The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-06-11
THE REMEDY FOR RELIGIOUS
DOUBT.
A Letter From Goodwin smith.

A Letter From Goodwin Smith.
To THE EDITOR OF THE SuN-Sir: You
say that you receive communications
speaking bitterly Of these letters. Their
writer does not fail to receive outpourings
Of feeling, now from the side Of orthodoxy,
vhioh denounces him as an atheist, now
from the side Of ultra materialism, which
tsxes him with cowardly adherence to
theistio superstition. He Ia but one OF
many who In these days Of perple1ity and
doubt are trying to find some secure ioun-
dalton for belief In the moral governments
of the universe. In the authority OF DON.
science and In the more hopeful view OF
the change which is TO take place at DEATH
For the aged perhaps the last question has
more pressing interest than for the young.
You have told US that there Is an increase
Of formal membership In the orthodox
decrease In the moro rationalistio Churches.
Granting this to be the osse, does It denote
q decrease Of rationalism and an increase
Of orthodox belief Would q seoeder from
an orthodox Church be likely at once to
register himself elsewhere7 b fornal mem
bership proof of mistaken convictionf
Judging from my observation In England
I should say that 1t was not. Does not
this increased resort to esthetio attrao-
lions betray feeling Of mistrust? Do we
not hear from ono Church after another,
now from the Presbyterian, now from the
Anglican, an appeal Of conscientious and
enlightened clergyman for a removal or
relaxation OF tests1 Has not unrest been
disclosed by series Of trials for hereey3
Have not leading olergymen OF the Church
OF England petitioned for liberty to deal
freely and critically with the New Testa-
ment7 Has not Presbyterianism produced
the writings OF Robertson Smith, Is not
the "Encyclopedia Biblica," in which the
resurrection Of Christ is treated as vision,
edited by Canon Of the Anglican Church
and professor of theology at Oxford? We
surely have coma to crisis in the history
OF religion and ali that rests upon 1t.
There might be less disposition to cling
to traditional formularies Of belief and
greater willingness to set the clergy, our
natural guides, free from their present
shaokles il we had present to our minds
the extent to which UNCONVENTIONAL creeds
had been fixed not by spiritual authority OF
any kind, but by secular power, and largely
for political ends. In the case Of the An
glican Church it may, think, be clearly
shown that from the commencement OF
the religious revolution under Henry VIII.
to It's close under Elizabeth the represen-
tation OF the clergy never had an effective
voice. Convocation, had It been allowed,
would have perpetuated the Catholic set
Element Of Mary; and OF the episoopate, In
the eyes Of Anglicans a special channel OF
true belief, all the members but one-or,
IL Sodor and Man is to be counted. two
resigned. In the Scotch Reformation also
influence distinctly political was very
strong.
One Is surprised to find that a champion
OF Catholicism in your columns can point
to the 800 ooo. 900 nominal Catholics as
teetifying by their mistaken belief to the
stability Of his Church. In the Papal CITY
itself, while Ignatius I.oyola still rests in his
shrine Of lapis lazuli and gold. not far OIL
rises the statue OF Giordano Bruno, erected
BY the age which he foresaw" on the spot
where he was burned. But where would
even nominal Catholicism now be II po-
litical power had not in Italy France, Spain,
Austria, Bavaria, the Spanish Netherlands,
foroibly crushed freedom Of inquiry The
principle on which. after the Thirty Years
War, the States Of Germany were practi-
cally settled was that the political sover-
eighty should determine the State religion.
With political liberty has come freedom
OF thought and with freedom Of thought
questionings about traditional belief and
about the mysteries Of our being to which
only reasonable satisfaction can put an
end.
Let those who shrink with horror from
the spread Of free inquiry draw encourage
ment and charity at the same time from
grand example. Gladstone, as Morley's
life Of him shows, was to the end Of his
days a High Churchman, intensely relig-
ious. believer in special providence, in the
inspiration Of Scripture, in the efficacy Of
prayer. Yet he could not only associate
and act heartily with free thinkers, but look
with satisfaction on the activity Of the gen.
eral conscience and say that while there had
never been an age so much perple1ed with
doubt, there had never been one so full
OF the earnest pursuit Of truth.
GOODWIN SMITH.