The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1868-03-11
PRosELYTIsM.

There is a good and bad sense in which
this word is used, and the practice it defines
takes its moral character accordingly.
Although every heather gathered into the
fold of Christ is proselyte, the missionary
who was the instrument of his conversion is
not blamed but commended for his success,
because it is his duty by the commission given
him by the great Head of the Church to make
proselytes from the false to the true faith.
The ROmish Church. with its claim to in
falhbiity, however Extensively urged, yet acts
consistently in laboriug to make proselytes
from the Protestant denominations, because
according to her theory there is no salvation
out of her own pale. The principle therefore
involved in this instance is the same as in the
case of the missionary making converts among
pagans, although it is an erroneous application
Of the principle.
But when Protestant denominations attempt
to make proselytes from each other, they war
not only against consistency, but againstcharity,
against courtesy, against all propriety. No one
of these denominations arrogates to itself the
exclusive right to ordain and to administer the
sacramcnts. Were any one of the small bodies
into which the Protestant world is unhappily
divided to proclaim itself the only true Church
of Christ in the world, this would be to reduce
that Church to a. handful, and to confess that
the result Of 1900 years preaching of the Cos
pelhad been alamentable failure. This would
be to make that little fragment of Christen-
dom vaunt its own unapproaehable superiority
in learning, in intelligence, in honesty, and II
ability to interpret the Scriptures. Individ
uals among all the denominations may be found
who are ready to set up these preposterou'
claims, but no Protestant Church in its organic
ecclesiastical capacity has formally committed
itself to any such assumption.
While then any one Of the Protestant
Churches may honestly prefer its own poity
and forms Of worship, it will readily admit that
it has no monopoly ofthe Gospel, and it is ever
ready to recognize the spiritual unity which
peryades all sister Churches, notwithstanding
the minor differences which separate them,
and it is ever ready to rejoice that Christ
is preached, and that souls are saved, though
in other communiOns than its own. This is
the Protestant theory, and its work does not
lie in the direction Of PROSECUTING among its
own branches. Other grave considerations
give confirmation TO this view.
While the Romish Church so far exceeds in
number all the Protestant bodies together, and
while the number OF unregenerate men in the
world is so overwhelmingly greater than all the
members Of Roman and Protestant Churches
combined, good men among the latter feel that
they have work enough to do in trying to send
the Gospel to the millions who have never
heard 1t, and in striving to bring TO a saving
knowledge of the truth the multitudes who
were born under its influence, but who have
continued to live in neglect of its privileges.
To turn aside from this great work to that OF
sedueing members of one fold into another is
really contemplate. The layman or the min
ister who can eondescend to his kind Of prose
lytism has but low idea of the holy and hon
orable vocation wherewith he has been called
by the exalted Head Of the Church. In pur-
suing such a course he dwarfs the nobility Of
his own nature, and is grating upon his char
aeter the cunning and the guile of a stealthy
intriguer He is doing still greater wrong
TO the body of Christ of which he processes to
be member Such men may fancy that their
attempts are made so quietly as to elude de-
lection, but they are greatly mistaken. Their
cunning deceives none but themselves; to all
others their articles are transparent. On the
whole, such characters are rare, but OCCASION
ILL., a q Il,
now in tbs denomination, and now in that,
who in private houses, on the cars, on steam
boats, in all public places, lies in wait, ike a
clerical spider endeavoring to entice some IN,
wary dy into his denomiDational web. When
be catches one, it does not ordinarily turn out
to be much Of prize, for it is only the eredu-
lous, the wayering, and the weak who are like
" to be 50 entrapped. Mr.. Feeble-mind and
Mr. Ready halt, are usually the brightest
stars in the crown Of the Protestant Proselyter's
rejoicing, but while he fails in securing much
Of conquest, he succeeds in degrading himself,
and in doing injury to the common cause.
Principals 0bsta. Our readers have no
doubt paid some attention to the movement
now making at the North towards introducing
the name of Christ as thesupreme head of civil
society, in a preamble to the Constitution
of the United States. To many who have not
considered the origin Of this movement, who
do not know what it involves, and of what it is
the tOrerunner, it may appear a very proper
thing to introduce these new clauses into the
Federal Constitution But those who look
deeper, entertain very different views of the