"The professors believe that civilization is under the domination of many false doctrines, and that the fact that these are held sacred is no reason why they should be preserved."
Not only do these professors—scores of them, remember—hold that the church is wrong now, but they hold that it has been wrong for ages. Listen to this:
"The present crusade of the colleges is surcharged with the conviction that the churches and church thought are not only behind the times but that they have, throughout the centuries, been an obstacle to human advance, and are even now the last barrier keeping man out of his true spiritual kingdom. They say that man has earned the right to know the truth, the truth that it will make him free; and that man's ignorance of his power in a world of spirit, where he could, if he would, be master, with all the harmony, health, happiness and abundance that that mastery implies, is the secret of the centuries of travail, hatred, wars and crimes that have cursed the world."
I shall trouble you to read but one more extract:
"This, then, is the announced justification of the college arraignment of many cherished institutions. The old indictment drawn up by irreverent critics against the church, is repeated with a new force and a new meaning. It is pointed out that it was religious Jerusalem, not pagan Rome, that clamored for the crucifixion. Motley and Draper and other historians have been cited in support of the teaching that the church in many ages murdered more people than it saved: And these victims were burned alive, strangled or beheaded, not for crimes committed, but in some cases for reading the Scriptures, or looking askance at a graven image, or smiling at an idolatrous procession as it passed. * * *
"But the college men are not blind to what the church has accomplished. In this phase of the subject they are peculiarly catholic. But it is taught now in practically all the departments of philosophy in the great universities that a new revelation is quickening this age, and that it is not only the right but the duty of the colleges to stand, if they can, as interpreters of the acceptable year of the Lord. Prof. R. M. Wenley of the University of Michigan teaches that we have every reason to anticipate great changes in Christianity. The world of thought is in progress of such profound alteration that orthodox belief can scarcely escape the transforming effects of the new idea of God. Hundreds of thousands of young men and young women in America are coming under the influence of the new university philosophy, and instead of being apologetic for the teaching that the God of the colleges is greater than the God of the church, the university philosophers look forward with composure and even elation to the ultimate surrender of what they regard as discredited beliefs."
In relation to the methods adopted by the churches for imparting religious truths, and enforcing religious living—the revival method more especially; and be it remembered that of late years many of the extravagances of this method have been eliminated since the boyhood days of Joseph Smith. Of this method of the churches, Mr. Bolce represents the universities as holding the following view:
"Professor Boris Sidis of the Pathological Institute of New York, who recently concluded a series of psychological experiments at Harvard, is ruthlessly arrayed against popular religion as expressed in revivals, and his findings have been endorsed by Prof. William James in an introduction to the former's published report. If there is in American university teaching a more fearless doctrine than the following as put forth by Prof. Sidis and countenanced by Harvard's leading philosopher, I have not yet encountered it: 'Well may President Jordan of Stanford university exclaim: 'Whisky, cocaine and alcohol bring temporary insanity, and so does a revival of religion—one of those religious revivals in which men lose their reason and self-control. This is simply a form of drunkenness no more worthy Of respect than the drunkenness that lies in the gutter!'"
"Professor Jordan," comments the Harvard psychologist as a result of his investigations, "was too mild in his expression. Religious revivalism is a social blame; it is more dangerous to the life of society than drunkenness. As a sot, man falls below the brute; as a revivalist he sinks lower than the sot."—(Cosmopolitan for July, 1909.)
Now, my friends, after that, do not complain of harshness in the message that Joseph Smith was commissioned to give to the world ninety years ago? He never said anything nearly so harsh as the American universities are now saying about the churches. It seems to me as if God had called from the high seats of learning throughout our land the most intellectual class in the world to confirm the truth of the message of His prophet.
The world despised the word of an unlearned youth upon this subject, albeit coming with a message from God—from the Highest Intelligence. What will they say now to the testimony of the learned—which confirms the message of Joseph Smith?