The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-01-28

the world IS full or naDDy cohFlC- tion? Why is it that so many Christian people, when they come to some sudden emergency, find that their temple of faith is tumbling down in hopeless ruin? You know and I know. There has been no foundation laid of earnest inquiry, of patient in- vestigation. There has been no gath ering of evidence, no massing of facts They are not prepared to give reason for the faith that is in them. The apostle speaks of such people as those who are "carried about by every wind of doctrine" As we say, in most expressive phrase-They leap to con- clusions. That is it exactly. When one leaps he leaves the firm earth Hosts of people are clinging to conclusions, suspended in the air, no solid upbuild- ing of facts beneath them on which to plant their feet. One of the amazing things of life is this acceptance, on the part of many well-meaning people, of religious beliefs that they have never tested or proved by any process of rational or scientific inquiry
 | On the other hand, are those who re- | iect every new movement of thought or life with open contempt. In the place of believing everything they re- fuse to believe. anything. For argu- ments they have sneers; for facts, wit ticisms. Certain beliefs, certain GUS toms, certain conventionalities- these have approved themselves, and in l these they believe. They are strang- CTS to this principle of the text-"Prove all things" They would be shocked at the suggestion that there may be 1 something. good for them, something for them to learn, in this new move ment of the day whatever it happens to be. Such people are quite as desti- ute of the true scientific spirit as are those who shut their eyes and blindly grasp at everything.
 As illustrating these two attitudes, l have in mind two indlviduals-on a woman. the other man. JAS neither I is a resident of this city feel that may speak freely. The woman is what I would call sampler of relig- ions. You know what mean. There are women. so I have been told, who go from store to store gathering sam- ples They have no expectation of buy ing, but they take keen delight in de- ceiving themselves. These samples they bring home for their husbands s inspection; and the husbands, if they are wise, will approve everything and i commit themselves to nothing.
 | But of this woman, the sampler of religions. She seems to have an insa- i tiable thirst for every sort of strange and vagrant creed. Had she lived in 1 Pauls day she would surely have been 1 of those Athenians who spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell
 or ito hear some new thing" She fits from church to church in the most de- | Ii lightfully eclectic way, No pent-up l Utica of theological traditions con- tracts her powers. She ranges in the
 whole boundless continent of present day ecclesiasticism, In one mood she is enraptured with the ritualistic wor
 ship; in another you would think her the first-born of the Puritans, Yester- day she was a Calvinist, to-day she is an Arminian, and tomorrow she will be a Unitarian. If you happen on her with book in her hand, it may be l Madame Blavatsk's Isis Unveiled;" it is quite as likely to be some text book on the gospel of Fletcherism. She tries all things but never proves anything
 She is the true ignis fatuus of that unexplored swamp of popular supersti- tons On the whole she takes her sampling rather seriously, and while she would congratulate herself, doubt less, over the happy conviction that she was obeying the apostles injunc- tion, to Prove all things" she suc- ceeds only in Illustrating the tragic possibility suggested by the second part of the text, that one may easily fall into the way of holding fast to nothing.
 Illustrating the other extreme is a
 man whom I know, now we'll advanced in years; man, by the way, for whom | I have a very considerable respect. Mo- body ever accused him of running aft CT strange doctrines. His religious be- liefs are as clearly defined as the lines of a geometrical figure, He holds the- ology to be an exact science. That faith, once delivered to the saints, came not in the form of a seed to be 1 planted but in that of crystal to be preserved. The revelation in the New Testament was final, and the Calvinis- tic theology it's final interpretation.
 Nothing Is to be taken from it, noth- incr oI TnI 1,,1y ie,ci
 ence and the higher criticism are twin spirits of evil, the offspring of their father, the devil As to those various
 schools of the new thought, he classes
 them all under the general head of Ihumbuggery. No language is vitrlolic, enough to express this mans really fine scorn for the hydra-headed monster of spiritual science. He never seems to get his eyes open to the glaring in constituencies of his own belief Indeed, these theological inconsistencies have to him all the force of axioms. It is self-evident, to his mind, that such a
 movement as that of Christian Science, for instance, is bald charlatanism. He pours the vials of ridicule upon their
 claims to miracle-w working power, but he would cell you anathema if you
 ventured to affirm that the whale did not actually swallow Jonah. Nothing
 is too hard for him to believe, so that
 you put it back far enough in history.
 His skepticlsm concerning present-day
 wonders Is matched only by his creduli-
 ty concerning all the alleged miracles
 of the past. That Mrs. Eddy and her
 followers have wrought marvelously, l even from curing common cold to