The Watchtower, November 1, 1893
VOL. XIV. NOVEMBER 1 & 15, 1893. NOS. 21 & 22.
VIEW FROM THE TOWER.
ECHOES FROM THE WORLD'S GREAT PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.
THE World's Parliament of Religions, recently convened in the city of Chicago, is justly regarded as one of the wonders of this remarkable time in which we live; and while all Christendom, and indeed the whole world, regard it, from their standpoint of observation, as a wonderful achievement for truth and righteousness, the questions in the minds of the Lord's consecrated "little flock" should be, How does it appear in the light of divine prophecy? has it a place in the divine plan of the ages? do the watchmen on the Towers of Zion view it in the same light as do those in the rank and file of the World's religions?
It would indeed be strange if for this once the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world should 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.
Said the Chicago Herald, commenting favorably upon the proceedings of the Parliament,
"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 to us 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?
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." And the stated object of that review was, fraternization and religious union. The spirit of doubt and perplexity, and of compromise and general faithlessness, on the part of Protestant Christians, and a spirit of counsel and authority on the part of all other religions, 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 upon the motley assembly the blessing of eight million deities.
The leading spirit of the great assembly was the Rev. John Henry Barrows, D.D., of the Presbyterian church. For two years previous he had been in correspondence with the representative heathen of other lands, inviting them to come over and have a share in the work of the proposed Parliament. That the call should thus issue representatively from the Presbyterian church, which for three years past has been undergoing a fiery ordeal of judgment, is also a fact significant of the confusion and unrest which prevails in the denomination, but which has also spread to all Christendom. And therefore all Christendom was ready for the great convocation.
For seventeen days representative Christians of every denomination 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 the Lord'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-minded though they were, God revealed his blessed message of peace and hope.
In viewing the proceedings of the great Parliament our attention was 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 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 absurd and conflicting creeds to foreign lands. (4) To the heathen estimate of missionary effort and of its effects and its future prospects in foreign lands. (5) To the influence of the Bible upon many in foreign lands, notwithstanding its mis-interpretations by those who carried it abroad. (6) To the present influence and probable results of the great Parliament whose sessions have so recently terminated. And (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; 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 largely responsible for its proceedings. Be it observed, then, that the spirit of Protestantism is plainly that of compromise. 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 the great Papal system. Cardinal Gibbons opened the Congress on September 11, while the benediction with which its sessions closed on September 27th was pronounced by Bishop Keane. And it is a notable fact that, while the faiths of the various heathen nations were elaborately set forth by their representatives, there was no similar systematic presentation of Christianity in any of its phases, although various themes were discoursed upon by Christians. In these discourses Roman Catholics had by far the largest showing, being represented no less than sixteen times in the sessions of the Parliament. But how strange it seems that, in all the gathering of those whom we may well presume represented the most talented, learned and popular of the clergy of Christendom, not one attempted to set before the representative heathen there assembled an orderly, systematic presentation of the gospel of Christ.
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, and, 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 Rome, and also in its attitude toward the non-Christian faiths.
Said Dr. Briggs, who 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 who was received with loud applause:--
"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. Of course he speaks the truth, or else he is not true.--EDITOR.] 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 is an insult to the intelligence of an enlightened audience.] The inspiration of the holy Scriptures does not carry with it inerrancy in every particular.
"The errors of the holy Scriptures are not errors of falsehood or deceit, but of ignorance, inadvertence, partial and inadequate knowledge, and of incapacity to express the whole truth of God which belonged to man.... We are obliged to admit that there are scientific errors in the Bible....Science ["falsely so-called"] goes on, confident that every form of religion which resists this criticism will ere long crumble into dust....There are historical mistakes in the Bible which cannot be removed by any proper method of interpretation. ...The divine command to Abraham to offer up his son as a burnt-offering and other incidents seem unsuited to divine revelation. ...What pleasure could God take in smoking altars? how could the true God prescribe such puerilities?"
Said the Rev. Theodore Munger of New Haven:--
"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 constitutes the Christ, the Anointed] belongs to Christian literature."
He instances Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Emerson and others, and then adds:--
"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 [--with Christ left out.--EDITOR.]... 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." [And he surely did strike the key-note of the present dominant religious sentiment, especially as expressed in the great Parliament. But the Apostle Paul did not so address the worshipers of The Unknown God on Mars Hill; nor 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.--`Acts 17:23-31`; `1 Kings 18:21,22`. --EDITOR.]
