Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1888-05-23
Mistellaneulls &eaaiug,
WHY HAVE WE A CHURCH g.?

that body of disciples living in closest fell,
lowship in Jerusalem, having all things
common-a state of things repeated sub
stantially wheresoever the Christian name
was carried in the first age? Does it tmean
only the outburst of a transient enthusi-:
asm, natural to the childhood period of the
Church-a sort of prolonged festive jubila-;
tion, of mere holiday life? So our wise and
practical age would have it. Yet to the
thinker the case is not thus easily disposed
of. The positive Transforming power ex-
ercised on dissolving and dissolute soeie-
ty by these bands of unworthy enthusiasts
wrought what we may easily declare the
mightiest social revolution in all history
the social Reconstruction of Roman Empire.
And what did their community of life
involve? We shall err if we take from it
pattern for modern revolutions to be
wrought by legislation or by force if not at
tainable by moral means. BUT }et US own.
also that this body of disciples at Jerusa..
lem is more than religious society. It is
not organized for purposes of worship
though the prayers are daily offered and
the breaking of bread is daily observed.
1t is not organized for missionary effort at
home and abroad-though it added daily
to its numbers in Jerusalem and propaga-
ted its creed in foreign cities. Nor for the
Individual self-upbuilding of its members
in the faith-though Christians have never
faith and efficient service than in these
days. Not for the saving of men by its
sacraments and means of grace, ark of de-
liverance to them that enter-though the
"evangelicalism" of our day reads with
faltering voice and uncertain tone some of
the highly sacramental utterances of st.
Paul, st. Peter, and st. John, and would
call them dangerous" were they not in
spired. Not one of these, nor all of them
put together will account for such society
as that at Jerusalem, or sum up the mean
ing of its work. Once for all, we must ad-
nit that that society made its sphere not
the sphere of religion alone, but of human
life. In its best days, and increasingly in
its normal development it could say, not
as mere sentiment, but in veriest truth
Hatnaiai nil q me alie1a,t1a loatto, II count no
human interest alien 10 myself" Every
sphere of human action and of human
thought-arts and letters and philosophy
not eXcluded-was swept under its just do
minion. Of the result in what is called,
unthinkingly for the most part, "Christian
civilization" we need not speak; only
this we may say, that never with such an
unfaith in regard to the principle and the
mission and the power of the Church as
our age manifests would the Church of the
Ante-Nicene age have secured for US the
promise and the potency of these blessings.
That early Church-say of its too much
emphasized asceticisms what you will
had no gingerly fear of hurting better
cause or of Communicating its own sacred
fingers if it dealt, as of its own divine
right, with secular things, so called, as we'll
as spiritual, with the things of human life,
as we'll as of religion.
We pause for moment to meet an OBJ
lection that will naturally have arisen in
the readers mind. If we hold that human
society is to be saved through Christian So
ciety-the Church-does not then the
Church still remain but a means to far.
ther end ? And we have sought higher
view.
Reflect upon it, and you will see that the
objection falls of itself. Because Saul of
Tarsus was called for witness to many,
are we 10 suppose that therefore the divine
interest in Saul was not an interest in him
for his own (Saul's) sake? In other words,
did not the calling and the conversion and
the sanctiication of the former Pharisee
find an end in the great apostle himself, in
own towering grandeur is most glorious
MANIFESTATION VI thC NoAh VI NAOu3 oPehAo
from the result of his apostolic labors?
Analogously the Church, loved of Christ
as the wife is of her husband, cherished
with the never relinquished purpose that
she presented at the last faultless before
God with exceeding joys she loved for
the work she does in and for humanity,
or also for her own sake In plain lam
guage-tor everything depends practically
upon the answer to this question-is not
redeemed society progressing, however
slowly, toward perfection. breaking down
middle walls of partition between men
and still making Of twain one, the fellow
ship which in itself is the embodiment Of
the true brotherhood of man-is not such
redeemed society itself an end, rather the
end? That to which it looks forward, to
which it ministers, to which it is means
and stepping-stone, is butitself, expanded,
purified, exalted; itself larger, fuller, rid
of blemishes its truest self-triumphant
on the earth: the restored household of
the Father William Frederick Fl.Aer: