The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1871-02-11

mat time labored, how scrupulously they
maligned and blackened every opponent, how
eagerly they famed the flame of sectarian
animosity, how uniformly they prohibited
those whom they could influence from studying
the writings or frequentng the society of men
| OF different opinions from their own, is well
known to all acquainted with ecclesiastical
history" On smaller scale the same thing
| is well known to-day in every community.
This same spirit characterizes the Christian
church, this same thing is going on in it. 1t
stoops to libel the lives Of devout and devoted
men and women. 1t will befoul the farest
repute. 1t gets its power by its personalities,
by the vague suspicious it can excite, and
where it dares no more by shrug of the
shoulder, sigh and ''pity he is not a
professor" or some like damning, killing, can't
expression, seals and dooms whatever has the
hardihood to doubt its shibboleth. People to
whom theatre-going is a sin, whose clear eyes
have never seen its unclean things, whose holy
hands have never applauded its wick edness,
do not hesitate at hard words, cruel opinions,
gossip, Islander, anathema, the small excitement
of petty souls pettishly fretting at indulgences
they possibly all the time secretly envy-since
envy is large element in consciousness. 1t
Is the browning unloveliness of their religion,
the aspect of it men most shrink from. 1t is
wickeder than the wickedness of the wicked.
| once remember hearing man say he had
never enjoyed religion as he did since he put
~ CID father out Of the Meeting heu And
think there are many Christians who enjoy
religion in proportion to the number of the
people they can put out of the church present
and the hope future. What wicked people
spread out ovor good many pleasures, they
concentrate on this one thing. The bitterest
words and the bitterest feelings cone from
them.
Are these strong words? l do not love to
utter them. 1t is not pleasant to feel it ones
,l,kxy 10 Il ocf han,
the pure name of our Religions betouied, when
church or individual annoyance stands up and
throws dirt upon it too many cannot p lax, nor
can utterance be too strong. In this day too
many men taking this travesty, this carica-
ture to be the thing that Religions. Why not,
when they see it the spirit of the men who
profess to have the keys Of the kingdom, the
power to bind and loose? Has not tAis spirit
repealed men? Is it not this spirit that
makes them infidel? Is any languags btterer
than that used against the Christian church,
against Christian truth, by class of men who
judge it by what they see in the lives OF its
loudest protesting members, its most presum-
ing preachers We have somehow got 10 show
men that religion is much broader and
healthier thing-in every way unlike this. 1t
is too bad that the Divine spirit should get cof-
fined in such guise-that men should have it
in their power to perpetuate by creeds, aud
words and forms and buildings that which no
way reflects the cardinal principle of Christ,
but rather personal or church opinions which
they presume to foist on men as the declared
council of God. Brave and timely are these
words of the author of Ecce Deus: "The
world is now waiting for voice crying in the
wilderness that men are to be saved not by
theology but by Christ. The church must go
back to Chrsts own living and mighty way Of
talking to craving and aching hearts. Men
must behold the Lamb, and not the contro-
versies which have ragged about him Noble
words, and coming from that source all the
nobler They ought to be repeated, till that
voice shall come, as it must come, out from the
church believing in theology. 1t cannot be re-
formed. 1t must reform itself. 1t does lit
tie good for those outside to expose it.
1t must be self convicted. The same writer
says "The church, understanding by that
term, the organized sects, is the wea kest and
humanity speaking the most despicable insti-
tuition which men are now tolerating. Would
that that were the Baptist voice that should
echo and reecho, till it should rouse, and bring
about the day when, were it possible for
Christian minister to show this un-Christian
spirit it would be impossible for Christian
church to retain him.
What a sermon would Dickens have
preached from the text-"the little church
around the corner! y In such things
he was mighty. He had the spirit and
the language, and the wrath Laynlan, he
could do it better than the clergy. He could
lay lashes or the soul as the Delaware whip
per lays them on the back 1t will hardly re-
Av,~<-4sss-g u&4e, A1wever, TO make that church
stand henceforth not as the monument to a
mans fidelity, but as a silent rebuke to that
exclusive spirit which yet dominates the Chris
tan church More eloquent than any lam
guage is the opening of its doors TO receive the
body that on its way to its last home, had been
refused hospitable rite by its more ambitious
neighbor. The pastor might have preached
never so we'll and much against the great
church sin, yet never have said what the tu-
neral procession said as it crossed that thresh-
old. A lesson has been given-please God it
may be learned in right quarters-the impress
sion of which is not speedily to wear away.
