Fort Worth Bible Students

STUDY VI

BABYLON BEFORE THE GREAT COURT.
HER CONFUSION--ECCLESIASTICAL

The True Church, Known unto the Lord, has no Share in the Judgments of Babylon--The Religious Situation of Christendom Presents no Hopeful Contrast to the Political Situation--The Great Confusion-- The Responsibility of Conducting the Defense Devolves upon the Clergy--The Spirit of the Great Reformation Dead--Priests and People in the Same Situation--The Charges Preferred--The Defense-- A Confederacy Proposed--The End Sought--The Means Adopted--The General Spirit of Compromise--The Judgment Going Against the Religious Institutions of Christendom.

"And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant." Luke 19:22

WHILE we here consider the present judgment of the great nominal Christian church, let us not forget that there is also a real Church of Christ, elect, precious; consecrated to God and to his truth in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. They are not known to the world as a compact body; but as individuals they are known unto the Lord who judges not merely by the sight of the eye and the hearing of the ear, but who discerns and judges the thoughts and intents of the heart. And, however widely they may be scattered, whether standing alone as "wheat," in the midst of "tares," or in company with others, God's eye is always upon them. They, dwelling in the secret place of the Most High (sanctified, wholly set apart unto God), shall abide [D158] under the shadow of the Almighty, while the judgments of the Lord are experienced by the great religious systems that bear his name in unfaithfulness. (Psa. 91:1,14-16) These have no share in the judgment of great Babylon, but are previously enlightened and called out of her. (Rev. 18:4) This class is described and blessedly comforted in Psalms 91 and 46. In the midst of much merely formal and sham profession of godliness, the Lord's watchful eye discerns the true, and he leads them into the green pastures and beside the still waters, and makes their hearts rejoice in his truth and in his love. "The Lord knoweth them that are his" (2 Tim. 2:19); they constitute the true Church in his estimation, the Zion which the Lord hath chosen (Psa. 132:13-16), and of whom it is written, "Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced, because of thy judgments, O Lord." (Psa. 97:8) The Lord will safely lead them as a shepherd leads his sheep. But while we bear in mind that there is such a class--a true Church, every member of which is known and dear to the Lord, whether known or unknown to us, these must be ignored here in considering what professes to be, and what the world recognizes as, the church, and what the prophets refer to under many significant names which designate the great nominal church fallen from grace, and in noting the judgment of God upon her in this harvest time of the Gospel age.

If the civil powers of Christendom are in perplexity, and distress of nations is everywhere manifest, the religious situation surely presents no hopeful contrast of peace and security; for modern ecclesiasticism, like the nations, is ensnared in the net of its own weaving. If the nations, having sown to the wind the seeds of unrighteousness, are about to reap an abundant harvest in a whirlwind of affliction, the great nominal church, ecclesiastical Christendom, which has shared in the sowing, shall also share in the reaping. [D159]

The great nominal church has long taught for doctrines the precepts of men; and, ignoring in great measure the Word of God as the only rule of faith and godly living, it has boldly announced many conflicting and God-dishonoring doctrines, and has been unfaithful to the measure of truth retained. It has failed to cultivate and manifest the spirit of Christ, and has freely imbibed the spirit of the world. It has let down the bars of the sheepfold and called in the goats, and has even encouraged the wolves to enter and do their wicked work. It has been pleased to let the devil sow tares amongst the wheat, and now rejoices in the fruit of his sowing--in the flourishing field of tares. Of the comparatively few heads of "wheat" that still remain there is little appreciation, and there is almost no effort to prevent their being choked by the "tares." The "wheat" has lost its value in the markets of Christendom, and the humble, faithful child of God finds himself, like his Lord, despised and rejected of men, and wounded in the house of his supposed friends. Forms of godliness take the place of its power, and showy rituals largely supplant heart-worship.

Long ago conflicting doctrines divided the church nominal into numerous antagonistic sects, each claiming to be the one true church which the Lord and the apostles planted, and together they have succeeded in giving to the world such a distorted misrepresentation of our Heavenly Father's character and plan, that many intelligent men turn away with disgust, and despise their Creator, and even try to disbelieve his existence.

The Church of Rome, with assumed infallibility, claims it to be the divine purpose to eternally torment in fire and brimstone all "heretics" who reject her doctrines. And for others she provides a limited torment called Purgatory, from which a release may be secured by penances, fasts, prayers, holy candles, incense and well-paid-for "sacrifices" [D160] of the mass. She thus sets aside the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and places the eternal destiny of man in the hands of scheming priests, who thus claim power to open heaven or close it to whom they please. She substitutes forms of godliness for its vital power, and erects images and pictures for the adoration of her votaries, instead of exalting in the heart the invisible God and his dear Son, our Lord and Savior. She exalts a man-ordained priestly class to rulership in the church, in opposition to our Lord's teaching, "Be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 23:8,9) In fact, the Papacy presents a most complete counterfeit of the true Christianity, and boldly claims to be the one true church.*

To build up and perpetuate these erroneous doctrinal systems of what they are pleased to call "Systematic Theology," time and talent have been freely given. Their learned men have written massive volumes for other men to study instead of the Word of God; for this purpose theological seminaries have been established and generously endowed; and from these, young men, instructed in their errors, have gone out to teach and to confirm the people in them. And the people, taught to regard these men as God's appointed ministers, successors of the apostles, have accepted their dictum without searching the Scriptures as did the noble Bereans in Paul's day (Acts 17:11), to see if the things taught them were so.

But now the harvest of all this sowing has come, the day of reckoning is here, and great is the confusion and perplexity of the whole nominal church of every denomination, and particularly of the clergy, upon whom devolves the responsibility of conducting the defense in this day of judgment in the presence of many accusers and witnesses, and, if possible, of devising some remedy to save from complete destruction what they regard as the true church. Yet in their present confusion, and in the desire of all the sects from reasons of policy to fellowship one another, they have each almost ceased to regard their own particular sect as the only true church, and now speak of each other as various "branches" of the one church, notwithstanding their contradictory creeds, which of necessity cannot all be true.

In this critical hour it is, alas! a lamentable fact that the wholesome spirit of "The Great Reformation" is dead. Protestantism is no longer a protest against the spirit of antichrist, [D162] nor against the world, the flesh or the devil. Its creeds, at war with the Word of God, with reason, and with each other, and inconsistent with themselves, they seek to hide from public scrutiny. Its massive theological works are but fuel for the fire of this day of Christendom's judgment. Its chief theological seminaries are hotbeds of infidelity, spreading the contagion everywhere. Its great men--its Bishops, Doctors of Divinity, Theological Professors, and its most prominent and influential clergymen in the large cities--are becoming the leaders into disguised infidelity. They seek to undermine and destroy the authority and inspiration of the sacred Scriptures, to supplant the plan of salvation therein revealed with the human theory of evolution. They seek a closer affiliation with, and imitation of, the Church of Rome, court her favor, praise her methods, conceal her crimes, and in so doing become confederate with her in spirit. They are also in close and increasing conformity to the spirit of the world in everything, imitating the vain pomp and glory of the world which they claim to have renounced. Mark the extravagant display in church architecture, decorations and furnishments, the heavy indebtedness thereby incurred, and the constant begging and scheming for money thus necessitated.

A marked departure on this line was the introduction in the Lindell Avenue Methodist Church of St. Louis, Mo., of a work of art representing "The Nativity," by R. Bringhurst. It is sculptured in bas-relief above the altar, the grand organ and the choir loft. The representation spans an arch forty-six feet wide and fifty feet high, and every figure in it is life size. At the highest point of the arch is the figure of the Virgin, standing erect with the infant Jesus in her arms. Flying outward from these two figures are shown seraphim with trumpets, proclaiming the enthronement. [D163] Ascending either side of the arch are hosts of worshiping angels with outstretched wings. At either base is the figure of an angel, that on the left holding a festooned scroll bearing the inscription: "Peace on Earth," and the similar figure on the right bearing the closing words of the nativity announcement: "Good Will to Men." Additional effectiveness is given by the fact that the bas-relief is mounted on a splay at an angle of 45 degrees inclined towards the congregation, thus bringing into bolder relief the high work of the study and deepening the shadows in proportion.

What an endorsement, not only of the spirit of extravagant display, but also of the image worship of the church of Rome! Note, too, the arrangements in connection with some churches of billiard rooms; and some ministers have even gone so far as to recommend the introduction of light wines; and private theatricals and plays are freely indulged in in some localities.

In much of this the masses of church members have become the willing tools of the clergy; and the clergy in turn have freely pandered to the tastes and preferences of worldly and influential members. The people have surrendered their right and duty of private judgment, and have ceased to search the Scriptures to prove what is truth, and to meditate upon God's law to discern what is righteousness. They are indifferent, worldly, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God: they are blinded by the god of this world and willing to be led into any schemes which minister to present worldly desires and ambitions; and the clergy foster this spirit and pander to it for their own temporal advantage. Should these religious organizations go down, the offices and salaries, the prestige and honors of the self-exalted clergy must all go with them. They are therefore as anxious now to perpetuate the institutions of nominal Christianity [D164] as were the Scribes and Pharisees and Doctors of the law anxious to perpetuate Judaism; and for the same reasons. (John 11:47,48,53; Acts 4:15-18) And because of their prejudices and worldly ambitions Christians are as blind to the light of the new dispensation now dawning as were the Jews in the days of the Lord's first advent to the light of the Gospel dispensation then dawning.

The Charges Preferred Against Ecclesiasticism

The charges preferred against the nominal Christian church are the sentiments of the waking world and of waking Christians, both in the midst of Babylon and beyond her territorial limits. Suddenly, within the last five years particularly, the professed Christian church has come into great prominence for criticism, and the scrutinizing gaze of the whole world is turned upon her. This criticism is so prevalent that none can fail to hear it; it is in the very air; it is heard in private conversation, on the streets, the railways, in the workshops and stores; it floats through the daily press and is a live topic in all the leading journals, secular and religious. It is recognized by all the leaders in the church as a matter that portends no good to her institutions; and the necessity is felt of meeting it promptly and wisely (according to their own ideas), if they would preserve their institutions from the danger which threatens them.

