GIFT OF 
 Hearst Fountain 
 
LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 BY- 
 
 LI 
 
 FAY. 
 
LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 BY 
 
 ELI 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE CHURCH OF THE UNITY, LOS 
 
 ANGELES, JANUARY 13, REPEATED, BY 
 
 REQUEST, JANUARY 27, 1889. 
 
 AND BY A GENERAL DESIRE PRINTED IN THIS FORM. 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CAL- 
 
 T. T. JONES ic SON, PRINTERS. 
 
/, 
 
LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Acts xxiv. 14. AFTER THE WAY WHICH THEY CALL HERESY, 
 
 SO WORSHIP I THE GOD OF MY FATHERS. 
 
 I Peter Hi. 75. BE READY AT ALL TIMES TO GIVE TO HIM 
 THAT ASKETH, A REASON OF THE HOPE THAT IS IN YOU. 
 
 Heresy is not a crime. Heresy is simply the opinion of the 
 minority. In Salt Lake City Mormonism is orthodox. In Italy, 
 Spain and Portugal Romanism is orthodox. In Scotland Pres- 
 byterianism is orthodox. But for a long time Christianity itself 
 was heresy. And in the great religious, political and social 
 revolutions of the world, the minority the heretics have, as a 
 rule, been nearest the truth. So Paul dared say to Felix, before 
 whom he was to be tried, "After the way which they call heresy, 
 so worship I the God of my fathers. " But he was able to give to 
 those who asked, a reason for the hope that was in him. A 
 REASON ! that which a good lawyer, a thorough scientist, any 
 man who wishes to see the philosophy of things would recognize 
 as a valid reason. Not a mere superstition ; not a conceit 
 resting on a bank of fog but a REASON. 
 
 There is one fact in regard to which there is entire agreement 
 among all classes, viz., that in connection with theology and 
 religion, radical and far-reaching changes are going on. There 
 may be utter disagreement as to whether these changes are for 
 the better or worse ; but in regard to many doctrines hitherto 
 held as fundamental, and also in regard to the very essence of 
 religion, that radical changes in the public mind are taking place, 
 have already taken place, cannot be doubted by any fairly in- 
 formed person. 
 
2. It is Equally 'apparent that a very large proportion of the 
 irrt concil able" 'dissenteis from the old definitions of religion, are 
 among the most intelligent, the most conscientious, the most 
 respected and influential of the communities in which they live. 
 These people are not disbelievers in sacred things. On the con- 
 trary they are theprofoundest believers. Indeed, it is because moral 
 and spiritual concerns have become so real to them; it is because 
 they are disturbed, even distressed when the intrinsic beauty of 
 religion is marred, its natural adaptedness to the human soul is 
 obscured, and its sweet influence, its refining, elevating, inspir- 
 ing, directing power is weakened by theological technicalities, 
 incongruities and absurdities, that, in fidelity to their finest 
 moral and spiritual instincts, they have been obliged to discard 
 the old faith. 
 
 It is at this precise point that they stumble. They do not and 
 they cannot see why they should stultify their reason their only 
 guide in connection with other matters for the purpose of ac- 
 cepting religious doctrines, and conforming to religious customs 
 that were conceived in the dark ages, and decided upon by men 
 who would now be regarded as ignoramuses and even barbarians. 
 They do not believe that those men, who had not seen even the 
 morning skimmer 01" the philological, philosophical, historic, 
 scientific, literary, or religious light of our day, were competent 
 to formulate the religious creed of the world for all time. To 
 express the idea is to disclose its weakness. Should not theology 
 be elaborated and religion expounded in accordance with our 
 highest intelligence, our finest sentiments, our most humane and 
 kindly feelings? Beyond all question is the world rapidly pro- 
 gressing in every other department of thought and life, but in 
 religion were the utmost limits reached in the dark ages? Do 
 you regard that as reasonable ? Why not go back to the dark 
 ages for our science, our politics, our educational system, our 
 music, our poetry, our means of transportation ? 
 
