Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-01-17
Unitarian Conference.

The Worcester county conference of Unitarian
churches began its session in this city last eve
ming at the Church Of the Unity. There was a
large attendance. After devotional exercises,
conducted by Rev. f. L. Hosmer of Northboro,
a sermon was preached by Rev. b. F. Mcdaniel
of Hubbardston, front I'd Cor. 5:1S, and Al 3
He began by saying Christianity has inherited
from Judaism her two great types of the sacred
office, the priest and the prophet, both having
come down to usl with little modification
of their old significance. Catholicism has
appropriated one, Professionalism the other
Opposite ideas stamp the Office of each-that
of the priest being sacramental and that of
the prophet personal. One fulfls his duty by
means of rigid forms and symbols, and the
other by private thought and action. To the
priest the rite, and sacrament and vestments
arc indispensable and all important. To the
prophet these are but the accessories the
priest is passive instrument, the prophet is an
actual agent With one the office is all with the
other the man is all. With one, character may
or may not be required. In some parts of the
world the priest is a synonym for intrigue, per-
idy and RIGHTEOUSNESS yet this does not incapac-
itate him for the discharge of his official duties.
With the prophet, character is Indispensable
he must be pure and upright before God and
downright before men, The office of the priest
is mechanical, that Of the prophet vital. The
prizes is a man apart from all hnman concerns,
separated from his fellows by a partition wall,
and unaccountable to them for his conduct. The
prophet mingles in all social and political CON
Germs; his private lille is like that Of Others, and
is subject TO the same tribunal Of taste and
morality; he is the representative and advocate of
the highest interests of man in all his relations
temporal and spiritual With the priest them man
is sunk in the office; with the prophet
the flee is lost sight Of IN the man. Thus do
the two great branches of Christendom give to
the world ut once two characteristic types of the
sacred office, and of character, strongly marked
an unabridged and ever widening gulf dividing
them. In Hebrew history, before Moses, the
two offices were united in the same person, the
patriarch. Moses set apart pnestly class, like
that in whose keeping was the Egyptian re.
ligion. But as he was himself a prophet he
could not close the door to the advent of others
when he should be laid away in death. So
while the prestly class continued from genera
tion to generation in unbroken line, fulfill
ing the duties Of their calling in
the manner prescribed of old the prophets rose
in monumental solitude, to record the sins Of
their countrymen and to summon them TO
higher career. The priest demanded conformity
to the letter. the prophet obedience to the spirit;
one appealed to external aud the other TO
internal authority; one sang of golden age in
the past, the other of the golden age in the
future Thus was the progress of the Hebrew
nation secured until the last of the line, and the
bright consummate flower of the prophets arose
TO inaugurate new era, wherein the prophet
should be the all in all of the sacred office,
and himself should be the only symbol.
The same condition of things existed in other