T 
 
 . .. - 
 
 i E 
 
 
 CHURCH OF THE FUTURE; 
 
 AN ESS AY, 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A TERRIBLE ARRAIGNMENT 
 
 / 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIANIZATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 present aqe, 
 
 from which and from other CONSIDERATIONS IS ARGUED 
 
 THE NEED OF 
 
 A NEW ERA, - 
 
 WHICH IS ANNOUNCED AS CERTAIN AND BELIEVED TO BE 
 
 IMMINENT. 
 
 Published by the C. M. Mission Society, 
 817 NORTH forty-fifth STREET, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 1889. 
 
CURRENT OPINIONS. 
 
 In a speech delivered in New York City at the annual met 
 ing of the National W. C. T. U. of 1888, Miss Frances t 
 
 L. 
 
 me: oi me iNaLiundi w. a. \ , w c 
 
 Willard referring to the action of the late Methodist Conference 
 in New’ York, which refused to admit women delegates, is re¬ 
 ported to have used the following language, which is given some¬ 
 what condensed ; 
 
 “What shall be done about it? is everywhere the question. 
 Many letters and consultations with men and women high in 
 church circles develop a plan somewhat like this : an organization 
 to be formed called the Church Union, made up of those who are 
 unwilling longer to leave inoperative the protest of their souls 
 against I government of the church by its minority ; this Church 
 Union to be open to any and all who will subscribe to the Apos¬ 
 tles’ Creed and the triple pledge of total abstinence, anti-tobacco 
 and social purity ; none of the members obliged to leave a church 
 to which they now belong in order to join this ; men and women 
 to be on terms of perfect equality, and women to be regularly 
 licensed and ordained. But for myself I love my mother church 
 so well, and recognize so thoroughly that the base and body m 
 the great pyramid she forms is broader than the apex that I would 
 fain give her a little time in which to deal justly with the great 
 host of her loving, loyal and devoted daughters. I would wait 
 four years longer in profound hope and prayer. I say this frankly 
 from my present outlook, though so often urged, and not a httte 
 tempted and sometimes quite determined to take a new departure. 
 
 “ The time will come, however, and not many years from now 
 when if representation is still denied us, it will be our solemn 
 duty to raise once more the cry ‘ Here I stand; I can do no 
 other ^ 
 
 In his article on “The New Reformation,” in the Nov., ’88, Cen¬ 
 tury Magazine, Rev. Lyman Abbott says, summarizing the teach¬ 
 ings of John Calvin : “There is, he says no King but ^e; no 
 father but one. He alone is the universal King, the All-Father. 
 Kings and hierarchies do but play at law-making ; He is the only 
 lawgiver. . . . From Him all authority comes ; m Him all au¬ 
 thority centres ; to Him all allegiance is due ; His will is the final, 
 ultimate, absolute fact in the Universe. . . . This is Calvmisrn— 
 
 the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty ; to be read m the light of the 
 age against whose dormant anarchy, awakening later m the 
 French Revolution, it was a solemn protest Nor can we say 
 even now in the United States of America, with its shallow doc¬ 
 trine of popular sovereignty, its cry oi vox popult, vox det, \is 
 egotism of democracy, its dead sea fruit of Anarchic Social¬ 
 ism that there is no need to listen to and heed this protest of a 
 solemn voice reaffirming the sublime doctrine of the ancient He¬ 
 brew prophets and itself reaffirmed by the the least religiously- 
 minded of modern historians.—/. A. Froude.” 
 
The Church of the Future. 
 
 FOUR GRAND EPOCHS. 
 
 The grand periods of church organization and development 
 have occurred within an interval of seventeen to nineteen hun¬ 
 dred years. Following the Septuagint chronology we have the 
 ,following dates which stand at the commencement of eras : 
 
 In the time of the birth of Enos we read that “ then men began 
 to call on the name of the Lord.” This was in the year of the 
 world 435. 
 
 From this date to the preaching of Noah to the antediluvian 
 world was 1900 years. 
 
 From the preaching of Noah to the giving of the law on Mount 
 Sinai, 1700 years. 
 
 From the giving of the law to the crucifixion of Christ i 8 ^a 
 years. 
 
 From the crucifixion of Christ to the present time, 1855 years. 
 
 From this statement it appears that throughout the period of 
 human history a radical and far-reaching change in church de¬ 
 velopment has taken place in periods of 1700 to 1900 years. 
 
 The Mosaic dispensation commenced 1834 years before the 
 crucifixion of Christ. As a consequence we stand further from 
 Christ than Christ stood from Moses. Four thousand years of 
 human history preceded the Mosaic dispensation, and only three 
 thousand seven hundred and fifty-five years have succeeded it. 
 If Moses was the schoolmaster to bring the world to Christ, the 
 infant church was nearly four thousand years old before it reached 
 the age suitable for such instruction ; and on this basis of develop¬ 
 ment the church of all ages cannot be said to have reached middle 
 life, and is just old enough to enter upon the activities of mature 
 and vigorous manhood. ‘ 
 
 A NEW ERA. 
 
 ^ If we may infer anything from the periodicity mentioned, it is 
 time for another great religious revolution—not a revival or 
 
6 
 
 , proportion of all the active Christian faith and zeal of the world, 
 and that is saying a great deal; for, probably, with all our faults 
 f and short-comings, there never was an era of greater enlighten- 
 j ment, or an era when there were so many ruled by the spirit of 
 the gospel of Christ. 
 
