The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-01-10

houses of worship because they had none Of
their own. After the ascension of their Divine
Master bis followers were for long period of
time the objects OF Jewish and Pagan psrsecu-
tiOn, sustained by the temporal authorities, and
their worship was conducted in hiding places
sometimes in catacombs in the bosom of the
earth. If they had been blessed with the re-
hslous liberation which we enjoy, and had
possessed our wealth, there is every reason to
oeheve that they would have built houses of
worship as tasteful and costly as our own. The
ihstnct OF all communities of men is 20 erect
for the worship OF their Creator edifices re-
spending to their conceptions of His majesty
and His beneicence. There are, as we ali
know, more inexpensive than expensive houses
of worship; but it is because, in the great ma.
Iorlty OF religious societies. there is an inability
to do more. 1t is creditable to Christians of all
denominations that their expenditures for relig-
ous worship are only limited by their pecuniary
means. We cannot doubt that the primitive
Christians entertained as elevated views OF the
dignity OF the service due to their Heavenly
Father as their Israetic predecessors, who
built the Temple of Jerusalem. The Divine
Founder OF our faith gave an Impressive proof
OF HIS conception of the sacred character of
edlhces oonsecrated to the service of God by
driving the money changers out of the temple.
the only act of violence in His meek and com.
passionate life; and trust we shall have cour-
age and reverence enough to initiate His ex-
ample and prevent the money. changers from
getting foothold in our houses of worship and
AS soon the primitive Christians ceased TO be
objects OF persecution, and were protected by
their civil rulers, they began to erect expensive
houses OF worship; and from the era of Con-
stantine tney converted splendid Pagan temples
to the service of their Maker There are now
IN the City of Rome seven or eight of these
temples reclaimed from heathenism and conse-
Grated to Christian worship. From that day to
this-during the lapse of nearly 1,6O0 years
no Government has undertaken 20 make church
edlhces pay tribute for the privilege of wor-
shipping God. Even the Pagans, through the
veneration in which they held the temples ded-
lcated 10 their Idols, manifest more reverence
than the promoter of this raid upon religious
worship. No movement has given such en-
couragement and comfort to unbelieyers who
would create every possible impediment to the
progress OF christian teaching, as this pro-
cussions have succeeded in driving religious IN
struction out of the public schools and now Gu.
pidity and unbeief would break down the Sun.
Day schools Dy pecuniary impesitions upon the
edifces in which they are held, and set conn
munities and neighborhoods at work to calcu-
late the cash value of religious worship. IL is
difficult to conceive that the proposition could
have had its origin in any other breast than
one unfriendly to all church organizations, or
one IN which the love of money is the predomi-
nant passion. If those who have set on foot the
movement want more money let them tax
their rum, their tobacco, their pictures fast
horses, game-dogs liquor saloons, dance
everything, in short, which ministers to their
pleasures, their tastes, and their sensual indul-
genceS Nay, let them tax their seminarles of
learning, their institutions devoted to human
science, and even the grounds il which the un-
conscious bones OF their ancestors repose, rath-
er than invade with mercenary exactions the
editices devoted to the teaching of our duty TO
Him and our neighbors.
Some of the abettors of this movement have
had the magnanimity to lot US understand that
ready nrn nDnta mi he
Sovereign Ruler. They will make reasonable
concessions. They Will allow 81, 900 or the
value of each of His Churches to be exempt
from taxation and only exact of Him payment
on the residue. They may, perhaps go so far
as to allow Him 81, 2,O00-as much as it would
cost wel-to-do farmer to house his horses and
horned-cattle. There is degree of sublimity
in this condescenson which teggars all COM
ment, and dismiss it. With those who think
the Almighty sufficiently houore1 by rendering
Him homage in buildings no better than barns
and outhouses, no matter how abundant the
pecunary means of the worshipers, and who
attach no more sanctity to one class of those
editices than to the other, it would be equally
fruitess and humiliatng to hold any confer
eDce. In manifold instances both in the Old
and New Testaments, the house of worhip Is
called the house of God and it is always bamed
with appropriate expressions OF reverence
The universal heart responds to this designa.
ton; and no matter how humble the edifice
consecrateG to His service, all men when with
in its hallowed walls feel more sepsibly than
they do amid the turmoil of the outer world
that they are in the presence of the Omnipo-
tent Being, by whom the great forces of the
universe are moved and controlled, and that by
ignoring Him they renounce all. hope of
higher state OF existence.
The scheme should be repudiated and de-
Qounced in all parts. One can hardly debate
it without feeling of abasement. 1t is not
subject for human logic. 1t is not problem
of proft and loss, to be argued by religious OBJ
legation on one side and financial cupdiGy on
the other 1t is a matter of instinct, Of Unborn
reverence, of the consciousness which every
mind not perverted by the sophislicatons of
worldly science, has of its own imme asurable
lnferiority to the Sovereign Ruler of the uni
verse and of the homage 1t owes Him as its
creator and redeemer. There is solAethng re-
voting to the moral sense in It's normal state
in the idea of making mercenary profit out
of an edifice consecrated to His service. When
this inner sense is wanting, argument is fruit
less.
The most attractive objects which meet us in
our travels in Europe are the cathedrals.
Amid all the wars, the bloodshe d, the barbara
ties, the desOlaton which nations have visited
upon each other, under the misguidance Of
their evil passions, these monuments OF their
faith and their devotion come out from the
dark background of the picture in bright re-
lief as sacred tributes to the Creator of the
universe. No man can stand beneath their
domes aud vaulted roofs without feeling that
they atone for much of the wrong committed
by theirsauthOrs, who lavshed on them without
stint the wealth they would otherwise have
wasted on ostentatious Qualifications or unholy
indulge noes. Heaven forbid that the lesson of
these com paratvely uneivilized ages should bs
lost on us, and that in this day of intellectual
light and social refinement the tax-gatherer
should be seat to fill his bag of ucre by levying
contributions on the sanctuaries of the living
God!
do not believe that any community which
seeks to throw its secular expenses on the wor-
ship of God, by levyiDg contributions on the
edinces cOnsecrated to His service, can long
escape the chastisement it provokes. 1t is not
necessary to look for special vsitaticns of ill as
manifestations o. His displeasure. Cupidity,
selfshness, rapacity, the PROCLAMATION OF things
which should be held sacred, carry with them
by the force of immutable laws, the retribution
denounced by the codes they violate.
All religious denominations have the same
interest in preventing their houses OF worship
from being desecratef and secularzed by taxa
lion. As was beautifully expressed By Madame
de StseI "Iheir ceremonies are strongly con-
trasted; but the same sigh of Distress the same
petition for support, ascends to Heaven from
all''
1t seems to me that this whole movement is
calculated to create in the breasts of rejecting
persons a feeling of profound sorrow and un-
mtigated disgust. The proper mode of treat
ing it is to scout it out of the committee rooms,
legislative halls and social circles which 1t has
detiled by its presence. To give it any counte-
nance would be to furnish new ground for the
national reproach, too often cast upon US, that
the almighty dollar is the chief object Of our
alteration. Very truly yonrs,
JOHN A. DIX.
ORLANDO MEADs, Esq, Albany
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