The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-11-13

cause he really loves God and delights
to do Him praise; who remembers the
Sabbath Day, to keep it holy, as shown
by his conduct throughout the day;
whose religion is not of the intermit
teri or Seventh-day variety; and who
earnestly tries to practice what he
breaches and hears preached. Let him
list as a hypocrite the person who at
tends the House of God solely, or chief
ly, because it is proper" because it
helps business; because 1t affords a
social meeting place; because, as on
Easter, it gives opportunity for the in
spection and display of fine clothes;
because of the music; or because of the
intellectual treat offered by those OBJ
servant preachers whose sermons are
without religion, and whose puipits
have been extended into lecture plat
forms. a division along these lines
made aequo amino by one able to read
human nature would explain what the
stay-away means by church hy-
pocrisy.'
Then, again, there are others of the
thinkers who, just as they would not
escnew playing cards as of the para
phernalia of the gambler SO are they
unwilling to discard church associa-
tons simply because the house of wor-
ship seems peculiarly the rendezvous
of the hypocrite. Day by day the con-
viction is becoming stronger that the
essence of all religion is conduct and
conscience. There are always two
phases to religion, whether it be the
religion of human sacrifice or Chris
tianity itself, namely, the metaphysi-
cal and the ethical. Their relative i'm
portance varies with the conditions of
civilization. That religious ideas pre-
vail among all peoples, with perhaps a
few exceptions like the Mangyans, is
easily explained. Every race worships
heroes, men of special attainments.
Giving them certain immunities, it is
but a short step to make these heroes
into gods. Is it not to be expected that
primitive tribes the world over should
ascribe the more noticeable instances
of natural phenomena to gods? They
have no other explanation. So there
is god of rain, god of harvest, ETC.;
yes, a goddess of volcanic fire. With
aboriginals the ethical side of religion
is hardly apparent Everything is GER
emonial, propitiative, god-worship. But,
us civilization advances, monotheism
supplants polytheism or henotheism,
and metaphysical ideas give way to
those of ethics to such degree that,
at present, the best Christian preach
| ing is that which is based on the ethi-
| cal teachings of Christ. A sermon on
| the omnipotence of God has not the
effect nowadays of a sermon on human
| charity. Finally the continually grow
| ing force of independent and agnostic
| thought is RELOCATING to science many
| of the questions that for years have
vexed churchmen. AS to certain great
| questions that can never be proved
such as the existence of a supreme be-
| ing, the origin of the universe, the
hereafter, etc., the probabilities are as
much in favor of the atheist as the
| Christian, if not more so. The agnostic
takes neither the position of affirming
! or denying. He candidly admits that
| he does not know, and doubts how any,
one else can. The fact that man is
an atheist or an agnostic initiates in
no way against his being a most esti-
mable member. of society. That he is
a man of conscience is enough. Indeed,
| 5road-minded Christians have been
kind enough to remark that an atheist
whose religion is simply the golden
rule, and who follows it conscientiously,
is a Christian in spirit, in spite of him
self.
More than anything else, then, is it
not this irresistible tendency to divorce
right living from such metaphysical
questions as are necessarily involved
in the worship of God, that explains
the diminishing attendance at church?
Respectfully,