A History of American Christianity Part 23

Meanwhile the signs of a craving for larger fellowship continue to be multiplied. Quite independently of practical results achieved, the mere fact of efforts and experiments is a hopeful fact, even when these are made in directions in which the past experience of the church has written up "No Thoroughfare."

I. No one need question the sincerity or the fraternal spirit with which some important denominations have each proposed the reuniting of Christians on the simple condition that all others should accept the distinctive tenet for which each of these denominations has contended against others. The present pope, holding the personal respect and confidence of the Christian world to a higher degree than any one of his predecessors since the Reformation (to name no earlier date), has earnestly besought the return of all believers to a common fellowship by their acceptance of the authority and supremacy of the Roman see. With equal cordiality the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church have signified their longing for restored fellowship with their brethren on the acceptance by these of prelatical episcopacy. And the Baptists, whose constant readiness at fraternization in everything else is emphasized by their conscientious refraining from the sacramental sign of communion, are not less earnest in their desire for the unification of Christendom by the general acceptance of that tenet concerning baptism, the widespread rejection of which debars them, reluctant, from unrestricted fellowship with the general company of faithful men. But while we welcome every such manifestation of a longing for union among Christians, and honor the aspiration that it might be brought about in one or another of these ways, in forecasting the probabilities of the case, we recognize the extreme unlikeliness that the very formulas which for ages have been the occasions of mutual contention and separation shall become the basis of general agreement and lasting concord.

II. Another indication of the craving for a larger fellowship is found in the efforts made for large sectarian councils, representing closely kindred denominations in more than one country. The imposing ubiquity of the Roman Church, so impressively sustaining its claim to the t.i.tle _Catholic_, may have had some influence to provoke other denominations to show what could be done in emulation of this sort of greatness. It were wiser not to invite comparison at this point. No other Christian organization, or close fellowship of organizations, can approach that which has its seat at Rome, in the world-wideness of its presence, or demand with so bold a challenge,

Quae regio in terris non nostri plena laboris?

The representative a.s.sembly of any other body of Christians, however widely ramified, must seem insignificant when contrasted with the real ec.u.menicity of the Vatican Council. But it has not been useless for the larger sects of Protestantism to arrange their international a.s.semblies, if it were for nothing more than this, that such widening of the circle of practical fellowship may have the effect to disclose to each sect a larger Christendom outside to which their fellowship must sooner or later be made to reach.

The first of these international sectarian councils was that commonly spoken of as "the Pan-Anglican Synod," of Protestant Episcopal bishops gathered at Lambeth by invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1867 and thrice since. The example was bettered by the Presbyterians, who in 1876 organized for permanence their "Pam-Presbyterian Alliance,"

or "Alliance of the Reformed Churches throughout the world holding the Presbyterian System." The first of the triennial general councils of this Alliance was held at Edinburgh in 1877, "representing more than forty-nine separate churches scattered through twenty-five different countries, and consisting of more than twenty thousand congregations."[413:1] The second council was held at Philadelphia, and the third at Belfast. The idea was promptly seized by the Methodists. At the instance of the General Conference of the United States, a Pam-Methodist Council was held in London in 1881,--"the first Ec.u.menical Methodist Conference,"--consisting of four hundred delegates, representing twenty-eight branches of Methodism, ten in the eastern hemisphere and eighteen in the western, including six millions of communicants and about twenty millions of people.[413:2] Ten years later, in 1891, a second "Methodist Ec.u.menical Conference" was held at Washington.

Interesting and useful as this international organization of sects is capable of being made, it would be a mistake to look upon it as marking a stage in the progress toward a manifest general unity of the church.

The tendency of it is, on the whole, in the opposite direction.

