CHURCH AND CONGREGATION:
A
PLEA FOR THEIR UNITY.
BY
C. A. BARTOL.
" For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down
the middle wall of partition between us." - EPHESIA\S ii. 14.
BOSTON:
TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
M DCCC LVIII. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the 1)istrict Court of the lisfrict of Massachusetts.
CAMBRID GE:
IET0~LF AND coEPANY, PEINTEES 10 THE UNlYTESITI. 
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I.
A..E. 
CHAPTER  II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
P... V.
CHAPTER VI.
P.  *...
CHAPTER  VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
PROFESSION.
BAPTISM
DISCIPLINE.
DEVELOPMENT
PAGE
.   vii
~   11
.   27
~ 42
.   59
~   76
~   90
.  105 
iv             CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
SINCERITY......
CHAPTER X.
SACREDNESS......
CHAPTER XI.
CO]MMONNESS.....
CHAPTER XII.
VEIL.......
CHAPTER XIII.
MEANS.
CHAPTER XIV.
ANALOGY......
CHAPTER  XV.
CRISIS.......
CHAPTER XVI.
WHOLENESS....
CHAPTER XVII.
FORM.......
CHAPTER  XVIII.
PERSON.......
CHAPTER XIX.
PLACE.
CHAPTER XX.
ORGANIZATION.....
CHAPTER XXI.
PROPORTION......
... 117
. 132
.  146
.  178
. 193
. 206
. 222
. 243
.  263
.  277
.  291
. 303
. 320 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.  
INTRODUCTION.
THAT my aim at the outset may be fully understood, I must confess a motive for the composition of
this book partly in the indirect relations of its subject.
An inquiry as to the external form alone of the
Church would have little attraction for my own mind.
But every member of the community is vitally concerned in what a particular ecclesiastical constitution
may morally imply. By no unmeaning chance is the
Church so often on our tongues. Not in vain does
the reformer with his sharpest criticisms pay to her
his respects. No rotten and crumbling ark do her
children stay up and bear on with their hands. What
but the Church is rooted and growing for ever in the
all-wasting floods of time? No other institution of
government or society, from the farthest right to the
extreme left of human speculation, so widely and
closely touches the thought of the age. How many
conflicts rage within and around these ancient walls!
He that is disposed hastily to despise them as foolish
strifes, must have adopted a philosophy of human
nature very shallow, however transcendental it may
be deemed. The world does not fight its battles for 
INTRODUCTION.
nothing. It would be just as sensible to speak contemptuously of Marathon, or Waterloo, or Bunker
Hill, as of any of the past or present fiercer shocks
when one idea encounters another. The soul repudiates the scorn. I must at least therefore assume
my general topic to be not undeserving of regard.
The Congregational theory, however, of the Church,
held by Congregationalists as I have known them, I
have to say, is peculiar. I speak of that theory, not
merely according to the sentence of any Cambridge or
other platform, but with regard to its tacit assumptions and real concessions now. It admits the existence of two religious bodies in one, parted by a
ritual line which is no real boundary; there being on
either side persons to whom no true and liberal Congregationalism can deny the consciousness and practice of every right sentiment towards God and his
Son. This theory, attempting to furnish in the best
manner both Church and Congregation, in fact gives
us neither.  It narrows the former, loses hold of the
latter, divides Christ himself, and secures but an imperfect Congregationalism after all.  Of all ecclesiastical schemes beside, none, by not intentional, yet
constitutional equivocation, so confounds realities and
confuses the mind. Thus, by its doubling it is in
contradiction with Christianity, science, nature, humanity, and simple theism itself. A Congregationalism
that would justify its name can have but one whole
body, belonging to the Lord by the very token of its
common association and worship.  The simplest inquisition would seem to settle this. What rational
viii 
INTRODUCTION.
Congregationalism will dare to consign to God's displeasure and to future woe any persons simply because they have not accepted the elements? Why, a
man like Kane- who has made himself emphatically
the person of our day, whom we know not whether
to call hero or saint, Christian indeed as he was, yet
such technically by right of birth and baptism alone
-would on this principle be among the lost, instead
of making north pole and tropic town alike two of
the long steps by which all his earth-wandering became the straightest and most direct road to highest
heaven.
MVloreover, will a rational Congregationalism quite
venture to stand sponsor for all to whom the elements
have been allowed? Even if any denominations
make this the sign of regeneration, and of passing
from death unto life, will they in every case stand
vouchers for the fact? If not, then is there not among
us the corporate sin of a double mind? This query
in the following treatise I shall present in particular
relation to our views of the Supper. It is however
proper I should say beforehand, that my method of
argument will not be ecclesiastical, such in some sort
although my subject be. Deliberately, at the hazard
of disappointing those who may be inclined to examine my treatise with hope, and incurring an apparently triumphant censure from those who might in any
case resist its doctrine, I choose for the most part less
the historic than  the ideal track.   My course of
investigation will not lead me mainly into that region
of facts and texts, on whose low level and letter that
ix 
x            INTRODUCTION.
killeth so many great themes lie swamped.  Avoid
ing the vicious circle of reasoning about a usage ~~r
the light of usage, let us go for our decisions, not t&
the fathers, but, if I may say so, to the Father. Hab
it, our angel when good, is our demon when it is bad
It is sad to have, like so many, no better reason fo.
doing a thing, than that we have done it a hundrer
times.  I shall not therefore offer the case at the ba
of that technical logic which is the retained advc
cate and hired servant of every traditionary error
Nothing has taken so many bribes and fees as ou
logic.  ~We are after all in our secret hearts gov
erned less by our syllogisms than by our thoughts
and I should not expect any one prepossessed wit~
contrary persuasions to be convinced by whatsoeve
ingenuity I might institute of debate. Let me rather
if I can, raise the customs, of which I shall have tc
speak, into that higher light of ideas, which show
truth, as the h~gher law does duty, to our mind
Imagination has a bad name among us.  But I dc
not know that it errs more or oftener than what wc
call our reason.  A true imagination is reason its eli
in its highest function and form.
I am aware such a treatment may unfold my
plan into a broad scope.  If the particular topic
seem in my handling to be often only a wedge tc
open larger and more radical inquiries into Christian
truth and character, and the whole condition and wel
fare of humanity, I trust, as the Church is in such
strong possession and legal or influential pre-occupa
tion of the world, this may r rove not the least potent 
INTRODUCTION.
way in which such fundamental matters maybe moved.
If my method even lead me, as all that have a matLer much at heart are well-nigh inevitably led, in
mnaintaining my ground, seemingly to denounce others,
let me say that I intend to bring only practices into
question, and, so far as persons are concerned, charge
o error of which I may not have been guilty myself.
I would trust, however, that there may be actually
humane as well as philosophic reason for this mode
)f treatment. I do not wish to write a book of con-oversy, least of all on matters tender to the Chrisan heart; but a volume in which any disciples might
nld something to read in connection with or preparaion for the most affectionate exercises of their faith.
would even hope, beyond the rank of technical
heologians, to interest some thinkers amid the great
.orld, at which theology sometimes looks askance as
vil, but which is the world of God's children and
-lrmortal souls.  I would fain even take so wide a
ange as to adopt and baptize nature into the service
.nd illustration of divine grace, believing these two
adically exist, not in the contrast so often supposed,
,ut in harmony, striking "with difference discrete"
he same chord in the human heart, and calling back
o each other in confirmation of God's truth, as deep
nswereth to deep through all his creation.
As the discussion proceeds, it will appear how a
,-ere question of ecclesiastical procedure vitally inolves our entire belief and conduct, our relation to
4od and man, - — in fine, the complete proportion of
he religious character, in a closing word upon which
xi  
INTRODUCTION.
friends of Christ. But no hostility appears, save in
- silent neglect; and a pastor, with a flourishing and
harmonious people, has powerful reasons not to hazard active division and disturbance by raising any
question on which there will certainly be two sides.
What worldly motive can he have for disquieting
timself?  What folly not to keep rules as they came
;o him, and let his own growing prosperity alone!
Ah! how often in this world has come fatal and
dlessed scattering of such calculations! The pastor
s the leader of his flock. But his objection to close
ommunion may first and most of all be, not as an
Administrator of the rite, but as a communicant. Why
hould he want to be doing what his very electors
re not doing,-  as though his doing it made or sig'ified him to be more religious than they? He may
eel too unworthy and too altogether like them to be
-ble to bear the imputation.  If so, let him eat what
hey eat, and drink what they drink, and be in fellow-hip with them, or else part peaceably.
Let us not forget how the ordinance has suffered
iy its own restrictions already. A considerable and
Undeniably Christian sect has in modern times omited its use. A quarter-century ago a Unitarian
lergyman, whose thought we may question but can.ot despise, and whose name no tongue can truly take
ave with honor, left his profession because he could
,ot administer it. In not a few really devout breasts
till is disaffection to the rite, which any confinement
)f its privilege will only deepen and spread more
ride, till - as no such authority can be pleaded for it
xiii 
INTRODUCTION.
as for the moral principles of the Gospel, as its de
fence must be in its practical benefits, and as every
invidious limitation must go to neutralize them -a'
length the best piety of Christendom would leave i!
out of all reckoning to decline and die.
As I say this, let there be no indistinctness in my
affirmation that, in any age yet at hand, I anticipate
for it no such fate.  A form is not, indeed, any more
than is a rule of moral conduct, the highest thing ir
religion.  But the Antinomianism which rejects al
law is no ascent above morality. As history proves
it is rather the way to every abyss of dreadful licensand excess.  So anti-formalism for most men migh'
lead to something quite different from spirituality
Accordingly there is as little of philosophy, and at
little of humanity, as there is of Christianity, in throw
ing the form in question away.
Yet the freedom of abstinence from it, as of par
ticipation, should nowise be infringed.  To  attemp,
any compulsion either way over individuals or a so
ciety, is for ministers to try to be "lords over God'.
heritage."  It is the right of every body of worship
pers in the last resort to determine its own order o
service.   Surely, only after consultation with  thpeople themselves, and with their sanction and en
couragement, should any one in the ministry alte.
the established style. But, if the alteration can b;
made without violence, the inquisition of motives anascertaining on what ground he stands, which it oc
casions in every man's bosom, will be but a new
spring of life and common benefit. In the offer oi
xiv 
INTRODUCTION.
,pen communion, the point of difficulty and debate is
,> declining to give the form of words by which they
,ho officiate have been accustomed at once to invoke
sod's favor and separate two services from each
other. The refusal, on any minister's part, to ter.-inate the common exercises, when the worship is
ctually unfinished, by a phrase to the general under.anding bearing the sense of dismission and actually
-isecting the body, is no witholding of any benedicion man can give, far less of the better blessing of
_xod. To bless in such a case is to keep, not send
way. In any society, it may notwithstanding be
aid, are those that cannot conscientiously receive the
cements, and what but priestcraft and bigotry is it to
ttempt any  arbitrary constraint!   Can  they not
owever conscientiously sit while others receive them?
'or the last year conversant with no small amount
f discussion in every aspect of this theme, I have
eard none say so; and if I did, I might ask how
mey can, as they are wont, conscientiously enter the
eeting-house at all when the table is spread, and
iffer the silver vessels to shine with the least lustre
f symbolic meaning through their eyes. As it is all
ynbol, I confess my inability to comprehend  the
iscrimination.
There may indeed be a natural and instinctive
pugnance to change one's habits, which  all per)ns feel, especially with growing years. There is
-ubtless an honest diffidence to take a position
hich can be understood as implying a growth of
ligious feeling one may be conscious of, yet un
xv 
INTRODUCTION.
willing to own.  But the idea of violating his con
science because he witnesses a serious partaking o
such an ordinance, which he himself has done his par
to call the minister to uphold, can hardly lodge in 
Christian's mind; and when the Communion shal
vindicate its name as something common to the Lord'
whole assembly, there can be certainly in regard t,
it no such shame, true or false.  I trust there is eve'
now more strength and health in all our consciences
than to refine the matter so much away from the honr.
est procedure of our affections in all other things, a,
to discover in these emblems either a super-exaltesacredness we cannot touch, on the one hand, or
superstition and offence on the other.
In reserving, however, the rite to our list of th.
elect, the charge of unwarranted partiality we do in
cur. I know it is said thus only can we practicalli
do.  I have  been  repeatedly told, Your judgmen
of the case is perfectly true in principle; but it wil
not work well. You will get no more communicant.
than before.  Indeed, one friend humorously contin
ued, It almost seems as if we must have a little prc
tence, and even falsehood, in the Church, to get alonD
most successfully with men, constituted as they are
To such suggestions I can only reply, that, althougl
I believe open communion to be expedient, it is ne
on the ground of expediency, but of inevitable printc'
ple, that I have held it forth.  It may be expedien
to alloy gold for the currency of our traffic, and t,
have compromises in our political constitutions t(
make them march; and Lord Bacon, earthly-minde
xvi 
INTRODUCTION.
philosopher and guilty conformist to the world as
he was, may say, if he will, that mankind is more
pleased to look at truth in the deceptive shadows of
gaudy lamps, than in the light of the sun. But, under
our Master, we can know and speak only the truth,
whether it slay or keep us alive.
I am sensible, moreover, it will be said, that all
are not fit for this ordinance; that our Christian assemblies are not thoroughly Christian, save in name;
that the world, in no good sense, is largely in the
Church; in short, that my plan is to cast pearls before swine, forgetful of the depravity of mankind. I
reply, depravity in our congregations is wholly out of
place, an intruder and alien, in a circle where it does
not belong, more than a conspirator belongs in the
city, or an enemy's spy in the camp. It is not so
much depravity as it is apostasy, just as hostility to
our government by an American citizen is not simple
war, but treason. The immigrant must be naturalized; but nurture, not naturalization, should make us
members both of church and state. If indeed in any
case there be no nurture, then, in the name of God
and Christ, let conversion come!
Yet, in our congregations as they are, it is possible
to animate and be all together warmed by the ordinance of the Supper, in its own original simplicity as
a token, not a test. Opening it may not succeed
immediately so well, as when a public sentiment, in
the whole air of the Christian community, shall in
this apparent exposure foster it, as sooner or later it
assuredly will. Habit indeed is the most formidable
b
xvii 
INTRODUCTION.
castle. He that assails or would displace any custom, must look well to his armor. In this country
especially, where all stand on a level, and every man
in the mighty crowd is liable to be pushed by the
weight of the entire mass, it requires more hardihood
to stand up against a popular impression of any sort,
than it does elsewhere in the world. So it is said
there is perhaps more individual independence, though
less liberty, in England than in the United States.
It is not pleasant to quiet lovers of the shade, even
for however little while, to be within the range of
artillery. Few but would rather be posted where they
might suffer no risk of being raked by those ecclesiastical guns, still handled, as once they were the
most dreaded of all. But soldiers do not choose their
own positions. Yet the figure is hardly just to those
engaged in a movement which is not for war, but
peace. It is for peace, because it is for union. Our
old organization, however suited to a transition period,
has grown corrupt, settling on the lees. Our ecclesiastical highways are full of ruts, and our travellers
over them stuck fast in routine. All the people, as
in the country, should turn out to mend the road to
heaven.
Especially should we further the Christianizing
of the world by the training of the generations of the
young. A solemn dedication of themselves to God
may well be made by adults that have grown up without spiritual culture. But let our children be given,
and taught that they belong, to the Lord from the first.
Regeneration is what we preach for the great doe
xviii 
INTRODUCTION.
trine. It is an experimental doctrine in more re spects than one, demonstrated by the whole analogy
of human relations. As their blind instinctive affection turns to an intelligent voluntary love, children
are born again to their earthly parents; and what
parental heart has not thrilled at the change? But
who wishes it to be by a leap, instead of a growth?
So let them be born again to God. Let the second
birth, as is meet, be as orderly as the first. Born of
the Spirit or wind, says Jesus, we must be. HIow then,
in the type this language implies, is nature born again
into blossom and flower in the air of heaven, at springtide? By a sudden spasm do the leaves come out,
or are they mechanically picked open by our fingers?
No, but in what.living beauty of correct degrees!
So be it with our spiritual unfolding. Then churches
will not, like houses and ships, be built on worldly
grounds, but consecrated indeed.
On this idea let us insist. Precious indeed is harmony. But let us have peace by the way of righteousness and truth, and value all things not formally, -
rather according to their sincere worth. If we see,
as we may, a church-steeple, which some malecontent
rears over a place holding no worship, shall we reverence the steeple? If a legacy is offered inconsistent
with the life of an institution, shall not the institution
show its character and true dignity in declining with
the terms the money its acceptance might make a
bribe? If a famous dancer, with the nimbleness of
her feet, carries up some of the stones of our BunkerHill Monument, shall we prize them as much as we
xix 
INTRODUCTION.
do those which a pure patriotism contributes? At
least no offering, which is not of the heart, affords
strength to our worship.
We must, therefore, demand sincerity in our relig ious institutions, and of all concerned in them, at the
outset. But, it is asked, are you not missionaries in
the world? A Christian society is indeed a mission  ary body. But missionary within its own walls it
can hardly be. Apologists plead that we must act
~ from mixed motives; but will double-dealing at the
start be likely to turn into frankness as we go on?
Will truth, omitted without regret at the beginning
of any enterprise, come into fashion and vogue on the
way? Rather, owning endless degrees of sanctifica  tion and improvement, even unto a perfection that is
divine, let us require the candor and devotion of
discipleship under its name.
There are reasoners whose generalizations have
carried them so far as to leave all names of Church or
Christianity behind in contempt. But when the gen  eralizing process can seduce a writer to the extent of
declaring that there is no moral difference, worth
considering, between one man and another, and leads
a second writer to smooth over, as like a trifling
roughness in the grain of the wood, the distinction
between evil and good, a question may perhaps arise,
alike in a religious or a philosophical mind, whether
there is not some point for generalization to stop.
If excessive particularizing makes the bigot with his
narrow mind, or the superstitious man with his false
reverence, too much generalizing empties the heart
xx 
INTRODUCTION.
clean of its warmth, friendship, and worship. It abolishes all terms. It dissolves individual existences.
It leaves the soul a mere subject, with no relations
recognized to human creatures or to God himself.
One thinker may say, - I care for no ecclesiastical
associations whatsoever, and find my only church in
the world. But the world proves, as Jesus and his
Apostles describe it, too wide, imperfect, and still evil,
either to brace his holy efforts or give his spirit a
home. He must, in contradiction of his theory, abide
in and act from a grander, though in visible dimensions smaller circle, before he can act to bless and
save the world itself.
Another thinker proclaims his allegiance to God
in his pure infinity alone, leaving the Christ of the
Gospel aside. But let his doctrine, of space and
science and omnipresence of one solitary Power
through earth and stars, recommend itself as it may
to the speculative mind, it spreads a thin atmosphere
around us, in which we feel discouraged and cold,
like explorers of the Arctic region of thought, and
cry out for a nearer and somehow more human divinity. This is the unspeakable boon Jesus confers
on the human race, that he familiarizes and domesticates God, shows him in a mortal frame and in earthly homes, and by his incarnation of the Great Spirit
makes us partakers of the Divine nature more than we
could become by the discovery of ten thousand new
systems, or peering for ever into the measureless expanse of the Milky-Way.
To individualize is as important as to generalize.
xxi 
INTRODUCTION.
Is not the heart as great doing the first, as the
head can be doing the last? He that ascends a
mountain generalizes his view. But he loses sight
of the house and the face of his friend. Let him stay
an hour on the summit, but return to spend his days
among the homes and persons it has pleased God,
who cares for particulars, as well as generalities, to
make! If we look at the infinite unity alone, like
little creatures before leviathan, we are lost and de=
voured. But, in the element of freedom heaven
pours out, we swim away. Difference and variety,
whence comes the harmony of creation, have from
the Maker a fine eternity too. It is easy to generalize. It is easy to collect facts. But to hold even
in one's mind that balance of the universe wherein
events and ideas, facts and laws, match and prove each
other, and enlargement with illustration of truth goes
for ever hand in hand, is very hard.
Let us avoid alike the pantheism that dissolves,
and the idolatry that corrupts, worship and all virtue.
Let us walk on that Mahomet's bridge,- sharp and
thin as a razor, into paradise, - which is made of the
use of means, yet not putting the means for the end.
On the wings of all the winds come news of a great
revival of religion in the land. Heaven grant the
soul fail not of the promised good, by resting in that
verbal, ritual, social display of the religious sentiment,
of which Jesus is so jealous; but that the last, most
delicious and satisfying fruit of a new spirit of humanity be increased on the topmost and outermost
branches of the tree of life, in addition to all the lesser
xxii 
INTRODUCTION.
virtues that hang on its lower boughs! If piety be
the foundation, charity is the top-stone of the Christian character; and the lifting of the one, as in our
stone towers, is as important and as worthy to be
celebrated as the other. If prayer be the first, humanity is the last virtue.  MIen learn to be obsequious
to God long before they learn to be just to one another. The whole East, in the gray morning of the
world, blazes with the universal watch-fire of adoration. The biggest books of the Persians, Indians,
Hindoos, are of what but worship!  Slowly and late,
as the race travels from the garden it was born in to
the setting sun, opens the humane sentiment. Almost everywhere, among Chinese, Japanese, French,
English, Americans, Turks, Christians, we see contempt, the disposition to despise each other, the fear
to mix with one another, lest their several principles
should be lost and manners corrupted. How soon
children learn to look down on children!  How age
with failing memory drops years of momentous history, but no fact of vanity! We make our self-consciousness the boundary of the universe.  He that
scorns none is great and good. When shall the day
come for men and women to show the grand courtesy
to human nature, as well as homage to the Divine,
which was the characteristic of Jesus Christ alone
in the world? Among the reasons stated for the
formation of one of our most venerable churches was,
that men might lay aside that relation of experiences
elsewhere imposed for admission to the Lord's table.
It was alike a respect to the Holy Spirit and a tribute
xxiii 
INTRODUCTION.
to the human soul.  Could I do anything to encourage a humane life and temper, as well as devotional
forms, for the Christian's last and surest mark, - could
I show the Master's walk as the direction in which to
look for God, and the Blaster's form as not coming
between us and the Father to hinder or obscure, but
transparent with deity, - not in vain, to those accustomed to hear or willing to read what I say, should
I dedicate these words.
xxiv 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER. I,
DESIGN.
THE present work has originated in no presumption of its author to reform the Church,
and in no trouble of his own parish, but in a
personal difficulty within himself. He imagines for his word no such influence in the
community as would justify his volunteering
questions of essence so vital and reach so
wide as he has been led; to discuss.  Any
man's benevolence must consider the sphere
it can fill, and the ends it can attain, before
it starts on its way; else it may soon prove
something quite different from real benevolence, of a spirit however warm and honest it
may be.
1 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
Therefore I must retreat to a deeper ground,
and however, like others, trusting that love for
fellow-creatures is an ever-present and all-comprehending motive of procedure, yet assume
in this particular matter no good-will of which
private conscience has not sharply touched the
springs. Still, as a man's meeting even a cross
in his way would not excuse his telling of
it, but only hanging upon it if truth required,
I should say nothing in public of what has
perplexed myself, did I not know of many
others, clergy and laity, likewise perplexed.
How unambiguous and daily more extensive
the signs that the constitution of the Congregational Church, as a twofold body divided by
a formal line, -or that part only regarded as
Church which the line includes, and all outside as but the world, - is falsely representing the Christian facts, inflicting pain on true
piety, offending the religious judgment of the
best persons, in the diminution of communicants throughout New England, showing a
loss of its hold on the conscious respect of
the human mind, and, in fine, shall I not say
grieving the Holy Spirit of God! The Roman
2 
DESIGN.
Church, the Greek Church, the English Church,
though all but sects of Christianity, at least
aim at the unity the Apostolic Church had.
The Puritan Church in our own land, signing
off from all Episcopal motherhood, owned
itself but one body, acting in a civil and
ecclesiastical capacity, church and town at
once, identified every way with the-kingdom
of God.
But Dissent, as a whole, while asserting
the freedom of thought, bearing the line of
judgment more than the bond of affection in
its hand, and using the English Independency,
the Scotch Presbytery, and the Genevan and
New England Calvinism for its instruments,
has with all its advantages joined this evil
of cutting asunder the company of followers
Jesus never so divided, with a ritual knife.
What is the spectacle which the Congregational minister, at every celebration of the
Lord's Supper, periodically beholds?  He is
deserted on the spot by a vast majority of
those by whom, very commonly, in our days,
as proprietors of the church, he has actually
been elected to his post, and appointed to do
3 
4       CHURCH ANT) CONGREGATION.
every oflice, even that single one left to this
scaniling of the assembly behind! His monthly joy becomes his monthly sorrow, in the
troops that file out and the thin ranks that
stay. Wherefore, he asks, so is or must it be?
Are the remaining ones the only Christians,
lovers of God and followers of his Son?  No;
he recognizes in the departure qualities that
had illumined the house of God with a lustre
quite as bright as the spirituality which waits
can cast on the table of the Lord. He finds the
ordinance no Aaron's censer that he may shake
between the living and the dead.  As a badge
of sanctity and a separation ftom iniquity, he
sees proof overwhelming within and without
the charmed circle, that it fails.
If the rite does not decide as between in dividuals the question of general excellence,
does it not at least mark out with its plummet
those who have the particular graces of faith
and love to Christ?  No; he sees friends of
Christ, if Christ has any friends, from the ceremonial going away.  Beyond all show or
sound of forms, their life and conversation,
countenance and manner, look and tone, are 
DESIGN.            5
the best pictures to portray and the most moving eloquence to bespeak this trnth. The minister liberalizes his invitation, perhaps imposes
no covenant, exacts no promise, makes no cxaminafion, and propounds no name.  But his
charity is scarce heeded, save by some solitary
strangers, pleased with a greeting, it may be
unwonted and in an unaccustomed place,
while multitudes of the best friends and supporters of the whole institution of worship
still perseveringly afflict him as they retire.
Why should they not?  Immediately upon
his words of welcome, the minister stretches
his arms for the assembly to rise, and pronounces the phrase called a Benediction, but
which, with the force of tradition, for ages
widely through Chnstcndom has in the popular mind borne the sense of a dismission.  So
true is this, that the language is often as naturally styled a dismission as a blessing.  It
says to the general company, save such of
them as have observed some special ecclesiastical condition, come and ~o, in the same
breath! It is like the Finis of a vdume. The
tardy church-goer, - who, meeting the crowd 
6       CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
dispersing at the door and inquiring if all was
done, was told, All is said, but remains to be
done, - had at least' conveyed to him in the
witticism, that the benediction was understood
to terminate the free and open service of the
building. But what a strange and self-contradictory function of a blessing, to rive a worshipping body asunder! For one, with no
such purpose can I utter it. A true blessing
must operate to bind, not sever, all who receive it.  Certainly the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God, and the communion
and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, -whose ancient and hallowed phraseology has been so
self-contradictorily used to scatter so many religious assemblies, at the division of which
all over the world an affectionate Christian
imagination can but shudder, -should be employed rather for such a healing and catholic
end, that its precious burden may henceforth
roll only in music and peace and bliss on the
ears of mankind.
I know it may be said, in respect to many
of our churches, only those leave who choose,
and all may stay who please. It is my ex 
DESIGN.            7
treme doubt whether, with the ordinarily understood meaning of a benediction, this can
be justly alleged.  If so, why do they depart?
The scrutiny of motives is always a delicate,
and should be a very modest and r9spectfnl
task.  Some may hold themselves unfit for an
exercise superstition sly esteemed more sacred
than any devotion, confession, or hallelujah
beside.  Some may be looking forward to it
when their resolves shall be strengthened and
their thoughts cleared.  Some young persons,
touched with the beauty of the Lord, may but
be waiting till they can be regarded as old
enough to partake.  Some may feel an inconsistency between the tenderly solemn scene
and their surrender to the business and pleasures of the world, though, in this case, their
assumption of harmony between these latter
and the sublime owning of the Almighty in his
temple would have still to be explained.  Inquisitive and sceptical persons may ask if the
entire ritual be not a Jewish antiquity, preposterously out of place and date among us and
in the circumstances of modern life,- something fit in the old Last, but not agreeable to
the Occidental mind. 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
But through all these diverse views runs
that visible distinction into more and less
Christian, loving, and holy, on the basis of
which many can never persuade themselves
to separate from the congregation and be
united to the church. For one, clergyman as
I am, I thank God that, upon this construc tion of the  case,  they  cannot!   For  this
formal division into the more and less holy
in the name of Christ, is an unchristian thing.
Nor could I consent, by an outward technical
act, to say I love Christ better than do others,
any more than I could denominate myself
in general holier than they: for what moral or
spiritual quality is greater, or of a loftier claim,
than a true love of Christ? An external
certificate of love and purity - as goods are
stamped and warranted, often how deceptively,
in the market, or as men know their living
property in those other flocks that symbolize
the Christian ones in the pasture and field —
is least welcome to natures the most delicate
and refined.  As from an abomination, they
shrink from whatever has the least color of
courtiership and favoritism with the Most
High.
8 
DESIGN.
The only escape from these embarrassments seems to be taking up the line by
which the company is torn apart; abolishing
all notion either of mystery or exclusiveness
in the special service; opening it, as not possibly more holy than the all-embracing, noneexcluding adoration of the Infinite One, to
the congregation's eye and ear and heart;
leaving the participation of the elements free
to every one's discretion in the sight of God;
while the servant at the altar, if he does so
regard the Lord as offering his supper to
every soul, declines by word or act of his to
be an organic part of the falsehood, which
every restriction within the common body
of believers implies. Doubtless this course
is rightfully to be taken with the consent
and concert of those in the affair equally concerned with the minister, who is but one of
the brethren discharging a particular function
in the church; for upon any attempt to constrain, contrary to his conscience, his procedure, he has, in this country, the resource
of resigning his place always open; and
it is better for him, as for everybody, to
starve than to lie.
9 
10      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
For the stand thus indicated I propose to
give in the following treatise my reasons more
at large. It will appear, I trust, that what I
intend is not innovation, but primitive and
for ever true Christianity; not a fresh heresy
broached, but an inveterate one shut up and
destroyed. Far enough am I from being in
my position alone. Were it consistent with
the simplicity of my work to publish testimonials offered me, these pages would not
only have an authority, nothing of which my
name can add, but a power of composition
beyond the compass of my pen. As the
writer of these lines well remembers, that
brother of a noble religious genius, Sylvester
Judd, whose body has for five years lain in
his lamented grave, when his last illness
seized him, had on his very mouth a word
to utter among us in confirmation of what
he had already so ably said and done for the
unity of the Church. Who can doubt such,
too, would have been the issue of Channing's
thought? But I will not enumerate names,
arguments though they be; but only pray
God from what I have written to winnow the
chaff, if there be any wheat. 
POSITION.
CHAPTER
POSITION.
THAT the Christian Body is rightfully not
twofold, but one, as a generality none may
dispute, though of the sense of this unity
there will be as many interpretations as there
are denominations to arrogate each the true
Church as identical with itself. While, therefore, the double practice of sects and nominal
Christians, who violate the unity in which they
believe, is open to rebuke as a common sin of
mankind, for the double  theory of Congregationalism I know not what defence can be set
up. We have church and congregation. But
which is the true original body? The Greek
term, ecclesia, is more properly rendered congregation or assembly of persons called together; and the learned and noble-minded
Bunsen declares the Church to be nothing
but the Christian congregation. Yet, what
11
II. 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ever style of company was first, and whatever
term be truest, it is clear there was only one
body, and no duplicity or doubleness of constitution, among the first disciples of Jesus.
Beside, although as early as the third century the division may have begun, a feeling of
the error of all schism seems to have haunted
the consciousness of the Church in every age.
Heresy itself, in the Scripture construction, is,
not free thought or private judgment, but a
rending of the living body of the Lord; and
so it is the grandest praise of the Romnish
communion, that, with all its corruptions and
tyrannies, it has so largely succeeded in vindicating to itself as characteristic the title
Catholic, after Christian the highest epithet,
best naming the bond between the human
and divine. Not for this alone, surely, would
I join the Romish fellowship, or abjure my
glorying in a Protestant descent; but only
with a filial sorrow criticise Protestantism,the mother of freedom, science, good government, civilization, and social prosperity,~
that she has admitted disunity so widely into her very scheme, and allowed charity so
greatly to fall out of her lap.
12 
POSITION.
In maintaining that Christ's body should
not be formally divided, I do not, however,
make any disparagement of ecclesiastical cer emronies, far less of the principle of form in
the Church. To her, as to every existence in
the universe, form is necessary, and, for her
beauty and thriving, exercises must be dis tinct and various. But how eagerly the old
Churchy earned to include and set at one all
her members, and adopt for her children the
universal offspring of God, is seen in the fact
of its having in her precincts been almost as
much a matter of course to be baptized as to
be born; and our forefathers, treading her
idolatries under their feet, yet retained in
their order this rule of unity, till, in the tide
of free-thinking scepticism and revolutionary
pass on, that whelmed civil and religious things
together, it was swept away.  That no outward circumstance constitutes, though it may
issue from church-membership, our whole reasoning, as I trust, will clearly evince; but on
grounds of the evident intention, shape, and
drift of ecclesiastic usage as a whole, as well
as the firmer primeval basis of Christian prin
13 
14      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ciple, might be framed a conclusive argument
against that twofold division of the Church
which only the fraction of a few that come out,
to use the vulgar phrase, would seriously wish
to produce and perpetuate. The soul of tradition, in what the Church has striven to hand
down, is for unity, whatever any particular
tradition may be. Ecclesiastical history tells
us that even children partook of the Lord's
Supper till the twelfth century; certainly it is
time no longer from the very sight of the supper to send them away!
One who sees, or in authentic annals reads,
how particular local customs have sprung up,
may well marvel at the superstitious exaggerations which would hold the Lord's influence
dependent on some accurately preserved custom or polity, whose direct tendency may be
to make his commandment of none effect,
yet whose disuse is trembled at as nothing
less than breaking his sceptre, and interrupt ing his reign on the earth. Truly he has bet ter watch of his influence than this!  Not
so subservient is the Lord!  Ecclesiastical
schools have easily and inveterately quarrelled 
POSITION.
about the precise genuine shape of the Church,
because its Founder gave it no exact earthly
shape.   There is no authorized, everlasting
mode of religious action. There is no tribunal to settle the dispute. Hopeless indeed in
its continuance must it be! The Author and
Finisher of our faith took care that his principles should be clear in their infinite scope, but
left the organization to be created, altered, and
enlarged in their unfolding. Only that administration would displease him which divides
the flock, and would part sworn brothers and
very friends; and for this sin modern brotherhoods in name, as well as ancient bishoprics
and popedoms, have answer before man and
God to make,- for from the bar of brethren
sentences of as cruel wrong have been meted
out, as in the conclave of cardinals or the starchamber of a king. The fan that religious
reformers have borne in their hand has been
wielded so fiercely, as sometimes to blow solid
and sweet sanctity no less than worthless refuse away, as a high wind scatters the kernels
the husbandman only proposed to separate
from the straw. Such a fan has been and is
15 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
at work in drawing between one and another
portion of believers the Lord's Supper as a
line. Let the Church be one, and the fan
relinquished from human hands and restored
to Him who alone can and "will thoroughly
purge his floor." Liberty is not a necessary
sacrifice to union in the Church, nor union to
liberty, but both these will be one and the
same when despotism and license, twin-born,
alike disappear.
Meantime, can a small and aged minority
of the worshippers in any place, or a collection or series of such minorities dispersed
over the earth's meridians and parallels, be
considered the whole Church of Christ? This
the fruit of eighteen hundred years? No,
in the name of Him who built it on a rock,
affirmed in it a perpetuity and power against
which the gates of hell should not prevail,
knew beside it no other association in the
terms of his Gospel, and, by nobler words
than the knighthood of chivalry was ever
conferred from royal bounty, made little ones
the conquerors of the earth to his reign!
Church and congregation indeed cannot be
16 
POSITION.
severed, members of the former being of
course members of the latter, though a par —
ticular external abstinence alone may cause
that members of the latter shall not be members of the former. But these comnpartments
are not features of  Christ's building,  only
wings added thereto. We speak of Scripture
interpolations. This distinction is a Church
interpolations. This distinction is a Church
interpolation. 
Moreover, it contradicts the consciousness
of the Church itself, purer and nearer Christ's
mind by far now, than in the third and fourth
centuries. A discontent with it of the intelligence of the day, and even of the general
mind, is, spite of the growth of population, actually sapping the foundations of the
Church; and should the process which has
begun go on, the Church, in our accredited
understanding of it, will by the flow and
pressure of public opinion be disintegrated
in a period as calculable as the wearing away
of the porous rock under the roll of Niagara.
Yet the real Church is not to be wasted, but
rescued for ever alive.
As many minds at once hover on the verge
2
17 
18    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
of all discovery, descrying new planets, detecting new substances for use and new arts for
human advancement or relief; so out of the
confused ideas and inconsistent conditions
of our epoch, in which, as at an earlier era,
every one has his own psalm or interpretation, book or order of service, - among
which varieties every collection of believers
has its own style of the Supper, different invitations or terms preliminary to the feast prevailing in not a few different assemblies even
of the same denomination,-we may hope
principles wffl emerge reconciling with law
our liberty; and of these do I err in placing foremost, in the prophetic longing of
this time, open communion? As the rigor of
theological creeds is relaxed, as the sacredness from ecclesiastical f6rmul~ departs, as
religion becomes less an opinion and more a
life, as, like an ill-accommodated resident, it
moves its too long inhabited quarters in the
metaphysical brain, and takes lodgings in
the heart, - all which it must do before the
growing knowledge and charity of our day, -
this consummation will gradually come.  No 
POSITION.
unpardonable sin certainly against the Holy
Ghost can that be considered which is at
once the first doctrine and last aim of the
Gospel,- the ample port which already,
though dimly, shines from afar to receive
the long-tost vessel of our faith.
Not in one sect alone, reckoned liberal or
latitudinarian, do the signs point to open
communion, instead of what, with singular
incongruity between the substantive and
adjective, we call close. It is noteworthy
that in that great and most respectable
Baptist connection of dissenters, specially
addicted to the latter mode, the new London Whitefield, beyond any modern preacher
beside drawing the multitudes with his voice,
should have proclaimed against all opposition
his conversion to the former, beginning to
open the door, though he may not be prepared to open it wide. Our own history in
the matter is nothing but prediction of the
same result, fulfilling itself. It would be a
curious and long account to trace the various
scarcely interrupted steps of change ever to
greater truth as well as generosity in this
19 
20      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
matter, in the single line of our own theological descent, from a practical union of church
and state among our forefathers, through halfway covenants, formal candidates, solemn
vows, subscriptions of arbitrary creeds, or examinations before formal councils and appointed defenders of the faith, to the simple
private conversations with a friendly pastor,
by which the doorway to the Lord's table
has been successively and ever more slightly
guarded against rash or unfit intruders; while
far back of us in historic thought, though near
in space, lie the Romish theories of mystery,
transubstantiation, and sacrifice, of whose
half Jewish, half Pagan genius millions have
taken so long ago their leave.
If now I venture an announcement of the
time at hand to plant no sentinel at the
Lord's table more than at the temple-gate,
as he has sent out no word to plant any; if
I maintain the Supper, like every other exercise in God's house, to be a means of spiritual
benefit, free to all who worship the Father in
the Saviour's name, I trust the event will
show such declaration no broader than its 
POSITION.
abundant proof. A means I shall endeavor
to prove it, and such I presume not a few of
my readers consider it to be. If then it fall
into the category of means instead of ends,
to whom in Christendom shall it not be
available? Even if its celebration be in a
certain sense one of the ends for which the
Church is constituted, yet, as the great philosopher Kant so finely says, an organized body
has this for its very definition, that all its ends
are means.
