thought and deed, does man nobly associate with God. By bringing men together as men, on high places of communion, by making them sensible of their close and universal fraternity, by teaching them their mutual dependence, by impressing upon them the privilege of mutual service, by making them feel the earnest restraint of liberty, and the glad freedom of dutiful work, it will more effectually perform its true mission of extirpating selfishness, and bringing heaven and earth together. We have been saying this long time that only by loving man can we show our love to God. But this is not enough; we must go further and say that only by loving man, that is by promoting human fellowship, can we get any knowledge of God. Humanity does not merely give us the field for exhibiting our religion, it gives us the field for raising it. We have old warrant for saying that we cannot love God till we love man; just as true that we cannot know God till we know man. We have been talking for a long time about natural theology; it is time to begin to talk about social theology. The stars and the earth, and the bodies of living creatures, are not the only things that give evidence of the divine wisdom and love. The social state of man gives vastly higher evidence. Social science is the best modern teacher of theology, for that shows us the living Creator and the active Providence, that unfolds God's working plan, interprets his arrangements, declares his will, that draws out his divine attributes in national and sympathetic form, and teaches us how we may not guess them in symbols, but feel them in life. It would indeed be a shame if we could find no more God in a mind than in a mineral, in a man than in a meteor, in a community of human beings than in a group of stars; nay, it is my deep conviction that God will reveal himself more splendidly than ever before, when we seek his revelations in the truths that affect our daily happiness and the principles that regulate our common life. This question of religious administration is vital. It is simply the question whether we mean to do anything with our faith or not. Nay it is a question whether we mean to keep our faith fresh, or not. The spirit is strong, it is very strong; but as a pebble may determine the course of a river, so may the smallest obstruction of rite or usage, out of place in the age, hinder its natural flow. Be it our task to remove all such as fast as we can, to give the spirit free course, that it may be glorified in us and through us. T BY CHARLES K. WHIPPLE. HE number of believers in the orthodox faith is so large, and the influence of its preachers is so weighty, that the conductors of the newspaper press (even when untrammelled by such belief on their own part), find it advantageous not only to report the movements of propagandism in that direction, as they do other matters of public interest, but to echo the rejoicings of the propagandists, and use language implying that their success is a benefit to the public, and a matter for thanksgiving to God, and for mutual congratulation among men. For the same reason, they carefully avoid the exposure of the deceits practised by those propagandists upon such occasions. To give a plain statement of the verdict of reason and truth in regard to the unscrupulous methods used to gain converts in a "revival" would bring a pecuniary loss to the paper which should undertake it, as direct and as great as an exposure of the false pretences of the dealers in quack medicines for whom they advertise. Thus the cheats practised in the name of religion must be exposed, if at all, through other sources. The public benefit of such exposure, however, is obvious. True religion can flourish only by the downfall of the false. would build securely must clear away the rubbish which pre-occupies He who the spot he has chosen; and since The Radical means to teach the true relation of God to men, and the actual duties which men owe to God, a clear explanation of the way in which men are now misled in regard to those matters is in the direct line of its business and duty. I desire, therefore, to call the attention of those who prize pure and undefiled religion to the texture, firmness, genuineness, trustworthiness of the article which is seriously offered to the public by the orthodox clergy as proof of the great foundation-doctrine of "revivals" -the doctrine of damnation. I find in the Congregationalist of April 6th a sermon by Rev. E. N. Kirk, D. D., entitled "The Bridgeless Gulf," designed to affirm and defend that doctrine. He first assumes it as certainly true, and then undertakes to show its reasonableness. What reason does he give for assuming its truth? And how does he show its reasonableness? His reason for presenting it as something certainly true is found in the following words in Luke's account of the life of Jesus : Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed." His sermon represents these words as proceeding from "the Saviour," and as settling the question by the infallibility of Jesus. It is by the impudence of confident assumptions such as these, that revivalists catch nine-tenths of their victims. Let us inquire more carefully from whom proceed the above words which Luke reports to us. And first, who was Luke, when did he write, and how did he know? The only book of reference I have at hand, gives me the following information : "Concerning the circumstances of the life of this evangelist nothing certain is known, except that he was a Jew by birth, was a contemporary of the apostles, and could have heard accounts of the life of Jesus from the mouths of eye-witnesses, and was for several years the companion of the apostle Paul in his travels; so that, in the Acts of the Apostles, he relates what he himself had seen and participated in."