Black. Phot. H. W. Smith.W. H. Ryder.
Black. Phot. H. W. Smith.W. H. Ryder.
Black. Phot. H. W. Smith.
W. H. Ryder.
Among the long and successful pastorates in the great city of the West,—Chicago,—we may note that of Rev.William Henry Ryder. He is a New England man, having been born in Provincetown, Mass. (the son of Capt. Godfrey Ryder), July 18, 1822. During the early life of the son it was supposed that he would become one of the fraternity of seamen, as his worthy father had been. But this seems not to have been the Providential intent. The parent did his part in sending the lad to sea in a vessel bearing his own name, "William Henry," but the experience of a shipwreck cured the young sailor of what nautical tastes he might have possessed, and turned his attention in another direction. He became anxious for the life of a student, and in his eighteenth year entered Pembroke, N. H., Academy. He was a diligent and progressive scholar, and while at this institution decided as to the profession upon which he afterwards entered. At the age of nineteen he preached his first sermon in Manchester, N. H., and during the year following he preached frequently in Concord, in the same State.
Leaving the school in Pembroke, he entered Clinton Liberal Institute (Clinton, N. Y.), then in care of a learned and efficient teacher, Dr. Clowes. He preached frequently during his stay there. In the autumn of 1843, soon after he was twenty-one, he was invited to take charge of the Universalist Society in Concord, N. H., to which place he removed, and in November of that year was united in marriage with Miss Caroline Frances Adams, who has proved a worthy and faithful helper to him in all the experiences connected with his profession. His ordination took place in December, 1843. His ministry here was successful. The society had been formed under the ministry of Rev. J. G. Adams while doing missionary work in New Hampshire, in 1834. Faithful men and women had kept it alive through changes and vicissitudes until it realized a new prosperity under Mr. Ryder, which has continued to the present time.
After two and a half years of successful labor here, he accepted a call to the neighboring city of Nashua, a larger and more promising field, which he occupied to good effect. While giving great satisfaction to his people, he became deeply impressed with the conviction that his ability to serve the church in the capacity of a Christian teacher according to his own ideal would be made greater by a more thorough course of study than he had yet been able to take, or than he could take with the cares of a pastor upon him. He therefore determined to spend a year and a half abroad in study and observation. Resigning his charge in Nashua, he sailed from New York to England. Landing at Kinsale, Ireland, and exploring the lake region of Killarney, he passed on to Dublin, and crossed the channel into England,where he tarried awhile, visiting places of historic interest, and making the acquaintance of several persons who were specially interested in his own faith and profession. While in London and vicinity, he was cordially greeted by the Unitarian ministers there, and preached in two of their churches. He soon crossed to the Continent and came to Berlin, where he applied himself diligently in a course of study under German instructors for seven months. He next extended his travels to Palestine, visiting Jerusalem and many other noted places there. He also visited Athens, Constantinople, Cairo, the Pyramids, Malta, Naples, Rome, Florence, Geneva, and Paris, from which last-named place he went again to Berlin. He was absent a year and a half.
Soon after his return to his native land he was called to the pastorate in Roxbury, Mass. Here he had a successful ministry of ten years, not only fully sustaining the high reputation which the church had long enjoyed, but giving it new inspiration and vigor by the high and truly evangelical tone of his ministry. In 1860 he was called to that great city of the West, Chicago, then twenty-seven years old, and containing 150,000 people. He took charge of St. Paul's Church at a time when just such a helper and director as he proved to be was needed. His discriminating mind and firm will and patience and steadiness of action, worked effectively in building up the cause of Universalism in his own church, and giving it an honorable reputation in that great and growing city. And out of the city and through the State and the whole West the influence of his teaching and work as a representative of the Universalist Church has been justly acknowledged. He has done work forthe Christian cause that deserves to be kept in perpetual remembrance. In the pulpit, as a pastor, as an earnest worker in all matters affecting education, reform, and the public weal, he has been found constant and faithful.
In 1860 Harvard conferred upon him the degree of A. M., and in 1863 Lombard University the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1868 he made a second visit to Europe, and brought home many treasures of art which were subsequently destroyed by fire in the two great conflagrations with which Chicago was visited. The fire that destroyed St. Paul's and his own beautiful residence on an adjoining lot imposed great responsibilities upon him, which he assumed and discharged with admirable skill. He visited New England and returned with $40,000 with which to repair the shattered fortunes of St. Paul's Church; and such has been his administrative skill, that, notwithstanding the heavy financial reverses to which the parish was subsequently subjected, their grand church, worth $200,000, is now without an incumbrance. Dr. Ryder himself suffered great loss by the fires, but it is pleasant to record what one who knows says of him, that he is still "in possession of 'enough and to spare.'"
Dr. Ryder's life has been crowded with duties. As a preacher and pastor and man of business he has made his mark on public opinion and human life during the forty years just closing. He has thoroughly identified himself with the faith and work of the Universalist Church. As an expositor of its faith he has always been clear and positive, and as an advocate of its work unmistakably emphatic. Organized church work, State work, national work, mission work—home and foreign, he hascontinually urged. The zealous and faithful women-workers of the church have always found in him a warm, hearty, and outspoken advocate on all occasions when and where his word of good cheer has been asked. As a preacher, another has thus truthfully spoken of him:—
"He has rare power. A model pulpit voice, deep, sonorous; a manner of wonderful impressiveness; a personality behind his words that makes every word tell; and long years of sagacious work without mistakes re-enforcing what he says, so that it is safe to say that no man's word in any Chicago pulpit, on any question before the people, goes as far as his in impressing the public mind."[55]
Dr. Ryder has what another has termed "an impressive presence," not in bodily size, but in a pleasant dignity which is attractive rather than imposing. An indication of cool self-confidence is in every word and action. He is thoroughly in earnest as a public speaker, and as thoroughly sincere and fearless in maintaining what he believes to be the right of the subject under consideration. A capital instance of this quality in him was given in the discussion of a topic that came up at the United States Convention during its session in Lynn in 1875. He had been invited to speak of "The Needs and Methods of Spiritual Awakening," and used great plainness and force of speech in reference to what he deemed some of the spiritual failures of professed Universalists which needed amendment. His matter was well considered, and his words were stirring and strong. An attempt was made to pass a vote of censure. He had discharged a duty laid upon him, and deserved the thanks of his hearers, even though they had not assentedto a word he uttered, if they were convinced—as doubtless all were—that he honestly believed what he said and discharged a conscientious duty. His defence and vindication of himself were admirable. The attempt to censure so significantly failed that the author of the resolution very readily withdrew it. A chronicler of the occasion wrote that it was worth a long journey to listen to that "outpouring."
During the war Dr. Ryder was a strong helper of the Union cause, active, eloquent, and untiring in his support of the government in manifold ways.
