"TRUTH BEARS THE TORCH IN THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.” _ Z M crcW ,M,
VOL. 3.
SILA ER fo x , OREGON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1899.
NO. 46.
Triumph.
tion to progress, is legitimate* but
infallible scripture; no certified
doctrine; no final word. The note
o r he who rides th ro u g h conquered
supernaturalism as unnatural
and
c ity ’s g ate
j
;
—
current is onward and unobstructed. of authority in religion is gone from
At head of blazoned hosts, and to at)n°rnial, when religion is and has
f th fa e r sound
» y-s •«
1
<•
\\ hat we like is not the criterion our modern world. God is the God
been
for
ages
almost
universal,
is
Of v icto r’s teu n ip e ts, in full poinp and
of the natural. Rattlesnakes are of the living, and we must nourish
found both in savage and in civil
v
Btate
Of w ar, th e u tm o st pitch has d ream ed ized races, and is seen to be an out as natural as are the most manly our spiritual life on the words He
or found
men and the most beautiful women. is speaking to us now, and not
Io w hich th e th rill of triu m p h can be come of the mind, a product of pre-
The stationariness or decline of a vainly try to live on the echo of
w ound.
scientific thought, modified slowly
city that hae been boomed beyond words He spoke to men dead cen
N or he who by a n a tio n ’s vast acclaim
to meet the requirements of pro
the capacity of the surrounding turies ago.” In the same article
Is sudden so u g h t and singled out
gress in a changing mental envir
alone,
country, is as natural as is the this writer asserts that “it is the
And w hile th e people m adly sh o u t his onment, is, in my opinion, to treat
rapid growth of a more favored God that is here in this nineteenth
nam e,
W ith out a conscious purpose of his the subject not from a standpoint city.
century and within us that is the
own,
of science and evolution, but from
Shelley says: “Necessity is the authority iu religion.” Now let us
Is sw ung and lifted to th e n a tio n ’s
a standpoint that indicatts the
th ro n e —
mother of the world.” Nothing has examine this point of doctrine upon
“anti-theological
bias”
which,
in
But he w ho has. all sin gle-handed,stood,
ever taken place that could have which progressive Christians aro
the investigation of this subj< ct, is
\\ ith foes invisible on every side,
been prevented. The antecedents agreed, and find out what it really
And, u n su p p o rte d of th e m u ltitu d e ,
as
ohjectionable
as
is
the
“theolog
I he force of fate has d ared , defied,
of the billions of years of the past means.
ical bias”.
And conquered silen tly .
have produced the consequents of
Since outward authority, includ
Ah ! th a t soul know s
As
for
myself,
while
1
reject
as
In w hat w hite h e a t th e blood of triu m p h
later times. I he American Revo ing the Bible, is gone and cannot
unsuited to my mind and untrue,
flows.
lution and the French Revolution be coaxed hack, and the “living
— [Selected.
all theological systems and all
were very different from the Eng Christ” is the source of authority,
forms of supernaturalism, I recog-
lish Revolution of 1688, hut were it follows that if there is no “living
E veryth in g Is Natural.
nize religion as a fact, as a phe- equally Lecessaly'.
Christ ’ there is no authority for
nomenon in the order of nature1
the Christian religion. In the lan
by b . f . underwood .
which is jysfc as natural as any I F or the Torch of Reason.
guage of one of old: “Show us the
other fact. In one of my essays,
The L ivin g Christ.
living Christ and it sufficeth us.”
he question is asked: “Would entitlad, “Will the Coming Man
Living men and women there are
not the world have advanc Worship God?” published a quar
BY (’HARLES CLARK MILLARD.
in plenty but none of them is
ed more rapidly without be ter of a century ago, I endeavored
Christ.
liefs in supernaturalism than it to has show the evolution of the god
T last the “Progressive Christ
But since it cannot be proved, we
with them?”
idea and the genesis and growth of
ians” have come to the be- will admit for the sake of argn-
As man is constituted he could religious ideas with the tendency
,
- .
ginning of the end, and have i nient that there is a person or
not be without these beliefs. They
n r.n o t oug t away from an-1 agreed upon a definite statement thing called the living Christ, and
were products of ancestral thoughts.