- Encyclopædia Americana. What caused Luke to write, and whence came his information, he himself tells us at the opening of his narrative, with a frankness that should put to the blush the impudent claimants of inspiration and infallibility for him. I italicise portions of this passage, as of the one above quoted. "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word-it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed." This is Luke's own account of the matter. He does not pretend that God moved him to write, or helped him in writing. The narrative which the manufacturers of our New Testament canon have chosen to call the "Gospel according to St. Luke" is really only a letter from a friend to his friend, written because Luke wanted to write it, and because his knowledge of the matters concerned, derived from eye-witnesses, was probably more accurate than any other within the reach of Theophilus. No doubt, both of them considered it as accurate and certain as any human knowledge. The question now is, what reason is there for us to consider it so? When was it, in what year of the Christian era, that Luke wrote down, for his friend Theophilus, this information received from eyewitnesses? Nobody knows, but various conjectures are made. One guesses 30 years, another 31 years, another 38 or 39 years, after the death of Jesus. So, on the most favorable of these suppositions, it was more than 30 years after the events in question when Luke wrote down what he remembered of the statements made to him in some preceding portion of those 30 years, by eye-witnesses, according to the best of their memory and belief. We are now in a position to judge whether Dr. Kirk's foundation is laid on a rock or on the sand. The statement which he has taken for his text, and which he would have us accept as an infallible dictum respecting the arrangements of the next stage of human existence - and which he declares to rest on the authority of "the Saviour" is really only Luke's recollection of some unknown person's recollection of what Jesus (in a parable) represented as spoken by the spirit of Abraham! Spiritualism is of older date than most people suppose! Read, who will, the account in Luke's 16th chapter, and then judge whether we are to receive, on the authority of the spirit of Abraham, statements derogatory to the character of the true God, the Heavenly Father! Taking into consideration the circumstances of uncertainty above referred to, no one has a right confidently to impute to Jesus the false doctrine set forth in Luke's narrative. He left no writings whatever ; his own disciples frequently misinterpreted him and more frequently failed to understand him; and in the course of thirty years their remembrance not only suffered in the ordinary way from lapse of time, but became diluted and alloyed with much traditionary rumor, which of course could not be distinguished by Luke, the reporter, from the things which his informant had actually seen and heard. We have a right, therefore, to decline imputing this error to Jesus, though if he, and all the apostles, and all other human beings, had joined the spirit of Abraham in declaring it, this should not for a moment incline us to accept a doctrine derogatory to the true God, the Heavenly Father. To err is human, and there have been notions respecting His character. Be it ours to believe Him not many erroneous only good but best, and to reject, without hesitation, all evil surmisings concerning Him. Is it worth while to give here Dr. Kirk's notions respecting the reasonableness of eternal damnation? He finds it reasonable "by the action of two principles which pervade the works of God; the principles of adaptation and justice." Of the former he says, .... "By adaptation we mean the principle that the Creator puts every being in the place for which its nature fits it. . . . . Here, godly and ungodly, regenerate and unregenerate, are to mingle and dwell together; but not there; because the mixture is adapted to probation, not to retribution." - Don't you see? Of the latter, namely, "pure justice, or a supreme reference to the universal interests of God's empire," he says "Men who have rejected God's help must help themselves, if they can. Men who have refused to enter heaven in God's way, must find destruction in their own way. Men who have neglected preparing themselves for heaven, must expect to find themselves unprepared for heaven. We separate men from our imperfect society by stone walls, and iron chains, if need be. Why may not God act on the same principle?"-Don't you see? It is by dogmatism like that here quoted-the assumptions of Parson Kirk, and Parson Blagden, and Parson South-side Adams — that men and women are led to subject themselves to the revival of superstition which has lately been going on in Boston. When these Reverend gentlemen venture at all upon the ground of reason in this matter, (which, to do them justice, is very seldom,) this is the best they have to give! These are the arguments by which they try to persuade men that the Heavenly Father resembles the false deities pictured by Islamism, Hindooism and Mormonism, in a relentless exercise of revenge throughout eternity. The god they worship prefers to roast so many sinners forever and ever, as on the whole more satisfactory than continuing to use such means as he uses in this world for their reformation ! THE BIRD'S SONG. I HEARD the song of a forest bird, Sweet was the note in my grateful ear, I hear the bird's song wherever I go, But the minstrel I deem does not venture below Sing on, thou sweet anthem, — to me, (From The Dial.) |