 Protestantism has had 400 years of development, and has an 
 honorable record. The great Lutheran, Presbyterian, and re¬ 
 formed bodies generally, have done noble service for Christ and 
 humanity. And the later Methodist body has a single century’s 
 record perhaps unequaled by any branch of the church during so 
 short a time. These communions have planted and nourished ' 
 missions, and have given a small portion of the wealth which God 
 has conferred upon them for Christian use at home and abroad. . 
 They have released the Scriptures from long ages of bondage, 
 translated them into all languages, and given them wings to fly 
 abroad throughout the earth bearing the everlasting gospel. They 
 have done their share in releasing the human mind from bondage, 
 and have made education honorable and intelligence respectable. 
 They have founded States, and the greatest nation in the world ; 
 and have impressed upon modern civilization many of the divine 
 precepts, increasing a spirit of humanity, tolerance, peace and 
 good will to men. 
 
 These churches have given more light, more law, more liberty 
 than the world had ever before known. Volumes have been 
 written, and other volumes shall yet be written in proof of the 
 greatness and importance of the Protestant form of faith, and we 
 praise God for its glorious record. 
 
 And yet Protestantism has its errors and weaknesses, as will, I 
 think, appear, as we consider the present condition of Christianity 
 in Protestant countries. Protestant communities, one and all, 
 deny too largely their responsibility to human society and gov¬ 
 ernment. As a result we have had a Christian people with most 
 unchristian governments ; and the world has felt the force of our 
 civilization much more than the force of our Christianity. 
 
 CHWfteiw’TJWroisr. 
 
 The Lord Jesus prayed for Wdisciples “That they may all be 
 one ; as thou. Father, art in n^eSmd I in thee ; that they also may 
 
7 
 
 \be in us ; that the world may believe that thou didst send me.” 
 Tl;^ broken unity of Christendom dates bapx to the early Chris- 
 tian'vcenturies, and every century since has increased rather than 
 lessened the divisions. 
 
 The 'differences that separate those who hold professedly the 
 same he^ are in some cases funda0iental, and in all cases 
 sufficient td-keep their adherents in ^parate organizations. If 
 anyone is valii enough to imagine that these differences can be so 
 far removed a^.to bring Christians together, they are confronted 
 by the fact tha^ no progress has' been made in this direction 
 •throughout the ages. But this is not the strongest reason for 
 regarding such union impossible. It is impossible because truth 
 and purity are both essential to union, and neither the unifying 
 truth nor the freedom from prejudice can be found. Every Christ¬ 
 ian sect has doubtless a share of the great vitalizing elements of 
 the faith. Without this thw could not exist; but they cannot step 
 over the barriers that separate them from one another. No great 
 divided bodies of people have ever been brought together or ever 
 can be brought together by n^ierely deciding to leap over the 
 mountains that separate them or bridge their swollen streams. 
 We might as well exp^t the nations of Europe to come together 
 and form one nation, throwing asidg the past and forgetting the 
 feuds of ages. They/will not do it; ^l^ey cannot do it. But they 
 can come to Amerioh, and here, on this^^broad and free continent, 
 they forget their past and labor for a nev^^civilization. 
 
 So it is in the case of the separated churches. A new standard 
 of faith, presenting broader views of truth and duty, a freer realm, 
 a more gloriou^eritage once offered to the Ǥouls of men, and 
 they come together from every sect and every 6reed and labor in 
 harmony to b^ild up the one and only kingdom of ever blessed 
 holy One. I am told that such a realm does rioit exist, that 
 there is no ^here of truth or duty not spanned by th^phurches 
 that are, I answer, such a country exists and God made X The 
 smiles of hp countenance light it; the sun of his righteo^ness 
 warms it and makes it fruitful; and there most undoubtedly^Will 
 gather his! chosen ones, realizing that church unity heretofore 
 sought in vain. 
 
 2. The corruptions and abuses which prevail, and which the 
 
8 
 
 church as now constituted is powerless to restrain, much less to 
 eradicate. 
 
 Here we need some standard of excellence, and what standard 
 can a Christian take except that setup by Christ and his Apostles? 
 
 Certainly any lower standard is unchristian and unworthy of us. 
 
 We have a right to ask for and expect the “ fruits of the spirit,” 
 
 ^ and a disavowal of the ” works of the flesh.” We have a right to 
 insist that, if the church cannot control all abuses she shall oppose 
 all, and sanction none ; that she shall separate herself from work¬ 
 ers of iniquity. 
 
 I As the field is vast I shall confine myself to American social* 
 and civil life, leaving for others the task of treating other Protest¬ 
 ant Christian countries. And here I can only draw a few sketches,. 
 for I attempt a work requiring volumes for its complete treatment 
 instead of the fraction of a brief discourse. Allow me to illustrate 
 the subject as it has appeared in the light of our great social 
 epochs, which have brought to the surface vices and virtues in a 
 strong light. 
 
 When, a generation ago, the churches of the South accepted 
 slavery as just and right, sought to defend it by Scripture teaching 
 and incorporate it as a prominent factor in their form of civiliza¬ 
 tion ; when they tolerated, not only its existence, but its abuses ; 
 
 I separated from the communion of sister churches rather than 
 i listen to their Christian admonitions ; and concluded their folly 
 , and wickedness by joining in an open revolt against the best and 
 : freest government the world has ever seen, it became manifest s 
 
 that the salt in that church “had lost its savor.” And when, in the 
 desperate struggle that followed, we see barbarities scarcely 
 equalled in modern times, we see evidences of a condition of bar¬ 
 barism that the church was unable to control or unwilling to grap¬ 
 ple with. And the church of the North shares the guilt and the 
 disgrace. If she had done her duty, and had done it in the right 
 ' spirit, she could have saved the church of the South ; or, failing 
 in that, could have exonerated herself. But as it was, her selfish, 
 dilatory, time-serving spirit, and her selfish policy, was just as 
 conspicuous as the weakness of the Southern brethren. I have 
 sometimes thought that the church of the North was more to blame, 
 
 , having less to blind it, and being controlled by the pure love of 
 
 •r. 
 
