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Goldwin Smith: "There is a general feeling that the stream of history is drawing near a cataract. . . .There is everywhere in the social frame an outward unrest, which, as usual, is the sign of fundamental change within. Old creeds have given way."
Gronlund, the Socialist: "All signs and portents show that the face of mankind has already been set in a social- istic direction.... There has been the access of a new, rational, divine order in human life that is disintegrating the old, outward, and temporary organization, and gradu- ally creating the new."
Kuenen, the Biblical critic: "The problem of the future is especially serious now when so much is being super- seded and is passing away, when a new conception of the world is spreading in ever wider circles; when new social conditions are in the very process of birth. . . . . In us the ends of the ages meet, the ends of the old and the new."
Prof. Sohm ("Outlines of Church History"), speaking of culture, says: ''This tendency has become more and more powerful since the middle of the century, and is hostile, not only to the ecclesiastical and Christian, but to every religious theory of the universe." "The society of our day is like the earth on which we live—a thin crust over a great volcanic, seething, revolutionary heart of liquid fire." "More and more clearly are shown the signs of the movement, the aim of which is to destroy the entire social, order of the State, the Church, the Family. Unbelief has grown up among us, an unbelief which is kindling the revolution of the nineteenth century."
Kidd ("Social Evolution"): "The present is a period of reconstruction. A change is almost imperceptibly tak- ing place in the midst of the rising generation respecting the great social and religious problems of our time. . . .We are rapidly approaching a time when we shall be face to face with social and political problems graver in character and more far-reaching in extent than any which have been
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hitherto encountered." "To the thoughtful mind the out- look at the close of the nineteenth century is profoundly interesting. History can furnish no parallel to it. . . .We seem to have reached a time in which there is abroad in men's minds an instinctive feeling that a definite stage in the evolution of Western civilization is growing to a close, and that we are entering upon a new era."
Utterances like these, repeated in sermons and lectures, in books, magazines, and the daily press, meet us on every side; all alike proclaiming a new age at hand. Whilst differing widely as to the final result, there is general agreement that we have come to the border line that separates two eras, that we have left the old behind us and are entering upon the new. This is in itself a most remarkable fact What is its significance? Why a new age? Are our old beliefs, our old institutions, outgrown? Are we about to break with the past, and take a sudden leap onward? What has aroused this general feeling of restlessness, this widespread discontent with the present, these eager anticipations of something better soon to come?
In considering the significance of this fact, our attention is here given chiefly to its religious bearing, although a change in religion necessarily brings with it a change in every department of human thought and action. When the new age has fully developed itself, what religion will it give us? Will it be some new phase of Christianity, or an eclectic religion, or something distinctively new? Here the anticipations of men differ widely. Let us attempt to classify them.
First, those Christians who believe that the Kingdom of God was established in the earth and the reign of Christ begun when He ascended into Heaven, or perhaps when the Roman Empire acknowledged Christianity. This is said by many, or most, in the Roman, Greek, and Anglican com- munions. They, therefore, look for no change in belief af- fecting essentially the creeds or rituals of the Church. As a
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Divine Institution it is permanent, and this ensures the permanence of the present Christianity. No new religious era is to be looked for; its supposed signs are fallacious. The future will be as the past in all its main features till the Lord returns to final judgment.
Secondly, those—chiefly to be found in Protestant bodies—who think but little of the Church as a historic institution, to be preserved unchanged, but believe that there will be a wider and ever-growing spread of Chris- tianity as a spiritual influence till the world is leavened. This class would retain for the most part the Protestant confessions of faith without any vital doctrinal or other changes. The new era they expect will come through a Christianized civilization, and the enlargement of Christen- dom to embrace all nations.
Thirdly, those who, having the same expectations as to the spread and triumph of Christianity, affirm that it must have large modifications in order that it may be adapted to the present conditions of religious enquiry. It is amongst these that we find many leaders of modern thought. They affirm, to use the evolutionary phrase, that the organism must be adjusted to its present environment The Church, both as to its doctrine and polity and labours, must respond to the demands of the new age, and adapt itself to its needs. As to the extent of these modifications, there are wide diversities of opinion. Some would give up only those doctrines and rites which are most offensive to the spirit of the time; others would go further, and put away a large part of what has been regarded as distinctive in Christianity, that it may serve as a basis for an universal religion. But most have apparently no clear conception of what they must give up or retain.
Fourthly, those in all sections of the Church who see clearly enough the rapid religious changes all around them, and feel the power of the growing revolutionary tendencies, and are greatly perplexed what to think of the
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future, or what to da They ask anxiously: Where are the proposed modifications of Christianity to end? Is it true that we are at the beginning of a new and better age? Is it the light of a glorious dawn that is beginning to illumine the heavens, or the lurid gleam of far-off volcanic fires? They know not what to believe in the present, or what to expect in the future. Faith in God, in the Scrip- tures, in the Church, does not wholly fail, but they are disquieted in spirit and sad at heart
On the other hand, there are many in Christendom, and apparently a continually increasing number, who affirm that mere modifications of Christianity, greater or less, cannot permanently save it Christendom has proved it for many centuries, and found it a practical failure. Its fundamental principles conflict with the growing intelli- gence of the world. We have come to a new age, and a new age must bring with it a new religion, not a revivifi- cation of the past; one based upon a new conception of God, simple, comprehensive, and fitted to be a world- religion. Some, indeed, think to make it eclectic, and to incorporate in it more or less of Christianity; but those of clearer vision see the impossibility of this, and affirm that Christianity must be taken as a whole, or rejected as a whole. Of these Renan is a sample, who says: "The future will no longer believe in the supernatural, for the supernatural is not true, and all that is not true is con- demned to die. The pure truth will triumph. Judaism and Christianity will disappear." In the same way speaks the learned Jew, Darmesteter: "All Europe is in quest of a new God, and seeking everywhere for the echo of a coming gospel.” And all those who, like Herbert Spencer, substitute an impersonal Force for a personal God, will have nothing of Christianity but its ethics. Of the attempts to formulate the new religion, we shall, later, have full occasion to speak. But in them all we shall see ample proof that Christianity, with its vital doctrines, the
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Trinity, the Incarnation, Sin and Atonement, Resurrection and Judgment, must give place to some form of belief better suited to the modern conceptions of a Supreme Being, of the reign of Law, and of the goodness and dignity of human nature.