In addition to his other agreeable personal characteristics, Dr. Ryder is well known to those most intimate with him as a genial, courteous, and warm-hearted friend and companion. All his pastorates bear testimony to the love which the children and youth bore him, because of the interest in their welfare which he so constantly manifested.
In April, 1882, Dr. Ryder resigned his position as pastor in Chicago, and has since, with his companion, made a voyage to Europe. It is not his intention to take upon him the duties of another pastorate, but he will doubtless be always in readiness to aid as he may the interests of the church to whose prosperity his life thus far has been so constantly devoted.
In concluding the accounts of ministers here given, it seems appropriate to add a brief reference to an event of recent occurrence, to which the attention of the Universalist public had been specially called. We refer to the meetings held under the direction of the "CheshireAssociation," on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the 18th, 19th, and 20th of August, 1882, in Richmond, N. H., the birthplace of Rev. Hosea Ballou, and in honor of this distinguished and venerated man. During these days, discourses were preached by Rev. Quincy Whitney, Rev. S. S. Fletcher, Rev. Dr. S. H. McCollester, Rev. Dr. A. A. Miner, and Rev. Dr. G. H. Emerson. Multitudes were in attendance, and the occasion was deeply impressive, and is significantly historical. Appended to a special account of the great gathering, Dr. Emerson, editor of the "Christian Leader," presents the following description of the birthplace of Mr. Ballou. We are glad to give it a place in this volume:—
"Stratford-upon-Avon has its one interest for the great world in the happy fortune of giving to every age the Bard who, in the faculty for putting an almost inspired wisdom into verse that is not simply matchless, but at a vast altitude above that of every other poet who has spoken the Saxon tongue,—William Shakespeare. The little town of Ayr would be nothing but a Scottish post-village but for the circumstance that Robert Burns first breathed within its borders. But first Stratford and then Ayr, for the English-speaking world, rise to an importance simply unique, above every hamlet upon the British Isles, London and Edinburgh hardly excepted.
"Those who with us fully believe that the future is to honor Hosea Ballou with a niche in the temple of fame, as the peer of the elder Edwards, and as hardly the second of Franklin, who find in the 'Treatise on the Atonement' the quarry where Bushnell has polished a few boulders, will further agree with us that the gazetteer of the coming century will put into conspicuous type, and honor with some detail of description, the New Hampshire farming town where Hosea Ballou was born. The compiler of Lippincott's did not know its claim to distinction, when he summarily disposed of Richmond,N. H., as 'a post-township in Cheshire Co., 53 miles S. W. of Concord.'
"In a recent attendance upon the grove meeting, not the least among the inducements to make the journey was the opportunity to see the homestead where Hosea Ballou first took the breath of life, and to explore some of the vales and hills his boy feet must have trod more than a century ago.... As we enter this little village, a church at our right, half a century old, is the Universalist church,—the members of which have nearly all left, to be good parishioners at Winchester, Keene, and other more thriving and distant neighborhoods.
"A little farther on, at our left, is a 'meeting-house,'—it is true to that classic cognomen. It is black with age. It seems hardly strong enough to keep timber, board, and shingle together. It cannot be less than a century and a half old. The very sight of it takes us back to a former and very primitive age. The glass is held to the sash by bits of tin,—the putty got tired long ago and 'let go.' We cannot enter, but we can look through the windows. On the north side is the great, square pine pulpit, possibly one that never knew the smell of paint. The square pews have high seats from which only tolerably long limbs can touch the knotty floor. There is no grace of form, no cunning device of architect, nothing to woo a trained fancy. In and of itself, it is a hulk that only cumbers the ground.
"Why, then, did we look often, long, and spell-bound upon this wretched old rookery, and see therein a fascination not to be noted in the Capitol at Albany or the mammoth and costly post-offices of New York and Boston? The answer is in the history. More than a century ago, Rev. Maturin Ballou preached regularly from that pine pulpit. Among the regular auditors, possibly the most thoughtful of them all, his little legs dangling from the rough benches, sat his little son—Hosea.
"On the morning of Sunday, our friend and host, Mr. L. Martin, says to his pastor of many years, the Rev. E. Davis: 'Take my horse and carriage, and show these people where Hosea Ballou was born.' 'These people' include Dr. Miner, Rev. Mr. Stone, of Canton, Rev. Q. Whitney, and the editor of the 'Christian Leader.' Mr. Davis knows the way, but in Mr. Bowen, who owns the farm contiguous to the once Ballou territory, he finds and calls a pilot and village antiquarian. Perhaps a mile east of the Keene and Richmond road, a mile and a half from the Universalist church on the hill, right at the foot of 'Grassy Hill,' we find a strictly modern house, and a very old barn, and a much older corn-house,—less now by a good sample than it was before we saw it. It is a one-story house, with modern windows, and three small chimneys. Mr. Bowen explains: 'That house contains the frame within which Hosea Ballou was born, and the form of the interior is substantially the same.' He was confident that the three chimneys were the same in material as the one big chimney of the old structure. Of the corn-house near by, Mr. Bowen says: 'That is just the same, only it is older and is now going to decay.' Knoll, stream, valley, plain, and high hill to the east,—in the woods of which run the fence or wall that bounded the Ballou farm: upon these time can have wrought but little change. We saw them upon that Sunday morning as Hosea Ballou saw them,—as child, as boy, as youth, as man. From that quiet spot, so rural, so out of the way, so completely in the backwoods, almost hidden by precipice and hill, came the acorn, the oak whereof is now strong and vigorous,—we trust with healing in its leaves. The little boy entering that corn-barn to get fodder for his father's horse, cows, and oxen,—is that the same whose stalwart form first rose before us in the School Street pulpit forty years ago; whose eloquent tongue set the blood thrilling in our youthful veins; whose majestic bearing seemed to us—what it was—that of an Apostle?
"It has been our good fortune to look upon the Forum where Cicero declaimed in orations that yet thrill; to traverse the Colosseum where Trajan had a private box; to walk the streets of Pompeii whose pavements were trodden by resident Greeks and strangers centuries before the advent of Jesus.
"But there is an ample niche in our memory left. We place therein, to recall reverently, gratefully, and with weird association, our visit, on the morning of August 20, 1882, to the birthplace of Hosea Ballou, Richmond, N. H., 'twelve miles from Keene, due south.' The town of hill, vale, and forest is largely deserted by man. Farms that once waved with corn are now covered with forests of pine. The locomotive has never been seen—hardly heard—within its borders. But its history is precious. For what it was, for what it bequeathed, it shall live in history and in song."
