The Universalist. [volume], November 27, 1897, Page 2, Image 2

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SERMON~
True Christian Liberality
BY J. W. HANSON, D. D.
The liberal deviseth liberal things, and
liberal things shall he stand.—Isaiah
xxxii. 8.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free.—John viii. 32.
The perfect law of liberty.—James i. 25.
ri^HE Christian religion was be
I stqwed on man in order to give
the freest exercise to his best and
highest faculties. The being who
created and endowed man with his
religious nature and attributes re
vealed the Christian religion by the
Lord Jesus Christ to feed and de
velop that nature, and furnish the
atmosphere in which those attributes
might work with the greatest free
dom; and he who accepts and applies
the largest number of the revealed
truths of the Christian religion, en
joys the largest liberty possible to
man. Our religion provesits divinity
in many ways, but in none more than
in this: that it possesses an expansive
power that develops and keeps pace
with the ever-expanding nature of
man, so that it fits his needs in the
nineteenth, and will in the fortieth,
or hundredth, as perfectly as it did
in the first century.
The liberty nearest perfect is only
enjoyed by him who most implicitly
surrenders his abilities to the control
of Christ and his religion. The
highest philosophy is in the poet’s
line: "Our wills are ours to make
them thine.” The Greek word doulos,
rendered servant in the New Testa
ment means slave. Paul called him
self the slave of Christ, but he ex
plains that the service of that Master
is the highest possible liberty.
“Where the spirit of the Lord is there
is liberty.” 4 Ye shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free.”
The poet Cowper tells us with as
much truth as poetry:
“He is the freeman whom the truth makes
free.
And all are slaves beside. There's not a
chain
That hellish foes confederate for his harm
Can wind around him bat he casts it aff
With as much ease as Samson his green
withes. ’ ’
Ot all Christians he who arrogates
to himself, or has applied to him by
others the epithet -‘liberal” should be
distinguishable by the number of
Christian truths he accepts, and ap
plies to his head, and heart, and life.
Who is educated liberally in secular
learning? The man acquainted with
the larger number of branches of
knowledge. Would it not be an
anomaly to hear one say, “I have re
ceived a liberal education,” and when
questioned as to how far he had pro
gressed in Latin, Greek, Mathematics,
hear him say:—“I am an agnostic,
(which you know is Greek for know
nothing)—I am an intellectual lib
eral in literary matters—I do not
know much of anything of any par
ticular branch of learning.” And
yet, this is the not uncommon lan
guage heard on the highest subject
man can consider, Religion. A man
is a liberal, a liberal Christian. Why?
He has not made up his mind on this,
that or the other subject. It is a
perversion of the words liberal Chris
tian to apply them thus. Hence,
liberality is not indifference. A great
many people congratulate themselves
on being liberal in religion because
they care nothing concerning the
subject. An empty mind is not a
liberal one. Liberal Christianity is
in the true sense Christian liberality.
It is the acceptance of the largest
number of Christian principles, the
largest liberty of Christian thought,
the widest range of Christian culture,
and a devout and consecrated en
deavor to make our Lord’s religion
practical in the heart, and the life,
and the world. It is time people
were done with the idea that the less
a man cares about religion the more
liberal he is.
Nor is the matter mended by ap
plying the term 1 free-thinker.” I
hear a man say “I am a free-thinker.
I do not accept the existence of Godi
the immortality of man, or the Chris
tian records as authentic. My hori
zon is bounded by the cradle and the
grave. I see nothing outside my
material environment. Whatthefive
senses reveal I accept, and nothing
more. And he peers through those
five little peep holes, and exults that
he is a free thinker!