The nominal Christian church is charged (1) with inconsistency. The wide distinction is marked, even by the world, between her claimed standard of doctrine, the Bible, and her conflicting, and in many respects absurd, creeds. The blasphemous doctrine of eternal torment is scouted, and no longer avails to drive men into the church through fear; and for some time past the Presbyterian and other Calvinistic [D165] sects have been in a very tempest of criticism of their time-honored creeds, and are terribly shaken. With the long discussions on the subject and the desperate attempts at defense on the part of the clergy, all are acquainted. That the task of defense is most irksome, and one that they would gladly avoid, is very manifest; but they cannot avoid it, and must conduct the defense as best they can. Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage voiced the popular sentiment among them when he said:

"I would that this unfortunate controversy about the confession of faith had not been forced upon the church; but now, since it is on, I say, Away with it, and let us have a new creed."

On another occasion the same gentleman said:

"I declare, once for all, that all this controversy throughout Christendom is diabolic and satanical. A most diabolical attempt is going on to split the church; and if it is not stopped it will gain for the Bible a contempt equal to that for an 1828 almanac that tells what the weather was six months before and in what quarter of the moon it is best to plant turnips.

"What position shall we take in regard to these controversies? Stay out of them. While these religious riots are abroad, stay at home and attend to business. Why, how do you expect a man only five or six feet high to wade through an ocean a thousand feet deep?...The young men now entering the ministry are being launched into the thickest fog that ever beset a coast. The questions the doctors are trying to settle won't be settled until the day after judgment day."

Very true; the day after this judgment day will see all these perplexing questions settled, and truth and righteousness established in the earth.

The irksomeness of the task of defense and the dread of the outcome were also very strongly expressed in a resolution of assembled Presbyterian clergymen in Chicago, not [D166] long after the summons to judgment came. The resolution read as follows:

"Resolved, That we regard with sorrow the controversies now distracting our beloved church as injurious to her reputation, her influence and her usefulness, and as fraught, if pursued, with disaster, not only to the work of our own church, but to our common Christianity. We therefore earnestly counsel our brethren that on the one side they avoid applying new tests of orthodoxy, the harsh use of power and the repression of honest and devout search for truth; and on the other side we urgently advise our brethren against the repetition upon the church of unverified theories, the questions of doubtful disputation, and especially where they have, or under any circumstances might have, a tendency to unsettle the faith of the unlearned in the Holy Scriptures. For the sake of our church and all her precious interests and activities we earnestly request a truce and the cessation of ecclesiastical litigation."

The Presbyterian Banner also published the following doleful reference to it, which contains some remarkable admissions of the unhealthy spiritual condition of the Presbyterian church. It reads:

"A disturbance or alarm in a hospital or asylum might prove fatal to some of its inmates. An elderly gentleman in a benevolent institution amused himself awhile by beating a drum before sunrise. The authorities finally requested this 'lovely brother' to remove his instrument to a respectful distance. This illustrates why earnest pastors grow serious when a disturbance arises in the church. The church is like a hospital where are gathered sin-sick persons who, in a spiritual sense, are fevered, leprous, paralytic, wounded and half dead. A disturbance, like the present cruel distraction which emanates from some Theological Seminaries, may destroy some souls who are now passing through a crisis. Will Prof. Briggs please walk softly and remove his drum?"

The church nominal is charged (2) with a marked lack of [D167] that piety and godliness which she professes, though the fact is admitted that a few truly pious souls are found here and there among the obscure ones. Sham and hypocrisy are indeed obtrusive, and wealth and arrogance make very manifest that the poor are not welcome in the earthly temples erected in the name of Christ. The masses of the people have found this out, and have been looking into their Bibles to see if such was the spirit of the great Founder of the church; and there they have learned that one of the proofs which he gave of his Messiahship was that "the poor had the gospel preached unto them"; that he said to his followers, "The poor ye have always with you"; and that they were to show no preferences for the man with the gold ring or the goodly apparel, etc. They have found the golden rule, too, and have been applying it to the conduct of the church, collectively and individually. Thus, in the light of the Bible, they are fast arriving at the conclusion that the church is fallen from grace. And so manifest is the conclusion, that her defenders find themselves covered with confusion.

The church nominal is charged (3) with failure to accomplish what she has claimed to be her mission; viz., to convert the world to Christianity. How the world has discovered that the time has come when the work of the church should show some signs of completion seems unaccountable; but nevertheless, just as in the end of the Jewish age all men were in expectation of some great change about to take place (Luke 3:15), so now, in the end of the Gospel age, all men are in similar expectation. They realize that we are in a transition period, and the horoscope of the 20th Century is full of terrors and premonitions of great revolutionary changes. The present unrest was forcefully expressed by Hon. Henry Grady, in an eloquent address before the University Societies, Charlottesville, Va. [D168]

His words were: "We are standing in the daybreak... The fixed stars are fading from the sky and we are groping in uncertain light. Strange shapes have come with the night. Established ways are lost, new roads perplex, and widening fields stretch beyond the sight. The unrest of dawn impels us to and fro; but Doubt stalks amid the confusion, and even on the beaten paths the shifting crowds are halted, and from the shadows the sentries cry, 'Who comes there?' in the obscurity of the morning tremendous forces are at work. Nothing is steadfast or approved. The miracles of the present belie the simple truths of the past. The church is besieged from without and betrayed from within. Behind the courts smoulders the rioter's torch and looms the gibbet of the anarchists. Government is the contention of partisans and the prey of spoilsmen. Trade is restless in the grasp of monopoly, and commerce shackled with limitation. The cities are swollen, and the fields are stripped. Splendor streams from the castle, and squalor crouches in the home. The universal brotherhood is dissolving, and the people are huddling into classes. The hiss of the Nihilist disturbs the covert, and the roar of the mob murmurs along the highway."

For the church to deny that the end of the age, the day of reckoning, has come, is impossible; for whether she discerns the time in the light of prophecy or not, the facts of judgment are forced upon her, and the issue will be realized before the close of this harvest period.

Ecclestiasticism Takes the Stand and Indirectly
Renders Up Her Account

The church knows that the eyes of all the world are turned upon her; that somehow it has been discovered that, while she has claimed her commission to be to convert the world, the time has arrived when, if that be her mission, that work should be almost, if not fully, accomplished, and that really she differs little from the world, except in profession. [D169]

Having assumed this to be her present mission, she has lost sight of the real purpose of this Gospel age; viz., to "preach this gospel of the Kingdom in all the world for a witness to all nations," and to aid in the calling and preparing of a "little flock" to constitute (with the Lord) that Millennial Kingdom which shall then bless all the families of the earth. (Matt. 24:14; Acts 15:14-17) She is confronted with the fact that after eighteen centuries she is further from the results which her claims would demand than she was at the close of the first century. Consequently apologies, excuses, a figuring over and re-examining of accounts, the re-dressing of facts, and extravagant prognostications of great achievements in the very near future, are now the order of the day, as, forced by the spirit of inquiry and cross-questioning of these times, she endeavors to speak in self-defense before her numerous accusers.

To meet the charge of inconsistency of doctrine with her recognized standard, the Bible, we see her in great perplexity; for she cannot deny the conflict of her creeds. So, various methods are resorted to, which thinking people are not slow to mark as evidences of her great confusion. There is much anxiety on the part of each denomination to hold on to the old creeds because they are the cords by which they have been bound together in distinct organizations; and to destroy these suddenly would be to dissolve the organizations; yet the clergy specially are quite content to say as little about them as possible, for they are heartily ashamed of them in the searching light of this day of judgment.

Some are so ashamed of them that, forgetting their worldly prudence, they favor discarding them altogether. Others are more conservative, and think it more prudent to let them go gradually, and in their place, by degrees, to insert new doctrines, to amend, revise, etc. With the long discussions [D170] on Presbyterian creed-revision every one is familiar. So also the attempts of self-styled high critics to undermine the authority and inspiration of the sacred Scriptures, and to suggest a twentieth-century-inspiration, and a theory of evolution wholly subversive of the divine plan of salvation from an Adamic fall which the Bible affirms, but which they deny. Then there is another and a large class of clergymen who favor an eclectic, or compromise, theology, which must of necessity be very brief and very liberal, its object being to waive all objections of all religionists, Christian and heathen, and, if possible, to "bring them all into one camp," as some have expressed it. There is a general boasting on the part of a large class, of the great things about to be accomplished through instrumentalities recently set in operation, of which Christian union or cooperation is the central idea; and when this is secured--as we are assured it soon will be--then the world's conversion to Christianity, it is assumed, will quickly follow.

The charge of lack of piety and godly living is also met with boastings--boasting of "many wonderful works," which often suggest the reproving words of the Lord recorded in Matt. 7:22,23. But these boastings avail very little to the interests of Babylon, because the lack of the spirit of God's law of love is, alas! too painfully manifest to be concealed. The defense, on the whole, only makes the more manifest the deplorable condition of the fallen church. If this great ecclesiasticism were really the true Church of God, how manifest would be the failure of the divine plan to choose out a people for his name!

But while these various excuses, apologies, promises and boasts are made by the church, her leaders see very clearly that they will not long serve to preserve her in her present [D171] divided, distracted and confused condition. They see that disintegration and overthrow are sure to follow soon unless some mighty effort shall unite her sects and thus give her not only a better standing before the world, but also increased power to enforce her authority. We therefore hear much talk of Christian Union; and every step in the direction of its accomplishment is proclaimed as evidence of growth in the spirit of love and Christian fellowship. The movement, however, is not begotten of increasing love and Christian fellowship, but of fear. The foretold storm of indignation and wrath is seen to be fast approaching, and the various sects seriously doubt their ability to stand alone in the tempest shock.

Consequently all the sects favor union; but how to accomplish it in view of their conflicting creeds, is the perplexing problem. Various methods are suggested. One is to endeavor first to unite those sects which are most alike in doctrine, as, for instance, the various branches of the same families--Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc.--preparatory to the proposed larger union. Another is to cultivate in the people a desire for union, and a disposition to ignore doctrine, and to extend a generous fellowship to all morally disposed people and seek their cooperation in what they call Christian work. This sentiment finds its most earnest supporters among the young and middle-aged.

