The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-09-24
ELIOT'S RELIGION.
Harvard's Ex-l'resident Out With
His New Theology,

Harvard's Ex-l'resident Out With
His New Theology.
Cambridge, Mass, Sept. 20
President Emeritus Charles w. Eliot
to-day for the first time makes the
authentic publication of his Re
ligion of the Future" in the Harvard
theological Review.
DR.. Eliot in defining 1.-The religion
of the future" says:
The religion of the future will
not be based on authority, either
spiritual or temporal.
The decline of the reliance upon
absolute authority is one of the most
significant phenomena of the mod
ern world. This decline is to be
seen everywhere-in government
education, in the church, in business
and in the family. The present
generation is willing and indeed Of
ten eager to be led, but it is averse
to being driven, and it wants to un-
derstand the grounds and sanctions
of authoritative decisions. AS
rule, the Christian churches-Ro-
man, Greek and Protestant-have
heretofore relied mainly upon the
principle of authority.
Nor will there be in the religion
of the future any identification of
any human being, however majestic
in appearance, with the eternal
deity
"The new religion cannot prom
ise that sort of aid either to nations
or individuals in peril. The religion
of the future will not perpetuate the
Hebrew anthropomorphic represen-
tations Of God conceptions which
were carried in large measure into
institutional Christianity. 1t will
not think of God as an enlarged and
glorified man.
THE central thought of the new
religion will be humane and wor-
thy idea of God.
THE new religion rejects abso-
lutely that man is an alien in the
world or that God is alienated from
the world. 1t rejects also the en-
tire conception that man is a fallen
being and tending downward by
nature.
ITO the wretched sick and down
trodden, religion has in the past held
out hopes of future compensation.
The new religion will not attempt
to reconcile men and women to pre-
vent ills by promises of future bless
edness either for themselves or for
others. Such promises have done
infinite mischief in the world by in
ducing men to be patient under suf-
ferings or deprivations against which
they should have necessarily strug-
gled.
THE religion of the future will
approach the whole subject of evil
from another side, that of resistance
and prevention. The surgeon will
be one of it's ministers.
THE new religion will foster a
love of truth and a passion for seek
ing it.
'The new religion will not wor-
ship ancestors.
Whether the new religion will
prove as efficient to deter men from
doing wrong and to encourage them
to do right as the prevailing religions
have been is question which only
experience can answer. In these
two respects neither the threats nor
the promises of the older religions
have been remarkably successful in
society at large.
THE fear of hell has not proved
effective to deter men from wrong.
doing, and heaven has never yet beer
described in terms very attractive
to the average man or woman. Bott
are indeed unimaginable.
Finally this twentieth century
religion is not only to be in harmony
with the great secular movements
of modern society-democracy in
dividualism, social idealism, the yea
for education, the spirit of research
the modern tendency to welcome
the new, the fresh powers of pre-
ventive medicine and the recent ad
vances in business and industria
ethics-but also in essential agree
ment with the direct, personal teach
ings of Jesus as they are reported
in the gospels. The revelation ht
gave to mankind thus becomes more
wonderful than ever"
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