which the whole creation moves."

"WHAT DO YOU GIVE IN PLACE OF WHAT YOU TAKE AWAY?"

MY theme is the answer to the question, What do you give in place of
what you take away? For my text I have chosen two significant passages
of Scripture. One is from the seventh chapter of Hebrews, the
nineteenth verse; and it sets forth, as I look at it, the drift and
outcome of the process of which we are a part, the bringing in of a
better hope. Then from the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the thirty-
ninth and fortieth verses, expressing the relation in which we stand to
those who have looked for God and his work in the past: And these all,
having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise;
God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us
should not be made perfect.

What do you give in place of that which you take away? This is a
question which is proposed to Unitarians over and over and over again.
It is looked upon as an unanswerable criticism. We are supposed to be
people who tear down, but do not build; people who take away the dear
hopes and traditional faiths of the past, and leave the world desolate,
without God, without hope.

Not only is this urged against us, from the other side, but there are a
great many Unitarians, possibly, who have not thought themselves out
with enough clearness to know the relation between the present
conditions of human thought and the past; and sometimes even they may
look back with a regretful longing towards something which they have
outgrown, and left behind.

I propose this morning to answer this question, just as simply, as
frankly, as I can; to treat it with all reverence, with all
seriousness, and try to make clear what it is that the world has lost
as the result of the advances of modern knowledge, and what, if
anything, it has gained.

But while I stand here, on the threshold of my theme, and before I
enter upon its somewhat fuller discussion, I wish to urge upon you two
or three considerations.

It is assumed, by the people who ask this question, that, if we do take
away anything, we are under obligation straightway to put something in
its place. I wish you to consider carefully as to whether this position
is sound. Suppose, for example, that I should discover that some belief
that has been held in the past is not well founded, not true. Must I
say nothing about it because, possibly, I may not have discovered just
what is true?

To illustr