The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-07-24
|DR. ELIOT'S VIEWS
 ON NEW RELIGION
 RECEIVE NOTICE
Father Brann Says For mer Harvard President s Address Justifes Bishop McFaul's Attack oil American Universities.


 New York, July 24.-President Eliot's great interest among the ministers od this city. Many of them said yester- day that he had put into words the practical belief of thousands of men churches and yet try to live upright lives. With his conclusion that re- ligion would develop along the same lines as are manifested now there was not the same agreement.
 It was pointed out that President Eliot overlooked the force of the spirit ual revivalS which have periodically swept over mankind. On the other hand, the Jewish leaders here asserted yesterday that Dr. Eliot had expressed absolutely the spirit of Judaism
 FATHER BRANN OBSERVES.
 The view of the Roman Catholic Church was expressed last night by the Rev. Dr. Brann, rector of St. Agnes church, Al East Forty-third street He could see in President Justification of the attack made on American universities a few weeks ago by Bishop McFaul of Trenton. He asked whether a. religion without an authoritative basis would tend. :.
 'rH the opinions of President Eliot" !" he said, "are correctly reported, they justify to the letter Bishop McF'auPs attack on American universities. It is no longer individual professors who speak, but the ex-president of one of the greatest universities. He ought to know.
 '"The sum of his new religion is to love God and serve your fellow-men.' But if religion has no dogmatic basis Christianity are essentially identical and we may as we'll be Turks as Christians. Every religion has funda- mental dogmas and on them the moral
 II 1, -1okc1 rSYa it's foundations. The credo is as nec- essary as the code, for the credo gives sanction to the code.
 "Dr. Eliot says that the new relig- either spiritual or temporal Hence we shall have universal anarchy, and the teaching of St. Paul, which Dr. Eliot must have read, that all author ity is from God and he who resists resists the ordinance of God has no meaning A sad condi- ton of human affairs must necessar- fly follow.
 "I have been particularly astounded in the lack of information implied in pr. Eliot's statement that incense is the only sacrifice among the Christian sects. There is not one of them that teaches such a doctrine. Incense is only used as a symbol of prayer. The am a member, believes that sacrifice is the very essence of religion. The mass, as we call it, which is the es- sence of the Catholic religion, is the continuation in an unb1oOdy form of the sacrifice of Calvary, where the God Man was crucified the divine Messiah of the Hebrew creed. The essence of the Hebrew creed was sacrifice !. Dr. Brann went on to declare that President E1iot's utterance showed lack of logic and religious training, and the of the great universities. He argued that if the universities taught that Christ was not divine they would reduce Christianity to a mere and Christian men should not send their sons to them-
 'Let the universities" he concluded, ''send out well-trained Iogicians, hon. est and learned scientists, not fellows trying to fly with one wing, and the Christian young men may be safe in them"
 The Rev. Dr. George w. Knox, pro lessor of the Philosophy of Religion in the Union Theological Seminary, dis President Eliot's address, said yesterday:
 'It seems to me to be a very able summary of what the intelligent men are in or out of the churches. Per naps they have never formulated their thoughts and would not, if you asked them, admit that such is really their belief. But yet it is such ideas as these which really influence their ives.
 But when President Eliot goes on to prophecy that the Church of the fu- -ure will hold these views he treads on much more dangerous ground. He forgets, it seems to me. the history of religion. He diSmiSSeS in a few words some very important forces at work ,oday the outcome of which we cannot yet foresee.
 ''He does not, in my opinion, take sufficient account of the non-rational beliefs of the day. A very large num- per of men are interested in such mat CTS as Spiritualism, Christian Science, he Emmanuel movement and all those matters which deal with the sub-con- ;ciousness. I find in talking to men hat there are far more people inter .sted in them than are not"