The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-01-11
RELIGION ALWAYS A REALITY.

frequently maze as TO pass current
without proper examination and re-
Election, when necessary examination
and reflection might change our en-
tire attitude in regard both to the
charge and the foundation on which
it rests. We are told that in our day
there is an evident decline in the faith
of mankind touching religious veri
ties. Not now, as once, we are told,
does the Sunday hush the sounds of
revelry or the church bells call the
masses from their homes to the place
of worship; nor do men lend reverent
ear to the sacred messages. The
Bible is not so much read as once nor
is it spoken Of with the old time re-
gard. The world has not now SO
much faith in God, the soul, and i'm
mortality, nor have the dying the
same degree of peace and trust as
they go to their final rest. This is
the current charge against the age in
| which we live-a charge that is re-
peated over and over again until it
has met with tacit acceptance in
directions where we might infer it
would be met with prompt and Wig
orous denial.
There are undoubtedly some facts
which will bear out this common
charge and yet we may we'll remem-
Der, as a ground of some suspicion in
view of this accusation, that every
age from that of jeremiah has been
one of lamentations at the state of
religion. For, all transitions have
been called declines, and the new
has never been deemed as good as
the old; and thus even progress has
been bewailed and truth has had to
wait for its welcome in human hearts.
Alarm at the present is an old trick
with the faint-hearted and the uncon
fiding in the Great Providence. With
out dwelling now on the facts which
might be presented, showing that
religion, instead of losing its hold on
the masses, is now asserting its sway
more completely than ever before;
without presenting the other side of
the question which would furnish an
entirely different aspect and one
every way encouraging to rational
Christian believer, bearing out the
statement that there is more religion
and more virtue in the world today
than at any former period; that the
fruits of inherited faith and piety are
even more abundant than ever before,
we desire to place before the reader
one single thought in this connection
which will be found fruitful in all
serious reflection. And that is that
the great source of hope, in view of
any discouraging symptom in the
religious survey, is in the inherent
Righteousness of human nature; and
hence, from every skeptical era in his
tory, man has at length emerged and
sat once more in the light of God and
Immortality. AS children sometimes
run away from home, in an evil mo
ment, but after a little are drawn
back by the home instinct and the
need of parental love, and sit again
in the family circle, grateful and hap
by, so our race under one tendency
OF another attracted by the world or
repulsed by the reigning religion
may move away from its faith and its
churches and its unlocking hopes,
but after time it will return on its
steps, urged by deeper need, and
sit again in meditation and prayer,
and strive 10 love and obey the Su-
preme Power.
However Atheism ignores in its
terms, fippant or serious, this hidden
realm, it never forgets it, nor ceases
to talk about it, nor deep within to
long for it; and at length the black
est night of doubt begins to give
signs of the morning. The cloud of
Atheism begins to take on some
fringes of golden light. Where all
seemed void and cherries the stars
move out and ere long the first beams
of a new day CLEAN over the cold
horizon. 1t is the soul of man re as
serting its sway amid the scenes of
earth, and coming home to claim its
sacred relations to this great house
of God and household of immortals.
Thus the French atheism persisted in
the midst of its defiance, smitten by
its own ghastliness, and an era If
worship rose on an era of mockery
and soothing. And thus, too, will the
neglect of the oul and the churches
in our time, and in any of the COM
ing ages, work its own cure by an in
evitable law of reaction; for the soul
is so great a part of man, and God
and future life are so essential to
our nature, that these things cannot
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