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

No book Of recent years on religious
subjects was more widely read than DR..
FSavage's Life After DEATH" published
Ia few years ago. This new book at
tacks a subject that is growing every
year, every month and every day in
public interest We want to know
whether the growth Of knowledge and
the advance in science Is taking out OF
human life the element of religion,
whether 1t is destroying old principles
and leaving nothing in the place Of
them to encourage purity, morality,
faith and love.
DIR. Savage calls this book a plain
treatment of the great essentials of re-
ligion, being Sitting of these from
such things as cannot outlive the re-
ssults of scientific, historical and criti-
cal study, so making More clearly seen
the things which cannot be shaken.
The best way to give the general
reader an idea of the character and
Importance Of this work is to quote
pretty freely from it In the preface
DR.. Savage says:
Religions die, while religion is uni
versal, permanent and progressive; the
ologies change and pass, but so long
as man thinks, he will think and the
orise, though imperfectly, about the
greatest of all themes: man has always
speculated about the universe, and, in
later times, has studied it, and his
theories about it always have been and
always must be intimately associated
with both his religion and his theology:
man at first regarded himself as made
suddenly by fiat power, but he has
learned that he has evolved from lower
forms Of life, while his religions and
his theologies have kept step with his
own advance: bibles have been the
natural expression of mans hopes,
fears and aspirations at the different
stages of his advance, not creating re-
igion, but being created by 1t: gods
have been the best ideals which man
has been able to imagine, at different
steps of his advance, of the one Eter-
nal, of whose life all things are only
the changing and passing expression;
saviours have taken shape In accord
with mans thoughts of the evils from
which he supposed he needed to be de-
livered, and all are entitled to that
name who have helped to deliver the
race from any Of its evils, though this
may not interfere with the supremacy
of one: worship has taken shape ac-
cording to mans changing theories OF
the powers he has thought of as be-
Ding able to help or hurt him, and it Is
essentially admiration for that which
man thinks of as above him, and so is
the condition Of all growth and pro-
gress: prayer is the universal instinct
which leads man to try to get into
helpful relations with the powers
which it springs are permanent, 1t
thought of as able to control his deS-
tiny, and since the conditions out of
which it springs are permanent, it can
not. pass away, though it must slough
off its superstitions and become ra-
tional.
'orhe Church is the voluntary and
natural organization Of men as re-
ligious beings, and it seeks the high
est spiritual ends of which those who
constitute it can dream: hells are the
more or less horrible dreams which
have haunted the imaginations of men
as the outcome of evil in another life,
and they have generally been crude
and libelous parodies on the truth that
in all worlds men reap what they have
sowed: heavens have taken shape in
accordance with the same human fan
cy which has created Its hells, and, In
essence, they are the kernels of all
the fair and good things which are to
blossom and bear fruit for the good;
men pass into the resurrection life
the kind Of beings which they have be-
come here, and while there Will be an
opportunity for moral advance, there
will also be field for the activity and
and faculties and tastes which pertain
to the essential nature of man in this
life:-to set forth, develop, and estab-
lish, so far as possible, the positions
above suggested, Is that which is at
tempted in this book.
Then the author gives a brief retro
spect Of the dead religions of man.
st do not wonder. as look down the
ages of the past towards the beginning,
and see what has happened, that men
get the impression that religion is not
an eternal thing. A thousand religions
have already died. They have dropped
from the tree of human life Nike leaves
scattered by the winds in November.
AWAY down towards the beginning each
tribe out of the many had its own re-
ligton. the ideas of which-at any rate
the theories of which-have proved to
be only temporary, something to De
outgrown as intelligence has advanced.
Religion after religion which troubled
the ancient Hebrew, as we read the
record Of his history in the Old Testa-
ment. has ceased to exist. The re-
ligions of Ammon, of Amalek, of Moab,
of Philistia. of a hundred others, have
passed away
"There were many religions in the
Euphrates Valley before Babylon be-
came a city, which have all vanished.
are tn us only names. We spell out a
fragment here and there of some IN
sc1.intion on a brick or cylinder, and
trv to resurrect the forms of the gods
that have passed even from the imagt- |
nations of the memory Of man Where |
are today, the gods of Memphis and
Thebes, those who dominated that
mighty civilization on the banks OF the
Nile for so many hundreds of years?
TTba1y are only words to be interpreted |
nv the curious and the learned? Where
are the religions of Greece and Rome, |
fine mighty gods who used to sit above
the clouds on Olympus and shake the
earth with their tread as they came
down to visit the children Of men?
Where are the gods that used to drive
in their charbots across the sky or ride
the foaming waves of the sea or rule
over the inhabitants of the underworld!
They are part of a curious story Whlcn
we are fascinated by as we read the
record of the past. But they no longer
exist as realities for human thought or
as In any practical way touching hui
man life.
"The religion of the Druids is some
thing to be guessed at as we look at
the dolmens and the rows or stones
which they have set up, while we Won
der precisely what they may nave
meant and what they were for. So
Odin and Thor and the gods of our
Morse forefathers are now only names
in their Sagas, or in the traditions, the
stories that have degenerated into
follx-lore. and which pleased US as
chiIdren-or as grown-up people. If we
keep the sympathies Of our childhood.
''There are, indeed. survtvals OF these
in names. in customs, IN haolls' IN