The Christian times in which we live,
universalizing every sort of good in the very
spirit of Him who asked the Pharisees if they
could not read the indications of their own
day, demand this church extension, not in
new edifices only, but new sympathy within
the edifices reared. I say this with no implication of self-righteous censure against
customs of a former date. Let the dead bury
their dead, and each age of humanity before
God stand or fall in the light of his own conscience. When priest Ambrose shut in the
face of Emperor Theodosius the holy portals
whose decaying particles are said in their
21 
22      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
bronze successors to be yet preserved, as we
clamp in iron the rotting limbs of liberty-trees
emblematic of great events in our political
annals, the act may have been but a protest
against despotism, suited to the exigency of
the case. Perhaps now there are things, if not
persons, that should not be admitted to the
temple, out of which Jesus drove the cattle
and trading thieves. Nevertheless the genera]
glory of the Church is its unlimited accessibility to the sons of men.   Its true defence,
unlike that of a fort or castle, is in its open
gates. Its conquest is only winning. When
Satan was let loose in the raging tempest of
human passions, it may have been requisite
to build its walls high and thick, as common
dwellings of the Middle Ages still standing
were made, like prisons, with grated windows,
to guard against assassins' and soldiers' attacks.
But the Church has made its position in
the world good. The ark of God has brought
its treasure of humanity safe through the old
flood of evil. It is time for men to leave its narrow chambers and accommodate  themselves 
POSITION.         23
in more spacious homes alike consecrated to
him.  The health and power of the Church
lie now in lifting every window and clearing
every passage.  It needs no outward sevenfold shield of Achilles to protect its peculiar
life.  iJIj~ pulpit itas no doors, said a greathearted preacher, pointing his brethren of another name to its wide, unclosed entrances,
which seemed, as he spoke, gateways both for
the ocean and the land.  It will be a happy
day when no shrine or cathedral shall have
within its space, more than at its front, enclosures of official sanctity or bars of a fancied
material lloly of llolies.  The design of the
Church, different from that of a fortified place,
is not repulse, but welcome.  To redeem the
world, not turn it into an ecclesiastical estab
lishment, is Christ's aim. For this the Church
is but an instrument in his hand.  It is not
itself God's kingdom, but the road thereto.
God's kingdom is the whole world of human
avocations and affections consecrated to him
in the obedience of his laws; and the Church
is not the object and business of mankind,
any more than the compass is the ship, the
rudder the cargo, or the chart the voyage. 
24      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
The world was not made for the Church, but
the Church for the world. Christianity itself
is not all. It were partial and superstitious
to say it is. Rather, as its Author and Finisher said, it is a leaven cast into the flood
and mixture of human affairs, and depths of
the human heart, for unbounded spread of
sanctity and power. It is a high school of
human nature, not a monopoly of the soul.
It is a circular reaching through the earth, not
a railed space upon it. Bible and Gospel, as
Jesus said of the Sabbath, are made for man,
not man for them.
Surely I would not so generalize our religion as to make it practically nothing while
seeming to make it everything. It is not everything.   It distinguishes things.  Nothing
is such a distinguisher. It runs that line between evil and good which men in their selfishness, low passion, and political corruption
try to rub out, and would expunge from the
record, but that by the Almighty finger it is
so keenly drawn that they only wear themselves away who seek to obliterate it. To fall
or be fallen upon by "this stone," is alike
fatal. Christianity, peculiar, selecting some 
POSITION.
things, rejecting others, unable to give up or
adulterate its own essence, cherishing only
what it can appropriate, yet has an assimilation of unparalleled potency, like the digestion
that can turn gravel and poison into vigor
and food. Beyond the boasted national patriotic quality that can make of every race
Americans, is its virtue to convert all tribes
into Christians. It takes the mass of bewildered men in the midst of pollution to transform into its everlasting life. Like the seed,
with its metamorphosis of dust into fragrant
bloom, has its seminal living and/life-giving
property proved. Nothing in the world, that
stains, has been able to stain it. Snow-wNhite
is the scarlet sin, and as wool the crimson
iniquity, in its wondrous hand. Ignorance,
barbarism, superstition, idolatry, touched by
it, deny their nature, put on its dignity, shine
with its light, are transmuted into its love. It
is going to wash all mankind of their defilements, and refashion them after the pattern
of their Lord.
But its great visible agency is the Church,
friend, though antagonist, of the world. It is
said of Jonathan Edwards, that, seeing the
25 
26     CHURCH AND C0NGRRGATI0N.
Church relent towards the world, he rushed
in and made the breach irreparable.  But
irreparable it is not.  They must be brought
together.  The huge Goliath shall be overcome by the Son of David.  The loose, fickle,
unprincipled, vast world shall be won by the
inseparable, immortal band of the righteous,
sooner and more surely than they scattered or
consumed by its flames or delusions.  Little
is the fine salt to the bulky earth it seasons.
Of how small a lustre of his disciples Jesus declared it was the light of the world! The small
minority of ten good men saves the city.  So
the Church shall triumph.  Not, however, by
any rigid shape or mode of action will this be.
The fable of the heathen deity, Proteus, shifting into many a figure, and more formidable for
every change, may teach the lesson of moral
prowess which Paul, indeed the great missionary, truthfully practised, being, for the
truth, all things to all men.  If the Church
be divine, as we believe, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it, it may safely allow withiii reach of its communion and the
mighty alterative of its grand and heavenly
power all human souls. 
REASON.
CHAPTER III.
REASON.
I HAVE explained the scope of my plan.
But no general speculations will suffice to
settle any point of Christian doctrine or practice. For what reason, then, should congregation and church be identified, or, to particularize the question, why should the Lord's
Supper be open to all Christian worshippers?
I answer, because Jesus himself opened it to
his disciples, irrespective of their vast diversities. From his special request that they
would all drink of the cup, it would seem as
if they might not all have eaten of the bread,
certainly that he would have no one present
with him omit the symbol. From him surely
the Romish communion for the people in one
kind has no authority. That he made it no
test of creed, judgment on character, line between church and congregation, but a memorial of love alone, appears from the slightest
27 
28      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
examination. Who were they to whom he
administered it? The twelve apostles, Luke
says, were with him at the table.   Among
them, certainly not dismissed before he had
received a savory morsel from Christ's own
hand, was Judas the traitor, with Peter the denier, Thomas the unbeliever, and all the company to be cowardly deserters, yet all invited
guests. By whatever recognition of their regard for Jesus we may qualify this judgment,
we cannot escape the fact of their vast diversity of disposition, confidence in the Master's
cause, and respective moral worth. Peter, the
most ardent of the disciples, proved the most
fearful, and John, the most gentle, approached
nearest to being brave. It has been asked, If
Jesus meant to open his supper to all, why
did he not invite persons from Jerusalem and
all Judeea to the feast? The question does
not consider how few there were to call; that
Christ's open adherents and regular attendants, through whom he would promulgate his
religion, were all with him, and that the
measure of Jewish hospitality toward him
was scarce more ample than the precincts in 
REASON.
which the feast was spread. But the width of
its intent appears from the character of the
festival to which it succeeded. As all Jews
celebrated the Passover, he would have all
Christians observe the Supper.
Confirmatory evidence arises from the opening of the Supper in the early Apostolic
Church. Even for eating and drinking condemnation in excesses of intoxication and
gluttony, by which the Corinthian rich separated themselves at the altar from the fasting
poor, Paul forbids none to come to the table,
but rebukes them in order to their reform.
That  afterwards  the Supper  was  made  a
mystery, a thing for a few, as a natural relic
or politic offset for Pagan mysteries, is surely
no cause we should keep it such, unless we
will find in any established corruption itself
argument for its own continuance.
But furthermore, supposing it desirable to
have a service distinguishing betwixt the
faithful and the recreant, the Supper fails,
and by the philosophy of human nature must
fail, to answer this purpose. A man recognizes his property, as it floats in the river or
29 
30     CHUROll AND CONGREGATION.
moves in the pasture, by an outward stamp;
but there is no earthly certificate of goodness,
and the moment a man thinks he possesses it,
he falls from the grace of Him whose spotless
soul revolted at the thonglit of being called
good.  There is a difference, indeed, says a
late German writer, between being good and
being conscious that I am good!  To be
good is doubtless the greatest of all things
in earth or heaven.  To be conscious that we
are good, is to fall like a Pharisee on earth or
Lucifer ftom the sky.  Christ indisputably
was good; but refused to own the consciousness or accept the praise of being such, neither having his own nor adopting another's
opinion of his character, precisely because the
character was so pure.  The saintly prayer,
Lord, if lAere be in me anytkin~ ~ood, ~~~r~~t
I may never know it, may be extravagant;
but it is not true or Christian to designate
one's self as good in comparison with others.
There is in fact no visible trace, like a diamond-point on glass, to break society in two,
one side the friends of Jesus, the other his
foes.  There is a distinction among men, as 
REASON.
the soul knows,- a distinction Christianity
sharpens, not wipes out; but no formal line
of distinction can be ecclesiastically drawn
coincident with the real one. So, saith the
Scripture, judge not!
But were it possible, it is not desirable so
to divide. Those wonted to the feast would
or ought to shrink from regarding it as their
profession of holiness, or a brand of shame on
its neglecters, thus committing those sins apostles', pens score, and Christ thunders at, of
sanctimony and censorious judgment. God,
said one, knows wlo the clergymen are!  God
knows his children and his Son's disciples.
God will set the sheep on his right hand and
the goats on his left, so that no more than
any other diverse kinds in his creation they
can be confounded. For what reason are
sheep or goat, viper and serpent, wolf and fox,
lamb and dove, used as symbols in the Bible,
but to indicate the fixed and determinate difference between moral good and evil by quoting animal species, the impossibility of whose
being confounded is known alike to the wise
man's science and the fool's or ignorant man's
31 
32      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
common sense? But who will antedate the
decision, unseat the bar of judgment from its
clear, lofty place, and plant it among earthly
shadows and doubts? For individual protection and guidance, private estimates of our
fellow-creatures are unquestionably requisite.
Human law must pass on overt acts of crime
for the safety of the common weal. But the
Divine wisdom and mercy for human love
and peace allow in no man's hand a plummet
for the mnotives, or a measuring-band of the
responsibilities and constitutional capacities,
of human souls. Almighty justice reserves,
against all appeal, such jurisdiction to the superior court. Blessed be the Judge, there is
no absolute balance trusted to the hands of
any corporation, - Pope, cardinals, bishops,
synods,- but only what his finger suspends!
Beside, to separate, if we knew them, the
evil from the good, would but contradict Him
who rooted not the tares from the wheat, who
ate with publicans, consorted with sinners,
talked with the woman Pharisees would have
stoned, suffered poor Mary Magdalene to commune with him indeed, and in her own act to 
REASON.
paint a picture there in Judma, to the envy of
Greek and Italian masters, in never-fading
colors, as she washed his feet with her tears
and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
The Lord's Supper for the perfect alone? He
had no errand to them at all! His whole
mission, and every means of grace he brought
from heaven, were for earth-bound and unworthy souls. The cry of no union with sinners,
be their sins personal, social, or political, is
unchristian and inhuman: fully carried out, it
would break up every civil community, rend
asunder every neighborhood, dissolve every
family, inflame every friendly circle, and, in
that dualism of the soul old philosophers and
New Testament writers describe, put every
man at variance with himself.
God's design, furthermore, on the world's
whole theatre, agrees with Christ's institution,
in mingling human beings together for common good. As husband and wife are joined
for better or worse, as their descendants, however unlike, hold fast one another, as the
dying man, faint but eager, while before the
pallor of his face the tide of life ebbs, and his
3
33 
34     CHURCH ANI) CONGREGATION.
limbs grow Cold, and his tongue dumb, looks
from his bed after all his children, though he
may love some one more fondly, so our Head
would unite us.  There is no better title for a
church than that sometimes chosen, of "All
Souls," - which, God says, are his.  The cxelusive or partial administration of the Lord's
Supper is a mutilation of the Church.  The
more splendid a work of art, the uglier the
flaw that makes its beauty the worst of ruins.
The nobler the mountain or cliff, the sadder
the fissure by which it crumbles away.  That
the grandest association on earth, unlike
Christ's robe that was woven without seam,
and his body not a bone of which was broken,
should exist under any sort of duplicity, is a
misfortune and injury indeed!
Yet, again, why should not the Snpper be
open equally with any other religious rite?
What reason can be stated for putting it on
any different footing from that of the general
worship and praise?  No ordinance constitutes the Church.  No participation in any ordinance constitutes membership in the Church.
The ordinances are practices not constituents 
REASON.
of the Church, things which its members,
made such by the love and faith of Christ,
use as symbols and exercises of such love
and faith. In order to be united by faith
and love, must persons expressly say or write
it down  that they are so united?   Is the
union which constitutes the Church dependent on, and caused by, any profession? No,
that is to put the outside before the inside,
and postpone the cause to the effect. It is
not the circumstance, but the animating spirit,
that consecrates any place or service. If one
of our brothers in Christ finds his last rest in
the desert, shall not Arabian sands be holy?
Our loyalty to our Master is our personal
following, not giving a sign like a military
signal or password. Alas! when the stress is
laid on that, how often in all religious or secular history it has by treachery been falsified
to issues most dreadful of slavery, cruelty,
and blood!
Is it said, into the widely opened door hypocrites may enter? But do they not into the
narrowly closed one? With most likely success will they not present themselves at the
35 
36      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
most jealous entrance of the "most straitest
sect," to get the highest repute of godliness
they desire? There is no hole so small but
the hypocrite will choose to push through,
rather than go in with a crowd at the lofty
gateway; and though stupid lower creatures
may be restrained by fences of wood or wire,
no hedge has yet been invented to keep him,
the subtle and cunning man, out.  Alas! this
enemy of moral growth, like the artful insect
foes of the beauty and fruitfulness of our gardens and fields, chiefly infests the denominations most ascetic and severe, and within their
thorny bars mainly flourishes in show of all
virtue and odor of sanctity. But if to this or
any other religious rite, spite of any officers of
the ecclesiastical custom stationed to detect
and exclude with their most searching tests
an adulterate or contraband spirituality, hypocrites after al] do and will come, who shall
identify or sentence them but He to whom we
every one stand or fall?
If we apply a test of Christ's true Church,
it must not be a ceremonial one; for though
the Church has ceremonies, it is not a ceremo 
REASON.
nial body. Far more, it is a believing, lov ing, working body, composed of those toiling,
spending, sacrificing for their fellow-creatures,
mercifully giving, personally serving, visiting
poor men and prisoners, clothing the naked
as they ply the needle, -for humanity more
blessed, though little instrument in woman's
hand, than the cannon which at man's hostile
touch has roared over this stage of time,
sending the Gospel to the heathen, or emigrant children to Western homes, or gathering for instruction the ignorant from our own
streets. With them we are in the Church,
though the room be no temple or cathedral,
but plain as that beyond the Mediterranean
Sea where Christ's followers were first assembled. Among the good I am in the Church
more than amid the shine of sacred vessels or
sound that reverberates from the ceiling or
hangs its echoes in celestial arches. Ah! the
Church, as a visible corporation, has not
searched out or known all the members of
Christ's body at every humble and holy task
of brain and heart and feet and hands throughout the world. She may be a mother, saying
37 
38      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
of famous and canonized children with more
than the old matronly joy, These are my jewels. But the jewels seen by the eye of God
and cherished by the lowly king of Israel for
his crown she has completely neither counted
nor prized!
Once more, the Supper should be open to
all Christian worshippers because it is a symbol; and it is the very nature and genius of
a symbol to bring human beings together.
Dogmas divide: emblems unite. Witness
the family name, political motto, common
seal, national flag, humane watchword! A
hundred barbarian tribes from thousand-fold
conflict and division flock to one Roman
banner, and march under its single magnificent blaze. Secret societies by their signals
last for ages. A domestic memorial or escutcheon draws tears when the bosoms that
bravely bore it beat no more than other dust.
A picture, ornament, anniversary, binds children in one over the ashes of dead parents,
-shall I not say, rather, under the eyes of
living ascended ones? It draws, by some
mysterious suggestion, human bond, electric 
REASON.            39
chord, upon those associations of kindred
blood in a common nature, to which few
persons are insensible, or for insensibility to
which we count no man better, however sage,
and in whatsoever respect above his fellows
he may be.  But no signal like the Lord's
Supper has marshalled the zeal and courage
of the world, as to the religion's first imperial leader the sky-flaming cross announced,
In this Sl~~~ thou shalt conquer!  How many
tribes and tongues have f6llowed after it!
Said the famous Hungarian, whose speech,
more than that of any other modern orator,
lately shook the woild, If our foes drive
us to it, we will eat the Last Supper and ~o
down to the field of death!
In fine, does not the spectacle of the prepared ordinance itself invite all?  At what
invisible line of peril on the floor should any
one start, as, by some old remembrance of
fright or stumbling, a human being or lower
creature is startled or shies at a particular
undiscernible point in the road?  The very
notion of that invisible line, as a line we or
any one but God can run, let us take away! 
40      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
As between individuals in this world, it was
never meant for us by any concert of pretended religion to draw. Jesus himself drew
lines only between diverse classes, not stigmatizing particular persons to consign them
to their doom. Many are the evils, and great
the wrong, of our doing otherwise.   The idea
especially of different sets of obligations for
different classes of Christians, according as
they do or do not frequent the Lord's table,
let us abjure, as not only superstition, but demoralization. The custom of dismissing all
children as unfit to witness  the scene, significant of the inextinguishable love of their
Saviour and best friend, let us straightway
honor in the breach thereof: for who more
than they should be addressed by the natural,
beautiful, silent language of commemoration,
till they are gradually trained at parental discretion to participate all the more intelligently
and beneficially in what so long their feelings
shall have apprehended and their senses observed.
Let us, in this matter, act after the truth
and nature that dictate all our other common 
REASON.
proceedings. If you had some touching celebration in your own dwelling, would you
send the children away, or have even the babe
brought in arms and the very infant in its
cradle dragged in to be present? Why then
leave the growing generation out of this divine pathetic teaching? Why in it should
husbands forsake their wives, brothers their
sisters, offspring their parents?  It will be
very difficult for members of Christian societies or Christian principles to answer that
question, why. But that it may at least be
heard and considered, is the purpose for which
I write.  Its true answer I believe to be a
practical one, and only this: - Let us be all
together in that Jesus meant for nothing but
to bring us together. Never till we are so
brought, shall we be truly what lie designed
in his Church.
41 
42     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER IV.
SYMBOL.
A SYMBOL, as I have said, is a thing by its
very nature uniting all who believe what is
symbolized. It is all the more one of the
curious solecisms of human experience, that
symbol, in our religion, suited as it is to engage the imagination, appealing to the heart,
and being a common language everywhere
independent of the Babel of spoken tongues,
should have been used, not to universalize,
but limit Christianity. As not a few take
the ground that the ordinance of the Supper,
so far from  being  designed for a general
privilege of his followers, was simply a temporary and provisional matter in Christ's own
plan, never intended for continuance, and that
its perpetuity in time, far more its extension
through the Church, is a purely arbitrary
superstition, let me proceed to maintain that 
SYMBOL.
the symbolic nature of the rite, as it belongs
to all who accept its significance, certifies its
enduring purpose and benefit. For what did
the Lord appoint an emblem, but for this very
thing, to be observed after his death, supplying his personal presence with his spiritual
image! To whomsoever, then, through the
world's breadth and history, it can answer
this purpose of reviving an unseen Redeemer
in the mind, it belongs, as it did to the first
communicants in Judea, or as to Paul and all
like him who had never seen or known Christ
in the flesh.
If it be asked, why the washing of feet, as
a symbol of humility, has not the same claim
to perpetuity, which indeed has for it been asserted, and to some extent realized, examination and reflection might show the choice between the two rites not accidental. Not shod
and guarded feet like ours in a Northern clime,
but sandalled and dusty ones, were washed.
Washing in its nature is a more private act
than it is needful eating should be, though the
washing of saints' or sinners' feet, it may be
hoped, has still its place.  In the washing of
43 
44      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
feet, Jesus tells his disciples to do as he did;
in the Supper, to do over again, and often, the
thing he did; -in the one ease inculcating a
temper only, in the other prescribing a rite.
A comparison of the circumstances of the two
scenes and services might confirm this view.
Designing not to disparage the washing, but
to defend the Supper as an ordinance, I maintain it commends itself with a strong plea
to all. Only a disowning of personal relations with a Saviour or irrational speculation
in ignorance of human nature underrating the
import of a symbolice influence, can make us
any more than the first twelve indifferent to,
however honestly we may disuse, such a rite.
But let us inquire if, beyond conventional
usage or variations of personal feeling, the duration of a commemorative token may not be
established on some basis of impregnable principle. Everything has its fixed date and term
of life in this world. Look through the kingdoms of nature. Tribe and species, plant and
tree, institution and community, last so long;
nor can their existence be lengthened out artificially after the divinely fated hour. Now, in 
SYMBOL.
this world of human life, sentiment, and history, I maintain, symbols in a thousand forms
are as real existences as the solid frame of
matter itself, or as anything that grows from
its bosom or lives on its sphere. What, then,
is the continuance of a symbol? Its prerogative is to abide as long as the thing it is
needed to signify and shadow forth. This, of
course, is true of all symbols. The shield of
a family or race will shine till their strength
declines, and their numbers die out. Then
their arms will fade and rust beyond all power
to burnish their lustre, or bear on their protection or terror. The pictured eagle will appear
to scream, the blazoned lion open his mouth
and rear his mane, the painted lilies bloom
from their delicately woven and embroidered
ground, and the stars sparkle on the banners
of nations, while the nations wax in might,
spread their policy, expand their territory, or
shake the planet they inhabit with their tread.
Why should not their flags float over land
and sea, fort and tower, harbor and town, long
as they have a name and place and force to
live among the swarming populations of men?
45 
46      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
Let dogmas and speculations and schools of
opinion come and go; so it is their nature to
rise and flourish and pass; but no merely
intellectual revolutions can alter or overset
what has the Divine claim of reality and fact.
Could the American traveller, who, seeing his
country's flag displayed from a little boat on
the river Rhine, felt the tears rush to his eyes,
have explained his effusion, save as arising
from a token of the wide-spread and lasting
power of his native land?
When, however, in that war with time and
nature from which nothing mortal is discharged till it succumbs, the principles and
powers surrender, retreat, and decay, then the
symbol must go with the antiquated, superannuated things symbolized. Then let all the
fine pictures and suggestive engravings be like
faint sketches and perishable drawings growing pale in the sun, as in the unmeasured existence of mankind so many significant colors
have been already struck, wrapped together,
and laid away to rot. But not before! reason
orders, the heart cries, Not before! So be it
with the symbols of our religion, - especially 
SYMBOL.
with this precious, chosen one of the Supper
of our Lord. We will put this on the same
ground with all celebrations of any other right
sentiment of human nature, asking for it no
favors, but only the justice that is its due.
We will entreat no moment's factitious existence of the form beyond the substance, of selfsacrifice and love unto death, it displays. Let
no bread be broken or wine poured on the
table after his broken body and flowing blood
have lost their glorious sense. But lost it
yet they have not! No scenery of terrestrial
events has kept so great a meaning so long;
none promises coeval significance through the
measureless track mankind is still to tread.
What emblem that binds men in any other
association together, what banner that flouts
the gale in either hemisphere, or signal that
dailies with any far-off ocean's breeze, can vie
with the hope of this standard? Would we
tear it away and blot its period?  Let us then
be not capricious, but consistent, and make,
while we are about it, thorough work. Let
us declare it nothing but folly in the world's
history for picturesque symbols graven on
47 
48      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
scutcheons and shields to have silently for
millions taken the place of what floods ot
noisy speech! Let us brand it as absurdity
for the heroic Kane to have left his banner
blowing in the wintry Arctic solitude at every
blast from the frozen pole! Let us lower
every waving fold of patriotic signification,
erase from the calendar our anniversaries, ot
December, June, or July, and abolish every
friendly, fraternal, domestic token! An ordinance that has secured its own prolongation,
and looks forth to the future so sublimely
from its historic mount of near two thousand
years, against any man's critical negations or
practical neglect, I must aver, was meant to
be perpetual, and is perpetuated by God.
Therefore its open invitation is not absolute,
but remains.
This symbolic meaning of the table affords,
moreover, a reply to the argument against the
service on account of the alteration of its original style. At the outset, it may be said, it
was a real supper, like the Jewish Passover,
which it extended into new interpretation. It
was like that eating together of the bread and 
SYMBOL.
salt, or drinking of the cup of water or wine,
which, in tribes barbarous or civilized, has
been the universal, everlasting sign of amity
and good-will to every stranger or wayfarer
admitted to the board. But this hearty character of its hospitality and good cheer has
utterly failed. Its bits of bread, its touches
and tastings of the lips, may be considered a
mere apparition of eating and drinking, a hollow, unsubstantial ceremony. It often looks
now like a kind of spectre. It is like the fancied return of spirits in our day, in guise of
intellectual demonstration infinitely inferior,
as many will say, to that of the former mnortals in the flesh whose present impersonation
is alleged. The scattered, silent, individual,
gray communicants, that so thinly, without
ardor, magnetic enthusiasm of personal communication, or mutual converse, sit apart in
churches deserted of most of their common
worshippers, casting front their faces a sort
of ghostly light on the table and its vessels
borne        about, —   how different from the devoted
comnpany that, putting off their dusty shoes,
lay in each other's bosoms, and for the sup               4
49a 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
port of wearied nature abundantly partook of
what was set before them!
Admitting such of the defects here stated as
it would enter into my design to relieve, to
the cavil also suggested I rejoin, it was by no
means the satisfaction of natural hunger and
thirst, that in the first instance constituted the
Lord's Supper. Rather, in the midst of the
feast, Jesus took bread, and gave the blessed
broken loaf, and passed the cup, as omens of
the bloody sacrifice of himself at hand. Were
they received and consumed for so much bodily food and stimulus? Never, but purely for
the soul!  Are we not right to dispose of no
drop or particle of the consecrated elements
for the sake of the flesh, but take the nutriment and enlivening into the circulations of
the heart? Yea, saith every soul that has felt
their peculiar influence. The table stands not
at any visible altar alone. It is spread in our
imagination also. Perpetually the sacred vessels shine there.   There quietly in musing
hours the loaf is broken and the wine is
poured, while silent around in imagination's
chambers sit the loving and beloved guests.
50 
SYMBOL.
Let the Supper be all symbol, food for thought
and food for feeling, a real presence, not as
the Romanist fancies of Christ's body,- what
care we for that? -but of his immortal na ture to immortalize ours! As, in rude sheds
on mountain-sides and along lonely vales, the
cross of Christ symbolizes his self-sacrifice to
every passer-by, so let the table invite and
welcome  all who  will approach.   As  the
Scripture record may be read by all, so let
this ritual pictorial language be perused.  As
a painting of the Last Supper, by Leonardo da
Vinci, or any master, may be beheld by every
eye, so be it with the actual board in the sanctuary. It is all symbol, and symbol for all
whom symbol can touch. As well keep the
canvas of Rubens or Volterra portraying our
Lord's descent from the tree, out of sight, instead of making it the wonder and inspiration
of the world, as hide the feast which prepared
the sufferer for his doom.
We do not make believe eat and drink in
the Supper. How many are the actual instances, in other relations of our human life, of
reducing outward and material qualities to a
51 
52  CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
symbolic sense! A printed line chosen out
of its connection, and turned into a motto, a
piece of cloth streaming at mast-head, and torn
into a rag in the tempest of battle, a title or a
badge for any literary or mechanical craft, a
peculiar pressure of recognition in some brotherhood, a wooden ball rolled through the land
to bespeak the political revolution it does
something to produce, - these and a thousand
things beside are so changed, and by some
alchemy of sentiment reduced.  What means
that sound of artillery? Is there war in the
territory,-troops landed, the  enemies' fire
opening, and we summoned to meet them?
Surely for this their brazen tubes were bored
or iron length cast! Do those pennons lure
us to the fight?  No,-the grim mouths with
their deathly blaze, those meteors that fluttei
in the air red as the blood whose spilling they
portend, that resounding alarum of the bell
that martial music, and those  incomrnparabl.
bands of soldiery parading our streets, so fa,
from the fear and clangor of conflict, arc
altered into but exulting symbols of peace
Sceptic, that smilest at religion, and pretend 
SYMBOL.
est to overflowing patriotism, defend or deliver
thyself from thy se]f-contradiction, ay, even
the denial of what is best in thy own nature!
Man of science, that canst see a natural law,
but despisest a supernatural influence or fact,
thy peers in intellect have apology and arguiment deep as any matter of thy observation
for their confessing of divinity!
What is the use now of that little enclosure
of Bunker-Hill, once the scene of carnage?
The same again as at the creative commencement of things? Ages by-gone, before the
shock of arms, it may have served some end
in cultivation, or for the cattle that browsed
amid the grass. But no man shall till those
roods any more.   No  flocks on that green
sward shall again find pasturage. Never,
please God, to military occupation, with the
dreadful science of gunnery, shall it return.
It is all symbol now, - a lot in which not
corn and wheat, but friendship and patriotism,
may grow.  Wherefore does the stone building in the centre stand? Who dwells there
by day or lodges by night? What merchandise within those sightly portals and solid
53 
54      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
walls? Of what machines or stuffs of precious texture does that lofty shaft, like other
tall neighboring chimneys, denote the factory?
Of what iron road do those firm gates mark
the station? Nothing of this: earth, granite,
girded space, all is symbol!  No tenants but
spirits, and such as go to meet them hovering
in the air! Ye, who scorn and set aside all
the expressive appeals and tokens of a Christian faith, of course also care nothing for spot
or monument, appointed celebration or annual
day, and with hand or voice, when you have
journeyed to the mount of bloody sacrifice,
greet no sympathetic friend or fellow-citizen
there! Not so, exclaim all. We recognize
our fathers in a pure symbol! So, pure symbol is the table of the Lord. Shall the blood
of countrymen be commemorated on the hill
where they fell? There was a sacrifice, on
another hill of Calvary, which redeemed the
race and gave freedom to the earth!
In fine, shall we not conclude, our religion
is not truth for the intellect or command for
the conscience alone, but symbol for the soul.
It is impossible for any one, who denies this 
SYMBOL.            55
principle, to make his own conduct congruous.
lie cannot rise in the morning, see his kindred, sit at meat, pass through the town, stop
at any threshold, or enter into any relation of
life, without obeying the prompting which we
ask should also in the emblems of the Gospel
be allowed.  The very members of his body,
what rises and falls with his heart-throbs, the
walls of his house, the letters from his hand,
the most precious stores of his privacy, by
wrilien signs and fresh or antique figures attesfing what has touched him most deeply
and is still dearest to his soul, are his refutation.  If the savage warriors of a thousand
tribes have spared as sacred the life of those
that have eaten at their hoard, there may be
some virtue of grace and love for those that
eat and drink together as disciples of the
Lord and followers of the Captain of their
salvation.
Free grace, in short, as much as free will,
fashions the sons of God.  As air no less than
exercise contributes to bodily health, so inspired and inspiring, as well as moral, is the
perfect man.  As the passive verb is an indis 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
pensable part of human speech, so the receptive
temper is part of human excellence. Every
influence of art, every appeal of nature, every
object or event that stirs a sentiment in the
human bosom, and each breath of the Holy
Spirit of God, comes in proof of our dependence for character, not on direct effort alone,
but a thousand involuntary impressions. By
sail or carriage or balloon, as well as direct
motion of the feet, one is moved. Does not
sacred music, as surely as sober advice, reach
the springs of conduct? Are we not astir at
the holy thunder of countless voices in some
grand chorus of the Elijah or Messiah, as
strongly as by ally cool didactic treatise?
But argument is a drug and superfluity for
what stands of itself, and shines in its own
light. Form or symbol in religion? Dedicated building and Sabbath day themselves
are part of it! I lately waited listening to the
bell as it rang and tolled the people to church:
stroke after stroke, quick and lively, in chiming
tones, while the city's hundred belfries made
response; then solemn, single, more slow, till
the sound stopped altogether.
56 
SYMBOL.
",Hark! hark! it seems to say,
As melt those sounds away,
So earth's best joys decay!
For thy life is ending!"
If a worldly man or a studious critic will
object, that on technical, sectarian, or superstitious conditions such an influence depends,
let him try the principle within the sphere of
his own susceptibilities. Let him leave the
atmosphere of his meditation or business, go
to the place where he was born, roam the fields
his childhood played in, enter the shadows of
the hill-sides in whose coolness he lay down,
or stand on the rocky points of prospect he
ascended. Will he own no instruction additional to the results of his most prudent
research or sharpest reasoning? He sits beside the little brook which washed his feet
scores of years ago. Just as then it tinkles
by him, a weak rivulet which his finger can
almost fathom, and it might seem one motion
of his hand could turn from its course. It
tinkles and glides, and keeps its old, slender
channel. But where are the children that sat
beside him and sported in its sound? Where
57 
58      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
are the men that strode over the brook on
their affairs, to plant or build or sail, and, as he
remembers, so unlike him, heeded it not? All
swept away by the vast tide of mortality, or
scattered on the tossing billows of change!
The generations of men and the hosts of
heaven have changed their places, yet unconcernedly the little brook tinkles on as it did.
Is it unworthy, then, of an intellectual being,
that the stream, in its tiny flow expressing
the passage of time, should signify it more
vividly and truly than the formal registers of
clerks, annals of historians, or all the mathematical instruments and calculations ever invented by human wit?  Truly, to all, not sunk
in brute sensuality, Nature has her symbols!
Surely it is not unnatural, or, in the light
of common sense, illegitimate, that Religion
should have hers; and if she have them, like
Nature, let her preserve them throughout all
generations, make them coeval with her own
life, and extend them without exception to
the children of men! 
PROFESSION.
CHAPTER V.
PROFESSION.
MANY object to open communion as perverting the Supper from its use to individuals as a special profession of religion.  It is
enough to say in reply to this, Christ put the
institution on no such ground of a profession
or first acknowledgment of him, but of a commemoration by those already his disciples.
They observed it as one of many indications
of loyalty, free, like all other exercises and
symbols, to those united in common love of
the Master. Not till ages after, upon conclusion of a customary service of instruction and
worship, part of the assembly, as not belonging to the innermost circle of devotees, were
dismissed with terms - Ite, missa est - that
became a title for the Romish mass, and, in the
long reach of results, issued in the Protestant
benediction of sending away most of the con
59 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
gregation, whom a true blessing would surely
rather keep at the table. Well may Beranger
make it the sarcastic refrain in one of his modern songs,- IBe, tissa est! Do not the pastor
in giving, and the people in receiving, a dismission of part of the congregation, enact together an untrue and unchristian division into
two bodies of the whole? Blessing and dismission! Is there not something monstrous,
must there not be something wrong, in such
anl identifying of these two things?  At least
I must say, and challenge one fair word of
historic gainsaying, that our distinction of
Church and Congregation came not from
Christ or Apostles. It was a blow struck at
his Body unawares, no doubt with the mistaken design of defending him, -an ill-aimed
shot of ecclesiastical artillery, which, if it
served any good end in that rude time, ought
now, in respect to his cause, to be only reckoned as a spent ball.
But not only is there no Christian authority
for identifying the Supper with a religious
profession: we must beware of mistaking or
over-esteeming the value of the profession
60 
PROFESSION.
itself, considered as made by individuals of
one class distinguishing themselves from those
of another class within the same religious
body.  Of nothing was Jesus more jealous
than of formal and verbal professions. To
say, Lord, Lord, though they did not the
things he commanded, raised no persons in
his regard. Whosoever cast out devils, though
not in his name or outward following, he
would not suffer the conceited and self-sufficient zeal of his followers to rebuke. What,
then, did he mean by those words, on which
hang such fear and joy, about the opposite
consequences of confessing or denying him
before men? Verily, it only needs to reflect
what a true confession of him then was, to
understand! When the ecclesiastic and civil
power raised the alternative between owning
the obligation of the Mosaic law, the authority of the Roman realm, or asserting allegiance
to Christ in matters where his teachings conflicted with their dictates, then to confess him
amid threats, in peril, beneath the scourge, before the cross, -0, that was no profession such
as we commonly witness or intend! When
61 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
the black looks of theological bigotry and political spite, like clouds that join before the
storm, met to herald the popular hate, - when
the sword that Jesus brought, sharper than
any soldier's steel, cut the bonds of the nearest kindred, and the altar of sacrifice for one's
self stood so often not far away for a grim termination of the scene, -it was a confession
with which we can hardly presume to parallel
the self-separation from our fellows amid the
smiles of gratified friends and in the piping
times of peace. 0, that was no setting one's
self apart with an air of elevation, on a scheme
of safety or theory of purity, saying with the
Pharisee, I am holier than thou; but a test,
insincerity in which was made impossible by
the circumstances of the case. No wonder
Jesus reckoned confession of this sort at so
high a rate! It meant the prison, it meant
the rack, it meant disgrace, outlawry, and
blood. This confession or the contrary denial
should indeed have echoes from his lips in the
hearing of angels, the resounding dome of
heaven, and the judgment of God.
Is, then, a true confession of Christ impos
62 
PROFESSION. 
sible in our day? Is a confession proved
worthless and false simply because, in the
present state of the public mind in a nominally
Christian nation, it is secure, and there is no
opportunity to know whether he that makes
it would rather die than take it back? Surely
not. There is no objection to saying one in
faith and aim is on the side of Christ, but
only to his saying, by a peculiar outward
demonstration, that he is more on his side than
are his other followers. Moreover, there may
well be opportunity, with or without verbal
or ritual form, to confess him under conditions
as decisive as ever. If, in circumstances any
wise equivalent to those ancient ones, we own
Christ for our Master; if we are true to his
standard in taking a just, though unpopular
course, for which we are persecuted in the
community by the  powers that be, which
draws upon us the reproach of companions,
or that general howl of the day, at which only
the bravest turn not pale; if we are willingly
spoiled of property, or offer up reputation for
any principle he reveals; if we take our life
in our hand, as less precious than the least of
63 
64      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
his precepts; if, in our own soul, we choose
death for a welcome, if necessary, helpmate
and bride in carrying out any measure for
human welfare he proclaims; if we recognize
his image and God's in any poor brother
or sister driven wrongfully to extremity, and
cheerfully endure what man can do unto us
for our humanity, -then we confess him and
are his martyrs in something like his own
original sense of the word, round which blazes
the supreme halo of historic glory. Let exaInples of modesty joined with fidelity in
those earlier times admonish and encourage
us! Some, for not recanting, dreadfully tortured, yet escaping with life, when honor was
paid them, we are told, deprecated it, saying,
We are not martyrs, but only humble confessors
of Christ.
