The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-01-24
In RELIGIONS REALM.
Expressions From Various Religious
Newspapers
The Religious Thought of the Day
as Expressed in the Sec
tartan Press.

THE church has many things to be
thankful for just now" observes tee
Church Standard" (P. Ed of Philadel-
phia. The great mass of our clergy
and people are loyal to her faftn and
order. The extravagantes of pseudo
| liberalism, which threatened not long
ago to bring the very articles of the
| faith itself into question, have been
| stricken into silence by the indignant
reprobation, by all parties and schools
, in the church, of the moral turpitude,
the base disloyalty, which would abuse
the very ministry of the church TO the
| betrayal of plighted faith. In the rep
rotation of these things we have gladly
recognized the services of our brethren
i,of the advanced school: and to speak
with perfect candor if We were obliged
| to choose between a church in which
the faith should be open to question and
a church in which the utmost eXtrava
| ganceS of ritual were obligatory, We
must choose the latter without any hes
| tation. AT the same time we regret to
see some of our advanced brethren al
most ostentatious in their disobedience
her rubrical arrangements, which they
! have solemnly sworn to obey. We re-
greet to see them doing what the church
clearly does not by her law permit;
and we regret still more that they
| should lay upon the consciences Of
Christian people mere ordinances Of
| men which neither we nor our fathers
| We're able to bear, and to which the
church lends no countenance."
1T is useless" says the New York
| Catholic Champion of the Guild of ST
! Ignatius, ito try to induce sound, be-
| lieVing Christians to associate on terms
of equality, and of their own free will
with those who deny the fundamentals
| Of the faith, even though the latter are
economically still members of the church
and of the priesthood. We have a high
er law to fall back upon than canons
| constitutions, rubrics, or even the
Chalcedonian Decree. Gods own book
which has been SO blasphemed at church
congresses, and the authoritative utter
ances of Christ's Mystical Body, are to
| us organic law. We cannot, like the
| Phillips Brooks Club and the Bishop of
Massachusetts, sit down as one with
| Unitarians and complacently receive
congratulations upon the fact that we
are going the way the founders of Uni
tarianism went We cannot agree with
them to profess our belief in God and
in the sovereignty of Jesus Christ be-
cause we know that they have an ut
| terly different God and an utterly
different Christ from the thrice Holy
/ NJ
men. We may be compelled by our
unhappy circumstances, by the supine-
| ness Of those who ought to be busy
purging the church from heresy, by
| the blindness Of those who as yet find
! it impossible to believe in the exist
| erce of our half hidden disease, to re-
main in outward communion with here
| tics and antichrists; but when it comes
| to voluntary gatherings in which we
find ourselves beforehand to submit
| in patience to the utterances of false
hood upon subjects of the greatest spir-
itual Importance, we will not do it."
ut is a complete fallacy," says the
| Living Church" P. Ed of Chicago,
ito say that because the universe seems
| larger to us than to our forefathers, or
| because the increase of knowledge has
| brought in new theories of the manner
1 of creation, therefore the doctrine of
| God the Creator is anywise different
| from what it was fifty five hundred or
| a thousand years ago, or that any new
| Interpretation attaches to the words:
| I believe in one God, the Father AL
| mighty. Maker of heaven and earth
! and of all things visible and invisible
| That God created existing things in
| this manner or that is not a point about
which the creed concerns itself, nor
| does it undertake to number or label
| all things 1t adopts a classification
which remains exhaustive, no matter
what human research may bring to
! light. 1t is mere trifling to tell us that
scientific or philosophic progress, by
| the agency of new discoveries or new
theories, has changed or can change the
| idea of God as the creeds exhibit it or
the great Catholic theologians have ex-
pounded it,
What the world most needs to-day
| is not a new theology" says the
| Waterman" (Bapt) of Boston, but
fresh and living conception of Chris
| tan character which shall attract and
| win by it's own supreme excellence
What kind of a man should a Christian
| lawyer physician or business man be-
| a Christian employer or employee. a
| Christian mother a Christian school
| boy? Do you know anyone in the cir
Gle of your acquaintances whose life
/ answers one of these questions? Per-
| haps we cannot point to any one who
does so. But it is the privilege of those
| who seek to commend the gospel to
present such an ideal of the Christian
| life, Invested of all narrow, ascetic.
| gloomy, monkish notions, and made so
| rich and noble and wholesome that
| each person shall recognize in the pre-
| sentation call and an opportunity to
rise from all unworthiness of motive
| and relationship and performance into
| the ideal manhood or womanhood."
Vulgar and blasphemous evangelists
| are among the most serious obstacles
with which pure Christianity has to
| contend, remarks the New York
Christian Advocate" (Meth.) THE man
who can use the word hell to make a
! laugh, or put forward the Day of Judg-
| ment as the background of a roaring
farce, who can deliver wholesale SLAM
ders worded in such way as to imply
! that all earnest pastors who shrink
| from indorsing his grossness are in the
gall of bitterness and the bonds of in
| Equity, and who can traduce whole de-
| nominations because of the conduct Of
some of their nominal members. bears
| fn 10 p lett