Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1912-09-03
The Spasm of the Unscientific
By Bishop w A. Gambler

ment, and the authority of the Scrip
lures. Did he move to the accom-
plishment of his great and benign work
under the impulsion of false beliefs?
John Knox wrought great things in
Scotland, and he too believed these
same orthodox things. Was the faith
of Knox a superstition, and is the re-
ligious history of Scotland the out
growth of falsehood or folly?
John Wesley nightly affected the
English-speaking world in the eigh-
teenth century, and his influence
still permeates the civilization of the
Anglo-Saxon nations and through
them the whole world. These nations
are not at the front among the pow
Crs of christendom. Was their apos-
ae in the eighteenth century mis-
guided fanatic and an 'unprogressive"
blunderer? Yet he too believed that
Jesus was divine, that Christ made
atonement for sin, and that the Bible
is the sufficient rule OF faith and
practice
If these mighty men of faith and a
host Of others in the past of like
mind were all in error concerning the
essential truths of christianity, then
the pursuit of truth ceases to be
matter of Interest or Importance; for
with erroneous tenets, as the body
of truth which they taught, they
worked the most benign reformations
and REVEALS; and in that case we
see that error is as good, or perhaps
better than truth as an instrument
for doing good. What is the use
then of making such an ado about
scientific truth" or any other sort
of truth, If false teachings are so
fruitful of good lives?
Moreover. if the great christian
leaders of the ages have all been mis-
taken, how can any man be sure
that he also is not mistaken? If the
greatest intellects. exerting them
selves under the impulsion of the pur-
est motives, have been utterly mis-
taken about the fundamental truths of
christianity, so that they have been
but blind leaders of the blind and
with their misguided followers have
all fallen together into the ditch of
error, the men of our day should be
warned against over-confidence in the
opinions which they so boastfully put
forth Perhaps the next generation
will pour as much contempt upon
their boosted theories as they now
express for the creeds of the gener-
ations of saints and heroes who have
made the past glorious and the pres
ent possible.
Nothing can be more discouraging
Gf it be not disrupting) than the spirit
which seeks to break with the past
and start the world OF life and faith
over again, as If nothing had been
done worthily and we'll until we ar
rived in the world. 1t is egotism
run mad,-conceit in commissions.
The Advance" uses a felicitous
phrase when 1t calls all this folly
this spasm of the unscientiflc" The
editor is quite correct when he init
mates that it will soon pass. Fits
can not last always. Already this
htiied fakirism is being discredited
even in quarters where ii once re-
ceived favourable consideration.
Some have begun to have fits for
revenue, and the bystanders are be-
ginning to ! see through the trick.
When a man has a fit he owes it to
the spectators to lose self-conscious-
ness, and look like he IS really over
whelmed with the shock. But our
theologians, WHO have been winning
notoriety by throwing fits of ra-
tionalism, are now showing too many
signs of plan and purpose in their
madness; they want somebody to
hold them" when they fall, and they
wall their eye-balls too "scientifcal-
ly' by half.
People of real culture and serious
mind are growing exceedingly weary
of the protracted "spasm of the I'M
scientific"