THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

THE

GEORGE MEREDITH'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS. HE basic religious ideas of a great novelist acquire interest and significance from two facts. In the first place, they will probably reflect to some extent a religious tendency or tendencies of his age; in the second, they are likely to have an appreciable influence upon the religious outlook of his readers. Hence in writing of "Mr. Meredith on Religion" in The Hibbert Journal (London) for July, the Rev. James Moffatt, D.D., begins by searching for those tendencies of the age which have profoundly influenced Mr. Meredith's intellectual standpoint. He finds these conveniently summarized in a footnote to Huxley's Romanes lecture, and in a passage of Dr. Maudsley's “ Natural Causes and Supernatural Seeming." In the first Huxley states that "strictly speaking, social life and the ethical process, in virtue of which it advances toward perfection, are part and parcel of the general process of evolution,' the general cosmic process" of natural self-assertion being from the outset "checked by a rudimentary ethical process " of renunciation and mutual service "which is, strictly speaking, part of the former, just as the 'governor' in a steam-engine is part of the mechanism of the engine." In the other passage Dr. Maudsley avers that “not by standing out of nature in the ecstasy of a rapt and overstrained idealism of any sort, but by large and close and faithful converse with nature and human nature, in all their moods, aspects, and relations, is the solid basis of fruitful ideals and the soundest mental development laid." Nearly all that Mr. Meredith has written upon the topics cognate to religion, says Mr. Moffatt, "might be described, without serious inaccuracy, as an anthology of bright, bracing variations upon the ideas underlying these two passages." And again: “A cosmic enthusiasm is his keynote." Reading further, we learn that Meredith's conception of nature "dominates the entire field of his judgments upon ethics and religion"; that "his pen is a lance couched gallantly against the black knights of materialism"; that his religion recognizes as a primary law of nature the law of mutual sacrifice and service; that he urges upon men the habit of prayer; and that while he “fails to explain very lucidly the exact function of the soul after death, . . he asserts the persistence of the spirit in relation to the cosmic plan." Of Meredith's conception of nature Mr. Moffatt writes:

"It denotes far more than mere scenery, or even the sum of phenomena. For its definition as the living force of the world, the creative and controlling principle of the universe, demanding not severe meditation or admiration so much as obedience and understanding, we must hark back to Aristotle, or better still, to Lucretius. . . A similar cosmic emotion thrills both writers, an emotion which exalts nature almost to theistic functions. Consent to her spirit is the first and last commandment. At the same time, one must bear in mind that Meredith, like Spinoza and Goethe, would refuse to view nature as an essentially incalculable and merciless power; she is kin and kind to man, for all her sternness, worthy to be trusted down to death; and she repays such trust and knowledge with a disclosure of man's portion in herself, and of her own living purpose in and for humanity. The conception of nature, in fact, determines the method of her study. Read by man's brain, instead of emotionally, she is seen at her best and at our side.

Hence:

'I say but that this love of earth reveals A soul beside our own to quicken, quell, Irradiate, and through ruinous floods uplift.'"

"From all sides of his work the echo comes: first that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. A coarse and violent asceticism defeats its own object, and only results in a sallow pietism. He is quite clear that any transcendental aim is false, any so-called spiritual reach is insecure, if it implies the neglect or depreciation of human nature, since to check the juices poured into our blood by nature is ultimately to bring drought upon the soul. 'We do

not get to any heaven by renouncing the mother we spring from; and when there is an eternal secret for us, it is best to believe that earth knows, to keep near her, even in our utmost aspirations.' The natural and physical form the basis of the human mind; only the basis, but still the basis. So that man must bow to learn

'How the wits and passions wed,

To build that temple of the credible God.""