9 
 
 mammon, without those social prejudices which gave some shadow ■ 
 of excuse to Southern churches. It is at least certain now that 
 both were to blame. They were either unable or unwilling to 
 cope with the evil. Sin brought forth death, and we were fear¬ 
 fully, but justly, punished for our sins. 
 
 THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 
 
 But I will go back four hundred years for an illustration of a 
 different character. The corrupt Roman hierarchy had become 
 ■ enslaved by mammon, and the lust for gain, and was intent upon 
 raising revenue, no matter at what sacrifice. Tetzel was author¬ 
 ized to sell indulgences to commit all manner of crimes for a 
 stipulated sum of money. The still uncorrupted heart of the 
 German people uttered an effective protest, and Luther gave 
 voice to the general indignation against a rotten hierarchy. We 
 respond to this, and say “Well done.” We stand amazed at the 
 corruption of the Roman church and its willingness to foster crime 
 for reward, and “frame iniquity by a law.” And yet in this year , 
 of grace, four hundred years later in the history of the church and ! 
 the world, the people of America and England deliberately con- ( 
 sent to debauch their sons and their daughters by licensing the j 
 sale of alcoholic liquors, in full knowledge of the fact that in so J 
 doing we are licensing all crimes, and opening the way for all j 
 abuses ; knowing that in doing so we cripple the church and the ’ 
 school, and blast our civilization; entirely cognizant of the fact 
 that in this we take the devil’s side against the Lor 4 , crucify 
 Christ afresh and put him to an open shame. A thousand Tetzels 
 with indulgences for sin were a vastly less evil than two hundred 
 thousand venders of alcoholic poisons. 
 
 And what has the church done? It has feebly remonstrated. 
 
 It has cautiously intimated that the traffic was not a proper one 
 for church members to take part in. It has mildly admitted that 
 it was not in accordance with the spirit of the gospel, and that if 
 left wholly uncontrolled it might be dangerous to the community. 
 
 It has sought to mitigate the evil; not to eradicate it. To mollify 
 the curse ; not to end it. On some rare occasions it has, indeed, 
 assumed a stronger tone ; and has actually, in words, appeared to 
 speak for truth and righteousness. But when we looked for the 
 
lO 
 
 result in action we have always been disappointed. We look in 
 vain for the righteous indignation which should smite such a sin 
 as with a blast of the breath of the Almighty. Up to the present 
 writing a large majority of the professed Christians of America 
 give their influence directly to the perpetuation of the evil. They 
 sit in council with rumsellers ; nominate them to their highest 
 civil offices, and elect them when nominated. They even submit 
 to their dictation as though they were born to be lords over God’s 
 heritage, instead of being regarded as the impersonations of the 
 kingdom of darkness—which they really are. And while not wil¬ 
 ling to guarantee to the rumseller a place in the kingdom of 
 heaven, they do not scruple to make him the custodian of their 
 church funds and the director of the church in temporal matters. 
 To my mind this shows a degree of practical wickedness in the 
 church never exceeded in any age. If the Roman church has any 
 stains of deeper hue I do not know where to find them. If she 
 was ever more completely under the power of evil it would be 
 interesting to have the time and place specified. The church of 
 Rome has at least taught that it was its duty to control abuses. 
 We have weakly and wickedly denied our obligations in civil 
 affairs , while, as Christians, we are the dupes of demagogues, and 
 the willing tools of designing and wicked men. If this is progress 
 towards the perfection of the church, surely it can only be true 
 in the sense that the darkest hour is just before the day. 
 
 It would be easy to extend such illustrations of our mammon 
 worship, ^hich alone could make such things possible. But I 
 must hasten to mention some other points; for we have merely 
 grazed the surface of our national sins, which cannot be separated 
 from the sins of the church ; for the church is responsible, whether 
 she chooses to consider herself so or not, for the civilization which 
 is the product of her activity, or want of activity. 
 
 THE SOCIAL EVIL. 
 
 ‘ There are other things which detract from the purity of the 
 church. There are wounds and bruises and putrefying sores ” 
 on what should be the fair and pure body of the bride, which 
 make her quite unfit for the marriage of the great day. Concen¬ 
 trated in some of our Western Territories, in Utah and neighbor- 
 
ti 
 
 ing sections, ate plague spots, which merely typify or illustrate the 
 social vices prevailing throughout Christendom. They could not 
 exist there but for the corrupt condition of society which makes 
 even their enormities seem excusable. I leave this part of the 
 subject for abler pens. Those who care for information will not 
 have far to seek it. I only bring it into the evidence. But this 
 social vice is an issue that must, at no very distant day, be met by ^ 
 the church ; and this demon will die hard, harder than the demon 
 of alcohol ;(and what ruin it may work before being exorcised 
 who can tell? Against this vice the church is just as powerless 
 as against the liquor traffic, and more silent. She upholds all the 
 evils of rum by licensing the sale ; so she upholds the evils of the | 
 social vice by-maintaining those institutions which are consecrated ; 1 
 ■^TheTunholyriflffi, as nearly all our places of public amusement 
 are: theatres, operas and public balls. Such places;exist as much 
 for ministering to such unholy rites as the worship' of Baal and 
 Ash^roth among the heathen nations existed to this end. And, 
 liquor traffic is the hot-bed of drunkenness and the crimes 
 that follow from it, so our theatres, operas and dance halls are the 
 hot-beds of social vices ; the hatching place of social crimes. 
 
