The most decided index of the coming agency of the people, in throwing off
the Augustinian system, is the present position of the secular press.
It has been shown how much the religious press is restrained in liberty of
opinion and expression, so that it is probable that there is not a
professedly religious paper in the nation that could controvert the
_distinctive_ doctrines of the sect that patronizes it without losing its
character and income.
But the secular press is far less encumbered with such difficulties. The
progress of this great power toward the discussion of such subjects has
been very striking. At first there began to be seen simple reports of the
religious anniversaries in some secular papers. This proving popular, next
there came notices of missionary and benevolent operations. Then notices
of the sermons of distinguished clergymen were given, and then whole
columns of daily papers were occupied with sermons from ministers, without
regard to denomination. Finally, the great “revival” became a topic of the
secular press. Reports of religious meetings, the number who were counted
as converts, and all the details connected with this great popular
movement were chronicled in the secular almost as fully as in the
religious press.
The comments of editors, also, on this subject, were usually respectful,
candid, and in many cases very able and discriminating. The result has
been, that inasmuch as the religious press circulates chiefly among “the
church” and the secular press among “the world,” the gospel has been
preached to sinners far more by secular than by religious editors. And it
may be assumed as a fact, that the secular editors of this nation have far
more power and influence in guiding the religious opinions and moral
conduct of “the world” than either the clergy or the religious press, and
probably more than both combined.
In this state of the case, all the interests of the religious press are
opposed to free investigation and discussion, and all the interests of the
secular press are as powerfully interested to promote it.
In appealing, therefore, from the theological world to “the people,” it is
the editors of the secular press—the true “_Tribunes_ of the people”—who
will render the verdict, and this verdict is awaited with very little
doubt or apprehension in regard to its nature.
The questions submitted for decision are not so comprehensive as those of
the volume referred to in which theologians chiefly were invoked, and
which they have as yet declined to answer. The questions submitted to _the
people_ are briefly these: Does common sense, or does the Bible teach that
every human being possesses such a depraved nature as never to perform any
truly virtuous act until this nature is re‐created by God? and are the
churches organized on the assumption that its members are diverse from the
world, in that they, as regenerated persons, perform virtuous acts as no
unregenerated person ever does, sanctioned by common sense or by the
Bible?