Year: 1877

is the form that Jesus would approve
were lie come 70 earth to-day, that it is
the faith for which Paul to-day, would
fight good fight, that it is the faith
once delivered to the saints" only it is
nearly two thousand years old, and nat
urally has grown some in that time.
Those who desire so to do, may comfort
themselves by thinking that it was all
in the original Gospel of Jesus, that no
word has since been spoken, that was
not in the word he spake to those men
of GaiIee and Jerusalem 80 long ago. |
say they may, for in sense the thing is
true-thc sense in which the oak Is in
the acorn. the sense in which all morality
is in the Golden rule and all worship in
the Lords prayer. But just as the oak
with its rough bark, tough tissue and
mighty size, has taken up in its growth
vast amount of matter that was not
actually in the acorn, so Christianity
taking something for every age, stands
with its roots deep IN humanity's soil to-
day, and reaches its branches higher to-
ward heaven, and bears better fruit and
more OF it than in any preceding age.


And | for one, do not believe that
|


this tree is going to be forced to shed its
bark in order to live. There are those
who tell us that the religion Of the civil
lized, and the scientific, in the future is
not to he called Christianity. A name is
no very great matter possibly, and yet
think all experience in the past goes to
show, that the religion of our future will
bear the name Christianity. There is a
struggle for existence among the great
religions of the world; Christianity is
the tittest to survive and will survive.
Many honest radicals fear (perbaps
should say hope) that Christianity will
not be able to take up into itself the vast
mass OF scientific truth that this century
has accumulated. 1t is slow process,
but really we make progress. | myself
remember to have seen Agassiz, changed
from an intidel into defender of the
faith while lie preached precisely the
| ,Hn Th,ss 4
proved herself equal to the occasion in
every age, adopting now The Copernican
theory, now Harvey's discovery, and
now the steam engine and telegraph,
later the theory of La Place, which is the
little end OF great Evolution theory of
which Darwinism is head and body, and
now with the usual protest "this is real
ly too much" and wry faces she is evi
IDENTIFY preparing to swallow the whole,
and to live and thrive afterward. "Speed
the day! 1t this theory of the world
be true we will be the better for believ
ing it.


Our faith is the liberal Christian faith,
and it would seem in order here to make
brief statement Of its chief points, be-
fore proceeding to urge the exlortation,
that for this faith we should earnestly
contend or as Paul puts it fight"


Instead of statement of my own,
however, l would ask attention to SINE
late utterances of some of our represon.
tative men. DR.. Horatio Stebblns, of
San Francisco in late sermon said:


"And il any man ask me for the firm
centers of religious faith, reply There
are, it seems to me, five points where the
human and divine touch, and those ave.
nues aresopen forever and can never be
shut.


I. The truth of mans moral percep-
tions, not their depravity and blind
ness.


II. The absolute moral perfection Of
God, not their depravity and absolute
self will.


III. The natural GUGking of the divine
spirit within US, rather than ITS prefer
natural communication from without.


Nv. Christ the image and revelation OF
the eternal Father, not his victim and
contrast.


V. A universal immortality after the
model of Christ's heavenly live; an i'm
mortality not of capricious and select
salvation, with unimaginable woe as the
general lot, but for all a life of spiritual