 And therefore Stopford Brooke, for many years one of the 
 ablest clergymen of the great Church of England; Prof. Swing, 
 long a star of the first magnitude among American Presbyterians; 
 
5 
 
 Dr. Thomas, a prodigious intellectual force and a decided pulpit 
 power in the great Methodist Episcopal Church of this country; 
 the Rev. Mr. Savage, once among the brightest young ministers 
 in the Congregational body today one of the strongest men in 
 the American pulpit and scores and scores, scarcely less emi- 
 nent, declare without the slightest hesitation, that since they 
 abandoned the old creeds, the faith in which they were all 
 brought up, and embraced Liberal Christianity, their minds 
 have been cleared of many doubts and misgivings, their faith 
 in God and man, in the beneficence of Providence and a destiny 
 for our race that will be creditable to our Maker, has been im- 
 measurably strengthened, their spiritual horizon unspeakably 
 broadened and brightened, and life enriched and death disarmed 
 to an extent incomprehensible to those who have not passed 
 through a similar experience. 
 
 Some months ago a minister, who for several years had been the 
 pastor of the First Baptist Church of Kansas City, having changed 
 his faith, was installed as the pastor of the First Unitarian Church 
 of that city. And as showing what is going on in the public 
 mind, every one of the ministers assembled to take part in the 
 services of installation was a convert from the orthodox ministry. 
 And within the past two weeks I have been called upon by a 
 bright young man of fine address, a graduate of an eastern 
 college, who has preached for two or three years in an orthodox 
 denomination. He came to say that he could no longer preach 
 orthodoxy and would like a pulpit among us. 
 
 And these men only represent the great change that is going 
 on throughout Protestant Christendom and the high motive which 
 is prompting it ; and consequently it will not do to charge with 
 infidelity, or even with indifference to religion, those who are 
 passing through the theological transition that is modifying the 
 religious thought of the world. 
 
 3. In this community, as must be well known, there are very 
 considerable numbers with exceptionally acute moral and spirit- 
 ual sensibilities, and a wide intellectual outlook who, not from a 
 sudden impulse, not from any mere freak or fancy, but from 
 
6 
 
 profound, gradually-formed and still strengthening convictions, 
 are entirely out of sympathy with the old faith. Many of these 
 people were brought up in that faith and could give specific 
 reasons for discarding it. But as the masses, engaged in daily 
 practical life, can hardly be expected to become well-versed 
 theologians, many of this class know better what they are not, 
 than what they are, and where they do not belong than where 
 they do. There is also a considerable class who, by the spirit of 
 the time, the agitation that is going on, the utter disbelief that 
 is frequently and boldly proclaimed, and the evident weakening 
 of the old faith in the public mind, are confused, dazed, bewil- 
 dered, adrift, and therefore exposed to danger; and unless their 
 attention is arrested by .a type of religious thought that is 
 consonant with the widening, deepening and accelerating intel- 
 ledtual and religious tendencies of the day, and the highest 
 intuitions of the soul, to them, and through them to the 
 community at large, deplorable consequences will certainly 
 ensue. And inside every branch of the Orthodox church, as is 
 perfectly well known, there is inquiry and unrest, anxiety, doubt, 
 and suspense; and in thousands of instances strong dissent from 
 the doctrines which that church nominally holds to be funda- 
 mental. Today, the intelligent, the reluctant doubter, and there 
 are many such, is the truest believer. Today, the honest, 
 conscientious, fair-minded man who says he holds not only as 
 untrue but as positively misleading and pernicious much that 
 has been christened in the sacred name of religion, is probably 
 among the most reverent and exemplary of the community in 
 which he lives. It is well and widely known that in connection 
 with the dominant church there are very considerable numbers 
 who are in a false position; tacitly assenting to doctrines and 
 forms which they privately acknowledge to their friends that 
 they no longer believe or accept. Now it is perfectly obvious 
 that for the honor of the church herself, in the name of religion, 
 and in the service of the soul, this state of things should cease. 
 It cannot remain without ultimately impeaching, for their dis-* 
 
honesty and double-dealing, the churches to which these persons 
 belong. 
 
 For, if Unitarianism is inimical to true piety, and destructive 
 to the soul, it is quite as much to be deprecated, and as resolutely 
 to be hunted down, inside, as outside the orthodox church. And 
 yet, by the admissions of its own press, that church, including its 
 ministry, is honeycombed through and through by the fascinating 
 heresy. And if the orthodox churches of this city will treat as 
 heretics all who are in cordial sympathy with our broad and genial 
 thought, they will have work enough for the next year. 
 