 None of the great social abuses could exist except with the 
 consent of the church. She is able, if she cared to do rt, to put 
 them away. She does not care to do it and they remain. A church 
 that does not desire the social and moral purity that the gospel ^ 
 enjoins is not a church of the Lord Jesus Christ. A church that 
 limits itself to the effecting of an insurance policy on the life to 
 come is a church whose policy of life insurance is not worth pur- j 
 chasing. 
 
 A recent writer, treating of the subject of Christian morality 
 and the duty of the church to society, says : “Our future treat¬ 
 ment of moral questions must be social rather than individual. 
 This last conclusion brings us face to face with one of the most 
 marked and injurious characteristics of the present time. The 
 Christian church in all its branches feels the currents of the new 
 national life slowly and imperfectly. Their declension has been 
 so marked that it has been recently charged against them by an 
 able editor, who wrote in sorrow rather than anger, that he was 
 unable to recall a single instance where conversion or joining the 
 
12 
 
 church has been followed by a vigorous, healthy, earnest, Christ- 
 like denunciation of the evils which lie at the base of society, or 
 ' of a continued and persistent effort to overthrow or even to under¬ 
 stand the causes which are sending thousands to untimely graves, 
 filling jails and asylums and state prisons with broken and dis¬ 
 honored images of Christ, and piuch less slowly than surely under¬ 
 mining the temple of liberty ahd justice the world over.” 
 
 And this is Protestant Christianity, the cream of Christian life. 
 
 We have before looked throughout Christendom in^vain to find 
 much of excellence outside of Protestant Christianity, and we find 
 a very poor showing here. What else has Christianity to show 
 us? Nothing. Allow, if you please, that we have emphasized 
 the evil, and that some good remains that we have not discovered. • 
 While this is doubtless true, we have conceded itftch of excellence^ \ 
 to our churches historically and have said thrA mey hold in their 
 communions nearly all the moral force of the nation. But all this 
 good is hopelessly handicapped with evil. There needs and must 
 come a separation before the church will be ready for any aggres- 
 sive work against sin. 
 
 * THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON. 
 
 What is the cause of all this sin and consent to sin on the part 
 of the church, where we should expect to find purity ? I have 
 striven long and earnestly to solve this problem, and have given 
 many years of profoundest inquiry to the subject ; and I am thor- 
 
 1 ' oughly persuaded that the one corrupting influence which neu¬ 
 tralizes all the virtues of the church, and betrays it everywhere 
 into sin, is the worship of mammon. It is for mammon’s sake 
 that every abuse is tolerated, and the vilest men exalted to high 
 places. It is for the sake of worldly pride and worldly influence 
 that corrupt men are welcomed into the church ; or, where their 
 vices are too odious to make this possible, that such men are 
 made “the custodians of the temporal interests” of the church. 
 
 It is the worship of mammon that thrusts the pious poor man aside 
 that the voluptuous may take all the places of honor. It is the worship 
 of mammon that gives vice encouragement and degrades virtue ; 
 that leads a professedly Christian people to debauch their sons and 
 daughters by licensing the sale of rum, and that pollutes its trea- 
 
^3 
 
 sury with the price of blood. It is the worship of mammon that 
 upholds grinding monopolies, and denies that common justice 
 and regard for the common welfare which is the very corner-stone 
 of our free republic. 
 
 That the church of the present day is a partner in much of this 
 iniquity some will deny, especially the priest of mammon and his 
 faithful devotees. That they will deny it is a matter of course ; 
 for this god is worshiped by the church not openly, but by stealth, 
 by every man “ in the chambers of his imagery,” as so graphically 
 described by the prophet Ezekiel in the 8th chapter of his prophecy. 
 And yet, while secret in its worship of mammon, the church is 
 not secret in its union with those outside of the church who openly 
 build altars to this idol. Like the kings of Judah, the church 
 makes alliances with the idolatrous kings of the false Israel, and 
 their priests fraternize and join the worship of Jehovah with the 
 worship of Baal. The priest of mammon sits without rebuke in 
 the convocations of the godly ; nay, is welcomed there, often the 
 most honored and most welcome guest; and the special zeal of the 
 times is to so perfect this union that it shall be eternal. In this 
 way the God of love is rapidly being dethroned from the control 
 of the Christian conscience, and the god of power, of lust and 
 rapine is set up in his place. 
 
 COMPROMISE WITH SIN. 
 
 As a people we have never once in our history touched a moral 
 question in a Christian method. We have never once risen above 
 those paltry and wicked compromises with evil which show our 
 consciousness of the sin, and our urLillingness to abandon it. 
 And what is worse is the fact that our leading men in the church 
 endorse this plan as sagacious and wise, anc^take pride in their 
 superior shrewdness in thus being able to serve both God and 
 mammon, to retain their rich pulpits and rich but godless commu¬ 
 nicants, save themselves from the odium of denouncing sin or 
 preaching righteousness ; and thus gain all the worldly advantages 
 of present success, with the secret intention of going over to the 
 other side whenever the self-sacrifice of men who truly fear God 
 shall so far open the way that they can do it without personal 
 sacrifice or with the added advantage of worldly promotion. 
 