A favorite theory of modern “free
thinkers,” “liberals,” is that man is
the product of a mechanical evolu
tion. He is a few ounces of phos
phorus distributed through three
pails of water, and Plato’s Pbcedra,
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the Ser
mon on the Mount originated in the
happy combination of the chemical
constituents in the bodies of their
authors. “Lord Christ’s heart and
Plato’s brain” came as did the gold
and the crystal, mechanically. The
proportions of oxygen, hydrogen and
carbon in man are such that they
compel him to sing and pray, or steal
and lie. He has no more freedom
when he writes a poem than does a
brook when it journeys down hill.
•Preached before ihe California Univer
salis! Convention, in Pomona, in May,
185)7.
The Iliad, like a diamond, the Fifth
Symphony, like a tree, are developed
in man mechanically, and he is free,
broad, liberal, a free-thinker, and
sometimes a liberal Christian who
accepts this rigid, mechanical, slavish
materialism, while he who does not is
a ?03sil—or worse—is “narrow.”
One of the grandest words in our
vocabulary is the word liberty, and
its derivatives. One of man’s great
est prerogatives is freedom. “The
glorious privilege of being independ
ent” seemed to Scotland’s peasant
bard, as it should seem to all—a
priceless boon. To be free has been
the incentive that has impelled man
to bis most tremendous effortp, and
has prompted his greatest sacrifice?.
Freedom of body, mind, spirit, is our
right and duty; that is, as much free
dom as is proper, for entire freedom
of all restraint is as impossible as it
is undesirable. Oa every side of us
as intellectual, moral, religious be
ings, as truly as in our physical re
lation?, are impinging boundaries on
which the finger of God has written:
“Thus far and no farther.” Within
the short length of an unbreakable
tether we may come and go, but not
beyond it, without peril, if not disas
ter. We are subject to 'the laws of
Freedom. Thtre is “the perfect law
of liberty,” which controls even free
dom.
Besides; freedom of itself alone is
worthless. It is a means not an end.
It is only valuable as a mode of
action for the accomplishment of
some ulterior good. “I am free!”
cries a man. Free to do what? What
are you doing with your freedom?
Its ouly value is in the use you make
of it. Men sometimes abuse their
liberty oy placing fetters on their
better natures. It was a besotted
drunkard'who refused to “sign away
his liberty,” when the pledge would
have dissolved the chains of the most
abject slavery, and introduced him to
a freedom of which he had never
dreamed.
I have known a man who had not
severed the umbilical cord that tied
him to an inherited prejudice call
himself liberal with continual itera
tion, while all his life perambulat
ed a little narrow circle like a loco
motive on a turn table. It verifies the
statement of John W. Chadwick one
of the advanced radicals of the Uni
tarians. “For myself I have found
much more narrowness and bigotry
among extremely radical people than
among orthodox.” Leigh Hunt was
accustomed to condemn the “illiber
ality of liberals, and the sectarianism
of the anti-sectarians.”
For broader truths the “liberal thinker”
pleads.
He rails at narrow bigots and their
creeds
Yet proves himself, it oftimes doth befall,
The most intolerant bigot of them all.
I am often reminded of an incident
of my boyhood. I was flying a kite.
Impelled by a strong breeze the kite
tugged at the string to get away. It
wanted its liberty to be free. Acorn
panion said, “Let go the string, do
you not hear (as the wind made a
harp-chord of the kite string) the as
pirations of the kite to soar higher?”
What would have happened had I
been silly enough to obey? My kite
would have fallen a shattered wreck.
The parental command to the
child; the law to the citizen, the re
etraints of the perfect law of liberty
in Christ to the Christian, are what
the string is to the kite, a seeming re
straint but essential to the largest
liberty. No child is ever so truly
free as when obedient to the parental
command; no citizen ever possesses
so much liberty as when governed by
law; no one on earth is ever so free as
he who subjects every volition of the
will, every movement of the intellect,
every affection of the heart, every as
piration of the soul to the govern
ment of Jesus Christ. The freest
man living is the slave of the Lord.
Said Hosea Ballou, many years ago:
“Of all men the Christian is the only
one who can do just as he pleases
and not sin, for every desire will be
in harmony with his law whose ser
vice is the highest liberty.”
