Show ON RELIGION frederick harrison says that the question of questions the great problem of the present day is ir can religion become one with our highest science about the world and ab about man and can this religious science or this scientific religion directly inspire our activity on earth he further asks which of the many c reeds creeds and the many philosophers has duly solved the question he says it is the chief and precious quality u al thaile of our modern culture that it is nothing if not historical complete comprehensive it insists that every age and phase of mans manifold civilization shall be sifted understood seen at its best we will have nothing left out nothing trampled on the b bigots ms the pedants ped ants the iconoclasts tte the levelers level erss 9 all not rob us of any single wort work or quality sauld of man all shall be saved studied cared for it itis ie ft 3 humanistic age abt somewhat eclectic keenly historical sympathetic betic many sided aided just we are sadly endeavoring to undo the passionate errors of centuries especially of the last century or two and if we had no very distinct faith of our own we decline to commit ourselves irretrievably to any exclusive creed or to any militant school we hold on obstinate if somewhat hopeless hop eleas to toleration to a general unwillingness to let go any substantive element in human nature we feel that theology has much that all the evolutionists and materialists materia lists cannot give us and that they can never in fact fack take away on the other hand we feel that science has swept round the intellectual bases of theology till they are crumbling in mere impotence useless solitary relies relics so 80 too we feel that our modern industrial life has a great deal that is very cruel and yet a great deal that is quite indispensable pen sable let us face the facts religion industry morality science do net work hand han i la ia hand together indeed they often work at cross purposes each ignoring the other and yet this age has bus not lost its ite faith in any one of these Is it not plain that the want of this age is that which can reconcile them some common term which can express them all mr harrison also says that catholic protestant trinitarian unitarian calvinist jesuit and evangelical are all obsolete and are in our day absurdities or anachronisms they and magnify one epoch of numan boman history they idealize one personage use one book or parts of one literature from all the rest of human story the rich and glorious roll of mans kaups conquest over nature and his progress in knowledge in worth from all this they turn with a frown or a sigh to all the theological creeds the earlier systems of life as well as all later phases of development are naught vanity the corruption of nature if not devilish and worldly lull full of self glory ani indulgence self at most blind ishuin bling in the dark wasted life so that even to dante the sublime st heroes and geniuses geni were all lost souls sadly conscious that the best was not for them theology is bound to paw pass by in disdain or silence all that was wag great and beautiful in the vast ages which believed in many gods the and the theocracies the heroic growth of rome borne the thought and grace of hellas the complex civilization of egypt all that the assyrian persian indian indian or chinese teachers and prophets ever gave to to the countless who rose into civilized life beneath their care ile he says that this one sidedness is not confined to the alleged christian theologian to the narrow or to the phara phar eaic asale all the purely revolutionary schools whether they issue from a materialistic or from metaphysical types of free thought are even more one sided more blind to all but the one phase of human nature or of history that they select progress in their mouths does not mean the curve which is being traced in the entire course of mans mana civilization evolution with them obliterates the past the dark ages with their genius of beauty their passionate self devotion their strength in obedience fellowship discipline are to these modern evolutionists a cause of ense a shameful blot in mans history best quieted with disdain thus he says this age stands with its retrograde theology dwarfing dwar fing mans nature nak ure and confining mans light to one epoch on the one side on the other side I 1 with a revolution ary self contained criticism which is ready to solve every social and spiritual problem out of its own head treating the vast series of phases in civilization as waste paper and between the two the continuity in human life its oneness ness is lost sight of jw HF I 1 what this age wants what the deeper hearts are silently and sadly yearning for is this a key to mans whole life complete being its entire history in these few words mr harrlson harrison puts ts in in a nutshell th the needs of ave the age the relations of man and the world with religion and science and it is h here 0 re t the h e student of what is called mormonism 1 must pause and ask himself a series of questions the theology or philosophy of this creed is not touched on by mr harrison though he speaks of all creeds he refers to those which centre about the nazareth epoch it is evident that he has never investigated mormonism but the next question