But thus much at least must we affirm,that is not a true and full confession of Christ
which costs us nothing. Subscribing a sectarian creed; going through a conventional process; tallying with others in a religious experience, which, if true, always answers first fo-:
itself before God; dooming our fellow-crea-= 
PROFESSION.
tures for honest or unavoidable difference of
opinion to the vials of eternal wrath; or by
conformity sheltering ourselves from such excommunication; or confessing himrn merely in
an external rite whose substance is not in our
life and soul,- is not the confession to which
he referred. Let it not be thought that in
any spirit of scorn I refer to empty and fruitless outward profession. Rather with the inexpressible sorrow every witness of it should
feel, and not least any one whose station may
bring it directly under his eye. Ah, it is a
shame that any one with the least color of
truth can say, I will pick out as many good
Christian men in a given religious community
from those not professors as from those who
are! It is a shame to have it said a man cannot be trusted in a contract more for being a
professor of religion. If this be indignantly
denied, who of us must not admit that, if all
professors in name were real followers, they
would shake village and city from pollution,
scare away vice and crime, and shame private fraud and civil corruption from our bor
5
65 
66     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ders, in a far different style from that in which
they do!
Granting that an acceptable profession of
Christ may be made without a price of expo~ure and suffering, rarely occurring in the
same form as in the martyr-age, such a profession has no identity or limit with the Lord's
Supper, coincide with it whensoever it may.
To cut off the right hand of every evil habit,
to pluck out the nght eye of every lustful desire, to crucify earthly affections when the
bleeding anguish thereof is only within, is an
index pointing more keenly to the mark.
But if outward profession be the indispensable thing, is it not actually made by us all?
Yes, by all who are associated in the Son's
name for the Father's worship.  It cannot be
respectfully supposed of any such, that they
are such as curious Athenians merely, or Sadducaic sceptics.  Such an imputation they
would have a right to resent and contradict as
nothing less than a charge upon them of actual deceit; and the consciousness in any one
of such a character cannot exist w thout his
shamefully, with burning heat of soul, if not a 
PROFESSION.
blushing cheek, feeling also that his signs of
faith and devotion are a wretched sham, and
most unworthy pretext. Yes, we are all professors in the general, if in no self-righteous or
invidious way.
We may not make peculiar professions, by
which one of us distinguishes himself from
another. But Jesus prescribed and for himself made none of that kind; for, when he
called himself meek and lowly of heart, according to the proud, prevailing Roman standard, that was profession of ignominy rather
than glory, and claim not of virtue, but reputed vice. Who of us, in his temper, can
make a peculiar profession even of loving
Christ more than our neighbor does? But
common professions in all our Christian
words, acts, services, we make. A man,
asked if he belongs to the Church, answers,
No! He has been to church from his childhood. Nothing in the Bible he may not have
read or heard; nothing in the Hymn-book but
may  have  been  his song;  every truth  of
preaching has been a proclamation for him;
on every sentiment of prayer his soul may
67 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
have ascended as with the breath of the Holy
Ghost. Nay, every domestic service of religion in wedding-gladness, baptismal offerings,
funeral grief, ministers of Christ may have
rendered in his dwelling, - and he himself
would indignantly resist any implication that
closet or fireside devotion could by him be
forgot.   Yet  he  does  not belong  to  the
Church! What does he mean? That lihe
does not join in celebrating a particular ordinance or feast! I venture to submit this is
not Christ's definition. It is absurdity, superstition, a violation in words of sober fact, a
denial of manifest Christian position, and it
may be fatal attempt at evading obligations
equally binding on all. Only evil can be the
effect on the majority of a religious society, to
feel and be allowed to feel they do not belong
to the Church of Christ.
If this position seems like that of a cable
and windlass straining unaffectedly diffident
or confessedly worldly or actually unbelieving
persons up to a point they in all honesty must
decline to touch, then truly we must go back
to first principles, and inquire for what ends
68 
PROFESSION.
we unite in building and dedicating, possessing and frequenting, houses called churches
and courts of God.  Men of the world talk
of hypocrisy. What greater hypocrisy than
to frequent a Christian sanctuary, own the
edifice, choose and support the ministry, yet
inwardly disown church-membership, that is,
disown  Christianity! - for, if we  mean by
Christianity anything more than a dead record of ancient words and facts, if we mean by
it a living power in the world, it can be nothing but a union of human beings in love and
fealty to the common Master. Shall we hold
out the signal of such union, and abnegate the
substance? There could be no greater nonsense to affront the human understanding,
folly for angels to smile at, falsehood for God
to visit and avenge!  We do belong to the
Church. We cannot discard or be rid of the
relation. It is behind our will, in our blood
and nurture. Concerning this one thing, it is
too late for us to choose. Those that have
come out, as they think, from the Church, have
not come out of it more than of their mother's
milk. 
70      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
Thinkers may speculate upon one or another point, change opinions, enlarge their
ideas; but the principle of life, however in
words disallowed, they cannot in fact expel.
The lines of the Church gird us all in, the
laws of the Church bind us all up, the mercies
and consolations of the Church cover us all
over. Blessed to be thus embraced and in
cluded; cursed to be left out as mere worldlings, curious listeners, cold spectators! Life
and death, joy and sorrow, voices of the past,
hushed on earthly lips, and turned into calls
from heaven, are vouchers of our connection.
We dare not, if we could, take our place outside. Our antecedents are in us irrevocably
and for ever. We shall allow none to put us
out, more or less advanced as Christians
though we  be.   More  than  once has the
statesman, from some cause, under a cloud
with his party, been heard to exclaim,- Who
will put me out? Who, that loves and follows Jesus Christ, may not with humble
boldness and inflexible meekness say the
same! Even the doubter in crowded street
or philosophic hermitage is affected by the 
PROFESSION.
Gospel he criticises, and, as a partial thing,
would reject.
The very nature of the Church confirms our
whole argument. The body ecclesiastic is an
organism like the body politic. There are
better and poorer citizens: but citizens all
born or naturalized Americans are. There is
a naturalizing in the Church. Every babe of
Christian parents is by nature a commencing,
by continuing grace a perfect Christian. But,
we are asked, is there not in every true soul's
history a moment of regeneration, which
should be signalized by coming to the table?
and is not this a profession appropriate to be
made? Far be it from me to think lightly of
any epoch whatsoever in the spiritual life!
When the soul, offspring of God, first is
made sensible of its relation to him, and,
conscious of an Almighty parentage, says,
Henceforth I will call no   ian father upon
earth; when, knowing the weakness and sorrow that waylay the pilgrim in timne, it sees
a Saviour in Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
when it resolves to trust its fortunes for ever
to the Divine Spirit and Wvord,- then some
-71 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
attestation of its purpose may become it well.
No formal attestation alone, or chiefly, should
it regard. Yet the simple and beautiful ordinance of the Supper may meet and feed those
feelings of love continually, otherwise in holy
working exercised and expressed. But, however much may be made of this particular expression in such a view of a religious life,
desirable as parents may hold it that their
children should have in this ceremony something, while their religious nature unfolds, to
look forward to, - as indeed not seldom old
men are known to contemplate its observance
before they die, -the principle I advocate, instead of being surrendered, is only the more
heightened and advanced. Instead of being
for prospective ends deprived of this ordinance,
how much better opportunity for its profitable use will the young enjoy for having been
brought up in its presence, than if from childhood excluded, like heathens, from its sight!
Like the rising light, according to the old dispensation, like the growing corn, according to
the new, without noisy break, showy observation, or ostentatious profession, will their
72 
PROFESSION.
progress thus be. Not at church-meetiiigs or
before ecclesiastical officers alone, but in every
deed of the hands and articulation of the lips,
will the profession of Christ appear.
I cannot help being persuaded that this long
training fromi the first, by opening to eye and
ear and heart of all every method of Christian
instruction and growth, though no chronic disease or radical evil of this world can be suddenly banished or cured, will make religion
more cordial and stable on earth. Churchman and theologian are pained to hear it said
of some one, He was a good man, though no
professor of religion; but, while so many a
professor and preacher falls below the manifesto of faith, they must not be surprised. Is
not this just what the centurion meant to say
of Jesus as he expired: This was a good man,
Son of God, though no professor in the Jewish Church? Disconnected from lowly goodiess, in the very phrase profession of religion,
-s a peculiarity of one believer among or
within the circle of others, to every generous
lind, there will always be some sense of dis-ust. It is not a phrase of Christ or of Scrip
73 
74       CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ture, separate from the life. To profess to
have more love, faith, purity, than others, under the common Christian standard, is like an
artisan professing to be the most skilful of his
craft, a scholar the most learned in his department, a painter, poet, intellectual or spiritual
worker of any sort, the most accomplished of
his guild. Where is most true religion, beauty of holiness, and fervor of affection, it will
be most acted and least peculiarly professed.
But a common symbol, open to all, can have
in it no egotism of sanctimony. It would
broadly fold the world.
Upon the whole subject of profession, no
system more than the Congregational, as at
present administered, is open to critical remark. It regards partaking of the Supper as
the note of a peculiar religious experience.
But the initiatory rite of baptism, by which
one is supposed to enter the Church, it con
fers not only on babes, but very widely upon
all children presented for it, whether of churchmembers  or non-commnunicants and  unbaptized. The charge herein made upon it, of
inconsistency, cannot well be set aside.  Its 
PROFESSION.
ecclesiasticism is confused. Its footing is uncertain. It cannot stay where it is, but must
go either backward or forward. Forward let
it go! Forward it will go, and the retrospect
of its course, as of the successive geologic
ages, will show even the incongruous mixtures of opposite elements as but part of the
way to solid simplicity and crystalline clearness in the truth of Christ.
75 
76      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER VI.
BAPTISM.
IT may be considered a fatal argument
against open communion of the Lord's Supper, that the unbaptized may come to the
table. The Christian claim, the spiritual
beauty, the proper or expedient priority in
order of the rite of baptism being admitted,
yet for its precedence in every possible case
there is no absolute authority. Christ, Apostles, the Bible, nowhere can be quoted in
final settlement of this point.   In one instance, baptism is named after drinking of
the cup.   In short, we  have no Christian
right to refuse the elements to such as sincerely and spiritually desire to receive them,
simply because they have not been baptized.
Both the ordinances, unessential in themselves, are emblems of essential things, love
and purity together making the life of the 
BAPTISM.
Gospel, although one may be a communicant
in the Church and not a real member, or
baptized and not purified.
While there is no rigid injunction of Scripture or ultimate decree of reason on their
chronological succession, the ordinances must
be observed according to the spiritual motions
of individual souls, or both the grand feelings
of the human breast, elements of religion and
attributes of God, as not seldom has been
the case, may be signified in the same hour
of solemn joy at the same altar of praise and
prayer; and certainly a doubt respecting the
rite of baptism or the fit mode of its administration should not exclude for ever a loving
soul from the table, unless we will make it
the table of a sect, not of the Lord.
Technical interpretations have been made
of baptism, as expressive, not of inward purity, but of party spirit and a theological
creed.   Thus, in contradiction of the "one
baptism " Paul asserts in connection with
the other glorious unities of the Christian
faith, every sect has had its own, significant
of its own peculiarities of theological belief.
77 
78     CHURCH AND CONGRF~ATION.
But history shows, - as the water itself from
sea and cloud, river and spring, would testify, - that the original idea of a rite which
began in the most ancient instrations of the
world, passed from Gentilism to Judaism,
and from the liebrew to the Christian, was
of moral purity; and in proportion as the
practice of the Church has kept this idea
uppermost in lively application to the consciences of men, has the rite been effective,
according to the strong intimation of John
the Baptist, when he said, though he had
b~pfized with water, his mightier successor
should baptize with the lioly Ghost and
with fire.  This thought alone covers the
whole ground, from childish innocence to
manly and divine sanctification.  The adventitious idea of baptism as a token of
doctrinal soundness for admission to some
denominational circle, how different from
that of the ilme when, robed in whfte, significant of purity, the candidate approached
the font or stood under the sprinkled drops
while the Holy Spirit was represented hovering over the neophyte till he emerged 
BAPTISM.
innocent as from a lustration of the soul!
The act was not purity itself, as ecclesiastical superstition has since made it, but the
sign of purity; as Augustine says, the sacraments are not the things, but only their
tokens.
If it be  said  baptism  was  conversion
regeneration, or universally a sign thereof,
the question arises, Was it so in regard to
Jesus Christ? Did he, unspotted Lamb of
God, need to turn or be born again? No,
-baptism is an emblem, whether connected
with and coming before or after any other
emblem or not. In fact, it no doubt very
early came before. The promise being, as
Peter said, to the men of Israel and their
children, whole households, as of the jailer
and of Stephanas, were baptized, including,
doubtless, those of tender age, if the families
were like ours, and not rare or anomalous
cases of childless connections, hardly namable
as families in any ancient or modern sense.
If such barren households alone had been
contemplated in the reference, and it were
also vitally important that no offspring of a
79 
80      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
tender age should receive the rite, it is
inconceivable all hint or warning of facts
so momentous should have been withheld.
When that pearl of our nature's purity, sc
easily lost, had dropped in the muddy ways
of the world, baptism was still symbolic oi
purity not possessed, but by God's grace and
Christ's influence to be regained or wor
in a quality more precious than any child
ish inoffensiveness, which never reaches th(
full idea of holiness unto the Lord. Truly
purity in the Divine sense is no merely na
tive and negative quality, but a positiv(
grace.   The purified are the pure.   Sanc
tification through truth and discipline is th
mark  of the saved.   Therefore by a fin;
and just instinct are they called saints, o
persons made  holy.   Good  cause  is ther
why the manner of the ordinance cannot b,
precisely fixed, the Holy Spirit having mat
ters of more importance than to decide, i,
favor of any disputant, our senseless exter
nal controversies of plunging, pouring, c
sprinkling.
But, disowning all exercise of despoti. 
BAPTISM.
judgment, the precedence of the Supper by
baptism, and the custom of infant baptism,
as a point, if not of supreme obligation, yet
of ecclesiastical decorum, may be maintained,
not only on the basis of the ancient record,
of the mind of Christ, of wide-spread use in
subsequent ages, and of the present method
of the immense majority of the Church, but
of the emblematic signification of the service.
I allege the authority of reason in the absence
of that of Holy Writ. If it meant conversion at the outset, as the religion entered
into the generations of mankind, this meaning could not last, for demonstrably the
children of Christian parents were expected
to become Christians, not in the original
way of taking the kingdom of God by violence, but in that of growth and training.
So Jesus intended in saying that of such
as little children was his kingdom, and directing that all nations, without distinction
of age, should be baptized.   So Paul  signified, tracing Timothy's faith to his mother,
Eunice,  and  grandmother, Lois.   Such  is
the Apostle's language, again, of bringing up
6
81 
82       CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
n  of
and
illing
tting
IS  of
0rget
re the
Just
this
member  it or not, is mighty  in all
relations  and  processes of our life.
as Americans born become citizens of
country, not, like foreigners, by being formally naturalized, but insensibly inspired
with the quality of our free institutions, so
the children of Christendom should become
Christians, not by conversion, but by education, - Christianity, like the policy of our
constitution and laws, being a working
power upon and within them from their
birth. As Franklin says he was a reader
from his infancy, so they should be learners
in the school of Christ.
I know the wide contradiction of this
view. On the theory of total depravity, all
are born and remain utterly remote from 
BAPTISM.
God, perfect heathens, till a sudden influence strikes one or another individual midway in life, or, like a spiritual tornado,
sweeps a host at once into the kingdom.
No theory of human nature could be more
gross. It is one of those cases where we
despair of reasoning, not because the arguments are so few, but so many we can
scarce without weariness get through adducing them, and because we may be hopeless
of touching one who upon such a question,
where the matter is so obvious, needs any
argument at all. But the truth of the general scheme I must utterly deny. It is hard
to tell to which it runs most counter, Scripture, reason, or fact. It represents the human
race, not as a living, concrete thing, but a mere
aggregate of disintegrated particles, a heap
of sand whose grains lie mechanically without coherence together. Such we know it is
not. Mankind is not, and never has been, a
mass of unconnected, identically equal individualities. There is a family and national
character, a social as well as personal unity.
As in Adam all die, in Christ all are made
83 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
alive. The variety God loves in all his works
appears most of all in humanity. All childhood is not the same, more than all flesh, of
any kind, or all bodies terrestrial or celestial,
are the same. Into every child of a day old
enter a thousand component parts,- far-off
ancestry, immediate parentage, untraceable
impressions, the mutual fitness and fidelity of
those whose offspring it becomes, - all fusing into marvellous oneness, wonderfully to
give it constitutional peculiarity all its own.
When, as has not seldom happened in the
world's history, in the very cradle one babe
is treacherously and feloniously substituted
for another, well is it called a changeling!
It is not and cannot be the same; for babes
- 0- fact of tremendous import we have so
little considered! - babes differ as much as
men and women.
Science and religion, with united appeal,
certify us it is time indeed to dismiss our
hasty and foolish doctrine, which stands so
injuriously in the way of all intelligent individual culture, that human beings when they
are born are either so many sheets of pure
84 
BAPTISM.
white paper or so many manuscripts alike
utterly blotted and foul. In the very beginnings of human life, from the progeny of the
poor Hottentot and hunted Bushman to the
loftiest type civilization and Christianity can
produce, how immense that scale of diversity,
for which God will justify himself, as for
making one of his creatures an angel and
another a worm! The Christian is not the
Pagan kind or stock; but babe differs from
babe as animal from animal and plant from
plant. Persons sometimes adopt children on
the supposition of all originally being fac-sirnile copies of each other, and every following
year of life only evinces the terrible mistake.
Not unmeaning is the Scripture in its thousand positive and negative statements: " The
generation of the upright shall be blessed."
Truly I know of no sentence more fearful in
the implications of warning the very glory of
its meaning and promise involves! With the
direct proposition rolls in the converse, as the
other wheel of the shining and terrible chariot
of God. What a motive to uprightness to
bless our posterity! What a solemn color
85 
86      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
on the ardor of early love in wedded ties!
What a thunderbolt from the heavens on all
impurity and discord! What a benediction
of Heaven on harmonious and unblemished
souls!' When arrive the new beings, little
voyagers from the everlasting shore, with the
most precious freight for this temporary harbor of earth, in what awful aspect, only by
the mingling lustre of holiest affection made
cheerful to our thought, arises the obligation
by word and deed to lead them to truth and
virtue! Ah, how great is the proportion of
manhood and womanhood, created for such
oneness, that has really pondered this essential verity?   How many of those youth,
that lead in the new over the graves of the
older race, for a fresh pilgrimage through earth
toward a hoped-for everlasting rest,  re taking
it to heart as they should? Let them beware
lest the light become the lightning of God!
To such as are persuaded of doctrines by
particular passages urged in their support,
the local argument might be brought with
irresistible weight in proof that it is the obje-t of Christ so to hallow human relations, 
BAPTISM.
that, when our children are born, they should
be born into the Divine kingdom, the second
birth not displacing but concurring with the
first, the natural and spiritual not opposed
but flowing together. Not verily to destroy
or thrust aside, but to take up and redeem
out of all perishing the natural, is the spiritual influence sent. That, in fact, the life
of nature is often carnal, passionate, and
worldly from the creative starting even into
adult years,- so that the methed of alarm,
awakening, and revival must go along with
the process of nurture, as, for the bodily life
and health of human beings, medicine mixes
or alternates with food,-it is certainly impossible to deny. But as the aim, and to a good
degree the result, in social advancement, by
better diet and exercise, is to dispense with
medicine, diminish its doses, and dwarf its
pills, till, in some millennial day of physical
regeneration, it shall disappear altogether, so
should we try to substitute the soul's true
activity and nourishment for the treatment
of its morbid states.   Ay,  for theological
drugs that heal by poisoning, and the bed
87 
88     CLIURCll AND CONGREGATION.
ridden sloth, which at best is a substitute
of doing nothing instead of doing ill, let the
spirit at last have wholesome motion and
food.  Nay, as for disease itself kindly nursing is often the most effectual cure, so in
the provisions and exercises of God's house
should be found the best remedy for the various sickness of sin.
When, in any considerable measure, shall
appear that chosen generation and peculiar
people described and predicted in the word
of truth; when the blessed heritage, promised
to our seed and seed's seed after us, shall
come; when that manifestation of the sons
of God, the whole creation travaileth and
groaneth for, shall be made, - all that is meant
by the "one baptism" and the Lord's table
shall be seen to be the pure bond of humanity
in him.  For that sublime moral beauty let
us rejoice to suffer and toil.
I stood on Boston Common, at twilight
waxing into darkness, as the day of our great
national anniversary last passed away.  A
hundred thousand people stood there quiet
with one feeling and faces turned all one 
BAPTISM.         89
way.  A shudder of joy passed over me at
the union of snch a host, even for an end so
trivial as an hour's sport.  Bnt thoughts other
than of the passing recreation instantly from
the broad spectacle forced their way.  Little
gazed I at the novel, magnificent fire-works,
they charmed the eye so much less than that
sight of an army, greater perhaps than ever
at once actually in conflict of battle, met
peacefully to witness them.  The streaming
and flashing lights, amid whose blaze and explosion I was, were but candles for me to
survey the living scene of humanity, grander
I will not say than the pyrotechnic display,
but than Alps or seas or stars.  If the union of
men for a purpose so transient and superficial
can be so inspiring and impressive to the
mind, what would be the effect of their perfect oneness for the great cause of religion,
the honor of God, the likeness of Christ, the
saving of the human soul!  That would fnlfil
the end of all rituals indeed.  That would be
a baptism, not of John, but of the Holy Ghost
and of fire. 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER VII.
DISCIPLINE.
ONE of the arguments principally relied on
for the partial and exclusive administration of
the Lord's Supper is its value in the discipline
of the Church. This value is thought to be
threefold, —in the strict terms of faith and
character prescribed for admission to it, in a
specifying of the heresies or faults for which
one may be excommunicated or expelled, and
in an implication of the perilous or lost condition of the general body that have not yet accepted the ecclesiastic offers of salvation, nor
been enrolled as members among the elect.
This disciplinary authority is maintained by
what in the Romish system is regarded as veritably one of the seven sacraments, namely,
the " Orders" or persons in official rank. But,
I must reply, Christ himself, in speaking of
his Church, which he would build on "this
90 
DISCIPLINE.
rock," never appointed any hierarchy at all.
On the contrary, he so warned his disciples
against being called Rabbi, or being anything
but each other's servants, that even the modern titles of honor among religious persons,
such as Reverend, with their various aggravations of phrase, though endured as convenient
designations of classes and persons, or defended as marks of respect for learning and character from honorable bodies, seem scarce compatible with moral dignity, or consistent with
the Master's wish. In a better day such rewards of excellence will be disused, and the
technical authority to sentence or punish now
lodged in ecclesiastical officers, will be lost in
that universal brotherhood of which the Lord
himself is head.
It may, however, be rejoined, that, in his
earthly days, with his few disciples, or in the
times immediately succeeding his death and
resurrection, when his followers were kept together by persecution, and their suffering from
others was indeed discipline enough, they
needed from one another only comfort and
good cheer; but when they multiplied and
91 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
differed among themselves, a severe organization, with laws, pains, and penalties, was indispensable. It would lead me too far to go
now into the general subject of ecclesiastical
rule and power. Briefly, then, whatever discipline in the Church may be necessary, I
shall only maintain here that the Lord's Supper cannot properly be made an instrument
of such discipline.
It will not be pretended that Jesus himself
ever made his table such an instrument, or
gave one hint of its becoming such. This
was not because he overlooked the liabilities
of social transgression and trouble among his
adherents, or pleased himself with any dream
of perpetual peace and concord. In case of
an offence between brethren, he enjoins first
conference between themselves privately, then
an explanation in the presence of witnesses,
and afterwards a coinrmyunication to the
Church; in case of all which steps being
successively ineffectual, he recommends conscientious coldness and moral aversion as'for
a while the best treatment for the obstinate
offender, specifying, however, no measure of
92 
DISCIPLINE.
positive infliction or voted dismissal. But he
never put, nor I think can be conceived of as
allowing others to put, the tenderest token of
his own love to such a purpose, or rather
abuse. He never authorized separation from
that as retribution, though voluntary going
out from it, as at first, might be the consequence of guilt.
Let me not be misunderstood as objecting
to discipline, or the idea of it, altogether. In
the Apostolic Church it seems to have been
sometimnes needful. But the painful excision
of a member from the whole body, after the
Apostolic example, which extreme circumstances may justify, is better than to employ
the Supper for correction, as, in the society of
the world, men are punished by not being
invited to a feast. Even those among the
Corinthians who turned the sacred meal into
a scene of gluttony and drunkenness, were
not forbidden again to celebrate it, but commanded to examine themselves, and told they
were eating and drinking their own condemnation.
But reflect how the existing supposition is
93 
94      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
one of amazement and affront! Of a congregation, decently wonted, perhaps for ages in
one place, to all other teachings and influences of our holy faith, the larger part, for omitting some prescribed process, or failing to
approach through some particular avenue,
whose gate and lock are under the minister's
hand, shall only be permitted to gaze at the
uncovered, shining vessels, and then go, leaving a little minority to this certainly most exclusive of all festival ceremonies, presence at
which is the Christian honor, and its abandonment religious disgrace! A heathen or
savage barbarian might fitly be required to
understand the ordinance before approaching
it. But has not line upon line, generation
after generation in our churches, sufficed to
indoctrinate all of us? Certain conditions in
every voluntary association it may be necessary to lay down. But, among all profanations, none can be more gross than to degrade
the Lord's Supper into a rod. To deprive a
rebellious child of his food is not thought very
judicious, though with some a common punishment. Still worse is it to take away, in 
DISCIPLINE.
any form, the bread of life from the soul.
What! discipline a man by robbing him of
the very means of grace? Shall we apply
this to other means in religion? Would we
discipline one by shutting up from him, as
Rome does, the Scriptures, locking the door
of his closet, or making the Sunday, that
common privilege, shine no Sabbath day for
him?
We put a Bible in the prisoner's cell: the
Sabbath day, that dawns for the rest of the
world, releases the poor convicts from the
heavy tools in their toilsome yard; and the
pious with their prayers seek to win the lunatics, crazed by misfortune or sin, back from
their wanderings in the weary, labyrinthine
ways of unreason. Shall there be, then, a
means of religion which we deny to whosoever stands on the broad, Christian platform,
or for any man, however unworthy, turn into
a rack and a whip?  If we discipline no- man
by deprivation of the common means of grace,
why discipline him by denying to him that
other institution, which He who commanded
to enter the closet, whose life makes the best
95 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
part of the Bible, and whose resurrection fixed
the observance of Sunday, added for the spiritual training of mankind? No, discipline
him by refuting his errors, laying a ban of disapprobation on his folly and vice, or by withdrawing your confidence from his indiscretion,
but not by excluding him from the Lord's
table, whose emblems of unearthly goodness
and love to the end may recall him to a better mind. Discipline him by rebuke and by
expostulation, not by  such disunion.   Use
other things, -the denunciations of Holy Writ
on the wicked, portentous foretellings of their
fate, - use sharpness and warning, frowning
and distrust; but spare this blessed ordinance, -weave it not into a lash of torture,
gentle and gracious in its own nature and substance as it is! Such Christ meant it not to
be when he instituted it before the scourge
was laid on himself, or the crown of thorns
platted for his own temples.
But rarely, in a well-constituted Church,
can the harsher modes of discipline mentioned be requisite. Recently,- if I may cover
a particular case with a kindly and respectful
96 
DISCIPLINE.
generality, - an instance of discipline was
related to me as in triumphant proof of strict
ecclesiastical organization and partial administration of the Lord's Supper. But how was
the gross offender actually dealt with? By
private expulsion or a public brand given
over to all evil? No, but sought by the best
love and persuasion of the Church, kept within the lines, under the great earthly mother's
wings, fed still at her board, and from perdition saved! I will pursue that man, I will
never give him lp, said a great preacher of a
wasted and profligate gambler he had described; and, as he said it, the sweat mingled
with tears on his burning cheeks. That was
the very spirit of the Lord!
It has been said, every true circle of human
beings gathered by a real principle of association,        will protect itself. iHow true this is of
the Church we may learn from that Apostolic
language,  -" They went out from us because
they were not of us; for had they been of us,
they would, no doubt, have continued with
us." In a glorious and spotless Church, what
incorrigibly bad man would desire to be unit               7
97 
98     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ed?  What is such a Church but a disinterested, benevolent, self-denying company, engaged in labors of mercy and all good works?
llow can the mean, impure, selfish, wish to be
of it?  It is no band of self-glorifying persons,
taking care of their own reputation, securing
to themselves a monopoly or lion's share of
the good things of this life, that self-seekers
should yearn for the prerogatives of their company!  If it become such, and thus afford
cause for the low-minded, worldly-ambitious,
and vain to covet its intercourse, and a share
in the spoils, it is no longer of Christ's
Church.  Verily, if it be a true Church, they
will not and cannot be in it to be driven out,
any more than they could or would be in
heaven, calling for angels to be officers of
justice for their expulsion thence.
With his own heaven or hell moves every
man, as with its atmosphere the earth.  No
creature will breathe or live out of its own
element.  Misers will not be likely to be
where they are often required to put their
hands in their pod~ets; the self-indulgent,
where they must spend their time in visiting 
DISCIPLINE.
the sick and the poor; or the lovers of pleasure among  those chiefly concerned for the
pagan and prisoner, the oppressed and enslaved.   Who  has  not observed that none
will be teachers in a Sunday school, but those
loving the young; or punctually frequent even
a little sewing-circle, but such as are glad to
work for the needy; or go to any sacred conference, but those fond of religious conversation and prayer? Such fellowships may well
say to the whole world, Come, all who will
join our enterprise, and do as we do!
Cases of surgery, in the imperfection of the
most sanctified human nature, may arise in
every social body. It may possibly be necessary to cut off persons from some imperfect,
local organism of the Church. This I admit,
though in my own experience not knowing
the instance, and only pleading, if the instance exist, Let not the Lord's Supper be the
knife!  In proportion as any body individual
or social is healthy, it will spontaneously expel every foreign substance alien to its life
and injuring its best estate. In proportion as
the Church anywhere is mighty, it will, to
'.!-:.!:!@-'
99 
100     CUURCH AND CONGREGATION.
convert and absorb what is most alien to its
own nature, have a power derived from the
redeeming One.  Not independency, but union, is the great word.   Said one, in noble
criticism of the ultra-Protestant radicalism
and disuniting temper of our day, I come not
out, I stay within! Verily, the necessity to
drive away is a sentence not only on the
driven, but those that drive.
The idea of utter exclusion from our sympathy of anything human, is, in short, not a
Christian idea. The human being we are
never to forsake. If the sick and sinful were
the very ones oni whose account the Son of
God was manifested, surely our duty is hope
and effort for every man. Moreover, in this
matter of treating the unsound and morally
diseased, have weasufficiently considered what
a discipline may be found, not in wrath or
hatred, but love? Ah, have we forgotten the
lesson of our Lord's foremost parable of the
Prodigal Son?   Do we  think the  father's
course in that case was mere doting and indulgence? No, that fatted calf did not, after
all, taste so sweet to the younger son, that the
""'.  
<
DISCIPLINE.
elder brother need have envied him! There
was more blushing than composure in the
face after that best robe had been put on;
the ring shining on the finger sparkled to his
eyes with a rather melancholy reflection of the
sun; and the prodigal's feet burned more in
the very shoes brought for them, than among
the sands and rocks of the desert. There was
some choking in that food, and some lingering at that dance! It was the discipline of
kindness, which wields a sharper sword for
the human heart than cruelty ever handled.
Of such discipline have we fathomed the
power and measured the scale?
But of this disciplinary exclusion we are to
consider the eflbects, not only on those removed,
but those retained. If on the former the direct censure be wholesome and good, alike
and equally so on the latter is the implied
estimate of praise? Do we not eulogize ourselves when on moral grounds we say of anybody, he is not good enough society for us?
Did Jesus ever say so of others?  What society did he keep or avoid? He did not exclude even the Pharisee from his hearing and
101 
102    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
following.  The Pharisee and the Pharisee's
church excluded him.  To be exclusive is to
be pharisaic, and to confirm ourselves in the
sanctimony we display.  No man's opinion of
his holiness is more or other than disproof of
the holiness itself.
Exclusion from the Lord's Supper, being
an improper discipline, has also of course
been very ineffectual.  God discriminates, and
will have it for his prerogative for his creatures' good to divide one from another.  But
no net, cast into the sea of the world, has ever
been able to separate the saints from the sinners to the eye and judgment of man, any
more than the fisherman's net can distinguish
between the good and the bad in the tenants
of the briny deep.  Ah, nothing is so perilous,
has caused so many falls from grace, or prevented so many an attainment thereof, as private or mutual self-esteem.  Moreover, the
nominal and visible Church has no more than
any other association the privilege of embracing only immaculate members.  Nay, the unblemished have often been cast out of it, and
the polluted kept; nor will the incorrupt in its 
DISCIPLINE.
circle be benefited by being among themselves
so reckoned and styled.
No temples that were ever built can contain the pure in heart, no lines that were ever
drawn can gird them in.  If they themselves
understand that they are being marked and
classified, they will not stay to be counted.
The only thing in this world that will not
bear the fixing on itself of its own stamp, is
sanctity. It runs still upon its endless errands of God's service and the good of man,
hides from fame, submits to no blazonry, confesses only its short-comings, and refers itself
to none but the final bar of Him who inspired
and sustains it. It cannot be caught, more
than his Spirit, on its way.  It takes the
Lord's Supper, like any other exercise, not as
the end of its being, or the height of its doing,
but only as grateful rest and refreshment, to
pursue again that truth and righteousness
which are the everlasting objects enjoined by
the Master, if by means of, yet beyond all ritual forms.
If it be said discipline is involved in that
text of Scripture, "Let a man examine him
103 
104     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
self, and so let him eat of that bread, and
drink of that cup," it will occur to every one
as a very proper exhortation in regard to those
before explained Corinthian excesses of appetite, which the Apostle rebuked as an unworthy eating and drinking of condemnation
to one's self, and which certainly are not repeated among us. Self-examination for the
Lord's Supper, indeed! But is not self-examination a wholesome precaution and needful
preparation for every other religious service?
In regard to the ordinary worship of his time
Jesus certainly gives a far more solemn and
even fearful charge, in requiring the man who
has actually brought his gift to the altar, if he
remembers that his brother has aught against
him, instantly to leave it and go forth that he
may first be reconciled to his brother before
daring to offer to God his gift. How, therefore, in the line quoted, is there any intent to
discriminate, either as privilege or instrument
of penalty, one act or ordinance in religion
from another? 
DEVELOPMENT.
CHAPTER VIII.
DEVELOPMENT.
IT is sometimes said, - Though there is no
proper Christian or Apostolic authority, and
no literal justification in the New Testament
for making the Supper an exclusive rite, a test
of character or bar of judgment to divide between the Lord's foes and his followers, yet
this fact does not disallow such a use of it.
For it was not possible to prescribe particulars in the administration through every age
of all things in the Cl-lurch. The world itself
would not have contained the books necessarily written to this end. Jesus left it to his
disciples to decide modes of ecclesiastical and
moral action, according to. their own discretion, as occasion should arise. How many of
our most settled religious customs have no
precise warrant in Holy Writ!
This is that theory of Development which
105 
106   CHURCH AND CONGRRGATION.
has played so great part in modern speculation.  Rightly construed, it is a true theory.
He that plants a seed is responsible, doubtless, not for the seed only, but for what it
fairly grows to be.  His intention reaches into
the future and into the air.  The oak is in the
acorn; every living creature was once wrapped
up in its germ, every individual rational or
moral existence folded under some exact type,
and every institution is but the waxing and
incarnation of a punciple.  So our religion is
not merely a sernion; parable, word, or miracle.  It is not, as many suppose, a set of
maxims, doctrinal abstractions, celestial revelations for the simple management of private
understandings and individual self-application alone.  But, according to the figures in
the pages of its own books, it is a building
that rises, a plant that grows, a body that
waxes, a spirit that animates with pulsations
ever more wide.  The external form of the
Gospel was not with the Apostles precisely
what it was with Christ, nor, as ten thousand
quotations might show, with the Fathers as
wfth the Apostles, nor with us as with the 
DEVELOPMENT.
Fathers. Are the original methods binding
on us? Does Jesus Christ himself look with
displeasure on popedoms and bishoprics themselves, more than upon councils and synods?
Profounid and subtile, and not easily answered
questions! We can only say, and must admit, that our religion is, in the concrete, whatever its original facts and words have vitally
through the whole world become. Christianity, as it first appeared, was but a sowing,
of which Christendom is the fruit and outgrowth.
Yet, I apprehend, however extensive may
be the application of this truth to outward
modes and shapes, it cannot properly be used
to change in Christian ordinances the property and purpose, which are precise, and were
defined and laid down at the beginning.
If, for example, the Supper had in Christ's
thought demonstrably a certain design of
affection and common fellowship, to restrict
or make it express another, especially a contrary idea of censure and division, would not
develop, but pervert it altogether. It would
be not the same, but a quite different rite. It
107 
10S     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
would, in fact, be no longer the Lord's Supper, but the supper of a sect. The latter has
no spiritual likeness, but only a material similitude to the former. There have been a
great many tables of communion with which
truly the Lord has had very little to do! He
never sat there! As the naturalist tells us
one bird sometimes uses the nest of another
to hatch and rear its young, so spiritually in
the annals of the Church under the cover of
Christianity we know what alien broods have
been brought forth, whose hate and wrath have
devoured the gentle virtues of the Gospel in
the rightful spot even of their own nativity.
What, then, in this matter, is the criterion
by which to judge? On the true theory of
development, not the intrinsic, but only the
material quality, better to accommodate the
truth, can fitly be altered. Thus the intention of baptism, the principle under the form
may be expressed and fulfilled under any one
of the external methods of its administration,
sprinkling, affusion, or immersion. The purport, too, of the Lord's Supper may be equally
well maintained, whatever be the size of the 
DEVELOPMENT.
room, cathedral,  or  conventicle, - the substance of the vessels, earthen or gold, -the
character of the food, or the posture at the
table. But to make it the object and use of
the Supper to separate between true believers,
as we account them, and heretics, so called,
because in modes of faith not following us,to hold it in hand as our ruler and plummet
to draw a line between supposed saints and
sinners, -is to drop the Lord's proposal, and
adopt, not only another, but one utterly inconsistent therewith.
No doctrine, indeed, requires more careful
and conscientious handling than this of development; for none is so susceptible of misuse,
or may be employed so deceptively to lead in
opposite directions at once.   It may  serve
Rome or Reason apparently almost equally
well. It may be so treated as to ascribe to
the Gospel whatever, in the long course of
time, and the waywardness of human passions, has been foully connected with, as well
as purely opened from it. It may justify the
excrescence, accretion, and poisonous parasite,
no less than the glorious, healthy branching
109 
110    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
out of that tree of life, whose leaves alone are
for the healing ~ the nations.  Free-thinker
and pope, by dexterous logic, alike make it
serve their turn.  Its principal and most elab orate treatment has been in vindication of the
scarlet woman's own perilous, error-compre bending assumption, which it is the very ge nins of Protestanfism to throw of'; that the
Church, rather than the Book or the Spirit, is
the paramount authority in our religion.  It
is sworn in, as own brother, with the doctrine
of necessity; and, made but another shape
of the dangerous teaching of optimism, goes
far to abolish moral distinctions, declaring,
Whatever is, is ri~ht.