In the matter of freedom to exer
cise opinion, and the right to remain
in a Christian organization after
abandoning its principles, and the
narrowness of those who object, and
the breadth of those who insist, as
exemplified in such cases as that of
Dr. Briggs, there is no little misap
prehension. Every man has certain
rights, and in the circle they describe
he is free. But the circumference of
every individual’s rights impinges on
the periphery of the rights of others.
I have an inalienable right to swing
my arm in all directions. But that
right ends just before my hand
reaches some one’s nose. My free
dom ends right there. To be so
“broad,” and “liberar’ as to insist
on going further will be likely to get
me into trouble. Any man is free to
entertain any political principles he
pleases but if he acts with the demo
cratic party he has no moral right to
try to promote republican principles.
Vice versa. You are at perfect lib
erty to denounce Free Masonry or
Odd Fellowship. But a decent res
pect for yourself as well as for the
rights of others demands, if you are a
member of either organization, that
you leave it, and attack it from the
outside, and uot commit the treason
of scuttling the ship while you are a
passenger, or one of the crew. It is
only members of churches, who some
times abandon the principles on
which those churohes are founded,and
insist on advocating vagaries that
pervert and destroy them.
Dr. Briggs has a right to say, and
we say with him that the Bible is not
an inerrant book; but he adds what
our church and most Christians be
lieve, that the religious teaching con
tained in the Bible are infallible and
authoritative. This is exactly the
sentiment of the Winchester Pro
fession. “The Bible contains a reve
lation.’’ So far as this goes Dr.
Briggs is with us, accepts the doc
trines for which we have stood for a
century, and has abandoned the Pres
byterian position that the entire
Bible is an infallible, plenarily in
spired revelation.
Dr. Briggs is right in accepting
and advocating our view or any
other, but he is wrong in continuing
inside an organization into which he
gained admission by professing a
different sentiment. He is not free
to do so any more than one who has
gained admission into a masonic
lodge has a right to remain a mem
ber after he has repudiated the
j rinciples of the ord Dr. BriggB’s
view of the Bible is correct—if it were
not he has the right to hold it—but
he is wrong in insisting on remaining
in a body into which he gained ad
mission by advocating a contrary
sentiment.
A Unitarian in a Trinitarian body,
a Trinitarian in a Unitarian body, a
Universalist in an orthodox church,
a Catholic in a Protestant member
ship, an unbeliever in a Universalist
society, anybody anywhere holding
principles hostile to the very^life of
the organization with which he is
allied, should have respect enough
for other’s rights as well as such a
sense of propriety as to go to his own
place. There is more freedom for
me outside any church besides my
own than there is inside any such
church. There is larger liberty for
any one inside a church whose prin
ciples he accepts, however small that
church may be, than in any other,
however large.
And in these days when one volun
tarily or involuntarily becomes a
martyr by leaving a religious organi
zation, he is not often a loser: the
penalty is not great, even in worldly
matters. Martyrs in these days are
apt to receive increased salaries, and
a larger following. Many a minis:er
only known to a fjw till he raised
his heels against the Bible, or thrust
his irreverent scalpel beneath the
shroud of Lazarus, all at once has
become famous, and has been cred
ited by those who followed him with
abilities of which his most intimate
friends never suspected him before.
Each Christian sect employs its
principles as the tools and imple
ments with which it is doing Christian
work. Any one who having used
them wishes to discard them, should
be encouraged to do so and he will
be hard to suit if he cannot find a
cuogen:al atmosphere somewhere
else.
A modern catch-word, a popular
slogan, is the word “broad.” Does
a man accept the New Testament
record of our Lord’s life? Oh, no;
he is too broad for that. Does he
balitve in our Lord’s divinity, and
miraculous power? Then he is
narrow. Some people seem to forget
that there is quite as much danger
in breadth as in narrowness. “Broad
is the road that leads to death.”
