THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1329, 5 January 1912, Page 3

THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S AND HIS CRITICS. TKE rUTUIiH OF. HUMANITY. On November 17 the Dean of St. Paul's (Dr. Inge) delivered the second of his scries ol' four lectures on "The Co-opera-lion, of tli« Church with (ho Spirit of the Age," to the Women's Diowsin Asiociiition lit Sion College. Mr.-. Creighton presided over a large- (fathering. Dr. liiifu said that *incu the first lecture, which he imagined to hi a quiet little lalk to ii few London ladies, several of them his, friends, he seemed to have emerged inlo a publicity which he noil her expected nor de.-ired. lie had found himself dubbed "the gloomy Dean," in contrast with certain more popular ecclesiastics, who, because they could always conscientiously shout with the largest crowd, wcro naturally cheerful deans. Among scores of more or less interesting letters, which ho had not time to answer, there had been a few containing mere üb.ua , , as it' it were a kind of impiety not to (lout with the stream, a feat which any dead dog could accomplish, and a kind i>f treason not to lick tho dirty boots of their masters for the time being, n complaisance which every live dog was eager to perform. Nearly ib years ago ho had pledged himself to preach (lie Lord's message to the best of his ability. He admitted that he was glad that crucifixion had gone out of fashion; but he thereby told his critics that he.did not care two straws for any abuse and unpopularity that he might incur in preaching ths Gospel of tho Kingdom as he believed our Master intended it to 1)3 preached. If ho saw largo numbers of people being fed up with hopes which could only end in bitter disappointment, he would take leave to show them "a more excellent way," not in season and out of season; but certainly when he was specially invited to tulk"about the cooperation of the Church with tha spirit of the age. They could no longer look upon their race as the one important part of God's creation, nor iinan our earth as the centre of the universe. If the cosmic process .was endless, he did not see how ouo unceasing purpose could run through it, for a purpose was necessarily and essentially finite. He believed that God lad lr.auy purposes in His creation, somo of which were, so far as they cculd tell. independent of each other, while others were intertwined. Every ono of those purposes had its fulfilment in the time-series, after which it took its place in the eternal order. They, as Christians, all believed that God had a purpose in creating each individual, that He had before him a definite lype of character which He wished everyone to exhibit—not the same type for all, but a special type for each. They believed that they were sent into the world to work out their salvation by conforming their life and conduct to that type and then to take their places in the eternal order, and tiieir rank or fate in the world of spirits was determined by tho degree in which they had fulfilled or frustrated the design of their Creator, lie believed that God had a purpose, an idea, of the life of humanity as a whole, a scheme of discipline and of gradual progress towards relative perfection, which He had designed to be worked out in human history. They must discount very' seriously some of the hopes that had been built upon the supposed law of progress. They knew that a timo would como when this planet would no longer be tenmtablo by human beings, and that drove them to tho "sure and certain hope" of eternal life, otheriyiso the whole process would be irrational. It was quite possible that humanity might come to a stand and live for the future in a fixed stationary condition,, hko the polities of bees and ants. It was certainly not (rue that each generation showed an advance upon its predecessor. Somehow cr Other the general movement of the race was upward, not downward, and inspired prophets made ■ good the losses of institutional religion. Human Icings word supposed to have existed for 150,1100 years, but civilisation had been entirely iho work of the last ten thousand years. Civilisation was probably only in its childhood, and tho Church, so far from saying in (ho words of a foolish hymn, "Far down the ages now, Her journey well nigh done," had only begun to crawl and babble.

The competitive and i-cquisilivo instinct which muiln its possessor very useful to his tribe thousands of years-ago was a public nuisance when it inpired the career of a Jay Gould or a Kockcfeljer. ltevercuce for tradition and implicit belief in the wisdom of antiquity, which kept the young and tondei\ plant of inherited culture from being trampled out of existence, were doubtful advantages when they determined the councils of an episcopal conclave or a Church Council. The Spirit of the Ages was not going to hurry herself because they had only 70 years or so in which to watch her operations. They must not forget that the spiritual sense was a new endowment as compared with their eyes and ears and other seWs, and looked at in that way the history of religion was not depressing. In God's sight tho past and future were there all that time, and 1911 was just as important or unimportant a year as 1811 or 2011. If they seriously believed in their own immortality they could fed that and tako comfort in it.