 4. Almost all of the agitation, the unrest, the doubt, the denial 
 and the change of base to which I have referred, are occasioned 
 by increasing sympathy with the general class of religious ideas 
 known as Liberal Christianity. This is perfectly well known. 
 And therefore it is vastly better for all denominations and all 
 moral and religious interests, that particularly in an active and 
 intelligent community like this, the Liberal church should be 
 largely and vigorously represented. It can draw from the Ortho- 
 dox church only those who, for their own comfort, and for the 
 sake of honesty and conscientiousness in religion ought to leave 
 it. It can attract from the great non-church-going masses, only 
 those over whom orthodoxy can exert no positive influence. 
 And yet, as each political party acts on the other, greatly to the 
 country's good, as brakes as well as steam are necessary to a train 
 of cars, as the order of the material universe is preserved, solely 
 because the centripetal and centrifugal forces modify one another, 
 so, for speaking peace to many a soul now deeply distressed, for 
 bringing light and hope and joy to many who are in darkness and 
 despair, for providing spiritual asylum for numbers now un- 
 churched, for bringing all of the gravest questions to the arbitra- 
 ment of the higher reason, for its legitimate function of criticism, 
 for the strong emphasis it gives to practical righteousness as well 
 as piety, for its solemn warnings against excessive other- worldli- 
 ness in religion, for its well known sympathy with all humanitarian 
 movements and the pre-eminent character of its literature, to 
 which Channing, Emerson, Longfellow, Martineau, Holmes, 
 
Whittier, Lowell, Bancroft, Starr King and many others, among 
 the ablest men of the world have been life-long contributors, 
 Liberal Christianity merits and is receiving the cordial recogni- 
 tion of the civilized world. 
 
 And now, for the purpose of enabling a large class, for whom 
 I have profound sympathy, to decide whether or not they are in 
 general accord with us, I shall proceed to give as fully as possible, 
 in the time which custom allots to a sermon, the doctrinal views 
 we hold. And I shall do this with the full persuasion that any 
 faith that is sacred to conscientious people ought not to be con- 
 temptuously treated. First, then, let me admit that though 
 liberal Christians have a theology, they do not dogmatize. They 
 are tolerant liberal towards those with whom they disagree 
 because they do not believe that even correct views of theological 
 technicalities are the foundation or mainspring of the religious 
 life. A reprobate may have very correct opinions in regard to 
 all sacred things, and a true lover of God and a devoted servant 
 of man may have no interest whatever in dogmatic theology. 
 And yet, as we know, there are conceptions of divine things, 
 God, Christ, the conditions of salvation and the outcome of life, 
 which are well calculated to exalt or depress, inspire or dis- 
 hearten. But when we become tolerant, liberal, though we may 
 have definite opinions of our own, and at times find it necessary to 
 defend them, we yet gladly concede that the salvation of the soul 
 does not hang on the acceptance of specific theological notions, 
 but rather on the personal quality and character. And we rejoice 
 that this more generous conception of the true Christian spirit is 
 beginning to find expression far outside of our fold. And yet, 
 Liberal Christians exercising their reason, in connection with 
 religious questions as everywhere else, interpreting scripture in 
 the light of history, of science, of other sacred books, the bibles 
 of other nations, and in accordance with our common moral and 
 spiritual intuitions, and without any attempt to reach a general 
 conclusion, certainly without any attempt at coercion, any per- 
 secution for opinion's sake are fairly agreed upon the following 
 great affirmations and denials: 
 
I. The liberal Christian, with all the intensity of conviction 
 that characterizes his orthodox brother, believes in God, the 
 Infinite God, the all pervading Spirit, the Creator and up- 
 holder of all things; or as Paul says, "the one God and Father of 
 all, who is above all, and through and in us all. " Gladly, enthu- 
 siastically /In: makes this proclamation. But believing this with 
 all his heart, and emphasizing it with all the strength of complete 
 pursuasion, the Liberal Christian does not accept the doctrine of 
 the Trinity, and for tin- following reasons: 
 
 1. It is nowhere stated in the Bible, nor in the Bible is there 
 einent that is .it all equivalent to the proposition that God 
 
 exists in three Persons, each of whom is also the very and eternal 
 (iod. Of this we make a decided point. 
 
 2. There is no language in the Bible in which the doctrine 
 can be stated. The words and phrases: Triune, Triad, Trinity, 
 One in three, Three in one. First Person, Second Person, Third 
 
 >n. God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, etc., etc., are not in 
 the Scriptures Is not the omission remarkable if that doctrine 
 is the chief corner-stone of Christianity ? 
 
 3. Over and over again the Bible declares that God is one, 
 not three. Over and over again the Bible declares that Christ is 
 the Son of God, not God the Son. In proof of this, I could quote 
 chapter and verse till you would weary of the repetition. 
 