Wisdom has always shown a narrow
path. Straight and narrow is the
road that leads to life, but there is
more genuine freedom in it than in
the widest highway of evil. Not a
few people in these days are illustrat
ing the saying concerning a certain
New Hampshire statesman. He was
quite a man in his own State, but
spread out over the entire country, he
was exceedingly thin. He was too
broad.
Most men would be vastly im
proved by substituting a little more
height and depth for some of their
breadth, or at least by struggling
to become as high and deep as broad.
Few of us would be so very broad if
we were symmetrically developed iu
other directions—as deep and high
as broad. The Kingdom of God is
not a wafer—it is a cube. Let the
Revelator describe the Kingdom and
the true Christian: “And the city
lieth foursquare; and the length
thereof is as great as the breadth;
and he measured the city with the
reed, 12,000 furlongs; the length and
the breadth and the height are
equal . . . according to the measure
of a mao, that is, of an angel.” It
seems the angels are as anxious to
be high, as broad. Should we not
say with the inspired man, “Ob, the
depth of the riches!” “It is high. I
cannot attain unto it.” Our ambi
tion to broaden should be to attain
to the dimensions of one who was
broad enough to include all truth
and all men in his thought. He said,
“Other foundation can no man lay
than that is laid, Jesus Christ.” No
man born of woman can stretch him
self beyond that, and all efforts to
transcend that will suggest the fable
in .Esop, of the frog and the ox.
The danger in religion is like that
in politics; breadth is not synony
mous with health. You have noticed
that the “liberal” in politics favor
the open saloon and the gambling
den, and oppose the restraint of law
to protect the young and conserve
public morality, and under the false
and specious cry of liberality work
to forge the chains of immorality on
the bodies and the souls of men. It
is as great a misnomer to call those
liberal in religion who occupy the
position af those who were addressed
by Paul on Mars Hill—who deny as
did those pagans our Lord’s miracu
lous power and divinity. How much
broader these pagans regarded them
selves than they did the narrow
fanatic who taught of the Christian’s
God, and of our Lord Christ.
I have observed in some quarters
a disposition to exchange the name
that distinguishes us as a Christian
people for another less definite, Lib
eral Christian. My first objection to
the term is that it is offensively ex
clusive and Pharisaical. We have
always complained of those who ar
rogated to themselves the term
“evangelical,” on the ground that it
excluded us, who claim an equal
right to the word. Surely, if any
people in this world are evangelical,
we who proclaim the best news man
ever heard are entitled to be called
evangelical. And yet, it is proposed
to style ourselves Liberal Cnristians,
and thus exclude those whose broad
sympathies rank them under that
description, if any are entitled, to
wear it. Think of appropriating a
name that would exclude, Gladden,
Farrar, and Pnillips Brooks!
Some years ago the sainted Ryder
called attention to the fact that ours
is the only name of a Christian body
that describes the religious principles
of those it designates. Catholic, in
deed, is Greek, of which universal is
Latin, but the term Catholic only in
dicates a claim to universal member
ship on earth. Episcopal, Methodist,
Congregational, Presbyterian, mere
ly denote different modes of church
government. Baptist indicates a
church rite. A Lutheran, a Camp
bellite, is a follower of the man
Luther, Campbell. Unitarian orig
inally related to a metaphysical
thought of the Divine existence, and
latterly seems to stand for the apo
theosis of the human unit, the ego,
in its own estimate of itself. But
Uoiversalism covers every attribute
of God, all God’s relations to man,
and man’s to God, and each other.
It denotes universal fatherhood,
universal brotherhood, a universal
Saviour, a universal heaven. We are
not only the single sect of Christians
whose name describes its principles,
but ours is the oniy denomination
whose name covers the Divine char
acter and government, and human
duty and destiny. Of course others
deal with these great themes, but
not one indicates its principles in the
name it bears.
