Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1883 — Beecher on Christianity. [ARTICLE]

Beecher on Christianity.

“Some people, Mr. Beecher, are of the opinion that Christianity, while it is being spread actively in heathen lands, is getting quite thin at home. What do you think of that idea?” “Christianity,” he said, “may spread laterally or vertically, or both at once. In some foreign lands it is spreading laterally. In a country long christianized, such as tins is, there is little chance of its being extended in that way. The field has been pretty much all covered. But it has abundant opportunity and occasion here to spread vertically. It can penetrate deep into the character and life of an individual and high in his intellectuality. Religion may and should find part and be received in the sympathies of. life, in purposes of honesty, in desposition toward others, in all emotions of the heart, and in all sentiments and actions of the mind, Therein lies the vertical spread of Christianity. Now, I think there has been an increase in the country so far as sympathy is concerned. Religion has taken a stronger hold of the people in that direettan. But in the line of honesty and integrity there has been a marked falling off. People make religion a film, a veneering on their character. There’s no depth to it, and consequently but little efficacy. There’s not that sterling integrity and unyielding honesty that there used to be. It ought to be next to impossible for a Christian to become dishonest or to lie. But how many become defaulters, and how many are careless about speaking the exact truth? A liar passes to-day .scarcely denounced. Fifty years ago he would have experienced anguish hardly describable, and would have been execrated by his fellows. There are so many corporations now. These have a tendency to diminish individual moral responsibility. Five men constitute a corporation, we will say. Strict honesty is occasionally deviated from, and misrepresentations are made. Each one of the five feels himself one-fifth of something which has no soul, and does not hold himself sufficiently individually responsible. No, Christianity in this country is losing ground vertically. In some portions it is gaining, doubtless, but in others it is losing. Religion that is not based on the thorough honesty and integrity is all mosh.”—Chicago Herald. Comparison, more than reality,makes men happy, and can make them wretched.—Feltham.