The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-03-24
tn { R EV lie W.
Christian Brotherhood.

-
Gould 4 Lincoln, Boston, from the pen of the
exeellent+pastor of Rowe street Baptist Church,
the Rev. Baron Stowe, d. ID. 1t costs but
fifty cents, and contains only 20s pages, but it
gives us the results of large experience. The
manuscript, DIR. Stow tells us, has remained in
his hands more than fifteen years. much
longer period than Horace recommends to au-
thors for revision and emendation. Such labor
and thought, so rare in these days, should Sc
cure for this work marked attention and had
it been written by Luther, and its spirit had
guided and controlled the energies of the Re-
formers, our whole world would have worn a
very different aspect and the millennium days
of the church would now. have been at hand.
DR.. Stow has given in his pages graphic
sketches of the wasting influence of sectarian-
ism, in creating divisions in prosperous congre-
cations, and breaking them up into feeble and
worthless churches, to support which, all the
money once raised for missions is absorbed,
leaving happy, well-ordered communities desc
late in all their affections, piety, and useful.
ness. DIR. Stow does not advocate the relin-
punishment Of any truth or practice enforced by
conscience. A union thus formed among
Christians could only end in utter failure, for
it would be nothing else than begging of the
questions at issue; and, when broken, it would
result in the aggravation of the very conflicts
sought to be averted. DIR. Stow would have
all Christians adopt before all formularies
whether catechisms, articles, or confessions
of faith, the Word of God; and for their motto
the famous words of Chillingworth, "The
Bible, the Bible, the only religion of Chris
tians.' He has no new platform, but believes,
if Christians were to make the Bible the stand
ard of all their thoughts and actions, party
spirit must certainly be effaced. He therefore
urges that every Christian for himself shall rise
above the spirit Of sect; and in order to this,
he urges Christians to cultivate higher degree
of personal holiness, and in a word, to make
Christ the example in all we do for our own
advancement and for the good of others.
This tract is the more remarkable, as coming
from one of the most successful and eminent
Of the ministers of the Baptist Church, which.
if not properly regarded as the straitest sect
among us, is certainly among the most exclu-
sive. The vexed question is not solved by
DIR. Stow, how Christ's prayer on behalf of his
disciples is to be answered. Our Saviour's
words are, that they all may be one; that they
may be one, even as we are one. That they
may be one in us, that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me-" Now, in the nature
Of the soul, and by the very constitution of the
mind, diversity Of opinion exists, and must ex-
list, but not more in matters of religion than in
anything else. No two persons see the same
object in all respects alike, for the good reason
that no two bodies can occupy the same stand
point, nor do any two persons receive the same
impressions from the same words. And if these
things are so, how utterly hopeless this creating
a platform on which all must stand, in order to
church fellowship. And yet, for the unity of
faith the face of all Europe has been wet with
the blood of martyred saints. And Christians
believe that Christ's prayer is to be answered,
and, to be honest and true hearted, they must
believe the way they are now working must
accomplish it. But how? The answer is, "Con.
tending earnestly for the faith once delivered
to the saints"
But Christ's prayer is, that they may be one
in us, that the world may believe that thou hast
sent me )" then the world will not be converted
until the disciples of Christ have the Oneness,
in likeness to the union subsisting between the
Father and the Son and no one, not even Dr.
Stow, proposes any probable method by which
this Christian brotherhood can be certainly
reached. And, in utter despair, Christians are
heard, everywhere, praying for miraculous
descent of the Holy Spirit, as represented in
the vision of Ezekiel, as the only hope left them,
of the universal reign of the Kingdom of our
God and Saviour %
In our judgment, the religious world have
misconceived the unity to be sought for, and for
the reasons given, it cannot be oneness of doc
trine or oneness Of practice in the administra-
ton of the ordinances of the Christian church.
and it must be something other than that which
any church demands as the sole and sufficient
test of dscipleship and communion. We have
long believed it will be reached so soon as all
sects recognise the claims brotherhood, and
make the test Of love and sympathy and CON-
munion, faith in Christ as the Son of God and
the Saviour of the world. Then the Lords table
will be the word Of contact, and as it now is,
the bar of separation. This would leave every
sect to make its own formula of faith, and its
own method of administering the ordinance
of baptism, and its own rules for church mem
bership. And if this common standpoint could
be reached, these painful scenes now presented
at home, and all the growing embarrassments
attending our foreign missions, would be avoid
ed, and the influence of such a sentiment and
practice among all Protestant communions, all
acting in right direction for right end
would change the face of the world, and realize
the golden age of poets and prophets.
To return to the book of DR.. Stow 1t is to
be hoped it will be extensively read, for it is
impossible for any one to go through its pages
without being made both wiser, better, and
happier. P.s.
Methodist Quarterly Review. January 1859 New
York; Carlton & Porter.
An established quarterly, conducted with
ability, the contributors from among some of
the ablest of the writer's of the Methodist de.
nomination. The present number is fair
specimen of the variety which is usually found
in its pages, partly theological and partly of
more general religious or literary character
This will be seen from the titles of the arti-
cles, which we give:
/. Infant Baptism and Church Membership
2. Brazil and the Brazilaps 3. Bryant's Po-
ems; 4. Thomas jefferson; s. Untas Fratrum,
the Moravians; 6. Stevens's History of Meth
81.