ace than to the poor man in vile raiment, rejecting every
inducement to the usurpation of secular power, and leaving to the
conscience of every man, as Peter referred to the conscience of Ananias,
the obligation of contributing to the common revenue. 'While the land
remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was not the price
in thine own power?' is not the language of ecclesiastical tax-gatherers
in the present day: and till all contributions to the churches become
strictly voluntary, till the churches abjure all temporal authority, and
free their discipline and ritual from the encroachments of spiritual
tyranny and the defilements of superstition, neither the one nor the
other can advance any claim to spiritual allegiance, and men who dissent
from both may hold themselves innocent of the sin of schism.

Thus much we say on the supposition that it might be possible or
desirable to restore the ancient constitution of the Church. But we make
such a supposition only for the sake of meeting the views of those who,
feeling that the ecclesiastical establishments of the present day are
unchristian, would fain substitute for them the simple institutions of
the primitive Church. Believing as we do, that all such institutions
must be classed among the non-essentials of Christianity, we would have
them modified according to the circumstances of the age and country in
which they are to be used. It is not possible that some of the original
Christian ordinances can be advantageously employed in every country and
through every age. The first Christians belonged, for the most part, to
the middling and lower classes of society, and consequently had few
possessions. These possessions, with whatever was voluntarily offered by
the few rich men among them, were gathered into a common stock, in order
that all might be so far freed from secular cares as to be able to
devote their minds and hearts to the furtherance of the cause of the
Gospel. It is obvious that the same reasons for establishing a community
of goods do not exist in a Christian country, where the faith has no
longer to maintain a struggle with the powers which opposed its first
promulgation. Nor could such a community of goods answer the same
purposes in a wealthy commercial state and among the cantons of
Switzerland, among the nobles and boors of Russia, and the back-woodsmen
of America; in states where civilization is most advanced, and in
regions where the rights