Said the Rev. Lyman Abbott (Congregationalist):--
"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." [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." See also `Amos 3:2`; `1 Cor. 2:6-10`.--EDITOR.]
A letter from Mrs. Isabel Somerset (Church of England), read with complimentary introduction by President Dr. Barrows, contained the following:--
"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 to-day 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.... This, I am persuaded, will be attained by the great conclave soon to assemble in the white city of the west."
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 this 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. The Rev. Jenkin L. Jones, in a sermon preached before his congregation in All Soul's Church, replied to Joseph Cook's defense of the doctrine of a vicarious atonement before the Parliament of Religions, in which the Boston preacher had said that the Christian was the only true religion, and the acceptance of it the only means of securing happiness after death. In his address Mr. Cook said:--
"Here is Lady Macbeth. See how she rubs her hands. 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 speak now to the branch of those skeptics who are not represented here; and their silence or their responses are as inefficient as a fishing-rod would be to span this vast lake or the Atlantic. I turn to Mohammedanism. Can you wash our red right hand? I turn to Confucianism and Buddhism. Can you wash our red right hand?"
In reply Mr. Jones said in part:--
"For the last fifteen years or more Joseph Cook, in his rhetorical climaxes, has escorted the red-handed queen of Shakespeare's great drama before American audiences, and has challenged, now Unitarianism, now philosophy, and again the nonchristian religions of the world, to clean that lady's murderous hand and to bring to her soul a peace as though the foul deed had not been done. With swift and vehement rhetoric he rushes into two immense assumptions, viz.: That all the above-named forces are powerless in this emergency; second, that Christianity, meaning, of course, his special kind of Christianity, can wash clean the stain. By some supernatural power he assumes that it can remove the blot and give to the soul again its sweetness and its purity.
"His favorite word is to 'wash,' and by word and gesture he enforces the thought of a miraculous change, a supernatural and vicarious atonement, brought about by the shedding of another's innocent blood on Calvary. How this is done even the philosopher Joseph Cook
does not pretend to explain, but that it is done he asserts with all the dogmatic power of his ponderous eloquence. The other day, on the platform of the Parliament of Religions, he made his challenge again, a challenge that has been made so frequently that it might be called an orthodox classic. And it is a challenge that carries much weight to many minds. The frequent repetition of it seems to carry with it convincing power to so many that I deem it my duty, as a teacher of morals and religion, to give it some attention in this presence this morning--not for controversial purposes, but for truth's sake, for morality's sake. In the name of common sense and common decency I protest against this juggling with the eternal laws of right and wrong.
"If Christianity has any short cut by which murderers, perjurers, defaulters and workers of mischief of every kind can slip unscathed into heaven as though they had wrought no mischief, then it is a rebel religion, and Jesus is an insurrectionist come into the world to defy the benign order of the universe, teaching men how to escape their just debts by virtue of a bankrupt act which does not hold in any court save his own. It is hard to tell just what Joseph Cook means, but it is perfectly clear that he expects that Lady Macbeth can take advantage of some transaction that happened in far-off Palestine that can transfer her guilt to the suffering one who was lifted on the cross of Calvary. And because he suffered she may escape the consequences of her deeds.
"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 the 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: that 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 know not whom Mr. Cook meant by the 'skeptics not represented here,' of whom he made his first demand that they should wash Lady Macbeth's hand clean, but if he meant those represented by Darwin, Spencer or Emerson, those who trust science and reason, who believe in progress and search for the foundations of religion in the soul itself, they would say, as I understand them: 'Who dares clean the hand of blood that has not yet completed its mission?' The stain remains; the smell abides for the saving of the soul. They are a part of the redemption processes of the God of nature, and if Christianity pretends to interfere with that holy law, to sneer at that blessed schoolmaster of the spirit, so much the worse for Christianity.
"All representatives of all religions will join with Joseph Cook in turning glad faces toward Jesus and will recognize in him a representative of those great types of humanity who, in the gladness of goodness, have encouraged souls to fight the good fight with weakness and temptation, to learn the hard though holy lesson that "whatsoever ye sow that shall ye also reap," that "by their fruits ye shall know them." 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. I ask you to join with me in this slow, long but sure struggle of humanity toward truth, righteousness and love. Let us struggle for it, reach for it, pray and labor for it, so that we may merit the sweet benediction of the old man in the play: "God's benison go with you, and with those that would make good of bad and friends of foes."
