THE TRUE PLACE FOR RELIGIOUS REFORM.
By Editor
'A "National Reform Association" held its convention in New York last week. It seems to be a movement of recent organization, and its aim, as defined by one of our correspondents, representing it, is "to preserve the Christian features of the institutions of our country," the Bible in the schools, the sacred rest of the Sabbath, and the defense of the family from a wrecking system of loose marriage and easy divorce.' 'Now, as to the Bible, would it not be more appropriate to undertake a specific reform in the theological seminaries and among the clergy who teach that it is human, fallible "literature" only? Of course, if that view of the Scriptures is accepted, the obligation of keeping Sunday as a sabbath has no divine or supernatural foundation. If the Bible is the faulty and more or less spurious book made up of documents of unknown authorship, which Dr. Briggs, of the Episcopal Church, teaches it to be in the Presbyterian Union Theological Seminary, for example, why should it be read in the public schools more than any other book of religious literature? If, as the Rev. Mr. Schermerhorn, another Episcopal clergyman, contends, "portions of the Bible are indecent, inhuman, and false," unfit to be read in churches, are they suitable for reading to schoolchildren? Moreover, these expressions of opinion come from clergymen who continue in good standing in the church, in spite of them. Ought not, then, the work of reformation to begin in the church itself; for upon the divine authority of the Bible depend all the arguments used by this association? If it fails, the Sabbath must fall with it, and its observance become nothing more than a purely human institution of the Jews; and marriage and divorce must be relegated to the category of purely human conventions.' 'It seems to us, therefore, that the "National Reform Association" ran away from the true source of the trouble when, on Thursday, it went outside of the church to search for it, and in its vain quest passed a resolution attributing the cause to the publication of newspapers on Sunday. The Sunday newspaper, asserted one of the speakers, is the foe of "the church, the Sabbath-school, and religious services." "I charge upon the Sunday newspaper," said another, "the crime of being one of the greatest agencies in overcoming the fear of the living God." Now, all this might be true of a newspaper of evil purpose and influence, but, surely, the harm done by such a journal is not confined to the seventh day only. Every unprincipled paper is the foe of its readers on all days; its lies, its perversions, its vulgarity, its low morality are constantly harmful, and the mischief it does, the degradation it encourages, is in cultivating during the week a taste for the debased which craves more of its stuff on Sunday.' 'Our own correspondents and many other ministers and lay students of society have discussed lately the cause of the decline in church attendance at the present time; but how can there be any doubt on the subject? No coincident decline in the intellectual ability of the ministry is discoverable, and there is no decrease in the attractions offered by the churches in the way of music and their services generally. Rather has there been an unexampled effort to increase their popularity by the invention and adoption of many devices, some of them repulsive to good taste and grossly offensive to genuine religious sentiment. Sermons are made as distinctly secular and sensational as the most catch-penny newspapers are, and not less offensive and mischievous by reason of loose and superficial and fallacious reasoning. Now, the competitor of such pulpits is not the self-respecting newspaper, which appeals to the intelligent people, but the debased newspaper of kindred cheap and tawdry and sensational methods.' 'Naturally, such devices fail as a permanent attraction of church attendance; they simply lower popular respect for the church. Nothing can induce men to go to divine service as an imperative religious duty except a hearty and profound faith in God, in their need of salvation, and in the teaching of the church as an authoritative exposition of divine truth. If they regard the services and sermons simply as they look on the theater or the opera, or as inviting only so far as they appeal to their fancy, they are likely to seek other means of entertainment, for, apart from faith in it, a church is a dull place for the run of people. Men who will sit out a play for two or three hours or tire themselves out with a day's golfing or bicycling are wearied beyond endurance by an hour in church, unless they enter it in a worshipful spirit and with unquestioning faith that in it alone the way to salvation can be pointed out to them. But if they are told by even their own ministers and theologians that the Bible is only fallible, human literature, how can they be expected to go on believing in a church which preaches it as a guide to salvation?' 'That, reverend reformers, is the cause of the trouble which vexes your souls; the Sunday newspaper has nothing to do with it. Believe, yourselves, deeply and genuinely, and create such belief in men, and neither the newspaper nor any other outside influence will detract people from going to you to learn the way to everlasting life. That faith is a magnet whose attraction no other can overcome or even lessen. No church having it and inspiring it has ever any reason to fear competition. But if the faith departs and grows cold, and doubt begins to displace it, the vital force goes from the church, and there is no possibility of its revival except by rekindling that fire.'—New York Sun. The foregoing editorial from the Sun is quite to the point. If more faith in God were exercised by men, and less dependence in human laws and other human inventions, many of the present-day difficulties would be solved by the mighty acting of divine power. And they soon will be solved, anyway, for this very lack of faith that is so characteristic of this time is given as one of the evidences of the soon coming of Christ. And when He comes, every question will be settled by the destruction of the wrong and the glorification of the right.