Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

human being. Science cannot persuade men out of this; though we may admit to science the possible presence of a latent, imparted force in the lower forms of being. We may illustrate this by the familiar experiment of the ivory balls. A blow struck on the first reveals itself in the motion of the last. The force is latent in the intermediate ones; so a human spirit may perhaps be regarded as the last of a series, which first reveals the power imparted to the whole. A better illustration would be that of a child. The child is not the equivalent of the man it is to become, yet there is imparted to it, from the parent, the impulse of growth, which growth is carried on by means of absorption from the outward world. The man, not the child, is the true image of the parent. So the universe may be regarded as at first the unconscious Ichild of the first cause. This absolute cause stands to it in the place both of parent and permanent condition. It gives it the first impulse as parent, and imparts to it, when it needs, new life, as the constantly present condition of its growth. It is thus both father and mother, both imparting and sustaining this growing life. Thus does the universe, the child of God, grow from its first unconsciousness up into the more and more perfect image of its cause, until man comes, "made in God's image," and humanity by slow degrees develops this godlikeness.

We have thus shown how science, proving the unity that reigns through the universe, demonstrates that it is the result of one power, and further how this is only one step of a process that cannot rest, by which the results of this one power must be seen to be, in some degree, the revelation of it. We will now look, very briefly, at some of the results of this dem

onstration.

The first result will be, that, as science demonstrates, step by step, the truths of religion, they will become universal and undoubted. The results of science, when they have become really established, are always so. All men have powers and intuitions by which they might discern God, but these intuitions are obscured by lack of culture and by sin. Men like undoubted, unquestionable authority. The authority of the Church is broken into manifold fragments. In the times of

the mediæval Church, there seems to have been little real unbelief. The worst men seem to have been superstitious. This was because the learned united to uphold the fundamental doctrines of the Church. Science is beginning a demonstration that shall again make religious truth as universal and as undoubted as the fact that the earth moves round the sun. We shall have the old unanimity, but it will rest on a stronger basis.

The same scientific process will throw light on many other points. Thus, we unite in believing that religion teaches goodness. What shall a man do to be good? Moral science and political economy are sciences exact as any other, and these will teach us, as they are rightly understood, what objective goodness really is. We all agree in the belief in God's justice and providence. But how hard it is to reconcile justice and mercy! How hard to understand the connection between special and general providences! The science of history will show us God's actual dealings with men, what justice and providence mean in this world. The soul not only needs light and knowledge, but it needs also the awe of mystery. For mystery, the Church gives us mysteries. For that great mystery which fills the soul with awe, it gives us riddles which we cannot guess. Science gives us true mystery. There cannot be true mystery except by the side of knowledge. To the savage, nothing is mysterious, because nothing is known. Only when one has begun to know, does one feel the majesty and awe of the unknown. Science takes man from his self-complacent isolation, and lifts about him the shadow of a mysterious nature. We know what awe there is in seeing a man in the midst of a forest, dwarfed by the giant trees; or in some vast cathedral, where he seems lost in the presence of such sublimity. This does science do when it places man in the shadow of this great cathedral of nature, in the shadow of the ancient growths of the primeval world.

Revelation has been the salvation of the world, for it filled with light the hearts of those that were ready for it, and quickened the intuitions of the souls that were hungering for truth. But it forced no one into its fold. Nay, it was itself at the mercy of its believers. If it lifted them up, they

dragged it down. Science will demonstrate the fundamental truths of revelation, and will settle the meaning of it.

The religious intuitions of the soul have been the salvation of the world, but they cannot long be its only rest. Faith in them alone forms only a resting-place in the soul's march. They need outward guides. They need some common force which shall control individual eccentricity, and correct individual inertia or prejudice. A man will not rest long in the simple utterance, "It is true, because I know it is true.” He must go on to demonstrate what he knows. And this demonstration science is beginning.

If we are Christians we may, then, well be hopeful and fearless ones. We may reckon all things as ours, may know no enemy but sin, and hail every result of earnest thought, not as complete in itself, but as one of the steps up which the aspiring race shall mount to grander heights.