III. If the organization of "ec.u.menical" sects has little tendency toward the visible communion of saints in the American church, not much more is to be hoped from measures for the partial consolidation of sects, such as are often projected and sometimes realized. The healing of the great thirty years' schism of the Presbyterian Church, in 1869, was so vast a gain in ecclesiastical economy, and in the abatement of a long-reeking public scandal and of a mult.i.tude of local frictions and irritations, that none need wonder at the awakening of ardent desires that the ten Presbyterian bodies still surviving might "find room for all within one fold"[413:3] in a national or continental Presbyterian Church. The seventeen Methodist bodies, separated by no differences of polity or of doctrine that seem important to anybody but themselves, if consolidated into one, would const.i.tute a truly imposing body, numbering nearly five millions of communicants and more than fifteen millions of people; and if this should absorb the Protestant Episcopal Church (an event the possibility of which has often been contemplated with complacency), with its half-million of communicants and its elements of influence far beyond the proportion of its numbers, the result would be an approximation to some good men's ideal of a national church, with its army of ministers coordinated by a college of bishops, and its _plebs adunata sacerdoti_. Consultations are even now in progress looking toward the closer fellowship of the Congregationalists and the Disciples. The easy and elastic terms of internal a.s.sociation in each of these denominations make it the less difficult to adjust terms of mutual cooperation and union. Suppose that the various Baptist organizations were to discover that under their like congregational government there were ways in which, without compromising or weakening in the slightest their protest against practices which they reprobate in the matter of baptism, they could, for certain defined purposes, enter into the same combination, the result would be a body of nearly five millions of communicants, not the less strong for being lightly harnessed and for comprehending wide diversities of opinion and temperament. In all this we have supposed to be realized nothing more than friends of Christian union have at one time or another urged as practicable and desirable. By these few and, it would seem, not incongruous combinations there would be four powerful ecclesiastical corporations,--one Catholic and three Protestant,--which, out of the twenty millions of church communicants in the United States, would include more than seventeen and one half millions.[415:1]

The pondering of these possibilities is pertinent to this closing chapter on account of the fact that, as we near the end of the nineteenth century, one of the most distinctly visible tendencies is the tendency toward the abatement of sectarian division in the church. It is not for us simply to note the converging lines of tendency, without some attempt to compute the point toward which they converge. There is grave reason to doubt whether this line of the consolidation or confederation of sects, followed never so far, would reach the desired result.

If the one hundred and forty-three sects enumerated in the eleventh census of the United States[415:2] should by successful negotiation be reduced to four, distinguished each from the others by strongly marked diversities of organization and of theological statement, and united to each other only by community of the one faith in Jesus Christ, doubtless it would involve some important gains. It would make it possible to be rid of the friction and sometimes the clash of much useless and expensive machinery, and to extinguish many local schisms that had been engendered by the zeal of some central sectarian propaganda. Would it tend to mitigate the intensity of sectarian compet.i.tion, or would it tend rather to aggravate it? Is one's pride in his sect, his zeal for the propagation of it, his jealousy of any influence that tends to impair its greatness or hinder its progress, likely to be reduced, or is it rather likely to be exalted, by the consciousness that the sect is a very great sect, standing alone for important principles? Whatever there is at present of asperity in the emulous labors of the competing denominations, would it not be manifold exasperated if the compet.i.tion were restricted to four great corporations or confederations? If the intestine conflict of the church of Christ in America should even be narrowed down (as many have devoutly wished) to two contestants,--the Catholic Church with its diversity of orders and rites, on the one hand, and Protestantism with its various denominations solidly confederated, on the other,--should we be nearer to the longed-for achievement of Christian union? or should we find sectarian animosities thereby raised to the highest power, and the church, discovering that it was on the wrong track for the desired terminus, compelled to reverse and back in order to be switched upon the right one?

Questions like these, put to be considered, not to be answered, raise in the mind the misgiving that we have been seeking in diplomatic negotiations between high contracting parties that which diplomacy can do only a little toward accomplishing. The great aim is to be sought in humbler ways. It is more hopeful to begin at the lower end. Not in great towns and centers of ecclesiastical influence, but in villages and country districts, the deadly effects of comminuted fracture in the church are most deeply felt. It is directly to the people of such communities, not through the medium of persons or committees that represent national sectarian interests, that the new commandment is to be preached, which yet is no new commandment, but the old commandment which they have had from the beginning. It cannot always be that sincere Christian believers, living together in a neighborhood in which the ruinous effects of division are plain to every eye, shall continue to misapprehend or disregard some of the tenderest and most unmistakable counsels of their Lord and his apostles, or imagine the authority of them to be canceled by the authority of any sect or party of Christians.

The double fallacy, first, that it is a Christian's prime duty to look out for his own soul, and, secondly, that the soul's best health is to be secured by sequestering it from contact with dissentient opinions, and indulging its tastes and preferences wherein they differ from those of its neighbor, must sometime be found out and exposed. The discovery will be made that there is nothing in the most cherished sermons and sacraments and prayers that is comparable in value, as a means of grace, with the giving up of all these for G.o.d's reign and righteousness--that he who will save his soul shall lose it, and he who will lose his soul for Christ and his gospel shall save it to life eternal. These centuries of church history, beginning with convulsive disruptions of the church in Europe, with persecutions and religious wars, present before us the importation into the New World of the religious divisions and subdivisions of the Old, and the further division of these beyond any precedent in history. It begins to look as if in this "strange work" G.o.d had been grinding up material for a n.o.bler manifestation of the unity of his people. The sky of the declining century is red with promise.