This, of course, pertains to the theory in its
wrong and abusive construction.  Unquestion ably from the divine original of our fafth much
has been developed for the very joy and honor
-of our being.  Undoubtedly this is the test of
the wofth and power of anything in nature or
the moral kingdom, - what, how much, and
how long will be its growth?  He that looks
at a tiny feathery hull, one of the least pre tending of living particles on the ground, feels
 
DEVELOPMENT.
his respect for it marvellously increased when
told that from it may spring the mighty elm
that will overshadow the plain. But no expansion beside is comparable to that of our
faith. What is best in human character, what
is grandest in human enterprise, what is holiest
in human love, is all its development. Christianity, as it practically is, is nothing but development from Christianity as it originally
was. Every preaching in solemn temples of
its creed, every little tract containing its sense,
which in these days like winged seed the colporteur scatters on all the winds that blow
under heaven, and every holy embassy, more
momentous than plenipotentiary political ministries, sent to savage tribes even unto the ends
of the earth,-every humane cause at home for
the relief of the ignorant and wretched, blind
and dumb, oppressed and enslaved, - or for
the diffusion of peace over this globe, more
shaken in all ages with war than earthquakes,
-is a development of Christianity. None of
these things in their present shape existed at
the birth of our religion, and most of them did
not exist at all. Yet they are all the carrying
111. 
112     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
out of its intention, as much as the yellow harvest is of the husbandman's planting, or as the
cedars of Lebanon are of the germs which God's
own hand dropped on the sacred hill-side, and
whose sprouting with the infancy of his Gospel Jesus himself possibly witnessed millen
niums ago.
But the hierarchies of priestly orders that
have lorded it over God's heritage, the papal
infallibility, indulgences sold for sin, absolutions by human power, monkish and superstitious sunderings of the legitimate ties between
man and woman under color of purity, to end
in the practice of hidden and nameless sensuality, are no development of our faith. Neither are the bigotry, exclusiveness, and tyranny
over the human mind, which have required
new Luthers to arise since, as he had his predecessors before the Reformation, a development of the Gospel, but of that pride, selfishness, and uncharitableness of the human heart,
which the Saviour was sent to root out of its
very core. When we speak of development,
we must consider both if the development be
real and legitimate, and of what it is. Not 
DEVELOPMENT.
only Christianity has been growing, but a halfsanctified human nature with and in it. Archbishop Whately's "Errors of Romanism traced
to their Root in Human Nature," was surely
the most just and philosophic of titles. Not
only how much has grown out of, but also how
much has grown over the Divine revelation!
have we cause to exclaim.  We  sometimes
see a tree folded to the very top with a vine
that came forth at first as but a humble and
unostentatious creeper from the ground. But
the tree dwindles and withers like the mythologic hero, in the poisonous cloak of this embrace.
From  a true Christian development there
could be no greater departure than in the partial administration of the Lord's Supper. No
severe comparisons or sharp contrasts of their
respective deservings or'demerits did he employ to dissolve the company of his followers
as entitled or unfit for seats at his board. He
extended the blessed symbols of his love and
self-sacrifice to all those who had been with
him, and in the spirit that would have reached
them forth to everybody in the world disposed
8
113 
114     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
to receive them.  ~7hom would he, that ate
with publicans and sinners, not have permitted
to eat with him?  Against whom, that even
desired to come in, would he have shut the
door?  N\7ere any bars lifted at the entrance
of that upper room?  Alas! who in Jerusalem
wanted to share the dread omen of that broken
loaf, and to drink of the cup
"that was not wine,
Bnt sorrow, fear, and blood"?
From whom, then, in his temper, shall it now
be withheld?  Nay, who of us can refuse to
taste that cup of Him wl~o tasted death for us
all? or who venture to keep it back from any
that desire to taste?  When, in a late Diet in
Sweden, it was by law made a crime to administer or receive the Lord's Supper save in
the regular hierarchy, it could hardly be regarded as developing his design.  What Chris.
tian, in any emergency, might not wlih fellowbelievers celebrate the feast?  To welcome
all that Jesus would have welcomed, to make
that feast the means of tender thought and
self-devotion, to secure answers and accept
ances of the invitation wide as the world, to 
DEVELOPMENT.
which so greatly beyond all other teachers he
appealed,- this, and no narrow hedging up
of the table to a select party, develops its design.
But to vindicate close communion, with no
fairness can the doctrine of development be applied. That is contraction rather; for in it the
progress is less than the beginning and the unfolding, contrary to all example or analogy,smaller than what is unfolded. Even were
the acorn seen exceeding in magnitude the
oak, close communion would hardly be the
tree or flower of that seed of fraternal fellowship Jesus and his Apostles planted. In this
matter we want properly no development at
all, but only continuation of first custom. As
with the telegraphic wire, the course must be
completed, and the flash pass round the whole
circle to the point from which it started, before
the message can reach its destination, so with
Christian principles and rites. In the Church
we begin and end with open communion.
The whole development-theory in each application must be sharply scanned, liklie any
vegetable growth subject to blight or infested
115 
116     CIIURCH AND CONGREGATION.
with foes. Every living thing, natural or spiritual, has its enemies, and that alone can be a
true development of the Gospel, which realizes the Lord's design of making reality prevail over appearance, and substance over
show, in every religious procedure or form. 
SINCERITY.          117
OllAPTER Ix.
SINCERITY.
IT is objected to Open Commnnion, that,
every bar being taken away, some may come
~ho are not sincere; and insincerity in such a
service is a deadly sin.   nt is it no sin, or a
less sin, in i~atters ~utside of the Lord's Supper?  ~Iay we be insincere in one thing more
pardonably than in another?  If so, then sincerity is not a constant, but an occasional
virtue, of no absolute and invariable, but only
a c6ntingent obligation and importanee.  Unlike a tideless sea of God in the soni, it thus
ebbs and flows with the hours, and on diverse
shores of the world.  Such sincerity is no
virtue at all; for this is the definition of a
virtue, that it derives its worth and con sequence not from without, but from the intrinsic nature and everlasting laws of moral
being. 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
Besides, why should the sincerity of this
more than any other service be guarded with
exclusive lines? The house of God is regularly opened for the most solemn exercises to
human beings possible, - of prayers to Him,
and songs of praise. Some may enter and
engage in these insincerely. Is this a reason
for subjecting all comers to examination, and
requiring ecclesiastical passports? The truth
is, while Heaven's last and most fearful ban
unquestionably rests on insincerity in every
shape of worship or life, each one's sincerity,
there being no evidence to the contrary, must
on earth be taken for granted in what he
does; and the common maxim of the law
here, too, is in force, that innocence must be
presumed until guilt is proved. Sincerity is a
virtue whose claim and risk every one must
especially put on himself; for who can pierce
the human breast with instruments from the
Church, or the Most High, to gauge degrees
of truthfulness in different men!   When,
indeed, all defences and  tests are gathered
around the Lord's table, can no insincere persons reach it?  With-nay, on account of -
118 
SINCERITY.
such defences and tests, will no sincere persons, devoutly loving him as their Saviour,
stay away?
Moreover, this grand objection lies against
so emphasizing sincerity in an ecclesiastical
rite, that it presents sincerity as a limitary
and technical quality, and so leads to boundless corruption in the very sanctuary. All
history shows that restricting the quality of
virtue to any select points of outward circumstance depraves the human mind. What
but this principle of a peculiar holiness in formal acts and ordinances of piety made the
blackest transgressions in the Romish Church
venial, if only the transgressors were ritually
correct and pure! What but this led to that
sale of actual indulgences for sin, which
brought in the Reformation like a thundercloud in a foul and murky sky!  What but
this has been the apology for tortures and
massacres without number or bound, and for
even choosing some Bartholomew's day for
the utmost enormity of cruelty and crime, a
human sacrifice of Huguenot blood being
thought, after the example of the most brutal
119 
120     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
and savage religions, a proper addition to the
worship of the saint! What but the same
wicked principle did Jesus condemn, when he
rebuked those who neglected their parents on
the pretence that the sum which might have
been contributed to their support was Corban,
a sacred offering!
For the sakle of the Church itself, as well as
the world, then, I say, it will not do to take
any other ground than that of sincerity as an
ever-imperative and universal bond.  There is
such a thing as sincerity in our homes, in society, friendship, business! Is it of more concern in the temple, and of less in these things?
Then in these it may be excusable, and have
some grain of justification in private relations
and common  life!  No,  the safety, as the
truth which alone is ever safe, is in its being,
not a circumstantial, but essential excellence,
whose violation is heinous in all cases alike.
What matters it where a man lies, if he
lies? Is a cheat in the temple no cheat out
of it? or does it become insignificant in the
shop or the street? Ah! has the superstition
which would localize religion within the terms 
SINCERITY.
of a ritual, and the confines of altar and shrine,
nothing to do with the huge disclosures of
practical iniquity, the defalcations of pecuniary trust, and the profligacies of political action, by which our own community has been astounded, and millions of its members wronged?
"The temple of God is holy, which temple ye
are." Where, then, is the temple of God?
Is it altogether within those four walls of
wood and stone, beneath that lofty spire you
have reared and builded, and given with peculiar consecration to Himi? or does it stretch
its dimensions through His universe, and make
all iniquity of deceit a profanation and sacrilege?  Where is the Lord's table?  Nowhere
but within the railing with which it has been
girded round in your meeting-house, or by the
narrowness of your sect? No, it is wherever
his disciples sit with mutual love, and love to
him, to eat together, though but a crust of
bread, and to drink but the cup of cold water
to the brotherly giving of which he affixes
an emphatic reward. The Master's rebukewhich fell on the Pharisee's hypocrisy not as
it was shown in the synagogue alone, but by
121 
122     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
the wayside and in the dwelling, through the
whole tangle of their daily falseness - will
visit our insincerity in every place and with
every wound it gives to kinsfolk or fellowcreature, as well as when with it we crucify
him afresh as we sit at his board. No particular act or manifestation, but the entire
spirit and design of evil, is it his custom and
the genius of his religion to denounce; for
not at Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem, but everywhere, we hear his word sounding,-" Now
they have no cloak for their sin."
When he forbids his followers to swear at
all, either by heaven or earth or the holy city,
on the ground that an oath can produce no
effect, even so much as to make one hair white
or black, and allows nothing but the simrnplicity of yea or nay in our communication, what
does he imply but that no sacred references or
names can enhance the pure worth of sincerity
in its most familiar manifestations? Nay, by
enumerating together, does he not with one
morality equalize God's throne in heaven,
footstool on earth, the city of the Great King,
and a man's own head, as entering alike im 
SINCERITY.
properly into the terms of an oath? In the
Epistles, too, while we are exhorted to observe
the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, no more stress is laid upon sincerity at the table than elsewhere; but we are
charged to be "sincere and without offence
unto the coming of the Lord" everywhere.
Christ's injunction to worship the Father in
spirit and in truth, and David's declaration
that only he who has clean hands and a pure
heart can ascend into the hill of the Lord and
dwell in his holy place, put sincerity in every
private or public act of homage to the Most
High on the same footing with sincerity in the
celebration of any visible sacrament so called.
The whole Bible, withering with its old and
everlasting reproof those who speak deceitfully
for God, as much as those who commit perjury in a court on their own account, is the
voice of reason and conscience too.  "He will
lie for his side and lie for liberty," it was lately
said of an active character in the political
world. But liberty is truth, and accepts no
such suicidal sacrifices! When we are told
to love one another with a pure heart, is the
123 
124     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
prescribed sincerity of that love of less moment than the sincere carrying to our lips of
a morsel of bread and a drop of wine in the
communion?  VWhen the Pharisees imputed
the miraculous works of Jesus to Beelzebub,
though they did not in their heart believe
what with their mouth they said, and he, in
the most remarkable of all his denunciations,
affirms their insincerity to be an unpardonable
sin, did he consider their guilt less than if an
opportunity had been given themn of showing
the same disposition in partaking the memo
rials of his body and blood? No, - the diec
tate of reason, that sincerity is a divine and
fundamental trait of the soul, and that the
least limiting of it to a singular sense or spe
cial function takes out its heart and life, and
makes it a merely conventional thing, is confirmed in the greatest variety of Scripture ex.
pressions.
As respects Jesus himself, whom  we com
memorate in the Supper, and whom surely i'
is a grievous offence for any to commemorate
otherwise than sincerely, it may almost bc
said that his chosen and peculiar eharaeteris 
SINCERITY.
tic, among other teachers, is the weight he
lays upon sincerity in every word and deed.
This absolute morality is well esteemed a
chief title of his religion to a duration no other system can usurp or supersede. Nothing
he cannot forgive, but hypocrisy. Nothing he
cannot bear or away with, but a double mind.
Nothing moves him for a moment to be angry
or impatient, but a person's meaning one thing
and saying another. It makes no difference
to him what the particular instance or connection of the fault is, in or out of doors, on the
threshold of the house or at the gate of the synagogue, during holy time or a week-day. The
insincerity itself to his mind unhallows all,
desecrates every spot, and disowns the unmeasured presence of God. It is blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost, which he considers infinitely
worse than blasphemy against himself: for is
nrot this the reason of the distinction taklen in
that famous passage, that his earthly life or
person was finite, but the Holy Spirit infinite?
Therefore he would esteem it no aggravation
of that whose vileness cannot be aggravated,
that it should be committed against his mem
125 
126     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ory in the Supper, as it was committed against
his living presence in the flesh. In whatsoever
it may occur, treachery is his aversion. He
marks nobody with fire but the hypocrite, and
the score of his finger is equally deep upon
false play in the court or field, by the pit whereinto the ox is fallen and in the recess of the
Holy of Holies. His imperative demand is of
an honest purpose, for which he will overlook
all defects of forgetfulness of mind or infirmity
of will.  On the poor, exhausted victims of
vicious appetite less deep than on the treacherous he presses the brand of reproach. He has
always for the weak a word of mercy and tender encouragement, averring that the publicans
and hliarlots go into the kingdom of Heaven
before the self-righteous and deceitful Pharisees.   Fraud is his insuperable abhorrence;
and his hatred of it is such, that, in specifying
many of its multiplied examples, he emphasizes none; so that we should be surprised to
find how many of his warnings could be reduced to this single point, - as if he had
through all his discourses and parables but
one command, - or rather as though sincerity 
SINCERITY.
were in his esteem the innermost essence and
soul of every virtue and exercise, - worship,
love, charity, - all action, expression, speech
to God or man.
To commemorate such a person as this,
who was not so much true as the truth, and
who ascribed to truth in its action on the
minds of men every triumph of sanctifying as
well as illuminating power,-  to commemorate him in the way of mere pretension and
dead formalism, is a baseness of treason which
could have no more inappropriate display.
But the treason is just as unacceptable to him
in the privacy of our room, under the cover of
darkness, in the mental solitude of our most
secret aims, or the tie that should loyally bind
us to a single companion in the world.
Let me add, this Christian doctrine of sincerity, as a trait of worth essential and universal, draws forth or extorts the approbation of
the human soul. That stirs and kindles us
is this,-that the sincere man will keep the
gracious festival his Lord has permitted, as he
does everything, sincerely. His sincerity is
not an accident or-a robe, but a quality, reach
127 
128     CHURCII AND CONGREGATION.
ing from and to the core of his being. Whatsoever his motion or performance, his sincerity
will run into it and through it, as the property
of a growing plant does into every limb and
blossom, spray or leaf; and as, in medicine or
the arts, it is often indifferent whether the
virtuous juice needed be an extract from bark
or root, pith or flower, so the mouth and eye
and very finger of a true man will be sincere,as Shakespeare says, the very foot will speak!
But the hypocrite will, in his business, domestic life, and ordinary behavior, be a solemn
pretender, whose conduct is just as abhorrent
in the eye of God when he smooths his face
to deception in the market, or makes it mask
his purpose in his talk with a neighbor, as
when he takes the elements with no feeling
or emulation of the self-sacrifice which to all
ages they represent.
Surely I would share that repugnance to
insincerity at the Lord's table, which is at the
bottom of the objection whose validity I do
not allow. It is an affront to come not caring for Jesus, insensible of his divine excellency, untouched by his supreme beauty, and 
SINCERITY.         129
unsympathetic with his surpassing loveliness.
Our wonder and incredulity exclaim, Who
and how many of such persons can care to
come?  Of one thing there can be no doubt.
More will come thus falsely, according as we
magnify the credit and glory of merely coming.  Bnt more or less as they may be, how
shall they be excluded?  By no sentinels or
inquisitors in office from the old Inquisition
down!  Curious locks, tough doors, and iron
cages have been contrived to secure the treasures of banks, the riches of museums, and the
regalia of kings.  But whosoever of subtle
temper may incline to approach the table, fancying some reason of honor or gain, there is
proof enough that no bolt can be devised by
any ecclesiastical inventor effectually to keep
him out.  lle must be left to his inevitable
reckoning with God.
If, in fine, sincerely, and on conscientious
grounds, any, like the whole body of the Quakers, should abstain wholly from administering or receiving the Lord's Supper, because
they think God requires a purely spiritual service, and his Son did not mean the transfor
9 
130    CHURCH AND CONGRE~ATION.
mation he made of the Jewish Passover to be
perpetuated after Judaism itself should cease,
shall their abstinence be esteemed a fatal defect, and a coming short of salvah~n itself?
Rome answers, Yes.  Every Protestant who
likewise answers it, is a Romanist in spirit,
whatever he be in name; for to this conclusion, be it frankly said, our argument inevitably conducts, that the point of supreme obligation, bearing equally on every human crc ature, without exception, is not the Lord's
Supper, as the object for which our sincerity
may qualify us, but is sincerity itself as the
object of a spiritual struggle, in which different persons may to different customs, and in
various external directions, be led.
I know, it is sometimes said, to frighten
dissenters, that sincerity is not enough without a correct faith and style of worship.  If it
is meant in this statement to include what
C~d does to save us, as no less needful than
what we do ourselves, it is undoubtedly true.
Sincerity, truly, is not enough, because man,
with all his powers and qualities, is nO
enough.  But if; as it appears, it refer to 0H~j 
SINCERITY.
own doing simply, the statement is palpably
false. Sincerity, on our part, is enough. Sincerity of thought, desire, and purpose must,
on our part, be enough; for verily it is all we
have to offer. It is not possible for us to give
anything else, or anything more. It is our
thought and heart and soul!  It is the love of
the truth; and the love of the truth is in the
eye of God of more price than its possession,
so often neglected or abused. Be sincere, in
relation to this service, is all we can ask. I
am willing, said a great preacher to his hearers, that you should follow your own real conviction, whithersoever it may lead. What
criterion other than this does God's Providence, or Word, or Spirit set before our
millds? It cannot fail to guide us in the
path of duty, to communion with his Son
and fellowship with himself.
131 
132     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER X.
SACREDNESS.
IT is objected to open communion, that to
all it exposes those elements which are too
sacred to be touched save by peculiarly prepared persons. But was this Christ's idea?
What are the elements but memorials of him,
illustrations to us of that living flesh and
blood in which his wonderful soul was incarnate? Did he then consider himself, whom
the elements but distantly shadow forth, too
sacred to be approached or touched by ordinary people? Did he, like kings, so often
with unintended irony called sacred and
anointed, shut himself up from the crowd,
and avoid the pressure of the vulgar, or even
the bad?  He, that would share a draught at
Jacob's well with the woman of Sama-ia, and
offered to give her the water extinguishing all
thirst; he, that was thronged with the multi 
SACREDNESS.
tude, and ate with the despised, - he sequestrating the symbols of his presence from
the people now! Was the bread he touched
with his own hands, and passed round some
table in Judea, less sacred than that made
ready by any mortal servant of his truth?
With what beggar by the wayside would he
not have shared his crust? Considering what
his character was, do we honor or dishonor it
by this fancied dignity of its outward seclusion from mankind?   Verily, the more he is
touched, the better!
This is the quality of a truly sacred thing,
not that it must be handled with tender and
fearful fingers, but that it can bear to be exposed. Its sacredness is too real and great to
be wasted or lost. What can or must be superstitiously hid, is but of a weak and delicate purity. What, like the lady in Comus,
is able to pass unhurt through all gloom and
peril of the open world, is holy indeed. So,
as with none beside, was it with our Lord.
If the hem of his garment was not forbidden
to the diseased woman whom Satan had smitten so long, shall the board human hands
133 
134    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
have fashioned for him, though it was never
near him on earth, be fenced round against
the access of any whom conceit of our own
holiness counts profane?  True, the table is
sacred.  But the sacredness of it, as of anything, consists not in its being set apart from
any class of men, but set apart for a peculiar
purpose, to be used for no other or inferior
purpose under heaven.  It is thus made sacred or consecrated, not by us as distinguished
from other or worse men, but by the Lord
himself, with his own love and sacrifice.  Our
ministry does not, like the Romish priesthood,
pretend, by customary words solemnly pronounced over the elements, to consecrate
them.  We do not claim, as servants at the
altar, to reserve the cup to ourselves as too
sacred to be shared by the laity, of whom we
hold the clergy as but a part, flesh of their
flesh, and bone of their bone.
Taking, not vague feeling, but intelligent
thought for our guide, we shall continue the
discriminations thus well begnn.  If we ascribe to the elements either a sacredness on
account of their belonging to a minority of 
SACREDNESS.
human creatures to partake, or an intrinsic and
substantial sacredness in their own form and
composition, we rejoin the party of Rome in
that superstitious addition to original Christianity, which, once allowed, will carry us on in
the line of absurdity, we know not to what
extreme and interminable length. That party
regards the bread and wine as converted into
the very body and blood of the Lord, no reality, but only the accidents and appearances of
bread and wine being left;- which miracle,
even could it be imagined so cheaply wrought
at every unnumbered celebration in their
Church of the Eucharist, would, to a rational
soul, have no advantage to atone for its
strangeness; inasmuch as it is not the body
and blood, but only the spirit and life of the
Lord, that we want, or that can do us any
good. If Apostles could say, " Though we
have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we him no more," surely we can
crave no such fleshly manifestation as the
Romish theory maintains.  Beside the failure
of this theory to answer any noble end in its
direct application, it is only disgusting and
135 
136     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
offensive to the very imagination to follow
the directions it requires as to the treatment
of such morsels of the loaf as may have
dropped, or not been consumed or passed
through the course of nature, or been exposed
to the agencies of decay. A decent writer
will not burden the memory or hurt the delicacy of his readers by any attempt at their
enumeration. In perusing some grave treatises of Romish authors, the physiology of
animal processes, rather than exercises of experimental religion, seems to become the
actual topic, to which, by false theories, the
writers have been driven, but from whose
gross or morbid treatment the mind shrinks in
disgust.
In truth, not a party in the general Church,
but the very reason and heart of humanity,
protest against the doctrine of sacredness,
which, in its technical mode, arbitrary extent,
and the things it includes, Rome has made at
once so childish to provoke ridicule and cruel
to inflict pain. Curious inversions and selfcontradictions in defining the holy, her history
contains indeed! When some holy thinker,
,,,I 
SACREDNESS.        137
some saintly heretic, for bursting forms which
he has outgrown, and soaring above dogmas he
cannot endure, has been burned in the fire, or
tortured to death on the rack, and then condemned to be buried in unconsecrated ground,
we may well ask, pursuing the very line of our
theme, What is it that can make a burialplace sacred?  An ecclesiastical ceremony,
with bell or book, performed by one even the
wickedness of whose character, as the theory
expressly requires, cannot take away the virtue
of an office done in his sacramental order?
Does this cause any soil to be a sacred enclosure, in the beautiful German title Co d's
acre, and a fit place for the rest of his children?  No, the holy man that lays down at
last the load of his mortality, whom not flame
nor axe-nothing-can touch further, himself
hallows for ever before God and in human
memory the spot of his repose; nor could
robed processions, or hired choristers, or the
tall plumes that, from temple-doors, the traveller sees darken the streets of foreign towns,
or whatsoever final rites, add to the holiness
which is the only true odor of sanctity from 
138     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
the soul. God's presence made the place holy
where Moses was admonished to put off the
shoes from his feet; and God's presence, in
the sense of peculiar favor, must be over the
very ashes of those who have done and accepted his will. When the French poet, Beranger, who knew neither ambition nor obsequiousness, and would not flatter the people
or be servile to the court, is laid in his grave,
though through the confusions of the Church
he could rise to no clear and certain statement
of his own faith, who of us, as if it could affect
at all his futurity, cares for the ground he
is borne to, with stealthy track and a military
guard, lest the fall of a man should be the revolution of an empire?
Such illustrations, certainly, so far from
eliminating the idea of sacredness, show it residing, not in the outward thing, but in the
feeling of the heart. Not holy things, but holy
persons, our religion mainly requires. "Be ye
holy, for I am holy." But what numbers of
people will insist on any amount of holiness
without, but upon none within themselves!
That is holy or sacred over which any fresh 
SACREDNESS.
devotion or heroism has thrown its charm.
When the mother sinks with her babe in the
watery sepulchre no spade has dug, because
without her child she chooses not to be saved
herself, the act to all maternal affection
throughout the world is sacred, -nay, sacred
to all human feeling, let me rather say. When
the hunted fugitive from bondage trusts herself with her offspring to the floating ice to
cross the Ohio River, rather than fall, for what
fate she knows not, into the hands of her pursuers, on such perilous footing not daring to
follow, those cold blocks, melting under her
feet and floating southward to the abandoned
land of captivity, become as holy as any temple in old cities of refuge, or as the horns of
any altar to which the wretched ever clung.
We touch heaven, said one, when we lay our
hand on a human body. Truly so we do, if
that body be the tabernacle of a righteous
soul; for heaven is not a fixed territory, with
boundary lines like an earthly kingdom, but
the habitation of the good, reside they where
they may.
So far from disowning or restricting, would
139 
140     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
we might extend the quality of sacredness to
a thousand things now held profane!  Would
there might be a sacredness in week-days as
well as Sundays, as there was in God's working no less than in his rest! How many still
think the sacredness of the Sabbath must be
observed by staying closely within doors during all the hours spared from the sanctuary,
as if a house built by man could be mnore holy
than altars of rock, temples of hills, and forest
cathedrals reared by God, or to sit in a chair
more holy than to walkl forth and meditate
with the patriarch at eventide! Would there
might be some sacredness in other books that
we write, and that modern authors publish, as
well as such overflowing sanctity in the ancient and Holy Bible! Let us not be partial
to the oath, however earnest, that invokes the
sacred  heavens,-  for  the earth we tread
should be sacred also. Human beings, familiar as they are with one another, should never
be brought by familiarity into contempt, or let
what they call their love be so light a thing it
can degenerate into disrespect; but, in their
common dealings, in their domestic and friendly 
SACREDNESS.       141
ties, let them be sacred to one another!  Let
the Lord's Supper he sacred.  Too sacred it
cannot be.  But shall every other supper that
we eat be unholy, and every circle at the tables in our houses gather for the supply of
animal wants alone?  Or, in the noble sentiment of the Apostle, being "debtors to the
flesh not to live after the flesh," shall bread of
immortal life be mixed with outward nutriment on which our spirits feed, as our hands
help, while a purged vision beholds the Lord
of our redemption, always one of onr number,
as truly as when, after his resurrection, he entered the closed doors of the chamber, or ate
with his disciples on the borders of the Galilean lake, or as in the Real Presence, which it
is no monopoly of the Ultramontane Church,
but the common privilege of Christians, to find
in the feast?  0 how much, in matters how
manifold, are we to hold sacred!  Is it said,
the elements have a sacredness all their own?
Beware, lest exclusive consecrating them desecrate all beside!  We cannot over-consecrate
one thing, without unhallowing another.  We
cannot make an artificial virtue, without taking 
142    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
from the horror of a real vice; nor turn an innocent into a guilty act, without hurting all
purity.  If it be as bad to taste wine, or dance,
or ~4tness a dramatic representafion, as to lie
or steal, then to lie or steal is no worse than a
temperate pleasure of the lips, or the feet, or
the eyes.  To be bitter, bigoted, exclusive,
and censorious, some seem to consider a righteousness in themselves which cannot consort
or have fellowship with any one who does not,
contrary to Christ's prayer for his disciples,
come "out of the world."
To make the bread and wine alone or distinctly sacred, is to profane that common life,
every breath of which we draw from God, and
all whose pulses come from the beating of the
Father's bosom.  What is specially sacred in
the Supper is not a height and degree of sacredness to which nothing else can attain, but
the particular, the ever lovely and venerable
sacredness of those final circumstances in our
Lord's career, from which its meaning comes.
Does any one say, Such a sinner as I am, unjust, sensual, unprofitable, cannot take that
hallowed bread and wine?  But how much, 
SACREDNESS.
precisely what amount of sin in our designs
or our appetites do we find ourselves able to
accommodate with the other exercises of religion,-with our regular worship, with the secret
prostrations and vows of our closet, with the
baptism of our children, with the providence
of God in the chambers of our sick ones, with
the funeral prayers spoken over our dead, and
with the tombs we build to their memory, and
should visit with a sorrow as sacred as the
worship that ever newly dedicates the temples
of Almighty God?
But be the things which should be considered sacred fewer or more, how illogical the
conclusion that anything on account of its sacredness should be closed from human beings!
Rather let it be opened to all. It is sacred,
says the objector, and therefore should not be
opened. It is sacred, I answer, and therefore
should be opened. The sacredness of a thing
is a reason always for its being opened; as the
mystery of a thing, to the soul of inspiration,
is a reason for its being revealed. God's house
is sacred, and for that reason should be, not
shut, but open to all. The Bible is sacred,
143 
144     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
and should not be kept from the people, as
priests have kept it, but wide open.   Only
what is unholy should be closed and forbidden.
The sacraments, all of them, because they are
such, should be open, -the Supper among
the rest. Is the rite Jesus instituted any more
sacred than the words he spoke?   If not, as
they are to our reading, let it be open to our
gaze and hands and lips! Let its sacredness,
like as of some powerful aroma, be diffused
among the abodes of men, through the roads
of countries, the streets of cities, the shops of
merchandise, and the halls of pleasure. Let
it be a holy mountain air, purity from the sea,
or the incorruptible sunshine with healing on
its wings, so that what is already sacred may
make sacred all beside!
In order to this, verily it only needs we should
learn what sacredness is. What are sacred
places, compared with the thoughts of holy
pilgrims by whom they are visited? What
are the bones and sacred relics of dead saints,
compared with the sanctity that lives and
works wonders of mercy before our eyes?
What is any vast society or church, compared 
SACREDNESS.
to the human soul? Well, by solitary waysides, do we salute, not our friends and acquaintances alone, but our humanity in the
form of strangers; for no dead and senseless
thing is so sacred as the living humanity that
is God's child. Sacred is the feast, but more
sacred the guest. Only when we understand
this, will consecration become a fact in the
world, as well as an idea and a name.
10
145 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER XI.
COMMONNESS.
IT is objected to open communion, that it
is making the Lord's Supper too common.
This objection is urged from the quarter of
those who do not partake of it, as well as
that of communicants.   It proceeds on the
idea that there must be in religion something
which is not laid bare to the common view;
and is, in fact, only a re-statement, on another
side, of the objection last considered, respecting the sacredness of the rite. This notion of
something which a few may perceive and enjoy, but which must nowise be extended to
the commonalty of the world, is a very old
and prevalent objection, both in things civil
and ecclesiastical.   Somewhat dark and restricted, in apartments, proceedings, and ceremonies, has been connected especially with all
religious systems.   First came the heathen
146 
COMMONNESS.         147
mystenes and the adyta of heathen temples,
with solemnities often as impure as they were
concealed, - examples indeed of the truth of
Christ's words about the deeds of darkness.
The reservation of the cup to the priesthood
of Rome in the Eueharist is only one instance
of carrying out but too faithfully, against the
spirit of the Lord, the old seerecy; and the
exelusiveness whieh admits but a favored few
to the table can he regarded in no other light
than as a continuation, however faint and
slender, of the same.
I shall not enter into a discussion of the
value or disservice to the world at large of
mysteries in religion.  I shall not undertake
to say how far their evil has been counteracted
by some use in rude ages and for uninstrueted
people; nor whether God himself may not
have winked at the times of this ignorance. It
concerns me here only to maintain that ordinances of mystery do not exist in the Gospel,
but are departures from the whole spint of
Christianity, and that there is no hint, espe
cially in regard to the Supper, of anything
done privately as in a corner.  The Author 
14~   CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
of our religion did not keep himself in ally of
his sayings or doings, aloof from the multitude.  He bad his particular friends; he had
his chosen disciples; but what he communicated to them he would communicate to all,
in parables if they could not understand it
spiritually; and he declared plainly, that whosoever did the will of God was dear to him as
mother, sister, or brother.  He was the most
extraordinary being that has ever lived on
earth; he was let down in hands of miracle
from heaven; he was of his own kind, not
man, or angel, or deity, yet fashioned as in a
threefold cord of them all; yet, notwithstanding, he made himself the most common person that has ever lived.  None so lowly or
universal as he.  His immense soul and
mighty life stretched over the whole compass
of humanity, and embraced all orders and conditions of men.  The Jews would have kept
him to themselves.  He was crucified as a
malefactor because he would not consent to
be a temporal king.  Those Hebrews who
became Christian converts would have confined his doctrine to the small measure of 
COMMONNESS.
their traditionary expectations, legal customs,
or political plans; but they could not so cramp
its nature. It was too broad and expansive.
The oak they would have planted in an earthen jar shattered their frail code with their antiquated pride to atoms. There is nothing
which Jesus practised or proposed, but has
this unlimited character. Universality, commonness, is written all over his truths and laws
and emblems; and, in the absence of the least
intimation to any such effect, it is impossible
to conceive that he intended his Supper for
an exclusive privilege.  Rather would he open
it on every side, thus harmonizing and symbolizing, as he did always with the natural work
and the ordinary providence of God.
All the best things which it pleases our
Maker to bestow, he makes common to his
creatures, - the air, the light, the ground under our feet, the heavens over our heads. The
sea rolls it waves, shows its majesty, and offers its liquid floor, not to nobles and lords, but
to all who would gaze upon or move over it.
The stars wear no veils, and roll in no partial
courses, but are wonderfully arranged to dis
149 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
play their measureless grandeur to every most
tender and feeble eye; nor is there a point on
the earth which does not command the breadth
of the skies. All great inventions, printing,
the compass, steam, with its numberless relations and inexhaustible uses for locomotion
and manufacture, every art that contributes to
human comfort, the medicine that heals disease, the ether that lulls mortal agony to sleep,
are for the common wealth and good. Shall
the little cable, whose finger-sized cord we yet
hope to stretch through the Atlantic depths,
be for the glory of any class or any private
pleasure or gain? No, its slender wires shall
convey knowledge through the gloomy caves
of the sea for the obscure and humble, as well
as for crowned heads and presidents.   For
every student of events and for every lover of
his race shall gracious news or solemn tidings
flash from shore to shore, as well as for the
statesman in his office, or the opulent merchant at his desk. Intelligence, on those mysterious wings of flame that can fly beneath
the fathomless waves, shall come of the fortunes of friends travelling in distant parts, and
150 
COMMONNESS.
the health of kindred dwelling far away, as
well as of the price of goods, the rise and fall
of stocks, or vast revolutions of the wheels of
human policy. The lightnings shall be man's
servants to announce birth and death, that so
alter the world to individuals and families, as
well as the flourishing and downfall of empires.
With their subtile blaze along the slender
threads of wire, as potent to purge the public
mind as their discharges from the volumed rolling vapors are to purify the atmosphere, they
shall scatter the clouds of misunderstanding
between men and nations, sweeten the world's
sentiment, and be the silent keepers of its
peace.  The benefit will be great, and therefore must be common, as, on God's system
of the universe, all great benefits are.
But of nothing, in any material or economical department of human life, is it more true,
than of the highest sphere of our religion. It
was not for your, or my, but everybody's solace and salvation, that the angels sang, Glory
to God in the highest, peace on earth, and
good-will to men! It was not for citizen or
countryman, for obscure or famous, unlettered
151 
152     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
or wise, white or black, good or bad alone,
that the Saviour was born, but for every race
and kindred and tribe and tongue. Nor was
it for those who have agreed to certain dogmas, passed through prescribed processes, or
been affected with conventional experiences of
any theological sect, that Saviour spreads his
table and gives his invitations.  It was for
whosoever will come. It was for every one
hungry and athirst. It was for all whom the
broken loaf, that was his body, can strengthen,
or the flowing wine, that was his blood, call
refresh.
The objection, therefore, to our doctrine, instead of implying its untruth or disadvantage,
is, on the contrary, its very recommendation
and seal. If it makes the table common, it
makes it what it should be and was meant to
be. The Apostle Peter was a just expositor
of his Master's mind, when, being miraculously stirred to extend the new religion to
the Gentiles, he justified himself against all
narrow, Jewish rebuke by declaring, with the
great, miraculous sheet for his voucher, God
had taught him to esteem nothing common 
COMMONNESS.
or unclean. What words more sublime and
cheering to the human soul, to all of us, who
are made of common clay, and endowed with
common faculties, were ever uttered! I object, then, to the objection, that it goes on the
discouraging and fatal assumption, that what
is common must of course be low and bad,
that the common sight must profane, and the
common touch soil everything; an assumption how contradictory to our Lord's teaching, and may I not say to our Lord's experience! Not the reputable and distinguished
persons furthered him, but the common people
heard him gladly, and all the people rejoiced
for all the glorious things that were done by
him.  Not the people of Judma, but a faction
of the Jewish church and state, persecuted
and crucified him. Not his nation, but its
proud and bigoted rulers, were his foes. Let
us not admit the wretched and dispiriting doctrine, that what is common, or made common,
must somehow be poor, vicious, unprincipled,
and false; but believe it may of God be permitted to become pure and faithful, high in
honor, and bright with the beauty of holiness.
153 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
The making the religion of Jesus, in all its
parts, of form or teaching, common and universal, will tend, with a virtue that belongs to
no other agency, to this certain result. Universality is the very soul and spirit of the age,
caused to be so by that Gospel, which, first of
all things on earth, had it for its spirit and
soul. The more common that Gospel is, in
its facts, instructions, and emblems, the better; for then the wider will be their sanctifying power. We ought, verily, as soon to
think of the grass and flowers and fruits oi
the earth being too common, of our friendly
salutations and domestic affections being toc
common, or of a public spirit in the ties oi
civil duty too diffused, as of any part of oui
religion being too common.   For a thing tc
be common is not for it to be worthless, as i>
so hastily and miserably taken for granted, in
suiting all human nature and human life
rather for it to be supremely worthy.   Nc
word so sickens the heart to hear, as cozmmon
in the sense of base and wrong.   So far
therefore, from wishing to seclude the tablc
from public participation and regard, I am
154 
cOMMONNEss.         155
free to say, we cannot make its hospitality
too wide.
Marvellous enlargement has there not already been, through all ages and climes, of
that narrow and ill-furnished board where the
Twelve with their Master reclined!  Shall it
not yet reach round the earth, and assemble
to itself all mankind, as the disciples of a common Saviour, the children of a common Father, whose honor will be exalted as it is
wide?
If it be asked, what then shall prevent the
festival, that is so common, from being cheap,
I answer, the spirit and force thrown into
its administration.  If no feeling is brought to
the form by minister or people, none will pass
through it or be carried away.  It is no gen
erator of holiness, but only a channel.  It will
express, and by expressing confirm, the devotion with which it is observed.  But when
coldness sits in the chair, the table will be unaffecting and cold.  It is no medium for the
working of miracles upon the unbelieving and
dead.  For lle who denied his mighty works
to such on earth will not perform them from 
156    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
heaven.  llere, too, to him that hath shall be
given.  Not alone who shall partake, but who
shall administer it, is a question.