[49]"Our Woman Workers," p. 353.[50]The first Universalist woman who appeared in the pulpit as a preacher of the Gospel was Miss Maria Cook, who preached before the Western Association in Bainbridge, N. Y., in June, 1811. She is spoken of by Rev. Stephen R. Smith, in his "Historical Sketches" (Vol. I. pp. 31, 32). Notwithstanding the good impressions made by her as a speaker, there were those who deemed "so extraordinary an undertaking as an evidence of mental alienation!" A more enlightened and candid judgment in reference to this subject has since prevailed.[51]Rev. Thomas G. Farnsworth of Waltham, Mass., ordained in 1822, and Rev. Alvin Dinsmore of Woodland, Cal., ordained in 1823.[52]"Argument on the Right and Duty of Prohibition." By A. A. Miner, April 2, 1867.[53]Boston Transcript of May 1, 1882.[54]Rev. G. H. Emerson, D. D., Ed. in "Christian Leader."[55]Rev. J. W. Hanson, D. D.
[49]"Our Woman Workers," p. 353.
[50]The first Universalist woman who appeared in the pulpit as a preacher of the Gospel was Miss Maria Cook, who preached before the Western Association in Bainbridge, N. Y., in June, 1811. She is spoken of by Rev. Stephen R. Smith, in his "Historical Sketches" (Vol. I. pp. 31, 32). Notwithstanding the good impressions made by her as a speaker, there were those who deemed "so extraordinary an undertaking as an evidence of mental alienation!" A more enlightened and candid judgment in reference to this subject has since prevailed.
[51]Rev. Thomas G. Farnsworth of Waltham, Mass., ordained in 1822, and Rev. Alvin Dinsmore of Woodland, Cal., ordained in 1823.
[52]"Argument on the Right and Duty of Prohibition." By A. A. Miner, April 2, 1867.
[53]Boston Transcript of May 1, 1882.
[54]Rev. G. H. Emerson, D. D., Ed. in "Christian Leader."
[55]Rev. J. W. Hanson, D. D.
THE Universalists, like some others of the Christian sects in America, were at first destitute of the educational forces which have so signally aided and strengthened the more popular churches of the land. They had no colleges, no academies, or theological schools at their command. Although some of their ministers were very respectable scholars, giving good evidence of their literary attainments in their pulpit instructions, and now and then an uncommon genius would appear, making his talents specially available as a writer or preacher, the larger number were more notable mainly for their plain good sense, their reasoning powers, their very intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures, and their aptness in the use of them in the defence and advocacy of their faith. These last named qualifications gave the Universalist minister a vantage-ground in the elucidation of his faith, which often rendered it impossible for a theological opponent, however well trained as a scholar, to sustain himself in an attempted vindication of his opinions. If, therefore, Christian truth could be thus clearly and impressively set forth by those of but limited educational resources, how much more effective might it prove if thoroughly prepared and armed witha ripe and ready scholarship? This consideration, as was to have been expected, in due time moved some of the wisest and best friends of the Universalist Church to take steps towards the accomplishment of this object.
And not for the ministry only was this advantage sought. Those who were needed to sustain the ministry were equally involved in the attainment of it. Every Christian sect has been elevated and sustained in a great measure by giving its support to educational institutions,—the college, the divinity school, the academy. If an educated ministry is one of the great aids in sustaining Christian truth and the Christian Church, so is an educated laity. Both would have their religion represented and upheld by the highest educational supports and influences of modern civilization.
Besides, Christian Universalism is a child of the light. It is "not of the night nor of darkness." It would send out its inquiries everywhere into the universe in its readiness to "prove all things and hold fast that which is good." It would stand face to face with all the questionings that come up in science, history, philosophy, fully persuaded that all these, truthfully consulted, will more and more confirm its great doctrines of God, the divine law and its operations, the divine purposes and their fulfilment, the reign of righteousness and its final triumph over all evil, as made known through Christ, the Head, Guide, and Emancipator of Man. Hence it could not be otherwise than that the enlightened Universalist should be the earnest advocate and friend of educational institutions.
A notable evidence of this interest was seen in the instituting of Tufts College in Medford, Mass. It wasa timely generosity that gave it being on that pleasant hill which "the centuries had piled and planted to be the candlestick on which Charles Tufts should set the light of this institution."[56]It was incorporated in 1852, and opened for students in 1855. Its prosperity has been of steady growth, its funds have multiplied and its endowments increased; the last report of the President (E. H. Capen, D. D.) showing it to be "no longer an experiment, but a power." The aggregate assets of the college at the present time, including the buildings and one hundred and twenty acres of land, are not less than $1,000,000. With a Faculty of great practical efficiency, and with the close personal intercourse of teachers and pupils, no institution of the kind in America affords better facilities for a thorough education. In connection with the college is the Divinity School, with its able and devoted instructors. A professorship in the school was endowed by Charles Packard, Esq., of Boston. An elegant chapel near the main college building is soon to be ready for use, at a cost of $25,000, the gift of Mrs. Mary T. Goddard, of Newton, Mass.
Lombard University, at Galesburg, Ill., is another institution, founded by Benjamin Lombard, of Galesburg. The university building is of brick, three stories high, with spacious rooms. It has libraries of about 5,000 volumes; an extensive mineralogical cabinet, including a rare collection of shells; a valuable philosophical and chemical apparatus, and a permanent fund of about $100,000. Young men and women are admitted alike to all classes and all courses of study. Rev. N. White, Ph. D., is President, as also of the Theological Department in connection with the university. All departmentsof the university are open to the students of theology without charge.
St. Lawrence University is at Canton, St. Lawrence Co., N. Y. It has two fully organized departments. 1. The collegiate, comprising the usual four years' classical course, and a four years' scientific course. Rev. A. G. Gaines is president and Craig Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. Young men and women are admitted to the institution on the same conditions. 2. The theological, of which Rev. I. M. Atwood, D. D. (the successor of the late Dr. Fisher) is president. Competent and faithful teachers are in both schools. The location and surroundings of the school are favorable to uninterrupted study. A good number of well-educated and useful ministers have gone out from Canton.
Another college worthy of special attention is Buchtel, Akron, Summit Co., Ohio. It was founded by the Universalist State Convention of Ohio, and was named in honor of Hon. John R. Buchtel, its most generous and devoted benefactor, and was opened to students of both sexes, Sept. 11, 1872. The curriculum of study embraces: 1. A complete classical course of four years; 2. A thorough philosophical course of four years; 3. A full scientific course of four years. There is also a preparatory course of three years for each of the above courses. Rev. O. Cone is president of Buchtel, who has a company of able teachers with him. There are thirty-two perpetual scholarships of $1,000 each; and four professorship endowments (two for women), two of $25,000, and two of $20,000 each. The outlook from the institution was never more promising than at present, and its friends were never more devoted to its interests. Its generous founder has lived to see this childof his many anxieties and strong affection one of the great joys of his lifetime; and he richly deserves it. The college was lately freed from debt. Its total capital is $290,000.
