The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-07-12

of which he boosted was a retrograde
| movement oscillating between Mann
| mon worship and humanitarianism.
/ The nephew's ideas of Christianity
F; were on a par with those which existed
from the time of Christ's advent. In
the present debate the nephew tries to
justify his position and enters a plea
of yielding to the popular in religion
as we'll sin other subjects. In his plea
/ he claims the right of deceiving the
people if necessary. The Uncle takes
exception to such pleading. His argu-
ments, founded on solid principles. are
interesting and should be carefully
| read. They contain a moral and can
not fail to instruct the reader. The
! nephew begins
You may be right, Uncle Jack, but
we of the movement party have pre-
| JUDGES enough against US already, and
more than we can easily overcome.
A large portion of so called Christen-
dom have, indeed, outgrown the
. church. become indignant at Christian
asceticism, and attained to the very
rational conclusion, that man is placed
/ in this world to enjoy himself, that his
present concern is with this present
| life, and that, if a heaven hereafter
! there be, the best way to secure it will
be by making sure of a. heaven on
earth; but still many retain sort of
/ reverence for the name of Christ, and,
| bold as they are, would not dare to
avow the truth itself under another
name. Truth, indeed, is truth under
any name, but not every name is equal
/ ly good to conjure with. To a great
| extent even the far advanced are still
/ the slaves of names, and require for the
! present to be treated as nurses treat
| sick children. II we should come out
and boldly disavow the name of Christ
| and declare what we are aiming at is
in direct opposition to what he taught,
the majority would shrink from go
| ing with us, and we should fail to ac-
| complish the emancipation of man
! kind. 1t is in the name of Christianity
| that we must proceed to emancipate
! the world from Christianity. This is
! the way taken by the reformerS them
| selves. 1t is very likely that they had
views which reached much further
than their adherents imagined, much
! further than their age could bear.
| There are expressions to be found in
Luther which lead one to suspect
| that he saw the truth; but he would
| have ruined his whole cause if he had
| brought it out clearly under its own
name. He avowed no hostility to
|
| found reverence for it, and to be more
| Christian that the papists themselves.
He comprehendedI how much his age
would bear, and he made his principal
| war on the pope and the papacy, in
! which he could make sure of the sym
pathy of a large portion of his country
| men. and of the open or secret support
of the greater part of the temporal
princes of the time. Having demol-
/ ished the papacy in the name of Christ,
| the church, and the Scriptures, he
1 broke the authority of the spiritual
power and prepared the way for his
successors to go further. These sue
cessors distinguished between Chris
| tianity and the church, as he had dis
| tinguished between the church and pa
pacy, and in the name of Christ de-
| nounced the Christian church, whether
| Catholic or Protestant, and made war
on all organized Christianity, resolv-
| ing Christianity into mere doctrine and
sentiment, to be determined by each
one for himself, by his own private in
depreciation of the Scriptures. These
/ were followed, ip turn by a. new genera
| ton of reformers, who distinguished
between Christianity and the Scrip
! lures as the former distinguished be-
tween Christianity and the church, and
| la VI 0iiilSl O6lllcu all du-
thority and all revelation except man S
! own spiritual nature. We act on the
! same principle in distinguishing be-
! tween mans spiritual nature and his
carnal nature, and asserting alwoys
| in the name of Christ the SUI
| premacy of the latter. 1t is a wise
and necessary policy. For ourselves
indeed, it makes no difference whether
you call the truth by the name of
/ Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Christ,
Arius, Names. Mahomet, Luther, Joe
Smith, or Saint Simon, but by taking
the name of Christ as the Christian
world does, as IL symbol of truth, and
proclaiming the truth in his name, and
our own doctrine and purposes as tile
real significance of his we prevent sus-
picion, we disarm prejudice. and in
duce multitudes to Cooperate with us,
who otherwise would stand aloof from
us, perhaps oppose u.s.
There is no doubt of what you say.
| If you can make the world believe that
what you teach and are aiming at is
what our Lord meant-and there are
not wanting fools enough who can
be made to believe so, as 1 can testify
| from my own eXperience-you can
bring to your aid whatever authority
his name still retains. But, my dear
Dick, what right have you to do SO,
knowing as you do that what youNseek
to make the world believe is false? Do
you not feel degraded even in your own
eyes by the deception you practice?"
II regret, my dear uncle, that it is
necessary to practice it. for 1 avow l
prefer open and manly dealing. I love
! the straightforward and ingenious
policy which says what it means, and
means what it says. But you must
take the people as you find them, and
the world as it is, and when you can
not do as you would, you must do as
you can The people win have some
thing to worship and when they can
have nothing else they will worship
a lg or stone, a crocodile or a
calf We must humor them, If we