This being the policy of the leaders in church and state, it is 
 not at all wonderful that their followers should take the same 
 course, and put self first and God last; self first and humanity 
 last; self first and righteousness, truth and holiness last—or not 
 at all. 
 
 In this way every evil has been augmented by moral cowardice. 
 God has spoken once, yea twice, in the history of this nation ; 
 and the hardened consciences of these men defy him just as of 
 old. A million of lives and seven thousand millions of dollars 
 were sacrificed to this spirit of selfishness in the slave-holders’ 
 rebellion ; which, but for the concurrent wickedness of the North 
 as well as the South, would have been impossible. And now, 
 rather than do righteousness, a wicked church is willing to incur 
 the divine displeasure and run the risk of vastly greater sacrifice 
 of blood and treasure. I do not see how it will come, but that it 
 will come I have no doubt. I know of nothing in human history 
 that so fittingly illustrates our position and our peril as the history 
 of the kings of Israel and of Judah during those terrible years of 
 decline that followed the reign of Solomon and ended with the 
 carrying away into Babylon. If national disasters of equal mag¬ 
 nitude do not reach us it will not be because we are less guilty, 
 but because God, in his infinite mercy, has found some means of 
 escape for a guilty people. The rum traffic is our Ba al, and lust 
 is our Ashteroth ; and our worship of those is no less conspicuous 
 and marked than was the worship of those divinities in ancient 
 Israel and Judah. We should not deceive ourselves with the idea 
 that we are innocent because only a small minority worship these 
 bestial divinities, while a respectable majority protest. The pro¬ 
 testing majority is too smallj^nd its protestations too feeble to 
 arrest the divine displeasure. Israel and Judah reformed and 
 compromised generation after generation, and sunk continually 
 lower until they were destroyed. Whether we shall reach the 
 same end remains to be seen, but there is a striking resem¬ 
 blance to their course in everything we do. Like them we are 
 aWays reforming and every generation sinking lower than the 
 p^ceding generation was in its regard for virtue. What the end 
 will be I will not venture to prophesy. 'But of one thing we may 
 be sure, and that is that we have reached nothing in the way of 
 
15 
 
 reformation that guarantees at all any hope of prosperity ; and, if 
 such hope has anything to rest on, it is in something vastly beyon'^ 
 anything yet attempted, or in the “uncovenanted mercies ( 
 
 God.” 
 
 THE GREAT MISSIONARY FAILURE. 
 
 3. The wants of heathen nations, who are cursed by the vices 
 of our civilization more than they are benefited by an emasculated 
 .Christianity. 
 
 Our missions are but a small part of our influence abroad. It ‘ 
 is our commerce that is the great factor in the spread of our civil¬ 
 ization. We are judged, not by what our missionaries say, but 
 by what our merchants do. Our religion is judged in the light of 
 our morality and in the degree in which it has molded our nation 
 and people. What reason have we to ask heathen nations to dis¬ 
 tinguish between our practices and our professions? We judge 
 heathen nations, not by the precepts in their sacred books, but by 
 what we see of their daily life, and the influence of those teach¬ 
 ings upon the people. So we are judged, and so we shall be 
 judged, despite any explanations which we may try to make; and 
 what they see of the American and foreign residents in their com¬ 
 mercial ports or in our great cities does not commend it. 
 
 We are told that in Constantinople the Mohammedans say when ■/ 
 they see a drunkard that he has “left Mahomet and gone to 
 Jesus.” With Christian countries all under the curse of rum it is 
 not a very strange inference that drunkenness is a part of our 
 religion ; and there are not wanting those in this country who 
 deliberately take this outrageous position without the excuse 
 which the Mohammedan can offer for failing to make a proper 
 distinction between our theories and our practice. 
 
 So, in my judgment, we shall be judged by our morality rather 
 than by any theories of a philosophical nature in the eyes of the 
 heathen world; and if we fail to control vice at home we may 
 throw to the winds our hope of converting the world to Christ. 
 
 If sensuality is to rule Christian lands the heathen nations will 
 prefer their own forms of sensuality to ours. Witness further, 
 on this last point, the curse inflicted on Africa by the sale of rum; 
 
i6 
 
 and the depopulation of the islands of the Pacific which have suf- 
 fer ed from a contact with our civilization. 
 
 4. The despair of present methods of Christian work, and their 
 want of effectiveness in bringing to the front in human society 
 the best elements of Christian life and character, especially in 
 view of the imminence of the final great battle for truth and 
 righteousness. 
 
 The result of Christian work in the past is certainly not alto¬ 
 gether satisfactory. There does not seem to have been much of 
 the ripened fruit of Christian character or culture. We have not 
 yet reached the realization of the hopes of the Christian fathers. 
 Our ideal of excellence is clearly beyond the results achieved. All 
 the prophecies both of the Old Testament and the New point us 
 to something more perfect in Christian development than we have 
 yet reached. 
 