Subsequently an "oriental platform meeting" was held in this same church, when this same reverend (?) gentleman read select sayings from Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Socrates and Christ, all tending to show the universality of religion, which was followed by the address of an Armenian Catholic. After this address, says the Press reporter:--
"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.'"
"'The Roman Catholic Church,' continued Mr. Jones, 'under the leadership of such men as Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland and Bishop Spalding, is getting along, and these men are forcing the laggards to work. People tell us that we have given up the parliament of religions to the Catholics on one hand and the Pagans on the other. We will hear from our Pagan friends now. That word pagan does not have the same meaning as it did, and I thank God for it.'"
Prof. Henry Drummond, author of "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," was on the program for an address on "Christianity and Evolution." He failed to arrive, however, and his paper, which was sent in advance, was read by Dr. Bristol. The following extract from it shows how far Prof. Drummond's faith has departed from the one true foundation laid in the Scriptures. He said:--
"The theory of evolution fills a gap at the very beginning of our religion, and if science is satisfied in a general way with its theory of evolution as the method of creation, assent is a cold word with which those whose business it is to know and love the ways of God should welcome it. [This was greeted with loud applause.] As to its harmony with the theory about the book of Genesis [as to its authority], it may be that theology and science have been brought into perfect harmony, but the era of the reconcilers is past. Genesis is not a scientific, but a religious book. Its object was purely religious, the point being, not how certain things were made, which is a question for science, but that God made them. [If that be the only object of the book of Genesis, then why does it attempt more than the simple statement that God made all things? Boasted science comes very far short of common sense, as well as of the divine revelation.--EDITOR.] There is only one theory of creation in the field, and that is evolution.
"Under the new view the question of revelation is undergoing expansion. The whole order and scheme of nature are seen to be only part of the manifold revelation of God. As to the specific revelations, the Old and New Testaments, evolution has already given to the world what amounts to a new Bible. [Yea, verily; for it could never harmonize with the old Bible, the divinely inspired Word of truth.-- EDITOR.] The suggestion has been made that sin is probably a relic of the animal caste, the undestroyed residuum of the animal....If science can help us in any way to know how sin came into the world, it may help us better to know how to get it out. [Applause.] A better understanding of its genesis and nature may modify, at least, some of the attempts made to get rid of it. ['Professing themselves wise, they became fools'--foolish indeed in discarding the Bible account of the fall of man and the Bible plan of salvation through faith in the precious blood of Christ our Redeemer, who alone has power to eliminate sin and to restore the sinner to the divine image in which he was first created.--EDITOR.]"
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 plan of the ages and the important relationship of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity to the whole marvelous system of divine truth. We append below some extracts from these commendable discourses, praying that the faithfulness of these witnesses thus far may continue, and that it may lead them to the clearer knowledge of the truth now due to the faithful.
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 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 thence 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.
"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 the ages. He does not yet see that the drawing of the world to Christ belongs to the Millennial age, and 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. "The knowledge of the Lord shall [then] fill the earth, as the waters cover the deep."-- EDITOR.] 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 the answer yes to that question, why, 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 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 uncleanliness, 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 silent distinction made by some idolaters, if made only by a very few discerning among them, between the idol server 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 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 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 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 effecting 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 indestructible instinct to worship, that is in itself a saving power. Carefully guarded, carefully cultivated, it may even save. But the worshiping instinct, misused or disused, that is depraved to idolatry or extinguished in atheism --'held down,' as Paul graphically expresses it--is in swift process of becoming an irresistible destroying power. The light that is in the soul turns swiftly into darkness. The instinct to worship lifts Godward. The issue of that instinct, its abuse in idolatry, its disuse in atheism, is evil, only evil, and that continually.
"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 false religions by no means excepted, its attitude is an attitude of grace, mercy, peace for whosoever will. How many may be found that will, is a problem which Christianity leaves unsolved."
The Rev. Jas. 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 it 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 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 in a representative capacity become a mysterious element of limitless worth in the process of re-adjusting 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 him, 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 feeling; 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 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 shown.
"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 weapons 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. [But it is no longer so to those who understand God's plan of the ages. --EDITOR.]
"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 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, to all false gods who have claimed
divine honors and sought to usurp the place which was his alone.
"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 double facedness, 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 upon its own incontrovertible claim to a hearing. It has nothing to conceal, but rather invites to inquiry and investigation. It recognizes promptly and cordially whatever is worthy of respect in other religious systems; 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 would be recognized a clear, resonant, predominant tone of uncompromising insistence, revealing that supreme personal will which originated Christianity, and in whose 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."