The ignoring in late years of many of the disputed doctrines of the past has assisted in the development of a class of young people in the church who largely represent the "union" sentiment of Christendom. Ignorant of the sectarian battles of the past, these are unencumbered with the confusion prevalent among their seniors respecting fore-ordination, election, free grace, etc. But they still have from [D172] the teachings of childhood (originally from Rome and the dark ages), the blighting doctrine of the everlasting torment of all who do not hear and accept the gospel in the present age; and the theory that the mission of the gospel is to convert the world in the present age, and thus save them from that torment. These are banded under various names--Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, Christian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, King's Daughters and Salvation Armies. Many of these have indeed "a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge."

True to their erroneous, unscriptural views, these plan a "social uplift of the world," to take place at once. It is commendable that their efforts are not for evil, but for good. Their great mistake is in pursuing their own plans, which however benevolent or wise in human estimation, must of necessity fall short of the divine wisdom and the divine plan, which alone will be crowned with success. All others are doomed to failure. It would be greatly to the blessing of the true ones among them if they could see the divine plan; viz., the selection ("election") of a sanctified "little flock" now, and by and by the world's uplift by that little flock when complete and highly exalted and reigning with Christ as his Millennial Kingdom joint-heirs. Could they see this, it would or should have the effect of sanctifying all the true ones among them--though of course this would be a small minority; for the majority who join such societies evidently do so for various reasons other than entire consecration and devotion to God and his service--"even unto death."

These Christian young people, untaught in the lessons of church history, and ignorant of doctrines, readily fall in with the idea of "Union." They decide, "The fault of the past has been doctrines which caused divisions! Let us now [D173] have union and ignore doctrines!" They fail to appreciate the fact that in the past all Christians were anxious for union, too, just as anxious as people of today, but they wanted union on the basis of the truth, or else no union at all. Their rule of conduct was, "Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints"; "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." (Jude 3; Eph. 5:11) Many today fail to see that certain doctrines are all-important to true union among true Christians--a union pleasing to God--that the fault of the past was that Christians were too greatly prejudiced in favor of their own human creeds to prove and correct them and all doctrines by the Word of God.

Hence the union or confederacy proposed and sought, being one which ignores Bible doctrine, but holds firmly to human doctrines respecting eternal torment, natural immortality, etc., and which is dominated merely by human judgment as to object and methods, is the most dangerous thing that could happen. It is sure to run into extreme error, because it rejects the "doctrines of Christ" and "the wisdom from above," and instead relies upon the wisdom of its own wise men; which is foolishness when opposed to the divine counsel and methods. "The wisdom of their wise men shall perish." Isa. 29:14

Then, too, there are many ideas set afloat by progressive (?) clergymen and others as to what should be the character and mission of the church in the near future, their proposition being to bring it down, even closer than at present, to the ideas of the world. Its work, it appears, is to be to draw the unregenerate world into it and to secure a liberal financial patronage; and to do this entertainment and pleasure must be provided. What true Christian has not been shocked by the tendencies in this direction, both as he observes them at home and reads of them elsewhere. [D174]

What stronger evidence could we have of the decline of real godliness than the following, from the pen of a Methodist clergyman, and published in a Methodist journal-- The Northwestern Christian Advocate--and called by the Editor a "friendly satire on existing Methodist conditions," thus admitting the conditions. Whether meant as an endorsement, or as a satire, it matters not; facts are facts by whomsoever told, though doubly forcible when in the nature of a confession by an interested minister in his own church journal. We give the article entire as follows, the italics being ours:

"Some Features of American Methodism

"The revival of religion in the eighteenth century under the leadership of the Wesleys and Whitefield purified the moral tone of the Anglo-Saxon race and put in operation new forces for the elevation of the unevangelized. Secular historians, both English and American, have united in crediting the movement originated by these remarkable men with much in modern church machinery and statement of doctrine which tends to spread and plant our civilization. The doctrine of 'free will' preached by them and their successors has, with the evolution of modern experiments in secular government, been one of the most popular dogmas engaging the thoughts of men. Among our American fore-fathers this doctrine was peculiarly contagious. Throwing off the yoke of kings, and disgusted with a nationalized and priest-ridden church, what could be more enchanting and more in harmony with their political aspirations than the doctrine that every man is free to make or mar his own destiny here and hereafter?

"The doctrine of the 'new birth' upon which the Methodists insisted, and the preaching of which by Whitefield in New England was like the telling of a fresh and unheard story, likewise produced effects upon which the secular and even the unreligious looked with approbation. For this doctrine not only demanded a 'change of heart,' but also such a change in the daily life as to make the Methodist easily distinguished [D175] from the man of the world by his behavior. The great purpose for which the church existed was to 'spread Scriptural holiness over these lands.' This was the legend on her banner--with this war-cry she conquered.

"Another reason for the phenomenal success of Methodism in this country is to be found in the fact that to its simple, popular service the common people were gladly welcomed. Only those who have been untrained in ritual can appreciate this apparently insignificant but really very important fact. To know that you may enter a church where you can take part in the service without the risk of displaying your ignorance of form and ceremonies is of greatest concern if you have no desire to make yourself conspicuous. Thus the plain, unstudied service of the early American Methodist church was exactly suited to the people who had but lately abandoned the pomp of Old World religions. Lawn sleeves, holy hats, diadems, crowns and robes were repugnant to their rough and simple tastes. The religion that taught them that they could make their appeals to the Almighty without an intermediator of any kind emphasized the dignity and greatness of their manhood and appealed to their love of independence.

"The marked triumphs of this church may also be attributed in part to the fact that she had not then laid down the Master's whip of small cords. There was in those early days, from time to time, a cleansing of the church from pretenders and the unworthy which had a most wholesome effect, not only on the church itself, but also upon the surrounding community. For after the storms which often accompanied the 'turning out' of the faithless, the moral atmosphere of the whole neighborhood would be purified, and even the scoffer would see that church-membership meant something.

"A factor also assisting in the success of which I write was the pure itinerancy of the ministry which then obtained. Without doubt there were heroes and moral giants in those days. The influence of a strong, manly man, possessed by the idea that here he had 'no continuing city,' making no provision for his old age, requiring no contract to secure his support or salary, denying himself the very things the [D176] people were most greedy to obtain, and flaming with a zeal that must soon consume him, must have been abiding and beneficent wherever it was felt.

"No mean part in achieving her commanding position in this country was played by the singing of the old-time Methodists. Serious, sensible words, full of doctrine, joined to tunes that still live and rule, there was in such singing not only a musical attraction, but a theological training whereby the people, uncouth though they might have been, were indoctrinated in the cardinal tenets of the church. The singing of a truth into the soul of child or man puts it there with a much more abiding power than can be found in any Kindergarten or Quincy method of instruction. Thus, without debate, doctrines were fixed in the minds of children or of converts so that no subsequent controversy could shake them. It remains now to show that

"These Elements of Success Have Become Antiquated,
and That a New Standard of Success Has Been Set Up in
the Methodist Episcopal Church

"Let me not assume the role of boaster, but rather be the annalist of open facts, a reciter of recent history. So far as the standard of doctrine is concerned, there is no change in the position held by the church, but the tone and spirit which obtain in almost all her affairs show at once the presence of modern progress and light-giving innovations. The temper and complexion of this mighty church have so far changed that all who are interested in the religious welfare of America must study that change with no common concern.

"The doctrine of the new birth--'Ye must be born again'--remains intact, but modern progress has moved the church away from the old-time strictness that prevented many good people from entering her fold, because they could not subscribe to that doctrine, and because they never had what once was called 'experimental religion.' Now Universalists and Unitarians are often found in full fellowship bravely doing their duty.

"The ministry of the present day, polished and cultured as it is in the leading churches, is too well bred to insist on 'holiness,' as the fathers [D177] saw that grace, but preach that broader holiness that thinketh no evil even in a man not wholly sanctified. To espouse this doctrine as it was in the old narrow way would make one not altogether agreeable in the Chautauqua circles and Epworth leagues of the present.

"The old-time, simple service still lingers among the rural populations, but in those cultured circles, where correct tastes in music, art and literature obtain--among the city churches--in many instances an elaborate and elegant ritual takes the place of the voluntary and impetuous praying and shouting which once characterized the fathers. To challenge the desirability of this change is to question the superiority of culture to the uncouth and ill-bred.

"When the church was in an experimental stage, it possibly might have been wise to be as strict as her leaders then were. There was little to be lost then. But now wise, discreet and prudent men refuse to hazard the welfare of a wealthy and influential church by a bigoted administration of the law, such as will offend the rich and intellectual. If the people are not flexible, the gospel surely is. The church was made to save men, not to turn them out and discourage them. So our broader and modern ideas have crowded out and overgrown the contracted and egotistical notion that we are better than other people, who should be excluded from our fellowship.

"The love-feast, with its dogmatic prejudices, and the class-meeting, which was to many minds almost as bad as the confessional, have been largely abandoned for Epworth Leagues and Endeavor Societies.

"The present cultured ministry, more than ever in the history of the church, conforms to the Master's injunction to be 'wise as serpents and harmless as doves.' Who among them would have the folly of the old-time preachers to tell his richest official member who is rolling in luxury to sell all for God and humanity and take up his cross and follow Christ? He might go away sorrowing --the minister, I mean.

"While evolution is the law, and progress the watchword, rashness and radicalism are ever to be deplored, and the modern Methodist minister is seldom guilty of either. The rude, rough preacher who used to accuse the God of love of being wrathful has stepped down and out to give place to [D178] his successor, who is careful in style, elegant in diction, and whose thoughts, emotions and sentiments are poetical and inoffensive.

"The 'time limit,' whereby a minister may remain in one charge five years, will be abandoned at the next General Conference in 1896. In the beginning he could serve one charge but six months; the time was afterward extended to one year, then to two years, then to three, and lately to five. But the ruling, cultured circles of the church see that if her social success and standing are to compare favorably with other churches, her pastorate must be fixed so that her strong preachers may become the centers of social and literary circles. For it must be remembered that the preacher's business is not now as it often was--to hold protracted meetings and be an evangelist. No one sees this more clearly than the preachers themselves. Great revivalists used to be the desirable preachers sought after by the churches, and at the annual conferences the preachers were wont to report the number of conversions during the year. Now, however, a less enthusiastic and eccentric idea rules people and priest alike. The greater churches desire those ministers that can feed the aesthetic nature, that can parry the blows of modern skepticism and attract the intellectual and polished, while at the annual conference the emphasized thing in the report of the preacher is his missionary collection. The modern Methodist preacher is an excellent collector of money, thereby entering the very heart of his people as he could not by any old-fashioned exhortation or appeal.

