Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-01-08

of billy" Sunday, yet this move is
mn ilne strategy on the part of .Unitarians;
steadily-seventy thousand persons. as
many as there are in the entire mem
or tried to hear Billy Sunday on his
first day in Philadelphia-and this ef-
fort will help revitalize their members.
1t will arouse the clan feeling of all
who deny the divinity of Jesus. The
three Unitarian churches in Philadel-
phia should be greatly benefited by this
conflict into which they have SO blithe-
There is another side to this The
Trinttarians also are being aroused.
Orthodoxy, challenged to combat, is
does believe, and whether these be
liefs are worth fighting for. Already
there have been crop o. sermons
press is yet to be heard from. BILLY"
Sunday himself may be counted upon
to furnish considerable ammunition for
been bs sse sfarfed 9f the n fire has
likely to sweep the land. The present
world crisis has deeply stirred th4
hearts Of humanity: and people are
reader than at any time for fifty years
past to consider religion.
What Dr. Eliot Said
Certainly numbers of adherents are
no true measure of success in a theo-
logical controversy, but it was interest
ing to learn from the office of the
w lIhelspoou buliulng that Or. Ellot's
audience (on an unpropitious night,
however, numbered about 700 persons.
Billy Sunday addressed more than 50,-
600 on the first day of his campaign.
The address of DR.. Eliot followed the
usual line of his well-known views,
with the addition of an araignment of
the Christian. Churches as having re-
vealed their failure by the fact of the
present war. Touching upon the mat
ter of the character and mission of
Jesus, the care of the present contro-
FINALLY the Christian Church in
vented vicarious atonement for the
sins of the world by the Son of God.
fncarnated for brief residence on this
solar system, among the countless
myriads. of celestial bodies.
The Lamb of God was sacrificed for
the sins of the world. and so some
small proportion of the human race
was rescued from eternal torment TO
Justify by their eternal happiness. so
far as they might. the original crea-
ton of a feeble race, tricked into sin.
The creeds of the great churches diff
fer as to the proportion of the race
really rescued by the vicarious atone
ment through Jesus Christ, but they all
agree in making this vicarious atone
ment necessary to the salvation of any
proportion of the hu~'an race =
Any human father would be outraged
by the suggestion that he had ever
dealt, or could so deal, with his chill
dren; and yet. every member of the
great Chrlstlan churches is supposed to
believe that God deals in that way
with the human race, and that the vic
tim offered up for the redemption of a
portion of the human race was, in a
peculiar sense, the Son of God"
AS for BILLY" Sundays answer to all
TINS. apart from hair-raising string
of adjectives. he points to what he
claims to be the results of the ortho-
dox dogma concerning a Saviour
whole communities made dry" prisons
emptied. business. bettered, divided
families reunited, homes made happy,
cities sweetened and morally bettered.
and quarter of a million definite con-
verts.
What the issue of this spectacular
and spectacular and significant contro-
versy is to be. only time can tell The
signs of its progress.