It gives us great pleasure to thus find a few earnest voices raised in defence of the cross and of the Bible.
Among these noble utterances in defence of the truth was also that of Count Bernstorff, of Germany. He said:--
"I trust that nobody is here who thinks light 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 Congress and Agrippa, the Jewish king. 'I would to God that all that hear me to-day 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 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 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 nearer to, each other? I think not, if we hold fast our truths that these 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 also with the general spirit of the Parliament, was 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.
"If St. Paul were here to-day 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 to God 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 this 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.
While Christendom stood representatively before the representative heathen world, boastful of its religious progress, and knowing not that it is "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.
HEATHEN REFORMERS FEELING AFTER GOD.
In two able addresses by representative Hindoos, we have set before us a remarkable movement in India which gives evidence that the Bible, which the missionaries carried there, has been doing a work which the conflicting creeds that accompanied it, and claimed to interpret it, have only hindered. From Japan also we hear of similar conditions. Below we append some 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 may find him.
A VOICE FROM NEW INDIA.
Mr. Mozoomdar was greeted with loud applause. His address was as follows:--
"MR. PRESIDENT, REPRESENTATIVES OF NATIONS AND RELIGIONS:--I told you the other day that India is the mother of religion; the land of evolution. I am going this morning to demonstrate the truth of what I said. The Brahmo-Somaj of India, which I have the honor to represent, is a new society; our religion is a new religion, but it comes from far, far antiquity, from the very roots of our national life, hundreds of centuries ago.
"Sixty-three years ago the whole land of India was full of a mighty clamor. The great jarring noise of a heterogeneous polytheism rent the stillness of the sky. The cry of widow; nay, far more lamentable, the cry of those miserable women who had to be burned on
the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, desecrated the holiness of God's earth. We had the Buddhist, goddess of the country, the mother of the people, ten handed, holding in each hand the weapons for the defense of her children. We had the white goddess of learning, playing on her Vena, a stringed instrument of music, the strings of wisdom. The goddess of good fortune, holding in her arms, not the horn, but the basket of plenty, blessing the nations of India, was there, and the god with the head of an elephant, and the god who rides on a peacock--martial men are always fashionable, you know--and the thirty-three millions of gods and goddesses besides. I have my theory about the mythology of Hindooism, but this is not the time to take it up.
"Amid the din and clash of this polytheism and so-called evil, amid all the darkness of the times, there arose a man, a Brahman, pure bred and pure born, whose name was Raja Ram Dohan Roy. Before he became a man he wrote a book proving the falsehood of all polytheism and the truth of the existence of the living God. This brought upon his head persecution. In 1830 this man founded a society known as the Brahmo-Somaj--the society of the worshipers of the one living God. While on the one hand he established the Brahmo-Somaj, on the other hand he co-operated with the British government to abolish the barbarous custom of suttee, or the burning of widows with their dead husbands.
"The Brahmo-Somaj founded this monotheism upon the inspiration of the old Hindoo Scriptures, the Vedas and the Upanishads.
"In the course of time, as the movement grew, the members began to doubt whether the Hindoo scriptures were really infallible. In their souls they thought they heard a voice which here and there, at first in feeble accents, contradicted the deliverances of the Vedas and the Upanishads. What shall be our theological principles? Upon what principles shall our religion stand? The small accents in which the question first was asked became louder and louder and were more and more echoed in the rising religious society until it became the most practical of all problems--upon what book shall true religion stand?
"Briefly they found that it was impossible that the Hindoo scriptures should be the only records of true religion. They found that although there were truths in the Hindoo scriptures, they could not recognize them as the only infallible standard of spiritual reality. So twenty-one years after the foundation of the Brahmo-Somaj the doctrine of the infallibility of the Hindoo scriptures was given up. Then a further question came. Are there not other scriptures also? Did I not tell you the other day that on the imperial throne of India Christianity now sat with the Gospel of Peace in one hand and the scepter of civilization in the other? The Bible had penetrated into India. The Bible is the book which mankind shall not ignore. Recognizing, therefore, on the one hand, the great inspiration of the Hindoo scriptures, we could not but on the other hand recognize the inspiration and the authority of the Bible. And in 1861 we published a book in which extracts from all scriptures were given as the book which was to be read in the course of our devotions. It was not the Christian missionary that drew our attention to the Bible; it was not the Mohammedan priests who showed us the excellent passages in the Koran; it was no Zoroastrian who preached to us the greatness of his Zend-Avesta; but there was in our hearts the God of infinite reality, the source of inspiration of all the books, of the Bible, of the Koran, of the Zend-Avesta, who drew our attention to his excellencies as revealed in the record of holy experience everywhere. By his leading and by his light it was that we recognized these facts, and upon the rock of everlasting and eternal reality our theological basis was laid.
