Omaha daily bee., 1903-05-04
CRITICISES OMAHA DIVINE
Rev Mann Speaks Reprovingly Of Another
Pastors Hunting
SHOOTING BIRDS A BAD EXAMPLE
IL Does Not Impress Unitarian MIN
lister as n Proper ENempIihcation
of Religious Instruction
Given Children.

In his discourse at Unity church y%ester-
day morning, Rev. Newton NJ. Mann took
occasion TO refer, in deprecatory manner,
to the experiences Of a local Episcopal
minister. who was arrested near The1ford,
Neb., recently for shooting meadow larks.
Rev. Mann said
The church has not always been the
same thing in it's ideas and constitutions
consequently IL has not always had the
same purposes. am asked to Inquire
what its purposes we're in other days, as
a preliminary to the more practical con
sideratlon Of the mission Of the church In
our own time. l am not sure but that a
dead past might better be left to It's in
evitable task OF burying Itself; at all events
we must not expect this inquiry to furnish
q dark background against which to set
forth our own better enlightenment, our
higher aims, our more brilliant successes.
MAN has always been man and espe-
cially stable has been his religious nature.
Probably every theological vagary, every
superstitious motive that ever controlled a
mortal may be found active and dominant
IN the minds and hearts Of living people.
The present is in a hand-to-hand struggle
with the past.
by a reversion to conceptions which
have at least a standing in the gospel, an
increasing number are stoutly contending
that the mission Of the church Is to cure
the sick; others are preaching as earnestly
as did Paul himself, justification by faith
in the efficacy Of atoning blood; others
again are repeating a far echo Of the philO-
sophie mysticism by which Jesus was ex-
allied to the godhead.
"Still the old delusion Of the guilt Of
error is Rugged to the pious breast, and
TO multitudes the great goal to be attained
is uniformity OF belief and Of worship, an
end which they blindly hope to further by
systematic disfellowshlp Of all noncon-
formists. Through insistence upon one
and another OF these antiquated f~allacies
the sorry spectacle is kept up of a piety
which has 40 necessary afiliation with
morality-a service of God without obliga-
ton OF kindness to his creatures.
What more melancholy illustration OF
this than a prominent Omaha minister's
own story Of administering sacraments and
christening babies out in the middle OF
the state the other day, amusing himself
on the way back, by shooting song birds,
bringing into town as trophies twenty-five
slaughtered meadow larks-a proceeding
in which, even after being arrested and
fined $110, he Is unable to see any impro-
priety, and only regrets the personal in
convenience to which he was subject.
What must the children whom we have
taught in the public schools to say:
HE prayeth we'll who loveth we'll.
Both man and bird and beast
Think of a Christian like that
These are Of the things which show how
the shadows of the dark ages reach far
down into the present and fall among III
without much disturbing our tquanimity
We owe a great deal to the past, but
part of its legacy, and a most persistent
part, is hideous. Our first duty is to pu'
this part under our feet"