The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1913-03-21

/ llPASIokNEUOStLLJt must be SAID, now
ever, that the Pas
tor used various Scriptures. any one of
which might have served for a text.
Once the colleges OF the world repre-
scented. not merely secular education.
/ but the faith. the hope, the religious
sentiment of their foundn"S WHO were
! generally religious people, y great
( change has taken place. Today col
! leges are ashamed to acknowledge any
| religious affiliations: and although they
! stand for moral principles of a high
! order and represent 4 form of godli
ness. nevertheless they are hot-beds OF
! NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. in the Bible as the
| Divinely-inspired Revelation.
| This condition OF things, the Pastor
! declared. is deplOrable. In his opin
, ion the great institutions OF learning
! throughout the world, so well equip
ped for the incubation of faith in God,
| are. as L matter Of fact, doing more to
! overthrow faith than are all other in
| tiuences combined. He declared it not
strange under such circumstances that
the cry of graft is going up in every
| civilized land
| The increase OF knowledge. Of late
! spread abroad among the masses OF
mankind. the Pastor believed to be
accountable for the increase of vice.
! which is so great that il it were not
! for our inventions aud police arrange
ments, this would be the most inse-
! cure time In the worlds history. He
/ explained that the undermining of faith
in the Bible as the Word OF God. and
! the incubation of the Evolution theory.
tend to destroy faith in Il personal God.
! and in rewards and punishments from
! Him upon the just and upon the un
just. One of the most peculiar things
to him was that the very wealthy men
Of the world have richly endowed its
| leading colleges. thereby destroying
! faith and Internationally leading man
! kind to social revolution. and more. to
/ the precipice OF anarchy.
Sympathy For Higher Critics.
! Nothing in the Pastors words indi-
Gated condemnation; but on the con-
trary. he manifested Il deep sympathy
for those who are entangled in the
snare of Occultism and Evolution. He
had once been entanged himself. he
said. He had gotten free in time.
thank God! Had his experience gone
SO far as 10 lead him to doubt the ex-
! istence Of the Supreme Creator he be-
lieved that he would have been as IT.
I
many of the noble specimens Of our
race who are in college chairs.
/ The Pastor knew well that the pri-
mary difficulty Is that they cannot be-
| lieve the Bible to be the inspired Rec
ord. So also he had once rejected it,
because he thought it to be in harmony
with the creeds Of the Dark Ages.
whose absurdities are more and more
apparent TO all intelligent. thinking
| people. Now, the Pastor pronounced
! himself 4 most firm believer in the in
| SEPARATION of the Bible. He had rea-
! son for the faith within him. which he
also explained. He said:
| One of the surprising things my Ri
BILE study revealed was that the Bible
supports the teachings of none of the
sects, none OF the creedS: and that
none of the creeds and sectS care for
or use all of the Bible Each has
made selections of doctrines from the
Word Of God. Each uses these in its
own defense. and each finds in the BIZ
BILE other teachings supported by other
texts. which do not fit in with its own
creed. Evidently none of the differ
ent sects manufactured the Bible. Had
the Calvinists made it up. they would
! have left out all the texts which teach
Divine Free Grace. Had the Armin-
ians-the Methodists, etc.-made up
the Bible. they would have put in more
Free Grace texts and would have left
out those which mention Election.
Had the Catholics made the Bible,
they would have added something to
teach the immaculate conception OF the
should now he prayed to and Worship
ed They would have put in some
thing about indulgencies, high mass.
Tow mass. holy water. holy candles,
etc. They would have had it mention
st. Peter as the first Pope. They would
have had it support their theory Of
Apostolic SuccessiOn-that all the biSh-
ops are Holy apostles. as well as the
original Twelve They would have
put in. as would most Professionals.
| number Of texts telling about the doc
trine of the Trinity.
Roth Catholics and Professionals would
have left cut the texts which tell that