The Universalist. [volume], April 02, 1887, Image 1

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Vol. 4. iTH8vsoTalrx,nnJh.E4WEST-} CHICAGO AND CINCINNATI, yATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1887. Ithveo7.exY.cSoe%nt4 No. 14.
Tlge Ugjctssiqususilist.
A RELIGIOUS AND FAMILY WEEKLY.
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BREVITY AND DESTINY.
By Rev. R. O. Williams.
(Upper Lisle, N. Y.)
“Thou hast made my days as a hand
breadth”—“they are swifter than a
weaver’s shuttle.” So said the Psalm
ist; so said Job, and he added, “We
are but yesterday, and our days on earth
are a shadow.” David says also, “Our
days on.earth are as a shadow, and there
is no abiding”—no hope of continuance.
All this is only an expression of human
experience. The brevity of life is a
common theme, an unavoidable thought.
Yet, on this brief cast of a weaver’s
shuttle, popular theology has suspended
the destinies of the whole human race,
for better or for worse through all eter
nity. It is called a “day of probation,”
wherein poor, frail, ignorant human
beings are to be tried for life—a capital
trial, whose end for the wicked will be
infinitely worse than choking with a
halter, or chopping oft' a hand, or strang
ling with a garrote. But God formed
and fashioned the human race, and
knew full well, aye, with unening cer
tainty, what would be the result of all
this “probation”—knew from eternity
who and how many of these vast and
countless millions would rise to glory,
and how many sink to unutterable tor
ment ! According to old Calvinism he
foTeord8ined«uch results, and made thr>
doom of man unavoidable. Even Armi
nians on this point gain nothing from
the plea of free will. It carries noth
ing beyond the scope of infinite knowl
edge and makes no change in the cer
tainty of the result. The advocates of
a free will, no matter how txplained,
must allow an infinite foreknowledge
of the ultimate impenitence of every
sinner who failed in his “probation.”
That ultimate impenitence must have
been as fixed, certain and, unavoidable
as it could have been made by an abso
lute decree of reprobation.
The argument then of free will, taken
in connection with punishment with
out end, is only a blind or a subterfuge
to cover over, conceal and apolog:ze for
a very dark feature of a Christian faith.
No fact could be known with certainty
as occurring in the future, unless some
provision or something else were made
to secure its occurrence.
Look again, God is good ; “God is
love.” Love is the foundation and
mainspring of all his purk oses, and all
his doings. All denominations of Chris
tians speak in admiration and approval
of the love of God and the love of
Christ. They all unite in calling it in
finite, unchangeable and endless. If
God created men, placed them in this
world, and then left them poor, blind,
ignorant, dazed, and in utter confusion
of thought, to woik their way upward
through probation, and avoid eternal
evils, terror, shame, suffering and “the
pains of hell forever,” is he good V Can
he be good ? Is it possible to recon
cile such horrible results with infinite
goodness ?
John Noonan sent his son, named
Peter, to the residence of a neighbor
to borrow a pint of meal. There was
a long stretch of forest to pass through
which John knew to be infested with
wild beasts, horrid serpents, and pois
onous herbs. Peter had never traveled
the road and kuew nothing personally
of its dangers. “Now, Peter,” said his
father, “you must keep closely in the
straight path, for I tell you there are
great dangers in the way; there are
bears, wolves, tigers, hyenas and other
savage beasts in the forest, but if you
don’t get out of the path, I think you
will not be hurt.” John couldn’t know
positively, that his son would wander
and be devoured, but he knew that this
result was very imminent and very pro
bable. lie knew there was no safety out
of the path, and might be some in it.
Was John Noonan a good father in
sending his son out on such a perilous
mission V Let every mother answer
the question. There is not one that
would not condemn the man as brutal.
Even the return of the boy unhurt
would scarcely change the aspect of the
question. If he passed through, as by
a miracle, it was no honor and no credit
to John, the father, who sent him into
such perils.
It is altogether false to say that John
Noonan loved his boy. He certainly
could not love him as God loves his
children, and as he loved the whole
world, when he sent his beloved son to
seek and save it. lie could not love
with such a love as aroused an apostle
to exclaim, “Behold, what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us
that we should be called the sons of
God.” No love like that ever stirred
the human breast. No love like that
could have conferred a free will or mor
al agency, which, it was thoroughly and
eternally foreknown, might and would
inevitably result in interminable loss to
countless millions of his own creatures.
