The Indianapolis journal., 1903-04-05

illogical education" Again. Protestant
churches are behind ali modern methods OF
organized efficiency in handling both men
and resources. You will see dozen strug-
Cling and competing churches In every
small town. The time was when none man.
aged great vital issues better than they,
bi that time has passed. No one to-day
for their stale dogmas and their Sec
IN issues"
he author proposes. under the title OF
"Ihe Church of Humanity" a conglomer-
ate of all denominations which he himself
has the candor to call Utopian. He wants
such a church as Abraham Lincoln be-
longed to, which is no church at all. ex-
cept in its work for the brotherhood OF
man and its desire to serve. He advocates
the ethical evangelization' of both city
and country. He says every person ex-
periences religion. even though momen-
tarily, when his soul is thrilled by devo-
tional music or the religious light of
beautiful church. He asks, Does 1t mat
ter how much water is used in baptism"
And so on TO the end of the volume.
The author entirely ignores vital and
the best part of religion-worship. Evil
IDENTIFY he does not know what it means.
All real religion Is a VI cApCAlChSO
and cannot be put on paper. And so this
volume is one-sided and incomplete. Strong
as il is upon the human side. it is miser-
ably deficient upon the divine side. the
Church of Humanity, as he calls it, is only
one phase of church life and work. The idea
of worship of God and of Christ never
seems to have occurred to Mr.. Dole. As he
insists that Christ was a mere man, where
does Mr.. Dole's worship of God come in,
it may be well enough to ask. Doing good
to our fellow-man is certainly indispensa-
BILE, but il is not communion with God, and
without such communion religion lacks vi
tality and is as bird shorn of its wings.
1.-The Star in the Clod; Study in Evo-
luton" by ]. T. Switzerland. is a very
readable and stimulating book charmingly
written. While il is the old story of evolu-
ton, with which we are all now IA
miliar, still ii is so attractively told that
it holds the readers attention from start
to finish. 1t is just the kind of a volume
to put in the hands of a schoolboy or
schoolgirl. Among the good points that
the author makes, a sample are these: To
the objection the church makes that
our ancestors were tadpoles, the author
replies: "Is not tadpole quite as good a
source to spring from as a dust pile?'
Beecher once said: 'I don't object to
monkey for my ancestor. provided you To-
cate your monkey a sufficient distance
away" Mr.. Switzerland, in discussing the
Bible, remarks that it, too, is a product of
evolution, and points out that the objection
made to the ruthless slaughter of the Ca
naanites, by order of the Almighty, is thus
Il sr,f ind Of lrniC Nv
only shows that the Jews were, when these
books were written. in the rudimentary stage
of their God concept. when they clothed
their God with jealousy, anger and repent
ance, and, in a word, conceived him as a
Hebrew of the Hebrews, only differing
from them because he possessed irresist-
ible power and dwelt in the skies" The
Jews afterward outgrew all that, and final
ly their God concept ripened into father
of infinite kindness and mercy. All this
proves, so says the author, that the writing
of the Bible was subject to the great law of
| evolution.
How well the writer remembers the first
advent in 1859, of Darwin's Origin of
| Species" and what a fury and horror it
created. Although evolution now holds the
/ boards, still, prior to Darwin and when we
/
dences of Christianity, we lived very happy
lives. quite happy now live with
our higher critics and higher criticism.
Immortality and Other Essays" by
Charles c. Everett, is another of these Uni
tartan books. Anything from the pen of the
late DR.. Everett, a nephew of the once
| famous orator. Edward Everett, is always
| worth reading. While his books have not
the clearness and charm of DR.. Frederick
| II. Hedges, still, Dean Everett was, in
his lifetime, one of the leaders of the Uni
| tartan Church. His essay upon immortality
is fascinating. While it throws no addi-
tional light upon that insoluble problem,
| yet Ii leaves it a less dreary perhaps"
| than before. Equally interesting is his
| chapter upon mysticism, which is the per-
| ception and expression of the unseen and
| eternal, as compared with the seen and
temporal. We know of no essay equal to it
except that in DR.. William James's Study
in Religious Experiences" where the same
subject is treated under the same title.
But all such essays are necessarily defect
| ive Religion is a matter of personal ex-
perience; ii Is the life of God in the soul
and hence it cannot be satisfactorily writ
ten about, much less treated didactically.
Devotion is almost the exact opposite of
! argument, and its fountain head is the Old
and New Testaments. The vitality of the
Bible, that which makes ii survive from
age TO age, lies in the fact that it is the
record of talks that man had with God for
! four thousand years. ''God is a person."
is the first proposition of mysticism-"clos-
er Is He than breathing, nearer than hands
and feet" Worship is communion with
God. whether in hymn. meditation or pray
er. To the world. worship is foolishness. be-
cause 1t does not comprehend ii. The Bible
| has In 1t over five thousand personal pro-
nouns, fully one-half of them used by the
Supreme Being concerning himself-in
terms of IL" ''me and "mine," speaking
by the mouths OF His prophets and apos-
| ties and of Jesus Christ. This is the open
secret of mysticism. All this DR.. Everett
brings out in his beautiful essay He has
stimulating chapters upon the old and new
in religion, upon the reconciliation OF sci
ence with religion. also upon the Faith of
Science" and the Science of Faith" His
final essay, entitled THE Gain of History"
| is beyond all praise. 1t is just the thing To
read when, in our dark moments. we ask
ourselves and weary our friends with the
foolish inquiry, Us life worth living?' As