In conclusion we would remark, that the work of Spencer referred to is not mainly theological, but will present the latest and broadest generalizations of science. And we would commend to our readers this author, too little known among us, as at once one of the clearest of teachers and one of the wisest and most honorable of opponents.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Hymns and Choirs: or, The Matter and the Manner of the Service of Song in the House of the Lord. By AUSTIN PHELPS and EDWARDS A. PARK, Professors at Andover, and DANIEL L. FURBER, Pastor at Newton. Andover: Warren F. Draper. 1860. 12mo.

pp. 425. LIKE the Septem contra Christum of the "Essays and Reviews," the three authors of the acute and learned treatise on "Hymns and Choirs" disclaim collusion or mutual responsibility. They have each a special department in the triune composition, and neither stands voucher for the views of his associates. Mr. Phelps writes only on "Hymnology, an Expression of the Religious Life," and gives the history, the

classification, and the criterion of fitness of hymns in public worship. Dr. Park confines himself to the text of hymns, or rather to changes in the text, and sets forth, with extraordinary ingenuity, the various causes, methods, and results of the alteration of the sacred songs. Mr. Furber discusses church-music, and tells us what choirs are, and what they ought to be. His criticism is more trenchant than that of his associates, and his suggestions are more positive and practical. His part of the volume, too, is less apologetic than that of the Andover Professors. The ulterior purpose of the volume is evidently to vindicate the Andover hymn-book, and to defend it against the attacks of unfriendly reviewers. How far these attacks were just we cannot say, having seen neither the book itself nor the strictures upon it. But we suppose, as in the war of the Dictionaries, local prejudices and personal interests have a large share in the quarrel. Fortunately, in the case of the hymn-books, there are so many claimants and rivals in the field, that the contest cannot be narrowed to a prolonged and tiresome duel. There are many alternatives; and he who must choose between Webster or Worcester need not take the hymn-book either of New York, or New Haven, or Andover, but may reject the whole, and make one for himself, if he choose, with all the latest improvements. The field is free.

This liberty of hymn-book making is one of which our Unitarian connection has availed itself to a remarkable degree. The centrifugal force so much lamented among us is more manifest in this way than in any other. Whatever unity there may be in the spirit of our religious song, no one can accuse the Unitarian body of liturgical uniformity. Each effort to realize the liturgical idea only increases the diversity. It is probable that no sect, in proportion to its numbers and its age, ever produced so many hymn-books as the Unitarians of America. With less than three hundred churches in its connection, the Unitarian body has probably more hymn-books than the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian bodies united. In a ministry of less than twenty years, we have found and used in the pulpits of Unitarian churches no less than eighteen different collections of hymns, of American compilation;

and if to these are added the separate collections for the use of Sunday-schools, Conference-meetings, and domestic services, the number will probably be more than doubled. Two or three of these collections have gone out of use. Belknap's ancient volume is known no longer; Dabney's has disappeared; and Sewall would hardly recognize his didactic intention in the fervid lyrics which have intruded so thickly among his rhymed Christian ethics. But at least a score of different books, in the Unitarian churches of England and America, continue to direct and interpret the song of the sanctuary.

These different collections are not, of course, wholly unlike. They have many hymns in common. Some hymns will probably be found in all of them, and a few perhaps be found in all with the same form, the same stanzas, the same lines, and the same words. This number, however, we think, is small. Of a collection like the Cheshire, containing in all nine hundred and eight hymns, not a dozen, we might almost say not half a dozen, can be found in all the other collections with exactly the same length and the same words. Each collection will have some hymns not found in any of the others; and each collection will have some common hymns which it has ventured to alter, either in length, style, or doctrine. Even where a new collection professes, as in the case of those in use in the West Church in Boston, and in All-Souls' Church in New York, to be only a new edition of a book long used there, it is in reality a new compilation, different in tone and compass, not less than in particulars more radical. In vain, in many of the collections, do we look for favorite hymns; and, good as many seem in occasional use, probably no one of this score of hymn-books is quite satisfactory to any pastor, unless he was himself its maker, and has in it pride or copyright.

There are advantages as well as disadvantages in this variety of hymn-books. We do not propose to discuss either at this time, but only to say some words on what is the most provoking annoyance in this diversity, the alteration and the mutilation of hymns; the topic which Professor Park has considered with such fulness. The question of right and wrong, in regard to this alteration, the Professor does not answer as

« AnteriorContinuar »