The common theory of probation
then, must be thrown aside. It hangs
immense interests and eternal destinies
on a mere speck of time. But that
speck is given to man wisely, benignly,
for his own great blessing. It is truly
“a day of grace,” a day of opportunity,
of action and of hope; a day of exper
ience and of acquisition. It is the
opening scene of a long, sublime, and
brilliant existence. It seems to have
been designed especially for the begin
ning of a life that shall never end, and
is made, therefore, a day of attainment
and of preparation for this higher stage.
But it is a day of experience, all the
same, whether its opportunities are im
proved for good, or allowed to run to
waste and become an utter loss. The
experiences of the worst of sinners are
never lost, but may have their work
and their power on all the future. The
memory of the sad penalties that have
been suffered in sin may rise up as an
avenging angel and an eternal bulwark
against any future sin.
It seems impossible that any one,
though “dying in sin and deeply dyed
in it,” on his entrance into another life,
with all his old bodily allurements and
temptations dissolved away, should re
main long, alienated, impenitent and
resistant to the sweet voices of entreaty
and the tender calls for his return. But
the memory of these old experiences
must remain, not as an anguish or
“eternal regret,” but as a perpetual
and very forcible admonition against
any future sin.
Here may be a sound reason why
“man was made to mourn,” and why
sin was allowed to mar the works of
creation.
■ --•-* — — --
“***' RETRIED Fluff.
By Hattie Tyno Ghikwoi.d.
(Columbus, Wis,)
II.
In all our large cities these dramas
are being enacted. They come of van
ity, of idleness, of bad reading, of a
general lowering of the social tone.
Harmless flirtations—so-called, often
end in compromising scandals. The
highest position cannot screen one from
the consequences of his folly, as has
been abundantly shown in England in
times near at hand, for a3 Tennyson
says: “These are the new dark ages,
you see, of the popular press.” Neither
can any lapse of time be held as secu
rity against the consequences of a folly.
Who has not had his heart wrin g with
pity for the Lady Dedlock, of Dickens’
tale, fated just as surely by the English
as by the Russian uovelist to expiate an
early error, by a life of gilded woe, and
by a tragic death? Who has not watched
with even breathless interest where,
“upon my lady’s picture over the great
chimney piece, a weird shade falls from
some old tree, that turns it pale and
flutters it, and looks as if a great arm
held a veil or hood, watching an oppor
tunity to throw it over her,” and has
not trembled in sad foreboding when
he has been told that, “Of all the shad
ows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in
the long drawing room upon my lady’s
picture is the first to come, and the
last to be disturbed,” and has not shiv
ered, as “by this light it changes into
threatening hands raised up, and me
nacing the handsome face with every
breath that stirs.” Who has not pitied
her as she listened for the ghost’s step
on the gravel at Chesney Wold, or as
the inexorable Tuikingham has drawn
his net about her; as she pays her fa
tal visits to Tom- All- Alone’s; as she
makes her solitary way upon that last
journey, whose end was a dreadful, if
not unwelcome death. Ah, it was all
very pitiful, very heart-breaking, but it
was as the great novelist knew, only
natural, only true. Even sins of youth,
of ignorance, of infatuation, are thus
punished, and the guilty ones thus pur
sued, as it seems to us by a relentless
Nemesis. It is the law of the uni
verse, and the individual goes down be
fore it—even in such pitiful plight as
this.
Many are the Lady Dedlocks, in our
own midst, who, in sorrow and shame,
are saying, “I must travel my dark road
alone, and it will lead me where it will.
From day to day, sometimes from hour
to hour I do not see the way before my
guilty feet. This is the earthly pun
ishment I have brought upon myself.
I bear it, and I hide it.” And there is
a Ghost’s Walk at many another place
than Chesney Wold, where the guilty
woman can hear the phantom step of a
dead sin, “through the music, and the
beat, and everything.”
Does retribution attend this kind of
sin alone, or especially ? Ask the man
who has sinned against his own body —
his intellect, his soul, his family, and
society, by prolonged intemperance.
