RELIGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 33 



Island, in 1766 — the responses which their sons in 1866, had reasserted, 

 and vindicated, and forever established, with their blood. 



Contemporaneous with this activity of thought in politics were other 

 discussions which would sound strangely enough to us. Science had not 

 yet passed out of Alchemy into Chemistry, or out of Astrology into Astron- 

 omy. Men still believed in an Elixir of Life, a universal solvent, and the 

 possibility of converting all metals into gold. They still believed in the 

 possibility of squaring the circle, and that the earth was the centre of the 

 starry sphere. In 1674 it' was maintained that the starry heaven was made 

 of fire; in 1687, that there is a stone that makes gold; in 1703, that metals 

 can be changed into one another alternately; in 1762, that the heavenly 

 bodies produce certain changes in the bodies of animals; in 1767, that 

 all bodies, not even excepting- metals and stones, are produced from seed. 

 The question was still mooted in 16Q9, whether there is a circulation of 

 the blood, and whether there is a universal remedy. And for many years 

 after it was believed that a certain powder existed which would infalliblv 

 cure all wounds by being sprinkled upon the weapon that produced them. 



Then turning to questions more immediately related to our subject of 

 Religious Progress, we find that during the same period, while much of 

 their thinking was characterized by discussion and hairsplitting, such as 

 the school-men would have delighted in, much of it also was really in ad- 

 vance of the time and touched upon themes that are vital even now. They 

 seemed to delight in choppng logic as though immortal interests de- 

 pended upon the argument, and yet they did frequently come down to 

 matters intimately related to the conduct of life. Three times, at least, 

 during this period the question was discussed with more solemnity than 

 such a question would admit of to day before the highest court of our 

 land, whether, if Lazarus, by a will made before his death, had given away 

 his property, he could legUly have claimed it after his resurrection.'" " Is 

 the soul transmitted by generation, or is it in every case an immediate 

 creation by God .•''" " Do angels have matter and form.''" "Is the Pope 

 or the Turk to be regardel as Anti-Christ.'" "If a man is born deficient 

 in one limb, will he l)e deficient in the same limb on the day of Resurrec- 

 t.on. " " Will the blessed in ths future world after the last judgment make 

 usa of articulate speech, and will that be Hebrew ?" But notwithstanding 

 all this which seems very childish to us, they were making real progress in 

 many ways. You cannot withhold your profoundest respect for men who 

 were maintaining in the s ime public way, a hundred and fifty vears ao-o 

 that charity and mutual tolerance among the profe,-;sors of Christianity are 

 most conducive to the promotion of true religion; that a faithful inquirer 

 into the truth of the sacred Scriptures, even though he should fall into 

 error, may not be called a heretic; that the limits of church fellowship 

 should- not be narrower than those of eternal salvation; that disputes re- 

 1 iting to theology are generally injurious t-^ religion; and that the toler- 

 ation of every religion tends to promote true religion. 



1 have dwelt thus at len;th upon these questions because they show 

 better than any other indices accessible to me what our representative men 

 and religious leaders w-re thinking about during our first centurv, what 

 they deemed important and vital. They reflect the. spirit and temner of 

 the century. They show us that while doctrine remained substant ally 

 unchangetl, theological as[)erities were even then .softening. They ex- 

 hibit, also, the operation of a principle that is ever true, that as men of 



