Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1857-09-02

the Mississippi; and them
ssThe number and variety of the forces ar
rayed against the church in our own land is
| amazing. The theatre, the tavern, and the
ballroom, their hereditary Notifications, we
are not at all surprised to find in their posses
sion; but it seems like turning our own for
ces against us, when the college and the pull
pit become the engines of Infdelity. 1t is
reserved for the nineteenth century to behold
men, calling themselves Christians, teaching
Pantheism, or casing themselves in armor of
Biblical criticism, and defying the armies of
the living God to prove that he is able OR will
ling to punish his foes. On the very verge of
the desert we behold, on our own soil, the
scum and dregs of all nations deliberately
choosing an American Mohammed as their
Prophet, coolly throwing aside the bonds of
civilization, and demanding the aid of the
Federal Constitution for the consolidation of
their denominations. More shameless and more
dangerous, because in the very heart of our
communities, the novel and the newspaper
wage war against marriage, the Sabbath, and
the Bible, and multitudes CT the young fall
victims to lying spirits, (whether of the dead
or iiving,) who teach that there is no resurrec-
tion, no Judgment, no hell; that religion is
fable, worship a farce, and the spirit of man
the highest intelligence in the universe. 1t
would be hard TO name family in which some
Inmate has not been more or less influenced
by this spirit of the age.
ssOn our eastern shores the tide of emigra-
tfvn lands q thousand Popieh militia every day,
trained up to cherish the most determined ha-
tired to the word of God and to the church of
Christ, and instructed by the Romish agents
ere they have landed from their ships to be-
ware of the Bible and the heretics. Into our
very families do these agents of a foreign
prince carry their opposition to the Gospel,
prohibiting their slaves from listening to the
reading of the Scriptures, or from uniting
with their employers in the worship of God.
The chosen victims of poverty and filth, vice
and crime, in the cellars and garrets of our
cities, they will have them remain so rather
than allow them to attend school, where their
minds may be enlightened or emigrate to the
fertile fields, where the rewards of industry
would elevate them above the condition of
slaves.
ssLet us remember, too, that all these adver-
saries of the church are regularly organized,
and enrolled, and paraded in rank and file.
There is no longer loose, floating, neutral
party. Every person belongs somewhere, as
| the saying is. He claims to belong to some
church or order, or club, of one kind or other.
The Romish missionary boards the emigrant
ship, takes his passage on the river steamboat,
or travels in the second-class cars with the
| arvly fhaDn
till he has handed them over to the care of
some brother Jesuit, and placed them within
| the pale of the holy church. Even those who
| have no belief in any God find some advan-
| tage in the society of their fellow-men and as
sociate to keep each other in countenance.
ssLet US not deceive ourselves with the de-
lusion, that material so heterogeneous can ne
yer unite in any common enterprise. They
can cooperate. The very explosion of dis
cordant substances may overturn the battle
ment which has resisted the sap and battery.
Let the experience of England warn us in
| time. Last year (1S55) beheld strange COM
bination there, powerful enough to intlmidate
! the Government, control the Parliament, and
almost revolutionize the religion of the land.
| High Church, and Broad Church, and no
church, Romish cardinal and Chartist lecturer,
| Wing, Tory, Radical and Repeater, the peer
of Parliament and the publican of Pamlico,
engaged in common league to dethrone the
| Sabbath and worship, and substitute Sunday
| and revelry. Were it wise, think you, to wait
| till sad experience teaches us how effectually
the Western Mormon and the Eastern Univer-
salist, the priest, the German Infidel and the
American Spirituaist, can unite with the vast
and yearly increasing mass af heathenism in
all our cities, to trample under foot that Cos
pei which they all cordially hate, and divi-
| ded church whose weakness they have learned
to despise With population increasing by
thousands, and a church increasing by hun
dreds, 1t becomes mere matter of arithmetic
to calculate in how few years, at our present
rate of progress, the churches of Christ shall
| have dwindled into relative insignificance and
the overwhelming mass of ungodiiness shall
undertake to decide their destiny at the ballot
box. American Christians! the forces of Yves
tern icentiousness, Eastern infidelity, and
Northern Popery, the heathenism of your par
ties, and the rowdyism of your streets, are
steadily and rapidly concentrating their move
ments upon you. Already they have made
Judgments in your churches and inroads in
your families. and but wait their opportunity
for the last onset.
sUnder such circumstances it does almost
seem unnecessary to enquire what course of
conduct the Church should pursue. Few and
| weak in the aggregate, ought they still further
to weaken their forces by distraction and di-