Can he tell you no tale of retribution V
Is there any other sin in the whole
dark catalogue of evil, that brings with
it its own reward so surely and so pal
pably as this ? When a man has be
come a physical wreck, when his mind
is blurred, when his inteilect plays him
false, or goes out in madness or imbe
cility—when all his fine sensibilities
are hardened, and none but the gross
est pleasures can allure him,—when his
whole being has no spring of action ex
cept one fell desire; does he know any
thing of retribution ? Yes, but he is
often destined to know more. lie often
lives to see the ruin of every soul he
loves, through his own weakness and
folly. His fortune flies, his wife sink3
into an early grave—and his children
heap curses on his head. Too often
these children are the avenging furies
who pursue him. Born with shattered
nerves and unsound constitutions, their
fearful inheritance often eventuates in
epilepsy, in madness or idiocy.
Could any retribution be so fearful to
a parent as that which I witness
many a time from my window, when a
girl, now grown to womanhood, reels
past like a man in the worst stages of
intoxication. There is no light of in
telligence in her face, but in its place
the vacant stare of the imbecile, and in
every lock, every movement, she car
ries the maik of her drunken father
upon her, and must carry it till she
dies. And I often deplore the lot of
another father, deeply intemperate in
his youth, but now in every way tem
perate and high minded, who sees the
sons who should be the staff of his old
age, caged like wild beasts in the ma
niac’s cell. Ah, what imagination can
conceive of retribution such as this—
poet nor novelist cannot paint it, nor
cau the heart of any man, who has not
endured it, conceive of it. This, too, is
meted out to ignorant as well as to will
ful oftenders, and the young boy in his
frolicksome youth, before he has learn
ed how these ways take hold on hell,
may sow the seeds in his own person
of such frightful punishments as these.
The fathers eat sour grapes and the
child, en’a teeth are set on edge—the
doctrine may seem a hard one—but ex
perience has proved, through long age3,
that there is no truer truth than this,
that “the sins of the father are visited
upon the children, to the third and
fourth generations.” The doctrine of
heredity is, of itself, a doctrine of retri
bution; and he who denies inspiration,
must take the same unwelcome dogma
from science.
What shall we say of the retribution
which overtakes the dishonest man and
the hypocrite ? I)o you not believe in
such retribution ? Head the account
of Huistrode,in “Middlemarch,”and you
will see distinctly before you the fate
of many a prosperous and honored man
to-day. Outwardly all is well, but with
in is a seething hell of apprehension,
of remorse, of dire foreboding. Take
this account of Huistrode, shivering on
the brink of exposuie, and see if
it is not life-like, and might not be
matched in the next street. “A great
dread had seized his susceptible 'rame,
and the scorching approach of shame
wrought in him a new spiritual need.
Night and day, while the resurgent
threatening past was making a con
science with him, he was thinking by
what means he could recover peace and
trust; by what sacrilice he could stay the
rod. His belief in these moments of
dread was, that if he spontaneonsly did
something right, God would save him
from the consequences of wrong-doing.
For religion can only change when the
emotions which fill it are changed, and
the religion of personal fear remains
nearly at the level of the savage.”
The description of Bulstrode’s night
by the death-bed of Bullies is one of
the masterpieces of George Eliot’s pen,
for it is a part of the retribution for many
evil deeds, that the weakened nature
yields to temptations, which it had sure
ly resisted before the first wrong-doing.
One can but pity the “strange, piteous
corfiict in the soul of thisunhappy man,
who had longed for years to be better
than he was ; who had taken his selfish
possessions into discipline and clad
them in serene robes, so that he had
walked with them as a devout choir,
till now that a terror had risen among
them, and they could chant no longer,
but throw out their common cries for
safety.”
Is there no retribution that awaits
hard-heartedness, and cruelty, uukind
ness, and unlovingness in the home ?
When the pale and unloved wife has
faded out of the life, as poor little Mrs.
Dombey, faded out in that most pathet
ic story; when the children have been
driven forth by harshness and spurned
aStctiou, as poor Florence Gay had
been driven forth; when perhaps old
age, or sickness, or poverty have come;
then will there arise from the deserted
soul no cry of agony; will there stalk
through the memory no visions of the
days that are no more, days of uegltct
ed opportunities for kindness and for
tenderness; and will there be sent up to
God uo unavailing pray ers for one more
chance to do the duty which had been
so neglected or so scorned-!1 But not to
many is it given to have such prayers
answered. To very few do the lost
children return.
CONCERNING DR. WAlfe’S HYMNS.
By Mirk HoMtfKi).
(Chicasro.)
