Blue-grass blade., 1907-06-09
HOW THE DOOM
OF DOGMA CAME
The Intellectual Food Offered by Theology Only Gre.
ated Doubt and Led to Complete
Rejection of Faith

reasoning without actually performing
it if you want to hold the crowd.
What the people want in these days
is pictorial eloquence and warm act
ion in delivery. That captures them
every time"
DO you mean to tell me the church
has come to this? Do our audiences
consist of nothing more than assem-
blages of emotional animal whom we
must tickle, as the visitors of the Zoo
tickle the elephants with peanuts and
candy?
The practical and commercially in
clined member of this social trinity
blurted out in bblunder and more
monitory fashion: Frank, listen to
me, do you or don't you want to
remain in the Methodist ministry"
Naturally, l intend to remain"
We'll, then, take the advice of
friend; burn up the manuscript and
never let the Elder or Bishop know
that you entertained such notions.
If you do, it's all day with you"
Disgust mingled with condemnation
In my heart and / responded by say
ing that If 1t meant the qualification
of my conscience and the price |
must pay for my ministerial berth I
was beginning to think would prefer
to sacrifice the latter to the former.
so the years were wearing away and
and more the conviction was coming
To me that all the youthful sacrifices,
social, domestic, commercial, profess
sional, | had made for the sake of
becoming a minister in an orthodox
church were worse than the spend
thrift follies of a cad. What had
chiefly disappointed me was that the
arguments had advanced were mani
testify unanswerable by these two lead
ing church lights, and yet despite the
| truthfulness of my contention they
preferred to swallow the vocation of
intellectual candor and maintain an
air of faith and retaining a respect
able social position.
To one who has experienced the
painful suffering such disclosures
tfett there is something pitiably
naive in the critical remarks of some
of the glib reviewers of The Doom of
Dogma who pirate about the apparent
dishonesty of a man continuing to
preach in a church whose doctrinal
standards he has been forced con-
scientiously to reject. 1t is so much
easier for these respectable casuists
to discover the honesty of man who
still remains in the church and re-
fuses to let the world know his doubts
though they be dark as nimbus clouds,
than the honesty of the man who
doubts and yet fingers to confound the
insincerity of those whose miseduca-
ton has dulled the edge of their con-
science and perverted Their percep-
tions of the truth.
Nevertheless, in the course of time
the spiritual burden one must carry
who struggles to rise above the IAN
noyances of conscience" that he may
adjust himself to the requirements of
traditional responsibility, becomes al
together too onerous to be endured.
Just as | was approaching the pin
nacle of my youthful ambitions and
my name was beginning to be heard
in the annals of the church, it began
to be apparent to me that not many
months would transpire before the
public confession would become neces-
sary and the abandonment of the
ministry a conscientious obligation.
The last crashing experience l en-
countered at the disappointing period
was the manifest relief the authori-
ties of the church evince when one
has been to them. thorn in the
flesh" concludes to retire from the
rarl-s.
1t was at one of the largest confer
ences in the Northwest, in the dust
of the twilight, Immediately preceding
adjournment sine die, that then to me
a depressing confession was made.
1t was the sensation that shocked the
quiet hours of the concluding session.
II had been well known to all the