The record-union., 1898-06-05
IN RELIGIONS REALM.
EXPRESSIONS FROM VARIOUS
RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS.
The Religious Thought Of the Day
a. Expressed in the Sec.
tartan Press.

- AAPACoSC0 the Sec
tartan Press.
The self-same hour which saw the
death of the Low Church party saw
the High Church party die along with
it, says the Church Standard" Up. Ed
OF Phlladelphia. When the general
convention met again in 1877, it
seemed as if there never had been any
parties in the American church There
was a jubilee of rather inconseQuent
good feeling. Everybody agreed with
everybody else, and protested that he
always had. There was no longer any
talk of tolerance or forbearance, only of
liberty. Men seemed suddenly to find
that the chief glory of the church is
to let things drift as they may or must
and impose no restraints of any kind
whatever. Bishops, priests, and laymen
joyfully proclaimed that ours is the
roomiest church of Christendom.' From
that time to the present, things have
gone on pretty much on that hypOthe-
sis; and the reason they have done so
is that there has been neither High
Church nor Low Church to represent
any intelligent principle or purpose. So
things have been drifting for these
twenty years last past. RitualiSts
have picked up patches of adornment.
or what they took for adornment, from
all parts of the earth, until the eccles
iastical jackdaW' is almost as familiar
here as in England. Doctrinal scrap
work of a like kind has been patched
together, and theological books have
been compiled from Latin authorities,
as if the sure way to be Catholic were
to be anything but Anglican Low
Churchmen, on the other hand, in drop
ping Calvinism and other modern the
ories of Divine grace, seem to have let
go their grip of the facts Of faith. at
least SO far as to regard with helpless
amaZement the incoming of a new ten
dency in comparison with which the
ritualistic wrong-doings were trivial
TT is said of the Bourbons," says the
New York Examiner" (BaptO, that
they are incapable alike of learning or
forgetting. In this however, they are
but types of an invincible ignorance
and prejudice of which the Latin race
has not an exclusive monopoly. The
most tolerant can hardly observe, with
complete eQuanimity, the Manifesto
tions of the Bourbon spirit increasingly
exhibited by the ritualist party within
the Protestant Episcopal Church. The
aim of these reactionaries, We are told,
is to minimize the effects Of the Re-
formation According to one of their
authorities, it is in order to show SYM
pathy with the ante-Reformation
church, and to make prominent doc
trines not accepted by the Protestant
party that they have revived rites
and practices which are, to many not
familiar with history, simply poplSh-
AS to history-of the church, if that be
meant-it would be vain to discuss 1t
with those who manufacture and doctor
it to suit themselves, and then, with
frigid, pharisaical insouciance, pro-
nounce ignorant all who feel con-
strained to smile at their inventions.
But we should think that even the i'm
agination of a ritualist would find it
difficult to pervert the facts OF med
iaeval secular history and to dissipate
from it's pages the horror of great
darkness that hung over Europe in the
century just preceding the time OF
Luther"
"There is a strong tendency at the
present period" says the Living
Church (P. Ed of Chicago, Ito assume
that the bettering Of the temporal con-
dition of people is the main purpose OF
the church, and that unless it is full
filling such a mission it is of no use
in the world 1t is necessary that such
position should be most emphatically
rejected. 1t is closely connected with
-, fpriof M times
The underlying idea sometimes finds
actual expression that, after all, this
world is the only one we are sure Of,
and that the main object of existence
is to attain to as great a degree or
comfort and happiness as possible here
and now, and let the world invisible
take care of itself. The church can
never connive, even tacitly, at such a
position as that without abdicating her
real mission, which must always be to
the souls of men first of all. 1t is the
great and eternal facts of the human
heart and the world to come with
which she has to do. We are, there
fore, most concerned to know what the
church is doing for the spiritual good
Of the poor and struggling people with
which she is surrounded. What is she
DONG TO DTlnS tnom TO HIN w HO III
vites above all, those that labor and
are heavy laden?"
''It is necessary nowadays" says the
New York "Churchman" P. Ed, Ito
distinguish clearly between what is the
essence of the Scriptural revelation and
what are the mere accidents of its
material and intellectual envelope. The
kernel will not suffer because the husk
is shown to be distinct from the ker-
mel. So far as the higher criticism has
at present advanced, it has not touched
the kernel of the matter. 1t is Pro-
fessor Cheyne who, in his commentary
on Isaiah, begs, in the meekest tone,
that churchmen would not be impa-
tient, offended, or indignant at the pro-
pounding of any critical opinion which
the consensus of competent scholars
has admitted as the ultimate result of
honest and patient Investigation. We
quite agree with this learned scholar,
and echo his appeal. To do otherwise
would be, at the present moment, to
show an inclination to sacrifice truth
to traditiOnalism We use the word
with special emphasis In
dividual opinion has it's own value. 1t
is a contribution to the settling of q