New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-06-22
TIE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION

The international Christian Moral Science
Association, to inaugurate which DR.. Gather of
London has been visiting our principal cities
during the Winter and Spring, held its first
Constituent Congress in Philadelphia last week.
and assumed permanent name and shape. The
Association processes, in brief, to be for the
purpose of defining and manifesting the unity
of the Catholic Christian Church, which it very
properly holds to be the sum of all evangelical
denominations; its work will also be the elevat-
ing and Strengthening of its members, and
developing the resources and agencies OF the
Church of Christ. An Annual Congress is to
be held in each country, and an international
Congress once in five years, for the
discussion of such questions as are common
only to all Christian churches, out OF which
discussions they propose to eliminate catho-
lie science of morals. To become member
of the Association, membership in some evan
gelical church is required, and also, as Is
awkwardly expressed, Jealousy for the honor
"of Christ and the purity and efficiency of
His church, and an expression of this by the
"annual payment of S25 for clerical and $50
" for lay members This money is to be APP
prOpriated to working the Association, hold
" ing the Annual Congress, and publishing and
distributing its literature"
Now, here, to the eyes of a secular outsider,
appears an admirable scheme thoroughly pure
and benefceDt, and thoroughly impractical.
How many castles in the air built by devout
people out of great ideas fall to pieces for the
lack of little of the adhesive mortar of COM
mon sense! DR.. Gather and other good men,
having no liberation for intolerance, propose
to unite all Christ's people in that bond of
spiritual love with which it was His errand to
Undue them. But in order that the acOlyte
ut st. Adams, and the itinerant Methodist in
| London, and the disciple of John Knox, should
| be made with a thrOb of brotherly love in
their hearts, to feel that they have alike but
one hope in death or life, and that that hope
is Christ, is it necessary to maintain sys-
TEN of National Congresses ITO keep up an in
trcate machinery of presidents, vice presidents,
| secretaries, and executive councils, at what
| cost let the management of each individual
church testify 2 The idea of each church in
every nation sending up its delegates to claim
universal brotherhood under Christ is touch
ing and beautiful, we acknowledge. But dc
these discussions, in sober fact, contribute to
unity 7 High Churchmen, and Presbyterians
and Baptists are precisely like other knsfolk
they are apt to love each other better when
/ they live apart There are few Christians, We
think, who would not gladly have welcomed
some practical method of bringing them neal
enough to all their brethren to feel that the
same fire warmed their hearts. But how
many can afford to pay $3.50 for grand
council once in five years where their great
men may find out, as they assuredly will do
how much they disagree
The ordinary spectator might suggest thai
there were other bonds of union than expen'
sive organizations which are to begin and enc
III talk DIR. Gather might take hint from
an old story which we all learned in our prim
crs. A certain man finding that his Sons, ssh,
were grown and gone from linn, had become
| enemies, brought tLcm home and talAed !,