ropomorp ism and in the direc- j as to “the seat of authority in reli- j that it is “here now within us”—
1 hey w*ere interwoven with his ex cion of divesting the ultimate real- gion”- i t is “the living Christ.” that is within the religious believ-
perience and life. They had their
150
ose qua ities, abstracted j I his is the conclusion arrived at by ! er. The question then arises:
natural antecedents and their nat
from man, which have been imag- a convention of the Swiss Ministers’ “What is the living Christ?” It is
ural effects in connection with 1 e as t e attributes1 of gods. But j Association recently held at Geneva, j iQ the believer and it is not in the
thousands of other factors which
process ot investing the cause, I he line of thought expressed at 'unbeliever, and therefore it must be
combined to produce the existing
or asis o p enomena with person-. this convention, says The Chronik, | a belief—an idea—for there is noth-
mental, moral and social condition
a lty, nite igence, will and emotion of Leipsic, is fairly indicative of the 1 ing else which the believer has and
with all its evil as well as good.
was just as natural as is the pro- Progressive but not the" Radical' the unbeliever has not.
If man six thousand or six hun cess (to use Fisk’s long but expres-, school, and was as follows (Lite-, The believer has an idea of Christ
dred years ago could have reached, sive word) of “deanthropomorphi-1 rary Digest, Oct. 21, 1899, p. 498): «s a living person or spirit within
a degree of enlightenment w’hich zation ” One process implies ah-' “Modern Theology does not place him, and he calls this idea, or ideal
admitted of his acceptance and as normality and disease no more than its emphasis on the infallibility of person, the “living Christ.” And
similation of naturalistic and ra does the other. They simply indi- a book, but upon the person of the this idea—the “living Christ”—de-
tionalistic views as to man and his cate ( .fferent degrees of intellectual historical Christ of whom these pends on the story of Jesus in the
relation to the universe in the place f eve opment and of critical ability, scriptures testify. In brief, th e , New Testament for its existence.
superstition, I believe that the 1 erence o attitude towards theo- only Protestant principle of autho- It has never existed within any
world would be far more advanced ogica speculation and the scientific rity is the living Christ, the revela- person who has not previously
than it is now; but it was not pos
me o an< t e reasoned thought tion of God; and the special autho- known the story of Jesus. If the
sible for man to attain to such en
ay * l
1 v UID lwocu iu
rity ° f the 8Cr*Ptures consists in story ¡3 true (including the incar-
lightenment then, and in his condi- ° -----,
.........
1 any w o , a t lough disposed to this; that they testify of the normal nation, the resurrection and the as-
ion and environment, and with accept the conception of evolution
the influence of the past which had are more or less dominated in period of Christianity, of the life of cension), then the idea derived
made him what he was, dominat thought with pre-evolutionary ideas, Christ, and of believers. Not what from it may represent a reality;
is said of Christ—which criticism but if it is false, the ideal repre-
e s his thought, he could be only conceive the evolutionary process
must freely examine—but Christ sent« no real thing in the universe,
"hat he actually was; and - progress
-
as lineal, and whatever is reaction- himself, by taking posession of us, The authority in religion can not
as only possible with, even if in ary, whatever is obstructive or re- becomes our authority.”
be shifted on to an idea or a pro
d L .
’.u
ab9“r,d theoIoSical tr'«res8ive, whatever they feel like A Presbyterian correspondent of duct of the fancy. The Progressive
’ that prevailed, and with denouncing, they imagine is outside the .New York Sun, and many other Christians are driven to the wall,
f i e n d . *?p r e s 6 1 0 n ° f science, and the of the evolutionary order and op- religious writers assert that the
.
---- — ...........or they would not set up a man of
nenuish and bloody persecutions poses evolution.
’ '*
“living Christ” is the highest, if not straw to draw the fire of their op-
which occurred.
The fact is, the process of evolu- the only authority in religion, ponente.
Fo
point
out
the
errors
of
theo
logical
- - — Uon 18 onein "hich forces are mov- Also, the Rev. E. M. Wheelock
H the same real living Spirit re-
o f f e n hev h a v \ a
d
U " ,g.,t: eV" y direCti0D-
0 « Unity, Sep. 7_sce Lite- sided in each believer and con-
and led t, t amP<ir7 L
‘ p v - o le n to r a turbulent backward rary Digest as above): “There is n o , trolled his thoughts and actions
mode, of it. ‘Jnor“ al llab,ts and movement is absolutely necessary, outward standard of authority in along religious lines, there would
...
a - W e ll as to oppost- anu this movement is as essential religion; no absolute trihuual; n o 1
Continued on 6th
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