Article October 31, 1914 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from Charles E. Craik

[The Outlook]

Moses, Micah, Paul, and Jesus Christ all concur in teaching that the fundamentals of the Christian religion consist, not in a system of doctrines, but in a new and divine life; in reverence and righteousness; in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God; in living soberly, righteously, godly, and hopefully; in one word, in love, in all its various phases, experiences, and activities.

To substitute as the fundamentals of Christianity a system of doctrines for this life of love, is not to promote the life of the spirit; it is to dwarf and deaden the life of the spirit. It is to deflect men's minds from right living to scholarly thinking. It is practically to deny that Christianity is a universal religion and make it a form of philosophy. Doing justly, loving mercy, living reverently and hopefully, is something which can be understood by the scholar in his library, by the cook in the kitchen, by the child in the playground. But that atonement is by propitiation, or that the future coming of Christ will be "visible bodily local," or that the grace of God is "a certain attitude or act of God toward man," are propositions which, however important they may appear to the scholar in his library, are not likely to be understood by the cook in the kitchen or the child in the playground.

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