But why should the publicity of this particular ordinance destroy its solemnity?  The
solemnity of no other service of religion de
pends on a scanty attendance.  Public wor
ship is more solemn in proportion to the num
bers gathered with one consent, awed befor
the voice of truth or the accents of praise
melted with pathos or still as flocks of winge(~
creatures, that hold one flying shape throug~
the sky, in the height of common ecstasy
The solemnity of the Supper may well be pu'
into something other than its exclusive oh
servance, into the meaning and power to&amp;of its exercise, the earnest feeling of the ap
proaching coi~municants, the revival by mu
tual sympathy of the tender associations 0
the original scene, which, for every one of th.
handful they first bound, have stretched the~
spell now over hundreds of millions.
But if it be said that, in this common par
ticipation, many present will not fully apprC
ciate what is done, I reply, neither did th( 
COMMONNESS.
first participants, at the time of their participation. They did not understand their Master's principles; they faintly imagined his
aims; they were not disabused of their notions of his temporal sway; they left him in
the hour of trial, and broke their vows, though
they expressed, doubtless, some sort of imperfect love for him in the feast. Christ did not
make their full appreciation at the time the
condition of the  Supper they ate.  Afterwards, when he had died and risen again,
after they had witnessed dread facts without
and felt gracious influences from the descending Holy Spirit within, they comprehended it
more. Its very observance educated them, as
it does us, to observe it. It opens more and
more its own meaning, as we sit successive
seasons at its table. Nobody understands it
at the outset, as its repetition, with his own
profounder meditations, will make him, and
as he will when the deeper experiences of life,
sickness, death, and sorrow, have been his
mighty instructors.
Meantime, in this schooling of ignorant or
half-informed pupils, who, I pray, is injured
157 
158    CHURCH ANI) CONGREGATION.
by making the Lord's Supper one of the Ie~sons?  Is any hurt done to the sacred servic
itself?  It is a picture, most simple, of fact
most sublime in history.  Do the crowds tha
gaze at sacred pictures in the Vatican, or ma
terpieces of impenshable beauty in the Louvre
harm them with their eyes?  Are the paint
ings profaned, or are the persons profaned an
accursed by beholding them?  No, not mor
than is the beauty of morning or evening, 0
the mountain, sunset, or sea, though the im
mense splendor and inconceivable grace 0
these apparitions be half wasted on the mo
of mankind.  Nor can that spiritual beauty
which is of finer touch and scope more va
than any expression of the face of nature, b
spent or corrupted by any multitude it ma
draw.  Rather will the exclusiveness th~
locks it up, as special wonders of nature b
their legal owners are sometimes locked, ne'
tralize its import.
Physical forces, acting on matenal thing
may be so combined as to exert on objects
once a forwarding and retarding power, whic
we sometimes see causing a ball first for 
COMMONNESS.
moment to move on, and then, untouched,
turn and roll back. So by superstition is the
Christian ordinance shorn of its virtue. No
representations have so pierced the heart of
savage or civilized man, as those of the closing
passages of the life of Jesus.   "Obey your
marching orders!" with curt and quaint solemnity, said the Duke of Wellington to the
young clergyman who doubted the expediency
of sending forth missionaries into every faroff heathen land.  Why  should not "every
creature," to whom the supreme order requires
the Gospel to be preached, be admitted to
view its rites? They make part of our grand
system of social religion. What forms shall
best promote social piety, or being religious
together?   Evidently and undeniably, those
which all can and do share. Therefore the
exclusiveness of the Supper hinders social religion, and a form, with strange self-contradiction, is made to prevent or limit the accomplishment of the end of all forms.
Moreover, history shows that there is no
extent of absurdity and wrong to which this
exclusive spirit, once admitted, will not lead.
*. *-.'
159 
160    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
In the end of the third and the beginning of
the fourth centuries the Lord's Prayer was
considered too holy to be uttered by unbaptized lips; for, it was said, none but the baptized could proper]y address the Almighty as
their Father.  We should not know whether
at such an assumption to smile or be shocked.
Surely we should pay no respect to it, but disown it even at the cost of our lives.  The time
will come - let us do something to hasten and
anticipate it - when the reservation of the
Lord's table will appear in the same light.
Already no slight shadow is thrown on its
administration by the indisposition of many
liberal and noble minds to remain and partake of it, even if allowed, at a sectarian request.  They feel it ceases thus to be the
Lord's Supper, and becomes ~he supper of a
few men.  A distinguished and universally
respected jurist, in the frequent journeyings
which his official duty required, being not
seldom where the communion was observed,
we are told, on this very ground never stayed
unless it was in distinct terms the Lord's
Supper to which he was invited.  There is
.~. 
COMMONNESS.
indeed a potent reason for open communion
to be found in the sort and character of per sons whom close communion excludes.
If, in fine, it be inquired where, on the
ground of open communion, is the Church
to be found at all, and what are its metes,
bounds, and visible proportions, - I ask, will
it argue its non-existence or ruin its character
if it should appear truly immeasurable, and
stretch far beyond the reach of our calculation
or sight?   Indeed, have its dimensions ever
been taken since the Infinite Spirit of God,
incarnate in the shape of his Son, made Humanity his abode? Who has walked about
our Zion, marked her bulwarks, and considered her palaces, so that, like a scientific surveyor, he can render in his report to the generations of men?  What sort of Church was it
Jesus spoke of, against which the gates of hell
should not prevail? One like an army in the
field, or a tower on a hill? No, but a spiritual
Church, universal in heaven as well as unlimited on earth, whose ranks were never counted,
even as, in the Apocalypse of the celestial
host, we are told no man could number them.
11
161 
162   CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
When I think of it, no little company or denominafion, like the population of a city or
the troops of a commander, comes into my
mind; but only such as that grander language
of the Apostle,   "the general assembly and
church of the first-born"!  When we can
measure the Lord himsdf, we can measure
the mansion in which he dwells.  But sooner
shall we compass the walls of that New Jerusalem, which the seer of the Revelation, with
such gorgeous dimness of glory, paints.  No
Council of Nice or Trent, no party of Calvin
or Luther, no Eastern or Western Synod, Establishment or Presbytery, no band of men ever
in the world leagued together, and calling itself
the Church, could describe or compose it.  It
is the honor of the Church, not its disgrace or
defect, that no time tells its age, no space includes its magnitude, no figures can sum up
its adherents.  Moving in it while it moves in
its march, as a foot-soldier does in an immense
expedition, I am not curious to see its beginning or end.  Coming still, still proceeding, as
the eye turns back or forth, part already across
the flood and part crossing, it has no bound. 
COMMONNESS.
Its visibleness is not its wholeness, but only
a sign and token thereof; as are the face and
expression, of the soul of a man.
To all this some may say, your reasoning
is superfluous argument and lost labor, because, practically, the communion is open
now. I answer, this is by no means fact, but
only tendency, slowly becoming fact in some
places. It is to strengthen this tendency, and
increase the fact even by a little, that I speak.
But, alas! there is no sign that any of us will
see open communion universal in our day.
Too strong is the influence of remaining bigotry, and the hereditary prejudice of a narrow
faith. Too deep, must I not say, in some
places at least, has been sunk that line of
formal distinction, which is made, not of iron
or steel, but of those potent words, I am holier
than thou. Too long has the attempt been
going on to remove God's upper and final
judgment-seat, for a human court, to this
lower earth. Too inveterate is the habit of
weaving into a lash and sting, those circumstances in the life of Christ from which he
meant should be extracted, for the already
163 
164     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
bleeding wounds of humanity, only an ointment and healing balm. But the time will
come, let it come now with us, when no select
portion alone shall be received to taste the
Supper; but we shall go out into the highways
and hedges, and, as Jesus orders, by his love
compel them to come in!
But, supposing the approach to the communion made perfectly open and free, and the
line of distinction between Church and Congregation taken up, there is still an objection,
which, operating when severe terms attend the
administration of the Supper, is untouched
and unanswered though all restrictions were
removed. Not a few have always declined
every invitation to the table, however kind or
expostulatory, on the ground of their unwillingness to assume the new obligations resting,
as they conceive, on all who expressly commemorate the Lord. They fear they might
not be faithful to their vows, and therefore
they will not utter or seal them. Their logic
is a short syllogism.  If they make n- profession, no profession can they disgrace. Remaining as they are, they are sabe from the 
COMMONNESS.
Master's reproach, like one in the civil state,
or army, who, undertaking no special commission, cannot be blamed oz cashiered for treachery or neglect. A more baseless objection
could not be proposed. We talk of the slippery foundation on which the wicked are supposed to stand, and where their feet will slide
in due time. But this is no foundation at all.
For what idea of the obligations lying on the
human soul from its Inspirer and Judge, can
he have, who imagines them increased or
diminished in number, lightened or aggravated in weight, by any ritual act? What
obligations are those which the non-communicant does not assume? The obligations of
truth, justice, mercy, love to God or his fellowcreatures? Living in a Christian land, attending on Christian worship, acquainted from
childhood with the Christian revelation, is he
not bound, or anywise less bound, to love,
obey, and imitate Jesus Christ, simply because he does not celebrate this feast at his
board? The notion, as one onl which practically to proceed, would be monstrous. Fairly
to state is to refute it. Our spiritual obliga
165 
166    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
tions are not like the hamper a dumb creature of burden bears on his back, which can
be put on or off; but they are ties running
through the centre, and woven as fibres in the
very constitution of the soul.
llow and by what process can the eating
of the bread, and drinking of the wine, be the
acts solemn as they may, affect these ties?  I
know the Church itself is greatly responsible
for the existence and prevalence of the objection I am considering.  The ecclesiastical
custom has been to impress with great emphasis upon new converts the fresh duties of
their position, and to demand or imply their
promise to discharge them.  It is true, that
they to whom God and Christ are for the
first time made known, or who become peculiarly aware of a Divine relationship, become
also sensible of obligations which, however
real, had been latent, and, not appearing to
their minds, could not be discharged in their
lives.  But in regard to us, who are all the
children of the Church, and the late posterity
of a pious ancestry, the first date of whose
Christian belief is beyond our own reckoning 
COMMONNESS.
in the backward vista of time, no such premises of even imagined deficient obligation can
be maintained. The character and being of
God, the teachings and spirit of Christ, -to
whom among us are they best known, —to
those within or without the pale of the nominal Church?  Where shall we find the truest
offspring of that old religious parentage?
Who shall say whether among names the
minister has recorded, or those possibly not
even breathed in his ear?   Does there exist
on earth any church-record copy, to which
we can refer, of the Lamb's book of life in
heaven? Are even baptism and the Supper
the sure certificates of entry on the roll he
holds in his hand? She that sits on the seven
hills may say so. But she has no response to
her words save from a few political despots,
yet occupying thrones that have rocked already, shaken by the imprisoned spirit of civil
and religious liberty, and doomed to rock
again, and more fearfully. We give no such
echo. Alas! daily proofs of untrustworthy
communicants forbid.   We  cannot tell, or
make any outward sign a pledge of the fact,
167 
168     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
whose obligations are greatest, or whose are
least, or what shades of difference may arise
from diversities of knowledge, temptation, and
opportunity we have no means accurately to
measure  or detect.   Promises to meet our
obligations cannot alter the obligations themselves, however broken promises may be additional sins. Shall I take my new harvest to
pay my old debts? asked a great farmer of
the West, not dissolving, however, but only
disallowing, his obligations.
In general, with estimates and concessions
God alone is competent to define, obligation
for us all is the same; only the performance
in individuals different. Yet is there an obstinate prepossession to the contrary, as unreasonable as it is hard to root out. We are
told continually by those whom we would
regard as candidates for Christians, or by their
friends, that they are reluctant to take this
particular step of partaking the Supper, because it seems to them inconsistent with some
pursuits they would still follow, or some pleasures of the world in which they desire to indulge.   But what enjoyment or occupation 
COMMONNESS.
does or can this step make guilty, which was
innocent before? and what, that is innocent
and moderate, does it forbid? Rather, should
I not ask, what act or gratification is right
even for a worldling because he is a worldling,
but wrong for the member of a religious body?
Does the absentee from a meeting-house, or
from any service solemnized therein, absent
himself from the presence, the eye, or any of
the laws, of his Maker?   Can he get away
even from that temple of His, which "is all
space," and that " altar which is earth, sea,
skies"?  Though he offer no homage in that
temple, and lay no sacrifice on that altar,
ought he not? and, because he does not, is
any evil conduct of his more excusable on
that account, or only another sin against the
Creator already offended by his forgetfulness
and disregard? I trow God does not bind
his statutes so loosely on his children's minds,
or make them at all matters of accident and
circumstance, appendages of a form which
human will is free to practise or omit.   No
demoralization could be greater, wider, or
more sure than that resulting from such easy
169 
170     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
license. Until it can be shown what part ot
the moral code is relaxed, or which of the ten
commandments has been annulled, in favor ot
the lovers of themselves and of their own delights more than of God, or that even the new
commandments Christ brought for his disciciples is less imperative for the most silent
man in an assembly than for the loudest pro
fessor, the objection must be adjudged invalid
altogether.
But it may be asked, Does not the commu
nicant consecrate himself? I rejoin with ask
ing, Is the non-communicant exempt from th(
duty of self-consecration?  The  old Paga-r
philosopher had sense to know that there wa
not one divine law for Athens and another foRome, but the same sublime precept of justic,
was sempiternal for all men.  So there is no
one commandment for the religious votary
and another for the devotee of business, 0
fashion, or pleasure. In one chain are boun(
the seeker after God and the seeker of himself
Men in their shops and halls, on the stree
and the wharf, think they are in a differen
sphere, and to be judged by different rules 
COMMONNESS.         171
from those frequenting closets of meditation
and places of prayer.  But they will find that
they belong alike to one system, just as cornets belong to the same system with planets,
empty as they may be in their own cornposition, and far into barrenness and gloom
as they may rush from the enlivening beams
of the common sun.   Those most distant
from each other God can reach with the same
benediction upon fidelity or whip of rctribution, as he brings back the wanderers of the
sky.  As to the difference between one and
another, which is made by a profession of religion, little indeed is the sum - important
as a profession may be - to which, standing
alone, it amounts.
There is a profession by which one distinguishes himself from his fellow-creatures as
better than the rest, upon the worthless and
offensive peculiarity of which I have already
remarked.  But truly we are professors all together.  We belong to Christendom by inheritance and a complete entering into possession
of our estate.  We are Christians by birth and
nurture.  The first disciples were minors, just 
172     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
beginning in the grace of God. But, by all
rules, we in this age are past our Christian
minority. All wrong-doing, by us or our children, is violation of the compact in which
we are held. A house of worship is a profession of faith and spiritual renovation;- for
what but actual hypocrisy is the outward
structure itself, or its renovation, if our principles be unbuilt and our souls unregenerate?
All our exercises in such a house are professions. Our children, soon as intelligence begins, are so many little professors of religion.
This is but the supposition which our whole
condition involves, that we are Christians,
young and old. All our preaching proceeds
and should proceed upon it, rebuking sin and
short-coming as degeneracy and declension, to
be contemplated with astonishment, not with
equanimity, as in the regular course of things,
and as proper thorns on natural thorn-trees.
The doctrine of total depravity in a Christian community, by asserting and taking for
granted the necessity of evil, legitimates all
wrong; for what is inevitable is right.  Vipers are not sinners. Human vipers, if such 
COMMONNESS.
exist, are persons too bad and depraved for
conscious guilt; and something of such a
character John the Baptist and Jesus may
have had in mind in using for particular class es such a term. Our hypothesis in regard to
transgression should be its recreancy, not as
the act of a heathen scarce knowing better,
but the disloyalty of one who has tasted the
heavenly things which he now falsely rejects.
The theory of conversion, as universally needful instead of education in a Christian Church,
is a confession that Christianity, working for so
many ages, has not produced its effect on the
generations of men, but has only touched individuals here and there, -a lesson, after near
nineteen centuries of effort, almost of despair
as to the final result.
But we believe, imperfect as the attainment
is, the theory does injustice to the thing. Our
religion has become as truly hereditary as ever
was Adam's sin, or that of any of his descendants. Hle that commits sin among us does
not perform a natural and necessary thing;
he violates the law of the family to which he
)elongs, whose privileges he enjoys, and whose
173 
174     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
atmosphere he breathes.   The necessity of
sinning! This proposition has been thrown
against the Perfectionists. But it is a strange
sentence in a Christian land with which to
rebuke believers in the dignity and perfectibility of human nature! It is a reproach to
the Divine nature no less than to the human.
We are of the family of God by a double
claim of birth and adoption. The transgressor in a Christian community is not a child of
Satan acting as he must, but a voluntary
prodigal and traitor, breaking the laws of
the body to which, as a member, he is bound.
What would be thought of converting a child,
that had grown up in the bosom of home, to
the love of his father and mother, or to respect
for their commands? As strange, alien, and
needless ought religious conversion to be in a
Christian flock. When Jesus said, " Feed my
lambs," he showed this to be his mind; for of
lambs what is predicable if innocency be not?
The idea and prompting of a Christian life
are widely enough diffused among all classes
in our congregations of worship to justify at
least this ground of a general and uniform 
COMMONNESS.
equality of obligation for all.  No  line of
Scripture, no dictate of reason, can be quoted
in proof of its variation on account of any
external observance or act, omitted or done.
No, the celebration of the Lord's Supper is
not an imposing of new obligations, but an
aid to the fulfilment of old, uncancelled ones;
and those who punctually use that celebration employ a means helping them to render
all the offices and dispositions which others
as much as themselves owe to God and man.
As respects obligations, indeed, we are all insolvent. How many ancient debts we have
never paid! What a mass and heap of duties
we have just begun to touch, in our attention
to them altogether behind time! Shall we
not avail ourselves of every assistance, such
as this tender memorial affords, to advance us
on our way?
A keen observer of nature has said, there is
in the world a great deal of unsatisfied law,that is, of tendency to results in those arts of
life so beneficent to the human race, which is
hindered by the mixture of other tendencies
and prevented by the operation of lower laws.
175 
176    CIlUECH AND CONGREGATION.
This conflict of law in nature has ils parallel
in the soul.  Whatever can disembarrass and
give free course to the higher law in us, setting the soul forward in a course of improvement like that pursued by Nature through her
cycles and ~ons, from the meanest order of
vegetable and animal life, shall we not welcome as the grace of God?  Such, indeed, is
the ordinance of which I speak.  It does not
aggravate the burden.  Diametrically opposite
is its effect.  It helps us on with the burden
we bear.
What a difference in effect from making the
communion no longer a misnomer, but indeed
common!  A new sense of responsibility will
pervade the Church; parental duty in religion
will be more moved for an explanation of this
Christian office to tho young; and all the
members of a religious body, it may be hoped,
will feel that something depends on them, as
well as on the minister, for the planting and
nurture of the holiest sentiments of our faith.
We shall not, for we cannot, in this alteration, any of us, be the same as before.  Every
change of method, on any vital point, in pro 
COMMONNESS.
portion to its importance is attended with a
spiritual change. For every fresh means of
improvement which we sincerely use, we are
the better. A new seeing and hearing of sacred things, by us and our children, will generate new thought and emotion, flowing from
the older to the younger, without end, age
after age. So let the Supper, like everything
truly great, prove its virtue on a broad scale!
12
177 
178    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CllAPTER XII.
VEIL.
I FIND a significance for our subject in the
record of the fact that, at the crucifixion ot
Jesus, "the veil of the temple was rent in
twain, from the top to the bottom."  If we
ask why the veil of the temple was rent in
twain, Scripture does not state, or commenta
tors, so far as I have seen, conjecture; they
leave it as a mere incident in the narratke
an unmeaning portent of the history.  But,
truly, in this world God made, of universal
cause and effect, there must have been som
reason why the veil was rent, as it woul~
seem necessarily by a miracle directed lik
a sword, inasmuch as an earthquake coul~
overturn towers and shake pyramids easiet
than part a thread.  We read in the story
that Richard's axe could not vie with Sala
din's scimetar.  A special Divine stroke inus 
vEIL.           179
have been aimed in this case.  llad the veil
been rent by human agency, the question why
would have been asked very soon, and the
profaner of the temple hurried to answer at
the Sanhedrim, if not first stoned to death by
a Jewish mob; for, to the llebrew imagination,this veil was the cover of what was most
venerable in the institutions of Moses and
most sacred in the worship of God.  Made of
blue and purple and scarlet and fine-twined
linen, wrought with figured cherubim to the
utmost perfection of ancient art, hung on pillars of precious wood, overlaid with gold,
made fast by golden hooks in silver sockets,
woven, as the Talmudical wnters say, of seventy-two threads of wool, each thread having twenty-four strands, to a thickness of the
breadth of the palm of a man's hand, solemnly
washed by three hundred priests, and stretched
to guard the ark of testimony and mercy-seat
with its cloud of incense in that cubic apartment called the lloly of Holies, - dividing the
lloly from the Most lloly, the great tapestry
of the world, - of a texture so firm it is said
no human strength, and no tempest or con 
180     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
vulsion even, only a special prodigy for that
very purpose, could have torn it,- the object
of greatest awe and mystery on which the
eyes of the people could rest, -there must
have been some design or lesson or reason
why, when at the crucifixion it was rent in
twain from the top to the bottom. Why,
comes the question back, was it cut so thoroughly, as if to put it beyond all repair?
Truly, not in words did the Divine purpose
need to be told, so plain the effect to abolish
that peculiar sanctity of place, appointed for a
childish age as it was abused with an inveterate superstition, and to do away with that
material distinction of Holy and Most Holy,
by letting daylight of heaven into that dark,
windowless recess, which only the high-priest
once a year, with a bloody offering for sin,
could visit. Not in vain, then, did the last
breath of the expiring Jesus, on its way to
heaven, blow this veil asunder; but to signify
for ever, to all behind, Jew or Greek, that holi
ness is no matter of outward space, but of the
living spirit. He only thus repeated in death
the frequent teaching of his life, in his wall' 
VEIL.
through corn-fields, preaching in fishing-boats,
telling the Samaritan woman that not Jerusalem or Gerizim, but spirit and truth, was the
illimitable region of God's praise; that leading an ox to water, pulling an ass or sheep
out of a pit, comforting or healing a fellowcreature, as much as any form of prayer,
was a Sabbath-day duty; and, in fine, that
not when or where, but what, a man thinks
and feels and does, is the holy or unholy
thing.
Ah! how well, at the very moment the veil
was marvellously rent, did he illustrate his
own doctrine! What was the rending but
the sudden passing out of all special holiness
from that old withdrawing-room of Aaron
and his successors to the open hill Calvary?
How was that hallowed by the unparalleled
purity which taught that only a divine temper
can hallow any material spot, and which
meant not to desecrate any point or recess,
particularly of the temple, but to consecrate
the earth and human life!
But is this a lesson we need? Is there any
veil of our temple to be rent in twain? I can
181 
CHURCII AND CONGREGATION.
only, for answer, ask, Is there not? I know
the sublime doxology we sing,
"To Thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar earth, sea, skies," -
but to make or own such temple and altar,
alas! how we forget!  Every-day illustrations
show it. Would the senators, that are wont
to lay on each other such opprobrious epithets,
and it may be vulgar, bloody blows, in their
chamber, do it in the sanctuary? and, if not,
do they remember the veil of artificial distinction of one place from another is torn away,
and their chamber is a sanctuary of law and
religion before God? Would the counsellors,
that sometimes disgrace the court by adding
to their client's litigation a quarrel with no
nicety of terms among themselves, dishonor a
house of prayer with the coarse or angry expressions they use? If not, do they bear in
mind the rent veil at Jerusalem, and that the
seat of justice also is a temple of God?
Would the traders, that deceive in a bargain,
or falsify a contract, as quietly offer a false profession of that religious feeling every one of
us by entering these portals does profess, or an
182 
VEIL.
empty, senseless vow in divine songs and supplications? Then do they think that the shop,
market, exchange, is part of the Most High's
dwelling, that the veil between holy and most
holy places has dropped at the word of God,there is no outer and inner court? that, though
we talk of the temple of Mammon, Mammon
has no temple, - Christ having annexed the
whole territory as divine? that every word they
speak is serious as an oath in the heavenly
ear, all lying is perjury,- no real distinction
made by holding up a right hand, kissing a
book, and kneeling at a shrine? and that
Jesus drove the sellers of doves out of the ancient shrine, not merely because they were
merchants there, but thieves, overreaching
those with whom they dealt? Did the good
man, of our own commercial circle, who
pasted sacred sentences into his pocket-book,
so that he might not fail to read them whenever he handled his money, put them, think
you, into an unfit and unholy place of sacrilege? Nay, suspended in vestries in what
votive tablets, carved for ecclesiastical ornaments by what sculptor's chisel, shining in
183 
1S4    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
splendor from the page of what illuminated
Bible, are they more appropriate than on the
purse of the wealthy, over the desk of the
counting-room, or, far off along the world of
waters, inside the vessel's forecastle, or on the
quarter-deck?
Could you, my reader, let forth the ill-natured expression in tone or look at the communion-table of your Lord, which may possibly, without self-reproach, appear to wife,
husband, parent (0 God, forgive that!), to
child, brother and sister, at your own daily
board?  Then has it not escaped your consideration that, by the token of that falling veil,
your household-feast should be a sacrament of
love and purity to the Omnipresent, whose
Son ate wfth as much heavenly goodness in
the abodes of men as in the upper room where
he turned the Passover into his own Supper?
The repentant Judas flung down the thirty
pieces of silver, as we read, in the temple, as
though in that dedicated place the sacrifice of
his remorse might be more acceptable; but
ah! he forgot no less it was in the universal
temple, and under the immediate watch of 
VEIL.
God, that he also stood, in that dark conclave of chief priests and captains, where he
promised to betray his Master!
When we limit and localize our sanctities,
we forget it is not only of holy times or holy
places that Holy Writ speaks, but of holy
hands and unadulterous eyes, a pure heart
and feet in righteous ways, wherever hands or
feet, heart or eyes, may look and beat and
work and move.   "The temple of God  is
holy, which temple ye are!" adds the Apostle, knowing, as he so well did, that, if holy
places could save the world, there would be
no danger of perdition, - enough of them
could be contrived, - but that there must be
also holy persons, affections, and deeds! I have
seen temples and cathedrals in famous cities,
jewels on the front of the globe, gleaming with
polished marble, adorned with thousands of
marble statues on a single one. But, without
travelling, I have seen men and women, my
brothers, my sisters, more truly temples to me;
- their look purity, their countenance worship,
in their eye aspiration beyond the tallest spire
of the globe, whose height is boasted in the
185 
186   CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
descriptions of him that has ascended to greet
the sun; their simplest speech of God, not canting discord as speech of God sometimes is, but
better music than in the organ-loft of St. Paul's
or of the Madeleine, though the stop called the
human voice were sounding.  Yea, living and
moving temples I have seen, more holy than
were ever consecrated in wood and stone. The
veil of the temple was rent, as its exclusive
sanctity fled, that the human body and soul
might become God's temple.  I have seen a
floating Bethel resounding with prayer and
anthem, as it was moored now to one wharf
in a great metropolis, and then made to swim
to another; and I have heard hallelujahs from
the ~abin of the wave-tost ship pierce the calm
heavens through the gusty winds.  But when
mortal flesh and blood quiver with grateful
acknowledgments of almighty law and providential care, not bells or spoken orders, but
the spirit within giving the signals so well
obeyed through all the round of daily duty
and blessing, and along the whole perhaps
seventy years' path of life, - that is a moving
temple, before which Solomon's dims its glis 
VEIL.
tening plates, and Cologne stops unbuilt, and
St. Peter's lowers its mighty dome!
" Know ye not that your body is the temple
of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" When
that body appears in its glory in the service
of God, every lust extinguished before incorruptibly burning and all-purifying love, each
worldly passion confessing and guided by the
devoted will, like crouching lions at their
keepers' feet, - lowly adoration touching the
lips with a light as though Stephen looked
up again with open vision, or St. Cecilia left
the canvas or came down from the'sky to sing
once more on earth, -I think hymn-book, Bible, venerable building, and Sunday hour less
precious in the Great Sight than. the sanetified vitality which comprehends them all in
the human soul!
Holiness a quality of punctual moments
and measured ground?  But, I ask you, will
those moments and that ground, when reckoned only or particularly holy, suffice? By
whom, then, have the profligacies and dishonesties you mourn over in these days still of
defalcation and pollution, been done?   A1
187 
188     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ways by men that never saw church-spire,
never lifted their eye to belfry at the street
corner, never entered solemn precincts, and
never sat at the table of the Lord? Would
God, No, indignantly we might reply!  But
wherefore, and on the ground of what experience, do not a few begin to declare they feel
less inclined to trust a man who professes a
great deal?  Wherefore, but because the name
of so many a professing Christian, laying
great stress on ordinances, coming out from
the world, standing on the Lord's side, and
belonging, like Saul before his conversion,
to "the most straitest sect of our religion,"
for he never talked of belonging to it afterwards, - so many such a name is on the defaulting or sensual list, till people, with sarcastic reference, elsewhere than in the congregation sing,       "Can rites and forms and flaming zeal
The breaches of thy precepts heal?"
The veiled woman of the East is no purer
than the unveiled one of the West, if she be
as pure; "the veiled prophet" is no more
spotless than the open-browed one, to say the 
VEIL.
least; and the holiness that is loud on the
tongue, but gives out in the conduct, sinks
with lower depreciation than any bank or firm
or bubble stock in the market! But if all this
be so, what is the use of sacred exercises or
enclosures at all?  Of no use but a perverted
one, if made to shut up imagined holiness
like the veil Christ tore in the Jewish temple;
but they are of use transcendent, if turned
with power to cleanse all our behavior. Let
the temple prove itself not useless or unholy,
by overflowing into the world with odor of
sanctity, as a flower keeps not its fragance in
its cup, but fills with aroma the air! Let
Sunday, like a declaration of peace lasting
beyond the date of its signature, speak a truce
to the strife of avarice and hate through the
week, and there will be use! What is the
use of a great magazine yonder? To keep
things on the shelves, or to scatter utensils
of comfort through a thousand homes? Of
a manufactory the use?   To  pile  up  its
goods, or to clothe and furnish the million?
Of a telegraph the use? Merely to dot signs
of letters, or control all business with its in
189
k 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
formation?   Of the reservoir the use?  To
contain water, or carry it to your third story?
And of that round brick building on the city's
edge the use? To generate an invisible gas,
or to illuminate at nightfall the city?
So the use of a church does not end with
the visible church, with our ceremonial, nay,
or our emotion. To think so, to emphasize
external modes, especially to make any mode
a dividing line to sever the assembly in two, is
to do what but patch up again the veil Christ
rent, and substitute for spiritual regeneration
ecclesiastical etiquette.   Let  us attend on
religious services, if God give them grace to
touch our soul, to elevate our avocation, and
to sweeten our life. Let us come to them
from the perhaps deteriorating course of our
habits and affairs.   They may, for use, serve
at least like those metres of glass and metal
which gauge degrees of light or atmospheric
temperature and weight; and, our conscience
being index, tell us how much purity, warmth,
sunshine of elemental goodness, illustrate our
career, -what weather is coming, glorious or
lowering, with the days in our moral sky,
190 
VEIL.
and in our short-comings admonish us, with
help of God and Christ, how we must increase
the holy element to make our social climate
unlike the atmosphere of some unhappy souls,
one our fellow-creatures can live in here below, and like that
"Where everlasting spring abides
And never-withering flowers."
At the death of Cromwell and of Napoleon
tempests vexed the air and tore the beautiful
trees of the garden in pieces; fit close to their
stormy, battling lives! When Jesus expired,
while the sky was darkened, the earth quaked,
the rocks were rent, the graves opened, and
many bodies of saints arose, nothing was destroyed but a hurtful distinction; nothing was
destroyed save that which kept men apart
and alienated them from each other. Not
the temple was: overthrown; only the veil of
the temple, which had been anticipated in
some of the old Pagan recesses, was rent in
twain. Let our temple stand, and we only
pray God that the risen Lord of life may
remove every barrier in it betwixt our souls!
Let no distinction in its parts or services be
191 
192    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
tween holy and most holy, divine worship
and special communion, such as existed in the
Jewish fane and continues in many a Chns
tian shrine, remain with us - for that is the
veil of our temple, precisely corresponding to
the old one, which he, our Master, would rend
in twain. 
MEANS.
CHAPTER XIII.
MEANS.
ANY one with the common modern notions
of ordinances truly must be amazed that Paul
did not, on account even of the Corinthian
abuses of the Lord's Supper in selfish luxury
and intoxication, forbid any to partake it; but,
on the contrary, requires all the members of
the assembly, instead of going separately, as
some of the richer and more prosperous had
been wont when they had finished their own
feast, to tarry for one another, and partake all
together. But, in the light of true Christianity and the Master's own mind, this will be
no amazement at all. A special argument for
open communion of the Lord's Supper to all
is indeed contained in the fact, thus so boldly
demonstrated, that the Supper is a means, not
an end. If it were an end, a consummation
of Christian excellence, then, of course, only
13
193 
194    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
those who have attained, and are already perfect, needing but that last step, would be admissible to it.  The only ground on which its
partial and exclusive character is anywhere
sustained, is its being a stamp of the regenerate and redeemed, a finishing stroke, like the
last touch on a painting or statue, of the grace
of God.  Now here the decisive question is,
whether Jesus Christ himself so regarded or
presented it.
The only answer possible to this question
is that he did not.  lle expressly states it as
a means, and a means alone.  lle never
speaks of it otherwise.  "Do this in remembrance of me?' is his direction; that is, as a
means of calling him to mind, and experiencing all the tender and holy influences which
such a recollcetion of him, who was the very
ideal of love and virtue, is suited to pro.
duce.  Can we conceive of him desiring to
be remembcred as a matter of personal grati.
fication, still more of making the remembrance itself, without reference to its beneficial effect, the object in view?  No, he never
dreamed of it as the stamp of accomplished 
MEANS.
virtue or spiritual termnination of the pilgrims'
path; but rather placed it at the beginning of
their discipleship, an aid to their poor, imperfect understanding of his religion, instituted
simply in order that they might comprehend
it better and be guided by it more. So much
for the question of authority. But moreover,
let me add, from the very nature of the case,
the Supper, as an outward act and ceremony,
like all others that are outward, can and must
be a means, and that only. The end of man,
of his immortal soul, is not external, never in
anything he can see or touch, taste or handle.
The end is an invisible beauty and infinite
sanctity, a boundless goodness and love.
Principles, not formal practices, are ends; and
principles can never be fully embodied in
forms, or stated in words, but only perceived
by the soul and pursued in the life.
The point being then established, that the
Supper is a means, the next inquiry is, Who
shall use it? Only the good and holy, only
those who have made great progress in virtue,
only those who are technically or truly described as having experienced religion?  It
195 
196   CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
will be difficult to say so, when we consider
that a means is something to help one on, like
extending a hand, affording nourishment, giving a direction, or in the darkness holding up
a lamp to the traveller, who has indeed set out
on his journey, but requires assistance to proceed further, and the particular time and place
for whose encouragement should be determined, not by his speed or forwardness, which
would dispense with and put aside all aids as
only an encumbrance, but by his weakness,
ignorance, and necessity.  Accordingly, the
Supper was once called Viaticum, refreshment
by the road, such as a wayfarer might carry in
his wallet or basket to strengthen him to continue in his course.  To whom, then, should
it be given, but to the faint, weary, and
way-worn? - more at least to them than to
the giants who have strode over obstacles, and
actually won the race.  Therefore, with good
reason, not for a developed, spiritual manhood,
but for those of doubtful and unassured moral
ability to keep them from failing, and stimu &mdash;
late them in the better career, the Supper was
by Jesus himself appointed.  He never ceases 
MEANS.
to tell us his business is with the feeble and
straying, the lost and sinful and sick. It was
to draw them by the cords of sacred association, when things unseen and eternal could
not attract them by their essential power and
intrinsic charm. It was to make memory the
friend of virtue, and past society a spur to
lonely fidelity, and a spiritual presence more
real to them by the signal of material circumstance.
The Supper ordained for the good or holy
alone!  Verily, they need it not!  If they had
been contemplated, if only the clean believer,
righteous doer, and accomplished saint had
been in Christ's mind as he went out of the
world, such a rite as the Supper would not
have been ordained at all. When the end is
attained, means are employed no longer by
God, or a wise man, or Jesus Christ, the Mediator from heaven. Had he been thinking
only of those already by moral agencies made
perfect, he would have let the Jewish Passover, temple and altar and priestly robe, and
all, drop to the ground without such adoption,
continuation, and interpretation into a nobler
197 
198     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
and more spiritual sense. To altogether worthy followers and bosom friends such a substitute for the Jewish ordinance would have been
quite superfluous. They would have rermembered Jesus truly, without any prescription or
form of reminder. They would have held sufficing and glorious fellowship with him in
their own souls. To them tables and vessels,
bread and wine, would have been needless
substances, if not baser elements.
No, not for such strong ones- but for imperfect, erring, and sinful men, in whom yet
some feeling of love and admiration for the
Great Deliverer had been awakened, who
would emulate and every way reach up to
his transcendent character - the table was
spread, the loaf broken, and the cup poured.
If it be said, this would exclude advanced
Christians from the table, while admitting
humble beginners, I reply, compared with
that wondrous pattern God in his Son has let
down from the heavens, brightest thing ever
hung in earthly air, imperfect, erring, sinful are
we all! Who of us will count ourselves among
the mighty needing now no help?   A perfect 
MEANS.           199
spirituality none will claim for himself, none
will claim for his brother, none will claim for
the saint he most enshrines and reveres.  We
all need some outward help; we all use for
friendship and society and home, as well as
for religion, some substantial symbol; we all
ascend, if we ascend at all, some Jacob's ladder to the skies.  Who ever flew thither save
the Lord of glory himself?  We all, therefore,
should come to the table.  A medium or mediator is requisite to us poor creatures clad in
the flesh, tabernacled in clay, with the dust of
our origin ever hanging about us; sometimes
in our weariness and moral weakness feeling
that we are all only dust, with nothing left
of the living soul God breathed into Adam's
nostrils, but to be completely resolved into the
ashes whence we came!  No symbol is so
effeetnally adapted to our want as the Lord's
Supper.
But whosoever personally and particularly
the straying and lost sheep may be, and on
however high or low a scale their demerit
and frailty may be reckoned, for them unquestionably all means in religion are appointed, 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
and why not this means especially, as well as
all beside? We do not debar men from other
instrumentalities of a religious sort because
they are not yet distinctly numbered among
the saints and favorites of the Great King,
of which some of our hymns speak. Truly
as the flowing lines in our sounding praise
so characterize poor creatures not quite unlike
ourselves, we shrink and wonder with a mixture of humor and alarm, while we query
in our thought who are or can have been
those thus described. Those of us consciously made of common earth, with a remnant of
worldliness in us, the clay not worked out, if
indeed any better than the wicked, are still
seekers after all guidance and support. 0,
let us not dream yet of pretending to belong
to a higher type in that moral kingdom embracing earth and heaven!
In fact, no other rite than the Lord's Supper
is refused to any one. We do not forbid men
to come to church and join in the devotions
of the sanctuary because they are, or anybody
should pronounce them, unrighteous. We do
not say that Sunday, an institution most ven
200 
MEANS.
erable of all, and somehow transmitted from
the very foundations of human society, is too
good for them to hallow in their use, and exists
only for the elect. The most high and holy
thing possible to man in the way of religious
exercises and means, namely, spiritual communion with Almighty God, we enjoin upon
the lowest of the vile.
