The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1897-12-13
BUTTE News.
HARD ON UNBEL|EvERS
The Law of Progress Implies
More Belief.
REV. Mr.. GOULD'S SERMON
The Orthodox Is the Hereto Who Re-
fuses to Accept the New and Larger
Truth of To-DayTThe Larger
and Greater Belief.

uAs IlaFHlns at the Unitarian SERVICES
held at the Auditorium, The sermon
by Rev. Mr.. Gould was interesting and
instructive. The following is synop
sis: *A8xN4 49,
The Bible is hard upon unbelievers.
1t declares that they shall be lost
that they shall burn in the fiery pit,
while the believers only shall be saved.
But nature is quite as hard upon the
unbelievers as the Bible is. She has no
place in the world for a man who will
not believe. The child even who re-
fuses to believe that fire will burn. and
to act on that belief by keeping ont of
the fire-is burnt up, While the child
who believes that fire will burn, and
consequently keeps out of the fire, is
allowed to survive. And the man who
refuses to believe in the laws of grayi-
tation and to act on them in building
his house, is crushed to death beneath
the ruins of the structure he tries to
rear; while the man who learns those
laws and believes them, and acts on
them, is allowed to inhabit his house in
safety. And the more of natures laws
man learns and believes and acts upon,
the more nature blesses him and pros
pers him.. The difference between the
condition of man to-day and of man
1000 or 10000 years ago, consists al
most wholly in the fact that man now
has come to believe and obey a vast
number Of natures laws which we
knew nothing about in the past. Prog
ress, indeed, consists in learning new
laws and acting on them. Progress
means simply more belief.
] think no one will dispute that
progress means more belief in the case
of sciences. Astronomy for example,
started with very few and simple be-
liefs. Primitive people, like the Ameri-
can Indians, believed that this earth
was little fiat surface, surrounded by
rock ridges and with sheet of clear
blue ice stretched across the mountain
tops for the sky. That was the print
tive astronomy--very few beliefs, and
those few very easy to hold. But as
the generations rolled by. some Ven
turesome investigator climbed the
mountain tops and found the ocean be-
yond, and then found that the ocean
and the earth were round; and of
course, the round earth had to have a
round crystal vault for the heavenly
bodies. That was a great advance in
astronomy, and meant much more be-
lief than the earlier astronomy. But it
was followed by another astronomy
the Ptolmaic, as it was called that
required still more belief. Men must
believe that our earth was a round ball
fixed motionless in the air, while the
sun and moon and all the planets and
stars were revolving in curious orbits
about it. But even this complex the
hard to believe, was displaced by a still
vaster scheme which Copernicus intro
duced, and which required us to believe
that the sun itself was fixed motion
less in space. while our earth, vast and
solid as it seems. was swinging swiftly
about the gigantic sun. and all the 9TH
er planets with it. We are told now
that we must believe that the sun itself
is speeding through space, carrying it's
great family of planets and their satel-
tenn is revolving about some far-off
undiscovered center. Just think how
much vaster and grander this belief is
than the primitive belief of fiat earth
and mountain and ice with which man
started2 And a similar increase of be-
lief is found in all the other sciences.
Progress, then, in science means more
belief, not less. And the same great
law holds true in the case of religion
Every step forward in religion has been
by putting a larger belief in place of
smaller Take our own religion, for
an example. What was the difference
between Judaism and Christianity?
What was the difference between Paul's
religion before he was converted and
after he was converted? Pauis ear
ler belief was that the Jewish God
was to set up a kingdom on this earth
where perfect and undying happiness
was to be found for the Jews, and for
them alone, while all the Gentiles
would be left outside to perish. But
his later belief was that this kingdom
of perfect happiness was to be set up
for all the world, Gentle as we'll as
Jew This certainly was a far larger
belief than the earlier one. And when
Luther defied the Catholic church and
started the Protestant religion, was his
new belief larger or smaller than his
old one? The old belief was that God
spoke to man through only one person
the infallible pope-while the new be-
lief was that God spoke through every
single human soul. That surely was a
greater belief.
In the same way the great step for
ward which the theory of evolution has
compelled men to take in religion has
been in the direction of more belief. The
so-called hereto of to-day-the man
who accepts the new theory of the
world which is being taught in all our
schools and colleges and applies it to
relgion-this man does not believe less
than his orthodox neighbor He be-
lieves far more. 1t is the orthodox who
is the unbeliever, who refuses to believe
the new and larger truth of to-day,
while the hereto is the believer. 1t
may seem strange and paradoxical to
cali the hereto the believer. but l think
that little consideration will show the
truth of this claim. If you will COM
pare the so-called orthodox beliefs with
the beliefs of those who are called lib
erals in religion, you cannot ran 10 see
how much larger that latter is.
There is, however, a two-fold difficult
ty in the way of such a comparison. In
the first place 1t is almost impossible to
find what the orthodox beliefs are to-
day. If we take the printed creeds of
the churches as representing their be-
liefs we are at once told that the
churches do not believe the creeds
which they solemnly profess TO believe.
and some Of the orthodox ministers are
very indignant that anyone should
accuse them of such beliefs. But, for
tunately | was myself brought up in
an orthodox church p years ago, and
| can tell you what / was taught to be-
lieve at that time. without accusing
anyone Of holding such beliefs to-day.
The. second difficulty in the COMPARE
son Of beliefs is that the most funda-
mental principle Of the Unitarian de-
nomination 10 which I belong is that
each Individual shall believe just what
his own conscience and reason approve
as true Therefore Of course, no Uni