Clinton Liberal Institute has been of good service. It was founded in Clinton, N. Y., in 1831, and removed to Fort Plain, N. Y., in 1879, and came into possession of the buildings and grounds formerly known as the Fort Plain Seminary and Collegiate Institute. It was the first academic institution set up by Universalists, and has had a steady success from the beginning. Charles V. Parcell, A. M., is president, and has with him a full corps of competent teachers. The amount of its property is $100,000.
One of the most convenient and beautiful educational buildings in New England is Dean Academy, at Franklin, Mass. It was incorporated in 1865, and derives its name from the late Dr. Oliver Dean of Franklin. The edifice with the outbuildings is valued at $200,000, is lighted with gas and heated by steam, and has every modern improvement and convenience for the comfort of the pupils. Its principal is Lester L. Burrington, A. M., Chase Professor of Latin and Greek. The institution is well endowed and is increasing in prosperity. It is an honor to the Universalist denomination as well as to its venerable founder, and deserves to be widely patronized and vigorously sustained. The edifice stands upon land once owned by the distinguished Orthodox divine, Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, formerly the minister of the town.
Goddard Seminary is situated in the beautiful village of Barre, Vt., six miles from Montpelier. The school is for both sexes, and offers three complete courses ofstudy, viz. the college preparatory, of three years; the ladies' collegiate, of four years; the English course, of four years. The seminary is well supplied with anatomical models, skeletons, charts, globes, stereopticon, table and gas microscope, and apparatus for the illustration of physiology, astronomy, philosophy, and chemistry. The cabinet contains an excellent collection of minerals, fossils, and natural history specimens, and superior facilities are offered for the study of natural science.
H. W. Smith.Thos. A. Goddard.
H. W. Smith.Thos. A. Goddard.
H. W. Smith.
Thos. A. Goddard.
This institution bears the name of one whose generous encouragement was given it in the beginning,—Mr. Thomas A. Goddard. He was a member of the Second Universalist Church in Boston, and during the long pastorate of Rev. Hosea Ballou was the faithful superintendent of its Sunday-school. Prosperous in business, he was always liberal in his contributions to the church and its charities, which in a large city were ever making appeals to him. From the time of the first movements for the founding of Tufts College, he was among its most interested and generous helpers, and was one of the first treasurers of the institution. When, a few years since, the infant seminary at Barre became embarrassed, a devoted friend, acting as its agent, determined to make a vigorous effort in its behalf. He came to Massachusetts, and calling on Mrs. Goddard, whose husband had aided the school in the beginning, the result was Goddard Seminary.
Westbrook Seminary and Female College is a boarding-school for young men and women, near Portland, in Deering (post-office Stevens Plains), Me. The institution began to be talked of as early as 1830. A generous citizen of Westbrook, Mr. Zechariah Stevens, hadresolved to donate land ample enough for the school buildings and the needed adornment around them. How his gift has been improved, the present attractive appearance of the seminary declares. The institution was chartered in 1831, and opened in 1834. It has had friendly aids from time to time, one of them being Hersey Hall, the gift of Gen. S. F. Hersey of Bangor. Common and higher English courses, a college preparatory, and two collegiate courses for ladies are provided. The school-building contains the chapel, recitation-rooms, library, laboratory, and cabinet of minerals. Rev. J. P. Weston, D. D., is president of the institution.
Green Mountain Perkins Institute is situated in the village of South Woodstock, Vt. It was incorporated in 1848, and has since been in successful operation. The school is for both sexes, and offers three complete courses of study. The classical, of three years, includes Greek and Latin sufficient to prepare students for admission to any New England college. The ladies' collegiate for four years is offered to those wishing to take an extended course in Latin, French, and German, and higher English. The school has gained a good reputation.
In this presentation of the principal educational institutions founded and sustained mainly by the Universalist public, it is seen what influences may go out from them to the honor of the Universalist Church, the promotion, of literary culture, scientific enlightenment, and Christian civilization.
It may be well here, as we speak of educational aids, to recognize the instrumentality of the Sunday-school, which has found such a good degree of encouragement from the friends of Christian Universalism. It has beenan outgrowth of the increased conviction among them of the duty of instructing the rising generation in the truth and life of the Gospel. From the beginning of the present century in America this work has been recognized, the Universalists in Philadelphia and Boston manifesting their special interest in it.[57]Growth in this work has been gradual but encouraging, and the Sunday-school is now one of the cherished institutions of the Universalist Church. Its interests are widely and earnestly discussed, and the means for its advancement through the children's paper and teachers' "Helper" promise good results, if wisely utilized in the future. Although still needing improvement, the Sunday-school may be regarded with this church, as with others bearing the Christian name, as an indispensable aid in the moral advancement and religious culture of the children and youth on whom will rest the responsibilities of the church in the years to come. The Sunday-school cause was never more generally and unitedly encouraged by Universalists than at the present time.
Another educational aid worthy of note is that to be found in the circulation of the literature of the church; its periodicals, books, pamphlets, and tracts. These have thus far done excellent work in reaching and awaking interest in religious truth where the living preacher has not gone. A hundred-fold more can this be done by a just appreciation of this great instrumentality,—the Press. It is always a power in the advocacy of any cause; it will be in its tendency to deepen and strengthen the loyalty of Universalists to the churchthey represent. An active and clear-sighted agent of one of our Western colleges just now writes:—
"In my work for the college, the closest readers of our church papers are the ones who have responded most readily to the call for help. Loyalty to our church among them is the rule, while among those who do not take a paper, he is the exception, only, who responds to the call. Nothing else can be so powerful an ally of the preacher in keeping the people informed of our schools and colleges and all other interests; and that Universalist family which refuse to take a church paper for the pittance which our Western organ costs,—four cents a week,—not only lose much of interest and enjoyment, but thereby advertise their own indifference to the best interests of the church.
"Strenuous efforts should, for these reasons, be put forth by the ministry and other agencies to place a church paper in every Universalist home throughout the land."[58]
The appeal here made will apply to any locality. And more than this. These readers of the church publications are themselves to seek a larger distribution of this means of Divine enlightenment to others. Ignorance of Christian truth at home and abroad,—in our own land and in lands less blessed with heavenly knowledge,—is constantly calling for this educational work on the part of those who are permitted to live in the light and cherish the hopes of the Gospel of God's impartial and efficient grace.
[56]Wilmot L. Warren, Esq.; Address before Alumni, June 20, 1882.[57]See an article in the Universalist Quarterly for October, 1882, entitled "The Universalist Origin of American Sunday-schools," by Rev. Richard Eddy.[58]Read at the Ohio Convention, by W. F. Crispin, Financial Agent for Buchtel College.
[56]Wilmot L. Warren, Esq.; Address before Alumni, June 20, 1882.
[57]See an article in the Universalist Quarterly for October, 1882, entitled "The Universalist Origin of American Sunday-schools," by Rev. Richard Eddy.
