The Open Court

of it, and he wages an unnecessary warfare against all the unessential details of special religion. We agree with Mr. Martin that all incidental features of religion should be treated as incidentals and the essentials should be made paramount ; we also agree with him that all error should be removed ; but for that reason we need not drop or decry or ridicule or abhor any of those special features which are harmless. Why should not the Episcopalians continue to be sticklers for form and endeavor to make religious service beautiful ? Why should not the Baptists try to rouse an enthusiasm for religion with their methods of appealing to sentiment. Why should not Roman Catholics use rosaries and celebrate mass, which is a kind of dramatic performance in the style of oratorios ? Why should not the Unitarians and Universalists emphasise their peculiar reasons of secession ? The former oppose the irrational in religion, the latter the idea of eternal damnation. Let every one of the various denominations have their preferences, only let all recognise the catholicity of truth, the common ideal of all religious aspirations. The formulation of the religious problem which we propose reads as follows : "While we propose to avoid quarrels about accidentals, we are anxious to come to an agreement concerning ihe one thing that is needful. Rituals and symbols may vary according to taste, historical tradition, and opinion, but the essence of religion can only be one and must remain one and the same among all nations, in all climes, and under all conditions." There is no need of suppressing the special characteristics and individual features of anything, but there is a need of attaining catholicity which is developed by breadth of thought, openness to conviction and the confidence that truth is attainable. He who believes in "universal religion," as Mr. Martin does, heed not request a Christian, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Mohammedan, to cut himself loose from his religious traditions. He need not ask others to surrender their names or those rituals which have become to them expressions of some truth. To be sure every one must surrender all that which is in conflict with truth, that which hinders him from attaining clearness of thought and purity of morals ; but he may grow by reforming the old and inoculating new truths upon the traditions of his fathers. Mr. Martin's request to surrender what he calls "sectarian names, claims, and affiliations" would be the greatest hindrance that universal religion could have. It means, if applied to civic affairs, that in order to become true men we ought to renounce our special family-names and all the special and incidental features of individual personality. We ought to discontinue to be blond or brown, blue-eyed or black-eyed, tall, medium, or small, and we ought all to accept the name and the same features of universal man, and we all ought to be cut after the same pattern, containing only the universal features of manhood and nothing else. What would Mr. Martin say of a man who came to the fruit market, and inquired for fruit at the banana stand, and when bananas were offered to him he said : " No, I want fruit, I do not want bananas." When he came to the pears, he said : " I do not want pears, but fruit," and he gave the same answer to every one who offered him a certain kind of fruit, apples, peaches, plums, cherries, etc. The fruit venders would suggest that bananas, pears, apples, plums, and cherries were fruit, while he would insist that there was a great difference between universal fruit and special fruit, protesting that all the special elements in the various kinds of fruit were antagonistic to the " universal " fruit ; that they ought to be destroyed and that there should be fruit extract only. Of course, if a man likes fruit extract he may start a factory, prepare it and have it for sale ; but there is no necessity for denouncing apples and pears and peaches for the mere reason that they retain their individual features. Mr. Martin is an enthusiastic fighter for truth and pure religion. We have watched his movements and sympathise with his aspirations. But we believe that his work would be more efficient if he ceased to denounce Unitarians, Universalists, and other denominations, which are working on parallel lines, simply because they do not sink their names and individualities into the pure abstraction of universal religion. PRESIDENT J. B. ANOELL ON " PATRIOTISM AND INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD." James Burrill Angell, President of the University of Michigan, delivered a baccalaureate address, June 23, on "Patriotism and International Brotherhood," in which he said : "We profess, as individuals and as a nation, to be governed by the principles of Christian ethics. We are all agreed that patriotism is so commendable a virtue that we despise, if we do not hate, a citizen who is devoid of it. We are all agreed that our nation, if it is to be respected by others or by us, must maintain its rights with dignity and self-respect. . . . The contradiction which Tolstoi sees between patriotism and Christianity does not necessarily exist. They are not exclusive of each other. "Providentially we are so situated that it has been easy for