"How great the lesson that has been so well learned by these leaders of Christian thought; viz., that the gospel should never offend the cultured and polite taste. To a church that can so flexibly conform to the times the gates of the future open wide with a cheery greeting. What more fitting motto can be found for her than the herald angels sang: 'Peace on earth, good will to men.' Rev. Chas. A. Crane."

The following, by Bishop R. S. Foster, of the M. E. Church, we clip from the Gospel Trumpet. It bears the same testimony, though in different language; a little too plainly perhaps for some, as the bishop has since been retired against his wish and despite his tears. [D179]

Bishop Foster Said:

"The church of God is today courting the world. Its members are trying to bring it down to the level of the ungodly. The ball, the theater, nude and lewd art, social luxuries, with all their loose moralities, are making inroads into the secret enclosure of the church; and as a satisfaction for all this worldliness, Christians are making a great deal of Lent and Easter and Good Friday and church ornamentations. It is the old trick of Satan. The Jewish church struck on that rock; the Romish church was wrecked on the same, and the Protestant church is fast reaching the same doom.

"Our great dangers, as we see them, are assimilation to the world, neglect of the poor, substitution of the form for the fact of godliness, abandonment of discipline, a hireling ministry, an impure gospel--which, summed up, is a fashionable church. That Methodists should be liable to such an outcome and that there should be signs of it in a hundred years from the 'sail loft' seems almost the miracle of history; but who that looks about him today can fail to see the fact?

"Do not Methodists, in violation of God's Word and their own discipline, dress as extravagantly and as fashionably as any other class? Do not the ladies, and often the wives and daughters of the ministry, put on 'gold and pearls and costly array?' Would not the plain dress insisted upon by John Wesley, Bishop Asbury, and worn by Hester Ann Rogers, Lady Huntington, and many others equally distinguished, be now regarded in Methodist circles as fanaticism? Can any one going into the Methodist church in any of our chief cities distinguish the attire of the communicants from that of the theater or ball goers? Is not worldliness seen in the music? Elaborately dressed and ornamented choirs, who in many cases make no profession of religion and are often sneering skeptics, go through a cold artistic or operatic performance, which is as much in harmony with spiritual worship as an opera or theater. Under such worldly performance spirituality is frozen to death.

"Formerly every Methodist attended 'class' and gave testimony of experimental religion. Now the class meeting is [D180] attended by very few, and in many churches it is abandoned. Seldom do the stewards, trustees and leaders of the church attend class. Formerly nearly every Methodist prayed, testified or exhorted in prayer meeting. Now but very few are heard. Formerly shouts and praises were heard: now such demonstrations of holy enthusiasm and joy are regarded as fanaticism.

"Worldly socials, fairs, festivals, concerts and such like have taken the place of the religious gatherings, revival meetings, class and prayer meetings of earlier days.

"How true that the Methodist discipline is a dead letter. Its rules forbid the wearing of gold or pearls or costly array; yet no one ever thinks of disciplining its members for violating them. They forbid the reading of such books and the taking of such diversions as do not minister to godliness, yet the church itself goes to shows and frolics and festivals and fairs, which destroy the spiritual life of the young as well as the old. The extent to which this is now carried on is appalling.

"The early Methodist ministers went forth to sacrifice and suffer for Christ. They sought not places of affluence and ease, but of privation and suffering. They gloried not in their big salaries, fine parsonages and refined congregations, but in the souls that had been won for Jesus. Oh, how changed! A hireling ministry will be a feeble, timid, truckling, time-serving ministry, without faith, endurance and holy power. Methodism formerly dealt in the great central truth. Now the pulpits deal largely in generalities and in popular lectures. The glorious doctrine of entire sanctification is rarely heard and seldom witnessed in the pulpits."

While special efforts are being made to enlist the sympathies and cooperation of the young people of the churches in the interests of religious union, by bringing them together socially and avoiding religious controversy and doctrinal teaching, still more direct efforts are being made to bring the adult membership into sympathy with the union movement. For this the leaders in all denominations are scheming and working; and many minor efforts culminated [D181] in the great Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in the summer of 1893. The object of the Parliament was very definite in the minds of the leaders, and found very definite expression; but the masses of the church membership followed the leaders seemingly without the least consideration of the principle involved--that it was a grand compromise of Christianity with everything unchristian. And now that there is a projected extension of the movement for a universal federation of all religious bodies, proposed to be held in the year 1913, and in view of the fact that Christian Union is being actively pushed along this line of compromise, let those who desire to remain loyal to God mark well the expressed principles of these religious leaders.

Rev. J. H. Barrows, D. D., the leading spirit of the (Chicago) World's Parliament of Religions, while engaged in promoting its extension, was reported by a San Francisco journal as having expressed himself to its representative with reference to his special work of bringing about religious unity, as follows:

"The union of the religions," he said in brief, "will come about in one of two ways. First, those churches which are most nearly on common ground of faith and doctrine must unite--the various branches of Methodism and Presbyterianism, for instance. Then when the sects are united among themselves Protestantism in general will draw together. In the progress of education Catholics and Protestants will discover that the differences between them are not really cardinal, and will broach reunion. This accomplished, the union with other different religions [that is, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Brahminism, Confucianism, etc.--heathen religions] is only a question of time.

"Second--The religions and churches may join in civil unity on an ethical basis, as advocated by Mr. Stead [a Titanic victim, a Spiritualist]. The religious organizations have common interests and common duties in the communities in which they exist, and it is possible that they will federate for the promotion and accomplishment of these [D182] ends. I, myself, am disposed to look for the union to come through the first process. However that may be, the congresses of religion are beginning to take shape. Rev. Theo. E. Seward reports a greatly augmented success of his 'Brotherhood of Christian Unity' in New York, while very recently there has been organized in Chicago, under the leadership of C. C. Bonney, a large and vigorous 'Association for the Promotion of Religious Unity.'"

The Great Parliament of Religions

The Chicago Herald, commenting favorably upon the proceedings of the Parliament (italics are ours), said:

"Never since the confusion at Babel have so many religions, so many creeds, stood side by side, hand in hand, and almost heart to heart, as in that great amphitheater last night. Never since written history began has varied mankind been so bound about with Love's golden chain. The nations of the earth, the creeds of Christendom, Buddhist and Baptist, Mohammedan and Methodist, Catholic and Confucian, Brahmin and Unitarian, Shinto and Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Pantheist, Monotheist and Polytheist, representing all shades of thought and conditions of men, have at last met together in the common bonds of sympathy, humanity and respect."

How significant is the fact that the mind of even this enthusiastic approver of the great Parliament should be carried away back to the memorable confusion of tongues at Babel! Was it not, indeed, that instinctively he recognized in the Parliament a remarkable antitype?

The Rev. Barrows, above quoted, spoke enthusiastically of the friendly relations manifested among Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis and, in fact, the leaders of all religions extant, by their correspondence in reference to the great Chicago Parliament. He said:

"The old idea, that the religion to which I belong is the only true one, is out of date. There is something to be [D183] learned from all religions, and no man is worthy of the religion he represents unless he is willing to grasp any man by the hand as his brother. Some one has said that the time is now ripe for the best religion to come to the front. The time for a man to put on any airs of superiority about his particular religion is past. Here will meet the wise man, the scholar and the prince of the East in friendly relation with the archbishop, the rabbi, the missionary, the preacher and the priest. They will sit together in congress for the first time. This, it is hoped, will help to break down the barriers of creed."

Rev. T. Chalmers, of the Disciples church, said:

"This first Parliament of Religions seems to be the harbinger of a still larger fraternity--a fraternity that will combine into one world-religion what is best, not in one alone, but in all of the great historic faiths. It may be that, under the guidance of this larger hope, we shall need to revise our phraseology and speak more of Religious unity, than of Christian unity. I rejoice that all the great cults are to be brought into touch with each other, and that Jesus will take his place in the companionship of Gautama, Confucius and Zoroaster."

The New York Sun, in an editorial on this subject, said:

"We cannot make out exactly what the Parliament proposes to accomplish...It is possible, however, that the Chicago scheme is to get up some sort of a new and compound religion, which shall include and satisfy every variety of religious and irreligious opinion. It is a big job to get up a new and eclectic religion satisfactory all around; but Chicago is confident."

It would indeed be strange if the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world would suddenly prove to be in harmony, that those filled with the opposite spirits should see eye to eye. But such is not the case. It is still true that the spirit of the world is enmity to God (James 4:4); that its theories and philosophies are vain and foolish; and that the one divine revelation contained in the inspired Scriptures of the apostles and prophets is the only divinely inspired truth. [D184]

One of the stated objects of the Parliament, according to its president, Mr. Bonney, was to bring together the world's religions in an assembly "in which their common aims and common grounds of union may be set forth, and the marvelous religious progress of the nineteenth century be reviewed."

The real and only object of that review evidently was to answer the inquiring spirit of these times--of this judgment hour--to make as good a showing as possible of the church's progress, and to inspire the hope that, after all the seeming failure of Christianity, the church is just on the eve of a mighty victory; that soon, very soon, her claimed mission will be accomplished in the world's conversion. Now mark how she proposes to do it, and observe that it is to be done, not by the spirit of truth and righteousness, but by the spirit of compromise, of hypocrisy and deceit. The stated object of the Parliament was fraternization and religious union; and anxiety to secure it on any terms was prominently manifest. They were even willing, as above stated, to revise their phraseology to accommodate the heathen religionists, and call it religious unity, dropping the obnoxious name Christian, and quite contented to have Jesus step down from his superiority and take his place humbly by the side of the heathen sages, Gautama, Confucius and Zoroaster. The spirit of doubt and perplexity, and of compromise and general faithlessness, on the part of Protestant Christians, and the spirit of boastfulness and of counsel and authority on the part of Roman Catholics and all other religionists, were the most prominent features of the great Parliament. Its first session was opened with the prayer of a Roman Catholic--Cardinal Gibbons--and its last session was closed with the benediction of a Roman Catholic--Bishop Keane. And during the last session a Shinto priest of Japan invoked [D185] upon the motley assembly the blessing of eight million deities.