[58]Read at the Ohio Convention, by W. F. Crispin, Financial Agent for Buchtel College.
"All the members have not the same office. One body in Christ, and severally members one of another."—Rom.xii. 4, 5.
ALTHOUGH in the biographical sketches contained in this volume those of the ministry are made conspicuous, the writer is sensitively aware of the fact that many devoted and honorable laymen, who have faithfully and essentially sustained the ministry, are equally worthy of record for their works' sake. A separate volume, such as we are not able to make up, would be required to do them justice. We take occasion, however, to speak a word in way of sincere and grateful tribute to these good and strong helpers, through whom the ministry has received inspiration and strength.
No sect can live mainly on the dignity, or piety, or learning, or good reputation of its ministry. Leaning too much on these, it will grow formal and cold; will fail to become an active force among the masses, in the midst of the opposing hosts of this great world around it. To sustain a ministry as a kind of moral or spiritual convenience, to wait upon it chiefly to be entertained, or to be satisfied with the respectable precision with which its functions are performed, and thus to keep in "good standing" with the Christian community and the observant world, is different entirely from the intentof that great spiritual enterprise which the New Testament upholds.
It was a significant saying of the rebuilders of the ancient temple, that "the people had a mind to work." Leaders, priests, prophets, master-builders were aided by others on every hand, and so the work went successfully on. It must be thus in the uprearing and strengthening of the walls of the Christian Zion. With the diversities of gifts, there is to be the one spirit, one will and endeavor, and the one glorious end constantly in view. The direction of the apostle to the Church at Rome gives us the true idea: "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." He used the well-known illustration of the limbs and members of the human body to describe the several offices and functions in the Church; setting the right estimate on the diversity and unity of those who composed it, giving to all their places and to each its share of the essential life-work to be done.
Of the true and faithful "women-workers" of the Universalist Church we have freely spoken; to the fidelity of the good and faithful men we would as readily testify. Names we may not mention, for, these once given, we should be unable to decide where to close the record. But this we can say,—and every faithful minister will bear witness to the truth of our statement,—that among his experiences none have been more uplifting than those connected with the co-operation of true souls who have waited on his ministry, and given their ready counsel and sure and steady support. The minister of the city with his incessant toils and cares, the country pastor in his quiet rounds of duty, or the missionary-evangelist having his preaching-stations at longdistances from each other, all have been doubly blessed in their anxious and unremitting toils in the Lord's field by the cordial smiles and welcome greetings and generous encouragements of the lay friends who, by spirit and action, have been all the time bidding them "God-speed" on their way.
"How shall they hear without a preacher?" is a very sensible New Testament question. How shall the preacher be sustained and blessed by his hearers? is another of equal weight and timeliness. A society or church is to be formed; a Sunday-school organized; ways and means instituted to secure a financial basis to carry on the work of the church. Where rests the responsibility, and where the directing and sustaining force, but in the few, perhaps, who are to be depended upon in every such movement, and who give confidence and courage to others who are gladly willing to do their parts with them.
A low tide comes in society affairs; adversities have been realized, and the faint-hearted are prophesying failure. Who but the few "stand-bys" are among the hopeful and helping; those always readiest with their money, always in their places at the worship service, or in the conference meeting or the Sunday-school? What would be the courage of the minister but for this loyal church-guard ever to be depended on?
A church edifice is to be built, or a church debt cancelled? Who shall lead in the business? the minister? Yes, if he can more conveniently than any other one. But what shall his "lead" be without followers? On whom does he most rely? On those laymen who are only waiting for his word to begin the work. Their generous zeal will awaken new interest in others, andthis "striving together" of minister and people will insure success.
A pastor is out on a mission of private charity. The case of a poor widow, or sick and needy husband and father, or some suffering and desponding one needing help and comfort, is tugging at his heart-strings, and the immediate resources of his pocket are not equal to the demand. What then? He knows just where to go, directly, quietly, to the counting-room, or store, or farmhouse of that layman whose religion makes him glad to "do good and to communicate," and whose worldly store gives him opportunity thus to bless himself as he confers a blessing on others.
A college needs an additional endowment. Money is required. The president or some other friend of the institution goes forth in confidence that, on a truthful representation of the needs, certain ones will listen with interest and liberally respond to the call, and, as the annual report at the next Commencement declares, he is not disappointed. He has consulted the laymen.
The General or State Convention makes its annual call upon the parish for its apportioned contribution to the funds for the general work of the church, and its extension beyond existing parish lines; for missionary operations in the waste places, that they may be blessed with the light and joy of the Gospel. Who will be sure to meet truly and promptly this call? The loyal layman who has made himself acquainted through the church journals and from his minister in the pulpit with the just and holy demands of this enterprise, and who has never indulged himself in laying back from it, saying, "We have enough to do to meet our own parish expenses!" No, he and such as he now cheer the heartof his minister, and make glad sister parishes, and add credit to the whole church.
A blessing like this cannot be too highly prized, cannot awaken too strong a thanksgiving. A faithful ministry the church must have or fail. But this ministry, to be strong and prevail, must have for its fresh inspiration the hopeful eyes and ready hands and throbbing hearts of a constant and loyal laity.
"No man can be assured of his own salvation, except he see the same salvation in the same Saviour for all men, as well as for himself; which is to love his neighbor as himself."—Richard Coppin.[59]
THAT the errors connected with what has been deemed the Orthodoxy of the past are passing away is undeniable. We have been noting this on every page of this volume. The Christian pulpit and the religious and secular press are bringing out new confirmations of it continually. Take two indications; first, the emphatic utterances coming from the Episcopal Church in England and America. It is Rev. Charles Kingsley who writes: "I preach to you a Son of God who has declared everlasting war against disease, ignorance, sin, death, and all which makes men miserable. Those are his enemies, and he reigns and will reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet, and there is nothing left in God's universe but order and usefulness, health and beauty, knowledge and virtue, in the day when Godshall be all in all." It is Canon Farrar at Westminster Abbey who is awaking deep interest in his vigorous exposures of the hideousness of the old ideas of a wrathful God who would punish some of his simple offspring hereafter "without relief and without end." His volumes entitled "Eternal Hope" and "Judgment and Mercy," are full of references to the opinions of others in the past, who have opposed these errors,—although most of them are not new to readers and students of Universalist literature,—and are among the harbingers of that coming day when the absurdities which he assails shall be numbered among the things that were. His admissions of the force of the arguments of Universalist writers are such as will awaken new inquiry in many directions, notwithstanding he takes occasion to affirm of himself most distinctly, "But I am not a Universalist." We can only say that, if he is not, he is doing no small share of a work which will tend to make others avowers and defenders of this faith. Others of the ministry in England, like the late Dr. Maurice, Rev. Frederick Robertson, and Rev. Stopford Brooke, have given their testimonies in behalf of these higher and clearer views of Christian theology. In America, such men as Drs. Holland and Phillips Brooks, are advocates of the improved theology, the last-named explicitly affirming his faith in the final salvation of all souls. Dr. Heber Newton, rector of the Anthon Memorial Episcopal Church at New York, in his sermon on the death of the late Rev. Dr. Chapin, said that—
"Dr. Chapin, knowing the feeling of the church against the new ism, boldly became its preacher, for he recognized its great and noble mission. That sin had its recompense, he never doubted, but his doctrine of 'God is love,' was so eloquentlypreached that the theologians reconsidered their doctrines of retribution. Even the Episcopal Church, he says, in recently reviewing the articles, struck out the one about eternal punishment. When Universalism began its mission, religion so to speak, had become ossified and rigid, and it was necessary, to meet the advanced thought of the age, that some change be made in it. The force that wrought this change, developed outside of the Orthodox Church, and it has been instrumental in banishing much of the barbarism and cruelty of expression which Christians borrowed from the Pagans."
