New-York tribune., 1906-03-27
DIR. CRAPSEY INVITED.
Rector Under Hsresy Charges
breaches at Trinity, Brooklyn.

Fpiscopalians Of Brooklyn have been startled by
the action of the Rev DR.. John Howard Melsn'
who has invited the Rev. Or. Algernon s Crapsey'
of Rochester to conduct the Ienten services all
this week at Holy Trinity Protestant Epscopalan
Church Montague and Clinton streets. DR.. Crap
sey IS under charges OF denying the divinity OF
Christ and is to be tried before an ecclesasucaI
court IN St James's parish, at Batavia, n y on
April II The charge is based on series or lect-
ures which Dr. Crapsey delivered last year and
now has had printed in book form entitled Re-
lgfon and Politics"
It is understood that DR.. Melish. together with
many of the principal members of his church. are
deeply interested in the views which Dr. Crapsey
has advanced in his book.
Last Sunday DR.. Melish announced to his parish
toner's that Dr. Crapsey would conduct the services
this week. He then said that with the object les
sons Of the trial Of DR.. Briggs by the Presbytery
before it the Episcopal Church was wrong IN try
ing anv heresy cases. Thousands OF Presbyterians
had left their Church because Of the Briggs trial
and many had become Episcopalians He asserted
that it made no difference whether he or MS
people agreed with DR.. Crapsey as man should
be left free to speak the truth as he saw It. Ihe
church Of the living God is large enough, he de-
clared to give a space TO live in H. TO love
It and to grow to do his best in It, Yesterday
a fair attendance was present to hear Dr. crap
sey's sermon, which attack on the sort OF
religion that contents itself with the forms rather
than with the true substance OF the Christian re-
ligion. He said in part:
1t is the error of the ecclesiastical organization
that makes salvation dependent on, not the deyel-
opment of the soul itself, but upon the passive
acceptance of a belief made for II by an external
body The creed cannot be substituted Tor condueJ, c!
Because a man believes a creed made centuries
ago that is not TO say that he stand before
God. That creed. wrongly understood, has made
men murder their brothers. The principal thing
for the Christian do is to live life Of justice
and holiness. Let the Christian Church master
this thought.
After the sermon DR.. Crapsey refused TO discuss
his coming trial He said that the Church was
losing its hold because it not in the three great
movements OF the time-the democratic, scientific
and social movements. He said that the Church
was imperialistiC: rather than democratic, that IL
would not submit its theories to scientific investi
CATION and that IL was opposed to social evolution.
He declared that 1t was still viewing the world
from the point of view Of the fifth and sixth
turtles, and that he was under charges because he
took the historical rather than the dOgmatic view
of religion. believing that the Church had passed
from the moral the intellectual in its conception
of it's work He said that the labOrers were behind
the religious awakening Of the Church and called
the movement the greatest Of the century.
Bishop Burgess said last night, at his home IN
Garden City, that there was no rule or OF
the Church fOrbdding rectOrs extending invitations
TO cergymen under charges TO preach in their
churches