The record-union., 1897-12-05
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
EXPRESSIONS FROM VARIOUS
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS.
The Religious Thought of the Day
as Expressed in the Sec
tartan Press.

as Expressed in the Sec
tartan Press.
The church. we think, may learn
something from the recent municipal
campaign, says the New York IN
telnSencer Ref). In the interest of
what seemed most desirable for Greater
New York We're enlisted not only men
pre-eminent for intelligence, public
spirit, and unselfshness, but nearly all
the influential dailies, and the immense
power of the press. There was also in
It's behalf a good measure of organized
effort, TO say nothing of the influence
or the pulpit and the churches. Yet
the cause failed. The failure points a
moral. In part Z emphasizes the mot
to of our church, .Endracht maakt
macht, Union makes strength and
also the efficiency of organization. The
most perfect organization triumphed.
But this is only partial explanation of
the result. Orga MIA ton succeeded. de-
spite the press, public meetings, and
the ablest oratory because it reached
down to people individually. 1t won
because of personal, man-to-man con-
tact. Because of individual work of
work never remitted, and so thorough
and vigilant that the attitude of every
voter is known. and the best means TO
influence him is used, not merely on the
eve of an election, but throughout the
year. This is the secret of the solidAi'
fty of Tammany Halls support and its
recent victory The lesson is plain.
No good cause, not even that which
centers in the church, can dispense with
hand-to hand, man-to-man effort. Pub
lie speech and the printed page can
not take the place of its members on
public services. and too little personal
contact with those it seeks to reach.
What men are skeptical about says
THE Watchman" (Baptist of Boston
"is the existence of God, the moral
government of the world, the historical
truth of Christianity, and the reality
of the supernatural. When Bushnell
wrote his great treatise on Nature and
the Supernatural, he had prophetic
glimpse of what was coming. Were he
living to-day he would realize that the
era he foresaw had arrived. Unless
this line of thought is totally mislead-
ing, it affords the weightiest' argument
IDI d lNOTouSuIN edttdlSu anu C1oiP
ped Christian ministry. We Go not
plead for book men or great technical
scholars in the pulpit, but it is COM
ing to be absolutely necessary that the
Christian minister shall have a train
ing of mind. a discipline of intellectual
sympathy and a mastery of the great
and vital problems of the religious
thought Of our time, which shall en-
rI,tf nj
men and women as one who has wrest-
led with their problems and come into
light and peace and triumph. There
can be no policy more mistaken for
any denomination-and most of all for
the Baptist denomination, which mag
nifies the individuals responsibility in
dealing with truth-than for it to hold
that the evidence of conversion and a
desire to preach is sufficient creden-
tial for a minister, or for it to starve
and scrimp its theological seminaries,
and be unheedful of their crying needs"
To those who long passionately for a
vision of God as great and divine as
that which is reflected in the Gospels,
nature is a constant refuge from the
small interpretations, the narrow lmita-
tions, the divisive ideas too often heard
IL the churches" says the New York
outlook. Mature supplies the com
pensation for the purely ecclesiastical
view, and corrects the vicious tendency
to conceive of God professionally. Those
who look at the movement of thought
with SINE spiritual insight, and therefore
with some divination of the future. are
assured that for this reason science will
presently appeartO have been the great
est ally and friend of religion in this CEN
tury. When the tendencies of c0ntem-
rorary thought lie clearly marked in the
full knowledge of the future, it will be
seen that science has secured modifica-
ticns of the ecclesiastical ideas of Gods
WILL Gods law, and Gods relation to the
world, and His way of working in it,
which are one and all in the direction of
more deeply religious conception of
the universe. Nature will finally strike
a balance with ecclesiasticism, and the
churches will stand, not as sentinels
challenging the world about them but,
like so many of the English Cathedrals,
orowning the hights with an architect
ure both material and spiritual, which
not only harmonizes with the landscape,
hut forms it's spiritual center and in
terpreter.'
"'The hedges priest in ancient times
was priest without a church. But what
shall be said of the bishop who has no
church where he may preside?' says
the New York "Churchman" (P. Ed.
"It is great question whether the world
ever more fully recognizes the dignity
and real office of the eDiscopate than
when the world sees the bishop in his
Cathedral In these present times
when the maintenance of the Episcopal
idea has been made so important an ele
ment in all plans for Christian unity, it
is of importance to ask, What has the
church done to impress the true theory
of the episcopate on the minds of the
general public by using such means as
are used in making the pastor and his
work efficient bv the symbol and in
strumentality which are set forth IN