The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches have had their experiences in the agitation of these questions involving the acceptance or rejection of the leading points of theology held by them in the past. But the freest and boldest utterances on this subject seem to have come from the Congregationalist Churches. Members of the Beecher family have been quite conspicuous in their allusions to the old and abhorrent doctrines of Calvinism; as for instance, Mrs. Stowe, in her "Minister's Wooing" and "Old Town Folks;" her sister Catherine, in her emphatic saying, that, as this theology is set forth, "there must be an awful mistake somewhere;" Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Conflict of Ages" (a work ably reviewed by Rev. Moses Ballou); and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who has just now affirmed that he will never more preach the horrible doctrine of endless punishment. After repeating a statement he had made, that the dogma of endless suffering is the cause of increasing infidelity, Dr. Edward Beecher says, that "Universalism is no longer restricted within denominational lines, but is now diffused more widely than some suspect," that "thepreaching of the doctrine is largely neutralized by a latent Universalism within the walls of evangelical churches," that some of the clergy "dare not investigate the dogma (endless suffering) in an impartial, scientific method, lest they bring themselves into conflict with the creed they are expected to defend;" and closes thus: "Meanwhile the creed-doctrine of an endless punishment is seldom discussed from the pulpit, and never willingly heard by the pews." Significant indeed is the closing of his volume on the "Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution:" "Even admitting that the doctrine of eternal punishment is the word of God, it seems to be forgotten that allegations may be attached to it that shall make it to be not the word of God, but the greatest falsehood in the Universe."
At the Congregationalist Convention in Boston in 1865 the difficult problem came up to be solved, "how they could state what they themselves had come to believe, without appearing to deny what the fathers believed." Assembled at the old Burial Hill of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, they affirmed their adherence to the "substance of the Westminster and Saybrook Confessions of Faith." To clothe this "substance" in verbal forms, making it a true statement of the old theology of Puritanism, and at the same time a living thing of to-day, would seem to be an undertaking resulting in as great a confusion of tongues as in any instance recorded in the history of the past. To keep intact the theology of the past in their churches is an impossibility.
For, let us understand that the most thoughtful among the theologians of nearly all the churches are now beginning to feel the force of the question hithertohushed down, as it has been boldly asked or even whispered in the face of the theology of the past: What is the Divine responsibility in the creation of man? It is the question asked by Hosea Ballou, in his youth, of his father, a Baptist minister: "Would it be an act of goodness on my part to create a human being,—had I the power,—knowing that his existence would prove an endless curse to him?" a question which the father was unable to answer, and which the son did not press strongly upon him. This question, though familiar enough to Universalists and long made a ground of argument concerning human destiny, has usually been evaded by the supporters of the popular theology, as beyond the reach of human reason. They have regarded the inquiry as to the responsibility of God in the creation of man as irreverent on the part of his feeble offspring. But the question has been considered and earnestly examined, and the discussion of it has elicited the most outspoken opinions as to the result of the investigation.
Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D. of Howard University, has recently spoken very definitely on this subject, although he acknowledges that it has not been a legitimate one to be decided upon by the theologians of his school. He affirms that the Divine reason like our own (we being made in the Divine image) includes the eternal, unchangeable, and imperative idea of right, the practical synonym of which is love,—love being that which always, everywhere, and in all beings, expresses the right or sums up duty. He reaches the conclusion that God chooses love as the rule of his activity, that when he creates rational sensitive beings, by that very fact he put himself voluntarily into a relation whichcalls upon him to act upon the principle of love, which gives them a right to expect that he will so act.
It is an answer to the question of Abraham, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" and of Paul, "Is God unrighteous?" In agreement with this reasoning of Dr. Patton, is that of Rev. John Miller of Princeton, N. J., who just now affirms:—
"A deformed God is a great light gone out from any religion, and is the chief ally of infidelity. God is not to be worshipped because he is powerful, any more than Satan is; but because he is moral. If he wrongs me in bringing me into being, he is no sovereign to me."[60]
In the same strain comes this testimony from Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, of Andover, in a late number of the "North American Review:"—
"The Bible meets us squarely upon the deepest and the highest question which the finite intellect has the right to ask: What, having made us at all, is God's moral attitude toward us? When he thrust into space this quivering ball of pain and error, did he mean well enough by it to justify the deed? Profounder than all our philosophy, wiser than all our protest, comes the sublime and solitary answer: 'He so loved the world that He gave his only Son.' This magnificent reply, which theology has distorted out of its grand and simple proportions, to which science has refused its supreme reasonableness, the true human heart and the clear human head have accepted. The contortions of faith and the malice of doubt have almost equally united to shake the hold of this great re-assurance upon the world. The world will have it in spite of both. The world will have it, because it is thebest it can get; and by all the iron laws of common sense it will keep the best till God or man can offer it something better."
Even so. Amen!
At the present time the orthodoxy of Andover Theological Institution is assuming new and strange aspects. During the recent discussions respecting the invitation to Dr. Newman Smyth to accept a professorship at the institution, this avowal on the part of the professors still in their places there is given to the public:—
"It cannot be denied that the doctrines of eternal punishment and of the judgment have lost their proper place in the teachings of the pulpit. That method alone can restore them to a reflective age which refuses to put into them more than our Saviour left in them, and which brings them into accord with the knowledge of divine truth which the spirit of Christ is ever developing in his Church. Christianity educates men to ever higher, broader, more truthful conceptions of God. The questionings of to-day in Christian hearts respecting the doctrine of eternal punishment are a consequence of the elevating and spiritualizing power of the Gospel. The Church should seek out positions that can be held. It should be in advance of its enemies."
