lesiastical organization, you will find multitudes of
shells of the gospel, out of which the living substance has gone long
ago. Organized Christianity--that is, the institutions of Christianity
have been in the first instance its power, and in the second instance
its damnation. The moment you substitute the machinery of education for
education itself, the moment you build schools and do not educate, build
colleges that do not increase knowledge in the pupils, you have
sacrificed the aim for the instrument by which you were to gain that
aim. In churches, the moment it is more important to maintain buildings,
rituals, ministers, chanters, and all the paraphernalia of moral
education than the spirit of personal sympathy, the moment these are
more sacred to men than is the welfare of the population round about
which they were set to take care of, that very moment Christ is dead in
that place; that very moment religion in the midst of all its
institutions has perished. I am bound to say that in the history of the
world, while religious institutions have been valuable and have done a
great deal of good, they have perhaps done as much harm as good. There
is scarcely one single perversion of civil government, there is scarcely
one single persecution of men, there is scarcely a single one of the
great wars that have depopulated the globe, there is scarcely one great
heresy developed out of the tyranny of the church, that has not been the
fruit of institutional religion; while that spirit of humanity which was
to give the institution its motive power has to a certain extent died
out of it.

Secondly, churches organized upon elective affinities of men are
contrary to the spirit of the gospel. We may associate with men who are
of like taste with ours. We have that privilege. If men are
knowledgeable and intellectual, there is no sin in their choosing for
intimate companions and associates men of like pursuits and like
intellectual qualities. That is right. If men are rich, there is no
reason why men who hold like property should not confer with each other,
and form interests and friendships together. If men are refined, if they
have become aesthetic, there is no reason why they should not associate
in the realm of beauty, artists with artists, nor why the great enjoyers
of beauty should not be in sympathy. Exit all these are not to be
allowed to do it at the price of abandoning common humanity; you have no
right to make your nest