"Was it theology without morality? What is the inspiration of this book or the authority of that prophet without personal holiness--the cleanliness of this God-made temple. Soon after we had got through our theology, the question stared us in the face that we were not good men, pure minded, holy men, and that there were innumerable evils about us, in our houses, in our national usages, in the organization of our society. The Brahmo-Somaj, therefore, next laid its hand upon the reformation of society. In 1851 the first intermarriage was celebrated. Intermarriage in India means the marriage of persons belonging to different castes. Caste is a sort of Chinese wall that surrounds every household and every little community, and beyond the limits of which no audacious man or woman shall stray. In the Brahmo-Somaj we asked 'Shall this Chinese wall disgrace the freedom of God's children forever?' Break it down; down with it, and away.
"Next, my honored leader and friend, Keshub Chunder Sen, so arranged that marriage between different castes should take place. The Brahmans were offended. Wiseacres shook their heads; even leaders of the Brahmo-Somaj shrugged up their shoulders and put
their hands into their pockets. 'These young firebrands,' they said, 'are going to set fire to the whole of society.' But intermarriage took place, and widow-marriage took place.
"Do you know what the widows of India are? A little girl of ten or twelve years happens to lose her husband before she knows his features very well, and from that tender age to her dying day she shall go through penances and austerities and miseries and loneliness and disgrace which you tremble to hear of. I do not approve of or understand the conduct of a woman who marries a first time and then a second time and then a third time and a fourth time--who marries as many times as there are seasons in the year. I do not understand the conduct of such men and women. But I think that, when a little child of eleven loses what men call her husband, to put her to the wretchedness of a lifelong widowhood and inflict upon her miseries which would disgrace a criminal, is a piece of inhumanity which cannot too soon be done away with. Hence intermarriages and widow marriages. Our hands were thus laid upon the problem of social and domestic improvement, and the result of that was that very soon a rupture took place in the Brahmo-Somaj. We young men had to go--we, with all our social reform--and shift for ourselves as we best might. When these social reforms were partially completed there came another question.
"We had married the widow; we had prevented the burning of widows; what about her personal purity, the sanctification of our own consciences, the regeneration of our own souls? What about our acceptance before the awful tribunal of the God of infinite justice? Social reform and the doing of public good is itself only legitimate when it develops into the all-embracing principle of personal purity and the holiness of the soul.
"My friends, I am often afraid, I confess, when I contemplate the condition of European and American society, when your activities are so manifold, your work is so extensive that you are drowned in it, and you have little time to consider the great questions of regeneration, of personal sanctification, of trial and judgment and of acceptance before God. That is the question of all questions. A right theological basis may lead to social reform, but a right line of public activity and the doing of good is bound to lead to the salvation of the doer's soul and the regeneration of public men.
"After the end of the work of our social reform we were therefore led into the great subject, How shall this unregenerate nature be regenerated; this defiled temple, what waters shall wash it into a new and pure condition? All these motives and desires and evil impulses, the animal inspirations, what will put an end to them all, and make man what he was, the immaculate child of God, as Christ was, as all regenerated men were? Theological principle first, moral principle next; and in the third place the spiritual of the Brahmo-Somaj-- devotions, repentance, prayer, praise, faith; throwing ourselves entirely and absolutely upon the spirit of God and upon his saving love. [This heathen philosopher sees to only a partial extent what sin is, as is indicated by his expression, "an immaculate child of God...as all regenerated men were." He does not see that even the holiest of the fallen race are far from being actually spotless, immaculate, perfect; hence that they all need the merit of Christ's perfection and sin sacrifice to justify them. He speaks of prayers, etc., and the mercy of God; but he has not yet learned that justice is the foundation underlying all of God's dealings; and that only through the merit of Christ's sacrifice can God be just, and yet the justifier of sinners believing into Christ, and thus covered by his great atonement for sin, made eighteen centuries ago,--once for all--to be testified to all in due time.--EDITOR.]
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