Rev. Barrows had for two years previous been in correspondence with the representative heathen of other lands, sending the Macedonian cry around the world to all its heathen priests and apostles, to "Come over and help us!" That the call should thus issue representatively from the Presbyterian church, which for several years past had been undergoing a fiery ordeal of judgment, was also a fact significant of the confusion and unrest which prevail in that denomination, and in all Christendom. And all Christendom was ready for the great convocation.

For seventeen days representative Christians of all denominations, sat together in counsel with the representatives of all the various heathen religions, who were repeatedly referred to in a complimentary way by the Christian orators as "wise men from the east"--borrowing the expression from the Scriptures, where it was applied to a very different class--to a few devout believers in the God of Israel and in the prophets of Israel who foretold the advent of Jehovah's Anointed, and who were patiently waiting and watching for his coming, and giving no heed to the seducing spirits of worldly wisdom which knew not God. To such truly wise ones, humble though they were, God revealed his blessed message of peace and hope.

The theme announced for the last day of the Parliament was "The Religious Union of the Whole Human Family"; when would be considered "The elements of perfect religion as recognized and set forth in the different faiths," with a view to determining "the characteristics of the ultimate religion" and "the center of the coming religious unity of mankind."

Is it possible that thus, by their own confession, Christian (?) ministers are unable, at this late day, to determine what [D186] should be the center of religious unity, or the characteristics of perfect religion? Are they indeed so anxious for a "world-religion" that they are willing to sacrifice any or all of the principles of true Christianity, and even the name "Christian," if necessary, to obtain it? Even so, they confess. "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked and slothful servant," saith the Lord. The preceding days of the conference were devoted to the setting forth of the various religions by their respective representatives.

The scheme was a bold and hazardous one, but it should have opened the eyes of every true child of God to several facts that were very manifest; namely: (1) that the nominal Christian church has reached its last extremity of hope in its ability to stand, under the searching judgments of this day when "the Lord hath a controversy with his people," nominal spiritual Israel (Micah 6:1,2); (2) that instead of repenting of their backslidings and lack of faith and zeal and godliness, and thus seeking a return of divine favor, they are endeavoring, by a certain kind of union and cooperation, to support one another, and to call in the aid of the heathen world to help them to withstand the judgments of the Lord in exposing the errors of their human creeds and their misrepresentations of his worthy character; (3) that they are willing to compromise Christ and his gospel, for the sake of gaining the friendship of the world and its emoluments of power and influence; (4) that their blindness is such that they are unable to distinguish truth from error, or the spirit of the truth from the spirit of the world; and (5) that they have already lost sight of the doctrines of Christ.

Doubtless temporary aid will come from the sources whence it is so enthusiastically sought; but it will be only a preparatory step which will involve the whole world in the impending doom of Babylon, causing the kings and merchants [D187] and traders of the whole earth to mourn and lament for this great city. Rev. 18:9,11,17-19

In viewing the proceedings of the great Parliament our attention is forcibly drawn to several remarkable features: (1) To the doubting and compromising spirit and attitude of nominal Christianity, with the exceptions of the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches. (2) To the confident and assertive attitude of Catholicism and of all other religions. (3) To the clean-cut distinctions, observed by the heathen sages, between the Christianity taught in the Bible, and that taught by the Christian missionaries of the various sects of Christendom, who, along with the Bible, carried their unreasonable and conflicting creeds to foreign lands. (4) To the heathen estimate of missionary effort, and its future prospects in their lands. (5) To the influence of the Bible upon many in foreign lands, notwithstanding its misinterpretations by those who carried it abroad. (6) To the present influence and probable results of the great Parliament. (7) To its general aspect as viewed from the prophetic standpoint.

Compromising the Truth

The great religious Parliament was called together by Christians--Protestant Christians; it was held in a professedly Protestant Christian land; and was under the leading and direction of Protestant Christians, so that Protestants may be considered as responsible for all its proceedings. Be it observed, then, that the present spirit of Protestantism is that of compromise and faithlessness. This Parliament was willing to compromise Christ and his gospel for the sake of the friendship of antichrist and heathendom. It gave the honors of both opening and closing its deliberations to representatives of papacy. And it is noteworthy that, while the faiths of the various heathen nations were elaborately set [D188] forth by their representatives, there was no systematic presentation of Christianity in any of its phases, although various themes were discoursed upon by Christians. How strange it seems that such an opportunity to preach the gospel of Christ to representative, intelligent and influential heathen should be overlooked and ignored by such an assemblage! Were the professed representatives of Christ's gospel ashamed of the gospel of Christ? (Rom. 1:16) In the discourses Roman Catholics had by far the largest showing, being represented no less than sixteen times in the sessions of the Parliament.

And not only so, but there were those there, professing Christianity, who earnestly busied themselves in tearing down its fundamental doctrines--who told the representative heathen of their doubts as to the inerrancy of the Christian Scriptures; that the Bible accounts must be received with a large degree of allowance for fallibility; and that their teachings must be supplemented with human reason and philosophy, and only accepted to the extent that they accord with these. There were those there, professing to be Orthodox Christians, who repudiated the doctrine of the ransom, which is the only foundation of true Christian faith, others, denying the fall of man, proclaimed the opposite theory of evolution--that man never was created perfect, that he never fell, and that consequently he needed no redeemer; that since his creation in some very low condition, far removed from the "Image of God," he has been gradually coming up, and is still in the process of an evolution whose law is the survival of the fittest. And this, the very opposite of the Bible doctrine of ransom and restitution, was the most popular view.

Below we give a few brief extracts indicating the compromising spirit of Protestant Christianity, both in its attitude toward that great antichristian system, the Church of [D189] Rome, and also toward the non-Christian faiths.

Hear Dr. Chas. A. Briggs, Professor in a Presbyterian Theological Seminary, declaim against the sacred Scriptures. The gentleman was introduced by the President, Dr. Barrows, as "one whose learning, courage and faithfulness to his convictions have given him a high place in the church universal," and was received with loud applause. He said:

"All that we can claim for the Bible is inspiration and accuracy for that which suggests the religious lessons to be imparted. God is true, he cannot lie; he cannot mislead or deceive his creatures. But when the infinite God speaks to finite man, must he speak words which are not error? [How absurd the question! If God does not speak the truth, then of course he is not true.] This depends not only upon God's speaking, but on man's hearing, and also on the means of communication between God and man. It is necessary to show the capacity of man to receive the word, before we can be sure that he transmitted it correctly. [This "learned and reverend" (?) theological professor should bear in mind that God was able to choose proper instruments for conveying his truth, as well as to express it to them; and that he did so is very manifest to every sincere student of his Word. Such an argument to undermine the validity of the Sacred Scriptures is a mere subterfuge, and was an insult to the intelligence of an enlightened audience.] The inspiration of the holy Scriptures does not carry with it inerrancy in every particular."

Hear Rev. Theodore Munger, of New Haven, dethrone Christ and exalt poor fallen humanity to his place. He said:

"Christ is more than a Judean slain on Calvary. Christ is humanity as it is evolving under the power and grace of God, and any book touched by the inspiration of this fact [not that Jesus was the anointed Son of God, but that the evolved humanity as a whole constitute the Christ, the Anointed] belongs to Christian literature."

He instanced Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Emerson and others, and then added: [D190]

"Literature with few exceptions--all inspired literature-- stands squarely upon humanity and insists upon it on ethical grounds and for ethical ends, and this is essential Christianity ...A theology that insists on a transcendent God, who sits above the world and spins the thread of its affairs, does not command the assent of those minds which express themselves in literature; the poet, the man of genius, the broad and universal thinker pass it by; they stand too near God to be deceived by such renderings of his truth."

Said the Rev. Dr. Rexford of Boston (Universalist):

"I would that we might all confess that a sincere worship, anywhere and everywhere in the world, is a true worship... The unwritten but dominant creed of this hour I assume to be that, whatever worshiper in all the world bends before The Best he knows, and walks true to the purest light that shines for him, has access to the highest blessings of heaven."

He surely did strike the keynote of the present dominant religious sentiment; but did the Apostle Paul so address the worshipers of "The Unknown God" on Mars' Hill? or did Elijah thus defend the priests of Baal? Paul declares that the only access to God is through faith in Christ's sacrifice for our sins; and Peter says, "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12; 17:23-31; 1 Kings 18:21,22

Hear the Rev. Lyman Abbot, Editor of the Outlook, and formerly Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., claim for all the church that divine inspiration which, through Christ and the twelve apostles, gave us the New Testament, that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished. (2 Tim. 3:17) He said:

"We do not think that God has spoken only in Palestine, and to the few in that narrow province. We do not think he has been vocal in Christendom and dumb everywhere else. No! we believe that he is a speaking God in all times and in all ages." [D191]

But how did he speak to the Prophets of Baal? He has not revealed himself except to his chosen people--to fleshly Israel in the Jewish age, and to spiritual Israel in the Gospel age. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth." Amos 3:2; 1 Cor. 2:6-10

A letter from Lady Somerset (England), read with complimentary introduction by President Barrows, made the following concessions to the Church of Rome:

"I am in sympathy with every effort by which men may be induced to think together along the lines of their agreement, rather than of their antagonism...The only way to unite is never to mention subjects on which we are irrevocably opposed. Perhaps the chief of these is the historic episcopate, but the fact that he believes in this while I do not, would not hinder that great and good prelate, Archbishop Ireland, from giving his hearty help to me, not as a Protestant woman, but as a temperance worker. The same was true in England of that lamented leader, Cardinal Manning, and is true today of Mgr. Nugent, of Liverpool, a priest of the people, universally revered and loved. A consensus of opinion on the practical outline of the golden rule, declared negatively by Confucius and positively by Christ, will bring us all into one camp."