 4. Clearly assuming the unity of God's nature, consciousness, 
 and personality, aim. :i thousand singular nouns and pro- 
 nouns arc used in the Bible when speaking of him, whereas, if in 
 him there' were a Trinity of co-equal Persons, only plural nouns 
 anil pronouns would properly represent him. Consider the 
 
 :iglh of this argument. 
 
 5. It is not found in the creeds of the early church. Cardinal 
 Newman, beyond all comparison the ablest and most scholarly 
 prelate among English-speaking Catholics, frankly acknowledges 
 that the earlier creeds of the church do not teach the doctrine 
 a very remarkable, yet truthful concession. 
 
 6. With all respect for our brethren of the Orthodox faith and 
 stating the fact as gently as possible. We vet say that to us the 
 
10 
 
 doctrine of the Trinity is absolutely unthinkable. When we are 
 told that there are three Persons, each of whom is absolutely 
 God; that the Father is God because in, and of himself he pos- 
 sesses all the attributes of God; that the Son is God because in 
 and of himself he possesses all the attributes and powers of the 
 Godhead, and the same of the Holy Spirit, and yet that there is 
 but one God, our reply is that we do not see how people can be- 
 lieve the proposition any more than we see how people could 
 believe the following, that in principle is identical with it, viz.: 
 there are three persons, Peter, James and John, each of whom 
 is a man because he possesses all the attributes of a man, and yet 
 there is but one man. Is not the difficulty of belief precisely the 
 same in the two cases? 
 
 And now without the slightest asperity, and yet as showing 
 how far the current theology has strayed from sound logic, and 
 even from common sense, it is sufficient to say that if under oath, 
 a man were to declare his belief that three persons, each of whom 
 is a man because he has in himself all the attributes of a man, 
 constitute but one man, he would be ordered off the witness's 
 stand as incompetent to testify, and the fact might be used as 
 evidence of hisinsanity. But if he declares his belief that three per- 
 sons, each of whom is God, because he possesses all the attributes 
 of God constitute but one God, he is thought to be sound in the 
 faith. What are we obliged obliged to think of the intellectual 
 character, the intellectual loyalty of the man who declares it to be 
 his firm belief that the builder of this material universe, he who as 
 truly lived and wrought and reigned, and was as greatly needed 
 in the sun, moon and stars as in this speck of earth, came here 
 1800 years ago and was actually born of a woman as the only 
 means of recovering what he had inadvertently lost that the 
 Virgin Mary carried in her arms and n-u-r-s-e-d at her 
 b-r-e-a-s-t, as a hungry, crying child, the illimitable and ever- 
 lasting God ; him "who dipped his fingers in chaos and flung off 
 worlds." I put it to you strongly: is that believable? 
 
 Feeling it to be our religious duty to abide by our absolutely 
 distinct intellectual perceptions, that disloyalty to vivid ideas is 
 
gross injustice to the light God has given for our guidance, we 
 reject this doctrine. And yet God with his one mind, one will, 
 one consciousness, one Person, with his indivisible Unity, is to 
 us, all that he can be to our Trinitarian brethren; infinite in wis- 
 dom, goodness, power, love; our Father and everlasting Friend, 
 the all in all of things ; and we think that our idea of Him is 
 immensely superior to the other, in this respect. Its simplicity 
 and complete intelligibility unifies and vivifies our conception of 
 him, and by eliminating the complexity and the perplexity which 
 have greatly disturbed millions, it conduces to a sweet and whole- 
 some piety, and to the natural and healthy action of the mind. 
 And this is an obvious practical advantage that can hardly be 
 over-estimated. 
 
 II. Believing implicitly in the divine wisdom and goodness, 
 we cannot accept the doctrine of the Fall of Man; as it seems to 
 us that it directly and unanswerably impugns the moral character 
 of God. You know what it is, as you have heard it again and 
 again. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the 
 Garden of Eden, having planned for them immunity from all evil 
 and suffering, and unspeakable and eternal happiness in this 
 world. But from pure diabolism, from envy, and jealousy, and 
 hatred, and malice, a great evil being whom God also created, 
 and who had previously attempted to wrest from the Almighty 
 the jurisdiction of his kingdom, entered Eden in the form of a 
 serpent, and tempted Adam and Eve not only to their own ruin, 
 but causing also the corruption and ruin of the entire human 
 family, subjecting them to the wrath and curse of God. We 
 reject this doctrine for the following reasons : 
 
 * i. Science makes it altogether improbable that Adam and 
 Eve were created as it is popularly supposed they were. If the 
 doctrine of Evolution, now accepted by the leading thinkers 
 of the world is true, it is entirely certain that they were not thus 
 created. 
 