From his belief in the law of mutual sacrifice and service follows Merdith's "passionate recoil from anything like luxurious individualism." We read:

"To live with others is to live for them. Indifference to the claims of men is the supreme impiety, because it strikes at the very heart of nature, which has fashioned man, as Aurelius was never tired of writing, for the discharge of love's debt to his fellows. Nature's crown and flower is man, but man conscious that personality means kinship and service.

is not unreasonable from his point of view. Prayer, to him, is the genuine expression of a man's belief in the living spirit of the universe. It is the logical outcome of his ethical idealism, this overflow of the soul, this lift of heart and conscience, this supreme resignation of the heart. Meredith's language is neither clear nor full upon what most religious people would agree to term the personality of God. But this does not deter him from recognizing and enforcing prayer as communion with the divine Spirit in us and over us, as the surge of human thought and feeling which throws itself out upon some higher purpose in the universe, and as the exercise of an intense aspiration for the good that lies beyond the senses, and yet within the limits of our power. 'Prayer is power within us to communicate with the desired beyond our thirsts.' Or, in Mrs. Berry's words of homely counsel to Sir Austin Feverel, I think it's al'ays the plan in a dielemmer to pray God and walk forward.' With Meredith, this habit of simple prayer is one condition of right movement and sane conduct. For prayer as the expression of selfishness or panic he has naturally no place at all. There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the tendency to counsel the Almighty how He shall Ideal with His creatures.'

"There is nothing morbid or meretricious in his treatment of the future. He has no sympathy with that terror and weirdness of death which Maeterlinck has bent his genius to call up before the modern mind. An agnostic optimism pervades every sentence he has written on this topic. Wistful' is not in his vocabulary. If he does not hail' lovely and soothing death' with Whitman's exultation, he accepts it manfully as working in somehow to the moral progress of the race, whatever be its bearing on the individual. . . . But the passionate assertion of man's future as part of the cosmic progress is never supplemented by any positive or hearty word upon the deathlessness of personality. So eager is he to thwart and erase the lurking selfishness of man, a selfishness which can worm its way into the holiest phases of his being, into love and grief, that he is apt to take too stunted a view of self; with the result that he fails now and then to do any sort of justice

to that longing for personal immortality which is as far above any thirsty expectation of reward or fame as it lies remote from any nervous revolt of the senses It is a longing which tenaciously refuses to admit that human personality, which, on Meredith's own showing, forms so vital and supreme an expression of nature's being, so perfect an organ of her spirit, can be treated as mere material to be eventually used up for greater issues-issues that involve a disintegration of personality and a decline from the level of its consciousness. The general heart will be up in protest. For beyond the bar which he summons the soul thus cheerily to cross, it is doubtful if any pilot is to be met face to face, and more than doubtful if any haven lies for what men learn upon these shores of time and space to prize above all price."

IT

A BARRIER TO UNION EXAMINED.

...

T is commonly supposed that the question of orders is one of the most difficult ones now obstructing the way of the reunion of Christendom, writes Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., D.Litt., of Union Theological Seminary, New York. But Professor Briggs states this view only to dissent from it. The difficulty of passing from one denomination to another, he points out, is not confined to the question of ordination. "Even those bodies which recognize the ordination of other bodies still make such demands in the matter of dogma, or rules of life, that, in fact, changes from the Methodist Episcopal Church to the Presbyterian, for example, are more difficult and less frequent, so far as my observation goes than from the Methodist Episcopal to the Protestant Episcopal." To Professor Briggs it appears evident that a frank and searching investigation of the whole question of ordination, especially on its practical side, in an irenic and loving spirit, will remove the greater portion of the difficulties that now beset it." But he admits that, while "ministers are constantly passing over from the various non-Episcopal bodies and accepting ordination in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and others are passing over into the Roman Catholic Church and receiving orders from Rome," it is possible, nevertheless, that some are deterred from making these changes by the requirement of ordination into another ministry." He holds, however, that if that were the only barrier remaining to "a reunion of all English-speaking Protestant Christians in the Anglican Church, that barrier would fade into nothingness"; and further, that if that were the only barrier to a reunion with Rome, “that barrier would not deter any considerable number from accepting Roman ordination." But Professor Briggs acknowledges that the necessity of reordination is regarded as humiliating, and is therefore an obstacle to reunion, tho a less serious one than it is generally supposed to be. He reviews the whole problem (in the New York Independent, July 27) and offers suggestions for the overcoming or diminishing of the difficulty. We quote in part as follows:

"The decision of Pope Leo XIII. as to the validity of Anglican orders has lifted the whole question of orders into a better position for further investigation. The essence of the question was whether the Anglican Reformers in their ordinal had the intention of ordaining a real priesthood to offer real sacrifices. The decision that such was not their intention seems to me one that all should recognize as final. But the question still remains open whether such an intention is essential to valid Christian ministry; and so the question becomes one of doctrine-namely, what are the essential qualifications of the Christian ministry? . . . If Anglican orders can be defended only on the ground of the intention of the Anglican Reformers to ordain and perpetuate a Christian ministry, such as Jesus Christ and his apostles intended, the orders of the Lutheran and reformed churches may be defended on exactly the same grounds, from the same intention. If they omitted important items in the ordination of their ministry they did not omit this same intention. The substance of the intention of the Anglicans and the Protestants of the Continent was the same. The only important difference was that the Anglicans retained the episcopal succession; the Protestants of the continent retained only succession through the presbyters. This difference

was due more to the providence of God than to the deliberate choice of the reformers. Under these circumstances the Anglicans, if they really desire the reunion of Christ's church, ought to follow the Anglican reformers and many of the great Anglican divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and recognize the orders of other Protestants as essentially valid. If the Anglicans may enrich their doctrine of the holy ministry and also their intention in the ceremony, so may the other Protestants also. There is no serious barrier in the way except the common traditional opinion among Anglicans. The Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country have never, by any official decision, pronounced Lutheran or Presbyterian orders invalid. If Pope Leo XIII. has shut the door to Rome in their face, they have not as yet shut the door to the sister churches of the Reformation. . .

"At all events, in the present situation of affairs some things might be done that would lessen the difficulties in the way of reunion. The General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church might frame a form of ordination which would recognize what other religious bodies actually intend in their ordination of their ministry, and supplement it by imparting what they did not intend. Why should they deny the validity of the ordination of other religious bodies so far as it goes, even if episcopal ordination should be insisted upon in addition. Even if the ministry be defective, that does not imply that it is no ministry at all. Let each body credit the other bodies with that sort of a ministry that they have. They are entitled to just this and no more. Let them, on their side, not object to the use of other functions of the ministry in other bodies, and not regard it as a hardship that they are regarded as not having those functions which they do not in fact profess to have.

"There are, in fact, in the Church of England, and in the Protestant Episcopal Church of this country bishops and clergy whose views of the Christian ministry do not differ in any appreciable degree from those held in the various Protestant churches. There are other bishops and clergy who do not vary in any important particular from the Roman Catholic view. If these can live in harmony in the same church, why should they make it so hard for those with whom they agree, or at least whom they tolerate, to unite with them?"

Is Religion a Dangerous Topic?-The following sentence, which The Westminster (Presbyterian, Philadelphia) translates into the vernacular in the form of "No religion in ours," appeared in the editorial columns of Collier's Weekly a short time ago, and has attracted some attention in the religious press: “Religion is avoided in Collier's as a topic of discussion for the reason that our thoughts, whatever they might be, would be offensive to many, and of no considerable value to the universe." Men and Women (Roman Catholic, Cincinnati)" can not concur" in the reason the editor of Collier's gives for his avoidance of religion as a topic of discussion, and remarks further:

...

'Is it not a fact that there is an undercurrent of religion in the public life of a community as well as in the private lives of the individuals composing it? Is not religion the basic principle of those virtues which, for want of a better name, we call civic? Honor and honesty, truth and justice, not from the ground arise. Then, too-why should the discussion of religion, which is the root of everything that is good, and beautiful, and ennobling, be offensive to any right-minded man? It is not difficult to understand that it would be exceedingly risky at times to utter sentiments and express opinions which would seem to lean to one or the other denomination-but if we have correctly estimated the mission of the press, the consideration of pleasing or of giving offense should play no part when it is a question of doing what is right, and fair, and just. It pays at times to be diplomatic and cautious; and it is sometimes the part of wisdom to maintain the stoic's silence. But to boast of entirely ignoring so important a topic as religion is neither valiant nor logical. Religion is as interesting and as important in the life of a nation as is politics, and the lines of division are as sharply drawn. But surely it would at least savor of cowardice to eschew putting forth an opinion on a political question because, mayhap, it will offend those who are on the other side of the fence. The thousands of church spires that rise skyward are certainly of as much importance as are the

factory chimneys belching forth huge clouds of smoke. May we not talk as earnestly, then, about religion as about the industrial condition of the land?"