James Montgomery stpd Or. Isaac
Watts was almost thw inventor of
liymns in our lauguageJjRVe may sup
pose it a standing factSwat the “chil
dren of this world are Wiser in their
generation than the cbiwren of light.”
Certainly the ballad, all flown the ages
of European people, has tfcen a power to
express human sorrows aBrell as cheer
ful, gay and sportive senwnents. It is
but recently that short lyUcs have been
brought into requisition! as means to
excite religious fervor, Vd as convert
ing influences. It wot|9 appear that
Christianity started out tfth this power
ful auxiliary in social Worship, devo
tion and communion, aft to this may
be attributed to some exftnt the spread
of Christianity and the Jhesion of its
adherents. X
The solemn last suppr of Christ
with his disciples, beingBnded, “They
sang a hymn and went oil,” and in two
Epistles the brethren a® exhorted to
teach and admonish on another “in
p3aims and hymns and t dritual songs,
singing and making rr flody in your
heart to the Lord.” Th tcheerfulness
and song being the genl is of the gos
pel, it i3 astonishing ho' I the opposite
idea should take possesi ion of Christ
ianity, makingreligiona \ eeping Niobe,
and heaven to be earned by the morti
fication of every humaojj instinct, and
sighs and groans, the steame to open
the doors of heaven. Hilt a moment’s
reflection convinces us it was not strange
that the sincere and Jevout should
mourn and weep. A pfgan Tartarus
had been embodied in thjp creed, and it
was only the honest expression of a be
lief in it—a creed over which our mod
ern orthodox people can Entile and laugh
and feast like ancient epicureans.
We read of the Renaissance in the
arts ushered in about thfe time of the
Reformation, but the 1 new thought
was not limited to qttesflions of archi
tecture or subjects on tfce canvas. It
invaded the realm ol? floral and spir
itual thought, prorhpjtii^- the human
spirit to the exercise agjXinscious free
dom, which is its bjjth Wight, to ques
tion that in the erflgjts ,%hich was re
pulsive to human Then did
the old begin to <gst faffl-Mgae off its aus
terities at.dpuTonu««* |W?T< •.* reality,1
change the monk for the angel, the
“garments of praise for the Bpirit of
heaviness.” In nothing is seen more
distinctly work and progress in this
line, than in the service song. It was
a happy thought then, for Dr. Watts
to give to religion his psalms and hymns,
by grafting Polyhymnia—the many
hymned ope—one of the muses, into the
service of Christian work. In nothing
is seen the advance of correct thought
about God, man, and his destiny, than
in hymnology. It was to be expected
the early hymn book would shadow forth
some of the old. llut rejection and ex
purgation for the past fifty yeai‘3 has
been doing thorough work, so that at
the present time it is difficult to find
copies of the old hymn-books to refer
to. Referring to Dr. Watts’s psalms
and hymns, among the many truly gos
pel ones we find interspersed here and
there the medimval thought that this
world, is a miserable, sinful, treacher
ous one, that we are in duty bound to
treat as a seductive enemy. In what
book of prayer do we now And the
following :
“How vain are all things here below,
How false and yet how fair;
Each pleasure hath its poison too,
And every sweet a snare;
"The brightest things below the sky, ’
Give but a battering light,
Wo should suspect some danger nigh
When we possess delight.
“The fondness of a creature’s love,
How strong it strikes the sense!
Thither the warm affections move
Nor can we call them theme.”
And yet Dr. Watts was inspired to
write it, and no doubt thought he was
serving godliness as against worldliness.
I can well recolleet hearing an old
clergyman relate what was the inspir
ing cause of its composition. Like any
true man. Watts felt it was not good to
be alone, and he became attached to a
lady of the name of Kowe. She not re
ciprocating, disappointed love found its
best solace in the t If usions of that hy mn.
I do not know but that the hymn served
some good purpose in its age. I re
member one evening, when quite a lad,
being at a prayer meeting, when a young
man was called upon to select a hymn,
and lead in prayer, and selected the
above. It was known that his affec
tions had been lacerated by non-recipro
cation, aud he felt quite badly. lie,
no doubt, thought the plaintive hymn
suited his case, and that it was per
fectly proper to carry his grief to a
throne of grace. There were many
smiles exchanged during the singing,
and not all shaded away during his
prayer, which would naturally express
the sad condition of his mind.
What clergyman now would give out
the following for his congregation to
sing:
“My thoughts on awful subjects roll '
Damnation and the dead.