 2. If the doctrine of Evolution is true, it is almost certain 
 that the entire human family did not originate with Adam and 
 Eve, but rather, as one scientist puts it, there must have been a 
 
12 
 
 dozen Adams; in which case the doctrine in question utterly 
 fails. And the hypothesis that the human family originated at 
 different times and places, and so had a various parentage ex- 
 plains many facts which hitherto have greatly puzzled the critical 
 student of human history and of diverse human peculiarities. 
 
 3. To us, it is entirely clear that an infinitely wise and good 
 God would not, and could not have created such a being as the 
 devil is represented to be, and turned him loose to dispute even 
 the divine Sovereignty, thwart the divine plans, and deceive, 
 torment, and ruin the human family. What father would allow 
 a profane, lying, drunken, licentious, yet fascinating, human devil 
 to associate with his children and tempt them to their utter 
 destruction? 
 
 4. According to this doctrine God was thwarted, circumven- 
 ted, defeated and compelled to change his base and begin anew, 
 and for thousands of years he has been ineffectually striving to 
 recover what he lost by the first stroke of his arch enemy; the 
 devil has snatched from the divine hand the reins-of-government, 
 and today the kingdom of God is in ruins. Mr. Moody, the 
 most successful living revivalist, who has been endorsed by the 
 great orthodox denominations of the country, says: "This world 
 is a wreck and is bound to sink. The most that we can do is to 
 get off as many as possible of her passengers and crew, and let 
 her go." Now is it not as clear as a sunbeam that Mr. Moocly, 
 and all who agree with him, worship and serve either a malignant 
 God who planned to wreck the world and the human race, or a 
 defeated, disappointed, incompetent and dishonored God who 
 was no match for the devil ? 
 
 I am not exaggerating, as according to this doctrine the great 
 enemy of God and man is in the ascendant, and a vast majority 
 of the human family are at this moment on the road to eternal 
 destruction. In this are obviously involved both the wisdom 
 and the moral character of God. For example, if even of his 
 professed generosity a man should build high above a city, a 
 reservoir for the storage of water for that city's good, and the 
 first time the reservoir was filled, the dam should break awav 
 
and the whole plain below be deluged and the city destroyed, 
 would it not be clear that the plan of the reservoir was not well 
 devised or that the work was not well done; and that in either 
 case and on the highest moral grounds, and despite the good 
 intentions of the builder he would not only be responsible for the 
 overwhelming disaster, but afterward, totally unworthy of con- 
 fidence as a business man? Applying the same principle to the 
 case in hand, our only alternative is to reject the doctrine under 
 consideration, as it not only impugns the moral character of God, 
 but by teaching that his first great world scheme for our race 
 was utterly frustrated, it destroys all ground of confidence in 
 him. In our terrible civil war, we learned from sad experience 
 that a commander who had once been surprised, routed and 
 driven from his own chosen ground, his soldiers slain and his 
 ammunition captured, could not again be trusted, as he could 
 give no assurance that in the next emergency a similar disaster 
 would not await him. Dear friends, if you wish me to believe 
 and trust in God, pray do not tell me that he has once been com- 
 pletely out-generalled by the devil, and has not yet recovered 
 from the immeasurable disaster. 
 
 5. We reject this doctrine because the penalty it inflicts is 
 appallingly, infinitely disproportioned to the crime said to have 
 been committed. If a small boy, arrested in Los Angeles for 
 stealing an apple, were sentenced to imprisonment for life in a 
 dark cell, and to subsistence upon bread and water, that sentence 
 could not be executed, nor could the judge rendering it retain his 
 office, so irrepressible would be the moral indignation that would 
 be excited in this community. And yet even such a sentence for 
 such a crime is but a drop to the ocean, in comparison with the 
 eteriial-damnation-of-unco2inted-millions as the result of two 
 persons eating once of forbidden fruit. Punish them as they 
 deserve, but in heaven's name do not forever damn them and a vast 
 majority of their posterity to the end of time. 
 
