The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1868-05-27

due simply to the fact that she uses this
corporate principle so much more perfectly
than we dol She is the most gigantic cor
poration, in some respects, that the world
ever saw, and owes much of her wonderful
successes to the use she makes of this prin-
ciple, as Macauley has shown with great
clearness in his review of Ranke's History
of the Popes, as well as, other writer's who
have gone into the wonderful tendency of
the Church of Rome to develop this prin-
ciple in distinct working organizations
There are more than 250 separate orders
of corporate nature in this church, some
of them like the Jesuits, Sisters of Chari-
ty, &c., of the most gigantic size and pow
er, and new ones are constantly forming as
new schemes of activity are devised. One
of the most stupendous of these, the great
Propaganda Society, derives its imperial
incomes from contributions of one cent
week from it's members, collected by cir
cles of ten all over the Catholic world, In
which the dime of one circle becomes the
dollar of q higher, and that the larger sum,
until It's income is reckoned -bY'0ill llione>;
Fhussiti BIZ applying this simple Pfihci-
sple Of corporations she is doing work so
vast in the world, and expects in fifty years
to have the controlling power in the United
States, with what results let history and
existing facts declare.
Professionalism, and especially Presbyte-
rianism, has failed to use this principle as
it might have been used, because of the
undue development of the antagonizing
principle of individualism, resulting in so
many divisions, that at this hour there are
met in our country five General Assemblies
and two General Synods of Presbyterian
Churches, and yet there are as many more
whose general or supreme judicatory is not
in session. Can we wonder that the old
story of Boutwell, Brig is so often repeated
in our history? Can we wonder that this
guerilla system often accomplishes so lit
tie? But what is the cure for all this
Not surely premature attempt to clamp
together heterogeneous materials in a
seeming unity, like making human body
by sewing together some amputated limbs,
for that is working in the wrong direction
and in the wrong way. True unity is a
thing of growth and not of glue, living
development from within, and not me-
chanical operation from without. Each
severed part must receive higher vitali-
ty, and with this stronger assimilating
power and then, what God hath Joined to-
gether shall no man keep asunder. Bone
shall come to his bone, sinews and flesh
and skin shall cover them apace, and
when the four winds breathe the kindling
life, they shall stand up an exceeding great
army. Oh for the life-giving breath !!
"Come from the four winds, o breath !!
and breathe upon these slain that they may
live" Amen and Amen!
Your patience has been SO severely taxed
by this effort to develop the successive and
-widoning applications Of this great prinei-
sion, merely to touch at the widest of them
all, and yet it cannot wholly be omitted,
not only because it completes the applica-
tions, but because it is so eminently prac-
tical. 1t is its application to the whole
body of Christ, that elect bride, the spot
less spouse of the Lamb, ''the whole fami-
ly in heaven and earth," of which each
believer is an adopted child.
Every careful reader of the New Testa-
ment must have noticed how rarely motives
are drawn from the fact of our individual
salvation at death, compared with those
from the future glories of the Church,
when the Lord shall return to claim his
Bride. Hence the second coming of Jesus,
and not the happiness Immediately after
death, is the motive most frequently held up
to the Christian in the later books of the
New Testament. The whole force of all this
class of appeals rests on this great princi-
pie of the corporate life of the Church,
and the sharing of each believer in history
and destiny larger and grander than his
own salvation. Hence his hope is pointed
forward, not to the old Eden, but to the
new Jerusalem, not to the garden with its
individual perfection, but to the city, with
it's corporate perfection, complete in all its
glorious equipments, when it shall descend
from heaven in the splendid Apocalypse
of the future, "that in the dispensation of
the fulness of times he might gather to-
gether in one, all things in Christ, both
which are in heaven and which are on
earth, even in him."
1t is thus to motives drawn from this
great principle in its widest application
that the later apostles continually appeal,
and hence to the power of this principle,
thus applied, that the primitive Church
owed much of its magnificent energy
And truly it is mighty motive for such
purpose, for it lifts the struggling spirit
away from all its mere individual life of
sorrow and trial, and causes it to forget the
narrow and painful presena in that glorious
future which hangs rich and radiant in the
unseen and eternal. 1t links us with the
mighty dead, and peoples the hard and
lonely present with blessed memories of
the past and more blessed hopes eff the fu-
ture. This has always been the case in
the dark days of the Church's history,
when her sons did battle and suffered sore
tribulations for Christ's Crown and Cove
nant, and may we'll be so in these days of
sorrow, when there are "signs in the sun
and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon
the earth distress of nations with perplex-
ity, the sea and the waves roaring, mems
hearts failing them for fear and for look
ing after those things which are coming on
the EARTH" "When these things begin to
come to pass, then look up and lift your
heads, for your redemption draweth nigh"
Twenty years ago to-day, General As
sembly met in this city that was opened
by JAMES II. THoRNwELL. How much
has been crowded into that sorrowful score
of yearsl How many home then bright
and vocal, is now dark and silent How
many landscape then an Eden in lowell
ness is now blackened desolation How
oza llan4 as,l tl1r cririt Lar