The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1871-02-11
e Little Church around the Cor
7lP1s.
BY j. +. W. WARE.

winch GRANGE ana trlnlng tnluSS-thIuSs Suali
or done in a corner-get life and publicity; enter
into the thought, plough up the opinion of socie-
ty get handed TO the ages and become immortal.
Over and over again is it true that the world is
indebted to the lowliest cradles. incidents you
would suppose would attract the world pass un-
noticed events that seem as they would wreck
empires, ruffle the current of affairs only as an
infants breath would ruffle the Atlantic crises
that seem big with impending fate, black as the
cloud with the Sarsar wind of death, burst harm
essly and are forgot, while some trifie, in some
out of the way place, by some out of the way
man sets on fire the very course Of nature, and
stirs the universe. The broadest harvests have
sprung of tinest seed-seed, sometimes, long
tramped under foot of men, Seed sometimes,
worse than mummy wrapped-which once es-
Gaping and become pregnant with the great lie
in them, have at last burst their cerements, scat
terng anew for the broad harvest of full grown
truth. Accidental expressions get caught up;
are repeated or sung become universal are the
pivots upon which reforms turn rouse men who
have slumbered deadly over the old truth they
newly phrase and carry with steady onward
sweep the long halting word while other words
rs true other truths as big somehow get lost, die
and are forgot Who knows the Divine condi-
tons to the life of any human thing? Words we
deem might, timely well-put-words backed
by weight OF worth and elOquence, make no sign,
fall still-born, perish The thing man painfully
eianoraes for fit occasion or audience;lEasps but
that once. Some little thing,s some unnoticed
thng-getting some divine inspiring-becomes
prophet and pioneer anG immortal. You could
not root il or its influence out Of The work and
history of the ages. Little did that man, who
shut not The door of his church merely, but the
door of his charity, against the dead body OF
fellow being, supplicating the last rites OF the
Church ana of humaaity-itlle did that man
dream how his deed would get the quick ears of
the world, and be made the singing text Of many
a searching sermon, from lips unanonted per-
haps, but righteous in the indignation that they
uttered little did he-not caring as he said 'to
get mixed up with such thing"-imagine how
iearfully be would become mixed up in
broad and general Reproduction of deed, the
memory of which will faint his name forever.
Some men, we told, are born 10 greatness;
some achieve greatness, but Of all the men who
have had greatness thrust upon them, few will
so little excite a human envy as he whose narrow
blunder has given FLIP to torpid public senti-
ment and reused it TO one otis indignant spasms.
| fit be ever right to do wrong that good may come,
one might almost plead for pretty grave sin now
and then, some pretty low STOPPING OF our human
nature, some great dissertation of the Christian
name, so as TO rouse the conservators OF the pub
lie morality, and make, separate and too much
separated men, feel that there is underlying and
reliable, clear and broad perception Of and al
| lePlanCe 10 CONVICTIONS tnat lie DelOW creeuS duu
customs, and will, at the pressure Of the moment,
speak and be heard Whatever secs or churches
may succeed in doing, uttering or REFRESHING
thank God one thing is every day more and
more evident--that the great heart of this nine
tenth century beats too true to be long confused
when great principles are at stake. Once it was
the church that mighty Once the priest
could stand and forbid rite and sepultare Once
there was no redress, and men quailed in terror
Al IL I,l -
That tyranny is over, and the untrammeled
emancipated spirit OF Gods child will hear Gods
voice. and know Gods voice whenever it speaks
whatever it SAYS let churches and dogmas say
what they will 1t is Gods voice, the power of
Gods truth, just now lifting 'We little church
around the cOrner' into a passing notoriety, but
pressing ,lose home upon the convictions of this
generation a lesson of charity broader far than
the one lesson its action Plenty of priest
y arrogance yet, in all the sects plenty OF petty
persecution and prescription in the august name
and cause of Christ, but his will be a singular
audacity of hardihood which shall soon again
venture upon the exhibition of spirit, differing
only in its manifestation, from, the worst things
OF the palmiest days of persecution.