 III. We believe that man ii>as, and still ts, created in the 
 image of God; that by nature he is a child of God; that he needs 
 religion not because Adam or anybody else has sinned, but because 
 
14 
 
 he has a moral and spiritual constitution that is adapted to a moral 
 and spiritual experience, as the wing of the bird to air, and the fin of 
 the fish to water. We believe that with promptings as sweet and 
 natural as those which, with all its little troubles, take a child to its 
 mother's arms, a man may come directly into the presence of God, 
 and that even in his sins, he has no other friend like his Heavenly 
 Father. And therefore we do not accept the doctrine of the vicarious 
 atonement, viz., that in our room and stead Christ died, suffering 
 the penalty that was due to us. According to our conception 
 of the character of God and of the nature of forgiveness, no such 
 atonement was either necessary or possible. 
 
 1. To us it seems to be in direct conflict with the doctrine of 
 the divine mercy. God would not forgive the sinner till the 
 penalty of his broken law had been visited upon some one, and 
 God himself actually inflicted that penalty upon his son Jesus 
 Christ. Thus the innocent suffered instead of the guilty, which 
 completely reverses our instinctive idea of both justice and mercy, 
 and destroys, were it possible to destroy, the relations between 
 innocence and internal comfort, and crime and its legitimate 
 consequences. There is neither justice nor mercy in punishing 
 the innocent instead of the guilty. 
 
 2. This doctrine is totally irreconcilable with that of the par- 
 able of the prodigal son, given by Christ for the purpose of illus- 
 trating the forgiving love of God. Solely through the promptings 
 of the true, fatherly heart, and not because an innocent person 
 had suffered the penalty due to the foolish and wicked young 
 man, he was received back into the dear old home. And does 
 not this settle forever the question as to the condition of the 
 divine forgiveness? 
 
 3. We fully believe that this doctrine is immoral in its ten- 
 dencies; as it presents a substitute for high moral character > 
 for actual personal worth, and appeals to low and selfish motives. 
 It says in so many words that dependence upon conformity to- 
 the moral law, as a condition of salvation, is offensive to God 
 and dangerous to the soul; that our only hope of % heaven is in 
 the blood of Christ. And in as much as personal worth is thus 
 
15 
 
 openly and purposely disparaged, we are not surprised that 
 among large numbers who profess to have been saved by the 
 vicarious atonement, the standard of character is so low that 
 business men from a business standpoint fight shy of them. By 
 downright falsehood and misrepresentation and all the tricks of 
 trade, as in both hemispheres I have repeatedly been told, 
 business men are frequently deceived and profusely bled by 
 church members who are staking their eternal salvation on the 
 blood of Christ. A bishop of the Church of England recently 
 bemoaned the low standard of morality among Christians; and 
 a few years ago the great Wesleyan body of England appointed 
 a day of fasting and prayer in consequence of the same deplorable 
 condition. But how can it be otherwise when from the pulpit 
 and in the sacred name of religion, the sterling moralities are 
 declared to be of no account in the salvation of the soul? Indi- 
 vidual worth is as filthy rags. We are to be saved because 
 Christ suffered in our stead, not because we are worth saving. 
 
 And according to this definition of religion, there is many a 
 diminutive and slippery saint whose word you would not take, 
 who could not get trust for a pound of meat or a yard of cloth, 
 and to whose low personal level you would be ashamed to de- 
 scend, but who is in high favor with God and on the road to 
 heaven; and many a splendid sinner whose word is as good as 
 his bond, who is trusted and honored by all who know him, but 
 who is on the road to hell. It is this definition of religion that 
 is arousing widespread dissatisfaction, not to say downright 
 scepticism. And that you may see how the question of accept- 
 ing salvation because Christ is represented to have suffered in 
 our stead, is affecting many of the noblest minds, involving as it 
 does a high moral principle, and the very foundation of true 
 self-respect, I will ask you to consider the following circumstance: 
 About fifty years ago, in western New York, there was a school 
 in which were a large, coarse-fibred, headstrong boy who 
 was full of malicious mischief and low, vulgar tricks; and another 
 of exactly the opposite temperament and tendency; auburn 
 haired, light-complexioned, blue-eyed, high-minded, thoroughly 
 
1G 
 
 truthful, but still a fun-loving boy. One day, while the back of 
 the master was turned, a circumstance occurred which greatly 
 enraged him; and, as the two boys above described were sitting 
 side by side, the master assuming, of course, that the first named 
 was the guilty one, prepared to punish him severely; and in 
 those days punishment in school meant something. But just as 
 the great cherry ruler was about to fall with awful force upon 
 the open palm of the first above named, the second sprang to 
 his feet and exclaimed, "Sir, John did not do it, I did it. I 
 intended no harm, did not think what I was doing, and I am 
 very sorry; but, sir, do not punish John for what I did. I could 
 not bear that. Please punish me. " 
 
