Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-24
INDIFFERENCE 10 CREED.
Startling Prophecy by Rev. Edward
Everett Hale.

From the International Quarterly.
The country is profoundly religious. II
believes In right, and IL wants to have
right done. The leader of Americans who
may wish to lead them forward In the
line of that destiny which has triumphed
thus far leads a religious race in the
methods of personal and spontaneous
worship, with constant reference to the
eternal laws. He does not appeal to this
mans selfishness or to the greed of that
community. He does not teach the
wretched doctrine of a bald economy to
induce them to pile up gold or iron or
brass. He appeals to the highest motives
men can grasp and cites the noblest law
he knows. This law is a law outside
themselves; 1t is the infinite law 1t is
the power who makes for righteousness
1t Is to be observed at the same time
that this profound religious sentiment is
Tor Observation-Disclosures of the people
VINO are governed by 1t entirely disasso-
ciated from the Alphas and Omegas of
the ecclesiastics. The ecclesiastics do not
! believe this: they do not know it, On
their side nineteen-twentieths of them
have been educated to suppose that the
word religious means synods councils
conferences and conventions and customs
and traditions. eteen-twentieths of
them worship jots and TITLES and bells
and pomegranates as heartily as did the
Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. But to the peo-
pie, by the large, the men whom you
meet in the railway car. or who fiji the
hall OF the caucuses. all the little devices
OF the ecclesiastics are matter of indif-
ference-with most of the people they
are unknown. Thus the Irish servant
| girl is glad to have Protestant ecclesi-
astic say God bless you to her. A boy
and girl drive into country town to be
married. They go to the church. whose
door they find open. regiment In the
army is told that a new chaplain is COM
whether he belongs to the Cumberland
Presbyterian or the Old Line Presby-
terrain or the United Presbyterian. The
minister of the Second Secession thinks
the man cares, but that is because the
minister reads what is caleld his denomi-
national newspaper.
Stated In few words, the American peo-
pie have an immense respect for the an
nouncements of the ecclesiastics. but
hardly think of even reading them far
Tess or governing themselves by their
directions. They want me to be bap-
tized, said a shiverng black woman in
Boston, only six months from freedom
ana the climate of Carolina. but I can't
be baptized because it's so cold" Quite
unconsciously the good woman Expressed
the view which nineteen twentieths of
the people of America really have re-
garding ecclesiastical symbols
-Four men out of five whom you should
meet in travelling. if you We're blocked in
a snowstorm for thirty-six hours and had
to converse with each other without in
tercourse with the outward world. would
commit themselves to some such state
ment OF their religion as this: Il think
man ought to do about right 1 think
he can find out what is right in the Bible
guess il he does that he will find the
world after he dies will be a good enough
place for him to live in"
There are enough left of persons at
tached to special documentary state
ments and still more to special formal
ritual to keep for time in existence the
great ecclesiastical organizations. but
with every year 1t becomes more and
more certain that by the year 2ooO no
ecclesiastical organization now existing
IN America will retain its present form
This statement was made as early as the
year 1870 by the distinguished president
of Brown University. Thirty years have
more than justified a position which
then seemed somewhat startling