Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-11-05
ELLIOTT SCORES METHODIST.
Harvard President Says They Are Too
Emotional.

| Emotional.
| Boston, Nov. president Eliot, OF
Harvard, stirred up q tempest at the
meeting of the Methodist Ministers
| Association in the Bromfield Street
Church today. He declared that the
| Protestant sects, especially the Metho-
dist, are too emotional, which does nc
good, and that the Sunday school sys-
TEN is all wrong. He found also other
grave faults with modern religious sys-
TENS. AT the close Of his remarks Rev
James Boyd Brady. of Worcester took
the speaker to task.
81 have read and studied as much as
President Eliot" he declared with con-
siderable emphasis" and the Metho-
dists need not he mortified by what he
has said
Other clergymen present also entered
protests against President Eliot's views.
President Eliot said in part:
THE work of education, I have felt,
is nearly akin to the work of the church.
1t is lamentable fact that the influ-
|ence of the church is beginning to de-
cline seriously in our land. There are
millions of our people who never so into
a church, and therefore do not have it's
beneficent influence"
The first ciyilizing influence, said DR..
Eliot is steady work. Next is the pro-
motion of refinement and culture.
I'VE must admit" said the speaker,
that the church and the university en-
coulter a difficulty at the very opening
of the Bible, for the story of the fall of
man represents labor as a curse. That
story has had the profoundest effect on
theology until within the last 100 years.
We find this false idea of labor run
ming thru society.
On Value of Work.
"For thirty years have tried to teach
that the best of work is that it is en-
joyable. l believe that is the test.
value highly the distinction between
work and play. When youth works
let him work. when he plays let him
play.
rs this principle observed in church
es? Is the Sunday school the place of
strenuous exertion on the part of the
pupils? Is it work or play, or a mixture
OF both? l always find this mixture an
undesirable one.
Consider the forms of Christian ac
tivity. AS / see them in the various
churches their activities seem too INTEL
lectual and emotional on the part of the
preacher, and to call too little for the
work of the recipient of the teaching.
AT the Sunday school I don't learn
that the children are working actively.
They only have half an hour a week,
and no other subject could be dealt with
in that way by any pupil. So distrust
the method of the Sunday school and
the attitude of the pupil He is not
called on TO produce anything.
Accusing of Emotions.
"The emotional side is developed, per-
haps, most largely in the Methodist
church. Is that wholesome for getting
labor out of individuals? I find it does
me no good to get my emotions stirred
up unless / can do something about it
all. This church has made great efforts
to get means to apply in young people
the force of this emotion, but has it
been successful?
This seems a desirable thing to
study Jesus was trying to bring out
that issue, and how many times He said
Go thou and do likewise
This is what all churches should do;
y
church needs to reconstruct the forms
Of teaching children and youth. For
children as for the heather it seems
to implant doctrines, prin-
ciples and imagery drawn from war,
lighting or sacrifice.
Our scriptures contain good deal
IF warlike imagery. One of the most
repellant ideas to me is the phase
church militant 1t is allying the most
,ivilizing force with the most barbar-
)us.
1.-THE idea of sacrifice is barbarous in I
he highest degree, especially when in
,luding the human sacrifice. Yet the /
scriptures and religious poetry are /
illed with it.
THE conception of sacrifice and war; I
are ought to be omitted from all teach !
ngs for children. The church should
each natural poetry, that of human
affection and the common sentiments of
mankind. The child can learn this and /
1--WE it out in the family circle, thus
ringing, home these sentiments to the
lders. Give to children the Buddhist
thoughts of kindness to animals, and
# looking UP to nature and God thru
nature, and at 20 years of age let them
,e taught the graver matters of COM
,arative religion.
in what other grave subject do we
ave amateur teaching? Can parents
r children respect the Sunday school
f the teacher is less sl1illful than the
eacher in the secular school?
"The problem is large and difficult,
nut in the solution lies the church's
IL, IN thn Domino caDtrt,u0
,osEMITE's DlscovERER DEAD.