CHR

THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN ROMAN CATHOLICISM AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 'HRISTIANITY as exhibited by the church of every age has been a mixed and not a pure system or organization; both in Catholicism and Protestantism it has exhibited the faults of its qualities, says a writer in The Edinburgh Review. He proceeds to remark:

"It is not only that not all the elements in Christianity are of equal value; but that it is possible for mischievous or even deadly germs to lodge in the organism. Not everything that comes about under Providence is providential: the expulsion of these germs may be called for at all costs. Whether this was so in the sixteenth century is the question on the answer to which our judgment of the Reformation depends. We can not, indeed, return to the Christianity of the first days; those days, with their requirements and possibilities, are gone. But this Christianity retains its regulative value; by conformity, not indeed to its letter, but to its spirit, later developments of religion must be judged."

He summarizes the "deadly germs" that had lodged in the medieval Church, and that were particularly brought to light by the Renaissance, which had opened a new world. Infected by these germs the Church was rendered impotent and without influence. To quote :

"It would be a mistake to attribute this impotence only, or even chiefly, to the obscurantism and cupidity of the clergy. Its roots lay deeper. Catholicism, as has been said, had taken over the inheritance of antiquity; and now this inheritance was exhausted: a new departure had to be taken by a new world. Could not this departure have been taken from within? Separation from the main body of Christendom was a loss not only to sentiment: the spaciousness, the sweep and swing of the old Church were gone."

The separation brought about by the Reformation, he adds, involved "an emancipation obtained at a great, some may think too great a price." For the Reformed Church was by no means flawless, and Protestantism had in it "deadly germs," and showed no ultimate superiority to Catholicism, as the article says:

"The Reformation synthesis was weaker than its analysis. Nothing is more difficult than to keep knowledge and conduct in touch; yet nothing is more essential: a purely spiritual religion is for purely spiritual men. All that frees us without giving us self-mastery is dangerous,' says Goethe. The danger has not been wholly escaped by Protestantism, which, tested by religious results, is open to criticism on more than one side. As compared with Catholicism, it has been less of an obstacle to progress, material and intellectual; morally, tho it has laid stress on the natural virtues, so called, rather than on the supernatural, and so set up its own standard, there is probably little to choose between the two." Catholicism for one thing is much better adapted to the limitations of human nature and much better able to enter into the life of a workaday world, says the writer. It" knows human nature better" than Protestantism. He continues:

"Catholicism is the religion of the concrete, Protestantism of the abstract man. Hence in practise, and taking mankind in the mass, the former is the more successful. The average man, be his belief what it may, is indifferent; and the indifferent Protestant loses touch with religion more easily than the indifferent Catholic; Protestantism demands more effort than he is able or willing to make. He slips, in consequence, more easily through its meshes: Catholicism is more accommodating; it deals with men on their own level and addresses them in their accustomed tongue. . . . The Church is human, and counts nothing human foreign to herself. Nor is her strength due only to her hold, be it worth what it may, on the half-hearted: she strikes more effectively than Protestantism the specifically religious note which stirs the imagination and fires the heart. A price has been paid for this superiority. The sense of the supernatural has too often degenerated into superstition; devotion has been brought down to the

level of the vulgar, or below it; and thus Catholicism has fallen out of touch with the best factors of modern life to an extent to which Protestantism has not. But, on the religious side, the latter has not a little to learn from the former."

AS IT STRIKES THE SERMON REPORTER.

SOME

OME sermons are unreportable, some are difficult to report; others disgust the stenographer by their exaggeration. Such is the verdict of an anonymous "Sermon Reporter" in The Homiletic Review (New York) who says:

"There are some sermons which are unreportable, or which, if they must be reported, have to be remodeled. Sermons of this kind are delivered by some of the most famous preachers of the day, and it is an unsolved mystery to the reporter how it happens that the men who deliver such incoherent sermons manage to build up their reputations. Nevertheless there is often a personal charm about a preacher which compensates for his lack of rhetoric."

