The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-11-10


set up and overturn thrones. 1t held
An Its hands the destinies Of peoples.
1t could bring a nation by Its anathema
to its knees. Where is this power?
Since the days Of the Renaissance 1t
has gradually waned and dwindled
away. There Is no nation in Europe
or on the face of the earth that as
nation today stands in awe Of the
Church. Even Spain, which is the most
to assert itself as against the DEGREES
of the Vatican. Education. political
action, many of the interests of men,
are wrenched from the grasp of eccle-
siastica1 power, and the people stand
UP at last free.
"Then, again, the whole intellectual
realm used to be dominated by the
Church. Philosophy and science and
art were all only provinces in the
Church's universal domain One after
another they have revolted- Today
art goes its own way, asking no per-
mission Of any power, following Its own
ideals. Education has asserted Its in
dependence. Philosophers do not any
longer ask whether the pope is to agree
with their systems when they have
completed their work. They follow
what they believe to be the true
Science at last is free.
about 800 years ago Bruno was
burned in Rome for daring to utter his
opinions. Today no man asks for lib
erty to express his beliefs on any sub
ject whatsoever. All these things are
taken out Of the hands of ecclesiastical
authority, of the official religion; and
men are free.
Then what a change has come,
through the progress of science, over
s1I, 1f.cIlr he
eminent Of the world. Kepler, who
was born In the sixteenth century, be-
lieved, even after he had discovered the
three great laws of planetary motion,
that the planets were ruled and guided
in their courses through the heavens by
deputy angels whose business it was to
superintend their affairs. He knew of
no power except this delegated divine
power by which to account for the
motion of the heavenly bodies. When
Newton discovered the law Of gray
ity, demonstrated it to be true, the
Church rose in alarm, and said that
he was taking the universe out of the
hands of God and putting it into the
keeping OF a law.
mot a great many years ago an
eclipse was a divine and special sign
sent with some religious meaning to
Testament the rainbow was the pledge
and promise of God that he would not
send another flood upon the earth. The
whole domain of nature used to be
looked upon as the scene of the divine
interference, with special peculiar ac
tivity at every turn. 1t was supposed
that God, for the sake of reading the
world 81 religious lesson, would make
the sun stand still in the heavens,
would make the shadow go back on the
dial of q king, would move a star
from It's orbit and send 1t wandering
through the sky to direct the attention
of men to some particular spot over
which 1t should stand. God was the
one who in answer to prayer, sent
rain; He blighted the harvest as a to-
ken Of his displeasure with the people.
Science has changed all this; and
now there Is no one who has any Ques-
ton that the universe, in every depart
ment, Is governed in accordance with
universal and unchanging law. There
are those who think that this is a step
towards taking religion out of the
minds, the beliefs, the convictions of
man."
TN one way it may be said that this
indicates that religion in the old sense
is dying. The ceremonial, the temples
the worship, the creeds, being no long
er of great Importance, it comes TO be
merely a matter of how one feels and
thinks. And one can feel and think
without any religious institutions at
all. But these facts may be inter
preted to me as that, as the world
advances and becomes more and more
civilized and developed, religion comes
to be more matter of the heart and
the life,-cones to be what it ought to
be-"
what is religion? Not yours, not
mine, not Christianity, not Paganism
of any kind; but what is religion?
There are three OF four constituent ele-
ments. First, it is mans thought, his
theory concerning the relation which
exists between himself and the Power
that is not himself, the Power mani
tested in the universe around him:
that is the first element of religion.
Every thought, however, every theory
of man that touches practical life, is
accompanied by feeling; and so the
second element of the religious life is
the emotional. Man is worshipping,
hoping, fearing, trusting being as to-
wards the Unseen; and the emotions
will naturally follow after and be gov
erned by the quality of the thought.
If you have high and noble thoughts,
high and noble feelings, go along with
them. If you have thoughts degraded
and low, you will have feelings of fear
and dread matching them"
The clear and cogent reasoning Of
Dr. Savage, and candor and scientific
exactness Of his work. make this book
with it's Christian faith and its rich
promises one that every denomination
can read with satisfaction and COM
fort,-that is a man Of any denomi-
nation who has reached the conviction
that the world moves, that science has
made discoveries that make some part
Of his unessential beliefs untenable
1t would be simple and delightful if
mans religion could be taken like
dose Of medicine, entirely ON faith to
cure or kill, but as a mans political
opinions must be adjusted daily to the
changing conditions Of national life, as
he can no longer vote for Jackson or |
Blaine; as the Legislators must face |
new problems for their party, so the |
leaders On religion have to revise their |
creeds, to adjust them to the discov- |
cred truth and to their own hearts.
Whether the creeds are altered in the |
hooks matters little The human oraade