
| which were given to be regulated, if re-
| ceived, ought to produce insanity in every
| woll regulated mind. | am very much
! ashamed of somo people for retaining
| perfectly we'll that il they were not the
most stupid or most selfish Of human
beings they would become non con,pos
| mensIs at once"
Calvinism as system, and in its integ-
rity, is a horrible, heaven -defying iael On
| the Being whom Jesus Vt Nazareth intro
| duced to the world as a loving and mer-
oiful Father. If the system be true, the
assumption of the fatherhood Of God is
an infinite falsehood and the idea of
| brotherhood OF man-represented by an
insignificant minority enjoying them
selves while a vast majority OF their
brothers an: sisters are shrieking in end
less missry-a burlssque, an absurdity.
The redeeming feature and the one
that saves Its protested advocates from
Wholesale insanity or suicide-lies in the
fact that the dose of theological poison
insisted upon in the creed is so out of
all proportion that no rational, humane
! patient can swallow it save under violent
rental protest and without vomiting it
up before the virus has assimilated with
the moral circulation and utterly de-
strosed tire character for all honest, high
aspiration and healthy activity. The
mere fact that human nature can survive
| the shock is the best evidence of its
natural divinity. And refer now to the
entire network OF creets, based on the
herited guilt Of all his innocent uncol-
verified posterity-a fable, OF parable, that
doubtless EN- Dodied the most satisfactory,
if not the only apology which early
teachers and priests could conceive and
offer for the condition of human selfish
ness and anmalism that prevailed at the
time, and before science found God man
ifesting himself through the patient,
subtle workings OF evolution, and proved
that sin is not the result of a moral fall,
but rather OF ignorance and inexperience
lying in the pathway OF constant tend
ency and determination on the part Of
humanity to rise and advance in spite of
successive mistakes and frequent falls
| in short, the travail of the i'm M r tai soul
| in search OF new birth and higher ex-
preston and environment. Jesus of
| Nazareth was the great dscoverer and
! st. Paul the expounder, OF the dcctriue
of evolution IN the realm OF spirit, nearly
| two Thousand years before Darwin and
Wallace traced in detail us corresponding
manifestations in the world of m otter.
When Christianity returns to first princi-
pies and becomes rationallzed and
science spiritualized, the two Will meet
and blend.
Until then men will continue to cheat
each uther in trade and Kill each other in
useless wars and this Lion OF Judah will
continue to stay and devour the Lamb OF
God.