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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1901)
X f VOL. XVI., NO. XVIII ESTABLISHED IN 1886 PRICE FIVE CENTS B " WWbibiiiiiiiiiB1bV. " tli wtr . - ) 4 - t LINCOLN, NEBR., SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1901. THE COURIER, UK THB HITOmCI AT LINCOLN AB BBCOND CLASS BIATTKB. PUBLISHED EVEHY 8ATOBDAY BI If OHIEi.MIITIKtlD NELISIIK GO Office 1132 N Btreet, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIS, : : : EDITOR Subscription Rates. Per annum f 1 50 8iz months 1 00 Rebate of fifty cents on cash payments Single copies 05 Thb Coubjxb will not be responsible for toI nntary communications unless accompanied by ntm fattif. Communications, to receive attention, must be signed by the fall name of the writer, not merely ma guarantee of rood faith, but for publication if adTisable. vfvmooiyvfvf9 2 OBSERVATIONS. An Old Theology. The "Lectures on Theology" by the Reverend Charles G. Finney, some time president of Oberlin college, illustrates completely and conclusive ly the theology of fifty years ago. President. Finney was a bold good man with absolute faith in the Bible. If bis sense of justice was occasion ally bard to reconcile with a state ment in the Bible, his sense of justice suffered, not the Bible. In accept ing the Bible as a guide he accepted everything between the covers of the authorized version. The Presbyterian church is at last about to revise the creed in regard to foreordination. President Finney's belief in regard to the damnation of a part of the human race is thus stated: "It is often asked, 'Is it our duty to pray the prayer of faith for the salva tion of all men?' I answer No; for that is not a thing according to the will of God. It is directly contrary to his revealed will. We have no evidence that all will be saved. We should feel benevolent to all, and in itself considered, desire their salva tion. But God has revealed it to us that many of the human race shall be damned. And it can not be a duty to believe that they shall be saved in the face of a revelation to the con trary. Christians will not offer the prayer of faith for all, because there is no evidence that God intends to save all men. Why is it that so many pious praying par ents have had impenitent children that die in their sins? Let God be true, but every man a liar. Which hall we believe, that God's promise has failed, or that these parents did not do their duty? Wherever you find a professor that does not believe in the prayer of faith, you find as a general thing, that he has children and domestics yet in their sins." The preachers of Dr. Finney's day and type talked about salvation and damnation. These two words occur "repeatedly in old sermons. Ooly the crudest preachers, laboring' with pri mary congregations, attempt to influence-them nowadays by threats., of future punishment or promises of future citizenship in a gold-paved city walled with jaspar, whose gates are kept by a winged sergeant-at-arms. Salvation, or the redemption of man from the bondage of sin and liability to eternal death, and the conferring on him of everlasting happiness, is not the argument it used to be. In negro churches and among the bap tists and metbodistsof isolated moun tain regions, it is said that the fer vent itinerant preachers still threat en hell and promise heaven. Urban preachers exhort men to treat their neighbors justly, to forgive, and to live righteously, not on account of punishment or reward after death but for the good of the world, for a per manent improvement of the average now. The modern preacher leaves (with as perfect a faith as the old one) rewardsand punishments of the dead to the Lord. The modern preacher is not so sure about the place, the kind and degree of reward and pun ishment. It is difficult to get him to say just what he believes about it. He thinks the life after death not much of his business, and devotes himself with all earnestness to induc ing his parishioners to treat each other and the rest of the world justly and even generously. Talk to him about salvation except as it relates to the present deliverance from sin and the immediate enjoyment of an idle inheritance and he is vague. Most of the ministers nowadays believe and preach that the kingdom of heaven is at band and may begin when each may choose. As for death they re gard it lightly and as a change of no dreadful character. All their talk is of a present salvation, of earthly pun ishment for wickedness and meanness, of the loss a man suffers in this life for refusing bis inheritance, of turning aside a waiting happiness. The vague expression that comes :nto the preacher's eyes when a sinner be gins to talk about his fear of everlast ing punishment and of what will tor ture his soul when his body is turn ing back to dust, is not an accident. The Methodist, the Congregationalist, the Presbyterian, and of course, the Unitarian minister, bring the conver sation back to the present, and local conduct of life. There are rigid be lievers whose point of view has un consciously changed. They have not missed the talk about salvation be cause they no longer think the state of mind a man dies in so important as the way he has lived. Yet if questioned about foreordination they assert the same old doctrines and assent to the damnation of about two- thirds of the human creation. But