The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-17
ALL THINGS new.
The Standing Motto
Of the Church is
Renovation.
is AT ODDS WITH TRADITION.
DR.. G. W. Phillips Speaks
to His Old Pensioners
at Plymouth.
is AT ODDS WITH TRADITION

of the First Congregational church of
Rutland VT, exchanged pulpits with
Rev. DIR. Archibald McCullaghf of Ply
mouth church yesterday, Rev. DR.
Phillips was the first pastor of Ply
mouth church and served the society
very ably for nearly five years, Dr.
Phillips resigned in 1886 and since that
time has been pastor of the church in
Rutland. Yesterday the doctor preach-
ed two sermons to his old parishion-
ers, morning and evening. At the
morning service the subject of his dis
course was "a renovating Christiani-
ty." The text, Behold, l make all
things new" is found in Revelations,
xxi:5. He said in part.
This statement stands among the lu
minous sentences in which the apostle
John ministered to despairing church,
near the end of the first Christian cen
fury. The great promise Of the text
is universal renovation 1t is stand
ing motto of the Christian religion-the
all-renoYating faith. This faith has
been and is a perpetual innovator. 1t is
not satisfied with the world as it is,
because the world is wrong. 1t is at
odds with tradition and precedent for
the reason that these have been the
expression of a false or partial concep-
ton of mans relation to his God and
to other men
Things cannot remain fixed where
the human mind is active. The ideals
of the past are inadequate to the pres
ent wherever vital Christianity
works. In the broadcast application,
the text is both prophecy and fact
Behold, L make all things new" Ne
yer as 1 think has there been a time
when the great sentence Just repeated
was becoming luminous history so ra-
pidly as at this moment.
A renovating Christianity disposes
itself just now in what / venture to
term the new patriotism or the new
birth of civic elf-consciousness. The
regeneration of civic consciousness is
the experience through which our ma
ton Is now passing. We felt it in 1861
The thing is impossible only where ev-
cry citizen is the vital unit of a state.
Absolutism permits the one man to say,
Il am the state" Aristocracy permits
the favored few to say "We are the
state" Our bold assertion is, All the
people, each one equally, are the state"
1t is the American dietrine; and just
so far as this latest born idea of state
is adopted, new sense of the dignity
the saeredness of citizenship is begot-
ten.
The new civic doctrine rapidly win
ming its way is, every man equally a
unit of the government. This is a new
gospel, hailed by new voices daily from
all points of the compass. This new
boon to humanity is the dream of ev-
cry struggling race. Every struggle
for freedom since English liberty won
IFS fret VITO of do and
American yeomen struck for home and
country at Concord, more than a CEN
fury ago, has had this popular sense of
the right to rule as its motive power.
When the people rule and are fit to
rule, patriotism is at it's best and high.
est. This is the new spectacle on the
American stage to which an observant
world is how being treated. The asser-
tion of our text finds just now a strik-
ing verifcation in the sociology, or APP
piled science of society. The 18th and
18th centuries asserted and won the
great modern idea of the worth and
rights of the individual man. A new
iindividualism came to the front, and
has since held the ground, 1t was the
breakage of letters that had bound the
mind and conscience to tradition and
authority vested in single men, or a
class. In the church that stands for
Protestantismi in the state for demo-
cracy, both of which are here in full
force. But deeper insight and infus-
ion of the mind of Christ in society
has brought with them and diffused
an intense interest in the veal of 9th
ers, 1t is this altruism that holds the
present epoch in the interest of society
1t is being borne in upon us that or
ganized society must be Christian ali
through to be sane and safe.
Still another fulfillment Of the pronh-
eey of Christ Is the presence of q new
philanthropy. ! do not intimate that
the love of man as a human being is
new or strictly modern. The asser-
ton is that the humanities now in evil
dence date back to Christ, and that
persons and communities must be frst
Christianized to be truly humanized
The rise of the charities from the first
connotes the teachings and shirt ne
Jesus. The surprising fact call Won
TO note here is that philanthropy has
new birth just now. mas
Society is sensitive to unfairness a 6
never before; and II makes little diffar1
ence whether 1t be kin or foreignar
neighbor or stranger, friend or foe who
suffers. The Christian Of today burns
with resentment and feels impelled 10
hasten every possible alienation +
doubt II in all the Christian centuries
gone, 80 much has been done for the