Two Significant Quotations
By Editor
In the current issues of two leading publications we find editorial comments which show how great are the changes which have come in recent years in matters of religious belief, and to what an extent the churches generally have yielded the ground to the claims of modern science and the Higher Criticism. Here are two representative paragraphs: The liberal religious press of the United States and England has spoken in the highest praise of the work and influence of Herbert Spencer; and it thus gives a striking measure of the profound change of orthodox feeling that has come within twenty-five years. Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, and Tyndall were long the objects of especial condemnation by both the religious press and the pulpit in England and America. It was they who were meant when ecclesiastics spoke of “profane and vain babblings and the opposition of science falsely so called.”—The World's Work for February. A dozen years ago Profs. Charles A. Briggs and Henry Preserved Smith were suspended from the ministry by the Presbyterian General Assembly for their teachings of the Higher Criticism; the battle is over now, and the church is full of the higher critics.—The Independent (New York), of January 28. The subtle influence of this modern infidelity reaches further than we might think at first, and under one form or another it is found where its presence is little suspected. There can be, however, no fellowship between it and the truth of this message, neither can there be any compromise with it.