The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-03-26

He had a capacity for lofty self-ex-
altatiOn, but he tested his love for
God by his capacity to love man. The
first thing was to serve the one near
est to him. The gaining of moral and
spiritual power by the doing was his
doctrine.
Many Creeds Cover Essentials.
Such a religion has ever seemed too
simple Somehow, the carpentry work
of religion has always been done by
men who have covered the sweet and
wholesome simpliCitieS of faith as Of
fered by the prophets and teachers,
with a vast erection of creeds. SYM
bols and rituals. Jesus taught that
we should love the Lord, our God. with
all our heart and all our mind and our
brother as ourselves. AS interpreted
by his other teachings and by his ac-
tiOns, most of all, he meant by this To
love not man in a vague, abstract
way, but to love and serve the indi-
V1dual next to US, and to begin with
this. AfteTwdTd came the worship of
God But this was too simple Men
wanted to do something harder. So
Jesus. the simple peasant, is made the
awful son of God, and his cruciffxfon
the central event around which a COM
pick theology is created, a Bible is COL
guard these sacred mysteries the
church is set apart among other instf-
tutfOns with peculiar paWers. 1t is all
and invented. Compared
with the inquiry of Micah asking if
all that is necessary is not to do Justly.
love mercy and walk humbly with our
God, or compared with the simple
commands of Jesus, how complicated
and absurd all this seems!
Good Life Prime Requisite.
The Separation of Christianity has
been chiefly due to an inversion of the /
requirements of this text of Micah's /
Men have tried to walk humbly with !
God before they learned to do Justly /
pr to love mercy. Men have vainIy /
sought to please God by wOrshfpfng |
llm. This is beginning at the wrong
md. We can have no assurance that
iOd cares whether we worship him or
lot But if we begin by doing orr
evel best to live helpfully and loving
Y with the men and women about us
We viii grow to love this merciful wav
II living and hours will come when we
will worship the God that in one sense
seems love and in another seems in
mite life. All this is so simple and
natural that only peace and harmony
an result But let men begin at the
ther end and begin to discuss the
Ways and means of pleasing God or
.verting his wrath and straightwav
hey disagree. At once the air is
He'd with creeds, Bibles. symbols. ira
itiOns and every sort of sanctified in
entiOn.
The divisions of Christianity are
atent to every reader of history. d.
isiOn and strife are seen everywhere.
begins with the disagreements of
'eter and Paul in the early church, it
continued with the struggle between
he ATexandrian school and Angus
ne; then comes the division between
he Roman and Greek churches the {
evelopments of Northumberland as {
r onshoot of Christianity. Later fol- o
Tvs the Protestant reformation. and 7
| its wake endless dissension and :
-eedmaking, and finally the growth of +
lie heretical seCts of which we Uni r
srians are representative. Il
Movement Toward Reconciliation. q
1T is only within the last decade I
lat the various sects have exhibited a
ny desire to heal some of these num- | t
Gus breaches The parliament of t
.ligions at Chicago was the first
reat object-lessOn. Since then there '
ave been several attempts at confed- \
alton and in few instances practi- ! t
u amalgamation of different bodies d
hese have been taken to be tremend- t
lsly significant events. But I am I
clined to think their Importance has Z
zen very much Overrated. / doubt If I
e ever get any unity in religion that
worth rusty carpet tack in that D
ay. When number of men can be 4
nVened TO compromise and adjust q
e articles Of faith, for which their
Justify fought. it usually
cans that the issues belong to the
ist Take the recent confederation
churches. 1t was, truly enough an {
'ject-lesson. The representatives met r
eated each other with marked no. II
eness, ignored all controversial Z
estions, elected officers and ad-
urned until 1908. Meanwhile the
)rld wondered that there was not {
en- small-sized war of words. The
ly indication that there was any
hit left in orthodoxy as represented
some thirty churches was the v
acing out of Unitarians. Otherwise Il
was a decOrous funeral of dead n
ms Z
Because these estimabIe gentlemen
IT and passed resolutions does NOT
licate that they took step forward
influenced the world to do So. II | .,
eant rather that they were trying to =,
just themselves to a condition that ! n
d already taken effect. 1t simply
ans that no sensible man will get