Moreover, all other sectarian names
have a temporary use that cannot be
perpetuated. When, in the progress
of thought, the best method of bap
tism, of church government shall be
agreed upon, there will be no Bap
tists, Methodists, Congregationalists,
Presbyterians, Episcopalians,— but
no progress can ever outgrow the
grand proportions of the word that
includes all that is divine in religion,
Universalism. Every step of prog
ress in other sects is towards the di
mensions that word describes,—no
possible progress can transcend it.
When, a young man, I was intro
duced to Ralph Waldo Emerson as
a Universalist student, he said,
‘Grandest of words, a religion
worthy of it must be the best of all!’
When one of our clergymen was in
troduced to Elizabeth Barret Brown
ing, in Florence, as a Universalist,
she exclaimed, “Beautiful word!’
And when in answer to her enquiry as
t > its import she was told oi our prin
ciples she said: “But do not all
Christians think that?”
It is the one name broad enough to
cover the whole of Christianity, and
large enough to lit the needs of
Christian progress in the coming
age?. We should name it with pride
and pronouDoe it with exultation. To
live up to ita requirements will re
produce the life of Christ, and in
carnate the spirit of the Father. It
is a synonym of all that is beautiful
in life, and divine in disposition, and
demands of those who profess it a
finite reproduction of the moral at
tributes of God. The followers of
Christ were first called Christians at
Antioch, as a mark of contempt, but
as they exemplified their blessed
principles in Christian lives, they
raised the despised word to the loft
iest place in the veneration of man
kind. Our name has been a word of
contempt,—is yet in some quarters,
but we have only to continue the
fidelity of the fathers, and Btrive for
the iieals it demands,to make the
rejected stone the head of the corner.
I love the word and all that it
stands for—and as often as I remem
ber what it denotes in God and man;
what its truths have done, may do,
will yet do for the world—the divine
beauty and grandeur of its principles
and spirit, my heart cries out with
the Psalmist: “If 1 forget thee may '
my right hand forget her cunning! if
I prefer thee not above my chief joy,
may my tongue cleave to the roof of
my mouth!”
Brethren, let us thank God that
we are able to stand on the only
immovable foundation, Jesus Christ,
and find it broad enough for the
exerciEe of all our faculties, and that,
while we are Uni verbalists, we can
accept the truths emphasized by
those who have stood in other com
munions. With even the Romanist
we recognize the subordination of all
things to Christ; with the Episco
palian the duty of worshiping per
sonally, and not by proxy, through
useful forms; with Calvin the value
of the granitic truth of God’s sover
eignity, as the primary foundation of
human confidence; with Arminius
and his followers, the sacred freedom
of the human will, never to be vio
lated even by deity; with the Quakers
the vital fact of the presence of God
in the innermost recess of every wil
ling, open heart, the Inner Light
“that lighteth every man that cometh
into the world;” with Wesley, the
quickening power of a living faith
and a fervent piety; with Murray,
who, from the chaotic debris of human
error exhumed it the supreme fact of
God’s all conquering love;with Chan
ning the innate purity of human
nature and its likeness to the God
who made it; with Arius the one
ness of God and the subordination
of all other beings to the Father;
with Swedenborg that the materia] :s
but the visible garment of the spirit
ual; with Fenelon opea communion
with God,—in fact, with those in all
churches who have stood for some of
the truths that are vital and endur
ing.
The Universalist Church is strenu
ous for its distinguishing tenets, and
yet is so eclectic, so inclusive, so
truly “broad” and genuinely “liberal”
as to appropriate something from the
great and good who have never failed
to utter some truth. Let us from
our broad outlook accept truth from
all sources, and make it indeed “the
pearl of great price,” by incorporat
ing it in our hearts and lives. Let
us be truly liberal by “devising liber
al things,” and thus devising we shall
‘ stand.” _
NOT COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE. BUT
FAITH. OUR GREAT NEED.
