f
schism. Our divisions of heart and alienation of spirit are unworthy
of educated men, and of the citizens of a free state, while they are
in spirit utterly subversive of the whole principles of Protestantism.
What! not able to hear the gospel preached from the lips of a minister
of another church, nor to remember Jesus with him or his people?
Not willing even to be on kind, or perhaps on speaking terms with
a brother minister? Such things not only have been, but _are_; and
while, thank God, they are repudiated and detested by men of all
Churches, they are common, we fear, among too many. No wonder Roman
Catholics point at our frequent boasting of Protestant "oneness in all
essentials," and ask with triumph, how it happens, then, that we are
such enemies on mere non-essentials? How it is that we pretend to be
one when attacking Papists, and then turn our backs on each other
when left alone? No wonder the High Churchman of England asks the
Presbyterians in Scotland to forgive _him_ if he never enters our
Presbyterian churches, hears our clergy, partakes of our sacraments,
when so very many among ourselves practically excommunicate each
other. No wonder the infidel lecturer describes to crowds of
intelligent mechanics, in vivid and powerful language, the spectacle
presented by many among our Christian clergy and people, and asks,
with a smile of derision, If _ithis_ is a religion of love which they
see around them--if these men believe the gospel--and if Christians
have really more kindness and courtesy than "publicans and sinners?"
Worse than all, no wonder our churches languish, and men are asking
with pain, why the ministry is not producing more true spiritual
fruit, which is love to God and man? The Churches are, no doubt,
_doing_ much. We have meetings, associations, and organisations, with
no end of committees, resolutions, and motions; we raise large sums of
money; we have large congregations;--yet all this, and much more, we
can do from pride, vanity, love of party, love of power, the spirit
of proselytism, and the like. We may possess many gifts, understand
mysteries and all knowledge; we may bestow our goods to feed the poor,
in zeal for Church or party we may be willing to give our bodies to
be burned; but before God it profiteth us nothing, unless we have
the "love that suffereth long, and is kind, that envieth not, that
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself
unseemly, seeketh not her o