Prosperity grew with the growth of our country, and the standard of education was elevated. The free-school system took the place of the old-fashioned subscription schools, which were worth twelve dollars per month to the whole community, and the brave thinkers continued stirring up thought in religion, and giving the fathers and mothers trouble about this thing of confounding religion with passion, and our country is now fairly at sea in an Intellectual period. Religion is now a thing to be learned and lived—to be done. Those brave men who advocated an intelligent religion forty years ago, were denounced, from almost every pulpit in our country, as a set of “whitewashed infidels,” having no religion, and “without God in the world.”
But that day is past, and we are in a period in which mind [pg 192] generally predominates. The language of the emotional is seldom heard. In that period it was common to hear men ask: “How did you get religion?” “where did you get religion?” “where did you get religion?” “describe it;” “O I can't, it is better felt than expressed.” Such language was in keeping with a very common idea which was held sacred in those days. It was this, the Lord made general provision for the salvation of men, but He makes a special application to the sinner. Of course, all to whom salvation was not especially applied, were, in the estimation of those people, lost. There are a few communities yet that are away back in the emotional period. There are men and women in every community who are yet governed by their emotional nature in matters of religion. Those persons have no use for an intelligent, argumentative preacher. They want a preacher who will say smoothe things; and there is now and then a preacher who has no strength outside of the emotional.
We have an emotional nature. I am glad that we have. I would not be an intellectual wooden-man if I could. But if you say, the Almighty Father intended that we should be intellectually subordinated to our emotional nature, and therefore governed by our passions, or feelings, I shall deny it. He never intended that we should be governed by our passions. To-day there are strong intellects in unbelief flooding our country with their literature. How shall they be met? Mr. Moody says, “Show them that you are full of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.” Very well. Can you do that without the truth? can you do that without word or wisdom? can you do it without “contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints?” In the days of Christ and His apostles the men who were full of the Holy Spirit had a mouth and wisdom which none of their adversaries were able to resist or gainsay. The antichrists of our day can not be met successfully without reason, without argument, without meeting the intellectual demands of the times.
There are intellectual men and women in almost every community throughout our country—men and women with whom [pg 193] intelligence governs—who want the whys and wherefores upon every subject. This class is on the increase at a rapid rate. It does no good to set ourselves against reason, and oppose the current of thought with our emotional nature. In that way we may succeed with those who are governed by their emotional nature, but the work, when it is done, is a work upon the passions, and will soon pass away, unless the intellect was at the same time enlisted. The men who stir the world with thought, and give intellectual cast to the age in which we live, are to be met with thought, met with reason, met with truths tried in the crucible.
Christianity has nothing to fear in the great struggle that is being carried on for the truth's sake. But it has lost much for want of investigation. Our free school and Sunday-school systems are making the rising generation better acquainted with both science and the Bible, and a thorough acquaintance with both is the one thing most needed in order to a better future in religion, as well as in every other human interest. The time is come when men will no longer be content to listen to grave errors and keep silence. Every truth is being put to the test of logic, as well as fact. It is natural to abhor a contradiction, and it is right. All truth is harmonious. I am glad that harmony is demanded in religious teaching; I often think of pulpit teaching away back thirty and forty years ago. It used to be very popular in some parts to tell people that they could do nothing to better their condition in a future state, and, at the same time, exhort them to do better.
I heard of three brothers, George, William and James. George and William were “Hard-shell Baptist” preachers; James made no profession. His wife was a member of George's congregation. She was a great “scold.” One day James failed to do just as she wished him, and, as a matter of course, he received quite a lecture; finally the woman told him that it was a great pity that he could not be a good man, like his brother George or brother William, and fell to exhorting him to do better. He finally became impatient and [pg 194] said, “Yes! George and William were too lazy to work, and I called them to preach. They both stood it until the third call, and then put on their hats and went. You belong to George's church, and I go there with you to hear him preach. He tells me that I can do nothing, and you tell me that I can do nothing; and, now, what in the h—l do you want me to do?” Such inconsistent teaching was always repugnant to common sense and natural reason. There are many persons yet teaching the old falsehood that man is passive in his conversion, notwithstanding the fact that men are imperatively commanded to convert—turn, that their sins may be blotted out. Men are yet found in some Protestant pulpits who spend a great deal of their time praying the Lord to convert sinners. It is often the case, in their own estimation, that the Lord gives no heed to their prayers; but this has happened so frequently that it does not seem to trouble them. It has been a very short time since I heard a minister advocating what he was pleased to call “miraculous conversion.” I thought, if you are right in that matter, why did the Heavenly Father command his love, commended in the Savior's death, preached to every creature, and still refuse to convert every creature? What difference does it make to me whether the Lord passed me by before He made Adam, or passed me by on yesterday? And if He refuses to send His spirit and convert me until the last, and I die in my sins and am lost, who is to blame? What is the difference between His neglect to convert me and the old Calvinistic idea that Christ did not die for me? What is the difference between the spirit of God being partial to communities—going into one and converting a great many persons and passing others by—and God Himself being partial? And why does the Spirit not convert all the unwilling sinners in the community where it does convert sinners? These are questions that have been asked in a great many hearts before they yielded themselves up to skepticism and infidelity.
In the present stage of critical investigation it is well for all preachers to remember that there is but one question involving [pg 195] this whole matter of conversion and pardon, and that is the question coupled with the Judgment; it is not, How much did the Heavenly Father love me? He loved all men. It is not, How much did Jesus do for me? He tasted death for every man. It is not, How much has the Spirit done for me? It gave the gospel to all nations, as the power of God unto salvation to every man that believeth. The one, and only, question in the Judgment is, What have I done for myself? What are the deeds done in my body? the deeds which I have done.
Christianity is right thinking and doing; all that is to be attained in the religion of Christ is enjoyed in an upright life. Every theory that conflicts with this grand sentiment is smoked with the darkness of the dark ages. The Father of Spirits made us with the power of choice—gave us the liberty to choose—and we all may have, in the future, just such a state as we will. The Father loved all; the Son died for all; and the Spirit says to all, come!
The great struggle that is now going on between Christianity and unbelief is accomplishing two good things: First, it is making it hard for professors of religion to hold their errors, or cover up hypocrisy; and second, it is making it hard for infidels and skeptics to hold on to their flimsy objections to the Christian religion. Let the struggle go on!