He cites a certain preacher of this class, Dr. G. F. Pentecost, of Yonkers, N. Y., who "stands up straight in his pulpit, in a manner that suggests a campaign orator." He actually hypnotizes the congregation, and on the reporter makes the impression, to quote the writer's words:

“That he is a man of wide experience, a sort of ecclesiastical commercial traveler, who handles a side line in theology. One gathers a general impression of what he has to say, but it seems as tho it were only by chance that he says it definitely. Many of his sentences can not be printed without alteration. Subjects and predicates, singulars and plurals, pasts, presents, and futures will all be mixed up in the same period. The only consolation is that he does sooner or later come to a full stop."

Other sermons are pleasant to listen to, but have to be remodeled-practically rewritten before they can be printed. The words flow on and soothe by their liquid tones. Of such a preacher, Dr. Cortlandt Myers, of the Brooklyn Baptist Temple, we are told:

"He holds the hearer under a spell. His words are as rippling waters, charming the heart if not convincing the understanding. He has a pleasant voice and a clear enunciation, two elements which materially facilitate a reporter's work. He speaks and acts in the pulpit with the highest degree of emotion, and at least convinces others that he is convinced himself. When, however, the stenographer examines the notes of this fluent oratory, it is almost in vain to hunt for a phrase or sentence which will look well in print. The average hearer does not tire to any great extent of the redundancies, repetitions, interjections, and interrogations that abound; but, regarded as mere words, which have to be printed in grammatical sentences, the reporter's task in transcribing such incongruities is hopeless."

Even a very eloquent and affecting preacher may be unreportable, and his words when written seem like "sound and fury, signifying nothing." Such an one is Canon Knox-Little, of Worcester, of whom the writer says:

"He allows his feelings to carry him where they will, and he carries the congregation with him. He will preach for about forty minutes and deliver one continuous stream of perfervid sentences. The effect of the words, however, depends so entirely upon the time and place, and upon the passion and delivery of the preacher, that when they are written out they seem cold and meaningless."

The reporter thinks with Rev. C. H. Grundy, of Deptford, London, that "the best kind of preachers are those who have grown daughters; for daughters are relentless critics of parental mannerisms, and they have no illusions as to the value of ecclesiastical reputations."

Two years ago a German priest, the Rev. G. Dasbach, offered a reward of 2,000 florins to any one who should prove that the Jesuits taught the doctrine that the end justifies the means." Count Hoensbroech, an ex-Jesuit, published a brochure, in which he claimed to furnish the proof demanded (see THE LITERARY DIGEST, March 19, 1904). The Count sued the priest for the reward, and the case came by appeal before the Supreme Court of the Rhine Province in Cologne. The court has recently decided that Count Hoensbroech failed to prove his point and is not entitled to the reward.

FOREIGN COMMENT.

THE "LITTLE FATHER'S" OFFER OF A STONE FOR BREAD.

A LEGISLATIVE assembly for Russia - arbiter of peace

and war, promoter of reforms-is a cry of all Muscovite reformers which has been growing louder and louder since the battle of the Sea of Japan. In fact, according to the Intransigeant, (Paris), it first became clear and articulate on the news of that crushing disaster. Since then the meetings of the Zemstvos, rural representatives, and Dumas, representatives of the municipalities, at Moscow; meetings of the Industrials; meetings of the liberal Union of Unions in Finland, have all been eagerly handling the subject of popular representation. At present, according to the Correspondance Russe (Berlin) the Czar is between the devil and the deep sea; anxious to do what his heart dictates, but hampered, checked, and browbeaten

by the grand dukes. The Corre

spondance says:

"The opposition against the person of the Czar is increasing in the imperial family. The Dowager Empress is trying her utmost to bring about his abdication, or at least his temporary retirement from the throne. It appears as if Nicholas II. could easily be persuaded to lay aside his crown. While he is at times beset with an access of autocratic impulse, he is more often filled with a sense of his own incompetence. He has frequently said to the Czarina Alexandra that he would willingly change places with the Superior of a convent."

