The record-union., 1898-04-10

sphere of influence by taking a sort of
vow of silence on all spiritual topics.
Neither is it pleasant to observe how
| this sef-imposed restriction reacts on
the residents themselves and tends to
| make their religion rather an esoteric
tSubtlety too precious to- be named than
/ q robust glifesto, be lived out and to
! bea Shared with others. Theasettlement
maintained by members and friends of
the University of Chicago in the stock
yards districts of Chicago adopted at
| its beginning a very sensible policy in
this respect-to let circumstances de-
eide when and how religious work shall
be undertaken. After several years of
the usual settlement work, it has now
been decided to start Sunday-school
as an additional means of helpfulness
| in the neighborhood
1.-The canon of marriage and divorce,
as it stands to-day, was put forth in
1877, and the demand for it's recon
struction can no longer be postponed" :"
says the New York "Churchman" P
| Ed. Against certain sections strong
words of condemnation can, with the
utmost fairness. be used. Their ambig
uity and looseness of construction rem
der them extremely mischievous, as ex-
! perience has proved beyond dispute.
| The General Convention in past years
may not have been wholly to blame for
not amending the canon, but the time
| has now come when, in the light OF
| experimental knowledge, it would be
criminal neglect to allow it to remain
| for another three years upon the stat
ute-book of the church without renov-
| ing all that is misleading or noxious in
! it, In our Judgment, the canon is too
bad to be mended and the only course
| is to disregard its existence and start
afresh 1t reached it's existing stage of
development (or decay as the result of
/ tinkering, and further patching up
would almost inevitably make confu-
sion worse confounded."
TOO much talk about fasting and de-
nial of worldly pleasures in Lent should
be avoided" says the Living Church
! F' Ed of Chicago. These things are
between the soul and God. Lent should
not be made scenic or theatrical. When
the heart is breaking over the coffin-lid
| the eye is not watching the plumes of
the funeral horses or the trappings of
! the hearse So in the forty days of
the souls pilgrimage in the desert, sug-
gestiYe of the forty years of Israel in
the wilderness, the panorama of the
way with it's rugged mountains it's
yaWning chasms of doubt, and, at times,
| splendid vistas of the fair land of
resurrection, must have first of all, it's
quiet spiritual suggestion. The thing
that man most dislikes is to face the
hard, dry, ashen, gloomy fact that he is
| a miserable sinner-that neither social
position, nor success in business, nor
the pride of life, has anything in it to
soften the deep shadow of his abase
ment Lent is continual prostration.
Many man would rather turn from
fleshly food on Wednesdays and FRI
days. or stay away from the theaters,
/ or lay by his card-table at home, than
get down on his knees and acknowledge
himself vile earth and a miserable sin
ner'"
There is deep and radical differ
ence," says the New York outlook"
between sin and mere imperfection.
/ between the deliberate or intentional
violation of Gods law and the failure
to obey command, of which one is ig-
norant There is no sin without know
! ledge, and therefore sin can never be
regardede as the imperfection of an un-
developed nature. Imperfections are
faults, not sins; they postpone symme-
try of nature, but do not corrupt the
sources of life. Sins are offenses
against ourselves as we'll as against
God, and the most terrible penalties
which they invoke are not the visible
misery and shame which men see, but
the invisible deterioration of character
which begins the moment a sin is COM
mitted, and continues to work disinte-
grafton until the sin has borne the
| fruit of repentance. The awful punish
ments which have followed transgres-
sion since time began blacken the pages
of history and throw their shadows
over the world in great tragedies; but
the most appalling punishments are
known only to the men and women who
have broken the law and in so doing
/ destroyed themselves That which hap
pens to a man, however terrible, can
not be so appalling as that which hap
| pens in a man"