try the ministers! Their replies will show the real distance between the old and the new preaching. J Jt Mrs. Nation's Raid. By smashing bars and saloon fix tures in Kansas, Mrs. Nation has en couragecLthe conservative people who disapprove of saloons to insist that the law prohibiting them be enforced. The Kansas legislature has enacted a law, depriving saloon-keepers of a trial by jury, conferring upon the prosecuting attorney inquisitorial rights and making the possession of a government liquor license, or of a bar and saloon fixtures prima facie evi dence of the illegal intent of the owner. Also empowerlrg anyone to enjoin any man .found with saloon fixtures in his possession against con tinuing in the saloon business, under penalty of punishment for contempt of court. The legislature was induced to make this law through pressure of public opinion which was aroused by the followers of Mrs. Nation, who in turn were convinced of the efficacy of the law to prohibit saloons, by the spectacle of the powerlessness of the judge to punish her and by the spec tacle of the paralyzed Kansas govern or when Mrs. Nation asked him why he did not enforce the laws he had taken the solemnest oath to observe. Mrs. Nation has exercised the same influence upon people opposed to sa loons that John Brown did upon the anti-slavery cult. She has shown them the panic that a poor half -crazy but fearless woman can cause the governor and all minor officials in col lusion with the law-breakers. She has shown sane, conservative people the weakness and cowardice of an illegal business and her violence may have the far-reaching consequences of John Brown's raid. Mr. Wm. Allen White in a lumi nous review of Mrs. Nation's raid in a recent Saturday Evening Post says: "There can be no longer the least excuse for officers or citizens winking at violations of the prohibitory law in Kansas. Ail this the woman with the hatchet has done by indirection. For she set out to defy the law and she has strengthened the law. But has not Mrs. Nation made a larger in vestment which shall return in a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory? God moves in a mysterious way. This istrue whether one thinks of God as an omnipotent, omniscient personality, even as the orthodox God, or whether one feels that God is only a 'stream of tendency.' But God moves and moves forward. And when one considers what poor sticks of men have carried God's banner the in sane, the brutal, the ignorant, the lame and the halt and the blind, but always the brave one pauses before condemning even the most despised of creatures as unfit for the work. Did the savage veneration of the in sane arise from the possible fact that too many of those who seemed mad and were stoned to death have proved that they were prophets? Are not inflamed nerves supersensitive to waves of feeling that precede great moral changes? It is altogether im possible that this frantic, brawling, hysterical woman In the Kansas jail, brave, indomitable, consecrated to her God, may be a prophetess whose signs and wonders shall be read and known of man by the light of another day?" A Great Scholar. That profound scholar, that most accurate workman of the nineteenth century, the author of the "Constitu tional History of England," and of 'Select Charters," Bishop Stubbs of England, has recently died. He possessed supernatural patience, the abiding enthusiasm of an antiquary, he was a collector of institutional facts. His "Constitutional History of England," in four thick volumes, with the half of each page devoted to foot-notes quoting authorities, is a standard work in all colleges. But in spite of learning, brilliancy, the devo tion of an antiquarian and a talent for assorting facts, he had not 'the gift of vitalizing them. His style is denuded of personality, correct, fault less, yet it is impossible to read the "Constitutional History of England" without weariness. Like those hand some faces drawn by phrenologists or art teachers for illustrations of the fifths into which the human head I divided, Mr. Stubbs' chapters are lack ing in warmth, color, and that pecu liar variation called human. Students of constitutional history remember Stubbs with gratitude after they have finished studying his valuable works; but while In close personal contact witli Stubbs they do not feel the ad miration for him that his devotion to the institutions of England deserves. Paul Potter, the dramatist, who was once a student of Stubbs, always held that there was material for a great melodrama in the "Select Chart ers." A play-wright like Paul Potter, in pursuit of material for a play, might be able to keep hold of the hu man thread and not lose sight of the human interest in "Select Charters;" but to the ordinary student the dra matic possibilities in "Select Chart ers" are completely hidden. I believe the students of the University of Ne braska have no longer a painful ac quaintance with Stubbs. They con sult, as Stubbs did, the original sources, and make their own deduc tions with more originality, if with less accuracy than the good Bishop. 1 am sorry he is gone, but glad he will never write any more books on charters or institutions. J jt Primrose Day. When Lord Beaconsfield died, the Queen, grateful for having been made an Empress, sent a wreath of prim roses to be placed on his coffin. At tached to the wreath was a card that