The craving for absolute certitude
and complete rest with regard to all
the great questions of religion, is no
sign of a Btrong and healthy mind.
Many very excellent people feel it,
but in nine cases out often, it has its
genesis in a brain that is too feeble
to bear suspense, or to endure the
burden of open questions. What
the bouI needs, is the knowledge of a
few great and comprehensive funda
mental truths which suffice for its
peace, and with these devoutly and
thankfully accepted, it should be
content that its knowledge on ques
tions of inferior interest or import
ance shall be in some respects imper
feet. Believing in the Messiahship
of Jesus, for instance, let us not be
disconcerted because we cannot fix
the exact boundaries of his nature,or
understand the precise mode in which
the Eternal Light shone upon him.
We cannot tell of our own souls
where the human ends and the Di
vine begins. It is but a shallow phil
osophy which sees no advantage in
the unmeasured and unattained.
The total absence of mental doubts
and difficulties would mean the loss
of much religious teaching. Certi
tude in all things would tend to
weaken in us the spirit of prayer, ad
oration, and reverence. God will
have us to trust him in the darkness
as well as in the light. If we have
absolute trust, we can well afford to
wait for absolute assurance.
It is by exaggerating the value of
certitude and of authority in matters
of religion, that priests contrive to ex
ercise so much spiritaul tyranny in
the world. To be reminded of the
uses of uncertainty, is therefore never
illtimed. The incompleteness of our
knowledge is a perpetual incentive to
research, and the discovery of truth
for ourselves is one of the most rapt
urous delights of which our souls are
capable. “I am suffocated and lost,’’
said Margaret Fuller, “When I have
not the bright feeling of progression."
It matters little that the progress is
slow, if only there be in it the princi
ple of eternal continuance. There is
no reason to suppose that man, what
ever state of being awaits him in the
future, will ever be without unsolved
problems. And what if it be soT says
Horace Bushnell in his own wise
way:—‘ It will not huit you nor hurt
the truth if you should have some
few questions left to be carried on
with you when you go hence, for in
that more luminous state most
likely they will soon be cleared; only
a thousand others will be springing
up even there; and you will go on
dissolving still your new sets of ques
tions, and growing mightier and more
deep seeing for eternal ages.” If
complete and infallible knowledge be
no necessary condition of the beati
tude of the angels, it need be no nec
essary condition of the happiness of
man upon earth.
Not complete knowledge, but faith
is the chief factor of human develop
ment and human blessedness. With
the lapse of time, our interest in
attained knowledge becomes fainter
and fainter. Only in the search for,
and acquisition of, further knowledge,
do we find abiding joy. Such, at
least, is the law of our being here and
now. Whether it will be the law of
our being through all eternity, i» ytt
unrevealed; it doth not yet appear
what we shall be. Another law of
our present being, that the more
frequently we dwell upon an object
by faith, the more we feel its powei:
anticipation is one of the most vital
izing influences which the soul can
experience. But see how large a
meaning attaches to this word faith.
It is pot so much a mental as a moral
act. It is the surrender of our whole
spiritual selfhood to some profound
conviction concerning realities which
are not the objects of present sight.
It is, as the writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews puts it, evidence of un
seen realities; notevidenceamounting
to absolute proof, but a priori, partial
evidence, in the form of the testimony
of our inner consciousness to tie
need of them, and the consequent
probability of their existence. In
another sentence, the same writer
describes faith as the assurance of
things hoped for. In short, faith
concerns itself wholly with things of
the mind and things of the future. It
is not demonstration, but forecast.
Many of the glorious discoveries of
meu of science greatly help and
strengthen faith. See how this ap
pears in the following beautiful
verses. They were printed in The
Inquirer some fifty years ago or more
when astronomy bad just given a new
planet (Neptune) to the solar Bystea:
Lo! where the secret depths of heaven
unfold
The star men’s mental vision sooner
saw;
To vindicate the prescience that foretold,
And reconcile anomaly with law.
