The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-11-07
CLOSING THE GAP.

The Outlook, edited by DR.. Lyman
Abbott, announces that it will no longer
divide it's news and comments under
heads designated as the Religious
World the Home Club and other
departments of literature. 1t will here
after make no especial distinction be-
tween secular and religious knowledge
Its reasons are:
mo other truth seems to us more
fundamental, more important or more
needing emphasis in our time than the
truth that religion is not department
i'm life, and that when we try to make
it so. it ceases to be religion. Reli-
gion is a standard by which all life is
to be measured, a principle by which
all life is to be governed, spirit by
which all life is to be imbued-the
spirit of faith and hope and love-"
The New York Sun recently invited
a discussion in it's columns upon the
Immortality Of the soul. Correspond
ence has been published from all parts
of the country, and an intense interest
L.
erce the Sun says: I'VE do not recog-
nize any bar to the discussion of ques-
lions of religion in the Sun. They are
the greatest themes with which the
human mind can occupy itself, and to
shut out their consideration from this
newspaper would be to put limitation
upon it's proper field wholly inconsis-
tent with our conception of editorial
duty and wisdom"
Here, then, is the spectacle of pure
ly religious paper, in its origin, throw
ing off it's exclusiveness, and meeting
half way, upon a common ground the
secular newspaper, which, on it's side,
abandons secular eXclusiveness, and
unites with the religious. journal in a
cause which is in the nature of things
common to both.
The .crudity Of the conception of
' mans relations to nature and life as
displayed by the old, and many OF the
living theologians, is amazing. For
they dealt largely with brain web and
the gap which they perhaps created,
and at least kept open, is gradually
closing. 1t is not the least of the
triumphs of this century that it has
created, or witnessed the acceptance OF
the truth that man is not like an Aus
tralian idol which is constructed out
OF two pieces of wood. of different
qualities, but he is made out of one
piece, and the divine and the human
cannot be distinguished by any cunning
devices. The living" theologians vel
come this change. They approve o
the killing of the vermin of ignoranc
Ground the cradle of Truth, as the
snakes were strangled around The
cradle of Hercules.
This tendency to obliterate the dis
tinction made between religious an
secular affairs, is said by the religion
pessimists, to indicate a decline o
faith Whether the tendency 10 believ
more in the reasoning powers. and tn
realities of the world, as revealed b
science. and less in the creeds, is a.
evidence of decline in the broadcast an
truest faith is question by itsel
The Sun, after considering the iarg
correspondence it has received on tn
subject of the immortality OF the sou
and after commenting upon the liberal
ity of that powerful churchman Bisho
Pstter in approving of the receptlo
OF that presbyterian hereto d.
Briggs into the Protestant Episcopa
church, insists that there is a declin
of faith in the Bible among the clerg
and laity. But the Sun claims ths
there is a marked difference at II
present time in the discussion OF tines