The doctrine of a vicarious atonement was seldom referred to, and by many was freely set aside as a relic of the past and unworthy of the enlightened nineteenth century. Only a few voices were raised in its defense, and these were not only a very small minority in the Parliament, but their views were evidently at a discount. Rev. Joseph Cook was one of this small minority, and his remarks were afterward criticised and roundly denounced from a Chicago pulpit. In his address Mr. Cook said that the Christian religion was the only true religion, and the acceptance of it the only means of securing happiness after death. Referring for illustration of the efficacy of the atonement to purge even the foulest sins, to one of Shakespeare's characters, he said: [D192]

"Here is Lady Macbeth. What religion can wash Lady Macbeth's red right hand? That is the question I propose to the four continents and the isles of the sea. Unless you can answer that you have not come with a serious purpose to the Parliament of religions. I turn to Mohammedanism. Can you wash her red right hand? I turn to Confucianism and Buddhism. Can you wash her red right hand?"

In replying to this after the Parliament Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Pastor of All Soul's church, Chicago, and one enthusiastically interested in the Parliament, said:

"In order that we may discover the immorality of the vicarious atonement--this 'look-to-Jesus-and-be-saved' kind of a scheme with which the great Boston orator undertook to browbeat out of countenance the representatives of other faiths and forms of thought at the Parliament--let us study closely the character of the deed, the temper of the woman to whom he promised such swift immunity if she would only 'look on the cross.' This champion of orthodoxy indignantly flung into the faces of the representatives of all religions of the world the assertion that it is 'impossible in the very nature of things for one to enter into the kingdom of heaven except he be born again' through this Christ atonement, this supernatural vicariousness that washes her red hand white and makes the murderess a saint. All I have to say to such Christianity is this: I am glad I do not believe in it; and I call upon all lovers of morality, all friends of justice, all believers in an infinite God whose will is rectitude, whose providence makes for righteousness, to deny it. Such a 'scheme of salvation' is not only unreasonable but it is immoral. It is demoralizing, it is a delusion and a snare in this world, however it may be in the next...I turn from Calvary if my vision there leaves me selfish enough to ask for a salvation that leaves Prince Sidartha outside of a heaven in which Lady Macbeth or any other red-handed soul is eternally included."

Subsequently an "oriental platform meeting" was held in the same church, when the same reverend (?) gentleman read select sayings from Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, [D193] Socrates and Christ, all tending to show the universality of religion, which was followed by the address of an Armenian Catholic. After this address, said the reporter for the public press:

"Mr. Jones said that he had had the temerity to ask Bishop Keane, of the Catholic University of Washington, if he would attend this meeting and stand on such a radical platform. The Bishop had replied with a smile that he would be in Dubuque or he might be tempted to come. 'I then asked him,' said Mr. Jones, 'if he could suggest any one.' The Bishop replied, 'You must not be in too much of a hurry. We are getting along very fast. It may not be a long time before I shall be able to do so.'*

Prof. Henry Drummond was on the program of the Parliament for an address on Christianity and Evolution, but, as he failed to arrive, his paper was read by Dr. Bristol. In it he said that a better understanding of the genesis and nature of sin might at least modify some of the attempts made to get rid of it--referring disparagingly to the doctrine of atonement, which his doctrine of Evolution would render null and void. [D194]

A Few Defenders of the Faith

In the midst of this compromising spirit, so bold and outspoken, it was indeed refreshing to find a very few representatives of Protestant Christianity who had the moral courage, in the face of so much opposition, both latent and expressed, to defend the faith once delivered to the saints; though even these show signs of perplexity, because they do not see the divine plan of the ages and the important relationship of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity to the whole marvelous system of divine truth.

Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, of the Chicago University, spoke on "The Attitude of Christianity toward Other Religions." He directed his hearers to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments for an exposition of Christianity, to the hostile attitude of Christianity toward all other religions, which must of necessity be false if it be true, and to our Lord's exclusive claim of power to save, as manifested in such expressions as:

"No man cometh unto the Father [that is, no man can be saved] but by me."

"I am the bread of life."

"If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink."

"I am the light of the world."

"I am the door of the sheep."

"All that came before me are thieves and robbers."

"I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved."

"Such," said he, "are a few specimens of the expressions from Jesus' own lips of the sole, exclusive claim to be himself alone the Savior of man.

"It may be answered, 'But Jesus also said, 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me'; and we are hence warranted in believing, of many souls involved in alien religions, that, drawn consciously or unconsciously to Jesus, they are saved, notwithstanding the misfortune of their religious environment. [D195]

"To this, of course, I agree, I am grateful that such seems indeed to be the teaching of Christianity. [But this hope flows from a generous heart rather than from a knowledge of the divine plan of salvation. Prof. W. did not then see that the drawing of the world to Christ belongs to the Millennial age, that only the drawing of the Church is now in progress, and that knowledge of the Lord, the drawing power now, will be the power then; "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Hab. 2:14] I simply ask to have it borne steadily in mind that it is not at all the extension of the benefits flowing from the exclusive power of Jesus to save, that we are at present discussing, but strictly this question: Does Christianity recognize any share of saving efficacy as inherent in the non-Christian religions? In other words, is it anywhere in Scripture represented that Jesus exerts his saving power, in some degree, greater or less, through religions not his own? If there is any hint, any shadow of hint, in the Bible, Old Testament or New, looking in the direction of an affirmative answer to that question, I confess I never have found it. Hints far from shadowy I have found, and in abundance, to the contrary.

"I feel the need of begging you to observe that what I say in this paper is not to be misunderstood as undertaking on behalf of Christianity to derogate anything whatever from the merit of individual men among the nations, who have risen to great ethical heights without aid from historic Christianity in either its New Testament or its Old Testament form. But it is not of persons, either the mass or the exceptions, that I task myself here to speak. I am leading you to consider only the attitude assumed by Christianity toward the non-Christian religions.

"Let us advance from weighing the immediate utterances of Jesus to take some account of those upon whom, as his representatives, Jesus, according to the New Testament, conferred the right to speak with an authority equal to his own. Speaking of the adherents generally of the Gentile religions, he uses this language: 'Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible [D196] God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.'

"Man, bird, beast, reptile--these four specifications in their ladder of descent seem to indicate every different form of Gentile religion with which Christianity, ancient or modern, came into historic contact. The consequences penally visited by the offended jealous God of Hebrew and of Christian, for such degradation of the innate worshiping instinct, such profanation of the idea, once pure in human hearts, of God the incorruptible, are described by Paul in words whose mordant, flagrant, caustic, branding power has made them famous and familiar: 'Wherefore God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves; for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.'

"I arrest the quotation unfinished. The remainder of the passage descends into particulars of blame well known, and well known to be truly charged against the ancient pagan world. No hint of exceptions here in favor of points defectively good, or at least not so bad, in the religions condemned; no qualification, no mitigation of sentence suggested. Everywhere heavy shotted, point blank denunciation. No idea submitted of there being in some cases true and acceptable worship hidden away, disguised and unconscious, under false forms. No possibility glanced at of there being a distinction made by some idolaters, if made only by a very few discerning among them, between the idol served and the one incorruptible jealous God as meant by such exceptional idolaters to be merely symbolized in the idol ostensibly worshiped by them. Reserve none on behalf of certain initiated, illuminated souls seeking and finding purer religion in esoteric 'mysteries' that were shut out from the profane vulgar. Christianity leaves no loophole of escape for the judged and reprobate anti-Christian religions with which it comes in contact. It shows instead only indiscriminate damnation [condemnation] leaping out like forked lightning from the glory of his power upon those incorrigibly [D197] guilty of the sin referred to, the sin of worship paid to gods other than God.

"There is no pleasing alleviation anywhere introduced in the way of assurance, or even of possible hope, that a benign God will graciously receive into his ear the ascriptions formally given to another as virtually, though misconceivingly, intended for himself. That idea, whether just or not, is not scriptural. It is indeed, anti-scriptural, therefore anti-Christian. Christianity does not deserve the praise of any such liberality. As concerns the sole, the exclusive, the incommunicable prerogatives of God, Christianity is, let it be frankly admitted, a narrow, a strict, a severe, a jealous religion. Socrates, dying, may have been forgiven his proposal of a cock to be offered in sacrifice to Aesculapius; but Christianity, the Christianity of the Bible, gives us no shadow of reason for supposing that such idolatrous act on his part was translated by God into worship acceptable to himself.

"Peter said, 'Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him.'

"To fear God first, and then also to work righteousness, these are the traits characterizing ever and everywhere the man acceptable to God. But evidently to fear God is not, in the idea of Christianity, to worship another than he. It will accordingly be in degree as a man escapes the ethnic religion dominant about him, and rises--not by means of it, but in spite of it--into the transcending element of the true divine worship, that he will be acceptable to God.

"Of any ethnic religion, therefore, can it be said that it is a true religion, only not perfect? Christianity says, No. Christianity speaks words of undefined, unlimited hope concerning those, some of those, who shall never have heard of Christ. These words Christians, of course, will hold and cherish according to their inestimable value. But let us not mistake them as intended to bear any relation whatever to the erring religions of mankind. Those religions the Bible nowhere represents as pathetic and partly successful gropings after God. They are one and all represented as groping downward, not groping upward. According to Christianity they hinder, they do not help. Their adherents' hold on [D198] them is like the blind grasping of drowning men on roots and rocks that only tend to keep them to the bottom of the river. The truth that is in the false religion may help, but it will be the truth, not the false religion.

"According to Christianity the false religion exerts all its force to choke and to kill the truth that is in it. Hence the historic degeneration represented in the first chapter of Romans as affecting false religions in general. If they were upward reachings they would grow better and better. If, as Paul teaches, they in fact grow worse and worse, it must be because they are downward reachings.

"The attitude, therefore, of Christianity toward religions other than itself is an attitude of universal, absolute, eternal, unappeasable hostility, while toward all men everywhere, the adherents of the false religions by no means excepted, its attitude is an attitude of grace, mercy, peace for whosoever will [receive it]. How many will be found that will [receive it], is a problem which Christianity leaves unsolved."

