The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1914-01-26

the Kingdom of Heaven before sucl
as theset
I ! am not undertaking creedai state
mcnts They are useful and even nee
essary az erutehes for faith TO wall
hy--as guideposts by the way. But
thank God. faith itself Is Independent
of them; the eternal yerities of re
iigion. communion with God and hi
7 Christ the sense of sin forgiven ant
, new life received In redemptive ex
pcrienee--those things do not depend
on any theological or historical dehni
ton whatsoever. They are immediate
( convictions of the soul. The creed'
grow out OF them---and with every new
/ spiritual conviction there comes a new
+ ereed-not they out or the creeds I'll
I choose God" says Alison Parr IL
the book. 81 cannot take consensus
OF opinion about Him--he must be my
God" Yes, verify, and when he has
become my God, then ] know Him 1t
The only true religious sense~--a sense
.4-1 creed can either give az tal.f
away.
1 To believe In God intellectually IL
( one thinE---the devils do that ana treu-
hle--to believe IN him spiritually per
sonally, religtously. Is quite another
E
as light in darkness as the prick
IF DISQUALIFICATION with an imperfect
world and "a still more imperfect self
rs the Great Companion by the way
az the clear shining after rain; rs
rivers of water in a dry place, as the
shadow OF a great rock In a weary
iAnd--snd only those can do that who
have met him face to face in the touch
of "a redemptlVe experience l believe
in God not because of the so-called
proofs Of the theoiogians but because
IN proportion 70 nay purity Of heart
have seen him, believe In Christ
not because OF any historical argument
bun because ! have seen him walk the
streets Of Richmond and heard his
voice saying to the warning elcUents
OF my soul: Peace be still T. be-
Iieva in his divinity not because the
helliEerent theoloeians AT Ephesus or
Chalcedon decided IL by majority vote
but because he has done for me that
which only God himself can do--save
me from myself-save me from my
sin.
Creed. Not Infaltibie.
And as for creeds: They are not In
fallihle; they must change. John Had
der. you viii remember, in the days
before his intellectual reblrth. lkened
faith TO an egg. Insisting that II you
broke the shell the egg would be de-
stroyed. But what II the shell were
never broken? Would not the egg
equally perish? ls IL not the very
condition of the fun birth of the life
within the egg--of the very thing FOR
which the egg exists-that the shell
shall be broken? Must not the chicken
peck that shell and so come forth 10
perpetuate it's kind by an ever recur-
ring process OF making and breaking
shells. If the egg is not to be cast into
the scrap heap as worse than useless
thing? n
But John ladders fight was not only
+ for freedom of thought. but for free
dom Of action also for delivegance
from the incubus OF social and eco
uomic conditions which were Gripping
the usefulness. of the church of which
he was a minister
At first you remember he had blind
+ ~ accepted things as they were and
, while sensible that st. Johns was only
scratching on the surface with its In
/ stitutional machinery and welfare
work. yet had been blind to the real
causes OF it's failure. But when al
that memorable dinner party In the
, Fergusson's house his eyes were open
ed TO the fact that Eldon Parr--his
j richest member, to whom all the do
cese looked up to as It's leader~-was Il
/ financial brigand, If not sneakthief. and
that other prominent members OF his
vestry were aiders and ahettors of his
/ villainy. when he heard from poor
Garvin the inside history of the Con
I soiiaated fractions. with its tale ot
tears and blood; when he discovered
that Nelson Langmaid, the corporation
I lawyer who had been the emissary
sent to his far-off parish to call him
to st. Johns as "a safe and sane
man, was the legal Jackai of a TWEEN
tieth century Ali Baba and his Forty
Thieves: when he learned at first hand
from poor Kate Marcy that his emil
nently respectable vestryman Fergus
son was underpaying the women clerks
in his department store. and so max
ing them an easy prey TO those har-
pies who made use of a poor girls
desire for fun and tinery to lure he,
to a doom worse than death; when he
discovered that leading members OF al
the churches actually owned anG
charged exhorbitant rents for the
houses in which women like Kate Mar
cy lived, knowing them to be such
N-then the scales dropped from his
eyes and he understood why the work
of st. Johns was a failure and never
could be anything but a failure sc
long as men like Eldon Parr and his
associates were financing it's ventures
No ExaRgeration Here.
But. you say, perhaps that is exag-
gerated-~-things in real life are not
as bad as that There may be here
and there an Eidon Parr. Constable
and Nelson Langmaid, but they are
so exceptional as not to constitute a
condition that calls Tor serious thought
Make no mistake This book Is not eA
aggerated. Eldon PARIS are the com
mon property of every denomination,
We have them in our own. Nelson
Langmaids are in the employ of many
large corporations~-paid agents to tell
their employers how far they can Vio-
late the laws. both OF God and man,
and keep out OF Jail. Every vice com
mission OF recent years has tns sarle
story 10 tell OF houses OF iU-fame
owned by members of the church and
OF department store girls driven to the
streets because the pittance paid them
was not enough to live on as a young s,
healthy girl has q right to expect to
live. Consolidated fractions is only an
other name for Amalgamated Copper
and many other wrecking parties of
high finance. The alliance between
the vestrymen of rs, Johns and the
forces of corrupt politics is no dream.
but a drama of shame that is being
enacted in nearly every large city in
the United States today. tom Beat
tvs good enough for me"-is being