 The church, strong in numbers, is weak in consecration. It 
 stands paralyzed in the presence of evil, charmed by the wily 
 serpent who has so long befooled the human race. The 
 church studies the arts of peace ; peace at any price, at any 
 sacrifice, at any neglect of its most sacred duties. It has no use 
 for the weapons which Paul said, in his day, were mighty through 
 God to the pulling down of the strongholds of sin and Satan. It 
 has made no preparation for a warfare with sin, for it has no in¬ 
 tention of waging any warfare. It is evident, and will appear 
 evident to any one who will give the subject consideration, that 
 this warfare will be fought not by the churches, but by Christians 
 who have grace enough to come out from them and stand up for 
 truth and righteousness. The church attacks no evil, but yields 
 to all with no resistance or with the merest pretence of resistance. 
 But were she willing to enter into any such warfare she is wholly 
 unprepared for it. The modern church was not organized to 
 represent the church militant. It seems to have been built on 
 a peace basis. Unable to coax men to come to her sacred stand¬ 
 ard, she has condescended, for the sake of worldly advantage, to 
 go to the world, and to meet it more than half way. Have we 
 not reason to despair of the present methods of Christian work ? 
 
 The church is not merely unwilling to attempt the work of 
 reform, but it is incompetent. It cannot do any one of a thou- 
 
17 
 
 sand things that are demanded of the church of the future. The 
 new wine must be put into new bottles. Those who imagine 
 that the work to be done can be done by the present churches 
 have a very inadequate idea of the work demanded. 
 
 We have had an era of profound peace with evil. I believe there , 
 is nothing that the church of the present day fears so much as to , 
 disturb Satan. It cares little whether the Lord of life and glory 
 is pleased or displeased ; but it is profoundly solicitous as to hoAV 
 the Devil shall take its action. If he should be displeased and 
 fail to endorse its policy, there would be trouble m the church 
 at once. And this is true of all branches of the church. It is not 
 for Protestants to charge this upon Catholics, or Catholics to 
 charge it upon Protestants, or members of the Greek communion. 
 All are guilty before God. I have never once seen any decided 
 action of the church against the arch enemy of souls. Now there \ 
 are in all branches of the church good and true men who person- j 
 ally oppose the Devil, and many of them imagine that the church , 
 of their choice does the same thing. They will not endorse the 
 above language, for they are not instructed. They know that. 
 they, individually, mean to conquer sin; and, with what they 
 regard as Christian charity, attribute their own virtue to the 
 church to which they belong. They have become accustomed to 
 excuse defects, and to endorse compromises with evil, until their 
 consciences are not offended ; and having no higher ideal, they are 
 satisfied. But there are others who are gradually becoming aware 
 of the real conditions of the problem ; who are asking what the 
 church is doing or trying to do ; who are dissatisfied with hollow 
 truces and perpetual peace with evil ; who believe that the king¬ 
 dom of heaven is more than meat and drink. There are those 
 who begin to look abroad upon the nations and who have caught 
 some conception of the “ solidiarity of humanity.” They begin 
 at last to see that individual religion will not save society, and 
 that a man is responsible for the systems of iniquity which he 
 upholds. There are those who have some little conception of the 
 relations of religion to society and to human government, to social 
 usages, and to all those questions upon which the happiness and 
 prosperity of the toiling millions rest. 
 
 They have, in other words, a higher ideal of excellence than 
 
i8 
 
 that which they see realized in government, in social usages, and 
 in the spirit and aims of modern society. They cannot regard the 
 selfish apathy of so-called Christian people as really Christian. 
 They wish to see the spirit of Christ dictate, as it does not now 
 dictate, social and civil life. They know that it would soon 
 banish the horrible evils to which we have become so accustomed 
 as to look upon them with indifference. They see that vice and 
 crime is an outgrowth as much of false aims in society as of weak¬ 
 ness in individuals. They see that the poverty and unrest of 
 millions is unnecessary and unchristian. They see heavy burdens 
 bound upon the poor which our ruling classes are unwilling “to 
 touch with one of their fingers.” They see a low order of virtue, 
 base and worldly aims, sensuality and ignorance, where a higher 
 order of virtue, Christian aims and intelligent Christian action are 
 called for by the spirit of our religion and all the sacred claims of 
 God upon us. 
 
 At the close of nineteen centuries of Christian endeavor we are 
 able to count so many millions of those who are known as Chris¬ 
 tians, or live in lands whose governments acknowledge Chris¬ 
 tianity. It matters little to our argument how many millions are 
 counted. The only test of value is the character of the civiliza¬ 
 tion of nominally Christian countries and the individual character 
 of the people. We have seen that the civilization represented is 
 shockingly low, when taken at its best. Of its darker phases, as 
 seen in despotic Russia, in Austria, Roumelia and Turkey, it would 
 be impossible to treat intelligently here. Long study and careful 
 research can alone uncover the dark places filled with the habita¬ 
 tions of cruelty, which do much towards keeping heathenism in 
 countenance, and which show that Christianity must be something 
 more than a name before the glories of the millennial era can be 
 ushered in. In Germany, Sweden, Norway, England and America, 
 we find more intelligence and, let us hope, more of the spirit of 
 Jesus. And we will find in all Christian countries some real Chris¬ 
 tians ; some whose lives correspond, as nearly as their surround¬ 
 ings render it possible, with the teachings of Christ as they 
 understand those teachings. “ Many shall come from the East 
 and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” But how few ! alas, how lew ! 
 
19 
 
 When we take the most hopeful view of the case, and look with 
 the largest charity and construe the. divine law as leniently as we 
 . dare construe it, the really true and conscientious whom we may 
 I rationally hope will be accepted among the chosen jewels of the 
 ' Son of God, are found to be few indeed. It would seem that 
 some revival of the ancient faith were indeed a thing to be prayed 
 for, hoped for, longed for. 
 
