THE MOORHOUSE LECTURES.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1931, 13 December 1913, Page 11

THE MOORHOUSE LECTURES.

"Ancient Heresies in Modem Dress" is the title of the Moorhoise Lectures for 10)3, delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, by Dr. ilndfnrd, Warden 'of St. Paul's College. University of Sydney. The lectures deal with tim niodcru outlook of Christianity in its relation to certain prominent phases of modern religious thought under such bondings as "Judaism ami Seventh Day Adwwtisro,". .."Anchnit —fiiwstiefsm," "Modern, .. Gimsticlsm".. (I Thcosoph.v, XI Ckristiu - Sconce), "Pelaglamsm -and- Natural- -Christianity.Dr. Radford:t cs the necessity of translating the faith of the past irito the language of the present. "'Tho vocabulary of the Church has to Ijc recast. Tao eftcu tho Christian toachcr speaks and writes in the language of tho Divinity school, while his hcarefs, young and'old alike, know only tho language of the oval and the exchange, the newspaper and tho magazine. . . . The pulpit must use the vernacular of the pew." He thinks that t';", hope of the future lies in "the restoration of the fail faith of Christendom in all its manifold correspondence to the jiennaiiout needs of mankind, and yet in Tanns cf language and thought which correspond to tho ideas of iilc which are prevalent everywhere as tho outcome of receii t knowledge." Religions thought movcß forward in spite of occasional periods of reaction, and tlifl reappearance from time to time of the old amid tho new. There is a eofr thnial recurrence of tyncs of temper or attitude, and types of thought and doctrine. The mam theme of the lccturos is the reouri'cneo «! ancient heresies in. modern form, and it is contended that, nt the present time the environment of the Gospel is strangely similar in its environment iu the second and third centuries and even later. A new Gnosticism is> abroad in society, and

"speculative philosophy, secular ethics., and mysticism, partly iiitclkvtitfil and partly sensuous, meet outside t-iio Church's doors, and enter more or loss perceptibly into its eoiigrcgatkms." The book, which is well printed and neatly bound, is published by id'-ssi-. Goorgo Robertson and Co,