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January 29, 191S ] THE
AN EXPOSED CITADEL.
The Sabbath is a fortress of national security,
a safeguard to the well-being of society. Its desecration
is a peril to every community where
such desecration prevails. It taints the entire
moral atmosphere; it renders social conditions
coarse and corrupt; it deranges industry and
disqualifies business and labor for yielding adequate
and just returns; it fosters disrespect for
the law of man and defiance of the law of God;
it rentiers prupeny ana 11 ie insecure; it enervates
moral character and lowers social standards:
it simply smothers the highest ideals of
social life and deadens refined sensibilities; it
sears the conscience and disqualifies the soul for
communion with its God.
Whatever has been the advance in other departments
of religious observance and activity,
it is generally believed that here has been a
nenous, ana inaeea, alarming decline. We speak
of it as a religious institution For while it is a day
of rest for man and beast, it is pre-eminently
God's holy day and is to be hallowed by all who
reverence his name. The flagrant violation of
the fourth commandment will undermine the
structure of orgauized society as effectually as
will despising any other of the "ten words."
The law of self-preservation appeals in thunder
tones to a great and powerful people that they
hallow God's Sabbaths.
Happy are the people among whom an enlightened
and a reverent public sentiment de
mancls the enforcement of laws that are designed
to sustain the observance of one day in seven as
a day of rest and opportunity for public and
private devotion; protecting the rights of the
people to suitably obey one of the ten com
mandments which cover the entire field of moral
obligation. Any community may well covet, and
when bestowed, may well cherish, a tribute to its
reverence for this sacred institution which is
wrought into the very structure of the Chris
nan iaitn ana must continue co-cxistent with
Christian civilization. Such a tribute was recently
paid to a community which is far from
attaining its ideal on this behalf, but may well
prize this unfeigned recital of what a stranger
saw and heard while sojourning within its gates.
The Advance, of Chicago, says:
A * * *
uur next aoor neighbor was telling us of a
Sunday he spent this winter in the old capital of
the Southern Confederacy, and he was deeply impressed
by the quiet and decorum of a day which
he had "loved and lost awhile" in Chicago. He
stopped at the most expensive and fashionable
hotel in the city, and found the streets going by
the hotel filled with well-dressed and cheerful
crowds on their way to church- He went too. The
sermon he heard was eloquent and tender, full
of the marrow of the gospel, and it was listened
to by a reverent congregation with manifest satis
j action. When he returned, well pleased, to his
hotel, the dining room was full of guests whose
attire showed their social standing, while in
place of the usual orchestra (which he would
have found at the north playing popular airs),
he heard all the sweet and sacred melodies, dear to
him from childhood, rendered by an orchestrion.
It was the musicians' rest day, too. By the way
certain of the most bustling and prosperous cities
of Canada observe the Christian Sabbath with
equal reverence, and it is only because we have
been, in the cities of our Northern States, overwhelmed
by foreign immigration that we have so
larcelv IfWft wVlflt wna a annnf inw on/1 ""W
to our fathers. "What our neighbors to the north
of the lake? and south of the Ohio retain we may
yet recover.
We make our bow to an unknown friend, whose
kind words inspire a desire to know him. We
would commune with him in cherishing those
sacre^ and eternal verities which were brought
to his indnd afresh by the eloquent and tender
preaching of the gospel, the reverence of the people
for God'? house, his Word and his holy day.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
and which most of all impressed the moid of a
stranger in a far away city of the South, m.
"SEEING IS BELIEVING."
So thought Thomas. His attitude towards
the account given him by his brethren concerning
the rising of their Lord was a popular oneAnd
it was not confined to his day. "Seeing is
believing." So say many now. The drift of unthinking
thought, if such self-oontradictory as
sociation of ideas may be allowed, is in Thomas'
direction. The material, the visible, thinks it has
the right of way.
But the truth of the matter is, "Believing is
seeing." Not only is it true that faith opens
to the vision larger and wider fields than sight,
but it is equally true that it contemplates infinitely
more of the actual that has passed. Indeed,
it covers all the past that lies beyond our
own experience. The very statement itself,
"Seeing is believing," carries its denial in its
own bosom. Does the skeptic say that he can be
iicyc uuiumg except wnat ne sees 7 very well.
Then he does not believe that seeing is necessary
to belief, for he has not seen the principle that
treeing is in ordor to believing. "What is the
shape, the weight, the density, the odor, the
color, the ring, the feel of itt If there is no
other avenue to believing except that of seeing,
he ought to be able to tell us the ftDnfiarancp of
that fact which he believes so confidently. Is it
round or square or oblong, solid or fluid or gas- '
eous, light or heavy, dense or attenuated t He
ought to know, if seeing only is believing. Else
he should hush.