I have referred already to that curiously instructive fact in Church history, of the Lord's
Prayer, as now his Supper, being once forbidden to those considered imperfect. But, no
longer daring to deny the former, shall we
venture to refuse the latter?   The  present
generation verily may see the countenance of
its own exclusiveness in the mirror held up
by the past, despise the past as it may.
Shall we withhold communion or the sign
of communion with Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, from all but such as have, to the satisfaction of an ecclesiastical tribunal, retraced
their steps from the waste wilderness of sin
to the garden and paradise of innocent joy?
Shall we deny the prodigals any right of their
hands and lips to this bread and wine? Do
201 
202    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
we then praCtise on the spirit of Christ's parable of transcendent pathos and beauty?  If
the slaves and victims of sensual appetite,
whom Jesus himself did not curse or east out,
come and say, We think witnessing and partaking of this service will encourage us in our
struggles to unloose the grasp of our deadly
and inveterate foes, shall we venture to say to
them, you shall not come?  lle that wrote
with his finger on the ground, allowed the
sinful woman to approach himself: shall we
presume to send her away from his tabie?  Is
his table more sacred than his person?  On
what authority is the discrimination that singles out this from all the other means of religion, and turns it from a common privilege into
a line between different classes of men?  Certainly no word of Christ and no sentence of
Scripture can be quoted in its behalf.  It is
an unauthorized ecclesiastical custom merely.
Nor can that, with anything like respectable
assumption of infallibility, be such a line,
which some at least wicked Popes have consecrated, and on which bad men may stand
and have stood.  ~Even baptism, the other of 
MEANS.           203
the two peculiar rites of the Gospel, we administer to whosoever desires it for himself or
his children.  ~Vhy practise the inconsistency
of shutting up the Supper?  The first rite
certainly demands for its condition as much
faith and holy purpose as the latter.
I know the usage of the Church, in making
the' Supper a certificate of goodness or acceptance with God, has created an answering snperstition among the people themselves, whose
most common excuse for not sharing this rite
is that they are not good enough.  "I am not
good enough," says the man who is invited to
be a communicant.  As if one were good in
order to eat the Lord's Supper, instead of eating the Lord's Supper to be good!  As if
goodness were the means, and any outward
ceremony the end!  No, goodness for ever is
the end, and all other things are but means to
that.  All other things are less mighty, less
holy, less enduring in the sight of God and to
the soul of man.  Whatever spectacle can
meet the eye, whatever sound fall upon the
ear, and whatever act can be performed by the
hands, are but beggarly elements in compari 
204    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
son.  The eternal things are first and last,
Alpha and Omega.  All else is without, beneath, secondary, ministenal.  All sights, accents, deeds, forms, however sanctified even by
Jesus himself, come afterwards, and are inferior; for truly it is nothing less than absurd
folly and treason against the lloly Ghost, to
make any ceremony paramount to righteousness and truth.  I am good, if good at all, for
no collateral purpose in the world, - good with
a view to nothing beyond being good.  Not
even in order to please God am I good, but
to be like God, who, being goodness, makes
goodness itself my object alone, to which everything else is instrumental. Even the Lord's
Supper is but one of many means the Divine
grace employs to subserve it.  We partake
that Supper, not because we are good, but
that we may become so.  Who that desires
it for this result should not be allowed to partake it?  ~~ insist that men shall be Christians.  liow monstrous thus to insist, and at
the same time deprive them of the very means
that shall make them such!
In fine, by all this doctrine the dignity of 
MEANS.
the Supper is not let down, but uplifted. To
make any ordinance an end, would let down
the human soul and the outward ordinance
both together. For truly it were a poor object
of the aspiration of an immortal being, to set
before it any however solemn ceremony for its
object and goal. But to make the ordinance
a means is to give it a well-grounded and defensible grandeur, when we consider that for
our growth in such things as a divine purity
and love, in the revelation of Heaven's mercy,
it stands, and to our human constitution is so
fit. Thank God, that we can in such things
flourish by any means! Therein, like the
Apostle for the preaching of Christ, we do
and will rejoice.
205 
206    CHURCh AND CONGREGATION.
OllAPTER  XIV.
ANALOGY.
As another argument for Opening to the
use of all every means of what we call revealed religion, the fact might be alleged that
the means of natural religion are by God himself thus freely opened.  There are means of
religion in nature.  Nature is not the soul's
object, but minister, a mass of inshuments and
series of uses; and the frame of the universe
is as religious as our own spiritual constftution.  What seems most directly to relate to
the body, is not exhausted in that relation,
but has another and higher reference to the
mind.  As in the arts and convenient processes of life material must often, after its
first application, be used over again, or its fnll
value is not secured; so the whole creation,
having inet our senses, has with our sentiments a second sight and touch. 
ANALOGY.
Accordingly the Gospel everywhere sets
forth its spiritual truth under natural images.
"Whosoever will, let him take the water of
life freely," is its appeal. Certainly no declaration could throw the responsibility of being
religious more clearly on ourselves. If the
means of religion are free to everybody, -free
as water, free as the river, the fountain, and the
rain, to whosoever would drink, -he that is
irreligious, without life and refreshment in his
soul, is so not by any doom or curse, but like
a man with lips parched when brooks are running through the valley, springs gushing from
the hill-sides, showers pouring from the clouds;
and to die of thirst is no necessity, but choice.
No distinction or exception is made, as to the
various means of religion, of some one that
may be used by particular persons, and by
others not. Bible or Sunday, closet or public
worship, baptism or Supper, sermon, song,
conversation, prayer,- any, all the means,whatsoever can be water of life to a human
soul, reviving in it the spirit of love and obedience to God,-use whosoever will!  It is so in
the system of nature. And the point of Scrip
207 
ANALOGY.
Accordingly the Gospel everywhere sets
forth its spiritual truth under natural images.
"Whosoever will, let him take the water of
life freely," is its appeal. Certainly no declaration could throw the responsibility of being
religious more clearly on ourselves. If the
means of religion are free to everybody, - free
as water, free as the river, the fountain, and the
rain, to whosoever would drink, -he that is
irreligious, without life and refreshment in his
soul, is so not by any doom or curse, but like
a man with lips parched when brooks are running through the valley, springs gushing from
the hill-sides, showers pouring from the clouds;
and to die of thirst is no necessity, but choice.
No distinction or exception is made, as to the
various means of religion, of some one that
may be used by particular persons, and by
others not.  Bible or Sunday, closet or public
worship, baptism or Supper, sermon, song,
conversation, prayer,-  any, all the means,whatsoever can be water of life to a human
soul, reviving in it the spirit of love and obedience to God,-use whosoever will!  It is so in
the system of nature. And the point of Scrip
207 
ANALOGY.
bloom of the earth, beyond your board or
shop or granary, is properly, and was by God
designed for, a means of religion, of exciting
grateful admiration for the infinite bounty
and beauty. How much of the glory can we
buy or sell, devour or wear? All the rest is
for religion, worship, thanks to Him who provides not only for the perishing animal, but
the immortal mind. The sun, that lights up
the scene, -is it a mere illuminator of the
earth, a burning reflector, only larger than our
hand-lamp and broader than the blaze from the
headland? If our soul, while our body rides
over the earth, never rode in its flaming chariot to God, are we better or worse than the
Persian worshipper of the sun itself?  Truly,
as a means of religion, it can be used by all.
The poorest drunkard that staggers by the
way can climb up into its celestial seat, if he
will. Better worship the sun itself than worship nothing! Better, indeed, worship God
in and through the sun, in all its brightness
but his shadow! Ah, yonder rolling and shinig, it is a means of religion, not to all, but,
among all the millions, to whosoever will.
14
209 
210     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
The sea, doubtless, may be contemplated by
us in a wholly utilitarian way. So it is contemplated by most persons. Why not? Such
is its obvious character! It is a well from
which the sunbeams and winds are drawers,
distillers, and common carriers to our cups
and fields.   It is a liquid floor or bridge,
across which our ships convey passengers and
goods for the society, commerce, exchanges;
and wealth of mankind. It is a great refriger
ator and briny purifier of the air. It is a store
of medicine, doing more with its salubrity
than all other medicines to preserve health
keep off disease, and prolong life. All this, ir
a utilitarian way, doubtless it is. But, blaz
ing there with the dawn, brooded over by th(
night, that settles down over it so dun and
black, does it make us kindle or shudder witlno such sense of the Presence Infinite ant
Eternal as once bore the sceptical poet By
ron on the wings of his imagination for
while so above the lowness of his doubt ant
contempt, that he wrote the grandest religiou:
ode to the sea all literature, ancient or modern
out of the Bible, can present? Truly it too 
ANALOGY.
beyond all our Protestant or Catholic sectarianism, is a means of religion to every soul it
can touch.
As a particular illustration, behold that billow, a monster that travels before the fury of
the storm, stirring the ocean's heart for a thousand miles, looming uip dim and huge as your
eye first notes it advancing to the shore, turning its perfect arch as solid masonry from the
unstable drops, thinning the bulk of its tremendous base to a falchion-like edge, poised
gleaming and quivering, unbroken till the
opposite wind blows off its delicate top into
spray, which the setting western beam changes to rainbows that line the awful, gloomy
ridge with charms of incomparable richness,
transferring Heaven's covenant of mercy after the deluge from the tempestuous driving
rack above to the misty surface of the
angry deep, as though God's sign of mercy
must surmount and clothe everything high or
low; till the magnificent, momentary structure breaks with a roaring in the ear long.resounding through the air, which you know not
whether to call transcendently soft, or infi
211 
212     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
nitely loud, -as it were the voice of Spirit:
what use will you make of it, to what purpose
convert it, if not to wonder and adore? According to the analogy I am pursuing, it is a
means of religion free for all, who with any
pious sensibility observe or conceive it, to
use; as I argue every Christian means should
be used.
No means of religion without us, yea, in
the land and the sun and the sea! No God
to be seen and adored in nature, when so remarkably in two seasons of disaster, separated
by a score of years, the overruling Power has
made the winter days, with slight and short
exceptions, so gentle to his impoverished children,  "tempering  the  wind  to  the  shorn
lamb"!  We  may see nothing but accident,
chance, and matter, instead of a Providence,
in the wheels of nature and the hairs of our
head. We may count and use this great
world of God as a staging for our play, a
couch for our self-indulgence, a market for
our gain. But regarding and employing it
thus alone, we pervert or confine it to'its narrowest end. 
ANALO~Y.           213
It has been argued that the stars must be
inhabited, because wit at else are Ikey good
for?  Save only a few of them,- such as the
pole-star that shows to the sailor, and to the
night-wanderer or fugitive, the north; and Jupiter's moons, by their eclipses marking the
vessel's place; and some other centres or satellites that help us lay our courses or sketch
our charts and maps, -of what small profit in
their pale lustre are they all! the result, how
insignificant to the outlay, reduced to a guideboard or signal for a surveyor's glass!  Not
so I reason this question of their use.  Hung
yonder on nothing, in boundless ether, keeping to their punctual tracks, closer than the
vulture's eye could follow, or, too distant to
be distinctly descried, fading off into that
Milky-Way which points to yet unseen and
inconceivably constellated grandeur, what are
they, and what are they meant for, but a
means of religion wide as the world?
If' in this connection, at the risk of being thought childish and trivial, I may venture to allude to a phenomenon so enchanting, yet elusive, - there is one piece of 
214    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
the scenery of his universe, which God shows
us more rarely than sun or sea or stars, as
though to arouse us by its strangeness and
infrequency, as well as wondrous splendor.
Unlike things I have already noticed, it is no
means of gross and common utility at all,
and has nothing to do with our housekeeping
or husbandry.  No such thing can be made
of it.  We cannot breathe it like the air, or
be directed by it as the light.  The sun is a
ripener of the corn, as well as shadow of the
Deity; the sea is a bond between nations, as
it is an image of immensity; the mountains
are sources of streams, while altars of the
Most liigh; and the stars are candles over
the dusky deep, no less than illustrations of
the handiwork of God.  But of this enigma
and magnificent riddle what can we make?
Once in a great while its unique figure comes
flashing out in the northerly heavens, changing before we can fix the spot of its origin,
and perhaps, crc we can challenge a companion's regard to some matchless point in its
amazing exhibition, vanishing away.
Yes, Aurora at midnight, a dawn in the 
ANALOGY.
dark, a second singular sort of morning fleeting and wandering, as out of place, among the
risen orbs! Neither guide nor purifier is it,
fountain nor nourisher, lantern nor bridge, -
nothing useful, or available, as we say,- only
a piece of heaven's curtain rather, dropped
down into earthly air, falling from some angel's loosened hand during the moment of
his diverted mind, part of the tapestry of
the New Jerusalem, waving awhile over our
planet to show us how those upper palacewalls are hung; or something like this gathering of gleaming ranks, into which it is so soon
converted, looked not the celestial troop that
once marched and sang over the fields of Palestine? Was not this the bright pennon which
lured on the first Roman imperial convert,
Constantine, to our religion, in that story told
of him, with its sign of victory? In rapid
turns advancing and retreating,'t is a holy
dance of ghostly creatures, with indescribable
grace circling and gliding, and ineffable glory
in the pure pallor of their pearly forms. But,
while we question, to our instant gazing they
change their robes, woven of no imaginable
215 
216      CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
stuff or texture, to tints of green or rosy flushes,
as though warm, substantial existences. Our
friends departed, in their seraphic shapes, are
they not?  Surely more  seemly thus than
in some other supposed apparitions! Once
more, the almost living motions become a
shape of massive and dead architecture, a
solid wall of sharp or re-entering angles, as
though fort or castle were built in the skies.
Yet soon all melts away, - nothing but blank
space and emptiness left in the region where
shone from God sublimity beyond snowy
peaks and foaming cataracts; and we cannot
follow its trail, trace one step of its going
more than of its coming, discern its producing
cause or terrestrial effect.
What is it?  What is it for?  Materialist,
sceptic scorner, is it a mere levity and vanity
of God, unworthy the minute for description I
give it, and fitly treated in its spectral apparition and flight with our hasty and purely
worldly glance? Science staggers at the sight,
talks vaguely of polar ice, electric agency, and
changing weather, as floats off the splendid
mockery of its curious conjecturing eye. Is it 
ANALOGY.         217
then all for naught?  No, to revering minds
it is a means of religion, pure revelation,
clean from heaven, a sacred architecture indeed beyond Gothic arches for our aspirations, finely useless to our coarser wants, that
in every particle and movement it may feed
and stir our nobler faculties, and, in lofty soaring, tempt our t)onghts its own celestial way
to Him who suspends and then withdraws
his banner in the skies.  It is gross to be
heedless of the beauty in bis creation God
displays, and irreligious to rest in it as mere
material beauty.  What curse or doom keeps
us from reaching God even over these light
stairs, and out of this very gossamer weaving
a wedding-garment for our souls?  Whosoever will, in this or any spectacle of the creation, note the rustle and glitter of the vesture of God passing by, as he passed by
Moses beneath the Mount, shall have his devotion enlivened to the Author of his being
and Ordainer of his lot.  Not like a human
display, not to please prince or favorite, is His
drapery ever blown abroad; to be no private
exhibition in a closed room for nobility or 
218     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
money, is the Cunning web of nature unrolled
from the loom of heaven, quickly to be unravelled as in a dream; for no solitary soul alone
to ascend, is its Jacob's ladder set up, - for it
is still set up, only Jacob saw it and we may
not, - but for who ever has sensibility to the
beauty that God delights in, to rise by, and, as
he rises, to learn that what seems most vain
for worldly ends may lift us above this dusty
spot, until - and would it were oftener!
"We're lost in wonder, love, and praise."
Just so it is with all the means of religion
we call revealed, - the doctrines, precepts, ordinances, influences, times and places, forms
and exercises, of the Gospel of Christ.  Whosoever will may have and use them.   One
man wi/is, another will not.  To one man the
mountain is a shrine; to another, it is but
something in his way.  To one man's thinking, elemental forces alone of fire and flood
determine the proportions of land and sea;
another sees the finger of God marking the
line ~hose finest sand the waters may not
pass.  One man sees the lesser globes scaling 
ANALOGY.
off from the larger in their circling flight,
or condensing from dark nebula into luminous balls; and another notes the hand of
Divinity loosing the sweet influences of Pleiades, binding the bands of Orion, and guiding
Arcturus with his sons; and three thousand
years of improvement in science and literature
have not been able to add to the description
one single touch! So one man finds in the
Bible priestly pretension, politic calculation,
human composition; and another the inspiration of the Holy Ghost for the salvation
of the human soul, "water of life" flowing
from the time of Jacob's first patriarchal
well to Christ's talk with the woman of Samaria.
The beauty of nature thus answers to the
grace of God.   What abundant provision
God has made for such beauty, unserviceable
save for the spirit,-beauty that tempts not
the woodman's axe or the reaper's sickle,beauty that can be gathered into no barns,
carried for export or exchange with foreign
countries by no fleets, woven into no robes,
cut and polished into no engines, -beauty
219 
220     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
that can be bought and sold for no price, but
the property of everybody who can see it,beauty of blossom and wild-flower, that no
scythe is sharp and hungry for, no rumbling
wain can take its load of, and no agent for
wool or flax or grain travels to barter,beauty that cannot be spun, as Jesus tells us
the lilies themselves do not spin, -beauty
that will not furnish manure for the ground,
ornament for the person, condiment or viand
for the board, and yield neither sugar nor
starch, silk nor fur, flour nor spice, -beauty
which is no road  but  direct indeed to a
higher country, and no clothing save of God,
but is offered freely to every human soul!
Is the Gospel on another plan? No, devout
or undevout as men may be before nature or
the grace of God, in his works,-unless all
instances and illustrations, such as I have
adduced, be in vain,- he undeniably opens
the means of religion to all his rational creatures. On short allowance or in utter destitutionI of bread and water, the body may by land
or sea be placed; but there is always something for the hunger and thirst that is within. 
ANALOGY.
Christianity corresponds with nature in this
regard. The draughts of this world's pleasure may leave our lips parched, and the
doctrines of its philosophy fail to satisfy the
craving of our hearts; how blest that we can
still come to the supplies of God!
221 
222     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER XV.
CRISIS.
THE plan of making the Lord's Supper as
open as public prayer and praise, is resisted on
the ground that thus we should lose our mark
of the great religious crisis in human life.
This particular and most important use of the
Supper, which it has subserved and still so
widely promotes in the Church, it may be
said, takes it out of that general analogy I
have run; for there is nothing in nature to
which this part of revelation can correspond.
Acknowledging the propriety of considering
this question more thoroughly than its occurrence among other points in a former connection allowed, I yet feel how greatly its discussion is perplexed by the quite diverse foundations of faith on which alike this practical office of the Lord's table is proposed and maintained. By persons taking the same stand, the 
CRISIS.
nature of the crisis would indeed be variously
described, and based on different theories of
the soul. The common psychology assumes
a total depravity at birth, from which, at one
or another period of growing and adult years,
through the sudden pleasure of God working
by his Spirit and the faith of his Son, individuals of his offspring are delivered into the
number of saints elect in light and love. A
more liberal school of theology assumes that
man in his native state has no moral or spiritual character, but, by the Divine providence
and grace being brought to the unfolding of
a higher nature, is in Scripture phrase born
again, -or that, having degenerated from
childish innocence, and lost all original righteousness, and wandered into every way of
selfishness  and  sin, he  is redeemed  from
his iniquity, crosses the line which separates
the corrupt from the pure, and so passes from
death unto life. In either case, personal participation in the Lord's Supper is thought the
proper signal of changes or events so great.
Some reasoners on the subject prefer to present partaking of the Supper in the light of a
223 
224     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
conscientious will, as a religious profession or
distinct taking before men of the Lord's side,
and a resolution to live by his commands.
But this implies of course the same inward
transformation, and makes the table the same
line between those who have passed and the
rest who have not reached the crisis supposed.
Still again, by increasing numbers of such as
would be at once liberal and just to every
sober or ghastly fact of human life, a mixed
doctrine is set forth, of human nature as neither innocent nor utterly impure, yet coming
into the world under some curse of Adam, if
not of God, Etind needing to reach a grand
turning-point and pass through a swift revolution to be saved. To contemplate the conflict
of the most orthodox on this or any other article, is to think always of something like the
figure a friend of mine humorously offered, of
a company of foxes with the brushes of their
tails indeed beautifully together, but their
heads in every direction of the compass!
But the inquiry must be met. Is there
universally or generally, among those becoming God's true children and Christ's faithful 
CRISIS.
followers, such a crisis and definable moment
in their internal history, from which, as from
a mountain-top,.on the side behind all flows
backward, and all forward on that before?
and is this particular commemoration of Jesus
legitimately chosen to identify that line?
Unquestionably we must admit the fact of
crises in all nature and life. Let all be growth,
cry some, growth in the, soul as in the vegetabl    e    world. But all is not growth without
us; why therefore within? There is a law
of change as well as of development. The
humblest plant, as has been well said, has
crises, no less than slow expansions, in its
history.            The germ swells till it bursts the
perhaps tough covering of the seed that was
sown, it may be breaks the seed itself in two,
pierces the ground to reach the light; and
though there is gradation, as the Master teaches, yet are not the degrees so many crises, -
" first the blade, then the ear, after that the
fu ll c    orn in the ear"?  Truly are there many
images        of the soul's critical unfolding.  Behold them in the body natural and the body
politic, in the progress of disease in an organ
15
225 
226    CHURCH AND cONGREGATrON.
ized ftame and the morbid and healthy states
of a community, nay, in the most petty business that attains to the dignity and calculation of a scheme!  The great poet of our
race only tells its experience when he says,
"There is a tide in the affairs of men."
Bnt the question is whether there be in the
soul's biography one particular crisis, diverse
from and exceeding all others, through which,
in its unmistakable sameness, every rational
creature must go on his way to the kingdom
of God, and whether the Lord's Supper is the
true and warranted signal thereof.
Truly on no question is it more difficult to
be positive, or wrong to dogmatize, than on
at least the first of these.  It is comfortable
to the mind to believe in regular stages, in
progress out of evil, and in the perseverance
of the saints.  In the creation all Scripture
records and scientific observations show that
God himself proceeded in the way of orderly
advance.  Not creeping, but stepping, behold
him at his work!  llis universe is a series
of new, successive productions of perfect wisdom and will.  But internal scrutiny of cre 
CRISIS.
ative processes in the soul is harder to make.
Beside, we are peculiarly liable to deception
in comparing our present with our past. We
think the last performance of true genius the
finest we ever saw, our latest vivid emotion
the strongest we ever felt, as the sailor may
tell us the last surge was the highest ever surmounted by his ship. Who can relatively
measure the waves on the sea of life!
The most distinguished of our natural historians has lately written a great essay on classification of the animal kingdom.  But spiritual
classification is the most baffling sort we can
undertake. Minerals, plants, and to a great
degree animals, can be classified by external
characteristics, and visible, sensible, material
habits. But to put moral natures in rows
higher and lower is no such easy task. The
very agent in this classification is none other
than the very Spirit of God. That bloweth
like the wind. It is immeasurable as the atmnosphere. It is very hard indeed to catch in
its swift, invisible movements. We cannot
know in any superficial way what hearts it
has visited, nor, without an angel's eye, could
227 
228    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
we always see into what hearts it is making
its way.  In the smallest church and in the
whole world alike, where it has touched, how
impossible for us absolutely to decide!  It
alone fully knows its own doings and can tell
its own story.  It truly is a self-registering
instrument or power of the Most lligh.  Yet
nevertheless its action in raising and sanctifying the minds of men how abundantly great
and evident in the world!
But as respects the persons it has affected,
been repelled from, or passed by, to call them
by name, run lines of discrimination and set
up barriers of demarcation, is to run the risk
of injustice to them and it together.  No
flashes of other light are equal to its gleams;
no earthly workings are mighty as its deeds.
So much can we say, yet hesitate to mark once
for all the individuals through whom they appear, so wonderfully alterable they are in this
respect of revealing the lloly One, now visited
and anon seeming abandoned by the Spirit,perhaps like David sinking back into unworthiness and sin after his harp had rung and
his voice burst into unquestionably inspired 
CRISIS.
jubilees of praise! With such falls from grace
and such leaps of virtue in this goodness of
God, who shall be surveyors of metes and
bounds of particular ownership in the moral
territory? Who shall be the assessors on the
variable amnounts of this unseen property and
treasure of the heart? Truly do we not need,
over and above church committees, an apostolic succession to decide for this?   Nay,
beyond even that general succession, a transmission of the special miraculous gift of " discerning of spirits," would be required. Where,
then, are the functionaries who can authenticate their title of being clothed with this rare
and exalted power? Where, in any actual
passing upon the sheep and goats, are the results of its exercise so clear and satisfactory
that nobody can dispute or be fairly grieved
by the award?  The truth is, all attempts by a
formal badge or fence to distinguish precisely
the lost from the saved have proved such failures, at least so rude and often illusive, as
to show that God never intended they should
by any concert of ecclesiastical factors or construction of church machinery be made. They
229 
230    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
are like the walls the Chinese and the Romans
made in their several provinces to keep out
the sava~es of the North.  The savages got
over the walls, and demonstrated themselves
how often as good and honest folks as they
who had branded them as barbarians and held
them at arm's length!
If a charge of unfaithfulness be brought
against those declining or opposing this prerogative of deciding between the characters of
men by a formal test, none is more exposed to
it than the Master himself!  lle disallowed
and assailed every such test; he made the
street as holy as the synagogue; he cared
nothing for outer or inner courts, for Jew or
Gentile; he found the blood of Abraham in
no direct line of fleshly descent, but in whatever heart beat with the sentiment of Abraham's faith; he tnrned hill-sides and shores
into altars and pulpits; he knew as well as
we how rarely ecclesiastical bars dispense a
just award!
That those who have with punctual fidelity
observed the exercises and ordinances of the
Christian religion, have proved on the whole 
CRISIS.
the best disciples of Jesus, I will not deny, but
rather in the probability of such a fact cordially believe. That the wickedness and apos
tasy of mankind from God are so general and
great as to require manifold and mighty agencies, - not only the pleadings of God's voice
and the sufferings of his Son, but wise expedients and every sort of machinery even,
whose wheels a finger of God may anywise
touch and move, to rescue wandering souls
from imminent ruin, -I sorrowfully yet distinctly confess. But the vehement doubt is,
whether within the general body of disciples
the selection of a particular rite, to single out
his chosen friends from those less good and
religious, has not in all ages been greatly fallacious, and is not now more fallacious than
ever. The reason is, sanctity itself resents
this method.  In saying, by our general belief,
custom, and worship, that we are Christians,
and not Pagans, Mohammedans, or Mormons,
there is of course no pretension or assumption
of an invidious sort. It is an outward or
general classification.   It is a geographical
boundary. It is a doctrinal peculiarity. But
231 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
to determine, by a manifest ritual touchstone,
who among the nominal Christians are real,
is not only going further, but in a different line,
nay, in a direction so offensive to a refined
and delicate mind, that with all its might it
withstands, or with all its speed escapes, the
experiment. The disciples will not stay to be
counted. Like tender doves, the fearful birds
of heaven, they fly from the lifted finger of our
arithmetic. It is only the flock of duller earth bound creatures that are quite content to be
reckoned and stamped or labelled. Yet with
all this the servants and soldiers of the Lord
are not a quite unknown or invisible troop,
but loyal in every emergency, and ready whenever the good fight of faith is to be fought.
When Christ's name is abused with contempt,
or his cause checked by opposition, the courage to honor and serve him in word and deed
is one thing, and quite aside from the complacent admitting of an imputation of friendship
for him, made or accepted that we may be
praised and glorified among the lights of the
world and the heirs of heaven. That which
is the leaven does not boast or show itself,
232 
CRISIS.           233
but hides, diffusing its virtue through the
whole lump.  That which is really the salt of
the earth does not like to be called so, unless
indeed by the Saviour himself.  Keenly, too,
as any one may penetrate the secret sphere of
motive and feeling in others' breasts, he finds
himself, if not frequently mistaken, yet not
seldom making discoveries in those he thought
he had already known.
Supposing, however, the classification feasible, a question would arise upon the authority or propriety of making the Lord's Supper,
in the way so usual, of all other modes or
rites, its great and peculiar term.  I must
deny that such was its first intention, or can
be its proper use.  Not to distinguish between, nay, but on the contrary to unite, disciples of the widest grades of worth, loyalty,
and spirituality, so that the better might sanctify the worse, was the evident, blessed genius
and purpose in Christ's own mind of its institution.  In the appointment or request of
Christ, in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the
first ages, so far as we can penetrate their obscurity, of the early Church, there is no hint 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
of its being designed or employed as a measuring-rod of individual graces, or, in the reverse construction, as a rod to scourge delinquent pupils in the Christian school; and only
after some centuries had passed, do we read oi
mere beginners in that school being sent away
from the table, at which those having learnt
or being supposed to understand, the lesson.
more perfectly, were allowed to stay.
Moreover, were it right at all to make th,
Supper such a signal, it would still remain t(
be queried whether it should be a signal t(
man or to God. Every act and ordinance o
religion is, and should be, to God a signal o
sincerity and obedient love. The extent t(
which it is not so, is always and exactly th
gauge of our hypocrisy. But a signal hel.
out to man, to our fellow-believer or fellow
creature, for comparison of ourselves with oti
ers not arrived at the point where, like th
banner of an army, we display it to hint tl
length of our march, has a quite alien senr
and quality. I cannot read that Jesus cou,
selled or permitted any such signal. He prt
vided no material index of our piety.  He to
234 
CR1515.          235
us not to point with any forefinger of our
own at our good deserts of faith or duty.
0, far better the unconscious signals, the
involuntary testimonies of excellence he held
forth, and his followers in all their appearance
and demeanor cannot but exhibit!  Every
formal signal of holiness is naught.  It has
about it a somewhat pharisaic savor, from
which it can scarcely be freed.  It is like the
long prayer, or the devout posture at the corner of the streets, or the broad phylactery of
the law on the forehead, or any other peculiar
sign or advertisement of religion, which may
be consistent with the immorality of excessive
pride, sensual impurity, or ftaudnlent devouring of widow's houses.  The Supper, exhibited as such a standard of mutual comparison
or self-comparison, is put to a use against
which must arise the threefold charge of its
being unintended by Jesus, intrinsically inappropriate or unadapted, and, in itself, essentially wrong,-that is to say, a use which
not this ordinance, or anything in the nature
of a punctual form, should, or can right fully,
promote. 
236     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
The question of a crisis, of course, is distinct from that of the manner in which any
crisis existing should be signalized.   But I
apprehend it is not a question to be decided
one way by any Church for the race as a
whole. Human nature has been handled with
this rough indiscriminateness long enough!
Every sect, of repute more or less evangelical,
is getting tired of an estimate so vague and
rude. All thought and all fact agree in shaming and discouraging the old monotonous
descriptions of the human soul as in every
breast an invariable thing. We must not
only speak of man, but of men; in spiritual,
though not ecclesiastical judgment, greatly
distinguishing one from another, as God and
Christ themselves, contrary to all speculations
of equal merit or demerit among moral creatures, so plainly aver that they do. What thousands, in the strictest orders bound by the severest creeds, deny the power to fix in memory,
or assert with truth, any imagined chronological instant of salvation! I have heard the most
pious leader in the most austere band declare,
if his redemption depended on any such hasty 
CRISIS.
experience, he must, past all hope, be lost.
It is not necessary to go to Baxter or John
Newton for evidence. All around us are witnesses without number to the gentle coming,
opening, and ripening of all that is precious in
human character, as of the light, the flower,
and the fruit. But yesterday a man, whose
soul is a perpetual flame of fervor in devotion,
assured me he had always loved God, and
that there never was a time when he was not
averse fromn the wicked; and the grass has
grown green for many a season over the grave
of a woman, who affirmed  to her friends that
the great Power never appeared to her, from
her first recollection, other than as a Father.
These may be rare instances. Many more,
doubtless, are the instances where conviction
of sin, overturning of the mind, a crisis between destruction and life, a clear and open
exchange of sorrow for joy, with transaction
as marked as in any worldly account, denotes
the great experiment of the soul. Nevertheless, He that looks down upon the generations
of men sees, and for the future foresees, not
conversion, but education, as the hereditary
237 
238     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
religious law.  One crisis is therefore not to
be affirmed as alike needful for all; but, in
our reckoning making men neither better nor
worse than they are, let us consider all opinions of human nature dangerous, not as they
are more or less favorable, but only as they
are not true to every case.
If, in fine, it be alleged that the tendency of
these remarks is to destroy or confound distinctions, I must plead, it is not real, but only
certain conventional distinctions, with which
they are meant so to deal. Jesus Christ did
away with nominal and formal distinctions,
but only that vital ones might appear. It is
not against distinctions themselves that any
thoughtful man could speak, but only against
particular methods of making them, or againsl
putting the hollow and fictitious in place oi
the solid and deep. Distinctions, in the very
nature of things, are ordained by God. Verily
it is not quite necessarv we should make themfor they are already made! It is not possible
we should destroy, or, by any wicked will o,
wit of ours, expose ourselves to the objection
preferred. The worst man may disregard spir
itual distinctions, but cannot annihilate them. 
CRISIS.
Admirable spectacle, for men to wonder and
angels to smile at, any attempt to obliterate
differences in human character and kind! Let
him moved by such ambition try first to erase
or even smooth over the diversities of lower
nature. Species cannot be co,founded, is a
fundamental maxim with the scientific naturalist, against the modern heresy that any
one thing or creature can grow out of another.
Nature has boundaries stricter than those of
kingdoms, more immovable than the Romans
fancied of the station of their god Terminus.
I have seen the brier clasp some solid trunk
and weave its tendrils and leaves through the
branches of the pine to its top; but the brier
was brier in every thorn and leaf, and the pine
was itself in every one of the green needles of
which Nature makes her sweetest wind-harp
in the world. I have seen the oak, the ash,
and the birch, three lofty trees, seemingly rising
from one root, so closely were they joined from
the very ground.  But I knew, without looking, it was not one root, because Nature never
so mixes her living substances, but keeps every special atom and fibre after its kind and
239 
CRISIS.            241
iteard of - I~e will distin~uisk himself  So a
man of any genuine type of Christian excellence will distinguish himself more than could
any pope, meeting of inquisitors, college of
cardinals, distinguish him.  lle will and does
very successfnlly distinguish himself in every
deed he does, word he speaks, tone of his
voice, and loo~ of his countenance.  It is his
deed, word, tone, look, and that of no other
in the woild; and sooner shall one of the inferior animals pass for another, the lion be
mistaken for the lamb, - though the predicted
time may come for them to lie down together,
- than the two opposite human dispositions
obscure or be merged in one another.
The ordinance of the Supper, then, cannot
properly be employed as a test severing the
righteous from the sinful; for it is the use and
office of no ordinance whatsoever to do this.
They will do this sufficiently for themselves.
The substances of oil and water will not mix
better, or part more decisively, for any order
issued or ceremony performed; and what more
"concord hath Christ with Belial, or a believer
with an infidel"?  We are altogether super
16 
CRISIS.
heard of,-he will distinguish himself.  So a
man of any genuine type of Christian excellence will distinguish himself more than could
any pope, meeting of inquisitors, college of
cardinals, distinguish him. He will and does
very successfully distinguish himself in every
deed he does, word he speaks, tone of his
voice, and look of his countenance. It is his
deed, word, tone, look, and that of no other
in the world; and sooner shall one of the inferior animals pass for another, the lion be
mistaken for the lamb, - though the predicted
time may come for them to lie down together,
- than the two opposite human dispositions
obscure or be merged in one another.
The ordinance of the Supper, then, cannot
properly be employed as a test severing the
righteous from the sinful; for it is the use and
office of no ordinance whatsoever to do this.
They         wil l  do this sufficiently for themselves.
The   substances of oil and water will not mix
better, or part more decisively, for any order
issued or ceremony performed; and what more
"concor d         hath Christ with Belial, or a believer
with         an infidel"?  We  are altogether super
16
241 
242     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
serviceable when we undertake to draw over
again the lines which Nature drew with her
mighty finger ere parallels or meridians were
traced on the colored map, or shores and seas
painted on an artificial globe. Nor need our
weak finger follow that of the Almighty to finish its work, as it trenches deep betwixt love
and hatred, reverence and blasphemy, sincerity
and hypocrisy, in the human soul. The shades
of character are too delicate, and its springs too
subtile and profound, for most persons precisely to define or fathom; nor can we believe there
ever existed a company of men competent and
wise enough for the work. In other words,
accurate ecclesiastical judgment is impossible.
It is not judgment, but ignorance or error.
Universities and courts give degrees and titles
of honor, and run great risks and commit great
blunders as they do it. Far more difficult to
make the decree fair between the upright and
the ungodly.   It will be made without our
help.  Christ's true Church will not be confounded with the world, however the pretended one may be, until the world becomes his
Church, and we judge no more, but only know
and love each other. 
243
CHAPTER XVI.
INDIVIDUAL members of the Church will
have many a crisis, and perhaps some one
great crisis, in their personal religious life; but
any line, formally drawn between those supposed to have passed through and those understood not to have experienced such a crisis,
actually wounds the unity and destroys the
wholeness of the body. From Rome, a thousand miles away to Ephesus, about a church
with its centre near a thousand miles farther
still, at Jerusalem, planted to run and grow
through divisions of Hebrew prejudice, Pagan
idolatry, and polytheistic worship, Paul writes
that "there is one body."   He tells the Galatians that in Christ is neither Jew nor Greek,
bond nor free, male nor female; and repeats to
the Corinthians, that there are many members,
but one grand whole.  Alas! how far even yet
IVHOLENESS.
WHOLENESS. 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
are we from the fact he asserts! We are
very congratulatory that the soldiers rent not
Christ's robe; but what cares he for his castoff garment, compared with  the living body
of his followers, which scarce any one hesitates to tear!
Beautiful, confessedly, as the idea of this
unity is, many will continue to say, in the
diversities of human constitution and character, it is impracticable.   I answer, it was
practised by Christ himself. Were there ever
greater varieties, sharper inconsistencies, than
in the little band of his first adherents, which lhe
nevertheless kept together with him on earth?
The. meditative, loving John; the forward,
hasty, passionate Peter, with the ventures and
excitements of the fishery still in his manner;
the cool and sceptical Thomas, a free-thinker
of those times; the calculating, historic Matthew, the ring of the tax-gatherer's table in
his ears; the moralizing James; the comparatively neutral figures in the group; even the
miserly Judas, with his bag held till at the
last crisis he diabolically withdrew himnself; -
who but Jesus could have kept such varieties
244 
wHOLENEss.         245
of worth and dement together, till, with real
cause for exultation, he could say to his Father, "Those thou hast given me I have kept,
- none lost but the son of perdition"; so that
the Twelve, as they are proverbially called,
are the only numerical company ever on earth
that shall go down undissolved and indissoluble in human imagination to the "last syllable of recorded time."   Nay, to what does
the traitor, Iscariot, owe the final touch of
grace and repentance, with which he acknowledged his betrayal of "the innocent blood,"
and would have come back to the old relation, hut to a feeling he could not hush, of
that wondefful Being's love and patience to
hear with him, take him along, toil to teach
ai~d train him, and never expel or excommunicate him, though he clung a spy to his side,
or sat an incarnate, embodied hypocrisy at
his board?  Not impracticable, then, is the
doctrine of one Body of Christ's votaries, unless Christ's example is impracticable alike
with his word.
Bnt why insist on this unity?  Wherefore
should Paul care for it, or Christ care for it, 
246   CHURCFI AND CONGREGATION.
or we care for it?  Because, I reply, it is a
principle of all life and goodness,-even the
most vital and central point in our religion.
