The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-12-05
THE CHURCH A OVER IN GREAT
CITIES,

Rev. u. IL. NadaI, ID. ID.
Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman
wakelh but in vain "-Psalm cxxvh l.
The writer in this Psalm, states the great
truth that nothing is well done without the
blessing of God; that the builders skill needs
the grace of the Divine touch. and the wasch-
man the care of Him that never slumbereth nor
sleepeth.
OF course IL Is not meant to assert that the
visible presence Deity, or in it's stead an angel
form, comes down and plies mallet, trowel, and
plummet on the walls of the rising edldce or
that God interposes miraculously to protect the
endangered city or country. The meaning,
doubtless is that wicked counsels tend to ruin
and overthrow; that The wicked are shared in
their own net, and that God works in the world
in and by good men; that all the interests of the
city are wen watched and guarded when it is
controlled by the good and wise. The cause of
good men Is the cause of God; their in
ausnCe in the world Sa Is meant nCt IN to 3,oo 6e
and by them, and intends, through their
instrumentality, to bring the world into state
of moral and spiritual soundness and safety
Whoever htnders them in any virtuous, unset
fish labor for mankind's benefit is Gods foe, and
a hinderer OF His cause. And the idea seems to
be implied that city furnishes more striking
illustration OF the principle than mere village
or the open country. In the city, by the COM
preston of so much human life into the COM
pact layers of Streets Of rows, of Stories this
life necessarily becomes very intense, and
moral and intellectual growths, both good and
bad are larger and quicker. In the cities, there
fore, sin and righteousness find the fairest field
in which to try their hostile powers.
The city tests religion, as indeed IL does every
thing; that is, while religion belongs every
where and must struggle against evil every
where, it must nerve itself for its greatest efforts
in the large cities. Religion has the Church for
its organism, and the living Church consists of
the truths and forms of religion melted into the
soul, and taken up, so to speak, into its circua-
tion. Religion only becomes a concrete reality
by VITAL moral, and intellectual union with
men. This is the Church, and this Church Is O
divine force on earth, and especially in the CITY,
This, then, is our theme, "The Church Divine
Force in the City,"
The good in the world must be organized, and
1t always has been. Human nature in its un-
fallen state, was started as Church, and after
Ine 1al there was new covenant and new
Church. The good that is in the world, unor-
ganized, would be like the scattered brands
from fire. easily quenched like the drifting
fragments OF shiD, tossed on the ocean, able
to float, but not able, like ship, to carry trea-
sure and passengers to distant climes Yes
good men must be organized, and the organiza-
tion must be around the central principle of
virtue consisting of those who are pledged to
goodness, and who are united for the purpose
of fspreading and promoting it.
1t is therefore plain that there must be an Or
called the State. From the nature of the case,
the political society must, in some form or
other include the whole people, high and low,
bad ana good. Its rules therefore, must be
general Its punishments are for cr,nle not for
sim Its rewards are tor orderly conduct, not
for Observation-Disclosures 1t cannot Danish or
imprison for the neglect of a sacrament, or non.
belief in the Trinity. Even where Church and
State have been united and the Church has
become creature of civil law, even there the
one society is not ABSORBED in the other; there is
only partnership between them. A partner
ship, by the way, not like that between Chang
and Eng, the noted Samese twins, who are
true brothers and equals, united by lgature
as much alive as either of the bodies it Joins,
but rather like a horse and an OK pulling
together at the same cart The State uses
the Church to assist in drawing its load; it
patches the rotten haraess of its laws with the
stronger Leather OF the conscience; it props the
throne with the cross, and adorns it with prestly
vestments; it uses the Church as a sort of
spiritual police, and the Church receives pay in
dignites, stipends, and globes, and in having its
own rules turned into laws by the force of the
civil sceptre.
True, there is a sense in which Church and
State ought to be united. The Wer of the
Church-its spiritual power-ougnt to be so
great as to spread like a latent fre-llke puri-
tying breath.-into the very heart and soul of
every department OF Government, and thus
gently, but nightly, draw all men in po wer
to purity and to God. Such spiritual union of
Church and State we hope for as one of the
glorles of 'the good time coming" AS to form
and law, however, Church and State must re-
main distinct and apart. Each must be free
and independent Of the other
We have already seen that political society is
organized for general purposes; the Church
must Ee distinct organization, because it Is
organized for one purpose alone, around one
sole idea namely, virtue, that is, holiness, jus.
tlce, benevolence, truth: THIS, as tar as the
present world goes constitutes the entire call of
the Church: She is to gather into one fold the
good, the virtuous of all lands, and converting
them into AN army of evangeists, she is to
march on the sin of the world with the fire and
faggot OF love and truth. Besides virtue, other
results come from the Churchs Drogress-for
example, industry, thrift, higher civilization,
discoveries inventions, and purer and higher
forms of art-but these are only incidental: her
core is virtue. The Divine society must not
forget the heart in studying the members. She
must not be thrown off from the centre by the
grandeur of her own motion. She has just one
mission, and that is TO renew the moral nature
OF the world.
But then it belongs to the very idea of the
Church that she ground her mission in behalf
of virtue in religion. The Church, in the very
kernel Of its meaning, is not merely society for
the promotion of external morality; it is, as we
have already said, divine society. 1t roots
morals in religion, which is the bond uniting
the soul with God. Morals must be founded on
religion or on nothing; moral duties must be
primarily owing to God, or we must be entirely
without responsibility. Morality Is written to
be sure, on the nature of man, and asserts its
own eternal reality. But If it begin and end In
human nature, and reach not back into the
eternal and absolute, it is only a falsehood and
the Creator has misled us. We know it may be
said that virtue is Its own reward, and must be
loved for its own sake, because 1t is fair to look
upon, and sweet to the consciousness of its pos
SCISSOR. And so IL is, but only on the suppostion
that it is a reality, expressing the perectlons of
the Divine Nature, copied by the Divine Finger
out of the bosom OF the Infinite into our own.
Whenever religion Is ignored morality be-
comes q mere convenience, to be used or
dropped as profit or passion may chance to die
tate. The loitiest intellectual culture cannot
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