 There are many things at present which remind us of the era 
 which ushered in the Gospel dispensation. The influx of modem 
 spiritism is a most significant event. Whether for good or evil, 
 ‘ whether true or false, it has stirred to new conceptions of life 
 millions of people. It has gone down to the atheist and has 
 awakened in him conceptions of a future life before despaired of. 
 Though but a faint glimmering, it has given light upon the path of 
 life to large classes of people who were before neglected, who, 
 for one cause or another, had cut themselves off from church re¬ 
 lations, and were drifting without even a star to light them over 
 the dim unknown of an ocean they were compelled to cross. 
 
 THE CHURCH BEHIND THE AGE. 
 
 It is not the church which is moved, so much as the world of 
 mankind. And so it was in the times of Christ. The great heart 
 of universal humanity beats with new hopes, and the minds of 
 men are plastic, awaiting new revelations, ready to be molded 
 into new forms of excellence, to take on new forms of thought and 
 new modes of action. So we stand to-day for the first time during 
 the Christian ages where Paul and the other Apostles stood ; we 
 see the same or greater developments of moral forces. And this 
 new life did not begin yesterday. For several generations it has 
 been agitating the nations. As a Christian poet has well sung, 
 
 “ ’Tis an age on ages telling. 
 
 To be living is sublime.” 
 
 A State of expectancy has been created which must come to 
 some grand result or leave a sense of disappointment that would 
 of itself paralyze all Christian endeavor. Instead of speaking of 
 an era to come, it would be more accurate to speak of an era 
 
20 
 
 already come, and well advanced towards the perfect day. The 
 sun of this new day is already far above the horizon. But alas! it is. 
 not a morning without clouds. Fogs and darkness hang around 
 it. It reminds one of some mornings in spring, when the hills are 
 tinged with a radiance of glory and the brightest of mornings is 
 dawning. But before the sun has fairly risen, storm-clouds gather 
 in the sky and obscure the brightness. So in the case of this new 
 day. The gathering storms have, for a time, obstructed the com¬ 
 ing light ; and we are too much interested in the coming storm to 
 note the coming of the day. But even so this promise is signifi¬ 
 cant ; and the threatened storms do not belie the prophecy. What * 
 era ever was ushered in without social and civil convulsions ? 
 What new era ever satisfied the scribes of the old dispensation ? ‘ 
 They have personally much to lose and little to gain from the 
 overturning that must come. They have never at any time gone 
 forth with banners to meet the coming king. The lights of their 
 own invention please them better than the sun of righteousness 
 that arises with healing in his wings. So we see to-day the 
 church but little moved in the presence of these mighty forces, 
 that are raising humanity to a higher level. 
 
 In view of these facts many of our best men have come to a 
 settled despair of any success in restoring primitive Christianity, 
 much less of reaching a higher Christian ideal, through any means, 
 now at our command. 
 
 They despair not merely of the present methods of Christian 
 j work, but of the church as now organized to do any more 
 I than it has already done or is now doing; which, however 
 I beautiful in itself, is not the work demanded for the destruc- 
 y tion of organized error or the fighting of the battle of the great 
 day. 
 
 THE MILLENNIAL ERA. 
 
 But a revival of the ancient faith is not enough. We cannot 
 put the oak back into the acorn, or the man of years into the in¬ 
 fant’s cradle. The millennial era will not be a repetition of the 
 Apostolic age. It will, and must embody new characteristics, as. 
 widely separated from the condition of the infant church planted 
 by the apostles as the coming of the Son of man in the clouds witha 
 
21 
 
 power and great glory differs from his appearance to the shep- 
 Tierds as the babe of Bethlehem. We have had the flower ; we 
 look for the fruit. Or, if a new blossoming is in the order of the 
 Divine working, it is a blossoming which makes a flower garden 
 of the desert, or the genial breath of a springtime that awakens 
 all nature throughout an entire hemisphere and touches the souls 
 of millions emancipated from the drudgery of sin ; a time in which 
 whole nations shall be born in a day. 
 
 Is such an era imminent ? Are there any indications that fore¬ 
 shadow it ? What means the widespread expectation of the second 
 coming of Christ ? What means the general expectation of some 
 coming glory? The rising to higher planes of thought of the 
 millions ? The breaking down of the barriers which for ages have 
 held the nations enslaved and have separated them from others ? 
 Iron yokes of bondage that from the dawn of human history have 
 never been broken begin to yield to new and powerful influences. 
 We have come to emphasize once more the dignity of human na¬ 
 ture. Our own great country is teaching this lesson. The experi¬ 
 ment of a free government which has entered into its second century 
 is in itself preaching a gospel which is heard by the enslaved people 
 of other lands. But down deeper than this renewed political life 
 die the springs of a new social era. We stand once more in the 
 •centre of the world as Athens did of old. In our great cities all 
 nations are represented, and we begin to understand again what 
 Paul expressed so eloquently when, standing in the Acropolis in 
 queenly Athens, he said : “God hath made of one blood all na¬ 
 tions of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.’’ 
 
 What will be the effect of the preaching of a new dispensation ? 
 A higher conception of excellence will be put forth as the rule 
 and aim in life. War will be proclaimed against evil. The deadly 
 truce with sin will be broken. Thought will be awakened. Long 
 buried truths will leap to the front and be recognized. The 
 -awakened Christian conscience will soon learn to detest evils 
 which are now tolerated without question, and an army will be 
 raised to fight the battles of the Lord. The ease-loving will neg¬ 
 lect, and the carnal will oppose the movement. The church has 
 never gone forward as a unit in any reform, and we have little 
 ■reason to believe it ever will. Thejews still reject Christ, eighteen 
 
22 
 
 hundred and fifty years after they crucified him. Romanists still 
 deify the Pope. The Buddhists never exterminated the Brahmins, 
 though for many centuries they have been immensely popular, and 
 now outnumber the Christian population of the entire globe. And 
 so everywhere throughout history. There is a residuum who see 
 some good in the old, and maintain it long after God has raised a 
 higher standard. 
 