Hitherto, not the decay of religious earnestness only, but the revival of it, has brought into the church, not peace, but division. When next some divine breathing of spiritual influence shall be wafted over the land, can any man forbid the hope that from village to village the members of the disintegrated and enfeebled church of Christ may be gathered together "with one accord in one place" not for the transient fervors of the revival only, but for permanent fellowship in work and worship? A few examples of this would spread their influence through the American church "until the whole was leavened."

The record of important events in the annals of American Christianity may well end with that wholly unprecedented gathering at Chicago in connection with the magnificent celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus--I mean, of course, the Parliament of Religions. In a land which bears among the nations the reproach of being wholly absorbed in devotion to material interests, and in which the church, unsupported and barely recognized by the state, and unregulated by any secular authority, scatters itself into what seem to be hopelessly discordant fragments, a bold enterprise was undertaken in the name of American Christianity, such as the church in no other land of Christendom would have had the power or the courage to venture on.

With large hospitality, representatives of all the religions of the world were invited to visit Chicago, free of cost, as guests of the Parliament. For seventeen days the Christianity of America, and of Christendom, and of Christian missions in heathen lands, sat confronted--no, not confronted, but side by side on the same platform--with the non-Christian religions represented by their priests, prelates, and teachers. Of all the diversities of Christian opinion and organization in America nothing important was unrepresented, from the authoritative dogmatic system and the solid organization of the Catholic Church (present in the person of its highest official dignitaries) to the broadest liberalism and the most unrestrained individualism. There were those who stood aloof and prophesied that nothing could come of such an a.s.semblage but a hopeless jangle of discordant opinions. The forebodings were disappointed. The diverse opinions were there, and were uttered with entire unreserve. But the jangle of discord was not there.

It was seen and felt that the American church, in the presence of the unchristian and antichristian powers, and in presence of those solemn questions of the needs of humanity that overtask the ingenuity and the resources of us all combined, was "builded as a city that is at unity with itself." That body which, by its strength of organization, and by the binding force of its antecedents, might have seemed to some most hopelessly isolated from the common sympathies of the a.s.sembly, like all the rest was faithful in the a.s.sertion of its claims, and, on the other hand, was surpa.s.sed by none in the manifestation of fraternal respect toward fellow-Christians of other folds. Since those seventeen wonderful September days of 1893, the idea that has so long prevailed with mult.i.tudes of minds, that the only Christian union to be hoped for in America must be a union to the exclusion of the Roman Catholic Church and in antagonism to it, ought to be reckoned an idea obsolete and antiquated.

The theme prescribed for this volume gives no opportunity for such a conclusion as the literary artist delights in--a climax of achievement and consummation, or the catastrophe of a decline and fall. We have marked the sudden divulging to the world of the long-kept secret of divine Providence; the unveiling of the hidden continent; the progress of discovery, of conquest, of colonization; the planting of the church; the rush of immigration; the occupation of the continent with Christian inst.i.tutions by a strange diversity of sects; the great providential preparations as for some "divine event" still hidden behind the curtain that is about to rise on the new century,--and here the story breaks off half told.

To so many of his readers as shall have followed him to this last page of the volume, the author would speak a parting word. He does not deprecate the criticisms that will certainly be p.r.o.nounced upon his work by those competent to judge both of the subject and of the style of it. He would rather acknowledge them in advance. No one of his critics can possibly have so keen a sense as the author himself of his incompetency, and of the inadequacy of his work, to the greatness of the subject. To one reproach, however, he cannot acknowledge himself justly liable: he is not self-appointed to a task beyond his powers and attainments, but has undertaken it at the instance of eminent men to whose judgment he was bound to defer. But he cannot believe that even his shortcomings and failures will be wholly fruitless. If they shall provoke some really competent scholar to make a book worthy of so great and inspiring a theme, the present author will be well content.

FOOTNOTES:

[400:1] These statistical figures are taken from the authoritative work of Dr. H. K. Carroll, "The Religious Forces of the United States"

(American Church History Series, vol. i.). The volume gives no estimate of the annual expenditure for the maintenance of religious inst.i.tutions.