The Rev. James Devine, of New York City, also spoke on the message of Christianity to other religions, clearly presenting the doctrine of redemption through the precious blood of Christ. He said:

"We are brought now to another fundamental truth in Christian teaching--the mysterious doctrine of atonement. Sin is a fact which is indisputable. It is universally recognized and acknowledged. It is its own evidence. It is, moreover, a barrier between man and his God. The divine holiness and sin, with its loathsomeness, its rebellion, its horrid degradation and its hopeless ruin, cannot coalesce in any system of moral government. God cannot tolerate sin or temporize with it or make a place for it in his presence. He cannot parley with it; he must punish it. He cannot treat with it; he must try it at the bar. He cannot overlook it; he must overcome it. He cannot give it a moral status; he must visit with the condemnation it deserves.

"Atonement is God's marvelous method of vindicating, once for all, before the universe, his eternal attitude toward sin, by the voluntary self-assumption, in the spirit of sacrifice, of its penalty. This he does in the person of Jesus [D199] Christ. The facts of Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection take their place in the realm of veritable history, and the moral value and propitiatory efficacy of his perfect obedience and sacrificial death become a mysterious element of limitless worth in the process of readjusting the relation of the sinner to his God.

"Christ is recognized by God as a substitute. The merit of his obedience and the exalted dignity of his sacrifice are both available to faith. The sinner, humble, penitent, and conscious of unworthiness, accepts Christ as his redeemer, his intercessor, his savior, and simply believes in trusting in his assurances and promises, based as they are upon his atoning intervention, and receives from God, as the gift of sovereign love, all the benefits of Christ's mediatorial work. This is God's way of reaching the goal of pardon and reconciliation. It is his way of being himself just and yet accomplishing the justification of the sinner. Here again we have the mystery of wisdom in its most august exemplification.

"This is the heart of the gospel. It throbs with mysterious love; it pulsates with ineffable throes of divine healing; it bears a vital relation to the whole scheme of government; it is in its hidden activities beyond the scrutiny of human reason; but it sends the life-blood coursing through history and it gives to Christianity its superb vitality and its undying vigor. It is because Christianity eliminates sin from the problem that its solution is complete and final.

"Christianity must speak in the name of God. To him it owes its existence, and the deep secret of its dignity and power is that it reveals him. It would be effrontery for it to speak simply upon its own responsibility, or even in the name of reason. It has no philosophy of evolution to propound. It has a message from God to deliver. It is not itself a philosophy; it is a religion. It is not earth-born; it is God-wrought. It comes not from man, but from God, and is intensely alive with his power, alert with his love, benign with his goodness, radiant with his light, charged with his truth, sent with his message, inspired with his energy, pregnant with his wisdom, instinct with the gift of spiritual healing and mighty with supreme authority.

"It has a mission among men, whenever or wherever it [D200] finds them, which is as sublime as creation, as marvelous as spiritual existence and as full of mysterious meaning as eternity. It finds its focus, and as well its radiating center, in the personality of its great revealer and teacher, to whom, before his advent, all the fingers of light pointed, and from whom, since his incarnation, all the brightness of the day has shone.

"Its spirit is full of simple sincerity, exalted dignity and sweet unselfishness. It aims to impart a blessing rather than to challenge a comparison. It is not so anxious to vindicate itself as to confer its benefits. It is not so solicitous to secure supreme honor for itself as to win its way to the heart. It does not seek to taunt, to disparage or humiliate its rival, but rather to subdue by love, attract by its own excellence and supplant by virtue of its own incomparable superiority. It is itself incapable of a spirit of rivalry, because of its own indisputable right to reign. It has no use for a sneer, it can dispense with contempt, it carries no weapon of violence, it is not given to argument, it is incapable of trickery or deceit, and it repudiates cant. It relies ever upon its own intrinsic merit, and bases all its claims on its right to be heard and honored.

"Its miraculous evidence is rather an exception than a rule. It was a sign to help weak faith. It was a concession made in the spirit of condescension. Miracles suggest mercy quite as much as they announce majesty. When we consider the unlimited sources of divine power, and the ease with which signs and wonders might have been multiplied in bewildering variety and impressiveness, we are conscious of a rigid conservation of power and a distinct repudiation of the spectacular. The mystery of Christian history is the sparing way in which Christianity has used its resources. It is a tax upon faith, which is often painfully severe, to note the apparent lack of energy and dash and resistless force in the seemingly slow advances of our holy religion. [It must of necessity be so to those who have not yet come to an understanding of the divine plan of the ages.]

"Doubtless God had his reasons, but in the meantime we cannot but recognize in Christianity a spirit of mysterious reserve, of marvelous patience, of subdued undertone, of [D201] purposeful restraint. It does not 'cry, nor lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the street.' Centuries come and go and Christianity touches only portions of the earth, but wherever it touches it transfigures. It seems to despise material adjuncts, and counts only those victories worth having which are won through spiritual contact with the individual soul. Its relation to other religions has been characterized by singular reserve, and its progress has been marked by an unostentatious dignity which is in harmony with the majestic attitude of God, its author.

"We are right, then, in speaking of the spirit of this message as wholly free from the commonplace sentiment of rivalry, entirely above the use of spectacular or meretricious methods, infinitely removed from all mere devices or dramatic effect, wholly free from cant or doublefacedness, with no anxiety for alliance with worldly power or social eclat, caring more for a place of influence in a humble heart than for a seat of power on a royal throne, wholly intent on claiming the loving allegiance of the soul and securing the moral transformation of character, in order that its own spirit and principles may sway the spiritual life of men.

"It speaks, then, to other religions with unqualified frankness and plainness, based on its own incontrovertible claim to a hearing. It acknowledges the undoubted sincerity of personal conviction and the intense earnestness of moral struggle in the case of many serious souls who, like the Athenians of old, 'worship in ignorance'; it warns, and persuades, and commands, as is its right; it speaks as Paul did in the presence of cultured heathenism on Mars' Hill, of that appointed day in which the world must be judged, and of 'that man' by whom it is to be judged; it echoes and re-echoes its invariable and inflexible call to repentance; it requires acceptance of its moral standards; it exacts submission, loyalty, reverence and humility.

"All this it does with a superb and unwavering tone of quiet insistence. It often presses its claim with argument, appeal and tender urgency; yet in it all and through it all should be recognized a clear, resonant, predominant tone of uncompromising insistence, revealing that supreme personal will which originated Christianity, and in whose [D202] name it ever speaks. It delivers its message with an air of untroubled confidence and quiet mastery. There is no anxiety about precedence, no undue care for externals, no possibility of being patronized, no undignified spirit of competition. It speaks, rather, with the consciousness of that simple, natural, incomparable, measureless supremacy which quickly disarms rivalry, and in the end challenges the admiration and compels the submission of hearts free from malice and guile."

Among these noble utterances in defense of the truth was also that of Count Bernstorff, of Germany. He said:

"I trust that nobody is here who thinks lightly of his own religion [though he certainly learned to the contrary before the parliament closed. This was said at its beginning.] I for myself declare that I am here as an individual evangelical Christian, and that I should never have set my foot in this Parliament if I thought that it signified anything like a consent that all religions are equal, and that it is only necessary to be sincere and upright. I can consent to nothing of this kind. I believe only the Bible to be true, and Protestant Christianity the only true religion. I wish no compromise of any kind.

"We cannot deny that we who meet in this Parliament are separated by great and important principles. We admit that these differences cannot be bridged over; but we meet, believing everybody has the right to his faith. You invite everybody to come here as a sincere defender of his own faith. I, for my part, stand before you with the same wish that prompted Paul when he stood before the representatives of the Roman Court and Agrippa, the Jewish king. I would to God that all that hear me today were both almost, and altogether, such as I am. I cannot say 'except these bonds.' I thank God I am free; except for all these faults and deficiencies which are in me and which prevent me from embracing my creed as I should like to do.

"But what do we then meet for, if we cannot show tolerance? Well, the word tolerance is used in different ways. If the words of King Frederick of Prussia--'In my country everybody can go to heaven after his own fashion'--are used as a maxim of statesmanship, we cannot approve of it too [D203] highly. What bloodshed, what cruelty would have been spared in the world if it had been adopted. But if it is the expression of the religious indifference prevalent during this last century and at the court of the monarch who was the friend of Voltaire, then we must not accept it.

"St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, rejects every other doctrine, even if it were taught by an angel from heaven. We Christians are servants of our Master, the living Savior. We have no right to compromise the truth he intrusted to us; either to think lightly of it, or to withhold the message he has given us for humanity. But we meet together, each one wishing to gain the others to his own creed. Will this not be a Parliament of war instead of peace? Will it take us further from, instead of bringing us nearest to, each other? I think not, if we hold fast the truth that our great vital doctrines can only be defended and propagated by spiritual means. An honest fight with spiritual weapons need not estrange the combatants; on the contrary, it often brings them nearer.

"I think this conference will have done enough to engrave its memory forever on the leaves of history if this great principle [religious liberty] finds general adoption. One light is dawning in every heart, and the nineteenth century has brought us much progress in this respect; yet we risk to enter the twentieth century before the great principle of religious liberty has found universal acceptance."

In marked contrast with the general spirit of the Parliament was also the discourse of Mr. Grant, of Canada. He said:

"It seems to me that we should begin this Parliament of Religions, not with a consciousness that we are doing a great thing, but with an humble and lowly confession of sin and failure. Why have not the inhabitants of the world fallen before the truth? The fault is ours. The Apostle Paul, looking back on centuries of marvelous, God-guided history, saw as the key to all its maxims this: that Jehovah had stretched out his hands all day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people; that, although there was always a remnant of the righteous. Israel as a nation did not understand Jehovah, and therefore failed to understand her own marvelous mission. [D204]

"If St. Paul were here today would he not utter the same sad confession with regard to the nineteenth century of Christendom? Would he not have to say that we have been proud of our Christianity, instead of allowing our Christianity to humble and crucify us; that we have boasted of Christianity as something we possessed, instead of allowing it to possess us; that we have divorced it from the moral and spiritual order of the world, instead of seeing that it is that which interpenetrates, interprets, completes and verifies that order; and that so we have hidden its glories and obscured its power. All day long our Savior has been saying, 'I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.' But the only one indispensable condition of success is that we recognize the cause of our failure, that we confess it, with humble, lowly, penitent and obedient minds, and that with quenchless Western courage and faith we now go forth and do otherwise."