What horrors seize the guilty soul.
Upon bis dying bed.'*
And yet if the creed is true, in solemn
and mournful cadences the arches of
every church ought to reverberate the
awful truth.
The spirit that has no time to spend
on dead pagans might, perhaps, feel a
thrill of joy, singing—
“Awake, and mourn ye heirs of hell
Let stubborn sinners fear;
You must bo driven from earth and dwell
A long forever there.
“See how the pit gapes wide for you
And Hashes In your face:
And thou, my soul, look downward too
And sing recov'ring grace.
“Ho Is a God of sov’relgn love
Who promised heaven to me.
And taught my thoughts to soar above,
Where happy spirits be.'*
Reprobation and discriminating grace
stand out prominently in the above,
strong enough to suit an elder of the
church John Calvin founded, who still
sticks to the form of “sound words.”
But there are few, indeed, who looking
down into a ‘ flashing pit” would feel
like singing there. Human tenderness
here would forbid it, but safely housed
in heaven, a celestial stupefaction will
have come over our earthly susceptibil
ity, so that what caused sorrow, will
there cause exultation that we are all
right.
The prevalence of Arminianism has
shut down on some hymns as too boldly
expressing'Divine knowledge and man
agement as to human destiny.
"Before his throne a volume lies
With all the fates of men,
With every angel’s form and size
Drawn by the eternal pen."
was once quite a favorite when sound
doctrine as to God’s sovereignty pos
sessed the religious mind. It now finds
little room in our present books of
praise. The sentiment might find a
place in a Universalist hymn book.
God says “all soul3 are mine,” and as
he knows all that are his, and is as will
ing and as able to keep them, their des
tiny is in good keeping.
Though Arminianism ha3 well nigh
driven distinct Calvinism out of the
hymn book and the pulpit, it is destin
ed in its turn to live out its day. Christ
ianity cannot afford to give up its cer
tainity in God. It is hard to see what
advantage Arminianism has over Cal
vinism or to see how it saves more.
The latter has a certainty; the former
an uncertainty. The one says who
soever will may come, and yet holds
nntwic!'’ mlttfons -never wlH, and
further says, that many that do come
will go back and be lost. To enthrone
the human, Arminianism dethrones
the divine will, subjecting it to the
necessity of unwillingly allowing the
damnation of countless myriads ; of
failing in motive power for some, while
there is a sufficiency for others, thus
indicating an impsrfection in his gen
eral plan, which impugns his wisdom,
in that he could not see through the
eternal ages so as to adapt motive
power equal to the moral obstruction
to be overcome; so that a will to save
all should not be frustrated. As in the
material world for the perfecting of it,
one formation has been superinduced
upon another, so in theologic thought
Calvinism and Arminianism will be
superinduced by a combination of what
is partially true in both, positing the
will of man as vincible, and the will of
God invincible, and so reflecting honor
on the Father and insuring safety to
the child. And to bring this about is
not the gospel muse, in its hymnology,
one of the most t fficient workers? The
gospel muse, haunts not the weird and
desolate scenery along the Stygian
pools. Hope is her constant song, and
although a heartless theology compelled
her to sometimes dip her young pinions
in the dark waters of Styx, the Elysiau
fields and the river of life, where every
prospect pleases, are now where she de
lights to wave her golden wings.
There is no surer indication of the
passing away of God-dishonoring dog
mas than is seen in the hymn-book of
the present day. Few indeed are the
hymns in any but that a Universalist
can use in public worship. Evangeli
cals, who still cling to the hell of the
past with its fiery billow3, think the
subject is not one for song. Atrophy
will do its work, and when we have
sung a few more years that the last one
is safely housed with the ninety and
nine, and of Christ “crowned Lord of
all,” the gospel muse for awhile may
rest and plume her wings for other
flights.
THE RELATIONS OF BRAIN AND
MIND.
Br Hev. William Tucker, 1). D.
(Mount Gilead, O.)
The relation of the brain to mental
action or intelligence is understood in
two different ways, by two contending
schools in the science of physiology.
The one regards the brain as the orig
inal agent, the producing cause of
thought, feeling and action ; or of in
tellect, emotion and will. The other
school of scientists regards it as the in
termediate instrument of thought. Ac
cording to the one, the brain thinks as
the stomach digests. According to the
other, the brain is tbe instrument of
thought played upon by the mind as
the piano is played upon by the musi
cian. These two schools may meet on
common ground when they come to the
facts of physiology, for the observed
facts or phenomena are the same wheth
er the brain be regarded as the organ
or instrument of thought.
