CHAPTER LI. PRESENT POSITION OF THE RELIGIOUS PRESS.

To any one who examines the religious press of the different sects of the present time, it is clear that there never was a period in which the _ecclesiasticism_ founded on the Augustinian theory was more a leading object of effort. At the time that the Bible Society and other benevolent religious associations originated, the tendency of the different sects was to a harmonious union for the great end of sending the gospel to the destitute. At that time, questions in relation to the modes of ordination and baptism, and as to church officers, seemed to vanish as matters of small concern to all whose chief aim was to save the lost. But now the reverse tendency is manifest. Every sect is engaged in magnifying the importance of its own distinctive peculiarity, in getting up publishing houses to disseminate its own peculiar modes of religious teaching, in raising funds to build churches, and in building up its own distinctive schools and colleges. And this is done not so much, as it would seem, because the salvation of ignorant and guilty men depends on these sectarian peculiarities, as because the extent, respectability and influence of a sect will be thus promoted. Every editor of every religious paper, therefore, is a chief leader in an effort to build up a sect, which as before shown, originates from the Augustinian dogma.

It is an established maxim in law and all administration of justice, that where a man’s property, character, and professional success are involved, he is barred from testimony as an incompetent witness. And it is deemed no disparagement to the most honorable and high‐minded men in the community to be dealt with on the assumption that such personal interests so bias men’s judgment that they can not be trusted.

Now it will not be denied by any one, that our religious periodicals are all supported by the differing sects with the express understanding that each shall advocate the views of the sect that especially patronizes it. And should any editor become convinced that the opinions he was appointed to advocate are false, he could not honorably retain his office without declaring his change of opinion, and this declaration would inevitably result in the loss of his professional character and income among his friends and supporters.

For example, if the editor of the Independent were to become convinced that churches organized on the Congregational mode were unscriptural, and should attempt to defend such a view, he would either resign his post or be removed from it. The same would be true in regard to the editors of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist and Methodist religious magazines and newspapers.

So in regard to the professors of our theological schools, who are the chief supporters of theological magazines. They must all teach the Augustinian dogma of a depraved nature transmitted from Adam to all his descendants, or resign their professional reputation, their office and its income.

These being facts, it may properly be affirmed that the religious press in this country is barred from the full and free discussion of the great question of eternal life, “What must we do to be saved?”

One of the most remarkable indications of this fact is the course pursued by the leading religious periodicals of each sect in noticing the work before referred to, _Common Sense applied to Religion, or the Bible and the People_. In that work, and in an article in the Independent, as well as by private letters, an appeal was made to their editors, who, many of them, are personal friends of the writer, to instruct her and to instruct the public wherein there was any failure in that work, either in setting forth truly the principles of common sense and the rules of interpretation, or in deducing by these principles the _system_ of common sense, or in proving that the Augustinian dogma and the system founded on it were contrary to the common sense and the moral sense of mankind, and unsupported by the Bible.

As these editors are not only honorable and Christian gentlemen, but among the most acute and profound metaphysicians in the world, it would be the height of ill manners to assume that, discerning any failures, they refused to specify them, either in private or in public, except for the reasons intimated. No editor whose periodical is supported by a sect for the express purpose of maintaining its distinctive peculiarities, could indorse that work as correct in its statements and arguments without giving up the basis on which the existence of that sect depends which supports his periodical.

In these circumstances the editors of the Independent fairly and openly avowed that they could not open their columns to “a psychological and theological discussion” of this sort. And every editor of every other religious periodical tacitly made the same declaration by _entire silence_ on the main subject of the volume—the very principles, involving the existence of the sect for whose defense they were appointed.

So manifest was this position of these leaders of the theological world, that the most intelligent and best informed publishers came to the conclusion that whatever else theologians differed about, they were all united in the determination that such a discussion of these points as was sought by the author should not be permitted. And even the editors of the secular press were urged not to allow their columns to be used for such purposes.