St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-06-21
The New-Fangled Polity.


Any man who makes a proposition
which appears to be serious, upon a
serious subject, deserves a hearing.
More especially any man who clearly
possesses popular power, who, as the
result of his experience with men, asks
attention to any suggestions for the
revision of old methods of dealing with
them, deserves a respectful hearing.
The Rev. w. H. H. Murray, who was
ordained i'll February, 1868. and in
stalled in the following November over
the Park Street Church in this city, and
dismissed from the same in the autumn
of 1874, and who for the last two or
three years has been preaching in the
Music Hall, to what is called the New
England Church, has proposed new
polity. 1t is little difficult so far to
disentangle that polity from the other
parts of the gigantic scheme in which it
is imbedded, as to be able to speak of
it as distracted from all eXtraneous
matters, but, if we mistake not, its
main and distinctive features are these,
viz:
l. 1t is polity without any church,
in the common Evangelical sense of
that term. That is, it does not propose
that those who are connected with the
enterprise, who believe themselves to
be, and give reasonable evidence in
their lives that they are, regenerate
persons, shall be affiliated by public
confession of Jesus in church relation ;
nor does it set before itself as the great
object of its existence and labor the
bringing of all others whom it can reach
to like belief, evidence and confession.
No such body is proposed, and no such
confession is suggested.
2. 1t is a polity purely dependent
upon pecuniary ability, civil position,
and willingness to work together for
the maintenance of the objects pro-
posed. AS to numbers, it is oligarchic,
inasmuch as its membership is to be
limited to twelve. 1t rests on pecu-
mary basis, since four hundred persons
are asked to contribute $500 each Ito
raise the sum of 5000, ,000-which is de-
clared to be necessary for the work. J
These four hundred are by ballot to
choose eleven of their number to con-
stitute the church his Excelency the
Governor of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts for the time being, being
er-OffciO the twelfth. These eleven
persons are to perpetuate their organi-
zatiOn by filling vacancies as they NAV
occur by death or resignation-the
voters of Massachusetts annually elect
ing the twelfth.
3. 1t follows that it is polity not
only without any creed, but without
the remOtest possible ensured connec-
tiOn between belief, or life, and the
vital forces of its management. There
is nothing to hinder the voters of the
Commonwealth from electing an un-
godly and unbelieving man to the post
OF its chairmanship, and chief manage
ment. There is nothing to hinder the
four hundred subscribers-or the eleven
who inherit after them their power
from choosing men who renounce the
Bible and scOrn the very ideas of re-
generation, of a crucified Saviour, and
of the life to come, to it's pulpit and
places of instruction and control. So
that when these twelve apostles of the
new faith, or the old want of faith. OF
whatever it may be, shall assemble and
meet together to elect pastor, or pas
tors, there is not, and there cannot be.
the slightest barrier in the way of their
electing, if they like, an infidel for its
high priest, or an atheist to be its chief
speaker.
4. 1t is polity which contemplates
! social amusement and intellectual en-
tertainment, as the two slaves by which
it shall walk and which sets before
itself as apparently its highest aim, the
raising of some $4,000 or $50, 900 a
year, to be disbursed (under the control
of a board of twenty men and ten women
of which the Governor, the Mayor.
the Chief of Police, the Superintendent
OF the Board of Health, and the city
physician are to be er-o6icio members)
for the benefit of Boston exclusively.