Popular religion

“ A profession of religion has become popular with the world. Rulers, politicians, lawyers, doctors, merchants, join the church as a means of securing the respect and confidence of society, and advancing their own worldly interests. Thus they seek to cover all their unrighteous transactions under a profession of Christianity. The various religious bodies, re-enforced by the wealth and influence of these baptized worldlings, make a still higher bid for popularity and patronage. Splendid churches, embellished in the most extravagant manner, are erected on popular avenues. ”

“ A commonplace of popular discourse is that by “religion” is intended the multitude of sects currently in existence. Not surprisingly, such a suggestion at once arouses protest in other quarters that by religion is intended rather one or another of the great, independent belief systems of history that have shaped and inspired whole civilizations. ”

“ I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution. ”

“ Be assured there is society of the highest order, where religion is supreme; and if not exactly what is popularly called amusement, there is a heartfelt interest in all which relates, however remotely, to the extension of the kingdom of Christ—an interest unknown to those who have no bond of union, founded upon the basis of Christian love. ”

“ To trace the connection between the public virtue and the popular theology, is a great and difficult matter, not to be attempted here. But this fact is plain, that in a rude state of life this connection is slight, scarce perceptible; the popular worship represents Fear, Reverence it may be ”

“ This Christianity insists on rightness before God; ties no man down to worship in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem; on the first day of the week, or the last day; in the church or the fields; socially or in private; with a creed, ritual, priest, symbol, spoken prayer, or without these. It breaks every yoke, seen or invisible; bids men worship in love. It does not ask man to call himself a Christian, or his Religion Christianity. ”

“ To the withered traditional church yielding dry catechisms, he let in nature again, and the worshiper, escaping from the vestry of verbs and texts, is surprised to find himself a party to the whole of his religion. His religion thinks for him, and is of universal application. He turns it on every side; it fits every part of life, interprets and dignifies every circumstance. ”

“ In this way, by gaining all the truth of the age in thought or action, by trying public opinions with its own brave ideas, by promoting good works, applying a new truth to an old error, and with unpopular righteousness overcoming each popular sin, the Christian church should lead the civilization of the age. ”

“ Unless the principles of Christianity will acknowledge the supremacy of something else than Christianity, in the mode of their application to estimate the importance of the popular mind, they may take their repose in bodies of divinity, sermons, catechisms, systems of ethics, or wherever they can find a place. ”

“ Oh that a preacher might arise and expound from the Book of books a religion with a God, a religion with a heart in it--a Christian religion, which would abolish the cold legend whose centre is respectability, and which rears great buildings in which the rich recline on silken hassocks while the poor perish in the shadow thereof. ”

“ Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in the full conviction, that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity. ”

“ And their religion, of a strong Protestant type expressed in various forms of Dissent, formed an ideal bond which kept the little society together, and made an authority which all acknowledged, an atmosphere in which all moved. ”

“ On the one side, Christianity is identified with civilization, and the function of the Church is regarded as simply the gathering up, from age to age, of the higher aspirations of mankind: her call is to enter into, to sympathize with, and to perpetuate whatever is pure, noble, and of good report, in laws and institutions, in art, music, and poetry, in industry and commerce, as well as in the moral and religious usages and beliefs, of mankind. ”

“ They were men of sterling character, of deep religious convictions, of willingness to make painful sacrifices for the sake of principle, of great reverence for the Bible and the institutions of religion, of purity of life in the home and in their social relations. They believed that religion was the supreme thing and that the commandments of God were of binding obligation upon all intelligent moral beings. ”

“ It presents us with the evolution and propagation of Christianity in its present central abodes; with the great march of civilization, and the gathering within the pale of that mighty agency for elevating human nature, and beneath the gentle yoke of the only true and beneficent religion, of the last rebellious recusants among the European family of nations. ”

“ Permit me to speak from the standpoint of history and philosophy. The Christian religion is a chief source of our peculiar civilization, of the character of our institutions, of the growth of altruism, of the equality of man, of the supreme worth of the inner motive, of charity, of liberty. It has given the world the highest examples of pure and devoted lives. ”

“ No unity, no bond amongst men is so strong as that which is based on religion. Patriotism, class prejudices, ties of affection, all break before its presence. What a light is cast upon the deeper places of the human heart by the history of Jesuitism in the seventeenth century! Genius for religion is rare as other forms of genius are rare, yet both in the life of the individual and of the State its rank is primary. In the soul, religion marks the meridian of the divine. ”

“ Wherever they meet to worship, there they will meet to consult of their plans, hopes, and progress, as at once a distinct race and a part of the American people. Their religion is tinged with political thought, and their political thought shaped by religious conviction. ”

“ For indeed, what probability, what possibility rather, (speaking after the manner of men) is there that Christianity, Scriptural Christianity, should be again the religion of this place? That all orders of men among us should speak and live as men filled with the Holy Ghost? ”

