The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-14
MIR. ADAMS FINE SERMON
STRONG DISCOURSE PREACHED IN EPWORYH CHURCH YESTERD4Y.
The Subject; "Interdenomlnation FeIIowship, Unity and Federation''- the Day of Unity In the Churches.

|
 the Day of Unity tn the Churches.
 Rev. Fred Winslow Adams, pastor o
 the Epworth church, preached a mos
 interesting sermon yesterday morning
 before one of the largest congregation
 that has attended service since MI
 Adams was made pastor, Easter Sun
 day. His sesmon was one of tn Istrongest heard in the church in, q Ions
 while and every one went away with i
 impressed upon his mind. The subjec
 of the discourse was "Interdenomina
 tional Fellowship, Unity and Fedora
 tion," being a great lesson of the re
 cent Ecumenical conference in New York.
 Rev. MT. Adams spoke in part as fol lows:
 Paul in his parting advice to the church at Corinth says: Be of one
 mind, live in peace. and the God ol
 love and peace shall be with you" Il Corinthians, 13, Ii. I call your atten tion especially to the phrase Be of one
 mind" These words of parting coun- Sel were a repetition of the first advice | Paul had given the Corinthians, for in
 the First Epistle, first chapter and
 tenth verse, we find the words Now
 beseech you brethren, by the name of
 our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all
 speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; and that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same Judgment" | To the church at Philippi Paul | wrote Be like minded having the same | love, being of one accord, of one mind D and to the church at Rome he wrote | Be of the same mind one toward an- other" This advice Paul was frequent l ly repeating to all the church. He found it needful and it is needful to-day
 What then Is the meaning 'be of one mind"? Not necessarily of one opinion, one creed or an external or organic unity The spiritual and not the for nal unity is everywhere the presenta- ton of the New Testament. And Paul gives the real meaning of his phrase in the verse that follows when he says: Let this mind be in you which was also In Christ Jesus" And the mind of Jesus is the mind of love manifesting itself in toleration, charity, sympathy, cooperation, and federation for divine worship and human helpfulness. We are all-whatever our creed or name--if we make Jesus Christ our standard, parts of one great whole, regiments of one army. denominations of one church universal of which Jesus Christ is the head. As such we can only hope to win by a recognition of this fact which shows itself, not only in charity, but in mutual cooperation and federation.
 That awful prosecutions and bitter religious hatreds of the past should have produced infidelty is not to be wondered at. When I recall the history of the church a century and a half ago do not wonder at the infidelity of Vol taire, but I wonder there were not more Voltaires. Our forefathers-Pu tan, Pilgrim, Qualser-came to this land to escape persecutlon-w where they might worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences And as soon as they were located they promptly prohibited any one else from doing so. But yet there was growth which came to fruitage in the estab- lishment of our republic. granting re- ligious toferation to all Yet even after this, even In our own generation the spirit of intolerance has continued. Within the present generation the QuakerS have expelled members for marrying out of their own church, which they no longer do There is yet little cooperation between churches. The outside world does not say of the Christians, as the pagans did in apos- tn1i rt, one another" One of the great diffl- culties in the prosecution of foreign missions to-day is that the more intelh- gent people we essay to convert are bewildered by the differing claims and creeds of the missionaries of the diff ferent denominational boards There is great waste of men and money to sup port unnecessary churches; there is too much wasted zeal on denominational pride, which if turned toward co-opera- tion would advance by more rapid strides the kingdom of our God on earth
 The church realizes this as never be- fore. Hence the great councils of the Episcopal, Congregational. and other churches, have formulated creeds, or platforms, on which all might unite. The trouble with this kind of unity is that each denomination, wants to re- tain so much, and is willing to sacrifice so little of it's own peculiar forms and tenetr.
 Let us then briefly trace some of the factors of real unity among Christian churches, through which our best ideals are being realized, and which are signs of the beginning of the end. First, edu- cational influence. The public school is a real factor of church unity. This is seen especially in its influence over the breach between Catholic and Protest ant. The public school makes q poorer Roman Catholic but better Catholic American. That is why Roman Catho- ics insist on the parochial schools and why the more liberal Catholics insist on ba n11b1io schools for tbe education, of