As an example of the tender and humane side of his character the Vossische Zeitung (Berlin) quotes his speech to the deputation from the Zemstvos which he received at Tsarskoe-Selo; in his

This assembly or douma shall be divided into five sections dealing with different departments of the administration. Its debates are to be secret. Its president is appointed by the Czar, and its decisions subject to veto from the national council of the empire. It is not to control finances and has no voice in foreign politics. The ministers of state are independent of it.

This outline of a constitution was thrown out by the Zemstvos at their Moscow meeting. According to the Figaro, (Paris), the assembly declared that:

"The Bouliguine scheme, or any similar plan, is incapable of insuring us a national representative assembly, in the real sense of the term; neither can it bring the pacification of the country, nor avert the dangers which threaten it; nor deliver it from its present state of actual anarchy as a preliminary to its regular and peaceful development, on a basis of law and order."

The specific objections made to the scheme are detailed by the same paper, and especial stress is laid upon the fact that workingmen are not allowed a vote, that ministers are not subject to the people's representatives, and that the members of the proposed douma have no voice in foreign politics.

answer to Prince Trubetskoi, of Moscow University, who headed the delegation and had said to him, according to the Vossische Zeitung, "You alone can unite Russia," the Czar replied, "My will is sovereign and unchangeable, and the admission of elected representatives to political office will be regularly established. Every day am I watching and applying my mind to this question." In addition to this, according to the Temps (Paris), he fixed the very date of this reform and promised that on the coming anniversary of the Czarevitch's birthday he would publish a proclamation ordering the nomination by the people of delegates to a National Assembly. Yet when the Zemstvos met an attempt was made by the police, says L'Action (Paris) to disperse the assembly, which had gathered under the sanction of Nicholas II.

While patriotic Russians and their friends hailed the announcement of the coming proclamation with shouts of joy, Minister of the Interior Bouliguine, says the Hamburger Nachrichten, published a statement in which he denied that the Czar promised a representative assembly like that of other countries. Thus does the "little father" give a stone where bread is asked, keeping the word of promise to the ear, yet breaking it to the heart. What kind of a new constitution the Czar really intends or intended to give the people is shown by the scheme drawn up under imperial command by Minister of the Interior Bouliguine, the text of which is given in the Européen (Paris). Its principal provisions are that a certain number of members shall be elected to form a popular assembly (Gosoudarstvennaia-douma) with power of legislation.

Simplicissimus (Munich).

So high an authority as Maxim Gorky has recently been interviewed by a correspondent of the Indépendance Belge (Brussels), and he is quite in accord with the Zemstvos as to the insufficiency of the proposed constitution. He is reported as saying that the peasant and laboring classes are politically more intelligent than the upper classes in Russia, and therefore fitter to vote. His words, as reported in the Indépendance, are:

"The people who say that the peasants are incapable of taking an active part in the political life of the country do not know them. The opinions of such persons may be dismissed from the minds of all thoughtful people as mere empty and childish babble.

"Our people, our peasants and working men, are much better informed than the class upon whom they are dependent. Their political and social ideas are far from being narrow.

"I have recently been talking with people of the lower classes, and such conversation has convinced me that on political, economic, and social questions they have much more intelligence than any functionary, I care not who he is, in St. Petersburg. . . . To take away or discriminate against the rights of peasants or working men in the future national assembly would be absurd."

The Russian press are divided as to the merits of the proposed constitution. The Rousskia Védomosti, the Zemstvo organ, sweeps it aside and proposes another scheme, which it gives in detail. The Novosti opposes the article providing for the independence of the ministers of state, and is met by the Novoye Vremya with the reply that under an absolute monarchy this feature could not fail to have beneficial effects. According to a despatch received from St. Petersburg by the organ of Henri Rochefort, already quoted, "the Union of Russian Liberal Unions have adopted a resolution to the effect that the Bouliguine scheme is an insolent challenge flung into the face of European nationalities. . . . The union decides that none of its members shall take part in any election to a National Assembly on these lines, and shall not even enter such an assembly." - Translations made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.