This change, it is affirmed by the Andover professors,—
"... is a natural development of principles which the New England theology has especially cultivated. These principles have gained their rights only by hard conflicts. At every stage the cry of heresy has filled the air, but they have won the day. They have banished the dogmas of guilt for Adam's sin, of infant damnation, of passive regeneration, of the universal perdition of the heathen. They have been attended all along by concessions,—concession of the dogmas that all mensinned in Adam, that Adam was their federal head, that the death of Christ was only for the elect; concession that 'elect infants' who die in infancy include all such; that we cannot fix the time when moral agency begins; that none who die before this point is reached are excluded from salvation; and so on, through ever-advancing modifications. The path of New England theology is thus strewn with concessions,—concessions toan advancing knowledge of God's Word, concessionsto truth!"[61]
Very explicit language, surely. And yet, in direct conflict with it, there is the fact that the Andover creed, to which all professors of the institution must give their assent, involves the doctrines of the Trinity and Vicarious Atonement; that "by nature every man is personally depraved, destitute of holiness, alike opposed to God; and that, previously to the renewing agency of the Divine Spirit, all his moral actions are adverse to the character and glory of God; that, being morally incapable of recovering the image of his Creator, which was lost in Adam, every man is justly exposed to eternal damnation; so that, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God; that God of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, selected some to everlasting life, and that he entered into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of this state of sin and misery by a Redeemer." Yes, the Andover creed declares there is a final separation from the love of God, which cannot wrest the erring soul from the grasp of death, cannot bridge the grave, cannot descend into the depths and bring up to life and light its own offspring. Christ himself may declare, "I will draw all men unto me;" theAndover creed says, No! No salvation for the soul that has entered death's dark realm. No matter that Christ has the keys of hell, he cannot rescue! No matter that the time has been foretold when "death and the grave shall be destroyed," when "there shall be an end of sin," when pain shall no longer pierce and tears no longer flow; in opposition to all this the Andover creed tells us, as an essential part of Christian faith, as one of the inspiring strains of the Gospel message, that "the wicked" whom Christ came to save, "will awake to shame and everlasting contempt, and with devils be plunged into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever."
How are these theological contradictions to be explained? Infidels are sneering at this double-dealing; honest Christians are asking, "What is to be the issue of this conflict? Why do not these religious leaders state plainly where they stand, and what they would have the churches accept and affirm as the truth of God?" The question has been aptly asked, "Is the moral sense at Andover Institution paralyzed? The situation is perfectly clear to every honest barber, shop-keeper, or shoemaker, and it makes a hundred infidels where the 'Age of Reason' makes one."[62]It is a matter for congratulation that the Christian world has been moved, that its thought has been so largely modified, and that it is our great honor "to stand at the centre, however men may hesitate to acknowledge it, towards which these lines of influence are tending."[63]But why, we must ask, are not these professed friends of Christian truth in all the churches more in readiness to acknowledge this indication, and plainly state what they thinkof it? Why hesitate and stand in the shadow of their old errors, when it is so clearly evident that they can be no longer successfully maintained, and which do not represent their real opinions? Why not say outright, "We were mistaken in accepting and teaching these doctrines of total depravity, election, and reprobation, infant and endless damnation, and have come to see that God is the Father of all men, and that in all his dealings with his children he will act in strict conformity with his paternal justice and love?" Are we to conclude that there is with them the plague of a confused moral sense, which hinders the honest and prompt avowal, on their part, of the truth of that Gospel of Divine grace "that bringeth salvation to all men?"
To avoid the admission of the truth of Universalism, there are not a few who seem disposed to tarry at the half-way ground of the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked, as though in these desperate cases of sinfulness the saving resources of the Infinite love were exhausted, and God could make no better disposition than this utter destruction of those created in his own image, and capable of knowing, serving, and enjoying him forever. Strange that God's children can so limit his saving love and power! Is there any instance of sinfulness that cannot be reached by that grace which so much more abounds than any transgression of men?
Another conclusion which inquirers reach is that of the indefiniteness in which this question of the ultimate results of the Divine government is involved. As though, on a subject of such unspeakable interest as this to every mortal, there could be indefiniteness in a Revelation involving the truth of man's origin, duty, and destiny! Why not indefiniteness in this Revelation asto the being of a God and his attributes, as to man's whole duty, as to the objects of Christ's mission, as to the immortal existence ofanysouls? No! the eminent Christian apostle will teach us all better, as he does in his lofty assurance of the extent of God's claims on his children and his paternal interest in them: "For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."[64]Everlasting thanks to heaven for the definiteness respecting this great question, which the advocates of Christian Universalism have constantly maintained. These hesitancies, haltings, evasions, policies, will have their day, and through them and after them the truth of the Gospel will find its open avowal and vindication. Here is the prophecy, years since made by one of the ablest and worthiest of Christian ministers. "Whoso readeth, let him understand."
"A few generations more, and the system you have advocated will be among the things that are only remembered. You will abandon it, but by degrees; as the truth increases you will begin by first exploding the old notion that infants are damned, and by avowing the salvation of all who die in early life. Then you will proceed to reject so much of your doctrine as to allow that a very small part of mankind, here and there an individual, will be sent to hell. And continuing the work, you will at length determine that even these will there suffer no other pain than the remorse of conscience; next, that their remorse will be no greater, in degree, than what is experienced in this world. And finally you will giveup the remainder, first, in confidential whispers among yourselves, and then, after the common people shall have generally led the way, you will come out boldly, and preach God as the Father of all and the Saviour of all."[65]
Many a one not now ready to acknowledge the claims of the faith of the Universalist Church has this, mainly, as his reason for it, that it has not been for centuries past the popular faith of the churches in Christendom. There are great numbers of Christians who have in reality no more plausible reason why they are not better acquainted and more in love with this faith. Whenever they have heard it spoken of it has been in such words as to lead them to regard it as a modern innovation. Beyond this they have not looked. Convinced of this, they have not desired to look farther. But they should. A faith making such pretensions and appeals ought to be looked after. Men are not wise and humane; they are not lovers of their race and its truest well-wishers in the Christian sense; they are not in readiness to rejoice in view of the widest and most thorough dispensation of Divine grace, in the most extensive and effectual work of salvation through the "One Lord Jesus Christ," while they regard with indifference the affirmation which the Gospel makes of this very work with all souls. Is it true? This ought to be the eager inquiry of everyone professing faith in the significance ofthe second commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Where this love pervades the heart, will not that heart seek every evidence that can be offered in proof of this most desirable of all results, the reconciliation of all souls to the Divine administration, the Divine love regenerating, uplifting, and glorifying all God's offspring? We press these questions home, without a word of apology, to every lover of Christ and the Christian cause.
If these hesitating ones of whom we speak would take up the examination, they would find that some of the clearest and noblest minds of the past have given their assent to this very faith, and that the doctrines in opposition to it are not to be regarded as past questioning when they have been sanctioned by generations involved in as much mental and moral darkness as most of those which have preceded us.