1t is quite pardonable to public sentiment
which gets torpid and awry, that when it fairly
rouses it should become little extravagant and
wild in its morality. Al such times generous SEN
timents get warmed, yes revealed in some men
| bigotry gets rebuked, and it comes clearly out
how little the general heart is allied 10 the inane
and insane bigotry OF the sect theology In the
out-startng impulse of the better thing we must
overlook and forget some OF the things that may
seem homogeneous; some OF the demonstrations
that may seem extravagant. In them all the
church, as an institution and power, may see
rebuke and take warning. 1t may he that the
individual clergyman shall get an amount of
personal abuse, which should at least be shared
with that system of religious faith or order,
which makes such an attitude as his possible; it
may be that the other clergyman shall receive
too much approval for the discharge of the sim
plest act of professional duty it probably will
be that the testimonials to dead man will be
much more profitable to those he LEFT than if they
had been paid solely to his merit--these inevita-
BILE these not wholly bad, provided we catch and
hold the eternal underneath principle. Here is
an act by which moi only individual feelings have
been wounded, the public made indignant, but
a gross outrage put upon humanity, grave in
salt offered to our reverend faith. petty 0igot
has proved false To the instincts OF nature, as the
requirements Of fifth. The affront is many
sided. 1t involves many matters Of gravest mo-
ment. Its srilit is suhsersive Of everything
Christian Ii ought TO be a lesson none Of US
shall forget nor will its mission be rightly con-
Guided till the repetition of such thing shall oe
impossible, ami the spirit that dictated it shall be
dead at is an ill-wiud," we taught in our
nurseries, THAT blows nobody any good" This
il-wnd has blown deal OF good many ways.
Can we do nothing toward encouraging it into
whiriwud that shall clean church aud heart of
the black lingering shadows of such insolence
a work 10 which confess the cleansing Of the
Augean stables by Hercules, would seem TO be
q pasime.
| shall reserve to myself another opportunity
for speaking OF the theatre as an institution and
a profession as think it ought TO be spoken Of
by clergyman 1t is not it with which the
present matter is concerned. The poor spite Of
refusing burial is one which the Christian church
borrowed, as it has other things, Of paganism,
and grated from it 10 vitiate worthier stock.
1t is one of the things that has marked and at
tended it in all its tortuous way. To leave one
unburied has been the threat by which ii has
scared men back from heresy the most narrow
y vindicve act that religious spite has been able
10 devise, spite STOPPING sometimes step lower
and unburyiug blessed bones TO become in the
Providence of God, like martyr blood, the seed
Of the church. l. is felt to be, it is looked at as
the last indignity. 1t was the last act of excom-
muuicatiou. 1t is the thing men dread who fall
upon battle fields or perish at sea. A Christian
burial is the craving OF those even who have
lived lives beneath the brute. 1t an honorable
sentiment and it is right which every man
may demand, which no man may deny. No
most sin-tainted. No minister can stand guilt
less before Ms God who shall refuse its entrance
there. The body that may be buried from
house. may be buried from a church. If Gods
earth, holier than all churches, can open its rest
to the weary mans church may, to whatever
name or faith it may be consecrate. He who has
, given the living body the sustenance and shelter
of this world, who permits it the asylum of
tomb whether man will or no, turns upon it the
key Of no edi6ce man may have erected and con-
secrated to Him. Nor are tdey true priests at his
altar who do.
1t was not however, man that was refused
burial but an honorable profession gratutously
slandered by one taking advantage of his posi-
ton and the occasion TO judge his brother. He
has found what Christ bade all such beware of,
Judgment 1t was stab at calling which has
had its saints as well the church has been
l adorned by men and women of talent reputation
and virtue, and for what is bad in it has more
to thank the community than TO blame itself. 1t
was single act in lOng-alowed and whole
? sale libel upon a class of fellow men under the
sanction of church authority. The church was
not refused because he had been q bad man
but because be had been an actor. The
wickedest man in New York could have been
buried there without demur had he been church
member as many wicked men are, or the foulest
of women had she had pew as many foul wo-
men do. find this said of him repulsed from
the church hospitality. "Honored and honorable
Geo. Holland, whose theatrical ministry has for
fifty years softened hard hearts, bred generosity
in cold ones, kinded emotions in dead ones, up
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