What the Religious Press will do?
Reading edition
This question is the most perplexing of all, at least to those who have attentively marked the recent developments in the religious world.
What is there that more clearly defies at once the moral sense, the common sense and the teachings of the Bible, than the system of slavery as it now exists in this country, and yet a majority of not only editors, but of the ministers of Christ, in some of our most intelligent and large denominations, openly refuse freedom of discourse on this subject; nay, more, some of the religious papers are openly justifying the slave trade, which politicians, even those without any [pg 361] pretensions to religious principle, have placed as piracy, the highest civil crime.
And the last year has witnessed the deliberate crushing of free debate on this subject, in one of our largest and most effective benevolent associations. And some of those whose whole lives have exhibited them among the most amiable, conscientious and exemplary men, are to be found upholding such a course.
Who then can predict what will be the course of the religious press, when every editor must maintain the distinctive tenets of a sect, or at once lose his professional character and his income?
It is very easy to predict what will be the course of those who will make no sacrifice for truth. A large portion will neither read, or think or discuss, or, so far as they have power to prevent, allow others to do so. Some will take this course in the satisfied belief that they, and the church which they have infallibly decided to be infallible, can never err. Others will avoid all discussion for fear of being convinced of mistakes, obliging them, if acknowledged, to sacrifices of pride, character and income.
Others will make some show of discussion, so far as to use the disgraceful arts sometimes resorted to, in order to satisfy and blind ignorant and unreflecting readers. Unfair and garbled quotations, misstatement of facts, depreciating implications of character and motives, invidious allusions to family or party connections, the use of unpopular terms, which humbler minds have been trained to regard as designating the most dangerous and destructive heresies, these, and many other discreditable methods, will [pg 362] probably be employed to stave off discussion, or to nullify its power.
But there is a class of minds who have access to the religious press, and can more or less control its action, who are far above such humiliating littleness and dishonesty. In regard to these, such are the influence of education and long-trained habits of thought, that an entire change of a whole system must be a gradual process. And when sermons, lectures, books and pulpit ministries have all been in accordance with one system, they can not be modified to meet another without many practical difficulties. Nor can men, whose professional associations with ecclesiastical bodies and with parishes impede them, settle many practical questions involved in any change of views, without demanding time for reflection, examination and consultation.
In this position of affairs in the religious world, a measure of retention, and even of protracted silence, in many cases, may be wise and justifiable. And charges of compromise, or of cowardice, or of intellectual deficiency, in such cases, would be false, ungenerous and unjust. All this should be taken into account in judging of the future action of those who control the religious periodicals and literature.