Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-05-16

can evolutionists are consigned to hell
| Mr.. Sunday names one oy one, those
! whom he supposes to be evolutionists, anc
| with dramatic gesture filings each Of
| them into perdition. There goes old Oar
| win! He's in hell surev And the enrap
! tured audience yells its applause, as one
| evolutionist after another is dropped into
| the fiery pit staid Methodist preacher
! who watched this performance. said aft.
! erwards I would never have believed, II
I had not seen 1t, that an audience OF
| civilized Americans could show such
spirit as that The scene at Spanish
bull fight is really, when you think of It,
less horrible" .- ,,, q, ..,@
1t is we'll known to church workers
that DR.. GLADDEN. is q consistent be-
lever in the theory Of evolution as il
applies to all life, including the spirit
ual life, and both his writings and his
preaching make this clear. This suf-
1ciently explains his objection to the
doctrine which Mr.. Sunday breaches.
Another thing to which DR.. GLADDEN.
objects Is what he calls the CONNER
cial feature Of the Sunday campaigns.
Concerning this phase the article
above quoted goes on to say:
1.-THE commercial feature Of this EVAN
gelism' Is also q serious matter. It Is
far truer today than when Paul said 1t,
that the love OF money 10 the root Of ~
kinds Of evil; and the warning Of Jesus,
II counsel which was never before 20 per-
tinent. It Is the one vice Of which .
Christian teacher should never be sus-
pected. Mr.. Sunday sets all that counsel
at defiance. It 10 notorious that he IL
making himself rich In this business Of
evangelism. At conference Of evangel-
lists held in Chicago last summer one Of
the younger men told Of counsel which
had been given him a. to methods OF
work BY one OF the leading evangelism
Among other things this leading evan
sehst had sai6 to him, Two got all those
other fellows skinned . mile In the free
will Offering The name Of this leading
evangelist was not given. DR.. Chapman
thinks it should have been, and so do I.
Only enc man could have truthfulfy said
It.
Mr.. Sunday takes out Of every con-
siderable city which he visits for an
eight weeks service. money enough to
pay the average Congregational minis
ter's salary for twenty years; and his
years accumulation would support one
hundred foreign mIssionaries. He IL not
retieent about this he breaches about 1t
frequently and dehantly; he insists that it
Is nobody's business how much money he
makes or what he does with it"
Returning to the Sunday doctrines,
DR.. GLADDEN. sums them up in the fol-
lowing paragraph:
''As for the doctrine taught, It IL the
most hopeless form Of medieval substi-
tutionism. Salvation IL Q matter Of con-
tract: hell is literal pit Of fire and br1m
stone: tho bible is verbally infalnble; ev-
cry man who teaches the higher criticism
is 4 liar. Any minister who disputes any
of Mr.. Sundays dognas Is leading his
people to hell: Edward Everett Hale Is
undoubtedly in hell. Adventtsm of the
most Grass variety is unhinchinsly pro-
claimed the world Is going to hell rs fast
as it can; all talk about improving social
conditions is rot"
Since DR.. GLADDEN. is admittedly one
Of the leaders in the Higher Criticism
and was for many years personal
friend Of Edward Everett Hale his
sense Of resentment toward what he
understood Mr.. Sundays attitude to be
is not hard to understand.
Concerning the GLADDEN. article
which it printed, the Congregationalist
said editorially, in the same issue:
'Dr. Gladden's powerful arraignment Of
Mr.. Sunday will undoubtedly convince
many that he is man whose methods
and spirit disqualify him for effective
Christian service. Others will continue to
feel perplexed and almost bafned in their
endeavor fairly to appraise him and his
work. We have never thought Of him,
for an instant, as one to whom we could
point as model for young people. He
Is far from being the best illustration Of
the graces and virtues Christianity is
supposed to engender when given fair
chance in the human heart What we
have said and what we are disposed to
reiterate is, that judging by what he has
done throughout the western country, he
has apparently been the means Of bring
ing into the Christian life multitudes who,
humanely speaking, would never have
been converted. AS one of his own con.
verts wrote us the other day, The more
I hear and see of Mr.. Sunday the more
wonder at the instruments God uses for
accomplishing his purposes Ultimately
we are all brought to one or the other
conclusion. Either Mr.. Sunday Is q harm
blights every spot it touches, or else. de-
spite his glazing faults. he Is a man whom
God, for reasons which we cannot ex-
plain, sees At to use for bringing many
persons into obedience to Jesus Christ.
God does not lodge all his gifts in one
man. Some men in the pastorate repel
those whom their successors win. Mr..
Bruce Barton, in the article which started
this discussion. rightly said that the ques-
ton of Mr.. Sunday is wrapped In the
larger question Of the wisdom Of all kinds
of special evangelistic effort. Many a
good movement in the kingdom is fol-
lowed by reaction and disappointment.
Varied indeed are the modern manifesto
tons Of religion and some of its outstand-
ing opponents sometimes not only offend
our tastes, but cross our most cherished
conviction. We have sought in our re-
cent exploitation of Mr.. Sunday chiefly
to fulfill our function as a religious news
paper confronted with remarkable
phenomenon in the field of current re-
ligious life rather than to attack or de-
fend him. Either of these courses might
be easier than to try and weigh the evil
dence concerning him and his methods
and to reach a conclusion just to him
and all the issue involved.
These publications, coming almost
without warning, produced the most
profound sensation in the newspapers
in the cities where Mr.. Sunday had
conducted campaign and where Con-