is in how far does mormonism go to supply the deficiency of the age as mr harrison defines this deficiency does it ignore history does it ignore science does it ignore godliness does it ignore progress does it ignore the intelligence of the past does it confine itself to the epoch of moses Is it content with the epoch of jesus Is it fenced in with a barbed wire bastion like calvinism or lutheranism Is it like materialism entirely oblivious of thelast the past and indifferent indi Terent to the future to all of these questions the reply must come that mormonism P is a what mr harrison states to be the necessity of the theace age though the gentleman seems to be ignorant of its existence it is true mormonism has also a fence but it is one which takes in the whole human race and in its orderly way fl finds ads a place and a method for every race and every matter it does not condemn n dan dante to to the hell of his own creation or imagination or religion it does not hedge all its spirituality with st paul or st peter it does not limit its theocracy to moses it does not sink its philos philosophy ophy in plato or socrates in sir thomas more or in frederick harrison and yet it does not ignore any it holds that all have performed their work and that all were vere necessary necess arv to the enlightenment and progress progress of the present and that it is itself the proud spire in the worlds temple of spirituality and intellectuality in the human family does it ignore history which the modern critic bases an all progress on on the contrary to the student history appears in mormonism sua an apotheosized materiality genealogy is one of its pedestals and it is thus that it provides salvation for dante and plato alike as well as for its own president or Key holder one critic of mormonism whom I 1 have read after indulging in a severe denunciation of the faith finally winds up as aa follows they believe that mind can travel and exert influence even across the ocean the locality allotted to the good and the bad after death or judgment is undecided one tells you there is no hell but this earth we live in another that this earth will then acome become heaven while a third unconsciously I 1 sup suppose following dante assured me we should be distributed am among the planets and the their r satellites ollor nor are all but the saints to be excluded from the heaven everyone will be judged according to his works and those who have never heard the gospel preached or have rejected tt it from mere dullness will be admitted though in some inferior or even servile position into the kingdom of some of the saints though this writer or critic distorts in a measure the tenets of the saints yet he speaks more eloquently of mormonism than he intended he admits enough to shuw that this faith in a measure meets frederick harrisons demands another critic speaking of mor imor monism and joseph smith rather inclines to the view that mormonism is a necessity of the times he says IN ow other and more generally esteemed men than joseph smith men whom the world has 1 accepted as philosophers have yearned in these latter days to su supply the void which they felt to exist exist as a want in modern christendom luthers reformation in europe was directly opposed to the mystical spirit which lies concealed in the bosom of all religious communities and which though the great reformer sought to extinguish it continues still unquenched to the present time and as his biography proves was not absent A in his deeper moods from his own mental operations the ing worth doctrine of the bible and the bible alone being the religion of protestants had a tendency to substitute for the idolatry of the priest the idolatry of the book and indeed it was a favorite tenet and strange as it may ap appear ear the boast of the orthodox I 1 that there mere was no vision in the land the time me for miraculous communication had passed forever emerson said of modern protestant teaching that it was an equivalent to the admission M god is dead 1 against such teaching reasonable N men would revolt and above all self instructed men would perceive 4 its fallacy hence the development of a joseph smith in some part of the christian world would crt be a natural result must first be destroyed the infidel invalidated scriptures entirely on the other hand philosophical relic classed the whole range of superior literature as inspired J joseph 0 smith adopted a more compact method he set up a second bible IT to partake the honors of the first and having thus divided the homage and thereby weakened the idolatry he prepared the way for the acceptance of new pretensions A third bible was now possible which should record the origin progress and full establishment of a new dispensation entrusted to his own personal conduct as a prophet of course I 1 do not give these criticisms to show that their authors have formed a correct or incorrect estimate of mormonism but they will serve to illustrate the fact that a man may not be a member of the church and yet find something in mormonism that harmonizes with the demands of the age as they are formulated by such social scientists as harrison spencer arnold and others harrison is one of the deepest thinkers of england and entirely impartial in his investigation of religion as