Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1879-02-20
What is the Christian Church ?

mh. LDllO6 .-Ou0 OF Inc WOrSL
feelings person can have is to be
misunderstood. Who would have
thought the language used in my last
could be construed in fling at Chris
tianity? Yet such is the fact; and
your correspondent listened to SER
mon last Sabbath in which he was
charged with futile attempt to pull
down the walls OF Zion, when no such
thought entered his brain, even though
he possessed the power. The reverse
is true-he swept when he remem-
bered Zion," and realized it was in
the hands of those who were marring
its beauties, Decorating its sacred
affairs and reveling in its sanctuaries.
And as the typical Zion spoken of was
many times possessed and destroyed
by the enemies of Gods chosen PEG
pie, 80 it is not strange the temper of
the Christianity it foreshadowed
should be possessed and profaned by
wicked and evil.doer When we
read and reflect to what base purposes
religion has been put and is still being
used, we might invoke it, in place Of
Liberty, with Madame Roland, and
exclaim:-"Oh! Religion, what crimes
have been committed in thy name 7"
1t is not pure and undefiled religion, l
call in question. 1t is not the true
and faithful followers of Him who
said "Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you and persecute
you; that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven ;"-it
is not these would upbraid. 1t is
not the church based upon the divine
principles and eternal promises OF
Christ and his Apostles, that I would
eschew and go around not al all.
This is the church and this the religion
that is being lost sight of and entirely
ignored by profession who preach
for fat salaries, and perform mass that
they may dwell in sumptuous palaces.
They are those spoken OF who snake
broad their phylacteries, and enlarge
the borders of their garments and
love the uppermost rooms at feasts,"
and are ready to ride down all oppo-
stion to the establishment over which
they preside or with which they are
connected. God never enters such
places Of worship except to retuke
and drive them out as He did the
money changers from the temple. His
church is no fabric OF wood or stone
1t is no organization of men control.
led by silk gowns and mitred heads
for temporal preferment. None of
those did He recognize or ordain
while on earth. His disciples were
poor and lowly fishermen. His cradle
was manger. His tabernacle, the
sea shore and the lonely mountain.
His mission, to seek and to save the
lost, and restore fallen man to happi-
ness and heaven. He supped with
publicans and sinners and sought ont
the unfortunate among the highways
and hedges. And having left this
bright example of his life, rising tri-
umphant from the grave, bearing
deaths pale garland 10 his hand, he
assembled to his Father that he might.
prepare mansions eternal in the heav-
ems. There were no. Plymouth
Churches, Vaticans or Lambeth Pal
aces in His day-these are things of
an after birth, conceived and brought
forth by the passions of men unmind-
ful Of the mansions not built by
hands" These irescoed and gilded
places of Christian worship are cousin
german in splendor and guilt to the
heather temples of IsIamism and
Buddhism, and like them are bc;lded
and sustained by long established
prejudice, bigotry, superstition and
the weakness of poor human nature.
Christianity is something else than
the doctrines that emanate from such
sources-it has higher, holier, purer
origin-it seeks not to Willy and de-
stroy, but to endure and build up
and ne who possesses its true, evan
gelical spirit, possesses its kindred
attributes, love, mercy and charity
and without form or ceremony, ritual
or missal, priest or preacher, CON-
munes with his Maker, as spirit with
spirit, which are the real 1--we Ilings Of
God in the human soul. SENEx.
PorosI, Feb 10th, 1879.