Article October 29, 1904 Issue

A Glance Backward and Forward

CLARENCE A. BUSKIRK.

The hoof-prints of a personal devil and the scent of brimstone have well-nigh disappeared from modern thought. Our ancestors had so many dogmas and creeds of their own brewing to pour into the vessels of the Christian religion that it is a marvel the original contents were not all spilled upon the ground. The mediæval superstition that an ancient theological dogma or creed has something sacred about it, so that it is sacrilegious to touch it, which has long been a darkening and oppressive fog before the eyes of men, has, however, about drifted from the horizon. Not a few of the dogmas and creeds still found imbedded in theology appear to the twentieth-century men and women, utterly foolish, and it is not strange, therefore, that there has been a decay, strand after strand, of those ropes of traditional belief with which scholastic theology formerly towed the world in its wake.

Not yet wholly finished is the great struggle against the theological errors which fastened themselves on the Christian religion as survivors from ancient paganism, or as the progeny of mediæval superstition; but the signs of an assured victory are appearing in the sky. Man's trust in God is approaching its lustration. Nearer and nearer is the glad day, it has almost come, when, without shivering with fear or waxing hot in indignant protest, honest men can think about their destiny and duty as immortal beings. The kettle-drums have been pounded long and loudly, and our race has suffered much from their stunning noise, but they are growing silent; and glad and sweet, like the happy song of a bird, "when purple morning breaketh, when the tired waketh, and the shadows flee," begins to rise from the world's heart the joyous and reverent recognition of the eternal Ever-presence who has declared, "I am with thee to deliver thee!"

Useless, and oftentimes worse than useless, has been the work, however valiantly attempted, of those who have merely sought to destroy falsehoods without building up truths in their stead. We must have the cradle of truth as well as the tomb of error. There is no vacuum in the beliefs of men. To annihilate, and then to stop short, is of very doubtful benefit to humanity. We must have spiritual growth to effect the destruction of error.

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