If we a.s.sume the small figure of $500 as the average annual expenditure in connection with each house of worship, it makes an aggregate of $82,648,500 for parochial expenses. The annual contributions to Protestant foreign and home missions amount to $7,000,000. (See above, pp. 358, 359.) The amounts annually contributed as free gifts for Christian schools and colleges and hospitals and other charitable objects can at present be only conjectured.

[402:1] The "Federalist," No. 51.

[404:1] "This habit of respecting one another's rights cherishes a feeling of mutual respect and courtesy. If on the one hand the spirit of independence fosters individualism, on the other it favors good fellowship. All sects are equal before the law.... Hence one great cause of jealousy and distrust is removed; and though at times sectarian zeal may lead to rivalries and controversies unfavorable to unity, on the other hand the independence and equality of the churches favor their voluntary cooperation; and in no country is the practical union of Christians more beautifully or more beneficially exemplified than in the United States. With the exception of the Roman Catholics, Christians of all communions are accustomed to work together in the spirit of mutual concession and confidence, in educational, missionary, and philanthropic measures for the general good. The motto of the state holds of the church also, _E pluribus unum_. As a rule, a bigoted church or a fierce sectarian is despised" (Dr. J. P. Thompson, in "Church and State in the United States," pp. 98, 99). See, to the like purport, the judicious remarks of Mr. Bryce, "American Commonwealth," vol. ii., pp. 568, 664.

[405:1] Bryce, "American Commonwealth," vol. ii., p. 568.

[405:2] 1 Cor. i. 10.

[406:1] See above, pp. 61, 95, 190, 206, 220, 258.

[406:2] See above, pp. 252-259.

[406:3] Among the New England Congregationalists the zeal for union went so far as to favor combination with other sects even in the work of training candidates for the ministry. Among the "honorary vice-presidents" of their "American Education Society" was Bishop Griswold, of the Eastern Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

[407:1] Sermon at consecration of Bishop H. U. Onderdonk, 1827.

[407:2] Minutes of the Convention of Delegates met to consult on Missions in the City of Cincinnati, A.D. 1831. The position of the bishop was more logical than that of the convention, forasmuch as he held, by a powerful effort of faith, that "his own" church is the church of the United States, in an exclusive sense; while the divines at Cincinnati earnestly repudiate such exclusive pretensions for their church, and hold to a plurality of sectarian churches on the same territory, each one of which is divinely invested with the prerogatives and duties of "the church of Christ." A _usus loquendi_ which seems to be hopelessly imbedded in the English language applies the word "church"

to each one of the several sects into which the church is divided. It is this corruption of language which leads to the canonization of schism as a divine ordinance.

[408:1] The first proposal for such an a.s.sembly seems to be contained in an article by L. Bacon in the "New Englander" for April, 1844. "Why might there not be, ere long, some general conference in which the various evangelical bodies of this country and Great Britain and of the continent of Europe should be in some way represented, and in which the great cause of reformed and spiritual Christianity throughout the world should be made the subject of detailed and deliberate consideration, with prayer and praise? That would be an 'ec.u.menical council' such as never yet a.s.sembled since the apostles parted from each other at Jerusalem--a council not for legislation and division, but for union and communion and for the extension of the saving knowledge of Christ" (pp.

253, 254).

[409:1] See the pungent strictures of Horace Bushnell on "The Evangelical Alliance," in the "New Englander" for January, 1847, p. 109.

[410:1] James i. 27: "Pure and unpolluted worship, in the eye of G.o.d, consists in visiting widows and orphans in their tribulation, and keeping one's self spotless from the world."

[410:2] An agreement has been made, in this State, among five leading denominations, to avoid competing enterprises in spa.r.s.ely settled communities. An interdenominational committee sees to the carrying out of this policy. At a recent mutual conference unanimous satisfaction was expressed in the six years' operation of the plan.

[413:1] "Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia," vol. i., p. 63.

[413:2] Buckley, "The Methodists," p. 552.

[413:3] Thompson, "The Presbyterians," p. 308.

[415:1] If the Lutherans of America were to be united with the Presbyterians, it would be no more than was accomplished fourscore years ago in Prussia. In that case, out of 20,618,307 communicants, there would be included in the four combinations, 18,768,859.

[415:2] Dr. Carroll, "Religious Forces," p. xv.