The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-05-09

cient proclamation, and his and ours,
-everybody's, by the later repetition
of it, as it is seen to be the everlasting
law of human happiness and peace
and prosperity. He comes to tell
us not of a memorial deity but of
the Living God who continues
through all ages the divine custom
which the great Hebrew prophets
discovered, of living with the people
and for the people, and ordaining for
their exaltation the everlasting
righteousness.
The faith of the Universalist
Church rests on the foundation of
Gods universal Fatherhood and the
brotherhood of all men, holding those
as brothers who will not even recog-
nize the brotherhood now. Brother
hood, like charity, is one of the latest
fruits to ripen fully on the Tree of
Life, but Gods sunlight falls and
Gods rains ever descend, and the
ripening process ever goes forward,
and we will be ripper by and-by.
The Universalist Church, while the
Unitarians were insisting on a new
reading of mans nature, was insist
ing with equal resolution upon a new
reading of the face of God. The
Calvinism of New England which
was dominant when Universalism was
first proclaimed there, had left the
divine face very dark, and deep
furrowed with frowns. 1t had been
painted in forbidding colors. Jona-
than Edwards and Samuel Hopkins,
and, before them, Michael Wiggles-
worth, had been the severe artists.
Anger was stamped into every fea-
ture. Suffering was the price of a
smile, the suffering of man or the
suffering of his substitute.
The Universalists said it could not
be true representation. They be-
gan to emphasize the doctrine of the
Divine Fatherhood. They said the
spirit of the universe was benignant
rather than malignant. They painted
out the frowns and painted in the
smiles; they painted out the anger
and painted in the love; and today
the Love of God is the growing Cos
pei. The Father takes the place of
the king and man is child instead of
a subject. This Universalist doctrine
of the divine Fatherhood united
readily with the Unitarian doctrine of
divine childhood, and today the lines
are so blended that the two interpre-
tations are one Interpretation. Starr
King, dividing his life about equally
between the two denomination in his
ministry, though I think he gave
more years to the Universalist, con-
densed the difference between the
two bodies into his theological lacon-
ic when he said that "the Universal
lists said God was too good to eternally
damn man, and the Unitarians said
that man was too good to be eternally
damned"
The Universalist Church rests it's
belief in the salvation of all souls on
the conviction that every soul is worth
saving, and if soul is not worth
saving, assuredly it is not worth
damning. The spectacle of the in
finite wisdom and love and justice
of this universe, tormenting forever a
worthless creature ought to excite the
Disguised mirth of all the rational
souls in it. There is some degree of
dignity in rational retribution. 1t
says at once that the judicial and ex.
ecutive mind regards the culprit of
great value value enough to be
saved "even so as by fire."
The genius of Universalism is not
vain enough, however, to think that
80 great and so sublime a result as
the exaltation of all souls is to be &C.
complished by any one agency of any
kind, be it church or government,
school, home or aught else.
No one church can do it. All can
help. A man is to be saved by many
agencies, and then he will need to be
saved some more. There is no final
ity in the processes of an eternal life.
All the churches are helping.
Never yet did spire on any church
point heavenward for naught. The
Methodist church is one of the great
agents of that faith which says all
souls at last will be exalted. So is
the Baptist and the Episcopal,
and the Presbyterian, the Catholic,
the Jewish church and all the
others. They are working to have
Universalism as near true as possible,
and the better the world is the nearer
we are to that ideal result. For this
reason the Universalist Church can
the most readily extend its hand of