shown in his creeds old and new from which the above quotations are taken it is to be regretted that among the new he has not included mormonism and yet perhaps it is better noti not because without a personal investigation of this creed he he could not arrive at a proper estimate he never visited america I 1 believe proud froude e huxley and some others equally distinguished have touched on mormonism and only in a superficial way and more to taunt the retrogressive sects with the fact that mormonism was a religion as worthy of belief as romanism or calvinism they have bave not investigated it from the secular nor from the spiritual standpoint they merely took it as it was presented by newman and cook and then satir iced the cooks and newmans Newman with being pedestals for Mormon mormonism isril 11 an english writer named burton once travelled in utah he has left a most elaborate analysis of mormonism he says its tenets are spontaneous though apparently eclectic chosed or selected he says those tenets cannot be because though they partake of ancient egypt of greece rome borne hebrew and christian yet they cannot be said to have been taken from these sources for the simple reason that joseph smith was comparatively an uneducated man and not conversant with the systems and schools of ancient philosophy and religion this certainly is a cogent reason mr burton was a great traveler asia and africa revealed to him many of their mysteries his analyses of mormonism is florid overdrawn and written more to allow his own comprehensiveness in inquiry than to really present mormonism in its ita true light a and nd in words intelligible to the average reader why his language is such that I 1 elleve believe it would surprise the founder or rather the prophet of the f faith alth to read it I 1 will give part of it here just merely to show frederick ha harrison arison that there is in existence something wide enough to embrace all the past and its science progress theology and spirituality it may lead mr harrison to investigate aid mormonism will stand this both from the secular so cular scientific and aad theological let us quote mr bu r toll merely for information not for a correct estimate of the creed he says in the Tessar hessaraki Tess araki akl decalogue of mormons cormons we find semitic monotheism eisin persian dualism the triads treads and trinities Trini ties of the egyptians and Hin doos the hebrews also have a personal theos the buddhists av ataras and incarnations the brahmins Brah mins self apothem sis of man by prayer and penance and the east generally holds to quietism a belief that repose is the only happiness and to a vast complication of states in the world to be the mormons cormons are like the pythagoreans in their procreation transmigration and exaltation of souls like the followers of and in their atomic materialism like the i epicureans Epicure ans in their pure atomic theories theo ries their summum and their sensuous speculations and like the and gnostics agnostics in their belief of the xon of ideas and of moving principles in element they are in their ghostly fancies their which become soils and spirits they are jews in their theocracy their ideas of angels their hatred of gentiles and their segregation from the great brotherhood of mankind they are christians inasmuch as they base their faith upon the bible and hold to the divinity of christ the fall of man the atonement and the regeneration they are arians inasmuch as they hold christ to be the fl first rat of gods creatures a perfect creature but still a creature they are moslems in their views of the inferior status of womankind in their polygamy and in their resurrection of the mater material lil body they don dont donit it fear death because they have elaborated continuation they take no leap in the dark they spring from this sublunary stage into a known not into an unknown world hence also their worship is eminently secular their sermons are political lotical 1 or comme commercial ecial and their religion lio g ion being part of their everyday life the intervention of the lord in their material affairs becomes natural and only to be expected they resemble the illuminate in their visions prophecies and dreams miracles etc their mysticism that of the cruses their millennium belief a compilation of that of the apocalyptic sects masonry has evidently entered i into their scheme the dealu agu s which they worship is as good as any other methodism borg ism transcendentalism are intermingled ter mingled with the rest affinity of mind sympathy of soul etc re mind one of mesmer the rochester rappers and poughkeepsie seer 11 judging mormonism by mr bur tons estimate of it it would appear to be a religion co comprehensive enough for any intellect or any phase of society it appears that this critic does not behold anything entirely new nor anything decidedly revolutionary in its doctrines mr burton was a man of wide knowledge 5 extensive research and corid wide travel of course his estimate 1 is not given as approaching anything like a just synopsis of the religion he states that woman is held to be inferior and that mormons cormons Mor mons desire isolation these are absolute un truths if isolation is desired why the cry against mormon missionaries if woman is ia held inferior |