The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1900-11-05

Guilty which made this young mans prob
lem to-day than ever There is an adms-
sion of the right OF difference in many
churches which he did not find in one Then
in the third place. besides turning to the
natural roots of both narrowness and fire.
dom in human nature and seeking to drive
one out and bring the other in. besides find
ing that already many churches have what
in the book church was supposed TO
have, you would lead snch young man TO
see the good side of what he thinks is all
evi! Before you let him become aiienat-d
from Christianity because the churches are
not yet perfect expressions OF 1t, you would
bid him study little deeper into the his
tory Of systems and look at them with
little philosophy. and not merely with tn.
overstrained feeling which his experience
has produced This is what the young mau
did not DO. He worked the thing nut as
II II had never been done before and took
the result as though he had made a pew
discovery. With al! that you ran say for
HIM. his method was as crude and provin-
cial in its way as the methods he criticised
We're In their way. II you had him in
self so seriously and you would bid him
be not so sure that he had got to the end
or matter whose beginning he had scarce
ly found.
And you could set him right by setting
him on some such track as is indicated by
THESE words of 4 great historian who had
been describing the overfeliance of Eng
iishmen of the Seventeenth Century on sys-
TENS In government and theology: so far
as they were the builders of systems in
deed the men of the Seventeenth Century
tailed. Yet ii would be wrong to pour upon
tti ,hese systems the contempt with which,
they sometimes meet They were raised un-
CONSCIOUSLY as barriers against the flood of
immortality which setting in There
was That in them which would live
the belief In the paramount claims of DUTY
the faith in divine order in political. in
social in domestic life. which has stamped
itself indelihiy on the English mind. 1t is
the worst of times. and which shines forth
with strange vitality whenever the heart
OF the nation recovers its ancen, vigor
Sooner or later. no doubt the time ar
rives when such systems must be cast
away at any cost. When il is discovered
that ihey sAclud" as much they include;
become nothing more than fet.ars t. the
mind their day is past. But until that Sc
cre' is learnt they, ar" the safeguards
against anarchy; they form the barriers;
against which seif-wili and confidence dash
III. .mSeiv"s In vain. They are less than
truth. but they are more than passion In
surely learn what their tyranny was But
she had also to learn that it was by en-
tarGing Lar, them: not b. casting them aside,
"Ey "a sting aside what is dead by en-
iargpg what is living. the leaders of re-
liGiors liberty in America have wrought
'Aufch conceived in liberty and Dedicated
10 the proposition that a church may teach
religion and follow Christ without the con-
straint of creeds. which must always either
be revised or outlved and which occasion
more divisions than they unite They have
but repeated the saying of the apostle so
speak .ye and so do. as men that are to be
judged by Il law of liberty Such liberty as
not to be without law. such law as not to
haniah liherty-that has been the root ryin-
ciple of our faith. The question Of the
reign of law finds no adequate answer any
where. 1t cannot be- perfectly answered till
men ar" perfect. Blu; among the answers
that may he given We place ours: and We
are confident. with the confidence not only
of faith but of works that TO srTch perpl.y-
tiles as cnne not oriy in the book | have
described. but again and again in earnest
lives. to su n doubts and discontents there
Is Il way of peace. there ~ a nrinCipIe OF
Satisfac'ion. there is path of liberty which
leads not downward. not outward merely,
but upward.
The reign of law Is a TYRANNY under
Whatever name. Il IL he not the perfect law
Of liberty. In which love and obedience rev
efence ana fatth necome the science of life.
And look toward n Chris,ianitv that
shaii he nothing less than the liberty where
with Christ hath mad. us free