The Religion of Christ
By Editor
SAID Lafayette, himself a Roman Catholic, "If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Roman clergy." These words are worth remembering now. The sad fact is that many of the Protestant clergy are diligently preparing the way for Rome's triumph. THAT there have been Roman Catholic Christians, Roman Catholic patriots, Roman Catholic lovers of liberty, we will not deny. Nay, we freely grant it. But they were not Christians, patriots, and lovers of freedom because they were Roman Catholics, but in spite of it. They had imbibed less of Roman Catholicism than of Christianity. They absorbed the light which came to them in that system instead of the darkness which there abounds. They looked to Christ instead of the man who claimed to be Christ's vicar. In thus doing they were better Christians than Catholics. The religion of Christ and the Bible is the religion of love and unselfishness, and that religion if embraced and lived will develop unselfish, lovely characters. Even the enemies of Christianity admit its excellencies when they condemn unsanctified, inconsistent professors of Christianity. The religions outside of Christianity are religions of self. Man becomes in some way his own saviour, and hence does that which in his own mind exalts him. Self-exaltation leads naturally to envy, strife, confusion, and every evil work. But where there is one only Saviour, who for the great love which he bore even his enemies, gave his life to save them, there is love begotten in return for the One who is altogether lovely; and this love for the one central object shuts out all occasion for envy, division, and strife. When the opposite of this is seen among professed Christians, when the contention is for personal place, prominence, preeminence, and authority instead of the service of Christ, the glory of his name, and the salvation of souls, the actuating spirit is not of Christ but of man. It may be called "Christian," but it is not of Christ. THE Sunday School Times well says: "If we are to rely on a Bible text as the basis of our action, we need to be sure as to the text. Many a pulpit preacher justifies his sacred work by the divine command, 'Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel,' while he seems to understand that command as though it read, 'Come ye from all the world and hear the gospel.' Standing in a pulpit and expecting hearers to hire seats before that pulpit is a very good work in its way; but it does not meet the requirements of the command to go out after those who will not come in and listen. The one thing ought to be done, and the other not left undone." It seemingly is with some persons. Since the representatives of Buddhism, Brahmanism, Shintoism, and other isms spoke so glowingly of their religions of self at the recent Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and were so rapturously applauded by professed Christians, we have wondered whether Christianity was not really held as a sort of society "fad" by many, to be discarded when some other became more popular. The following from the Christian Advocate, our neighbor across the bay, puts the matter in about the right light:— The other day, as one of the great trans-Pacific steamers was about leaving her dock in San Francisco, a small company of earnest Christians had gathered to bid Godspeed to several young missionaries who were leaving for the foreign field. On the same steamer a Brahman, on his way from the World's Congress of Religions at Chicago, was returning to his native India. A number of American women (were they Christians?) were there with flowers and sweet speeches to speed him on his journey. They listened to his speech as though it were the voice of a god; and, turning to a gentleman standing near, said: "Aren't his words wonderful! What do you think of him?" The gentleman replied: "I think he is an old idiot. I have been in the land where he lives, and I know what his system is. Do you know that if you ladies were living under his form of religion, you would be considered only slaves, and you would be hoping and praying that possibly, in some long to-morrow, it might be your happy lot, after innumerable transmigrations, to be born a man? Do you know that Christianity is the only religion that has ever done anything for woman?" The great trouble is that many who profess Christianity do not know Christ. He who drinks of the water of life which Christ gives will never thirst for any other. But Christ can never be known by mere intellectual study of his doctrine. The religion of Christ is a spiritual force which must be experienced.