New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-02-21
LECTURES.
MIR. Henry James's Lecture on the Church Of
the Future.

to discussion of the character OF the New Church
which is now in process Of formation in the earth
The controversy, said Mr.. j., between Christ
and bis antagonists, was controversy between
the most enlarged humanity on the one side and
a conceited sectarianism on the other. Christ
fought the battle of universal man against those
who had made humanity a prey to their own az
grandizement 1t was not a battle between God
on one side, and man on the other-for Christ
always declared God to be the Interchangeable
friend of man--but battle between God as the
friend of universal man and e set of men who
arrogated his special friendship on the ground Of
a certain conventional morality which distin-
guished them from the rest of mankind
If the mission of the Christ claimed this hu-
manitary character, the sovereign touchstone Of
his Church will be its possession of the same
spirit The interests Of humanity will occupy the
first place with it and personal or private inter
ests a very subordinate place.
Applying this test to the existing sectarian
Church, we shall at once discover its complete
restitution of the spirit Of Christ. 1t is not in-
spired by zeal for humanity but only for the
person Of Jesus. Sectarianism does not observe
the complete contradiction it offers the Gospel, by
this personal idolatry of the Christ. But nothing
can be more inhuman than this pretenson. The
old sectaranism however is passing away. 1t is
without a living root, without the least basis in
the private or public necessities of humanity.
Protesting TO be identified with the vital and uni
versal interests Of man, it allows the whole cur
rent of bis aspirations and thoughts almost the
entire sweep of his legislation and action TO avert
themselves from it, aud is obliged to put up with
the tribute OF brief and extremely formal Sun
dav recognition 1t is indeed pitiable on going
into modern temples of worship to hear the plead
ing cry wherewit it calls upon mankind to save
it. Instead Of being refuge for man, as OF old,
and sure pledge of his salvation, it has now be-
come a sutton for its own life, and every Sunday
besieges Us with the proofs of it's danger and the
certainty of its destruction, unless its friends rally
with new zeal to its rescue.
The prime mark of the true Church, the Church
of the Future, will be it's accordance with the
spirit of Christ in regard to the great humanitary
end he had in view, rather than the promotion of
his mere personal consequence. 1t will know
Christ no more after the flesh and plant itself only
UPON his representative or humantary significance.
Thus will it vacate all vital worship, such wor-
ship as is prescribed by the will OF another merely,
and does not spring from the heart OF the worship
per- Ritual worship is always dramatic has
always an end beyond itself, never expresses the
real desire of the heart, bat simply the interested
Difference of one will to another. Nor will the
coming Church fail also TO vacate ritual righteous
ness or that sort of righteousness which flows
from ritual obedience. This righteousness, In its
highest FORM is consistent with heart OF lmpene'
trable hardness an intellect of the utmost tenuity
and life of complete selhshness. l have known
distinguished fathers and mothers in our Christian
Israel whose presence was like mildew on flowers,
and who sent you away with the feeling OF having
been defrauded of half your vital electricity. They
were fathers that begat nothing but their own
vapid arrogance and mothers that sucked nothing
more tender than their own strapping self conceit.
know not how the current Pharsaism may al.
feet my hearers, but | who possibly have been
more familiar with it, who have IN fact been
lodged and boarded, and | may say done for, upon
il, for long and dismal years. hate 1t as hate
the obscene Jaws Of He'll. / agree with the true
hearted old Swedenborg indeed, who described II
as the very stuff out of which the protoundest
bells are fabricated In the exact ratio Of ones
faith in Gods unsullied love must be his loathlng
of the way in which it is daily and devoutly bias
phemed by these mercenary pahders TO popular
bigotry and cant. Rather than that our children
should grow up TO the inheritance OF these insanl.
ties rather than that fair souls should be defaced
by these traditional falsities, it were thousand
times better that the very name OF God were
blotted from off the face of the EARTH and the sa
cred heart of humanity alone held in reverence
If, then, the coming Church shall ignore all
riehteousness which stands in interested or
servie devotion to the will Of another, 1t is clear
that she will recognise only positive righteous
ness the righteousness which consists IN every
form of beautiful action, and which flows simply
from being man. The question was asked by
him whom the expiring Church processes to honor
What shall man gain In exchange for his soul
as if the possession of bis soul were cheaPly pur-
chased by the loss of all things beside. Yet the
old Church treats the human soul as 1t 1t were
supernuity as if it were of no account in cOmpari
son with mere sensuous Joys When she speaks
of the soul abe means the body, and by the saliva
tiop of the soul nothing more than dellverance
from bodily torment. The soul in man is the IN
ward, animating and directing force of his body.
What gives dignity to man is that he possesses
soul; that is finds his principle OF action exclu-
sively within him. In the infancy of human Gull
ture this SOUL this principle of action in man, is
overlad by the senses, or by the necessity OF pro-
viding for bis bodily and social subsistence, The
machinery which becomes organized for this pur-
pose NAV easily endaDger his soul by itself becom-
ing his principle of action. It was 70 save the
soul from this danger that the Christ lived and
died His life was an unbroken protest In behalf
of the human soul, against Governments and
priesthoods and institutions OF all sorts, which
arrogated to themselves the right Of controlling
human action.
The old Church has been false to this temper Of
its master 1t has utterly failed to second his zeal
Tor the divine life In man. AS all the Apostles oil
Christ typify particular spirit in the Church, or
peculiar development of its life, so the typical
ity of Judas Iscariot is as normal and perfect as
any other Apostle. The Christian Church Is now
in it's Judas phase Of development The star OF
the fororn Iscariot eliminates at length in its
zenith and rules in the house of Heaven. For
the Church has sold its Lord for filthy lucres
sake, has accommodated his doctrine to the sup
port of every political institution which degrades
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of the soul as mere tradition BY this debase'
ment of the Church the soul is left without
champion, or rather is left to the exclusive cham.
pionship of the irreligious classes. As It was OF
old in the letter. so is it now in the spirit. AS
Jesus found no favor with the devout and honor.