Christ came to teach positive truth, and his religion invites the largest and freest inquiry as to its claims. And so this theology of the past will be investigated. It is undergoing the process now in minds and in the midst of institutions where this old conviction of the superiority and sacredness of the past has been revered as it never can be again. All the sects are more or less affected with this contagion of inquiry. It will not be suppressed. To silence it for a season is but allowing it to accumulate greater force with which it shall again make itself manifest. Said a speaker, a few years since, in a Methodist Conference in New York city:—
"What reason can be given for the difference in manifestation of conviction of sin between our day and the times of our fathers? Whereas we used to preach to sinners that an endless hell awaited all who died in their sins, we nowleave the fact almost wholly out of sight. We say we believe that when men thus die they go to a place of everlasting burnings, where the Almighty tortures them alive as long as he the Almighty lives. If we believe this, why do we not preach it now? Why do not our editors write about it, and our bishops thunder it from their pulpits till the people tremble?"
A brother minister present took exception to these remarks. He thought that the Christians made by what were termed the "reformed methods" of the day are as abundant in good works, and their lives redound to the glory of God full as much as was the case under the machinery of fifty years ago. "We do not propose to go back on the operation of the Holy Spirit to-day, because he acts now in ways different from those of old." A sensible conclusion. The churches are growing,—growing out of unreasonable doctrines which had their origin in the darkness of the olden time, and which must vanish away as the full day of Christian truth comes in to gladden the waiting world.
Christianity will stand all this controversy. It was made to. It is not only the wisdom and the love, but the power of God, and that endures and triumphs. It needs of itself no alteration. While it can suit itself to all the shifting phases of human history, it is of itself, like its author, "without variableness or shadow of turning." It has the same fulness and adaptiveness now that it ever had. Says Rev. Mr. Spurgeon:—
"Men in the days of Whitfield looked back to the days of Bunyan, and men in the days of Bunyan wept because of the days of Wyckliffe, Calvin, and Luther; and men then wept for the days of Augustine and Chrysostom; men in thosedays wept for the days of the apostles; and doubtless men in the apostles' days wept for the days of Jesus Christ; and, no doubt, some in the days of Jesus Christ were so blind as to wish to return to the days of prophecy, and thought more of the days of Elijah than they did of the most glorious days of Christ. Some men look more to the past than to the present. Rest assured that Jesus Christ is the same that he was yesterday, and will be the same forever."
Verily so; and what he is, it is our business in the present to ascertain. How much of his fulness may we now be able to comprehend?
And so again we say, "the world moves," the church moves, the spirit of the All-wise and Almighty is moving upon the heart of humanity. Man advances. This is the Divine process. For long centuries there may be but little, comparatively, accomplished; then a new activity will be realized. We do not expect to go back to the Dark Ages again. The very last half-century, as we have seen, has been more marked with progress than any other before in the world's history. Our own nation has given signal evidence of this. Our Declaration of Independence has an increased luminousness at the present hour. That the next half-century will have equal advancement, we are not sure; but all signs are hopeful that there will be more growth, continued improvement. One thing seems evident in reference to our own nation, which is, that the religion of the Gospel is needed in it more than ever before, to meet its increasing needs, and to give it strength of character and permanent life. Truer words were never spoken than those by the orator at the Yorktown Centenary celebration during the past year:—
"No advanced thought, no mystical philosophy, glittering abstractions, no swelling phrases about freedom,—not even science, with all its marvellous inventions and discoveries,—can help us much in sustaining this republic. Still less can any Godless theories of creation, or any infidel attempts to rule out the Redeemer from his rightful supremacy in our hearts, afford us any hope of security. In that way lies despair! Commonplace truths, old familiar teachings, the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount, the farewell address of Washington, honesty, virtue, patriotism, universal education, are what the world most needs in these days, and our own part of the world as much as any other part. Without these we are lost. With these, and with the blessing of God, which is sure to follow them, we may confidently look forward."[66]
If we are reading the signs of the present and the indications of the future aright, we readily conclude that it is but early day yet in the history of humanity,—we mean in its moral and spiritual history. Gross darkness, fearful wrong, appalling sin yet afflict and demean it. If we have the gain of the past to encourage us, if we would be aids in the world's progress, the new instrumentalities of the present which we possess must be used as though we had full faith in their power, that is, in the Divine indications that are in them. If the true millennium is yet afar off, it is advancing. So should we be, not as children of the night, nor of any darkness of the past, but of the Christian day, which has had its heavenly breaking, and whose rising bids us to be risen also, and to be moving on! We are debtors to the past, how great we can never fully realize. We are equallydebtors to the future. What can we now do for its largest blessing, its permanent life?
Seeing that these errors, delusions, and wrongs of the past are to be dissolved, what is the work of the Universalist Church now and in the time to come? The answer is ready. It is to magnify its office, to extend the spirit and life of its holy faith. It is false to its trust if it fail to do this. It is to advance, "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." To boast of its grand conceptions of truth, its reasonable interpretations of the Bible, of its pre-eminence in any way, and still to have no quickening power in the work it is called to do, is not to seek advancement and success, but to court disappointment and failure.
This highly-favored church, then, should offer to the acceptance of the world,—
1. A positive faith. At this peculiarly transitional time in the Christian Church history, great watchfulness and discrimination are needed on the part of those who are regarded by the majority of the churches as "liberal Christians," because this word "liberal" is often quite vague in its meaning and covers very many phases of belief and unbelief, scepticism, and credulity. A candid and able writer of the Unitarian fraternity has just given to the public these very timely and wholesome suggestions:—
"Liberal Christians will make a fatal mistake if they dream of gaining strength and influence by statements so nebulous and so universally inclusive that even those who deny all spiritualities can ally themselves with them, and speak from their pulpits. If they intend to form a debating club or a school of philosophy, they might naturally and wisely pursue such a policy. But if they wish to form a church, with a faithto offer to the world, and a positive and definite work for a definite end, such a course is self-destructive."
"The effort of liberal Christianity should have been to strengthen the things that remain. Instead of that, its work has tended too much to minimize faith and to maximize doubt. Everything has become the subject of dissection, almost nothing the object of enthusiasm and trust. That religious body whose supreme function is criticism, however skilful it may be in special work, will never be a regenerating power in human society."[67]
Well said. And this leads us to speak directly and freely on the subject of creeds as connected with all Christian churches, and especially as involving the policy and duty of the so-called Liberal churches. We know that at the present time many are cutting themselves away from old creeds, such as have held them and their ancestors before them; when there is more religious inquiry abroad than ever before, and when it is becoming quite fashionable to speak lightly of all creeds, and to intimate that, on the whole, the church and the world may get along about as well without them as with them,—perhaps much better without them. It is well, as this impatience of creeds is increasing, "to think soberly," if possible, on the whole matter.