The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-01-16

church, undisturbed by the constituted authorities of his diocese.
 At about the same time that witnessed the Pennsylvania clerical discovery that this stalwart preacher was not preaching the gospel the English ecclesiastical at mosphere was heavy with the breathings out of heresy charges against dis tinguished Hampton lecturer, the Very Rev. W. H. Freemantle, D. D., of Ripon. Dr. Freemantle Is still dean of Ripon.
 A Bishop Attacked.
 Less than ten years ago, the pastors of all the Protestant denominations in one of our large cities united in an at tack upon the orthodoxy of bishop of this church-perhaps the profoundest theologian In the American episcopate- on account of a sermon preached by him which, it was supposed, denied the per sonality of God. As a matter of fact, this bishop would as soon have thought of questioning the correctness of the null tiplication table as of denying the> divine personality He Is still the bishop of his diocese, and still preaching the same profound, pure gospel that he was dedl- cated to-, heart, mind and soul, many more than ten years ago.
 A little further back, we see cer- tain school of churehmen exhausting every means in their power In an insane effort to prevent the elevation to the episcopate of that great man and won derful preacher, Phillips Brooks. Not content to declare him unfit for the of flee of a bishop on the basis of what he had taught in the pulpit and else where his opponents pursued him back to his cradle and attacked the validity of his baptism. .I have been charged he is said to have remarked half playfully and half sadly. with violating all the commandments. except the seventh and eighth, and I wonder why they were omittedv
 It Is safe to prophecy that so long as mighty preachers of the gospel are re- membered in this land, Phillips Brooks will bel
 Go back a little further into another generation, and who are the men pro nounced unworthy by jury of hundreds or thousands to preach in the pulpits or serve at the altars of the true gospel the faith once delivered? Why. they are Stanley, Dean of Westminster, than whom this earth never saw nobler truth-teller of the living God, gentler and braver follower of his Master, Christ: and Maurice, relieved of his pro fessorship in Kings college. because of
  word, ''aionios os'-Maurice great in brain and heart and with a soul like unto the souls of them who see and enter the kingdom of heaven, because they have "become as little chidren:" and Robert son-Robertson of Brighton-who ranks, I think, and not I alone, among English preachers as Shakespeare among English poets, the greatest of them all These are the men, who about the middle of the nineteenth century, were regarded by thousands of their contemporaries as dangerous teachers" dlsloyal to the tradition of the elders tearers down rather than builders upl And what to- day would the Church of England he without It's Robertson, Maurice, Stanley and their like?
 Prophets Charged With Heresy.
 Take out of the latter half of the nine teenth century its prophets of the spirit who were hotly charged with heresy and widely suspected of in1delty, and know not how the victory of Goddess scientific materialism could have been averted. For as often as the founda- tions of the spiritual faith have been most confidently attacked, and God voted out of the scheme of things as an un- necessary hypothesis" by militant ma terialism, it has been left to the heretics to deal the true defensive blows that turned the tide of conflict.
 If science and religion are closer to. gether today than ever before. as think they are, approaching the time not far off, when they will join hands ir peace, this is because there have beer and are theologians wise enough to credit scientific workers with sincerity of purpose; to meet with them as fellow workers on common ground; and to show that 1t is quite possible to be a theolo- gian--a thinker of God and things divine and in no terror of truth, whether flash ed downward from heavens highest stai or drawn upward from earths deepest cavern We owe a larger debt than VIC dream to the feared and distrusted teach CTS of the past, remote and recent-fear- ed and distrusted, because they were not understood in their day and genera ton.
 Let's Deal Fairly.
 Is it not possible that the Rev. Dr Abbott is but the latest victim of popu. lar Wtuperation through popular mis- understanding? Is 1t not possible thai the report of his Harvard address was not as accurate as 1t might have beeni that his language was not as carefully chosen as it could have been to convey his thought? that he has been condemned too hastily? that an interpretation has been put upon his words which he him. self would be among the first to repudl- ate? Surely 1t were Christian charity to wish to answer one or several of these questions in the affirmative; and, apart from the duty we owe a fellow man tc deal fairly with him, 1t is a duty we owe ourselves, and ought to be our solemn Joy, to conclude, If we may, that the religion we love, the religion on which we believe depends the worlds salvation has not been attacked and has not been renounced by one so long and so widely known as it's able and devout advocate It helps us all to know that high, pure life has been lived through to it's close in the Christian faith; and 1t could not but hurt us all to know that such a life claimed Christ for leader the greater part of it's journey. and then disclaimed His leadership.
 Let us see, then, if our questions may not be answered affirmatively.
 By what evidence is the charge sup ported that Dr. Abbott has repudiated Christianity, and preached infidelity to a body of college students? By the evil dence alone, so far as I know. contained in two sentences of his Appleton chapel address. Doubtless these sentences, as they have been reported, were misleading. and therefore unfortunate. They were misleading because heard or read not only by scholars and philosophers, but by many people neither scholars nor phil osophers, unfamiliar with metaphysical terminology and not trained to nice scrutiny of a. startling sentence in re- lation to it's context. Dr. Abbott, 1t should te remembered. was speaking ex tempore. Master of clear English. as he is. 1t Is highly probable that in a written lecture,