Because unity, not alone in an ecclesiastical
fellowship, but universally in any body of
persons, is the indispensable condition of harmony and health.  Disunity everywhere is
disease, dissolution.  Do we not all know it is
necessary, for example, a family should be one
body, to be happy?  Different sexes, ages, relations, talents, callings, are embraced in one
household.  Yet if all the individuals, young
and old, do not make one body in the communion of a good understanding and the perfection of a loving spirit, what discord, disease,
is in the dwelling!  Only when any body of
related persons bas unity, can it have sanity
or health.  Sickness in the natural frame of
the human body, inflammation, ague, arises
how?  When some one part refuses its function.  If in heart, lungs, brain, any organ,
there is no action, and it does not play and
do its proper part with the rest, then all is diseased.  Alas! in how many families are colds
and fevers, - not produced by the weather, 
WHOLENESS.
not affecting the physical organs, but continuing all the time! It is lack of unity. A
keen observer perceives it as he enters a domestic circle, as certainly as he would notice
a hectic color or a cough. The child does
not want to do the parent's bidding; while,
from the rebellious assurance, or the cunning
fret, it is plain this is no rare occurrence, but
a chronic difficulty, of an unsweetened temper
and an unsubdued will. The parents discuss
questions in others' presence with a latent
heat it is not hard to imagine breaking out
behind their visitor's back, or which he hears
breaking out while he knocks at the door. A
low, dull pain, as of a grumbling tooth, per vades the sensibilities of those by their vow,
according to the Scripture, made "one flesh."
Brothers and sisters, in the homely phrase,
pull different ways, till it becomes a continual
problem whether there is affection enough left
to prevent the secret alienation from ending
in visible rupture and open hate.   Do  we
think this disunited, unhealthy state of the
domestic body is not written plainly in our
faces, and audible clearly in our voices, wher
247 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ever it exists? Ay, as plainly as any disease
of our flesh! The uncomfortable atmosphere
of our home chills everybody that comes into
it. We cannot change the social temperature
at a momentary wish, or by any wilful con cealmnents, more than we could make the mer cury in the thermometer on our mantelpiece
rise without change in the air. We imagine
that being on our guard, or on our good be havior, for the hour some friend or caller is
with us under our roof, hides our jealousies,
or want of mutual love and want of unity,
from all our acquaintance. But somehow,
mysteriously, our dislike or indifference is discerned and known. The very aspect of things
reveals it. The dead furniture we handle together turns state's evidence.  Every article
strangely speaks of love in a happy, that is, a
united family, "one body";;- how soft and
kind the unity makes everything even inanimate! It gets into the very chairs and books
as they are passed, and is heard in the opening and shutting of the doors; or else everything reports the antipathy, and lets out the
hidden anger and distrust. The table we sit
248 
WHOLENESS.
at, while we sit about it and speak and gaze
across it, shows whether the circle is complete,
more than it could by all the marvellous raps
and strange motions which, to some, indicate
a supernatural presence. It divulges to every
quick observer and hearer the moral secrets
of our heart and nature, which we thought
locked from all human knowledge. Not unseen is the skeleton, said to be in every mansion and every bosom. You may be smoothfaced; but you could not look thus and so, as
you do sometimes, at one you loved with all
your heart. You may be smooth-tongued before folks for the most part; but what means
that sharp tone that escapes as from prison in
your breast, and makes you blush at the recoil, as though you had disclosed something
that ought to be wrapped up? It, and everything like it, means the want in the body domestic of that unity which makes the family,
in some cases, the most glorious, as it is the
oldest institution, grander than any royalty,
republic, league of enterprise, letters, science,
in the world.
" T/lere is one Body," - in every tie that
249 
250    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
binds persons together, it is God's everlasting
statute.  Unity of sentiment and aim is the
absolute requisite for any soundness or lasting
peace.  It is as true in civil as in religious
applications.  Why has it taken all the vitality of our popular principles to accommodate
in one governmental system this local matter
of slavery, inevitably compromised as an inheritance of the past in our constitution, of
which we have found it yet impossible to get
rid?  A case not for surgery, lest the patient
bleed to death, yet yielding so slowly to alterative medicines, why is it our obstinate national thorn in the flesh?  Because it is an
alien element, marring the unity of our body
politic.  Why are peak and valley far west in
our domain now amazed at our suddenly unfurled banners, and bristling with our arms
ready to wage a half-civil war?  Because an
ill fester of polygamy on one limb, a territorial member of our confederacy, cannot be
confined to that single spot, but sends a thrill
of anguish thousands of miles through all our
borders, even to wave-washed Florida, and
Maine, the State of pines, and divides that 
WHOLENESS.
unity of our political body without which it
cannot be well in health.
The whole Body literally means the same
thing as the well Body. Any wounding or
severing is malady alike in the corporeal organization and the social frame.  "There is
one Body";-and in the most insignificant,
temporary, and transient body of persons,
with all the variety of tendencies and tastes,
there must be also some comprehensive unity,
or it will be at cross purposes, with distress
and defeat.
Take even a travelling party for example,
if I may be suffered to use so simple an illustration.   Thus not unfrequently it happens
one wishes to take this route, and another
that; the first prefers land-carriage, and the
second water; this enthusiast thinks natural
scenery the great object, and that works of
art; and opinions still further subdivide upon
the comparative attractions of great architectural buildings, palaces, and cathedrals, or galleries and museums of pictures, statuary,
manuscripts, and books; while the main anxiety of a considerable proportion of the migra
251
i 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
tory troop is to reach the best inns and revel
in the most luxurious living of meats and
drinks while they are afoot. As each section
pushes against the others its choice, there will
be small pleasure in the journey, as ten thousand companies that started merrily in stage
or steamer have discovered, because there is
no unity in the body. So everywhere in all
things. The obscurest friendship, the noisiest
club, the most numerous association, must
have unity, or it is on the point of breaking
up and destruction.
We consider it a point of little concern
whether the body ecclesiastic, in its form and
custom, be two or one. Is it of trivial moment whether your business-firm have unity
or not? May one of the partners determine
the policy, conclude the contract, privately use
and affix the signature, without consulting or
apprising the rest, -and all this to the promoting of your commercial prosperity?  Will
there be no loss, waste, and failure in this disunion and want of concert? Does not the old
fable of the bundle of rods - weak when parted, strong when joined - agree with Paul's
252 
WHOLENESS.
creed and Christ's prayer that the only health
or security is in " One Body"?  Then it is no
trifle whether or not we rmake one body in
Christ. Unity is important and indispensable;
it is health, peace, and salvation, in a house,
in a shop, in a journey, in a partnership, in society: but not in religion? Ah! one of the
vulgar names of Satan, the Devil himself,
means simply two!
Ye that would save the union of the county, keep union in the Church also. We may
be assembled, yet not united.  We  are not
one body because one building holds us, any
more than different persons are one by abiding under the same roof, meeting in the same
counting-room, travelling in the same coach,
when they may be at swords' points. But we
are one only when the faith and love of the
Gospel bind us together. Let Unitarians, as
[hey are called, be such in no party sense or
,nerely theological one respecting a single
loctrine of the Divine nature, but in the sense,
rrorn Christ's prayer and Paul's creed, of the
)ne  Body.    Parish, society,  congregation,
.hurch, whatever the name, let that which is
253 
254     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
named, through all distinctions of belief, be
one thing alone.
But if all compose the unity, then no one
can be a whole by himself. Of a great whole
all are parts. This is a doctrine whose moral
glory and practical significance we yet dimly
conceive.
But do we not according to this doctrine
lose our own freedom and individuality? No.
To be part of a wide communion, including
many in mutual love and joint devotion, is
the true personal estate, spiritual blessedness,
individual honor, of each one. Who conceives
of true individuality and noble liberty as being remoteness from humanity and indifference to one's race?  All evil, real shame, and
misery arise, when any one sets up to be a
whole of himself. To aim at any separate
completeness, to expect to be made by my
own proper and peculiar success, to find my
pride in anything but bringing myself, all I
have and am, a contribution to the general
good, - this and nothing else is sin, woe, and
perdition.   This is Antichrist, "that should
come,"  and  Antichristian,  as  the beloved 
WHOLENESS.
Apostle says, not to love one another. If we
love one another, we cannot get rid of one
another, but shall all be parts of one body.
Here is the great line of classification of human beings, into those who do or do not commune with others. We talk of communicants
and non-communicants.   Ah! this is more
than an outside formal matter, of observing a
particular ordinance, blessed as the observance
will be to every sincere partaker.   One loaf
eaten, one cup tasted by many persons, is
natural language, signifying the persons to be
parts of one body with one circulation. But
if the persons that eat and drink are not such
parts, loaf and cup are nothing. The true communicant is he who by any exercise or service
>f duty or religion is led to feel his kindred
with mankind as the offspring of God; and
he non-communicant, he who in his heart feels
lo kinship with them, - yea, non-commrnunicant, though he drank the wine of the Supper
,very month, or, like a Roman or Romanizing
)ishop or priest, consumed the remnant and ate
ip all the bread left on the table.  "Members
,f churches in regular standing," we say. But
255 
256     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
they alone are living members of the Church
who are unselfishly consecrated to that causes
of the Head of the Church, which is the cause
of humanity.
This rule involves our whole human disposition and conduct.  Are we laying up  noney
for ourselves, and saying, as we lay it up, Ah!
this is mine, my own, and belongs to nobody
else! I will use it for my own purposes, or
pile it into a heap for men's wonder and envy,
that I may have the notability of vast possessions. The treasure shall belong to me, and
none beside me; for none beside, beg and
whimper with supplications and subscriptionpapers as they may, have any claim. I will
count it over every day, and say within myself,
My property! as I hear the clink of every coin,
or feel the feathery touch of every note of value. In this way I may prove myself not a
part of others, not a lively stone in the temple
of Heaven's praise, not a bough in the tree o-i
life, not an organ or function of the immortal
body,- but an exclusive, self-seeking wholc
of my own.  Prosper as I may seem to for s
time, the result will be disappointment, with 
WHOLENESS.
ering, disease and death; as it is with the
sundered limb, the cast-off branch, -the mouldering block, that might have been hoisted
bright and strong into the dedicated edifice.
Disconnected, we perish by the laws of
Christianity, - Christianity in its essence old
as the moral creation of God in the human
soul! It does not signify where or in what
matter we attempt to be the whole; it is the
same illness and iniquity. To be a Christian
is to share joy, fame, every excellent thing,
peace and salvation, with others. The monopolist, who in trade would control the market;
who in social intercourse would be the observed of all observers, and do all the talking,
it being a misnomer to call his conceited and
unlistening monologue conversation; who of
the fruits of any enterprise or partnership
would appropriate the lion's share; who is a
tyrant at home, allowing, like ten thousand
other despots, more than sit on thrones, really
no will or freedom in the household, like Louis
XIV., who said, " I am the state"; who bids
young children hold their tongue, as though
they were not part also, when they actually
17
257 
258     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
have some reasonable and respectful plea to
make, -o that like a little boy lately they must
go and pray God to give better tempers to
their parents as well as themselves; - such a
character in every situation, not content to be
a part, claiming to be the whole, is unchristian
and against the communion that is meant by
the Lord's Supper.
This is a universal truth of nature and
spirit. In all God's works we see the beautiful concord and proportion of parts composing
a whole. In the midnight blaze you cannot
point to a material orb, in its motion and revolution, but has this for the song the poet
says it sings.  How useless the moon, but as
a part of the system with the earth she rises
in mild splendor to enlighten! How like a
lamp, left burning wastefully in a vacant
room, were the sun, burning uselessly, wastefully in his great chamber of space, fit only
to be blown out, save for the planets he fertilizes and illumines!
This wisdom, of parts making the goodness
of the whole, is not confined to senseless matter; for how beautifully the philosopher of all 
Wll0LENE~5S.       259
animated nature shows every creature, from
the lowest to the highest, as part of a great
vital plan of the Creator, reaching down
through amazing periods, that stagger and
affright the imagination, of hundreds of thousands of years, and over the width of the
globe!  In every bird that stretches its flashing wings and flies, fish that swims the sea,
every beast that runs or browses on the
ground, rock-bound or creeping thing, how his
eye detects, and the chall~-pencil in his fingers,
by a modifying touch on the lines turning
one structure into another in his figures on
tiie board, can exhibit the thoughtful scheme
of one glorious existence, rejoicing in myriad
happy parts, individually alive, indissolubly
connected!  Nay, wonder on wonder, of the
unity of workmanship of tite One, only one
everlasting Author of all, that there is not a
grain, a leaf, a stalk, or a seed of the vegetable kingdom, which does not enter into, and in
part compose, the Ligher kingdom of sentient
life!  One river flowing, flowing on for ever
ftom God, the fount!
If God in his intelligence and action is con 
260     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
sistent and like himself, the harmony of all
creation's music, then moral natures, all our
souls, are parts of the whole spiritual society
of life and progress on earth and in heaven.
We are to do each his several sacred office,
whatever to every one for the common welfare that may be. If we are properly parts of
one another, and of all humanity, we have no
right either to exclude others or take away
ourselves.   If the finger should take itself
away, it would not be merely the removal of
a finger, but an injury to the hand; and the
removal of hand or eye, a harm to the whole
body. So humanity for its perfection wants
all its members.
Indeed, for what did Jesus, sublimest of
moral natures yet brought to our knowledge,
come on earth?  To be a whole, all by himself? Nay, but, on his own word and showing, to minister, and to declare that the least
human creature, the obseurest sufferer of the
race, was his representative; and he would
take any kindness done to such a one as received by himself, the Lord of glory! Can
we then have anything to do with Him at all 
WHOLENESS.
as independent wholes, seeking each his own
honor, riches, culture, nay, even everlasting
redemption? No, but by being built up one
building on him who is but part of the same,
though the chief part and corner-stone!
After a sort, doubtless, we are so apparently
joined together. In an engraved plate, recently published, of St. Peter's, that most
wonderful cathedral in the world, we are
shown the vast structure, in one engraving
as it is, and in another alongside of it, as the
architect, Michel Angelo, but for obstructions
preventing, would  have  had  it.  Magnificent as the actual temple undoubtedly is,
yet in every dome and door, porch and pillar
in his model, his idea shines unspeakably superior to the edifice as it stands. So the
Church of Christ as it stands is of a poor
pattern, compared to that idea and model he
set and lived out. The dead stones of St.
Peter's cannot move themselves about into
better positions of grace or grandeur; but the
living stones of the human building, God helping, can!
Marvellous architecture of souls, not alone
261 
262     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
in any earthly, but the heavenly building too!
For heaven is no solitary, selfish existence, of
individuals seeking their own separate progress and glory. We scarce read of any of
its inhabitants being ever alone. They are in
sevens and twelves, hundreds of thousands
and multitudes no man can number. They
fly in a flock to announce Christ's birth; they
descend in company to minister to him after
his trial; they come in pairs to sit in his
tomb. In all their rest or journeying, alighting here or ascending to glory, they are social
creatures, and parts of a whole. May we be
like them while alive below, so that we may
be with them when we die from the flesh into
a higher life! 
FORM.
CHAPTER XVII.
FORM.
IN the preceding chapters, through a great
variety of reasonings and illustrations, I have
endeavored to recommend open communion
in the Congregational body. I am aware how
disagreeably the proposal of such a change
may strike many minds. One need not travel
beyond his own consciousness and immediate
observation to learn that man, as an individual and a species, is wedded to his habits. It
seems easier to alter a principle of human procedure than a usage. How greatly ours is a
Church of custom, not of Christ!
I know, too, how many may think the doctrine I have maintained disparages forms in
general, and that its practical operation will
appear less in the exaltation than in the neglect of the particular ordinance I have so much
discussed. But has the opening of any other
263 
264     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
instrumentality of religion had this effect
of weakness and dishonor? Has the Bible
been hurt in its power by being opened to the
people and translated for every nation into its
own tongue! Has the church building been
desecrated by having its seclusions abolished,
and its space so widely exposed to all willing
from the street to enter?
All forms may doubtless, by individuals
admitted to the privilege thereof, be abused.
But that is no argument against their proper
use, or presumption contrary to their continuance. The forms of business are employed
to cover every species of mercantile fraud.
Under written documents, that look fair, lurks
deceit. Solemn oaths are the ambush of perjury.   Bonds  and promises,  certificates  of
property, duly drawn, signed and sealed, and
decoratively marked, in their embellished numerals sometimes have their true value fictitiously quadrupled by a trick of speculation
and a stroke of the pen. What low words,
what winkings of the eye, of first owners, to
the cost of last purchasers, pervert the forms of
business indeed! Shall therefore those forms 
FORM.           265
be set aside?  Commerce itself would be set
aside with them!
There are forms of law.  Cunning men and
unscrupulous advocates may turn them to
purposes of injustice between contending parties at the tribunals of human courts.  But
shall all regular procedure be omitted?  Then
the net through which some of the wicked
slip, would be too loose to catch any iniquity.
There are forms of society.  Through them
love and good-will may be honestly expressed.
But mere pretences may convert the most
courteous company into a band of masqueraders, wearing visors, not on their faces, but their
souls.  Yet, with no forms at all, how rude
and unmannerly men and women might become!   llow grace and order would flee
away, like offended angds out of paradise!
llow the young would grow up in untutored
awkwardness and native sbyness, the rough
substance of their nature taking no shape or
polish from the common sense or common
humanity of the race!  Informality may be
carried too far.  What is a form, but a way
in which, through many trials, mankind have 
266    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
learned best to accomplish matters of vital
concern!  It is not the essence, but it is an
instrument and vessel of intellect and spirit.
It is in religion a bottle of sacred odor, that
suffers not the precious emofion, attained after
long labor and suffering, to be wasted or
spilled.  It is a casket holding the gems of
history, a vial containing the tears of the
saints, the conservator of old piety and everlasting truth.
But all this wofth and dignity of forms
only prove the propriety, not of restricting, but
more broadly extending, and, by every improvement and wise modification, adapting
them to the common good.  If new wine may
never be put into old bottles, may not old wine
sometimes well, if cautiously, be put into new?
Partaking the feast of which millions have
partaken, offering the prayer which for centuries has risen into God's ear, will not lose
its virtue for the sympathetic heart on account
of circumstantial variations.
When, therefore, as though to confute all
argument for the open adminisfration of the
Supper, we are challei~ged to specify any 
FORM.
times when persons became members of the
Church without form, we answer, that of course
there has always been form. Everything that
lives and acts on earth must have its form.
But no parallel can be drawn between our
principle of exclusive and partial communion
and that of the Christian Church in general,
far less that of the mind of Christ and the
primitive practice of his disciples. The true
Church stretches out her arms, as the Lord
does his, for the human race. She would
baptize, confirm, and feed all born within her
borders.   It is the most burning criticism
against her truth and purity, that, when any
modern Diogenes with his lantern searches for
a man, he is often as likely to go outside as
inside her barriers of form, and, as not a few
will say, sometimes more apt so to find the
object of his pursuit.
I know much of this complaint against
church-members may be but the jealous hypercriticism of coarse and unbelieving minds. So
far as communicants have been personally
known to me, I feel bound to testify to their
general conformity to the professions they
267 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
make, and the carping of such as set up to be
better than the godly themselves, reminds one
of Dr. Mason's reply to the sceptic denouncing some Christians for their misconduct,
Would such an uproar be made about the misbehavior of infidels?
Nevertheless, the level of the Church is far
nearer than it should be to the level of the
world. In ecclesiastical ordinances, as in other
earthly things, men are sorely tempted to commit their great sin of converting the means
into the end. A man seeks property wherewith to satisfy his worldly wants. But soon
he seeks it for itself; and the great bulletin
that now reports the whole planet at every
man's door, lately told us of a rich miser per
ishing of starvation, because he could not
spare enough  from  his hoard for his food.
We obtain clothing to protect the body. But
how often the dress itself becomes the object,
and the person aii appendage to the robe, instead of the robe an appendage to the person.
How inordinate vanity displays, or affected
modesty conceals, the human frame! How
the health is sacrificed to the fashion of the
268 
FORM.            269
garment, instead of promoted by it!  llow the
style of some far-off imperial or queenly cos
tume overcomes the simplicity of republican
independence!  Paris and London show their
power over women and men in the back settlements, the wild woods, the newest parlors
and meeting-houses of America, and extravagant outlay for stuffs and jewels helps bring
on the financial disaster by which our civilization is well-nigh overwhelmed!  The purpose
of what we eat is to sustain the physical organization.  But many, in their excess, maI~e
the meat more than life, and not the sexton
in the churchyard, but they at their tables, dig
their own graves.  A good name is a means
of right influence. But the name itself, in the
shape of personal aggrandizement, political
power, sectarian sway, and social repute, is by
what numbers sought!
So we come to church to praise God and
commune with Christ.  But with what multitudes the temple becomes more than the deity!  Graven images and figures of wood and
stone were doubtless at first but religions
means.  The most ign~rant African idolaters, 
270   OllUROll AND CONGREGATION.
when reproached for their superstitions, say, as
decidedly as do the Romanists of their material signs, it is not the statue, picture, or animal that they worship, bnt only the incomprehensible Power.  Yet how soon the means become the end, and how wise therefore the old
Mosaic command against any likeness of divinity!  But, if we stop in our more refined
ceremonial, are not we idolaters too?  It is
idolatry, we may say, to substitute the Mediator for the Supreme One in our worship.  It
is grosser idolatry to adore the virgin mother
of Jesus as the mother of God, and to call, as
once he was called, even the brother of Jesus
according to the flesh the brother of God.
The still descending steps that lead to worship of the saints, whose names should be but
our starry ladder into the heavens, are idolatrous to the very scandal of every pious thought.
Yet, if we put any part of our ritual, even the
Lord's Supper, for the end instead of the
means, how undeniably of an idol-loving heart
are we ourselves!  If Jesus Christ had been
told, the ilme would come when his figures of
speech, respecting his own body and blood, 
FORM.            271
would be regarded more than his loftiest declarations of truth and most solemn precepts of
duty, and his literal words more esteemed
than his deepest thoughts, what would he
have said, but that, in his knowledge of human nature and prophetic foresight of events,
he was doing all he could to prevent so
lamentable a result!  Yet how many are
so wedded to precise modes of worship, that
a spontaneous petition, horn of the soul's commerce with God and baptized with tears,
seems to them, as indeed they coolly declare
it, no service at all!
Jesus himself truly did all, everything in his
power to break up religious ronilne.  When
he plud~ed the corn on the Sabbath day, he
meant to pluck up superstition by the roots.
Yet even now behold the Church dying of
ceremony!  Zion, at her ease, is a captive to
the world. What uniform authority can however be brought for the present invanableness
of a single usage?  The Manich~ans, never
using wine, celebrated the Lucharist without
it, and I believe they have some moden~ imitators in that respect.  Christ himself, institut 
272     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
ing the Supper, showed how little of a formalist he was, in anticipating the Jewish Passover by one day. In the lower creatures the
vital system is spread upon the outside, but
in the nobler ones hid at the centre. So, according to the degree in which it is superficial
or internal, is the dignity of our religion.
Form we must have: for though the solitary
soul may be religious without visible sign, a
number of persons must meet upon some
terms. The incomparable spirituality of Jesus
accepted and appointed ordinances; and in
exercises of social religion, for the new-born
or the just expiring, who has not shared amid
domestic scenes too incalculably precious ever
to be forgotten? The Church, in foreign towns,
sometimes making the avenue of her porch
the very pathway of men to their business,
must do something thus to sanctify the exchange and market. While nature's emblems
last, and the sun speaks of God's countenance, the driven snow of his purity, and the
morning dew of his influence; so long shall
the Christian symbols endure, and not arbitrary signs of words alone, but language of
form and action, speak to the human soul. 
FORM.
I suppose there is no such thing as a purely
private experience in the world; and therefore,
perhaps, take no unwarranted liberty in telling
a true story, that thousands might match from
their own lives. I stood, not long since, in a
wilderness of rocks, lying a little inland from
one of the deep indentations of our Atlantic
shore.   For miles around me stretched the
brown waste, bare of almost everything but a
multitude no man could number, in various
size and shape, of those gray boulders, to account for whose form, nature, and position —
whether piles of floating ice were the ships to
carry them on primeval floods, or sliding glaciers bore them down from inconceivably
ancient, now sunken mountains, or torrents
washed smooth the fragments and angles that
earthquakes and lightnings broke off- is the
puzzle and controversy of our science.  To
the thoughtful eye their forms of antiquity
were more venerable than sphinxes or pyramids, and the natural inscriptions of their history or their faces, could we read them, would
be more interesting than all that has been deciphered on Egyptian obelisks or Herculanean
18
273 
274     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
walls. They seemed pieces left of the material of which God made the frame of the
world. Bits they were of the mighty bones
of Nature thrown away, or the heaps of chips
and shavings which fell from the marvellous
tools of the first workmanship ever set up
amid the void of chaos in the space of old
night. They took stronger hold of the mind's
wonder than do any familiar and finished
shapes of hill and vale. Lying couchant on
the ground, they looked almost like monsters
of the antique world, stiffened into stone, that
might as in a moment leap forth into life
again. The wildest birds, that usually seek
the highest tree-tops, lighted in huge companies on the sumnmits, scattered along the uneven and billowy soil,- while on either hand
from afar shone the ring of the blue sea which
had ebbed and flowed from the dawn of creation.
Altar sublime of the Creator's glory was
that at which I stood. But why did the
heart, in its unsatisfied longing, revert to a
shrine infinitely smaller, of uncomely brick
and wood? Because it stands for the moving 
FORM.
of God's love to his human children, whom
he called into being incalculable ages after
he wrought the tough substances of the globe.
Because its walls and tower, though plain, are
monuments of facts more directly and tenderly
related to the benefit of man, than the first
hewing and shaping of the world for enormous growths of vegetable and animal life.
Because they tell of the incarnation of Deity
in our own nature, beside and above his embodiment and tabernacle in senseless dust.
Because they express tidings of a spiritual
world more clearly than do any of the things
materially made. Because they speak to the
sinner of a hope, which lawful and unpardoning nature never inspired, and of a heaven
that earth's stairway leads up to only through
dimness and doubt.   Because, for all these
reasons, in dedicated courts we can render
social worship richer, more honorable to God
and comforting to the soul, than ever rose out
of his first temples, be they of the forest or
the clay.
If God has made a disclosure of himself
and of his abode, for our dwelling too after
275 
276     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
we leave this mortal tent, let there be an observance by the children to whom he has
made it, of sufficient form to recognize and
appropriate his mercy. I have seen a flock of
birds, as it flew by the edge of the sepulchral
sea, shot at by a gunner from the rocks. But
as one of their number fell into the foaming
wave, the rest kept on heedless of its solitary
fate. If so a human being does not fall, if
his fellows stop to lift and mourn and bury
him, and follow some deathless part to a sunnier clime than is sought by the emigrant fowls
of the air, how largely is this sentiment due to
the religion of Jesus Christ!   How, then, together should we celebrate that religion, but
by so much of observance as shall make it
most alive to his united disciples? 
PERSON.
CHAPTER XVIII.
PERSON.
IN any such discussion as I have been pursuing, we must consider, of course, not alone
the method of unfolding religion as a general
sentiment in the human breast, but also of
.establishing the generations in a properly
Christian faith. Now Christianity is no abstraction of sentiment or belief. What is peculiar to it, and essential in it, is the person of
its author. Christ himself, not simply the historic Christ, once in a human body, but the
surviving, ever-living Redeemer, is the heart
and soul and endless preservation of his Gospel. Here is the hold on mankind of the Sup per, that it is a rite whose tendency is to bring
them into a nearer personal relation with the
Son of God. What is the style in which he
addresses us?  "Come unto me, all ye that la bor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
277 
278     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of
me: for I am meek and lowly in heart; and
ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my
yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  What
must strike every attentive reader is the exceedingly personal character of such language, - the words 1, my, and me, recurring
in it so often, expressing no egotism, but
only humility and humanity to the tired,
overtasked children of men; yet still, as the
solace, Jesus offers to those beat out with
their burdens no distinct idea or minute disclosure of his views respecting their present
trouble or revelation of things to come, only
himself.
But this Christian method has, in addition
to the warrant of Scripture, the confirmation
of nature.  When we are worn out and dis
tressed in any way, whither do we turn for relief? To such generalities of argument as we
can bring from reason or memory to our aid,
or to SOMEBODY, some friend, relative, trusted
counsellor and guide, wise, good, affectionate, to minister to the mind dejected or diseased? We 
PERSON.                279
"Fly like a bird of the air,
In search of a home and a rest;
A balm for the sickness of care,
A bliss for a bosom unbiest."
o  to hear the voice, to take the hand, to sit
by the side, and have the personal assurance,
of one in whom we confide!  How many,
with hopes blasted, and goods scattered in recent whirlwinds of adversity, for such help
received can respond to this!  If such a one,
in such a case relied upon, be absent, out of
our reach, what is the sad and bitter exclamation, but, 0, if my companion, partner, brother,sister, were only with me now, and I could
lean my aching head on his bosom, and feel
his gentle hand pouring balm into my bleeding wounds, how were I blessed and soothed!
So exclaimed the sisters to Jesus: "If thou
hadst been here, our brother had not died!"
So cried the disciples: "Lord, to whom shall
we go?  Thou hast the words of eternal
life!"
What, therefore, some doubt~rs object to the
(i~hrishan fafth,-nan~ely, that it is so persoiial, that, instead of reasons, considerations, 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
for the pure intellect, a person, sent to deliver,
fills in it so much space, - by the testimony of
human nature as well as the appointment of
Heaven, is not its defect, but its power and
glory; for it has been well said, though we
may believe propositions, only in persons can
we have faith.
But, admitting this in the actual personal
ministry of Christ eighteen and a half centuries ago, when his benignant form and voice,
look and manner, drew the discouraged and
afflicted, sick men and women and weeping
mourners, from Judma and beyond Jordan to
his side, it may yet be inquired, how can he,
now indeed absent and invisible so long, be
to us a person at all, far more a personal comforter in our weakness and grief? I answer,
his concealment from our senses certainly
does not destroy his personality. It does not
destroy or cancel the comfort of any one's.
The support we derive from mortal persons
does not depend altogether upon having them
in sight, or in the room. If we have ever
come to know and love their personality, it is
an inextinguishable power, strong to uplift.
280 
PERSON.           281
If we are sure of their sympathy, it reache~
from their houses over all smoke and noise
and street confusion to our own, or follows us,
like a guide and companion, in our farthest
steps.  If they have ever said, or in their
countenance expressed, anything of genuine
fellow-feeling for our infirmities and sufferings,
then, without sound or look, it flies to our
succor in every hour of our sore extremity and
want.  Yea, testifieth the heart that knoweth,
when mountains rise, and oceans roil between
us and them, their gracious images come, not
by help of mail or telegraph, but supernatural
visiting; their faces shine how wondrously,
in the darkened chambers of our solitary bosoms; not general calculations and judgments
sustain
and carry us through our trials but
their spirits dear to us troop through the air to
people our loneliness, and revive our despondency, or their undoubted regard mixes sweetness with the tears we shed, and makes us, by
G6d's grace, content still to live.  Nay, down
from the heavenly places descends that cloud
of witnesses which the Apostle celebrates, for
spectators to cheer us in the panting, dusty 
282   CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
race of life: and it is persons, persons always,
in the flesh or immortalized, and not our own
independent reasonings, that we lean upon in
the tug of calamity at our wasted strength.
No wolf shall come to our door, no despair
sit in our souls, while any most fading likeness
of friends hangs on our wall, or from within
irradiates our path, or from their vanishing
forms beams down upon our hope. Not ideas
alone affect, but persons; - they indeed can
warm or freeze, attract or repel, bless or curse,
ruin or save!  We think we live in a world
of matter, or in a world of thought.  It is
partiality and mistake.  We live in a world
of persons.  We need only call to mind birthplaces and homes, our closest connections in
life, our refuges from the world's coldness, enmity, and misrepresentation, and our soothings
in pain, peril, and sickness, to know this.  In
respect to that fashion of our philosophy, to say
truth is everything and persons are nothing,
the individual, the living man of no account,
I ask, What is truth but the relation~of persons
to one another, and of a personal God and
Father to his children?  For what was the 
PERSON.
world made, and home built in heaven above?
For absolute ends of unconscious essence?
Never, but for persons alone!
Therefore, when Jesus appears, the great
Person, to his titles of glory so many and so
high let me add this, of the greatest person
"that e'er wore flesh about him" to be touched and tempted like ourselves, on purpose to
understand our woe, and have fellowship with
every feeling of exposure in the human breast,
and, through miracles of strength, and loftier
marvels of love and purity, to declare his
office of communion and encouragement, not
for a few transient acquaintances, but to heal
the miseries of the human race, there is nothing of experience or principle to reject, but
only to welcome him, who alone has taught
us what it fully is to be a person, a conscious
existence from the inspiration of God, "the
Desire" indeed, as he is called, "of all nations," and Physician of maladies deeper than
the perishable frame.
A mere herald with messages from on high,
-as I have heard him called, -a bringer of
moral precepts, a foreteller of future facts in
283 
284     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
another state, the whole significance of his being and advent exhausted in his literal communications? Nay, this, so far from being religion, is not the fact in influence of any kind,
however earthly and low. It is not so with
any common actor on the historic stage. Not
what the heroes of this world have done to
alter the face of the earth and shift the course
of events, not what new announcements for
human welfare from the realm of invention
they have brought, but what they themselves,
the persons, have been, moves our deepest concern. Witness the unquenchable and everlasting interest in every flower of humanity, distinguished individual of our race, which makes
of "all history only biography"!  Therefore
upon canvas or into enduring marble their
heads are thrown, that successive generations
may possess them in their fellow-creatures'
never-weary gaze. Newton, Howard, Washington,  for what do they stand but for truth,
benevolence, and patriotism?
To take from the host of social political,
and scientific benefactors of mankind a single recent case, -when the brave adventurer 
PERSON.
goes, with sacrifice of comfort, surrender of
health, and offer of life, to make, if possible,
the dreary Arctic Sea plain and safe to following navigators, -to the absorbed reader of his
thrilling narrative, not what Kane discovered
of icebergs or circumpolar currents on that
dreadful coast, wondrous as those discoveries
were, and affect human knowledge or future
explorations as they may, but what in nobility of soul, Christian disinterestedness, and
trust in the All-Fatherly God, Kane was,
quivers on the heart-strings and moistens the
beaming lids.
But that Person which has made other persons noble and good from the baptism of fire
of its own holy sublimity and love; which
walked in Jerusalem only to fill the world with
its presence; which heaven is not big enough
to hold, for it reaches yet into the earth;
which is ever ready to enter into every wretched heart, hearing and opening to its knock,
since the swollen eyes of Mary and Martha
were dried before it, - 0 ye that still come
at its old but never obsolete invitation, what
shall I say of that person, - yea, of THAT?
285 
286   CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
What, but to repeat its gracious summons,
"Come unto me!"  For the overborne and
spent among mortals he is the Person.  There
is none such as he.  I will not dispute that
various other persons and conspicuous personages in the world's history may be followed
by different men and classes according to their
tastes and fancied necessities, if to the great
Christian allegiance they cannot be won; -
or if; as sometimes, though with what ignorance, they say they are too young or too happy to be religious.  But we at least, who have
been weary and heavy laden, will cling to this
Son of God.  They whose chief admiration
is the bold and martial conqueror, - subduing
tribes and territories to his sway, - may enshrine and idolize the Napoleons and C~sars
in their imagination, and think it a grand
thing to imitate them on the little scale of a
state or town, an office or hearth-stone.  They
whose mind kindles supremely at the beauty
of art, Inay above all envy and copy the great
masters in color and stone, in material structures or written words.  They who adore nature and natural knowledge may set human 
PERSON.
science above the model of a perfect life in
Him above all beside moral Ruler, and in the
highest of arts Master indeed. They who are
"happy now," because not a string on the fine
instrument of their health and self-indulgence,
like some performer's at the fine concert, has
cracked from its holdings, may make, not purity, but pleasure their god. But they who in
this world have felt what it is to be burdened
with disappointment, bereavement, poverty,
and disease, will come to Him who can give
them rest.
In the courts of law or at the bar of public
opinion the humblest persons are admitted to
testify to facts coming within the sphere of
their observation; and their testimony, if honest, is by eloquent advocates and judges on
their seats admitted as authority in the case.
There are facts falling so often under notice
we can scarce be mistaken in their character,
or deemed quite unqualified for their report.
That this unparalleled Person, whom we call
Tesus Christ, reverently introduced at the bedfide of the sick; that his name, - what a spell
t has hung alike over cradle and grave of
287 
288     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
mankind! -only his name in a prayer falling
on the ear of the dying; that the voice of his
word, reaching the soul of those sobbing over
the clay which so lately was child, brother,
parent, friend, and now is like any other clod,
-affords peace unspeakable for sinking and
doubt and indescribable loss, there are ten
thousand witnesses.
Our whole humanity indeed does that divine
Person address. The conqueror may come to
him who has gained a mightier victory over
death; the statesman, to him who has established a kingdom beyond his policy; the artist, the workman in any material, to him
whose life has laid out stints challenging and
foiling all tools, pen, or pencil; and young and
gay, pleased and allured as they are, may
come to be more refreshed and blessed.  But
the weary and burdened with age, misfortune
and suffering, - 0, because of their inexpres
sible need is his particular call!  Do any, noi
knowing yet, perchance, what it is to be worn
out or wretched, say they do not belong tc
this class?  They are not 0, they are no'
diseased, they are not disappointed, they arc 
PERSON.
not bereaved, they are not (do they know that?)
on the brink of the grave! But upon whom
will the burden and weariness not, if already
they have not, come? God only knows how
heavy and sharp, in our separation, our destitution, our pain or expiring sigh, the load will
press. On the shoulder that bore the cross, he
allows us to lean. Is it then one portion and
order, or the whole species, all of us, as human
creatures, his terms embrace?
No illusion or ecstasy can carry us beyond
this foundation of Christ's claim.   We  are
persons. A person greater than we must save
us.   The  person over all is God;  but the
greatest personality incarnate in our nature for
our rescue is Christ. So long as we are living
persons, too, talk not of transports of genius
or love as contradicting this doctrine! They
only confirm  it.   The  imagination  whose
wings uplift, and the love whose warmth
melts my soul, are my imagination and love.
Like the microscopic dot of life, which makes
the whole mass it appears in its food, I am
the centre of the circle of my faculties, and
nothing less than the universe is that on which
19
289 
290    CHUROll AND CONGREGATION.
I feed.  Beyond all else is our interest in persons.  Witness two continents search the Pole
for one missing crew!  This living monad in
us of indissoluble unity is our only hope.
When present accesses to it through the fleshly
organization close in death, this asks for other
channels.  It feels indestructible.  When it
knows itself, it knows its immortality.  It is
the self the prodigal must come to, before he
can go to his Father.  In Jesus alone this personal glory was complete.  In him, of all
others, the personality of a humanly divine
nature has come of age.  lle, in truth, beauty,
wisdom, and goodness, is what a person should
be.  Such a person falls under no measure of
space or time, but takes hold of infinity and
eteriiity.  Snch an one, exceeding our attainment and crfticism, and mighty to fashion us
above ourselves, in his Snpper we signify that
he is.  Bnt who, desiring to be at all moulded
by his hand, shall not freely join in the sign? 
PLACE.            291
CllAPTER XIX.
PLACE.