Thus ne’er within the shadows of our
sphere,
O faith, the soul’s astronomer, descend;
But e’en from doubts and perturbations
here,
Wisely anticipate a world beyond.
Faith is a product of intellect and
heart combined. Let a man have
faith in God, faith in Christ as the
Sent of God, unshaken faith that the
moral government of the universe is
conducted upon principles of right
eousness and love; and though the
world would be in arms against him,
it can never take away from him the
peace and joy which passeth under
standing, and which fulfils the be
queathment of Christ to all his true
disciples. Let us not be concerned
to know all things, but rather to be
lieve all things, hope all things, and
transfigure all things by the spirit of
love. Furthermore, let us rest in
confident assurance that all things
are working together for good in this
and all worlds, though from our very
narrow and limited view of their
working we are not able fully to
understand or grasp the glorious
truth.— Christian Life.
THE TEUTH AT LAST IN PLYMOUTH
PULPIT.
Thanks be to Boston, we have at
last heard a clear utterance of an
unflinching thinker, in Plymouth
pulpit. Dr. Gordon has had the
courage and the candor to follow the
thought of Beecher and Abbott to its
logical and inevitable conclusion, and
has proclaimed Universalism in the
plainest terms in that historic place.
Plymouth Church has time and again
heard the premises of the larger faith
stated with eloquence, with fervor,
and with convincing power. But it
never heard the conclusion drawn,
as Dr. Gordon did the work last week,
at the semi centennial services there.
His theme was ‘ The Theology for
To-day;” and if anybody failed to
discover the kind he stands for, he
must have been in that neutral state
which the Catholic Church calls, in
extenuation of otherwise fatal error,
“invincible ignorance.”
His opening sentence was signifi
cant: “The strange thing that con
fronts one almost everywhere today
is the absence of theology, in the su
preme sense of that word.” “Calvin
ism,” he said, “is forever gone,” and
there is nothing as yet to take its
place. “The house of faith remains
to be built.” The attempts at theo
logical thinking are “usually some
decrepit modification of the Calvin
istic kind,” the old theology uncon
sciously dressing itself up in the gar
ments of the new, with unreflecting
simplicity covering the parts that
would surely give it away, and ad
vancing guilelessly in borrowed en
thusiasms and simulated loves, to ob
tain dominion over the blind.” The
inconsistencies of modern orthodoxy,
its adoption of the new thought and
its clinging to the old forms was
never more startlingly confessed. Dr.
Gordon went on to declare that “The
being of Gcd is the supreme interest’
in all thought, but said that God
might be wholly above the world, or
brought so close to the world as to
be completely cne with its process.
“Willingness to be damned for the
glory of God may be the sign of a
humble spirit; but it is in reality the
supreme insult to God. For it as
sumes that the glory of God and the
weal of man are incompatible inter
ests.” That was a sharp arraign
ment; but more was to follow. For
Dr. Gordon contended that Calvin
ism is wrong in making the will of
God against the majority of man
kind, and proceeded to declare against
the old theology which he called a
“terrible partialism.”
Then he went on to say plainly
that “the theology of today must
found itself upon the will of God
and upon the will of God at its high
est.” “If the mission of Christ is not
to be reduced to a delusion, if Chris
tianity is not to be contracted into
the religion of a sect, the saving pur
pose of God in Christ must be made
to cover the race.” It is impossible
to overestimate the force of the next
sentence. It was a courageous and
thrilling proclamation of a mighty
truth, right in the earB of those who
have been ignoring their own logic
and shirking the consequences of
their own sentiments. Let us give it
in full, as one of the most important
utterances of our time.
It is true that this principle is rev
olutionary. This affirmation that
God has a Christian purpose toward
our entire humanity involves an ex
tension of the field of redemption so
enormous as to make obsolete, at a
single stroke, the whole theological
map of the traditional view. And
what seems worse, while all clear
seeing men are aware that this does
not necessarily imply universal salva
tion, it is true that it looks that way.
