The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-11-26
CALLS RELIGION
4 PUNY THING
Church Must Get Onto the Job,
Says Speaker at Unfair
ian Church.
POINTS TO PHILADELPHIA
ATTITUDE OF SNUG cHURcHMEN
PERMITS CORRUPTION.
POINTED PARAGRAPHS
FROM SUNDAY SERMON

POINTED PARAGRAPHS
FROM SUNDAY SERMON
There can be no adequate relig :.
- ion, which is not open. four square ~
= TO the truth. :.
The moral gain will be beyond -
= estimate when an exaggerated re- :.
Verence for the words of the bible :.
= shaH disappear and i'm its place -
: shall come the spiritual concious- :,
= ness which created the bible. :.
Religion is not conceived in ac- :.
IuaI 1act to have anything to do -
y: with business, with policies. with -
= anything in our whole social life =
= and that explains why our SOCIAL :.
= ed religion today is such a puny :.
= thing, why it has been banished .:s
= steadily to the remote background :.
= of our life =
- The religion of Philadelphia has :.
y been, up 10 date impotent to af- :.
- rect the moral TOttenness of its :.
:: politics or of its business as its :.
- drinking water. taken from the 70
: unspeakably filthy SchuyIkiII river, :.
> has failed to check the ravages of :.
= Phfladelphia's periodic plague, ty- y
= Dhoid fever. ).
:. "Uuless the church gets onto its -
/ - job. unless the church furnishes -
= this great mateTialism OF ours with e
- a soul in the very process of that e
=" failure 1t viii rot. and spiritual -
&" emancipation viii have come from :.
:: another Ource."-William Thurs :.
= ton Brown :.
:: :. =
Wanted. An Adequate Religion"
Speaking from this novel theme at the
Unitarian church Sunday morning,
william Thurston Brown. Field Secre-
tary Of the American Unitarian assoc
citation for the Rocky Mountain district,
delivered a striking and powerful ser
mon. incidentally he paid his respects
10 the corrupt state of affairs in Phil
adelphia and the attitude Of the SNUG
churchmen which makes these cOndi-
lions possible"
Il venture to name three qualities
which viii infallibiy mark anything
which may Justly be called an adequate
religion" said Mr.. Brown.
An adequate religion not only will
set no bounds 10 human thinking. but
will demand as prime and fundamen-
tai requisite the limitless freedom Of
the human mind. Not only that. but
il Will have no more insistent demand
than this, that every child that comes
into the world shall have untrammeled
opportunity to think that no conditions
shall be tOlerable which may cramp or
Has there not been a suspicion
throughout Christendom, and is there
not today. that freedom OF thinking is
dangerous, is sinful? Is il not true that
free thinking and free thought are
phrases which common usage has made
Synonymous With irreligiOn. with inf
deity? What is more to the point is il
not true that conditions widely prevail
IN human employment which disfran-
r1iSea npiIiiRHG 81 in ha
world of thought?
There is no demand more sacredIy-
imperative than this. that we men and
women shall be, as an eminent public
list puts it. all there in religion: that
no man shall feel that he must deny
the fullest and freest exercise of that
faculty which in supreme sense,
makes him man. his reason, his in
tellect, in order 10 be religious. There
can be no adequate religion which il
not open. four square. 10 the truth,
which does not pay reverence 10 truth
as itself the very presence and life OF
God.
Will Make God Real.
I'm the second place, an adequate re-
ligiOn makes God real and available in
and for personal individual life. 1t is
simply the affirmation that the personal
sense of God which every prophet OF
any age has possessed * forever a HUI
man right. human possibility.
We read in come of cur Iiturgies the
words of these Incompatible Psalms3
The Lord is very present help in
trouble. The Lord is my shepherd.
shall not want He maketh me lie down
in green pastures, he leadeth me beside
the still waters. Bless the Lord, o,
my soul. and forget not all his bene-
fits. who fOrgiveth ali thine iniquities.
who healeth all thy diseases. who
crowneth thee with loving kindness and
tender mercies-' We read these sacred
words. sacred not at all because
they are in the bible, sacred only be
cause they stand for human fact, the
fact that men like ourselves have tap
red the inexhaustible reservoir of moral
power and spiritual grace. that men
there were who found God available
for the least and humblest needs of life.
and because of that experience their
souls lowered into songs whose beauty
ard refreshment are self-evidenced
more than two thousand years after
ward. I say we read these words and
fancy we can make them our own.
forgetting that not the words. but the
experience of communion, of Depend
ence. of a sense of God, is the vital
thing. The moral gain will be beyond
when an exaggerated rever-
ence for the words of the bible shall
disappear and in its place come the
acceptance of the same moral tasks
and therefore possession of the same
spiritual consciousness which created
the bible and can create other scrip
lures as sacred.
Include the Whole Man.
I'm the third place. an adequate re-
ligion Will be social in its nature That
is 10 say. it will include the whole man,
and not some petty fraction of his life.
We have had no religion. thus far,
which has included the whole man.
We have none now that even contem-
plates such a thing. Religion is not
conceived in actual fact to have any
thing TO do with business. with poll
tics, with anything in our social life:
Canfinued On PanA q