Would that these sentiments had found an echo in the great Parliament!--but they did not. On the other hand, it was characterized by great boastfulness as to the "marvelous religious progress of the nineteenth century"; and Count Bernstorff's first impression, that it meant a bold compromise of Christian principles and doctrine, was the correct one, as the subsequent sessions of the Parliament proved.

The Contrasted Attitudes of Catholicism,
Heathenism and Protestant Christianity

The confident and assertive attitude of Catholicism and the various heathen religions was in marked contrast with the skepticism of Protestant Christianity. Not a sentence was uttered by any of them against the authority of their sacred books; they praised and commended their religions, while they listened with surprise to the skeptical and infidel discourses of Protestant Christians against the Christian religion and against the Bible, for which even the heathen showed greater respect. [D205]

As evidence of the surprise of the foreigners on learning of this state of things among Christians, we quote the following from the published address of one of the delegates from Japan at a great meeting held in Yokohama to welcome their return and to hear their report. The speaker said:

"When we received the invitation to attend the Parliament of Religions, our Buddhist organization would not send us as representatives of the body. The great majority believed that it was a shrewd move on the part of Christians to get us there and then hold us up to ridicule or try to convert us. We accordingly went as individuals. But it was a wonderful surprise which awaited us. Our ideas were all mistaken. The Parliament was called because the Western nations have come to realize the weakness and folly of Christianity, and they really wished to hear from us of our religion, and to learn what the best religion is. There is no better place in the world to propagate the teachings of Buddhism than America. Christianity is merely an adornment of society in America. It is deeply believed by very few. The great majority of Christians drink and commit various gross sins, and live very dissolute lives, although it is a very common belief and serves as a social adornment. Its lack of power proves its weakness. The meetings showed the great superiority of Buddhism over Christianity, and the mere fact of calling the meetings showed that the Americans and other Western people had lost their faith in Christianity and were ready to accept the teachings of our superior religion."

It is no wonder that a Japanese Christian said, at the close of the addresses, "How could American Christians make so great a mistake as to hold such a meeting and injure Christianity as these meetings will do in Japan?"

Those who are posted in history know something of the character of that great antichristian power, the Church of Rome, with which affiliation is so earnestly sought by Protestants; and those who are keeping open eyes on her present operations know that her heart and character are still unchanged. [D206] Those who are at all informed know well that the Greek Catholic Church has supported and approved, if indeed it has not been the instigator of, the Russian persecution of the Jews, "Stundists" and all other Christians who, awaking from the blindness and superstition of the Greek Church, are seeking and finding God and truth through the study of his Word. The persecution incited by the Greek Catholic priests and prosecuted by the police are of the most cruel and revolting nature. But, nevertheless, union and cooperation with both these systems, the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, is most earnestly sought, as also with all the forms of heathen superstition and ignorance.

The Gross Darkness of the Heathenism with
which Christians Desire and Seek Alliance

Of the gross darkness of the heathenism with which cooperation and sympathy are now craved by Christians, we may gain some idea from the following indignant retort of Dr. Pentecost against the critical tone which some of the foreigners assumed toward Christianity and Christian missions. He said:

"I think it is a pity that anything should tend to degenerate the discussions of this Parliament into a series of criminations and recriminations; nevertheless, we Christians have been sitting patiently and listening to a series of criticisms upon the results of Christianity from certain representatives of the Eastern religions. For instance, the slums of Chicago and New York, the nameless wickedness palpable to the eye even of the strangers who are our guests; the licentiousness, the drunkenness, the brawls, the murders, and the crimes of the criminal classes have been scored up against us. The shortcomings of Congress and government both in England and America have been charged to Christianity. The opium trade, the rum traffic, the breach of treaties, the inhuman and barbarous laws against the Chinaman, etc., have all been charged upon the Christian [D207] church. [But if Christians claim that these are Christian nations, can they reasonably blame these heathen representatives for thinking and judging them accordingly?]

"It seems almost needless to say that all these things, the immoralities, drunkenness, crimes, unbrotherliness, and the selfish greed of these various destructive traffics which have been carried from our countries to the Orient lie outside the pale of Christianity. [No, not if these are Christian nations. In making this claim, the church is chargeable with the sins of the nations, and they are justly charged against her.] The Church of Christ is laboring night and day to correct and abolish these crimes. The unanimous voice of the Christian Church condemns the opium traffic, the liquor traffic, the Chinese acts of oppression, and all forms of vice and greed of which our friends from the East complain.

"We are willing to be criticized; but when I recall the fact that these criticisms are in part from gentlemen who represent a system of religion whose temples, manned by the highest casts of Brahmanical priesthood, are the authorized and appointed cloisters of a system of immorality and debauchery the parallel of which is not known in any Western country, I feel that silence gives consent. I could take you to ten thousand temples, more or less--more rather than less--in every part of India, to which are attached from two to four hundred priestesses, whose lives are not all they should be.

"I have seen this with my own eyes, and nobody denies it in India. If you talk to the Brahmans about it, they will say it is a part of their system for the common people. Bear in mind this system is the authorized institution of the Hindoo religion. One needs only to look at the abominable carvings upon the temples, both of the Hindoos and Buddhists, the hideous symbols of the ancient Phallic systems, which are the most popular objects worshiped in India, to be impressed with the corruption of the religions. Bear in mind, these are not only tolerated, but instituted, directed and controlled by the priests of religion. Only the shameless paintings and portraiture of ancient Pompeii equal in obscenity the things that are openly seen in and about the entrances to the temples of India. [D208]

"It seems a little hard that we should bear the criticism which these representatives of Hindooism make upon the godless portion of Western countries, when they are living in such enormous glass houses as these, every one of them erected, protected and defended by the leaders of their own religion.

"We have heard a good deal about the 'fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,' as being one of the essential doctrines of the religions of the East. As a matter of fact, I have never been able to find--and I have challenged the production all over India--a single text in any of the Hindoo sacred literature that justifies or even suggests the doctrine of the 'fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.' This is a pure plagiarism from Christianity. We rejoice that they have adopted and incorporated it. How can a Brahman, who looks upon all low-caste men, and especially upon the poor pariahs, with a spirit of loathing, and regards them as a different order of beings, sprung from monkeys and devils, presume to tell us that he believes in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? If a Brahman believes in the brotherhood of man, why will he refuse the social amenities and common hospitalities to men of other castes, as well as to his Western brethren, whom he so beautifully enfolds in the condescending arms of his newly found doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man?

"If there is any brotherhood of man in India the most careless observer need not hesitate to say that there is no sisterhood recognized by them. Let the nameless horrors of which the Hindoo women of India are the subjects answer to this statement.

"Until the English government put down a strong hand the ancient religious Hindoo institution of Suttee, hundreds of Hindoo widows every year gladly flew to the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, thus embracing the flames that burned their bodies rather than to deliver themselves to the nameless horrors and living hell of Hindoo widowhood. Let our Hindoo friends tell us what their religion has done for the Hindoo widow, and especially the child widow, with her head shaved like a criminal, stripped [D209] of her ornaments, clothed in rags, reduced to a position of slavery worse than we can conceive, made the common drudge and scavenger of the family, and not infrequently put to even worse and nameless uses. To this state and condition the poor widow is reduced under the sanction of Hindooism. Only two years ago the British government was appealed to to pass a new and stringent law 'raising the age of consent' to twelve years, at which it was lawful for the Hindoo to consummate the marriage relation with his child wife. The Christian hospitals, filled with abused little girls barely out of their babyhood, became so outrageous a fact that the government had to step in and stop these crimes, which were perpetrated in the name of religion. So great was the excitement in India over this that it was feared that a religious revolution which would almost lead to a new mutiny was imminent.

"We have been criticized by our Oriental friends for judging with an ignorant and prejudiced judgment, because at a recent challenge in the early part of this Parliament only five persons were able to say that they had read the Bible of Buddha; so it was taken for granted that our judgment was ignorant and unjust. The same challenge might have been made in Burmah or Ceylon, and outside of the priesthood it is almost fair to say that not so many would have been able to say they had read their own Scriptures. The Badas of the Hindoos are objects of worship. None but a Brahman may teach, much less read them. Before the Christian missionary went to India, the Sanskrit was practically a dead language. If the Indian Scriptures have at least been translated into the vernacular or given to the Western nations, it is because the Christian missionary and Western scholars have rediscovered them, unearthed them, translated them and brought them forth to the light of day. The amount of the Sanskrit Scriptures known by the ordinary Indian who has secured a Western education is only those portions which have been translated into English or the vernacular by European or Western scholars. The common people, ninety-nine one-hundredths of all, know only tradition. Let us contrast this dead exclusiveness on the part of these Indian religions with the fact that the [D210] Christian has translated his Bible into more than three hundred languages and dialects, and has sent it broadcast by hundreds of millions among all the nations and tongues and peoples of the earth. We court the light, but it would seem that the Bibles of the East love the darkness rather than light, because they will not bear the light of universal publication.

"The new and better Hindooism of today is a development under the influence of a Christian environment, but it has not yet attained to that ethical standard which gives it right to read the Christian Church a lesson in morals. Until India purges her temples of worse than Augean filth, and her pundits and priests disown and denounce the awful acts and deeds done in the name of religion, let her be modest in proclaiming morals to other nations and people."

Heathen Reformers Feeling After God

While Christendom stood representatively before the representative heathen world, boastful of its religious progress, and knowing not that it was "poor and blind and miserable and naked" (Rev. 3:17), the contrast of an evident feeling after God on the part of some in heathen lands was very marked; and the keenness with which they perceived and indirectly criticized the inconsistencies of Christians is worthy of special note.

In two able addresses by representative Hindoos, we have set before us a remarkable movement in India which gives some idea of the darkness of heathen lands, and also of the influence of our Bible, which the missionaries carried there. The Bible has been doing a work which the conflicting creeds that accompanied it, and claimed to interpret it, have hindered, but have not destroyed. From Japan also we hear of similar conditions. Below we append extracts from three addresses remarkable for their evident sincerity, thought and clear expression, and showing the very serious attitude of heathen reformers who are feeling after God, if haply they might find him. [D211]

A Voice from New India

Mr. Mozoomdar addressed the assembly as follows: MR.