LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

but who afterwards very conscientiously left the ministry and became a literary author and public lecturer, and who acquired a fame everywhere acknowledged in the civilized world as one of its eminent lights and leaders, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. As an author, lecturer, and reformer he has made an indelible impression on the minds of men during the last half century. The foremost thinkers acknowledged their indebtedness to him. In his earlier days many of his statements indicated pantheistic opinions. His discourse before the Divinity School in Harvard University in 1838 – so clearly and ably replied to by Rev. Dr. Ware – seemed a singular questioning of the personality of God, and his statements in reference to the personal immortality of the soul hardly indicated a strong Christian hope of this blessing. But in his later expressions of opinion we are differently taught. His biographer says of him:26 "He is not a sceptic or a rationalist in the philosophic sense, and has no real affinity with any of these schools of thought." His own words, indicative of the Deity, are: "Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the Creator breaks in everywhere. There is no chance, no anarchy in the universe." Of the divine beneficence he says, "We see the steady aim of benefit in view from the first. Melioration is the law. The evils we suffer will at last end themselves, through the incessant opposition of Nature to everything hurtful." And of immortality, "All great natures delight in stability; all great men find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their faculties. The being that can share a thought and a feeling so sublime as confidence in truth is no mushroom; our dissatisfaction with any other solution is the blazing evidence of immortality." And of the divine ruling: "Every wrong is punished; no moral evil can prosper at last; the good is absolute, the evil only phenomenal." And of the significance of Christ, this language is emphatic: "You must not leave out the word Christian, for to leave out that is to leave out everything."

      All these declarations, as we apprehend them, are in perfect accord with the teaching, spirit, and assurance of the Universalism of the New Testament. In the grandest conceptions to which their author has given utterance, we know of nothing that reaches beyond this, and it is for this that we welcome him as a witness to the truth of the Christian Gospel.

      CHAPTER VII.

      REFORM MOVEMENTS AND UNIVERSALISM

      "Universalism is the ultimate of every expansive thought, of every comprehensive sympathy, of all action that embraces man as man, and works in faith for the world's redemption." – Rev. E. G. Brooks, D. D.

      THE increasing interest awakened by the discussion of such topics of reform as peace, temperance, human freedom, the treatment of criminals, and others involving the moral uplifting and advancement of mankind, very naturally had its effect upon the Universalist Church. There were not a few in it who saw very clearly that the great Gospel in which they believed was in the world to do a regenerative work with the human family; that its first word to every one to whom it came was the call to reformation of character and life; that it was a direct and perpetual opposition to all that hinders this work, and that therefore they who profess to be its friends and advocates should embrace every opportunity of applying its heavenly forces to the diminishing of human wrong and the establishing of the reign of righteousness in the earth. As other churches were awakened and agitated on these reform questions, so was this one, and in due time it took its stand and made its manifestations in a way creditable to its profession, and in accordance with its hopeful and catholic faith.

      One of the organizations for the furtherance of this work of Christian reform instituted by this church was that of the Universalist Reform Association. The first direct action taken in reference to the subject was at the session of the Massachusetts Universalist Convention in Hingham, June, 1846, when the following resolution offered by Rev. C. H. Fay, of Roxbury, was unanimously adopted: —

      "Resolved, That this Convention recommend to the Universalists of New England to form an Association to be known as the New England Universalist Reform Association, which shall meet annually in Boston during 'Anniversary Week,' having for its object the collection of such statistical information relative to the various reform movements of the age as illustrates not only the progress of Christianity as we understand it, but the best means of promoting and applying it."

      A committee was chosen to carry the resolution into effect. An appointed sub-committee issued a circular, urging upon all interested, attention to the main objects of the Association, which were: —

      "1. To consider the influence of Universalist sentiments in the various reform movements of the age. It must be evident that these sentiments are not essentially confined to the sect which openly professes them. We hold that they lie at the foundation of every true effort for the prevalence of Temperance, Love, Peace, Freedom, and all movements which recognize the Paternity of God and the Brotherhood of Man. To establish the truth of the ultimate connection of these doctrines with all the philanthropic action of our age, to collect statistics and facts which demonstrate it, and to exchange sentiments upon the subject, constitute one great object of the Association.

      "2. To assume our appropriate position in relation to these reforms; to exert our legitimate influence in them; and to show in our actions the practical conclusion of Universalist premises, – that he who believes in God's universal Paternity and the Brotherhood of the race cannot in any way countenance War, Intemperance, Slavery, or Capital Punishment, but consistently opposes and strives to abolish them all.

      "The time of holding the meeting, too, deserves consideration. It is on Anniversary Week, a week when almost every moral question now agitating the civilized world is represented and discussed in Boston. Hitherto we have sent out no such influence on this occasion as we believe we may exert if our power shall be concentrated and put in operation. We see not why our Reform meetings may not be among the most interesting of all now held during this well-known season."27

      And they were. They began successfully, and were steadily and profitably held, up to 1859, during years when these vital moral questions were more intensely considered and debated in New England and throughout our land than at any previous period. Very carefully prepared and able reports were year by year presented to the Association, and resolutions involving the merits of these reformatory topics freely and amicably discussed. Often in other meetings, conventions, associations, conferences, where ecclesiastical matters claimed the chief attention, the introduction of these reformatory subjects would cause uneasiness and elicit much fault-finding on the part of those opposed to the introduction of such agitative themes into these meetings of the church. But at the yearly assemblings of the Reform Association the largest liberty was taken by all who desired to express their opinions on these great questions of the day.

      The first meeting was a success. It was held in the Second Universalist Church, School Street, on Thursday, May 27, 1847. Four addresses were given on these subjects, Peace, Criminal Reform, Temperance, and Human Freedom, and appropriate resolutions discussed and adopted. In connection with this session a social festival was held on Friday morning, and was an occasion of unusual enjoyment to all who took part in it. The historian, Richard Frothingham, Esq., presided, and made an admirable opening address. He was followed by others, among them Chapin, then of rising fame. Pretending to have in hand only "skirts and fragments of ideas," he magically forms them into completeness, and endues them with power. He speaks of Christianity and Reform: —

      "Christianity has not changed or added anything to itself. But we find in it latent truths; we discern new meaning in old truths. His eye had rested that very morning upon the passage which Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' What a profound meaning does this passage receive now, in the light of these stirring reforms! How does the truth open before us, vast and deep as the blue heaven over our heads! Christianity authorizes and animates these social movements. Its social spirit and its labors of love make us live more in a year than elsewhere in a lifetime. The early fathers of our faith began their labor in the early morning, when the light of the truth they announced just tinged the mountain-tops; and now, as they are about vanishing from our horizon, the full effulgence

Скачать книгу