The rebuke is singing and pungent. l do not
see how the man can stand against it or where
he is to find defenders. 1t is to him, to them,
to the men of this spirit that the incident
speaks. The little church stands not 50 much
for small thing DONE as big thing undone.
To do was the simplest dictate of duty not to
do the grossest neglect ofobligation. The man
who did the duty deserves no praise. Let us
not lose any of the teaching that way. We
are rather apt to reward unduly, when we re-
ward at all. 1t was pleasant thing enough,
the Dore Bible, because it was Spontaneous,
but then it rather put the act into the cata-
logue of remarkable things, it made it matter
of exceptional or remarkable virtue. The man
did what was his duty to do. | know that do
ing ones duty sometimes gets to be so rare that
men mark it, think of it more highly than they
ought to think, and so convict us how low we
are fallen. The thing we ought to remember,
as the one teaching, is the other. "The little
church around the corner" stands out rs a pro-
test against the intolerance and bgotry which
have made themselves a home within the
Christian church, assumed its name, privileges
and powers, and use them to its evil. II is
another of the little things, the obscure things,
standing forth to champion what the greater
dare not touch, to challenge the great sins the
greater do. Itonly repeats history. The great
truths are not told, the grand truths are not
taught by great and grand. The onward steps
are not the steps Of the mighty. Rcbukes do
not come from the things of power. Bat some
little thing, mighty in its conviction starts mp,
and is omnipotent. A little child leads back the
habit-chained man; feeble woman reaches
the ear and heart deaf and cold before the ell
ouuence of great men. When the truth comes;
when new convictions burst; when the deeps
are broken, it is by little thing-some one
standing before and against the many; Moses,
alone, before the ignorant Hebrews; John cry
ing in a wilderness; Jesus, boarding The Phar-
isee and teaching the people. Not great pow
ers of the church, hoar and combined, have
led in its advances, but some lone man, a
price upon his head-some Huss, Luther,
Knox, Wesley, putting the faith of big, brave
heart into the waiting work. You lock back
and see that Popes have not forwarded the
reign of Christ. They have not reformed abuses,
purified, elevated, enlightened, tempted to
broader views, and led the way. The great,
thriy;zg Protestant sects have net done it
waxing fat and naughty as they have inereas
ed. They have taken on this exclrsiveness.
They have Illuminated anathemas. They have
held their autos da fe. They have had their
inquistions. They have branded and doomed
they have communicated and blackened-
proud and not humble, self-seeking and notself-
sacrificing, arrogant, assuming, till one
rises, sturdy and valiant, as the little David,
and takes his sling and plants his stone square
in the front of the giant wrong, breaks up old
orders, rouses dire confusion, goes away ours
ed, but not to be forgotten; and after him
you can read it everywhere in history-comes
up the generation in quick advance as armies
come, when the eXhilarant example of some
leader, springing with sword and banner to
the imperiled front, turns the day and makes
the victory. In the great outgrowth of Chris
tan truth there has been many f'littLe church
around the corner" when Minister and Cathe-
dral were untrue and dumb many an humble
room-sometimes the catacomb under the hos
tile city, sometimes the iastness among the
Scottish Highlands, sometimes the secret cham
Der where men watched, sometimes the desert
sands, the foreign, hostile winter shore and in
these, of which the world dreamed nothing,
the great conservative, the great life giving,
spirit saving power of the truth, famed and
fed in its Pickering, tended and nursed till life
came, and it could stand in cold, hard and
doubling world. From the small things of
God ever come the great conquests. The little
things confound the mighty.
Thanks be to God for ''the little cha" ches round
the corner"-pioneers in good things-unnotic-
ed of men, raised to be great instruments of
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