HERO WORSHIP by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 27.

HERO WORSHIP.

By Editor

A FEW weeks ago we noticed a blasphemous eulogy of Cardinal Gibbons, which was uttered by a zealous Baltimore priest. In that eulogy the prophecy concerning Christ, in Isa. 63:1-3, was applied to the Cardinal. But this man worship has recently been equaled by more than one Protestant. The Christian Advocate (New York) quotes, with expressions of the highest approval, the following from a eulogy of Henry Ward Beecher, which appeared in the Homiletic Review:—

"Farewell, O sun! Glorious, indeed, wert thou in the zenith of thy sphere! Some of us can remember when thou wast as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. What fair, fresh splendor then was thine! How the heavens rejoiced, how the earth was glad, with thy shining! Almost it seemed for a season that God through thee was going to renew the face of the earth. That was thy morning. Alas, that there should have been an evening and a morning to thy day! At least, why did not God make such a day cloudless, if it could not be endless?"

How much higher flight would such "gush" have to take before we should have Beecher worshiped as a god? Inasmuch as the majority of people believe in the continued existence of the soul after death, which is the basis of heathenism, it does not seem as though it would be long before America, as well as Greece and Rome, will have her demi-gods.