 And now the question I put to you, the question I would put to 
 the civilized world, the question which I willingly leave at the door 
 of the human heart is, whether in declining to accept salvation from 
 punishment through the suffering of an innocent party, that boy 
 did not manifest a spirit incomparably finer and nobler, a senti- 
 ment vastly more creditable and more truly religious, than he 
 would have done had he allowed John to receive the penalty due 
 himself. Is it not perfectly obvious that without sacrificing his 
 self-respect, without cowardice and selfishness and demoralization 
 at the very fountain of his life, he could not have allowed an- 
 other to suffer in his stead? It is at this precise point that this 
 doctrine is distressing thousands of the finest spirits of the age 
 people of the acutest moral and spiritual sensibilities. 
 
 Horace Mann, one of the noblest souls that ever dwelt in flesh, 
 once said that if he were to accept the orthodox conditions of 
 salvation, and thereon enter heaven, he should be eternally 
 ashamed to look Christ in the face. Think of congratulating our- 
 selves that our bondsman had to pay our debts that another's 
 fingers are in the trap on our account while we go free. Thus is 
 it turning out that much of the so-called infidelity of our day is 
 evincing an incomparably finer feeling, a profounder self-respect, 
 than much of the religion of our day. And it was on this and 
 kindred ground that one of the most intelligent women on this 
 
coast recently declared that administered religion had become 
 positively demoralizing. 
 
 But do not infer that Christ is of no account to us, because we 
 do not accept the vicarious atonement. In our conception of 
 divine things we think Christ is not less but more important than 
 he is according to the orthodox conception. That represents him 
 as the great physician. And the physician holds an important 
 place, but the physiologist's is even more important. For, necessary 
 as it is that some should know how to administer medicine 
 properly, it is vastly more necessary that we should be so instructed 
 and so live as not to need it. And this illustrates the radical dif- 
 ference between the two systems of thought. In the one, Christ 
 is the great physician, and religion is a medicine. To how large 
 a number has it been a very bitter medicine! In the other, 
 Christ is the great teacher, unfolding the laws of the moral and 
 spiritual life, as the physiologist shows the influence on the body 
 of good, plain, nutritous food, pure air and pure water, exercise 
 and rest, cheerfulness and sunshine, the great natural, universal, 
 indispensable agents for the preservation, and even the restoration 
 of health. 
 
 IV. We reject the doctrine of endless punishment; and we have 
 numerous and unanswerable reasons for so doing. Upon these 
 reasons I cannot now enter seriatim. The time is too short. 
 Suffice it to say, first, that neither God nor angel, neither man 
 nor devil, could derive the slightest benefit from the eternal suf- 
 fering of any creature, insect or fiend. What good could it do? 
 
 I cannot understand the man who shoots down a frae and 
 innocent bird, or catches fish, or hunts wild animals for sport. 
 Is it nothing to maim a living creature and send it through all the 
 tortures of a lingering death? I cannot understand the man who 
 knows that his habits are wringing scalding tears from one who 
 would die for him if he were loyal to her. Do we, thick-skinned, 
 nerveless, insensate creatures realize what agony is? But what 
 of anguish that never lifts, torment excruciating and eternal. 
 
 Secondly: the doctrine is irreconcilable with the character of 
 God. Beyond all question, if the creation of man unavoidably 
 
18 
 
 involved such exposure, then the creative act should not have 
 been performed. We sing with the poet, who said: 
 
 Thank God that I have lived to see the time 
 When the great truth begins at last to find 
 Expression from the deep heart of mankind, 
 Noble and free, that all revenge is crime, 
 That man is holier than any creed, 
 That all restraint upon him must consult his good, 
 Hope's sunshine linger on his prison walls, 
 And love look in upon his solitude. 
 
 We think that heaven will not be shut forevermore 
 
 Without a knocker left upon the door, 
 
 Lest some belated wanderer should come, 
 
 Heart-broken, asking just to die at home; 
 
 So that the Father will at last forgive, 
 
 And looking in his face, that soul shall live. 
 
 We think there will be watchmen out through all the night 
 
 To lead the lost from darkness into light, 
 
 That he who loved us into life must be 
 
 A father, infinitely fatherly ; 
 
 And groping for him, these shall find their way, 
 
 From outer darkness into perfect day. 
 
 This is our faith; and in it we gladly and gratefully rest. You 
 must perceive that it is not a series of glittering negations. We 
 affirm; affirm variously, broadly, strongly, grandly. It seems to 
 us that no other church affirms so much. 
 
