PHASES OF MODERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 4230, 4 June 1875, Page 3

PHASES OF MODERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

No. I. Fkw things are, in the present day, more striking thau the restless anxiety of tho human mind. The realm of religious thought, especially, is agitated to a degree not equalled for many years. Nor is it to any one place that this agitation is confined ; for, like a miligty tidal-wave which sweeps over other barriers on many shores, a wave of thought has swept over the civilised world, and readied limits never before dreamed of. Oucc upon a time it was only iti great centres of population that bodies of men grappled with those problems in life and mind, which for twenty centuries have engaged and baffled the human intellect ; but now they are grappled with by all classes, in old countries ami new, individually and collectively, from the Duke to the artisan. It is no wonder that we at the Antipodes have been influenced by current thought—so influenced that many young men are passing rapidly through one of those mental transition states which for weal or woe, will affect their future lives. We say this is no wonder, for it is only by wilfully closing their eyes to the results of modern philosophy, science, and criticism, that any persons can remain uninfluenced, and this is not one of the faults likely to be laid to tho charge of young men in this city We purpose briefly tracing the cause of this impetus to modern thought, and concluding with a word of caution from one who is worthy of respect. The cause then, is not far to seek. Tho first forty years of the present century found men comparatively indifferent to speculative religious truth. Enough for them that they professed the faith in which their fathers lived honourably and died in peace. The tirst noticeable shock to their feelings at this period was given by Milman's "History of the Jews " in which their ideas of inspiration and the miraculous were challenged. Following at no great interval, came Buckle, whose "History of Civilisation" has probably done more than any other work written during the present century to diffuse a rationalistic spirit among the masses. Then came "Essays and Keviows, assailing inspiration and the Mosaic cosmogony, and the prosecution of the authors in the Court of Arches made the work universally known and sought for. Scarcely had the agitation caused Gy these books subsided when Colenso issued his critical examination of the Pentateuch, in which astonishing difficulties were raised, and seized by the popular mind with a tenacity which increases as time rolls on. 1 hen came P.eiian's " Life of Jesus," while in the intc-nm I-roude, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, U'cky. and a few other able writers, fostered immiry with a force and in a manner which few could resist. The result of recent criticism cannot be fairly and fully estimated yet, but we already see some results for good and cviL In regard to the former, it has brought co the nout (as all emergencies do) our ablest men to contend for Christianity against the & eulansts-so called. It has also scattered much ignorance and prejudice, and, so far, has liberalised men's minds ; but there is I

another side to this question: Multitudes have been drawn into a vortex of doubt where the human spirit seeks in vain for satisfaction and repose. It has led young men to forsake or despise the good old paths trodden by the feet of many generations, merely because those paths are old, and such will do well to iioed the following from a rccc at reviewer:—"Our complaint is, not that facology is undergoing, as it must undergo, great modifications of its accumulated opinions and traditions, but that its old opinions aru frequently set aside as valueless by those who have never studied them, and that its accumulated treasures are held to lje so much waste paper by many who know nothing of them, and never tried to estimate them. There may be progress in theology as in other things, and the old phrases and forms of doctrine cannot be expected to hold their place permanently here any more than elsewhere. Rut true advance is not to be fought in any branch of knowledge by merely turning our back on what is old and welcoming all manner of novelties. We may liavc to unlearn niuoh that our forefathers believed ; but it is only a shallsw philosophy that does not recognise what was true and good, as well as defective and false, in the grounds of their belief." Citizen.