IT is to a certain extent a surprise, if not an
offence, in our particular denominational latitude of the Church, that the Lord's Supper
should be taken into the same circle with the
other services of his religion.  But in so associating it we only follow his own manner.
llow was it at first?  llow did he do himself?  lle discoursed, he prayed, he sang,
would his song had been recorded for us! -
as well as ate and drank, with his disciples.
lle did all these things at the same time together with them, as much as we converse
while eating and drini~ing in company at our
own tables.  lle did not set one of these services apart from or above another.  lle did
not admit one of his disciples to one of them,
and exclude him from any other.  lle made
no one of these services a test, profession, or 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
privilege, more than any other. He himself
was not less holy or gentle or good in one of
them than in another. Out of honor for him,
respect for his example, and love to his flock,
we shall unite what he united. If we will
follow  Christ's example, our preaching and
prayer and praise should not, on the day of
communion, be separated from his table.
Doctrine, precept, devotion, and ritual should
be in harmony. Is one part of the building
more  dedicated  than  another?   Font  and
board, pulpit and pew, choir and speaker and
hearer, should be joined in one body, however
called, Church or Congregation.
All the Lord's sayings and doings belong
together.  He specifies or allows in them no
such separation into more or less sacred,
marked and professional, as is often made.
They make the unity he implores for his followers. It is profanation to pick and choose
and part them.
This local and circumstantial unity, if I
may call it so, composes the picture of that
Jerusalem where the incidents mostly transpired, and causes it to be so complete and con
292 
PLACE.
gruous to our mind. The model of the Holy
City, as we know, has been sculptured, painted, lithographed, engraved, and carried round
for exhibition in panoramas through the
world. But what is its world-wide charm?
From what ancient national glory of a whole
Hebrew race does it draw so much interest as
from the harmonious history of that wonderful person in whom God and man met in
unison? Behold in the mind's eye this faroff place! The area of the temple where he
disputed with the doctors and worshipped the
Father; the roads he walked to Bethany and
Siloam, Samaria and Galilee, faintly indicated
on maps; the valley of Jehoshaphat into which
he descended; the brook Kedron he crossed;
the garden of agony, where his sweat seemed
to mingle with his blood; the hill, on one side,
of his midnight supplications, and on the other
of his noonday crucifixion; the sepulchre where
he was buried, and the spot whence it is thought
he rose; with some little indefinable points the
eye wanders after to find if possible, —the
judgment-hall of Pilate or the upper chamber
of the feast; - over all these he casts the equal
293 
294     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
and invariable dignity of his life and presence.
For what reason indeed is it that such things
as these, and no wars or rumors of wars there,
are the salvation to an earthly immortality of
glory of that old Jewish capital, keeping it in
the world's gaze and centre for ever?   Not
when or by whom Jerusalem was founded or
taken, overthrown or rebuilt, but the life and
death of one singular personage, more than
of millions beside, hallow and endear its streets
with the various circumstances of his career.
These features, on the holy canvas hung before our imagination, all belong together. We
cannot expunge one of them, and not destroy
the keeping of the whole; and we cannot insulate Christ's table in particular from his
general religion without a blot, which he
never made.
Place, then, as well as reason and symbol,
and all the other considerations I have enumerated, is an argument for the universal fellowship in every respect of the members of his
school. The Egyptians swathed some little
figure of royal flesh for centuries of ghastly
honor; he, by the uniform grandeur his de 
PLACE.           295
portment shed over it, embalmed a whole metropolis for living and everlasting fame.  It is
Jerusalem verily as he thus made it, and not
a certain town, with an estimated population,
at a fixed era, flourishing in the geography of
the planet, that we care for.  Long ages before his birth were its walls reared, synagogues set up, and gates opened.  Generations after he vanished, the Romans razed it
to the ground, permliting but three of its towers to stand.  But, account for it as sceptic or
believer may, all the hosts, earlier or later, that
trampled about it, left no such print in the
soil as those feet of one person, which, under
the weight of the cross, trod the via doi6rosu,
the painful way to Golgotha, place of a skull,
of ashes and death, but centre and source of
spiritual life to all succeeding generations.
Jerusalem! it is no material ground, no
mechanical structure, but a creation of power
by Christ's sympathy for all people and lands.
Not one or another, but every act and word
alike of his distinguishes and consecrates its
space.  J9rusalem! it has no mere earthly
latitude and longitude.  It is situate in the 
296     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
mind! It is part of the moral territory of ev ery pious heart. It is annexed to every Chris tian country. It is within the precincts of
every most remote church on the face of the
globe. It is lifted into heaven and called
New Jerusalem there, built of jasper and sapphire and pearl and amethyst, precious metal
and precious stones, to signify a beauty to
the soul of which all terrestrial treasure is but
the glimmer and shade.
Marvellous and incomparable testimony of
Christ's, beyond any human power, that he
has woven the annals of the place over which
he wept, as so broad a band, into the web of
universal history, and, as towns on new continents are called after those on old ones, has
carried up into the sky its name, therewith to
baptize the eternal city of the Great King; so
as to make in these last times myriads of loving enthusiasts in every zone sing,
"Jerusalem, my happy home!"
and give the title on earth of that New Jerusalem to perhaps the most spiritual and imaginative of all religious sects! "Jerusalem 
PLACE.
Delivered" is the title of the great Italian
poem, written to celebrate the feats of the
Crusaders, when all Europe cast itself on Asia
to rescue the Saviour's tomb. But Jerusalem
was delivered, and, beyond all the decays and
corruptions of time, is preserved to the lively
concern of the human family's latest descendants, for whatever is most distinctive in its
story, by the events of the marvellous biography of him whom his Evangelists knew not
whether to call Son of God or Son of Man.
So was he, and so he styled himself, both,
and so, truly considered, both are for ever one
and the same.
Place, then, I say, the argument of history,
record, locality, in the indissoluble unity which
his character gave it, I present as a persuasive
for our unity. Is one of us more than another interested in the local circumstances that
embodied his spirit and life? Does a portion
of the Christian community respond to the
feeling those circumstances move, and the rest
not? Would the heart in some of our bosoms
thrill at actual sight of the ground in Judea
where he journeyed and suffered, and, in other
297 
.298     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
of our breasts, be indifferent and cold! God
forbid! But if it be so, God forbid that we
should attempt, by any ecclesiastical judg
ment, to tell who would burn and who be
lukewarm! Jesus, who could judge, did noi
classify and divide his disciples. Let not us
Judge or accurately divide we cannot. Hc
was content if any emotion stirred their soultoward him where he was.  Heaven touch u
all, by every common exercise that may re
mind us where he was, and what he did an(
said and felt in our behalf! Therefore let ou.
social commemoration of him, for the identity
he carried through every passage of his life
put on no point any schism in our fellowship
or practice. In teaching, command, or emblerr
of his religion, let us be one, as he entreated
and of his entreaty, that we might not violatit, provided that we should so distinctly know
This local argument becomes more convin
cilg, when we consider the position of Christ'.
last Supper with his disciples in its future ref
erence. His table was spread on the edge o
the world. It stood between the seen an(
unseen states. Just beyond was the eternity 
PLACE.
into which he was about to step out of time.
He says unto them, " I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father's
kingdom." There was a place then, another
place over the flood which he was so soon to
tempt, where he would assemble all believers
in him, -irrespective of their diversities of
nature and attainment, wise and ignorant, of
capacity original or common, of temperament steadfast or variable, more cool or zealous in enterprise, if they only wanted to be
with him,-for more blessed and lasting communion; even as loyal John and fickle Peter,
doubting Thomas and matter-of-fact Matthew,
with others whose individuality was not strong
enough to show their faces clearly through the
dim distance to our gaze, met around him in
one circle which he did not break with any
severe moral discriminations on earth. Ah!
with our denominational tests and technicalities and creeds, we make heaven too small, and
make it undesirable, - a place not really attractive, but a habitation of cliques and parties, into which no generous and humane soul wishes
299 
300    CHURCH AND CONGR~GATION.
to go! So Jesus made it not for his followers.
All now who are sincerely associated to worship God in the name of his Son, as much as
they, are believers.  We, like them, may be
more or less unworthy; but the fact of our
Christian association is the pledge of our
faith, unless we be pretenders and hyp~cntes
in the very terms of our union.
From a sense of unfitness, which the Lord
regards as no disqualification, do we hesitate
to partake the memorials of his regard here?
Bnt shall we not wish to partake those other
predicted memorials there?  Those dear to us
as our own life, whose now cold hands and
sealed lips perhaps once partook these emblems, or peradventure declined them because
they were not offered to all, - do we doubt
their participation in every gracious token of
fellowship in that "general assembly and
church of the first-born," where "one star
differeth from another star in glory," yet none
cordially aspiring are excluded from the great
sphere of love and joy?  Could they speak to
us, - nay, could we hear their call, - would it
not sound in our bosom louder than the ring 
PLACE.            301
ing of a church-bell, exhorting us, when every
symbol of grace to the honest seeker is offered,
not to refuse?  Once only, in a life strewn
wfth deaths and lined wfth graves, as if spent
in a churchyard, have I attended a funeral
where not a drop of kindred blood was present
to mourn.  The air, as I breathed it, and sunshine, as I looked on it, were melancholy
round the coffined clay.  But will not the affections that have waited round and glorified
the ashes of our beloved, claim in heaven the
fellowship of their souls?
Let us have the fellowship with them and
with one another now below!  Let the scenes
of Christ's divine appearance in humaufty
win us to him and reconcile us among ourselves.  0, could any earthly relics of him be
found, how eagerly would they be gathered
up, and how superstitiously cherished!  Those
thorns of his brow would be chased every one
in gold; every grain of the wood and rough
tree of his cross set in diamond; every thread
of his mock-purple robe - indeed most kingly
ever worn, mock as it was - knit in bracelets
of pearl; every particle of the rock sepulchre 
302     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
prized above all the rare stones and gems ot
the East; and for his bones,- 0-, for his
bones, could they be brought to light, how
crowns would be bartered and princes dispute!
Cannot what-is spiritual of him be reckoned
at a rate as high as the material would be?
Lo! of the material, we have nothing, not a
jot. If we had it, its adoration were but
our idolatry.  Of the spiritual we have all;
and, verily, it should link us to him and to one
another! 
ORGANIZATION.        303
CllAPTER xx.
ORGANIZATION.
I HAVE been considering the Church, not as
an invisible fraternity of faith and charity, but
as a visible, working brotherhood, in order to
give full force to the objection, which may
now be made, that by opening its communion
we lose its organization.  To this objection
I reply, that it puts for the cause an effect.
Eating the Supper together does not organize
the body, but is something the organized body
does.  Members of the Church may sit at the
table; but sitting at the table does not make
them members.  The Supper implies, not
constitutes, membership.  Their membership
is their common trust and love for their Lord;
and these principles, not any forms, are the
true organizing power.  Those brought into
unison by these principles are organized,
though they decline to partake of the feast; 
304     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
as the Quakers are organized while they sit
and silently wait for the moving of the
Spirit.
Romish writers dwell much on the true
" Notes" of the Church. A solemn and affectionate observance of the ordinances of the
Church is doubtless one of these Notes. The
ordinances are means no doubt indispensable to the mass of men, morally infirm as
they are, prepossessed by the senses, wedded
to the world, and wanting something visible
and striking with holy associations to win
them from what is earthly and profane. But
how radical the mistake of putting any superficial demonstrations above the more authentic spiritual signs! I have seen a government
vessel on the coast take soundings of the
waters, and re-measure the lines of the shore.
But if she had regarded only the surface, and
cared nothing for the depth, she would have
committed for the seaman only the blunder of
those formalists who have not penetrated the
depths of the spirit, yet think themselves of
Christ's Body, when they are but intruders
into his company, and hangers-on to his train. 
ORGANIZATION.
No measurement, indeed, is better than a
false one; for men are less likely to be destroyed in the conscious ignorance that makes
them cautious in feeling their way, than by
the conceit of knowledge that makes them
rush on, bold and foolhardy. For the Church
itself it'is less safe to rely on its external agencies than on its internal powers. Does not
the steam-ship go both more swift and secure
than the sailing vessel? Availing herself of inward forces, from the breakers' edge she steers
back into the teeth of the storm, and wins the
open sea, when oar and canvas, rudder and
pilot, cannot save the full-rigged barque, with
all the boast of her snowy canvas, from wreck.
So, valuable as outward impulses are in their
place for those feebly beginning to navigate
the sea of life, the central motives of love and
righteousness save the Church and the human
soul from disaster and death, when wholly in
vain may be the ceremonies, of which so many
make but a scarcely better substitute than the
old Jewish legalities themselves. Precious instrumentalities indeed are Christian ordinances; but the mistake of holding them for the
20
305 
306     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
topmost or in any way essential part of the
Christian religion, will expose itself at a moment's thought. If we can conceive of part
of that religion as falling away, would it not
be the ordinances sooner than the doctrine,
far sooner than the spirit and the law? If we
would excuse a man from any part of the
religion, surely it would not be the precepts,
but the rites.  Nay, can we honestly fetch
any moral blame of our own, or condemnation from the mouth of Christ, against a person, merely for his omission of those rites?
Those rites, I believe, have a long date of existence yet before them, appealing as they do,
through the heart and imagination, to the
soul; but none can think the eternity of principles is theirs. Leaning upon mere rites for
our redemption is but a poorer sort of that
morality, and a meaner kind of those works
of the law, which the Apostle decries as impotent for our rescue.
I know the real virtues of the soul are often
theologically despised, in comparison with
obscure processes and mysterious manipulations. But I know, too, the heart of the 
ORGANIZATION.
world exclaims, Would that, of the truth, justice, faithfulness, and of all those things disparaged by bigots and sectarians under the
title of mere amiable affections, there were
more! Then the world were safer to live in
than it is. Then there were more integrity in
business, innocence in pleasure, candor in society, peace in families, and purity in private
life. Ordinances by themselves, as they are
too often observed, are but a cold moon of
seeming purity, rising after the orb of day has
set, losing the warmth of the beam they reflect; cordial dispositions of love are the sun
quickening all nature into life.
By ecclesiastical facts, as well as spiritual
principles, this position is confirmed. Where
formalists are met together, what a chill steals
through the building, as in a room where the
fire declines! Whole Gospels and Epistles
might be brought in proof that, however
forms in their place may and do serve us,
Christianity was never meant for a formal religion. The soul of inspiration knew our humall life to be an ocean, and therefore it gave
us a system, not of hard fixture like a house on
307 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
its unmoving foundations, but rather like a
boat, which may well be made in great pic tures a sacred symbol, adapting itself to the
throbbing heart of humanity, stooping lowly
to conquer, yet riding on the crest of the
waves. The Gospel is a light for us. It is
a breath upon us. It is a well within us.
Something fresh, shining, flowing and reviv ing, is its nature.
Aiming to be perfectly just, setting my
heart on sincerity and truth in describing it, I
must say the proportion of form to substance
in it is very small.  It uses no more  ma chinery than is necessary, - only enough to
get along with,- just as, in an engine, the
fewer the rods and levers consistently with the
transmission of power, the less the friction and
mightier the result. Therefore Christianity has
lived, survived all changes, and surmounted
all opposition.  Had it been a mere scheme
of dogma or ritual, it would have been swept
away, dissolved, and long ages since in its
grave. There would have been nothing of it
left, more than of the ark upon Ararat, if it
had been built of outward material, like the
308 
ORGANIZATION.
ark of wood. But, contrariwise, how broad it
is, and free and spiritual! It does not limit
the Divine impulse to its own written pages,
but offers it to "every man that cometh into
the world." It empowers every true child of
God, not only to repeat a literal text, committed to memory, but to speak in his Father's name.  Many are they that speak conventionally from the world, and never in the
name of God. But so Christians may speak.
Why should not every one, feeling drawn by
the Father to his Son, partake his Supper
without other condition? By any terms or
exclusiveness of our own to send away those
thus drawn, is the arch heresy of tearing the
body of Christ.
This free and vital observance alone is worthy; for here is the distinction between the
child and the slave, that the latter can but recite the phrase, or do with mechanical exactness the thing, being influenced and directed
only from without, from man and the world;
but the former acts and utters from within,
from the Infinite Mind. In fellowship with
Christ, the dear Son, he takes thoughts and
309 
310     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
monitions from the Supreme at first hand.
The Holy Spirit does not quote. It alone
never refers. It pronounces with direct truth
and authority through the breast it visits.
This is the doctrine of holiness, an internal
principle alone. No thing is holy, only feeling
and thought are such. The sea is not itself
holy. It can be no more than an image of the
holiness of those who are the salt of the earth.
The air is not pure; but only the pure in
heart. No ceremonial is holy beyond the purpose of those who administer or receive it.
Not to create a friend's love, or to learn it,
but to strengthen it, do we desire and use
tokens. So is it with the love of God.
Those in this spiritual state in any religious
society will be united and organized indeed!
There need be no fear about their harmony,
co-operation,  or efficiency.   They  may  be
owners of pews; but they will not be associated upon a secular basis. Their proprietorship will be but an incident, not the essence.
Their pews will be opened to friend or stran
ger, rich or poor, bond or free; and to represent
the pew-systemn, thus administered for Chris 
ORGANIZATION.
tian purposes, as implying that the whole foundation of the institution wherein it prevails is
pecuniary and selfish, inflicts, however undesignedly, upon millions of men a wrong as
great as can be in any untruth. The members of the Lord's Body may or may not be
legal possessors of ground or building they
occupy. Their names may or may not be
recorded in a book; but no inscription or
omission of a name will constitute, and no
want of oral or verbal pledge vacate, their organization. It may be convenient for them,
as a corporation, to be known to the law; but
no law of the land, only the higher law of
God, operating through the spirit of Christ,
will be their bond.
The spiritual life doubtless requires circumstantial aids in addition to secret refreshments;
and all means that have in them any furtherance are valuable in precise proportion to the
worth of the end, just as is the bread that sustains life, the medicine that cures disease, or
the staff that stands between us and danger.
But no ministrations can create life, or preserve it after the constitutional vitality from
311 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
body or mind is gone. I admit the practical
difficulties.  Nothing is harder to determine
than the kind and amount of ecclesiastical
organization in any given circumstances best
suited to transmit the Divine Spirit. If we
attempt anywise to tie up the wonderful
and holy element, it drops out. If we seek
not by any social band to secure it, we may
fail to get or touch it at all. But, according
as we see the relation of the means to the
end, we shall be less disposed to hold our
modes to any hard shape, which Christ does
not enjoin, and allow the utmost flexibility
and variety. We shall not quarrel with diversity, and stickle for uniformity in the mode
of any observance, as many portions of the
Church so absurdly do. How irrational and
unwise this formal rigor would be in everything else'! Would the manners of men and
nations be more beautiful, if, instead of the
range of liberty they take, they were all run
in the same iron mould? The essence is not
in any matter sacrificed with the shape. Commerce, with its present marvellous facilities, is
at bottom the identical thing it was, when
312 
ORGANIZATION.
instead of gold and silver, and notes and bonds
-an ox or a skin, a bushel of wheat, Spartan
iron, or a cowry-shell, as still in Africa, was its
token. Society arises from the same fundamental sentiments as with the tribes whose
caravans, moving different ways, exchanged
greetings in the desert; for one human heart
beats in city-blocks and amid whirling sands.
So the principles of our faith change not,
widely variant with latitudes and centuries
as may be their style; for the style is not the
thing, any more than the straw is the current,
or the sea-mark the sea. Vanes of a thousand
fashions on our steeples may show one direction of the wind; and many diverse practices
and customs without contradiction indicate
the course of the same Spirit. These practices and customs will pass or change. Many
a Jericho even now is tumbling down. Truly
there is trouble in every camp. We may well
be charitable to manifold modes, if it be true,
as a great Methodist lately told me, that no
creed or church-organization in the world can
defend itself, or put a bad man where he belongs, or claim God's acceptance. Have we
313 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
not departed, all of us, not only from the
primitive, but from the best days of the later
Church, whenever we confound substance and
show in religion? Of course there must be
signals of Christian faith and feeling. I only
contend, they should be freely open for the
education and reception of the whole body,
instead of being used as a line of judgment
to divide the one body visibly in two parts
rising over against and confronting one another. The old Latin fathers sharply distinguished between realities and forms, though
the former have too much degenerated into
the latter in the Transalpine Church.
This confusion of reality with form is,
however, working mischief how far beyond
the borders of Rome! The census of New
England and New York proves but an annual addition of one or two members for every
particular local church, in this wide domain
of the unsurpassed and concentrated intelligence of Christendom,-an unpromising ratio surely of increase, when we consider how
death is ever at work, not forbearing to intrude into every enclosure with the law of his
314 
ORGANIZATION.
dealing upon life. Death, bodily death, will
be the devourer of spiritual life on earth very
soon, at this rate. But let us resist and raise
bars to his reign. Let us train childhood into
the Church, and by the law of life so countercharm that of death. Let not our offspring
grow up Pagan. Admission to the Jewish
synagogue, except for adult proselytes, was a
matter of hereditary right, and the circumcision of infants a domestic ceremony. Let
baptism, the solemn dedication of the young,
be with us no less common and familiar, as a
door leading, by the path of growth and confirmation in Christian graces, to the Lord's
Supper. Is the principle of training less in
its moral and spiritual, than in its confessedly
intellectual truth?  Has God promised to give
us grace and virtue unconditionally, more than
science, language, and art? Does he mean
to thrust salvation suddenly sidewise into our
days, while we pursue everything but the soul's
good throughout our life? No, let religion be
an inspiration and continual culture too!
Single cases of failure in this attempt must
not discredit the truth of general procedure.
315 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
Intervening obstructions in the line of all accomplishment disappoint sometimes the best
hopes. So the children of the pious, of those
most anxious for the sanctity of their offspring,
-perhaps by some strange reaction of Nature seeking for herself a balance against a
mistaken over-severity of austere requirements,
-have been known to be irreligious and profane. The soul, especially as yet asleep in
the child, is a peculiarly obscure region of observation. Lenses, that reach the finest molecule or farthest star, cannot penetrate it. Crucibles, that detect the poisonous particle, and
make a link in the otherwise broken chain of
evidence, cannot analyze the commencement
of moral evil. But the great verdict of history
is, that character and disposition go down, by
an hereditary law as well as a special influence
of fidelity, from parent to child. It is often
asked, how soon education may begin. I answer, as soon as you can get an educator.
That is what we want, -parents, guardians,
teachers, that are educators. Be or have an
educator, and infants in their cradles will be
educated. Throw not the soul of your child
316 
ORGANIZATION.
out on the barren moor, to find sustenance for
itself. Leave not your child until after he is
grown up, then to judge independently, and
altogether for himself, about religion. It is
not, according to our cant, his right from you,
but your wrong to him, that you should leave
him without religious influence and prepossession. Prejudice him in favor of truth and
virtue; as Coleridge told a friend, who was
very anxious that the young should not be
prejudiced in religion, that for his part he
thought it would have been better if, instead
of leaving his garden to weeds, growing of
their own accord, he had prejudiced it a little
in favor of roses and strawberries. Ah! we
do and must prejudice our children to evil or
good. What means the sob of grief I have
seen pass direct from a mother's breast to her
child's, - the one bosom beating exact time,
like a pendulum, to the other, -but the natural and spiritual transmissibleness of all
qualities?   Into the first year of the newcomer crowd of themselves all the years of
the progenitor.   Shall  we  not voluntarily,
with our utmost industry, avail ourselves of
317 
318     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
the power of this principle? Shall the space
of the Church, unlike that of orchard and
field, have no nursery? Shall the sailor's boy
grow up to know every rope in the ship, and
be haunted day and night by the sea; the
artisan's child have cunning in his fingers, that
itch for the tools from his birth; the sons of
merchants, physicians, and counsellors feel
the genius of the professions they so often
follow in their after-career; and shall the seed
of Christian parents show no flower of Divine
grace or fruit of good living? Whatever we
may say, a true ecclesiastical organization will
appear only when our forms are luminous
with our life. Else, they will have no more
unction than there is of oil or flame in the
rusty lamp from Pompeii, which you hang for
a curiosity on your wall. Ordinances will
serve us, when our own hearts feel and ever
anew sustain and build them, as the shell-fish
does the crystalline enamelled walls which are
his forms, cemented in all their grains from
his own substance; else, in either case, they
are but unholy refuse. Holy-water, robes of
white and gold, fragrant censers, choir and 
ORGANIZATION.
wafer, all the appeals of Rome to all the
senses, are good only as they touch the soul.
Whatever may be our outward modes, let
their virtue be tried by all who will. Some
pictures in foreign churches are covered with
a veil, and exhibited only to those who can
pay.   So much the worse for the pictures.
If the Church restrict its privileges, so much
the worse for the organization of the Church, -
so much the worse for the human soul!
319 
320     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
CHAPTER XXI.
PROPORTION.
WE read that, when Solomon was finishing
the interior of his great building, he graved
on the bases or tables, cherubim, lions, and
palm-trees, according to the proportion or proper size of every one. What was the reason
of such an engraving in the house of God?
We can understand that the king should seek
the crowning grace of proportion in the temple he was raising to the Divine worship and
glory. He had an eye to see the same grace
in all the world, so perfect that the Greeks
called the universe Order or Beauty, though
Ecclesiastes, the old Hebrew preacher, noticed
as well as they, the same fact.  Therefore it
was not strange that, in the grand plan and
every minute subdivision of his structure, even
on the open space of a brazen table, Solomon
should have every line wrought in exact pro 
PROPORTION.
portion.  But why were lions and palm-trees,
as well as cherubim, engraven?  How was a
true proportion for the place in such things
kept? The certain limited space he had, why
did he thus fill? Nay, wherefore in a sanetuary were introduced manifold other designs,
of the olive and pomegranate, open flowers
and lily-work, living creatures and a molten
sea?   What  propriety or significance had
these common and secular objects? What
sort of proportion verily could they add to
a sacred edifice? Did this bringing into a
shrine of prayer of all these earthly shapes,
of trees of the wood, blossoms of the garden,
beasts of the field, leaves of the forest, and
watery waves, add pictures and associations
that could start or further the transports of
homage from the human bosom to the majesty of the Most High? Was not the monarch
thinking of his own vanity, as well as the
Divine honor? The drawing of the cherubim
indeed, that spoke of invisible might and puririty, was well enough, a substantial aid to
prayer and communion with the Lord. But
wherefore be at the pains to sketch, or indeed
21
321 
322     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
allow to be introduced, such outside, profane
objects as lions and palms?
Such representations of natural grace and
animal strength would not indeed to some
chambers have been unsuited. They might
have answered for the city hall, if they had
one, in Jerusalem, or for the exchange and
market-place, where we learn some traded and
others sat idle, or for the place of gay worldly
festivity. But how could they be appropriate
within the walls and on the holy vessels of
those dedicated courts? Why was not the
entire amplitude of that room rather occupied
and covered all over with a different kind of
paintings, of nothing but angels, and sculptures
of heavenly things, and symbols, in silver and
gold, of a miraculous providence, every one of
which would portray some supernatural interposition or celestial reality, and touch the
heart to aspirations of wonder and thanksgiving? Many a cherub indeed, that marvellous
type at whose explanation commentators have
been so puzzled, yet whose four faces and
wings, to look and move and fly every way,
seem at least to shadow forth all-seeing and 
PROPORTION.
omnipresent attributes, was put in. But the
question still confronts us, why was the artist's
chisel employed to cut in the solid metal, for
the respect of the Jews in their very adorations, animals and plants and terrestrial scenery also?
Truly deeper than the bronze surfaces, where
the lines were imprinted, and most instructive
still, is the meaning of the obvious, yet grand
and  irresistible  reply.   Because  all these
growths and creatures were the work of God,
belonged to that creation the whole of which
he called good, illustrated the richness and variety of his wisdom and love, and so were not
only legitimate, but necessary to mark that
proportion, of everything he ordains, which
should be in our religion also, and alone can
infuse health into the thoughts and feelings of
the holiest hour; religion being truly no unnatural, technical, and confined thing, but wide
as the world. So it is from no antiquarian,
scholarly curiosity about that celebrated pile at
Jerusalem, so long since torn down, that I have
thus carefully described its style.   I would
only take from it the idea,- most timely,
323 
324     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
is it not? at this present moment, to correct
our own aberrations and disorders,- that the
same religious proportion which was expressed
in its precious substances and exquisitely
fashioned materials, should with a greater, inasmuch as a living beauty, be portrayed in our
worship and our lives.
This virtue of moral proportion, though so
often slighted, I think we can all appreciate.
Nothing so much offends certainly any fair and
delicate mind, as seeing anything out of proportion. It can scarce endure a door ajar, the
hanging of a curtain awry, the awkward position of a utensil, or clumsy placing of a chair.
Straightway it is eager to rectify the trivial
mistake and offence. But, beneath all form
and color, sound and pressure upon the senses of outward things, there is another and
greater proportion, that penetrates into and
vitally concerns the mind. Hence the advice
in Shakespeare, great moralist as well as poet,
which we all might take to heart, though volunteered only by an imaginary counsellor in
the play to an imaginary traveller, to give no
"4 unproportioned thought his act."   Every
I 
PROPORTION.
body speaks of the calmness of Jesus, the
serenity in him, scarce for a moment ever perturbed. Whence did it arise, but from this
complete inward proportion of his character,
which all his disciples should copy? Let us
not be excessive in any of our passions, expressions, or doings. To let ourselves go beyond the mark of conscience and truth is very
soon to have madness in our mind, fire on our
tongue, intemperance in our indulgences, and
folly in our deeds. Neither let us come short
in our love and duty to God and man; for
that is want of proportion, well-nigh as bad
on one side as disproportion is on the other.
In every relation we bear, every matter in
which we are engaged, let nothing with us be
what is vulgarly called a rage, but all in keeping, as after the divine proportion we strive.
But, in concluding with this theme my essay,
I have a special direction of treatment in
view. That Almighty Maker, who fixed the
order and proportion of day and night, promulgated to his most ancient people a memorable allotment, only in our times of battle or
bloody revolution set aside, and which has
325 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
proved its everlasting adaptation to our nature, of six days for labor, and the seventh for
rest. This is but a single instance of what
we proverbially say,- there is reason, that is
proportion, in all things. One great and most
momentous inquiry, therefore, suggested by
that famous fourth commandment to hallow
the Sabbath day, respects the proportion which
all the forms of religion, of which particularly
I have said so much, should have to the business of life. With all the reverence of religious people for the Scripture, Old Testament
and New, inclining them to follow every way
its hints, need I remark the fact so evident,
that this proportion is not yet gained? By
too little at one time, and too much at another, rather is it continually violated or departed from.
I do not, of course, mean to say the Bible
for our pious public exercises would severely
shut us up to a precise and mathematically
measured seventh part of the time. But it
doubtless does mean to hint a certain wholesome general, yet very large, something like a
sixfold, proportion of active care and labor to
326 
PROPORTION.
contemplative prayer and rest.  It certainly is
very jealous, and in no words so much as
in those uttered by Christ himself, of frequent
ritual displays of the religious sentiment. All
reason, all observation of human life, confirms
herein its wisdom. If the Atlantic steamer,
instead of keeping her hot force at her heart,
hugging it to throb unseen, and through billow and tempest push her across the deep,
were to display it in a flag of fire, she would
not get along over the trackless waste at all.
Neither shall we over the ocean of life heavenward, if we display our religion. Our Master
does not teach us it is not well to be socially
grateful, and pay together unto God our
vows. But he does teach us it is better for
the most part to signify our real religion in
our ordinary daily course. He does teach us
not to draw off by itself the mighty element
of our devout feeling. He would not have us
look at it as a mirror in which to admire our selves. He does not exhort us to kindle our
hearts to rapture with the flame of what is so
fiery after its kind. Rather would he have us
mix it in pure and blessed proportions with
327 
328     CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
all our speech and conduct, and let it, accord ing to his beautiful parable, as leaven in the
meal, -not having the meal in one place and
the leaven in another, -work through  the
whole mass and circuit of our earthly affairs
and connections with mankind.
But is it not a more purely spiritual thing to
pour out, in prayer and joyful rapture of the
breast, the sensibilities that yearn after God,
than it is to toil in the hard matter, and
trudge in the muddy ways of this world?  It
may be so. Yes, more purely spiritual it may
be.   But pure spirituality is not the only
thing we want for the perfection of our nature. God has put us into a work-shop. The
sky is its roof indeed, for us to look at, "fretted " as it is " with golden fires."  But the earth
is its floor. These hands and faculties are its
tools. As the lion and the palm were graven
with the cherubim on Solomon's sacred tables,
so we want strength and beauty, as well as
spirituality, to complete our proper human excellence, and without the strength and beauty
the spirituality itself will slip through our fingers, and in mere formality be speedily lost. 
PROPORTION.
But wherefore have I adduced all these considerations now? To point a needful criticism, that may make us beware of a peril in
our own times and land. Not that I would
quarrel with our age or lot. I do not agree
with those who think the world is growing,
not better, but worse.  Yet mankind, and in
no country more than our own, is still exposed
to this particular charge, of religious disproportion or deformity in the posture and action
of its entire mental frame. I think no truer
word has been spoken than lately, by the public lecturer on the general science of health,
that what we  want above all things is "a
steadier movement in our American brain."
Indeed, what doctor's authority or wise keeper of lunatics is needed to tell us we are all a
little insane? It is an insane atmosphere we
breathe. It affects us all somewhat. One
case of derangement lately quelled the religious spasm of a whole town. But what numbers are partially deranged, often indeed about
far other matters than religion!
A year ago, all was hot haste of pecuniary
speculation.   It seemed  true, as eloquent
329 
330    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
speakers said, that the business of this g~nera
tion was, according to the primeval decree, to
subdue the earth and possess it.  Cloisters
and peaceful meditations and pious exerCises,
said our strong men, - 0, all such things belong to the Middle Ages!  Let us leave them
there in the dark.  Progress, forward in material prosperity, is our watchword. He shall be
our captain who speaks in the most rousing
tone, proposes the boldest adventure, and
marches with the longest stride.  The railroad and locomotive shall be printed for our
pictorial motto, a type in everything of our
railroad speed, as we call it, to luxury and
wealth.  All Europe was but our shop over
the way, across the street or ferry, where, like
a thriftless housekeeper, we were running up
by the hundred million a tremendous account.
At every spot that promised any return for
trade and enterprise, in every wilderness`after
the sweet honey of gain, swarmed our twenty
millions of people, like bees. Mines and mills,
water-passages and laud-passages, were opened
or projected, in anticipation of a future century's real seasonableness, as if we could hurry, 
PROPORTION.        331
not ourselves only, but God.  Lavish expenditure outstripped even fancied accumulation
of earthly goods, till the freshet of wrath, laid
up against the day of wrath, over all dams
and bridges we thought might hold and span
it, suddenly broke.
In what a state of disappointment, poverty,
emptiness, and languor, as the devouring
plague passed by, we were left! What should
we do?  Nature abhors a vacuum.  It will
not stay in a recoil.  If we had only been possessed of the means, we should no doubt have
rushed into pleasure, amusement, recreation,
gay and overflowing parties without end, and
perhaps the miserable feeding and stimulus of
sensual appetites, released as we were so largely from the sobriety of regular tasks.  Thank
God that he made us so poor we had not the
means, and thank him that there was something else, always indeed at the door of home
and heart and public shrine, an inexpensive
resource, which even the poor can have without money and without price, - even Religion!  So at last, as other sublunary shapes of
things, so ardently chased, vanish from our 
332    CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
pursuit, we wake up to find that we had forgotten the cherubim.  Now we seek the overshadowing glory they set forth.  ~Witness the
great revivals of religion, spreading through the
counhy, far as the former panic and in the
same quarters, agitating the great neighboring
metropolis of the continent, and beginning to
stir the interest of our own town!
llow shall we regard it?  Rejoice at it
shall we not?  Encourage and speed it shall
we not?  Attach ourselves to its motion and
take seats in this lightning-train to heaven!
Seek to be among those borne up on the fourfold wings of the cherubim!  Yes, simply,
purely, and altogether so, if there were the
cherubim only for us to regard.  Then we
might fly off from this dull, dusty spot of heavy
anxieties habitual and responsibilities. But in
the engraving on the holy tables of Solomon
in the temple of the Lord were the lion and
the palm, as well as the cherubim, - strength
and beauty, as w~ll as spirituality.  We human creatures do not look so handsome when
we are flying off in mere transport and cestasy, as when we show a gracious courtesy to 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
science, and the joyful mood, together in that
state which the voice of inspiration so sublimely calls peace.
Herein would be a revival for ever; for this
would be proportion. In such temperance and
moderation would consist also the perfection
and perpetual enthusiasm of our whole nature.
Then we should be the same -patient, obedient, loving, and pure - everywhere, as Jesus
was. Who, that saw him, did not see him
the same, whether in street, house, temple, or
synagogue? How much better if religion had
been mingled with our affairs in the past, to
prevent the crazy avarice, spendthrift scheming, and foolish finance, that have just had
such a fall, the whole earth yet smokes and
rings with the crash and the overthrow! How
much better to instil it into all our activity
in time to come, than to separate it, feebly
cast ourselves into the tide of emotion, curse
this world of God as evil, and reckon every
industrial operation or success as naught, till,
in the turn of the wheel, business shall become all in all once more, and religion cold
and dead,- ay, and the very same persons
334 
PROPORTION.
now  converted, apostate and needing to be
converted again! Such is not His arithmetic.
So Heaven calculates not the sum. The best
saint is the holy man in the city street, not
the holy man untempted in a cave.
If we never waked to a sense of our obligations to God, better that a tempest of religious excitement should wake us, than that we
should sleep the sleep of death. But there is
something more to do than to wake.   We
have got to work also, as well as rub our eyes.
It is a good thing to establish our principles
in social communion and meditation, but a
better to apply them in life. It is a good thing
to build the Leviathan, but a better to launch
and send her on her voyage. The most charitable person is not he who tells of his fine
feelings of compassion for the needy, but he
that through the week is busy in their behalf.
The most religious person is the man not most
on his knees, but most on his feet in the righteous way. The most honest man is not the
smooth promiser, nor even the growling paymaster, but the cheerfully just. "Is not my dollar good as his?" said one merchant to another.
.335 
PROPORTION.
now  converted, apostate and needing to be
converted again! Such is not His arithmetic.
So Heaven calculates not the sum. The best
saint is the holy man in the city street, not
the holy man untempted in a cave.
If we never waked to a sense of our obligations to God, better that a tempest of religious excitement should wake us, than that we
should sleep the sleep of death. But there is
something more to do than to wake. We
have got to work also, as well as rub our eyes.
It is a good thing to establish our principles
in social communion and meditation, but a
better to apply them in life. It is a good thing
to build the Leviathan, but a better to launch
and send her on her voyage. The most charitable person is not he who tells of his fine
feelings of compassion for the needy, but he
that through the week is busy in their behalf.
The most religious person is the man not most
on his knees, but most on his feet in the righteous way. The most honest man is not the
smooth promiser, nor even the growling paymaster, but the cheerfully just. "Is not my dollar good as his?" said one merchant to another.
335 
CHURCH AND CONGREGATION.
"No," was the answer, " unless it goes with as
good a disposition!"  Let us engrave the signals of the old temple, then, on our modern
shield. Let the cherubim with unearthly purity overshadow us. Let beauty, like the palm,
grow up beside us. Let there be no lion in
the way, but our heart the lion courageous
against all sin. Then we shall at last be
able to present our escutcheon to God.
THE END.
336 
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