The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1886-07-10
BEEcHER IN LONDON.

Immense LOnCOn congregation
Gives Them Some of HIS ideas of What
Constitutes Liberal Christianity, or Re-
Iigion on the Rule of Love-A London
Ohicial's Opinion.
LONDON, July 6-Douhle the usual
Plymouth Church Sunday morning throng
and quadruple even the Plymouth Church
enthusiasm will convey some notion of the
eager way in which the London folk re-
sponded to the announc ement that Rev.
H.W Beecher would preach in the City
Temple yesterday. After the church had
been so packed, a policeman said that a
couple of thousand people had to be re-
fused admittancc. Mr.. Beecher was
never in better condition. lie was full of
fire and energy and possibly somewhat
inspired by the fact that it was the Fourth
of July. A great basket of flowers,
among which the American coors were
intertwined, had been placed in front Of
the pulpit. There was goodly sprink-
ling of Americans in the church, includ-
half dozen Plymouth Pensioners.
Mr.. Beecner selected theme familiar
/
preaShed his greatest sermons
But the Greatest of These Is Love, Cor.
J. ID,
which gave him an opportunity to COM
ment on the broad principles of the
Christianity he preached when at home.
! It was surprise to most OF Mr..
BeeChers listeners to find him heap de-
nunciati0ns upon the narrow Christianity
of sects and give utterancc to more libe-
raj views than they had been accustomed
to. Mr.. Beecher showed that Christianity
meant not a strict adherence to rule of
three formulas, but wide and tolerant
| catholcity that had love for God and
neighbor, and consequent deCency and
! manlneSs in human conduct for its CEN
trail element.
There were in many churches, he said,
among many pious people, elements that
were enough to make man run away
! from them They called themselves by
holy names and lived like devils. There
were beautiful Christians who sat down
like cannibals to eat up the regulations of
their neighbors True Christian love did
not gloat over human infrmity; indeed
it did not rejoice in iniquity; it did not
tread the common sewers of life for the
sake of finding out the worst element of
human character, as many muck worm
did. Love was the only note of orthodoxy
in the New Testament. The applicants
for church membership and for ordina-
ton, when questions were put to them,
swallowed at gulp all the cast-ron or
| thodoXy of the catechism, but he had
| never yet heard them asked to respond to
this note of orthodoxy: "Do you love
one another?" And yet that was the test
of what was known as conversion. Life
was without its keynote in all that had
not love.
lie touched up with much sarcasm
! what he called the religious crowd. The
people who had experienced religion,
who had become converted at four
O'Clock in the afternoon, and who clung
tenaclously to tenet and doctrine, but
turned the back of their hand to their
fellOwmen and were too wrapped in pi-
ETY. to have a chance to think of how to
sympathZe with human misfortune and
how to relieve human misery. Some of
them, too, contributed in way to this
and the other, to make the world talk of
them, and poor, miserable fools that they
were, thought they could carry them
selves up into Heaven and enter by their
reputation. Some Christians were like
the hypocritical and ill-deserving insect
known IN America by the name of the
mosquito. There was nothing of them
but the power to harm. They always
said grace before they stuck their bills
into You to suck your blood.
Creed Mr.. Beecher went on to say,
was not religion 1t was quite possible
for a man 10 change his creed without
losing his Christianity. To persistently,
and despite enlarged knowledge and
changed circumstances, hang to the par
ticular creed was like dragging into the
present the steel armor of the warriors
| of old, and with cuirass and armlets and
steel-glOyed hand march clanking through
the ways of orthodoxy, weighted down
with what was necessary at certain
stages of the worlds progress, but was
not needed now.
"If were in Brooklyn" Mr.. Beecher
said, 81 should without heSitaion-and
] may possibly here--apply this subject to
the inquiry of what is the true church,
that is, the true church which produces
and is adapted to produce the largest har-
vest of love. You can't test a church by
its history. The Jess you read of that
the better you will think of it You
can not test a church by any of
these material measurements, by afth-
metic, nor by the trick of logic,
, That is the true church which most near
ly represents the mind and spirit of
Jesus, and the mind and spirit of Jesus
Christ Isl "God so loved the world that
lie gave His son to die for it," The true
church is the church that continually
brings forth the sweet fruit of righteous
ness in the form of love. God be thanked,
there are grand, true churches. Holy
men and women there are among them,
and there are churches wherein see I'M
folded the sweetest and choicest flowers
in the garden of love. Humble they are;
so are the violets. Unpretcntious they
are, and not widely known but we know
that they are the gardens of the Lord;
and churches there are, all around about
whose boundaries the towering holly
hooks and the pretentous sunhowers are
looking, saying: besides these is moth
ing The churches that bring forth
righteousness and are adapted to bring
forth in their ruling ideas all the sweetest