If God shall succeed, universal sal
vation will be the final result. And
this sounds so perilous to good
morals and seems to cut the nerve of
all strenuous endeavor! O my
brothers, wh<n will Christian think
ers fear atheism more than Univer
salism, when will they see that the
deepest immorality lies in a distrust
of the righteous will of God; when
will they awake to the fact that only
those who believe in a God for
humanity and eternally for humanity
can resist unto blood.
Any scheme that puts God with an
inclusive and everlasting purpose of
redemption behind mankind, looks
like Universalism; but let us remem
ber that any other scheme is, in our
time, a royal road to atheism.”
Then spake the soul of Hosea Bal
lou and John Murray! Then was
the old proclamation of the faith once
for all delivered unto the saints 1
And Dr. Abbott at its close, said that
he could only take time to say
“Amen.” No wonder that he did not
care to ‘take time”! But how could
he say “amen”!—Rev. J. C. Adams, in
Christian Leader.
NEW BOOKS.
IN MEMORIAM. By Alfred Tennyson.
With a preface bv Henry Van Dyke.
Illustrated by Harry Fenn. New
York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert.
[8vo, xxxiv.—229 pp. Silk, gilt top,
uncut edges; boxed; $3:50.]
It ie not often that so undisputed a
masterpiece as Tennyson’s ‘‘In Memor
iam”is left so long without the attention
of a special edition for purposes of pre
sentation. Whether for its exquisite
poetry, its profound philosophy, its rev
erent religion, or its uplifting strength
in bereavement, it has always been
prized amorg the foremost of elegiac—
or, indeed, any other—poems. Yet, save
in the admirable low-priced "Students
edition,” with Dr. Rolfe’s annotations,
and a small pocket volume of Macmil
lan’s this wonderful poem cannot be ob
tained in a volnme by itself.
That it should have been selected,
then, for artistic illustration and beauti
ful printing is no woDdor; but the pub
lisbers have been peculiarly fortunate
in securing for it the services of Harry
Fenn. The wide range and delicate
quality of his artistic capabilities are
well known, but bis special fitness for
the present task lies in the fact that
some years ago he spent many months
in the immediate vicinity of Tennyson's
old Sussex home, and Ailed his portfolios
with the beauties of that charming re
gion of rural England. Thus the multi
tudinous allusions of the poet to nature
in illustration of his thought And sympa
thetic and accurate representation amid
the drawings with which Mr. Fenn has
enriched these pages. His art journeys
in other lands too, enable him to give
illuminating touches to the poet’s for
eign illustrations, and sunny France,
Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Egypt,
Arabia, the Holy Land, widen the scope
and lend added graces to the interprets
tior.
No one will get the cull good of this
edition who looks it through merely
with an eye to the beauty of the pic
tures, without study of the list of illus
trations, which reveals the artist’s
thorough comprehension of the great
poem, and the art with which he has
thrown light upon many of its finest
and most spiritual passages.
A further aid to the understanding of
this “Victorian classic" is a descriptive
and analytical introduction by Dr.
Henry Van Dyke, whose personal ac
quaintance with the poet and diligent
consideration of his works have—de
spite his fame as a preacher and success
in various literary fields—especially
identified him with the study of Tenny
son.
In all the mechanical features of book
making this volume is a delight to the
eye. The ivory surface of the paper—
smooth, but not unpleasantly glossy; the
clear, legible text; the effective engrav
ing of the drawings, in all their variety
of pen. pencil, brush, charcoal, etc.; the
rich yet delicate printing; the silk bind
ing, with its simple but striking decora
tion in gold; the guilt top and uncut
edges,—combine to make an example of
refined taste skillfully diiected. Both
in spirit and in form, it is a rare and ex
quisite production.