CHAPTER VII.

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY.

During the childhood of a people, Religion is largely a superstition, a fear, a dread of the unknown. It is largely sensuous, pictorial, objective. Under despotic forms of government, the Church was allied to the political and military forms of government, was frequently cruel and oppressive, and bent the religious sentiment of the people to its will. In an age of Art, religious sentiment found expression in paintings, in statuary, in costly temples and great cathedrals. In an age of credulity, Religion became an unquestioning Faith. In times of debate it became a Creed or Dogma; but, in an age of reason, Religion has become a philosophy.

The line of demarcation between Religion and Theology cannot be too sharply drawn. Between them is a great gulf. Change and Progress, the law of Life, is also the law of Religion. Latin Theology, which forms the basis of doctrine of the Christian Church, Protestant and Catholic, is based upon the alleged sin and fall of Man, the total depravity of our first parents, the tradition of a substitutional atonement, the dogmas of time probation, endless punishment, and the rest of it. It is based, also, upon the slander and shame of motherhood.

It may seem strange that after thousands of years of experience, of study, of debate, that the

great questions, so vitally affecting the welfare of humanity, are still unanswered. The reason has been suggested. The superstitions of the uncivilized races, the fear of natural forces, the dread of the unknown, must give place to more intelligent conceptions. The giving up of the old and passing on to the new is the slow work of centuries. The childhood period, which found help in the objective, the pictorial, the sensuous, must give place to reason and to the intuitions of the intelligent Soul, must pass from outward forms and ritualistic ceremonies to inner duties, and to those conditions of the Mind and Heart which constitute character. And, as the process continues, Religion must pass from the external, the formal, and the coercine to the authority of Truth. The unquestioning faith of credulity must listen to the voice of Reason, accept the facts of History, and look Philosophy squarely in the eye. In Religion, as in all else, the Individual must give to himself a reason for the hope that is in him.

The Dark Centuries of the Christian era taught that the Earth was flat and stationary; the sky, a 100f; the stars, countless gems, and we can hardly conceive now how utterly incredible must have seemed the statements of the Copernican astronomers. Nor is it strange that the Theological School fought for its old theory. To give up that seemed to them like surrendering an important bulwark to the powers of darkness. Then it was that the Christian Church began to ossify, to crystalize into Dogma. Then, Creeds were form

ulated and placed before the people to be accepted on pain of persecution, excommunication, eternal torment and eternal death; but, as authority to enforce temporal punishment weakened, the better thinkers accepted a broader and larger view.

And although the controversy still goes forward, it has changed somewhat in its character. Once, Vin remembered, the controversy was between Methodists and Presbyterians, between Baptists and Congregationalists, and between Protestants, as a class, and Roman Catholicism. Now, all these are making common cause in defense of the Latin Dogmas. Protestant and Catholic alike accept Latin Theology and its Dogmas of the Sin, and Fall, and Total Depravity of mankind, of the Atonement, built upon that Sin and Fall, a sort of moral bankruptcy or insolvency provision expiring by limitation of time. The essential difference being that the Roman Catholic Church extends the benefit of that provision for those of its children for whom proper financial arrangements can be made, and for a time at least, into the future life beyond the tomb; whilst the limitation is fixed by the orthodox protestant churches at the moment of the change called Death, and beyond that, there is for the departed, no possibility of reformation, repentance or salvation. And this very marked similarity of essential belief explains the frequency with which so many preachers of the Episcopal Church have passed over to the Catholic. It also explains the tendency of the Protest

ant Churches toward Roman Catholicism. And thus is Latin Theology, both Protestant and Catholic, making common cause in resisting the doctrines of the early Christian Church at Alexandria, on the one hand, and on the other, it is trying to resist the attacks of skepticism and infidelity which Latin Theology has not only called forth, but has actually made necessary in the interests of Truth.

A belief in God is fundamental to Religion; but the conception one forms of the Supreme Ruler, the Grand Architect of the Universe, has much to do with the strength or weakness of his position. When it was thought that this Earth was the center of the Universe, that the Sun was but a little ball of Light passing round it, there was not much difficulty in thinking of a being who had made it, and who dwelt beyond the sky, and that everything had been arranged in a purely mechanical way by such larger and more powerful being. Now, all that has gone. The solid sky has dissolved into infinite space. The Sun has become more than a million times larger than the Earth. The Stars, receding into measureless depths, have become centers of vast systems until, instead of one Sun, we have millions of Suns and many of vast size. Astronomers tell us that Sirius is two hundred times larger than our Sun; that the nearest fixed Star is twenty million miles away, and that the next but one is forty millions of miles distant from our Earth. That, the little nebulous spot in the constellation Hercules is found, under the most powerful glass,

to be a vast stellar system comprising some fourteen thousand suns.

Such Facts as these make it difficult, if not impossible, to think of a God outside of Nature, who made and rules all these countless systems of Suns and Worlds. But, that is merely one of the absurdities of Latin Theology; and it is that very absurdity which has shattered the faith of the present age in the existence of God.

But it is not difficult to think of the order of the Universe, of the existence and continuity of natural forces, for these are everywhere manifest. Neither is it difficult to think of Life and Love, of Reason, Justice, or Truth, for these are known to and a part of ourselves. Life knows Life; Love knows Love; Reason knows Reason; Justice knows Justice; and Truth knows Truth: and in knowing these larger facts and finer qualities, one begins to know the Great Architect of the Universe. Not an Angry, Arbitrary, Distant, External, Outside Being, but God in Nature and in Man; God in Life and Love, in Justice, in Reason, and in Truth. And, as the Universe is infinite, so we suppose that these principles and qualities are also infinite; and yet, they are ever present, nearer to us than we are to our dearest friends. They are ourselves. Hence we are of God. It does not yet appear what Man is destined to become.

From such a standpoint Atheism is impossible. So far as Latin Theology is concerned, one may or may not be able to persuade himself to believe in some external, physical conception of an