Present Truth Acknowledged.
By M. E. C.
At the last meeting of the National Council of Congregational Churches, held at New Haven, in October last, Dr. James H. Fairchild, President of Oberlin College, read a paper on “the Character Essential to the Religion which Shall Take a Strong Hold of the American People.” “It requires no prophet to tell us that there is call for a revival of the religious faith of the people, a re-establishment in their convictions of the great facts and truths of Christianity.” “There are indications on every side of the unsettling of the minds of men as to the foundation truths of the Christian faith.” And he descanted eloquently upon the vice and corruption which threaten our social life. “We mourn the wide-spread immorality of our times, the failure of honor and honesty in high places and low. We are sometimes led to doubt whether enough righteous men can be found to save the republic. Perhaps our apprehension is unduly excited, as in the case of Elijah; and the Lord may have reserved to himself the required seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. But to the most hopeful the outlook is disheartening.” “Has not the opinion been current that the difference between the Christian and the sinner is not that the one has renounced sin and the other has not, but that the Christian is in the exercise of a piety or faith which is not righteousness, but which takes the place of righteousness, and that this is what the sinner lacks? There has been no general toleration of immorality as consistent with religion; but has there not been a failure to present religion as consisting in true righteousness? Not long since a leading religious paper contained an article by a prominent Congregational minister, the point of which was that the Saviour’s answer to an inquirer, ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments,’ was ironical, and not a direct and simple answer; and that salvation was to be attained by faith and not by keeping the commandments. But is it not Scripture doctrine that faith without works is just as dead as works without faith, that genuine faith is that which works through love, and that ‘in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him?’” “We need to hear again the old utterances from Sinai: ‘Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; honor thy father and thy mother.’ We need to gather up anew the Saviour’s word, ‘Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.’” “We need to turn again to those words of gracious import, ‘He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.’ We need to embrace anew the truth that ‘to obey is better than sacrifice, and the keeping of the commandments of God better than burnt offerings.’ We must understand and inculcate the doctrine that righteousness alone is piety, and obedience is saving faith; that the highest Christian attainment is nothing more and the lowest nothing less; and that the sole purpose of the manifestation of God in the soul is the fruits of the Spirit, the virtues and the graces of the Christian life.” Thus, we see that, in searching about for a remedy for the sad state of things in the religious world, they cannot rest upon anything short of the moral law which is the foundation of all true religion and morality. Probably the president thinks with a western editor of a secular paper that “a reform not based upon the ten commandments cannot be genuine.” Let us rejoice that the truth is acknowledged in any event. M. E. C.