Who are the men who have built up doctrine? Men speak as if doctrine
were an ecclesiastical toy--to be shaken by priest or prelate, as one
shakes a rattle, for noise, for play! A doctrine is not a toy; it is the
crystallized belief of earnest, thoughtful, and godly men--belief which
has passed into a church tradition, and is now received as an act
of faith.
Shall doctrine be taught a child? Yes! To have a specific doctrine
clearly in mind does not fetter the young soul, any more than to be
taught the apparent facts of geography and history, which may change
either in reality or in his own interpretation as his mind matures. A
doctrine is a practical and definite thing to work with; in later life
to believe, and to approve of, or disbelieve, and disapprove of. If a
man wishes to build a house, does it fetter him to know square measure,
cubic contents, geometry, mensuration, and mechanical laws? Yet when he
builds his house, he builds it in his own individual way; he stamps it
with his own personality and ideas. While building it, perchance, he
discovers some new relation or geometric law.
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