The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-23
THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION.

IHE INTERNATIONAL ASSOUlAIlON.
From the N. p. Tribune.
The International Christian Moral Science
Association, to inaugurate which DIR. Gather
of London has been visiting our principal
cities during the winter and spring, held its
first Constituent Congress in Philadelphia last
week, and dassumed 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 ng 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 discus
sion of such questions as are common only to
all Christian churches, out of which discus
sions they propose to eliminate catholic
science of morals. To become q 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 an
nual payment of $25 for clerical and $50 for
lay members. This money is to be appro-
priated to working the association, holding
the annual congress, and publishing and dis
tributing its literature"
appears an admirable scheme, thoroughly
pure and benefcent, and thoroughly unprac-
tical. How many castles in the air built by
deyout people out of great ideas fall to pieces
| for the lack of q little of the adhesive mortar
| of common sense! DIR. Gather and other good
| men having no federation for intolerance, pro-
| pose to unite all Christ's people in that bond
| of spiritual love with which it was His errand
| to imbue them. But, in order that the acolyte
at st. Adams, and the itinerant Methodist in
London, and the disciple of John Knox, should
| be made. with 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 a system
of National Congresses?-to keep pan intri-
cate machinery of presidents, vice-presidents,
secretaries, and executive councils, at what
cost let the management of each individual
church testify? 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 do
| these discussions, in sober fact, contribute to
unity? High Churchmen, and Presbyterians,
and Baptists are precisely like other kinsfolk
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 near
enough to all their brethren to feel that the
same fire warmed their hearts. But how
many can afford to pay $3.50 for a 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 that
there were other bonds of union than expen-
sive organizations which are to begin and end
in talk DIR. Gather might take hint from
an old story which we all learned in ouI
primers. A certain man finding that his sons
who were grown and gone from him, had be-
come enemies brought them home and talked
to them of the holiness of brotherly love fol
long time, but in vain. Tom, and John
and Jacob, were men with creeds and habits
of their own, and both creeds and habits
clashed. Then, as they were about to sepa
rate, he led them to the house of their youngel
brother, who had fallen into want and wretch
edness. One made haste 10 comfor
him in his siek-bed, another brough
warmth and plenty into the miserable
home, the third took his children
and pressed them to his breast Aud a.
they looked at each other with tears in theil
eyes, they remembered the old time again
and were once more only boys and brothers
If the international Association" had placeI
before the churches some one demand 70
practical hearty help, they would have de
Veloped more ''brotherhood' in one year
work than in dozen councils aThe worl
wants no new, cumbrous science of mora
ethics. 1t needs but to see more plainly tn
pointed finger of its Master at His needy chill
dren, and to hear His words, ''Ihe poor v
have always with you" 1t is but a week o