The weekly examiner., 1901-08-24

 New York after which I was a reg , ular pastor nearly nine years in five different towns of Wisconsin and Illinois.
 I commenced public preaching at the age of IS, long before I had gone through the mill in which they grind out thoroughbred preachers.
 Thank God that by previous Chris | tian education and moral convictions l which made some disturbance in the 1 seminary, I was saved from being l nreaching machine which any relis 1 ions corporat ton could use to subserVe ifs own ends. During my earlier | wears I always expected to combat the evils I saw in the churches, or sec tariarp divisions, worldliness, 1dolatry
 and the corrupting influences of hire ling systems which shielded sin. talked my views freely in the seminary, and often said to those students who were going as missionaries to foreign lands, that I had harder task to enIighten the heathen at home, than they had in a foreign field.
 Some of the more spiritual ones saw the same thing, and said that
 they preferred to teach the heather abroad, than the gos-
 pel hardened sectarians, and sty- fish congregations of city churches hv-s ing like Dives in luxury and voluptu
 ousness while they oppress the poor
 and make long prayers.
 Well with the idea of purifying ex- istins churches, and breaking down sectarian walls I went to work Hull or zeal. But when I took charge or wealthy societies and -ttacked their sins I struck the snag of the money power. Then there was war in the r Ioo ory.Qaf lesson
 of my Hife, that church purity and re- form are incompatible with the inan- cial success of an orga anization; and from church history I learned that no corrupt organization had ever been re- formed, hence I saw from my expe- rience and observation, as we'll as
 from the Scriptures, that man-made organizations were not of God, but a corruption and corrupter of His church and a hopeless obstruction to its unity and purity.
 I realized the truth of this thesis by William Farel, the purest of re- formers, at Geneva, 1885: Our tradi-
 tions and ecclesiastical constitutions
 are not only useless, but pernicious." Catholic convent walls are just as use
 full to preserve the purity of their in-
 mates, as the paper walls of Protes- tant organizations to preserve the pur- ity of the church, and both have the opposite effect claimed for such soci- cities. Gods church stands by faith, kept by the power of God through faith.'' Peter 1: 5.
 It is not outward conditions, but in
 ward conditions which give Christ's church it's whole visible existence and security. No man has any Christian character who is kept by outward
 laws and not by inward principles of righteousness and ehOly love.
 Read all the descriptions of the church in the New Testament, espec- ially letters addressed to it in differ ent cities, and you find no reference to any society organized by man, but to the body of believers in any local
 ity who are made one by Gods grace
 in the heart. There is not a vestige in
 the New Testament of any corporation
 which mem had to join to get gospel
 benefits, and pay their dues or get
 turned out Jas fifty were recently
 turned out of St. Johns M. E. in To- ledo, because they were poor and short
 on the books!
 ChriSt'S church is not stock com pany, with the gospel and souls for its
 merchandise, as it is made to-day, but
 it is simply the Christians of a place, or the assembly of those who nave the word of God and are purified by it, in the words of Melancthon, and there is no other way to join it, ex- cept by joining Jesus Christ by faith who is the only door, head and foun- dation.
 This, in substance, is the gospel I have preached the past twenty-nine years, outside of all existing denomin- at1ons, making test that would sep arate me from any Christian on earth. Gods law of righteousness and saliva tfon from sim being the only standard and object of the gospel.
 In the year 1868, I commended a small monthly called '"The Sturnbqins s Stone," which I send without charge to all who subscribe, which circulates in all states and territories of this country and British America There are now thousands who worship God outside of sects, and have no creed but the Bible, and no test but saliva ton from sin through faith in Christ
 A feW years ago we erected the Free chapel small place for meetings. at No. All Tenth St. I have lived in To 1edo and vicinity twenty years fl1t nv labors have been much away from ehe cfty, and in the publishing work that pastoral visiting here has been ally small.
 But the chief cause of our want of success IS the opposition and preiudice created against us by all religlous cor porations. No one knows the jealousy ana bitterness of all the relfeious crafts toward the gospel we preach. that Jesus Christ can save without mans organisms or rituals or priesthood The pure Bible faith we preach is hated by sectarians more than a free provision house for the people would be hated by grain spectators.
 Those who make merchandise of souls and the gospel would rather have Rob- ert IngersoI1 lecture than to have me