Article November 12, 1904 Issue

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The Christian world does not lay sufficient stress upon the importance of having the "mind of Christ." Of course we all agree in declaring that the possession of our Lord's spirit is essential to worthy discipleship, but in our living we all do largely give the lie to our declarations. Many a man whose theology is of unquestioned antiquity and in absolute agreement with the historic symbols, does not hesitate to be unjust in his judgments. To a brother who differs from him he assigns motives and purposes that exist only in his own excited imagination. He fails utterly of any fair valuation of the worth or the work of the brother who will not pronounce his shibboleth. This spirit is not confined to the conservative. The so-called liberal is often more narrow and unfair than the man whom he condemns. The fact is, that judging righteous judgment is about the most difficult task that the Christian has to perform. When we have come to the place where we can credit the man whom we dislike with all the virtues which he really possesses, we have traveled far along the road which Jesus has laid out as the highway of his disciples. When we can talk about the man who differs from us radically in theology without depreciating his character or misrepresenting his work, the grace of God has done much for us.—The Standard.

Fixed creeds, which settle how people must believe, are a mischief and a nuisance. Every generation should be at liberty to modify its faith under the light of Scripture, reason and knowledge, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To shut the windows against future light is bad policy in money as well as in religion. It is a good plan for individuals to revise their creeds as often as they choose; and there is no objection to very general statements of present belief; but when these are made not credos, but credenda, not what we do believe, but what we must and will believe, they are dangerous and wrong. It is these formulated systems of required faith that keep Churches from uniting. This is the trouble that the various Presbyterian denominations are now finding. How easy it would be for them to unite if they only had no creeds.—The Independent.

How have you been excited over the wrong and sin of luxury and extravagance of some of the world's people, and how you would cure it by making more people luxurious and extravagant; you would make things right by turning things around and making the poor rich and the rich poor when there is no difference in men, and the new rich would be just as oppressive and the new poor would be just as discontented. The remedy of the world's ills is not to be found in changed conditions except there be a change of heart.—The Universalist Leader.

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