“ It has been the illustration of a supreme and deeply interesting problem—the causes, namely, why a religion so humble in its origin and so feeble in its earthly resources as Christianity, won so majestic a victory over the power, the glory, and the intellect of the civilised world. ”

“ As the Church increased in numbers and influence, the pioneer of religion, the one who had hewn for it a way through the primeval forests, either pushed forward with the advance line of civilization or yielded to the mellowing influence of a more genial state of society. ”

“ To those of my friends, who exercise the sacred functions of religion, as established in this country, I need not offer an apology, for paying an humble tribute of common justice to these good, and persecuted men; who, from habit, pursue a mode of worship, a little differing in form, but terminating in the same great and glorious centre. ”

“ To one who closely studies the history of humanity, evolution in religion is a certainty. Eddies there are,—counter-currents of passion, fanaticism, greed, hate, pride, folly, the unreason of mobs, the strife of parties, the dreams of mystics, the logic of dogmatists, and the lust for power of ecclesiastics,—but the great main tide is unmistakable. ”

“ From the question of the support which Christian faith and doctrine give to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of our inquiry: How does this growing social consciousness, not by any means always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect our conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines? ”

“ The true triumphs of Christianity were seen in making good men of those who professed her doctrines, rather than changing outwardly popular institutions, or government, or laws, or even elevating the great mass of unbelievers. ”

“ Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion, which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? ”

“ Idols and banners and texts will fill a street with their tawdry, tottering progress, and you will see nothing human below, but now and then jostling shoulders and a sweaty face. Even so are many of the loud parades of doctrines in our day by men, who, in the words of this chapter, show themselves stout of heart by holding up their religion, but give us no signs in their character or conduct that their religion is holding up them. ”

“ Worship—public and private; reasonableness of both. Recognition of spiritual as well as of physical laws. Recognition of an evolution in religious beliefs. Proper attitude of thinking men. Efforts for evolution rather than for revolution. Need of charity to all forms of religion but of steady resistance to clerical combinations for hampering scientific thought or controlling public education. ”

“ But yet methinks to kiss their Hands after their Lips, as some do, is like little Boys, that after they eat the apple, fall to the Paring, out of a Love they have to the Apple.
RELIGION.
Religion is like the Fashion: one Man wears his Doublet slashed, another laced, another plain; but every Man has a Doublet. So every man has his Religion. ”

“ We hold the Christian religion in sacred veneration, and shall never, therefore, suffer an aspersion to be cast upon it through our columns.
“As the happiness of most of mankind lies in their social domestic circles, we shall hold them sacred. ”

“ In this way they prove that they are seeking to know better the will and the dictates of the Invincible One. No truer religion exists than that of world comradeship and brotherhood, for the purpose of glorifying one God and building for Him a temple of constructive attitude and noble character. ”

“ And in that place, religion, religious system, its claim to overpower one, presented itself in a way of which even the least serious by nature could not be unaware. Their great church, its customs and traditions, formed an element in that esprit de corps into which the boyish mind throws itself so readily. ”

“ CHAPTER IV A RELIGIOUS SHAPE ASSUMED BY ALL THE CONVICTIONS OF CROWDS What is meant by the religious sentiment—It is independent of the worship of a divinity—Its characteristics—The strength of convictions assuming a religious shape—Various examples—Popular gods have never disappeared—New forms under which they are revived—Religious forms of atheism—Importance of these notions from the historical point of view— The Reformation, Saint Bartholomew, the Terror, and all analogous events are the result of the religious sentiments of crowds and not of the will of isolated individuals. ”

“ And where religion has taken a strong hold on the mind of a community, especially if doctrine or ritual is more thought of than the spirit and life of religion, there you will find those of similar beliefs and ecclesiastical preferences, drawn into the same society. ”

“ If the sphere within which it distinctly operates is far narrower than that of political or literary achievement, it is also incomparably purer, and works without a single [Pg 264] drawback. Every religion has its saints, and honours them in various ways, not always altogether edifying. ”

“ That is, their religion consisted not chiefly in reading the letter, disputing about it, accepting things in literal constructions, but in the things declared of the substance itself, bringing things nearer to the mind, soul, and spirit, and pressing into a more hidden and heavenly sense; making religion to consist in the temperance and sanctity of the mind, and not in the formal bodily worship, so much now-a-days in repute, fitter to please comedians than Christians. ”

“ And the comparative method should be applied not merely to ritual, liturgy, hieratic institutions, legends, and dogmas, but also to the varying phenomena and expressions of the religious temperament in the various races. Only the study of the latter can enable us to test the living force of a faith, the degree with which it possesses the national mind; and such a study is only possible when a nation has produced a rich religious literature or monuments of art embodying the public and private worship and religious sentiment. ”

“ Those great and good men went back to the Scriptures, where they found at once the great realities of religion—a condemning law, a justifying Gospel, and a provision of grace for a life of true holiness. With these substantial principles in their hearts, they spurned whatever was trivial and spurious, and amid the fires of persecution, they reared the structure—a structure still unshaken—of religion for England, upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets." ”