New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-12-22


sign of progress in religious sccts, and most
healthy and hopeful sign. II they are to be
the lever which is to raise the world out OF
beathend0m or vice, the needed fulcrum Which
they have been so long in finding assuredly Is
unity. In the remembrance Of oil OF us there
have been strenuous efforts to amalgamate the
Evangelical churches, all of which proved
abortive simply because they were grounded on
an attempt to ignore or reconcile dOctrlnal DIFF
fercnccs. The founders of this Society start
with the firm ground of common sense under
their feet; leaving each sect free TO enjoy its
own principles or bubbles oil dogma, claiming
unity only in the higher motive power OF q
common love to God aud to their brother man.
Whatever individual opinion may be OF the
tcncts of the Church of Rome, no man can
deny that its organization has been marvel.
Gus example of skill in producing cohesion in
widely differing members. 1t was web IA
which every thread found its fixed place.
Jesuit and Jansenist wera perhaps rs lItt'c
allied in doctrine as Churchman and CalylnlSr
yet they owned but ono head, and worked 10
one end for centuries with per5istcncy and
force paralleled by no other political or reDs'
iOus organization.
The present Association will be likely y
succeed just as it recognizes this liberty IN
unity. 1t is high time that we understood that,
so long as men are born with differing brains
and temperaments, there will DO schools IN
politics and philosophy, and sCcts in religion.
There is the thin bloodcd, thin-lipped, Greek
nosed man Of taste, with clean habits and brain
full Of doubts, jostling every day bull-neckcd
n..t, I'll o1-1ho InTXnV-
drop, on the street. From just as arbitrary
causes, the scDsuOus poet comes closest to lis
God in nature, in color symbols, and incense;
his ncighbor disceIns his heaven through hard
and stringent duty. Still further on, another
deals damnatiOn devOutly round the land, and
refrcshcs his own soul by n surly hymn. a
mans theOlogic dOSmas arc as inexOrably
idiOsyncratiC as the nose on his face, anil have
not much more to do with his real relations
TO God. 1t will be a new birth for the visible
Christian Church when she learns to treat
these surface variations in her members with
tho Indifference which they deserve and, In
stead of squabblins with suspciously carnal
yirucnce over sprinliling or immersion, free
will or predestinatlOn, addresses herself with
simple integrity to the worship Of God and the
help Of humanity.
One Of the members Of the Society
remarked tho other day that there had
''bcen in the Church, first the thcOlo-
" gieal period secondly, the spiritual period;
"thirdly, the secular period, when all things
care to be claimed by Christianity, and
" used in O Christian way" If by this he meant
the abandonment by sccts of oil merely local
and bgoted teaching, and their immediate de-
votion to the work given to them by their
great Founder the help of their brother man,
We rejoice rs much for their own sake as for
that of the world. 1t is a lamentable fact,
well known, though seldom urged, that in
many of the great practical reforms of the
age, as, for instance, the abolition of Slavery,
the religious sccts, as sects, Jagged far behind
the advanced thought of the country. There
is large body Of Christians whose work for
Humanity is as earnest as their faith in their
Leader, but who are repealed from the denOm-
nations by their persistent idle carping about
dogmas Of which Christ never spoke. IfChris-
tian sccts still desire to represent the high
est Christianity, they must give up their alb
sOrptiOn in their own tenets, and open their
eyes to the infinite charity taught by their
Founder. That they perceive the necessity of
this the present movement leads us to hope.
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