The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-02-17

I'm all religions the god is betrayed,
i and in all men; bnt least of all
in Christ. Let us hold against Him,
if we will. the errors which He
shared with His time. and His i'm
patient denunciation of his enemies:
they are as nothing; above them
rises the central and sublimest figure
of history, sounding to every age,
and in every heart that once has
known Him, the call to human
brotherhood.
Here and there some have heard
the call and understood.-St Fran
els, Leonardo, Spinoza. Whitman;
but some day there will be more.
When all ephemeral theology has
been. washed away from His memory;
when His simple moral philosophy,
phraSed in q dozen words and sane
titled by His life, has come to con-
stitute the only test of those who
bear His name; then the world will
honor Him as never before; and in
every nation His lovers and follow
ers. no longer divided into warning
sectS by primeval creeds. will labor
together to realize His dream.
From this height the story falls,
and imperfect men take up the
thread where it dropped from the
Masters hands. We have the pic
ture of Peter and James carrying
the glad tidings of the Kingdom to
the cities of Judea; of John the
Apostle preaching a thousand SER
mons with always the same text
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thySelf''-and then losing himself,
on PatmoS, in q maze OF Senile
visions: of Paul burning with am
bition and energy, heaping his COM
plicated theology upon the helpless
Christ, and preaching the resur-
rected God at Antioch and Ephesus,
at Athens and Corinth, and begin
ming in his old age that brave at
tack upon the Eternal City which
was to result in the conversion of
Rome to Christianity, and Of Chris
tianity to Rome.
Through his influence. circum-
cision was no longer required OF
proselytes to the new faith; Chris
tianity ceased to be "a Jewish
heresy," and became a religion for
all the world.
TINE poor and down-trodden OF
i the land accepted it gladly, for
| it brought them the hope of an
earthly triumph with the early re-
turn of Christ, and of an everlasting
triumph in Heaven as reward for
their faith and charity here.
The Greeks had held that slaves
had no souls, and they had closed
the temples to them; but this
marvellous religion offered to all mer
Spiritual-and in near prospect a
equality, and attributed to
the lowliest of the low a soul as
precious and immortal as that OF
the lordliest emperor.
Some were converted less by hope
than by fear; the stern Christians
announced, with the fervor of mer
who are elf-deceived, that those
who refused the gospel would burn
forever in He'll, and be gnawed by
insatiabled worms; to men Of q
certain wisdom, until the persecu-
tions came, it seemed safer to be-
lieve.
1t was the doctrine of another
life, in which the cruel rich would
be punished, and the faithful poor
would be rewarded with every hap
pinesS, that won an enslaved and
weary world to the name Of Christ.
Rome fell before the successors OF
the Apostles, because it had never
possessed a real religion, a system
of cosmic belief sanctioning morals
and inspiring hope. Until Caesar
came, the people of Rome and
Italy had been content with an
Intellectual mythology that aped the
pantheon of the Greeks, personify-
ing every function and every force
and paralleling the Hellenic deitieS
god for god.
Zeus was Irege Jupiter, Hera was
Juno, Athene was Minerva. Hermes
was Mercury, Hephaistos was Vul-
can, Demeter was Ceres, Aphrodite
was Venus, and Ares was Mars
There was no moral aspect or value
in this religion except as it shared
in the prevailing worship of the an
cestral dead
If a man periodically paid the
tribute Of prayer and ritual to these
gods, and to the household genii
who lowered over him in daily
guardianship, it was enough. No
eternal heaven of bliss would re-
ward him hereafter for injustice
here.
All men would descend, after