The record-union., 1898-05-15
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
EXPRESSIONS FROM VARIOUS
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS.
The Religious Thought of the Day
as Expressed in the Sec.
tartan Press.

York Outlook" !" society has never yet
/ lived up to the truth which it possesses.
] 1t has scarcely begun to draw in
/ practical way on the enormous accu-
mutation of truth which has been be-
/ queathed to it, and which it holds in
trust for future generations. Nothing
could be more irrational and superficial
| than the talk about the exhaustion of
| Christianity as a force in the world.
AS a matter of fact, the world has
never yet tested Christianity except in
/ the most imperfect and rudimentary
way. 1t has no right to affirm what
Christianity would do for society or
/ with society, because it has never yet
tried in any thorough and complete way
/ to make society Christian in deed and
/ in spirit. Society has never yet felt
/ the influence. of the tremendous forces
which reside in Christianity, because
it has never yet surrendered itself to
those forces. In every community some
men and some women have tried or
are trying to shape themselves con-
| sciously and completely in harmony
with the Christian ideal, but no Chris
ton society in the true sense of the
word has ever yet existed, and no
man is in a position, therefore, to affirm
/
| ticular. Very few men SO incorporate
truth into character as completely to
test it. They open themselves to it in
/ fortunate hours; they surrender their
| imaginations to it; they are moved by
| it at times to something approaching
resolution; but they rarely persist in
/ the patient process which slowly turns
truth into moral power by incorporat-
| ing it into character"
There is no doubt" says the New
York observer" Pres.), that in for
mer generations the sense of the holi-
ness and justice of God was very vivid
| Nearly everybody feared God. 1t might
not do to say that this realization was
| over vivid but in the estimation OF
numbers it was practically out of rela-
| ton with other attributes of the di-
vine nature. If the preaching of the
sterner truths of Christianity was
sometimes overdone, at any rate IT
made stalwart character and vigorous
manhood of the kind that feared God
| so much that it feared nothing else
under heaven. But nowadays in many
pulpits the fear of God has little influ-
| ence in molding the thought and teach
| ing of the preacher. The hard doc
| trines of Christianity are approached
with great reluctance, if at ALL 1t IS
| fear, and not love, that is put into the
| footnote. Doubtless love is the higher
motive. and is a more congenial theme,
| but no preaching is Biblical that does
not contain an appeal to fear where
| love fails to win and move"
"It would almost seem that the
apostle anticipated the times in which
we live says the New York 'Intelli-
gencer' (Ref.), when he charged Tim
othy: Preach the word; be instant in
season, out of season; reprove, rebuke,
exhort with all long suffering and doc
trine. For the time will come when
they will not endure sound doctrine;
but after their own lusts shall they
heap to themselves teachers, having
itching ears; and they shall turn away
their ears from the truth, and shall be
turned unto fables He has mistaken
his calling, tramples upon his commits
sion and violates his most sacred obli-
cations who enters the pulpit to deal
out the dry husks of speculation, the
froth of mere hypothesis. or the stones
| of scientific investigation. 1t is as
] true now as it ever was that what souls
| by millions are starving for is the bread
of life; and it is mockery of the deepest
wants of the human soul to offer it for
bread a stone, for an egg scorpion.
| Preachers of Pauls stamp scorn the
preaching that shuts the Bible as if it
] had no use for it, and draws its ma
/ terial from Emerson, or Shakespeare.
| or from human sources alone, the
preaching that excels in everything eX-
cept in magnifying the Holy Scriptures,
the preaching that gldes into brilliant
/ essays on philosophical theories. on sys-
! TENS of ethics, on popular literature, or
/ is habitually occupied with the sigma
of the times. the social and political
| problems of the age, or the horoscope
of the future failing to exalt in human
esteem the Word of God and the Christ
of revelation, which never wakens the
| inquiry. What must / do to be saved?'
| or the request of the Greeks, Sir, we
| would see Jesus"
"That the clergy have very consider
able influence in determining the rela-
tions between classes is plain says
! the New York "Churchman'' (P Ed.
"They do not indeed touch the indf-
lferent rich, who are absorbed in their
pleasures or their business, and have
no religion; neither do they have weight
with the aggressive poor, who are Civ
en- over to radical socialism, and have
no respect for the church But with
the majority the word which is spoken
from the pulpit is listened to with at
tention, and makes a difference. 1t is,