The range of the knowledge which mankind
derives from believing i& infinitely wider than
the range of that derived from seeing. It covers
all the realm of testimony rather than the little
worm 01 experience. It embraces all history,
from the most ancient time to the present day,
rather than the little irregular circle, or short
radius and varying indeterminate circumference
of personal observation. The character, too, of
the knowledge given by believing is of a nature
incomparably better than that given by seeing.
It enters into the higher part of man's life, the
subject rather than the objective. It looks upon
principles, upon causation, upon truth, themselves,
rather than upon the little manifestations
of them. It deals with conditions in morals, ]
rather than acts. It finds the sin in the stealing,
for instance, rather than in the being caught in '
it The practical nature of the knowledge ob- 1
tained without seeing is no least pronounced than
that of the knowledge got from seeing. Men be- 1
lieve that their products and wares may be in- 1
trusted to commission merchants whom they
have never seen, in cities of whose existence they
have had no ocular dftTrmnatratirtn 1K0 ???? **?? 1
ed over seas they have never laid eyes upon, by
ships they have never seen, and receive pay- J
ments in checks on banks whose officers they
have never met, in paper that represents deposits
which they have never seen or counted.
Nine-tenths of the practical business of the world
is carried on in this way. Seeing is believing?
Nay, believing is seeing! (
The wealth of intellectual treasures is gather- ,
ed by a process that is not "seeing," bat bediev- \
ing. The scholarship of the world would be in a j
pitiable state if every student were compelled to j
build up from a fresh foundation and to limit (
his credence to the products of his own exper- s
icnce and elaboration. The student of history j
would have to throw away all records of the past.
The philosopher could not use the principles of c
cause and effect. The scientist would have to (
romtent himself with the facts developed in his i
own little range of test and experimentation, i
The sum total of human knowledge and action
U T il (83 11
baaed upon 'weeing" at> cump&red with that derived
from " believinir." is an nmnll na nnt h\ Ka
worthy of estimating, and the character of it is
too low for comparison. The skeptics who pretentiously
flaunt their claim for practical good
sense and reason only signalize their folly and
unreason. They simply advertise the fact that
they see little and reason less. Nay, their very
claim in this respect shows that, so far from disbelieving,
they are the mcdt credulous people in
the world. It is a singular and a striking fact
that one of the ways in which God judicially
punished those who are incredulous as U> the
claims of the gospel, is to give them up to incredulity,
to "believing a lie."
DR. ELIOT vs. THE MISSIONARY.
(Continued from page 3.)
It is further true, again, that tnese offending
dogmas produced men and women who
wrought, inspired by what they believed, the
civilization that gave birth to institutions like
that over which Doctor Eliot presided so ably
for many years, a civilization we rejoice to call
"Christian." We are profoundly conscious
of the shortcomings of this civilization. Yet
it is the best the world knows. Surely the efforts
of those who produced it were not futile.
wi... ..1 1J ? i-- J " *
?111 j buuuiu iiicu wiiu sluliu xor mese aoguias
fail in China if others with like convictions
have succeeded in America? Are these
dogmas the product ot the occidental mind ?
Were they not originally revealed to orientals?
We know that the whole atmosphere of
the Scriptures is oriental, and that one irrefutable
demonstration of its divine origin is
found in the ready acceptance of its dogmas
by the occidental mind as so peculiarly fitted
to it that those dogmas seem to be unfitted for
orientals, according to Doctor Eliot the occidental.
*
Of his own church the Doctor said: "The
Unitarian Church has found the expression of
its faith not. thrmicrl. crpHol K..?
v* VV4U4 aiuiVHlVUt| UUl
through good works. Therefore a great opportunity
awaits it, and a great obligation is upon
it, and there is a mighty call for a Unitarian
propaganda."
Yet, all that the Unitarian Church offers is
"tne dry bones of criticism." The indictment
is true. Cannot Doctor Eliot see that in his
very confession of what his Church stands for,
ar fails to stand for, lies the reason for its inactivity
and inability f What have the Unitarian
and other librral churches to offer to
the Chinese and Japanese more than they already
have in Confucius! Eliminate the offending
dogmas, and there remains a system
af devitalized ethics as dreary and impotent
as Confucianism.
What ?ri> tli.. nnrii' inio^iii/ln^ ?
vmv , uuaguiucu uiinaiuiiurit'h
going to do if they eouclude to throw overboard
their offending creedt Following the
iberals, they must reject inspiration, they must
eject the atonement, original sin, the Trinty,
eternal punishment. They must preach
in emasculated message from which the central
dement of Sacrifice has been removed. Why,
hen, sacrifice themselves t What shall be
:he object of their labors?culture and moral- .
tyt Can they hope to succeed any better than
cne representatives of (Jon fuoius now on the
ieldf At any rate, such service may be reniered
by literature and schools, and the perlonal
services of the missionary can be dispensed
with.
If what Doctor Eliot says about the inactivity
>f his own communion is true, the Unitarian
Jhurch is thoroughly consistent and wise,
vhile the aged President seems to be somewhat
nconsistent and nnwise.
Kniledgeville, Ga.