The record-union., 1897-10-10
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.
Sacred history and all ancient his
tory SO entirely ignore chronology"
says the interior" (Pres.) of Chicago,
that we have to take the birth of our
Lord as the fixed point from which to
date events preceding Him, and ar
rive at their place in time by any
means of information accessible. AS
we have in Him a verified historical
point in time. the speculative ammo
mundi has been abandoned. 1t is i'm
possible to force a conflict between
sacred history and archaeology or any
other branch of science on these points.
The Usher chronology ought no longer
to be printed in the margins of our
Bibles. 1t is misleading, and seriously
SO when 1t gives the impression that
there are chronological contradictions
between sacred history on the one
hand and secular history or archaeo-
logical science on the other Both
Scripture and science are silent on the
subject. The period during which man
has existed upon the earth is unknown.
ton gravels We're laid down, but no ge-
ologlst pretends TO know how long ago
it was. 1t is insisted that He was
preglacial-which is very doubtful, but
it is generally accepted that he ap-
peared before the recession of the ice
in North America and in Europe. He
was contemporaneous with extinct an
imals in Middle Europe-primitive ele-
phants etc. When was this in point
of time? No scientists will pretend to
give US a correct answer. We said a
week or two ago that there can be no
collision between science and religion,
because they do not lie in the same
plan, and here is an illustration of it.
There is a conflict between archaeology
and Archbishop Usher, but both of
them are below the plane of religion
below any Of it's sanctions or evil
denceS."
James M. Wilton, writing in the New
York Outlook" upon Progressive Or
thoxody," says: Theology has become
more ethical and more humane. God
is recognized as in the heart of man and
nature. The true human Jesus has been
recovered. The divine Christ from be-
ing mainly a makeweight in scheme
of divine government fancied to be like
that of earthly rulers, has been redis-
covered as permanently indwelling in
the life both of God and man. The
Holy Spirit, fancied as restricted to BIZ
BILE lands, has been discovered by stu
dents of comparative religion as hav-
ing His prophets and pupils among the
heather also. The Bible has been res
cued from unethical and conventional
use as a wedge of disunion to split the
church into sects, each clamoring for it's
own infallible' misinterpretation. Not
that all this has been wholly done. It
has only begun to be done. That it will
continue to be done in spite of out
cries and misrepresentation there can
be little doubt. The old and finished
theological system of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries will no more re-
establish itself than the old Ptolemaic
astronomy. If theology is at all a sci
ence, it must be a growing science, un-
folding into ever more and more of
truth Like all other true sciences, it
will show itself such by readiness to
bury it's dead and to press forward on
it's march,
'It is wickedness, 1t is folly, it may
be a crime" says the Christian Lead
er" (Univ.) of Boston, "to keep our
selves, and through ourselves to keep
others, in ignorance of the problems
which recent science, philosophy, and
criticism have brought to the doors of
the church and the theologian. Moth
ing but truth with honor can appear
before God at any time, and before
man at not remote time. We must
Eere long face the inevitable may be
tautology to so phrase it. There should
in our minds be no 'must'-no sense of
coercion. We should look upon the
contingency as an opportunity. We
should hail it's advent Our only anx-
iety should be to ascertain on what we
stand-whether a rock or shifting sand.
For ourselves, we have as little doubt
of the foundations of belief as we have
of the laws of matter. In these foun-
dations we have a bed for the sheet
anchor of faith. Let the winds of
criticism blow let the tempests Of
doubt raise the pillows mountain high.
. If the anchor fails, it can fail only to
wreck a slazy ship. If 1T holds, we
know in what and in Whom we trust.
So unhesitating is our confidence in the
basal strongholdS, that we rejoice in
the opportunity to give them the au-
thoritative test. Whatever the truth,
then, out with it, and no mental reser-
yation.
people generally do not easily I'M
derstand fine distinctions, says the
Living Church" (P Ed of Chicago.
sin should give the privilege of abso-
lutte divorce, while others equally re-
voting and inconsistent with the pos
sibility of a proper married life are not
allowed to justify the same course. But
they can and do understand a position
which forbids absolute divorce, and,
whatever the state may do, in no case
allows new marriage after a legal sep
aration. If we would have the church
assume the most powerful moral posi-
ton amid the corruptions of society in
our day, it is upon that clear, uncom-
promising principle she must take her
stand. In this way she may fulfill a
mission of incalculable value, not only
towards her own members, but also to
the world of men who need the pres
ence Of a clear and uncompromising
standard by which they may be forced
TO measure their own Deeds
Writing of the Zionist movement in
the New York Evangelist (Pres), the