But it makes a vast difference in the
interpretation of the phenomena which
of these theories you adopt. The in
strumental relation of brain to mind
will explain all the observed facts in
the physiology of thought, but the
causal relation of brain to mind will
not explain the observed facts of psy
chology. Of this large class of facts
given us in consciousness and experi
ence, embracing mental, moral and re
ligious phenomena, ti e causal relation
of brain to mind gives no rational ex
planation. Thought is associated with
brain action, but as its cause and not
as its effect. As intelligence and voli
tion have their physiological side, be
cause they are revealed through the
nervous organism, the question of the
relation of the brain to thought is to be
answered in part by physiology. As such
it is to be determined by scientific au
thority to the extent that it stands
connected with the action, state and
condition of the nervous system. Dr.
Carpenter says : “The conscious life of
every individual man essentially con
sists in an action and reaction between
his mind and all that is outside of it.
But this action and reaction cannot
take place in his present stage of exist
ence without the intervention of a ma
terial instrument, whose function is to
bridge over the hiatus between individ
ual consciousness and the external
world. But few, if any philosophers
would be disposed to question the fact
that the brain is the instrument of our
higher psychical powers.”
Dr. Winslow, who is high English
authority as a medical specialist in the
department of mental disease, says :
“The brain being the material instru
ment of the intelligence, the physical
medium through which the mind man
ifests its varied powers, it is rational to
infer that no change in its structure or
investing membranes can exist without
to some extent interfering with or mod
ifying its psychical functions.” (Wins
low on “Brain and Mind,” p. 32 )
Buthe farther states, however: “Cases
are on record in which serious injury
has been done to the brain during life
without apparently damaging the intel
ligence"; and considefabUnflgephalfc
disorganization (as the result of disease)
has taken place without any aberration,
exaltation, depression, or impairment
of mind having been observed previously
to death.” Page 32. This shows that
the brain is not the cause, but the in
strument of thought, emotion and voli
tion.
Muller says: “The action of the mind
is dependent on the fibrou3 matter and
composition of the brain. Still this
amounts to nothing more than that the
brain by its organization is the instru
ment by which the mind operates and
is active.” (Muller’s Physiology).
Solly says: “If there is one point in
the physiology of the brain more une
quivocally demonstrated than another,
it is that these glangia are the instru
ments of the mind.” Solly on the Brain,
p. 335.
The science of physiology, therefore,
demonstrates that the mind is the agent,
and the brain the instrument of thought.
If the brain is only the material instru
ment of the mind, created for its use,
aud adapted to its service, its condi
tion of health or disease must affect
the action and modify the manifesta
tions of the mind as the spiritual and
personal agent. The size and quality
of the instrument will also affect the
action of the agent using it.
A man could chop more wood with a
large axe of line steel, and keen edge
than he could with a small one of poor
metal. So the mind can do more and
better thinking with a large brain of
line quality thau with a small brain of
poor quality. The instrument is bet
ter, and better fitted for use and the
work as a necessary result is better—
larger in quantity and finer in quality.
The brain being the instrument of
thought, there must be au agent to use
it. The existence of tools proves the
existence of a mechanic; the existence
of an engine proves the existence of au
engineer; so the existence of the brain
proves the existence of the spiritual,
intelligent agent who is able to use it
in thought, emotion, volition and ac
tion.
—An old church edifice on the corner
of Ohauucey and Essex streets, Boston,
is to be taken down in a few days. It
was always a noted church under the
pastorate of Itev. Nehemiah Adams. For
severul years before the war he was well
known for his conservative views on sla
very as Wendell Philips was for bis radi
cal views. The home of the latter was so
near the church that in summer time he
could hear parts of Dr. Adam’s sermons.
Rev. John Pierpont lived oiose by, and
the neighborhood wbs full of residences
of noted Bostonians.
—Dr. William Adamson, of Bootland,
once said, “We grow us we think.” He
might have added also, “We grow as we
work.” The character and the life are
ehaped by our thinking and doing.
Yaitorial Briefs.
BY REV. I. M. ATWOOD. D. D.
Canton, N. Y.
