The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1920-04-16

MOONEY MAKES STRONG APPEAL FOR THE CHURCH.
Under the caption. "Credo" Mr.. Mooney, the great and tai
ented Editor of The Commercial Appeal in the issue of that
paper of April Is, makes a plea for the Church that should
serve to call a halt on those who would make that heaven in
spired and directed organization accommodate itself to the
world. There are lots and lots of that class today. Those who
and inharmonious links between God, man and futurity are
shown to be imagined explorers in a realm where reason can
ready done so, what Mr.. Mooney says:
Secular papers have neither the right nor the desire to die
itations it has set for itself. They deal with society as a whole
and are interested in all that affects it, either for good or evil,
to the church that it shall observe it's own regulations as they
have been made in an authoritative way.
second only to the government in the extent to which it fills the
public eye; and the secular press is concerned for its purity and
that its influence for good in society shall be unimpaired, either
from without or within its folds.
America has from the beginning of it's history claimed to be
a Christian nation, the supreme court on more than one occasion
having formally decided that Christianity is a part of the COM
mon law of the land. But to one whose perceptions are devel-
oped to a moderate degree even it apparent that if it was ever
entitled to such a designation, it is no longer so. The fact is
too patent to need any argument.
When William Howard Taft was president, a distinguished
American traveller visited the potentates of some of the tribes
of North Africa, one of whom said to him as reported in one of
our leading publications: ct puzzles me to understand why
you Americans spend such vast sums sending missionaries to
Christianize my people and others whom you regard as pagans,
when your own great chief does not believe in your God" The
writer significantly comments: Il was speeches."
Christianity has unquestionably been the greatest civiizing
influence the world has known, and for that reason, if no other,
it deserves to be respected by all men. The church is the moth
er of education; and she has forged the weapons which her own
children have finally plunged into her heart.
Within recent years one of the leading magazine writer's con-
Quoted a personal investigation of the instruction given in a
number of the leading colleges and universities of the country,
and he published the result under the striking title, Blasting
the Rock of Ages alleging that without exception those inSti-
tutons were assailing the Bible and much that has hitherto
been regarded as fundamental in Christian doctrine. So far as
known, not a single note of denial has been heard.
The creeds of the various Christian denominations are one
of the chief points of attack. Those great confessions, wrought
out iii the experience of the fathers, presumably under divine
guidance, are the most friendless things in the world. Yet
many of those who openly attack and fout them took vows more
solemn than any secular oath to defend and maintain them.
Hand one of the perjured gentlemen a copy OF a creed and re-
quest him to point out its errors and he becomes covered with
confusion.
One of the modern developments is to decry the church and
exalt the kingdom of God, the latter to be imposed upon the
world en- maSSe, despite the fact that Jesus Christ, whose ex-
ample and precepts it is claimed are to be followed, Himself
said of the kingdom Of God that lit is like leaven, which a wo-
man took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole
mas leavened." Even an ignorant person knows that heaven
transforms one particle of meal at a time; and the Savior in His
own ministry gathered His followers one by one.
The claim is pressed in this new day that Christianity deals
with life, the life that men are now living on the earth. To be
sure it does. But one with only half an eye can see that if it
apprehend by faith alone, that its votaries would desert its al
tars and it's temples would speedily fall into decay. Hamlet
says it is "the dread of something after death" that paralyzes
the human heart and fills the minds of men with deepest con-
Germ. r." i
What an awful responsibility, therefore, do those religious
leaders assume who loosen and undermine the foundations OF
the Christian faith! We would not fetter the mind of any man,
but proof of the most convincing character, and not speculation
should be adduced before Christianity is sent to the scrap-neapi
along with the religions of the past. !
The great Bishop Hoss, whose erudition was as genuine as
his spirit was dauntess, after listening to a lOgomchy OF specu-I
lation in an ecclesiastical assembly closed a great defense OF
Christian doctrine with the following dramatic quotation:
"They have taken away my Lord, and l know not where they
have laid Him"
%I> OLD DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION.