Article April 9, 1904 Issue

From our Exchanges

with contributions from H. A. Bridgman

It is a marked feature of religious literature, and of secular as well, both in England and in America, that there is a call for a revival of religion. The dying out of the old theology seems to have involved a decadence of religious sentiment. This was perfectly natural, because theology and religion were esteemed to be so nearly identical. It needs no close scrutiny of the churches to discover that things which have heretofore made part of the religious diet have become indigestible to both clergy and laity. Somehow, in connection with the evolution of opinion, there has come about a very remarkable change as to the expectation of salvation. The fear of eternal punishment and the effort to be saved therefrom hardly find expression now even among the most conservative. There still lingers among the creeds a modified set of expressions concerning everlasting punishment, but these are tolerated, because in one way or another they can be explained away. Any conception of an infinite God who occupies eternity with the unending punishment of those who, more or less, have rebelled against His will, finds little toleration in the most arrogant pulpits. Individual salvation, in the modern acceptation of the word, has been shifted from escape from an angry God to escape from the lower self into the growth of a higher character, from selfishness to service.

The Christian Register.

Utilize, then, to the full the gift God has given you of making friends. Think less of what you may get out of a friendship than what you may put into it. Turn to spiritual account your happy student comradeships, your business friendships. Do not bore your friend with formal religion, but let him not fail to know that the deepest thing of your life is your friendship with Christ which enables you all the better to cultivate your human friendships. For there are no friendships—and I speak as one who for many years has been blessed therewith far beyond deserts—like those between persons trying to live under the inspiration of Christian hopes and the Christian ideals.

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