We are criticised—by a ■' genial critic ”
—for using the terms ‘orthodoxy,” “evan
gelical,” etc., in the accepted rather thnn
in the etymological meaning. Are not
we orthodox and evangelical? Yes; un
derstanding the words literally. But ro
one would understand us to use the words
in this seuee unless we explained each
time. We prefer to be understood. We
write for those who get their meaning of
words from current usage and from the
dictionary. If our friend will look care
fully he will find that a considerable per
centage of the terms we use are obnox
ious to the same criticism. Mr. Blaine
claims to be a “democrat ” in the etymo
logical meaning of the word; but he does
not covet the political designation. The
badge “orthodox” has been the sign and
protest of so much error and evil that we
are quite content not to wear it.
—The Tuftonian deplores the lack of
appreciation of the gymnasium on the
part of the students. “Once, all the siu
dents clamored for this means of physical
culture; now less than one-sixth of them
take regular exercise there.” Onr in
quiries concerning the use of the gymna
sium-in several colleges lead to the con
clusion that the students of Tufts are not
an exception to a general rule. In one
large institution, with a fully equipped
and costly gymnasium, we were told that
the only exercise in which the students
showed even a languid interest, was !he
military drill. Base-ball, foot-ball, and
rowing call, for some use of the gymna
sium as a preparation for the few who are
to amuse the populace. But those who
most need the physical culture the gym
nasium is intended to supply—the great
body of the students, do not, for some
reason, avail themselves of the benefit.
—Maurice Thompson overstates the
fact when he says: “Snobbery is kept
alive and fat all over the world because
it is safer to be a snob than to be a sincere
and independent man.” This is one of
those exaggerations, however, which may
be pardoned on the same ground that we
forgive the extravagances of the reform
orator. If a precise statement of the ex
act truth had been made, the truth itself
would not have been seen. Wendell
Phillips avowed that he overstated the
faots deliberately. It was the ouly way
I to draw attention to them. Jl calm, judi
I dal statement would never stir StWSHt
nor fire the heart.
—As a matter of fact, it is not safer, in
free society, to be a snob than to be a
sincere and independent man. It is only
safer for snobs; and SDobs are persons
who think it is safer to toady than to be
sincere. Of course sincere and indepen
dent men have to take the responsibility
of their sincerity and independence. If
they are unwise, ignorant, conceited,
coarse, they will get an unsavory reputa
tion. If they are in earnest in any im
portant matter they will be abused and
hated by some. But If they are right and
really wise, they will win increasing
honor and gratitude for their courage and
frankness. And these good things are
worth the trial they cost.
—Sir W. Thompson has been making
soma calculations based on the theory of
Helmholtz, that the sun’s heat is kept up
by the motion generated by its gradual
contraction. Supposing this theory to bo
true, Sir W. Thompson estimates that the
sun will not exhaust its store so as to in
terfere with life on this planet for about
six millions of years. On the validity of
the same theory he calculates that tire
sun can uot now bo over twenty millions
of years old. It the sun is such a young
ster it follows that the earth is an infant.
But then Helmholtz may not be in pos
session of the latest and revised return".
—It is a carious eircamstauce that
there should be two sets of martyrs in
tbe (Jniversalist church at the present
time. One set consists of the conservat
ive brethren, who hold fast by the ancient
ways and the accepted traditions of the
denomination, and who in doing so feel
that they bear the brunt of unfavor
able criticism, are misunderstood, de
nounced as obstructionists, fossils and all
that. They are a living saorifloe to the
good name and continued Christian in
fluence of the church. The other group
consists of the radical brethren, who lean
rather further forward than their stand
ing place, who exploit new theories and
schemes, and who in departing from the
usages or beliefs of the fathers feel that
they are incurring a certain odium and
taking the risk of an insecure position in
the denomination.
— One who is so situated as to listen to
the private tale of each of these parties is
struck with the common fact that both
are bearing a cross. The conservative
brethren are sure that they have placed
themselves in the imminent and deadly
breach; that while the welfare of the
canse depends on their steadiness and
courage, the position they occupy is an
unenviable one, because it is never popu
lar to oppose “progress.” But the radi
cal brethren are even more certain that
they are standing up for liberty and ad
vance against great odds, because it is
never popular to innovate. In point of
fact, sympathy, approbation and applause
are accorded both; criticism, opposition
opprobrium are earned by both. But tha
agony is altogether in the imagination of
the sufferers.