The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-11-16
WHAT RELIGION MEANS

what Religion Means and What II
Seeks TO Do" was the subject of a SER
mon by Rev. William Tburston Brown in
Unitarian hall yesterday He said in
part:
Suppose there were an organization of
men and women today mOtived by relig-
ion or expressing the spirit OF religion
what would it be doing? What would il
regard as its supreme task? And If there
are organizations today protesting to be
religious. how are they embodying its
spirit?
Let us take that phase of church ac-
tivity called charity and see whether
il expresses the ideal of religion, whether
II IS II any way an exhibition of the
spirit of religion. or whether II does not
owe ITS existence to facts which have
nothing 10 do with religion. Religion
we have seen to be the sense OF kinship
with God, with the eternal goodness. the
power that makes for righteousness. We
have seen, too, that this sense of kin
snip with God cannot be independent of
the sense of kinship with our fellow men,
must indeed be realized through moral
-kinship with them-that the brotherhood
or man IS indispensable to the father
mood OF God; we cannot have the latter
without the former.
This present week, under the auspices
OF professedly religious organization in
TINS city. Is 10 be given what is called
a char1ty ball. The object of this char
lty ball is 20 raise a fund of money for
what IS called charity. 1t is foreseen
by considerable suffering for the neces-
sites of life on the part of portion of
our people. There will be many cases
Tor charity relief. So it is proposed to
raise fund for the benefit of these
cases Of need. 1t is felt. and prob
ably correctly, that II will be possible
10 raise any considerable amount of
money from those who have it only by
offering the attraction of an unique so
ctal event. a large number of people
who haven't the smallest personal inter
est in this matter of charity ana who
never give a moments thought 20 the
cause of poverty, viii pay something for
the privilege of dancing, and especially
Of dancing IN the company of such dis
tinguished people as are expected to be
present at so important a social event as
the charity ball The proceeds are to be
given for the relief of the poor"
Charity Versus Religion.
What will this giving of charity mean?
Has il any remote relation to religion
Granted that it will mean some relief of
suffering among certain people. But
that Is not a religious question at all.
That has nothing TO do with human broth
erhood, the necessary corollary of divine
fatherhood. We do not bring the broth
erhoOd of man one step nearer by giving
charity Indeed, We put IL little far
Their away. And we certainly do not sug-
geSt a meaning for the fatherhood of
God which can possibly arouse one heart
throb of worship or reverence in any
thinking mind. For charity, instead of
establishing a bond of brotherhood or of
kinship between the one who gives and
the one who takes, builds higher than
before the social wall that separates the
two. Charity is a denial of the brother
hood of man. There isn't any sense of
brotherhood between the giver of money
for charity and the men and women who
receive such money, and there isn't an
intelligent man among us who does not
know that to be the case
Besides. charity has something sJiIl
more false and evil in it. II assumes as
true what is not true at all, what is
lie 1t is based on a falsehoOd. 1t as
sumes that the immediate and pressing
need of men and women in want is
money. But that isn't the immediate and
pressing need of any one, as no one should
know so well as any one who knows the
of religious principles. 1t isn't
money that people will need this winter.
either in Salt Lake or in Chicago or New
York or London or anywhere else And
no man sensible of ethical or moral con-
will think so. What is needed