 We affirm the divine existence, the divine sovereignty, the 
 divine love. 
 
 We affirm that God is God, and that he understands his bus- 
 iness. 
 
 We affirm that evil and sin are temporary, and that truth and 
 righteousness are the eternal principles and must ultimately pre- 
 vail. 
 
 We affirm that this is God's world, the government of which he 
 does not share with a great evil being who keeps him under per- 
 petual limitations. 
 
19 
 
 We affirm that human nature and human life are intrinsically 
 sacred a condition that alone makes sin possible. 
 
 We affirm the grand prerogatives as well as the resposibilities 
 of the human soul. 
 
 We affirm that the most effectual way of saving a man, in the 
 largest and truest sense, is to make him a man. Soul-building 
 is the best and cheapest process of soul saving. 
 
 We affirm that all legitimate experience is religious. 
 
 Are not these, transcendent and inspiring affirmations ? They 
 express the growing conviction of the world. We know nothing of 
 a good Christian, who is a bad husband or father, or wife or mother 
 nothing of a good Christian who, receiving the communion on 
 Sunday, tells business lies through all the following week ; nothing 
 of a good Christian who puts the best apples and oranges at the top 
 of the boxes, and worthless ones at the bottom; intending to balance 
 the account by singing peans to the grace of God and the blood of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 We do not believe that the mother, whose ragged and dirty 
 children are running in the street from morning till night, has a 
 right to give a cent or a moment to the Foreign Missionary Society. 
 She had better organize in her own house a society for the conver- 
 sion of heathen. We believe that the home is as sacred as the 
 church ; that the multiplication table and the moral law work 
 towards the same great end ; that truth, and beauty, and music, and 
 society, and love, and labor, and even disappointment and sorrow, 
 are helps in the education and development of the soul. W r e believe 
 that true religion, instead of being repugnant to human nature, is 
 its consummate flowering and fruitage. 
 
 I need not be told that thousands, whose faith I have criticised 
 this morning, are excellent people, or that they are doing excellent 
 Christian work. I understand that. But the point I make is that 
 in their work of religious self-culture, or of Christian propagandism, 
 they are not helped, but greatly hindered by the doctrines I have 
 reviewed. These doctrines never, never brought a ray of light or a 
 thrill of rational joy to a single soul, but they have filled millions 
 with unutterable gloom and foreboding. By thousands within the 
 orthodox fold they are felt to be an incubus upon the Christian 
 
church. You prefer not to hear them and with good reason. Their 
 character is indicated by the fact that they constitute Mr. In- 
 gersoll's stock in trade. Our orthodox friends, whom we respect 
 and love, are genial, hopeful, trustful, charitable, tender, not because 
 of these doctrines, but in spite of them. God be thanked that 
 there are vast numbers, so sweet and pure, and spontaneous of heart 
 that their terrible creed produces but little effect upon them. But 
 if you would know what effect it produces upon natures severely 
 logical, read what Catherine Beecher says of the effect upon her, of 
 her own father's preaching. It nearly drove her to the insane 
 asylum. Many and many an hour when she should have been 
 asleep, she spent in tears, that she had bsen born. And her ex- 
 perience has been repeated ten thousand thousand times. It is not 
 a week since a devoted wife and mother, a thoroughly conscientious 
 and high minded woman of this city, declared that, influenced by 
 these doctrines, in agony and tears she had repeatedly deplored her 
 own existence. 
 
 Dear friends, I never visit the homes of the poor and distressed, 
 I never bow at the bedside of the sick and the dying, I never stand 
 at the head of an open grave, into which, struck down at the high 
 noon of life, a beloved husband is being buried, and realize that 
 from that hour, a widow, desolate, tearful, over-burdened, haggard, 
 heart-hungry, world- w~eary, will tread alone her winding path, 
 without thanking God from the lowest depth of my soul for the 
 faith that in the sorest trial, gives confidence and joy and peace. 
 And if I can aid a little, in planting in this growing city, a church 
 whose special function it shall be, to shoot rays of heavenly light 
 through all earthly fog and darkness, to broaden the spiritual 
 vision, to stimulate faith and hope, to bind up the broken hearted, 
 to provide spiritual asylum for the sorrowing, to show that religion 
 is natural as well as necessary, that the inner, the actual, personal 
 qualities and forces are the chief concern, that character is the great 
 end of our being, I will gratefully say with Simeon of old, " Now 
 lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen 
 thy salvation." 
 
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