The record-union., 1898-06-12
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
EXPRESSIONS FROM VARIOUS
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS.
The Religious Thought Of the Day
AZ Expressed in the Sec
tartan Press.

ments among the Congregationalists
warns us, says the Living Church"
(P Ed OF Chicago, that it is debat
dple proposition whether 'liturgical
worship is the greatest safeguard.of the
1alth The Recorder" thinks that If
those who use the liturgical formulas
DelleVe what they repeat, then they are
! a safeguard; but if the recitation of
the services is simply nominal, without
real belief, then they are profitless. So
expressed we have simply truism.
But we have sufficiently good opinion
OF human nature to be convinced that
no large number of Christian or even
ordinarily honest people Will long con-
tlnue to use in their approaches to God
| formulas of faith and utterances of
prayer in which they have ceased to
| believe. There may be periods of in
difference, even intervals when the
personal power and force of a preacher
| Of great ability but erroneous views
may throw the influence Of the liturgy
| into the shade or dissipate its effect
| by vague or unnatural interpretations;
but in the course of time it is the con-
slant, Interchangeable element embodied
| in the liturgy which prevails
1 lie COncluSlOn Is, says the New
York christian Intelligencer" (Ref)
| that to-day men who are ripe Greek
scholars read for personal profit Green
| fields or Bagster's New Greek Testa-
| ment. which vary but little from the
| text of Stephens or the Elzevirs. We
| have in mind fine scholar who had in
his library the various critical editions
of the New Testament, and was famil-
TO hn tnv Of ha
| Revisers and of Westcott and Hort
| who used day by day for devotional
reading Greenfield's Greek New Testa-
ment. He regarded the variations in
the text, displayed by critical research,
of so little Importance that he cOntin-
| ued to use an almost uncritical edition.
Hundreds of other good Greek scholars
use to-day, after all that has been as
serted, their Bagster's almost uncritical
Greek Testament, because it is clearly
printed, substantially bound, of han
dy size, and because they regard the
variations of the text as of slight i'm
pOrtance. They are men who know and
appreciate the value Of words; they
regard the New Testament as the Word
of Life; they are earnestly striving
after a right preparation for the life
everlasting, and yet when they read
for the profit of their own souls they
virtually ignore the work of the textual
critics, give no heed to various read
ings, and find the fountain of life in an
only slightly critical condition. Such
is the practical outcome of the years
expended in criticism of the text Of the
Greeke Testament"
I'VE look around to-day" says the
New York "Churchman" P. Ed, "at
the multitudes who still lie in heather
darkness. We mark the slow growth
of missions, and the paucity of appro-
priationS to meet the growing needs of
the church at home and abroad. We
confront the labor problem, the sweat
er's den, the tyrannous monopoly we
are face to face with sins social, nation
al and international, and we ask: Will
the church rise to the eXigencies of
the time?' If the cause of
Christianity languishes, it is because
Christians forget from whence comes
their strength. Handsome churches,
attractive services, and all the compli-
Gated machinery of a modern parish,
important and necessary as they un-
doubtedly are can never take the place
Of the indwellng, life-giving Spirit Of
God. The world is not to be redeemed
by guilds and societies. however well
organized and ably administered The
church was never more powerful or eff
fective as a missionary agency than
when she had not a foot of ground
which she could call her own and her
only place of worship was an upper
room in Jerusalem. Would it not be
we'll just at this season to get back to
frct v,Vsv,o iy,ln Nd hot
may stay the power Of the Holy
Ghost?"
You won't let a man drown him.
self. why let him damn himself?' was
a telling shot that General Booth land
ed in the midst of 400 ministers who
had come together in Philadelphia to
listen to the veteran; and before they
could recover he fired another: Are
you satisfied to amuse people on their
way to hell? You say you believe that
their souls are in danger. and yet your
service is to tickle theR with enter
tainments. to preach ilk-and-water
twaddle or way over their heads The
fact is. you don't believe your belief
And the crowd of ministers laughed
and applauded. 1t is safe to say,
says the "Universalist Leader" of Bos-
ton and Chicago, that in all his long
experience, in the worst phases of slum
life, General Booth never met more
incorrgible sinners than these minis
ters of the Gospel who laughed at their
conviction as dishonest and inhuman.
In their defense 1t would be said that
they laughed at the clever way in
which the charge was put. 1t may be
so, but what of the charge itself? Is
it not a fact that theoretically they be-
lieve that the multitudes with which
they laugh and joke upon the street
are lost? And yet they give them no
warning. and 'amuse them on their
all the rest Of the world into the army.
he has a fine field of service among the
orthodox ministers"
Last Sunday DR.. Lyman Abbott
gave in a sermon what might be called
his confessions as to his change of be-
lief in the last thirty or forty years.
change which he says has been general
in the religious conception of Christian
people. The substance of the change
which he represents is that he used
to think of God as a being apart from
nature-the creator of its forces; eXter-
nal to and transcendently above it. Now
he does not think of God as the engineer
of the world, nor that the world has
any forces. There is but one force
God. and there are No panSaS for there