The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-05-03

Mr.. BrO0kS had MS eettlement Win the Ter
rible Butler, whom he accused of being proved
a gold robber, of using vituperative language,
sitter for Billingsgate and Newgate than for
Massachusetts," of looking after ''the beauty
and booty at New Orleans-es especially the
booty" of coming away with the key of Rich
mond in his pocket" and of being attacked
by a common bricklayer for insulting his wife
and soundly thrashed." After which the re-
solution was laid upon the table-yeas seventy,
nays twentysix; glory enough in the way Of
guano for one day. Such are our lawmakers
in Washington. Such, with the efauvia of
Fortieth Congress of the United States under
the discipline of Mr.. Speaker Colfax.
Brawling In the Churches-The Christian
Spirit.
Public attention is again forcibly called to
the fact that societies professedly Christian may
set the worst examples in regard to mild man
ners and gentleness of demeanor that can be
found in peaceable community. Vestrymen,
wardens and pastor of Protestant Episcopal
church in this city have recently fallen by the
ears in dispute that is supposed to have
begun on points of formality in worship.
Some are ritualists and some are not, and so
arises difference in regard to the mere Access
series of the service, which comes to brawl in
the streets. Forgetting the essentials of all
service, casting from them the contrite heart
and self-denying spirit, they dispute on this
immaterial point as if no command to Glove one
another" had ever been heard in the world.
Policemen are summoned to put one party out
of the church edifce and keep the other in,
and the locust club is held up as
terror to compel the silence of parson
who desires to preach the Gospel from the
church steps, From the street the case goes
to the courts, and there is the usual farrago of
argument on injunctions and motions to dis
solve and what not, and the acute wits of the
lawyers must settle the quarrel of the disciples
of the 'Peacemaker." There was not dis
similar dispute in church in neighboring
city lately. Wardens and pastor quarrelled
there also. On Sunday the pastor began to
read from the pulpit the statement of his side
of the case. One of the wardens called upon
the organist for music in the midst of the par
sons statement; and the organist played, with
all the more gusto as he perhaps, looked to that
warden for his pay. So it was duel-the
organ on one hand, the parson on the other;
and the latter was fairly piped into silence by
''the deep, majestic, solemn organs blow"
Such is the mood in which our religious
societies frequently appear; yet if there is one
| oc 90
be called the pre-eminent one it is that the
disciples of Christ should control especially
| those very instincts and tendencies of our
common human nature that lead to the bitter
ness and fury of quarrel and dispute. Tempta-
ton there is in abundance; human weakness,
too; and between these what occurs? All
| that strife and envy and il-will that governs
| in the world, and to find the remedy for which
was the special mission of Christ Christ
appeared and lived and died for nothing if not
to put better relationship than that between
men-if not to regulate the intercourse of man
with his fellows by spirit of charitable for
bearance for all weaknesses, all errors and
differences. How is it, then, that men who
are governed only by hate, who construe
every act in an i'll sense, who go to
violence with the readiness of pothouse
brawlers, who are ruled by spirit the very
| opposite to that of Christ-how is 1t that such
men dare call themselves Christians? Is it
not profanity, blaspheny, that men should
invoke the sacredness of such name to COM
mend them before the world, while they are
proving by every possible act that they have no
right to it.
The truth as seen in all these unseemly exh-
billions of religious societies is simply that the
spirit of Christianity is not to be found in the
churches. Splendid architecture you may have
there. Music you may have there also-some-
times good, sometimes Indifferent, sometimes
as horrible as saw-filing. Popular parsons are
there, too, with polished discourses on topics
of more or less interest. Fashionable society
You may have there, but Christianity, pure
and simple, not once in ten thousand
times. Suppose you told the deacons Of the
church to sell all they had and give 1t to the
poor. With what Olympian laughter the aisles
would reverberate. Try the parson-the sis
tiers, any part of the establishment by any
similar requirement of the Christian precepts,
and the test would infallibly tell you that they
were not the persons you thought. Either,
then, those divine precepts have no reality, no
force, no proper application in our life or all
this -splendor and pride are inconsistent with
Christianity. Surely, when men have spent
millions on an edifce to be proud of 1t is hard
for them to be humble in it. Christianity is
the name with which all these worshippers of
their own pride and wealth and taste cover
their acts; but the spirit of Christianity is to