The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-10-23

faced.
DR.. Hale's description of popular
misconception of liberal religion is, that
it means the privilege of going to hear
lecture on Sunday and playing poker
''in any way you please" on week days
The description is felicitous-though it
might be varied to read. "the privilege
OF going or not going to hear lecture on
Sundays" 1t would not be without
profit to those of US who suppose our.
selves to be the custodians OF liberal re-
ligion, to ask whether we have not given
the uninformed public too many grounds
for the conclusion they have reached
about our religion? There are so many.
even in the old. long established Liberal
church, who habitually treat their re-
| ligion as if it we're poor relation,-to be
recognized on occasion Of family funer-
al; at other times to be quietly ignored.
Something closely akin to the martyr
| spirit is shown by many modern stu
| dents of nature. The self abnegation of
! the daring aeronaut who would solve the
polar mystery by his balloon, is not the
least striking feature of his experiment
The mountain climbers do literally take
their life in their hands, and every sea-
son some of them lose it. But if the
love of notoriety and applause may be
held it su btracts the essential element of
| self sacrifice from the case of the navi-
| gator, the aeronaut and the mountain
| climber. we must concede it to these
| brave students, who in the interest of
| their science and of human welfare. ex
pose themselves to contagion, infection.
| fevers, to learn the cause and provide
| cure for malades. DIR. Ross, of the
British army, is reported as just recover
ing from long illness contracted in the
search for the cause OF malaria.
-Universalsts believe in delay, says
recent commentator on their theology
and We've. Not so, friend. They be-
lieve that deliverance from evil. adop-
tion of righteousness, cannot be too i'm
mediate. In their view it is as undesir-
able to be sinful as to be sick. To be
sound, sane, clear, correct. is even more
to be desired for the spirit than for the
body. Delay in becoming so is, on Uni
versalist principles, not only criminal. it
| is idiotic. They teach, says the critic
or at least think. that there will always
be a more convenient season. 1t would
| be more exact to say they hold that there
never can be more convenient season
than now. To them religion is good,
righteousness a blessing, salvation the
souls supreme Joy. To put off the at
| tainment of these present and perennial
good things would be as absurd as for a
man to put off the acquisition of property
or knowledge or health. In true view
of the situation the accepted time is al
ways now; not because of the danger but
because of the good.
The Freemen's Journal (Catholic)
contends that the practice of kneeling
at the communion originated in the be-
| lief in the "real presence" of Christ in
| the emblems. The Journal makes merry
over the custom as observed by those
who have lost faith in the fact which
caused it. 1.-THE Methodist kneels rev.
erentially to what he knows to be piece
of bread, then gets up. brushes the dust
off his knees, and is ready to lecture the
Catholic because he kneels reverentially
before wooden crucifix. There is some
| thing very amusing in this bit of incon
sistency." There would be certainly if
the kneeling at communion could be ex
planned and defended only by belief in
the real presence of Christ in the bread
and wine. But the Methodist may ex
plain his act in half dozen other ways.
We take leave to doubt that the
custom of kneeling at the communion
originated as the Journal alleges. The
practice is very old. Kneeling was a
form of native worship long before
Christianity appeared. Solomon,
'kneeIed down upon his knees" before
all the congregation of Israel" Daniel
"kneeled upon his knees tnree times
day toward Jerusalem" The martyr
| Stephen kneeled, not as instructed in
his new faith but as accustomed in his
old. Genuhection was practiced by the
Egytians. Greeks. Romans, Persians,
| Chinese, from a very remote antiquity.
| The authentic account is that the disci-
Piles "reclined" at the Last Supper; but
so soon as we hear of it's observan ce as
a religious rite among Christians we be-
gin to read OF various postures, one of
which is kneeling. Bat not till long
after the custom was established was
there any contention by any one that
it was done because the actual presence
of Christ was supposed to be in the ele-
ments. 1t is case of rejecting a later
dogma into an earlier usage.
CANTON THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL.
THE city OF Kuang Yang. in Human
province, Southern China, has been
captured and it's Inhabitants massacred
by band of rebels forming part of a
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