 So to-day a new standard will divide the church ; and if it failed 
 to divide it, it would do no good. It must exclude as well as 
 include. Here is where its virtue lies. 
 
 A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF, 
 
 The reason, the great reason, why we can do little in the church 
 at present, is because it is so much under the power of evil that 
 bad men in the church neutralize, and will continue to neutralize, 
 all the good attempted by the godly. They cover up their designs 
 under specious pretexts. They use honeyed words and deceive 
 good men. But in their hearts they obey Satan and study the 
 interests of his kingdom. Let any reform be proposed, these men 
 come to the front and plead for conservatism. To the full extent 
 of their influence they antagonize any forward movement against 
 evil; and they have generally influence enough to prevent action, 
 —except in special cases, where, through long and persistent 
 eflTort, some subject like the temperance question is forced upon 
 an unwilling church, until for shame’s sake, it is forced to take 
 sides against the evil. But, even in these exceptional cases, this 
 evil element hinders action and postpones indefinitely any ag¬ 
 gressive work. But in regard to the hundreds of other questions, 
 in which there is not the same chance for the aggregation of pub¬ 
 lic sentiment, this conservative element is all-powerful for evil. 
 
 The new church, on the contrary, must of necessity be a unit on 
 every moral issue. Like the church founded by John the Baptist 
 in the wilderness of Judea, and adopted by Christ, it will be a 
 church raised for moral issues ; a church that believes in practical 
 endeavor, not in sentimentality; a church into which will flow 
 naturally all the elements of good, and where good men will be 
 welcomed and have a sphere of labor which is denied them in the 
 present condition of Christianity. 
 
 The bringing together of this band of faithful men and women 
 will be in itself a mighty power for good, and with it will come 
 the Divine blessing and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. What 
 hinders the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in answer to the prayers 
 of God’s people ? Manifestly the sins for which we are made 
 responsible by our association with bad men. How were it 
 possible for the Holy Ghost to be present in churches compro¬ 
 mised with evil ? 
 
23 
 
 But we may be told that we should not be too precipitate in 
 
 should wait for the outpouring of the 
 enterprise. We may observe here that the 
 Holy Ghost did not come upon John the Baptist, and that a 
 fhpre'^^h°” later his followers had not so much as heard whether 
 foere be any Holy Ghost It was not the power of the Holy 
 Ghost m Its outward manifestation that ushered in the Christian 
 era bo we may wait till the Judgment Day before an unrepent- 
 
 ftforeseSn^^ Ghost from 
 
 ^ 1 tie obedient. 
 
 We must separate ourselves from sinners in the church. We must 
 
 tfon of tL M w‘th Satan. We must obey the injunc- 
 
 withdraw ourselves from “every brother 
 according to the comm'kndmeS 
 pven. When we shall have done these things ; when we shall 
 th repentance known through our works ; and when 
 
 ^ one accord in one place for many days 
 
 as the disciples were on the day of Pentecost, then we mav hone 
 outpouring of the spirit of power which will lead us forth 
 prepared for the conquest of the world. 
 
 the characteristics of the new era. 
 
 But what will be the characteristics of this new era ? What will 
 doctrine polity, etc. ? As to polity, it will be neithS 
 Catholic m a divisive sense, but both Protestant 
 and Catholic in the true sense of these words. In its Catholicitv it 
 will ernbrace all true Christians, and it will protest against everv 
 form of sin As to doctrine, the church of the fofuJe wfll be 
 formed on lines of character rather than belief. Still it will not 
 be liberal in the sense of those denominations that make truth and 
 error synonyrnous term.s. It will have a faith and hold it tena¬ 
 ciously. It will emphasize the claims of truth as well as of rieht- 
 eousness, knowing that only the truth can make us free It will 
 however be a liberal church in the true meaning of that woJd 
 We shall come back to the liberality of the Apostle Paul anTsav 
 with him: In every nation he that feareth God and worketh 
 nghteousness IS accepted of him.” worKetn 
 
 It will have at least two articles of faith • 
 
 I. To fear God. 
 
 II. To work righteousness. 
 
 All that is merely sacramental will vanish. Ordinances will be 
 consecrated to a higher use than that of dividing the household of 
 laith. We shall stand where good men of all pp-p<; haxrp ^ 
 
 adopt the faith of Abraham, Moses and David ; the faith of Elifoh 
 the^postles!^ ^ prophets, as well as that of Christ Ind 
 
24 
 
 The Bible will remain ; but the interpretations which have 
 divided men will be forgotten. Mystical inferences and unwar¬ 
 rantable deductions will be set aside. Jesus will retnain : but the 
 endless speculations about his person will perish ; and that ancient 
 nation, the Jews, will see in him their long looked Jor Messiah. 
 
 The Christianity of Christ, as he conceived it, is the true and 
 universal religion, never to be superseded or outgrown. It em¬ 
 bodies the Word which is, was and ever shall be, the WUKU 
 forever settled in heaven that which is true because it inheres 
 in the character of the Infinite One who changes not. We shall 
 see that religion is true as science is true, because founded on ex¬ 
 isting entities, not on speculations or suppositions, not on rnatters 
 of faith beyond knowledge, but on known facts of human life, no 
 more to be questioned than the facts of astronomy or the cos¬ 
 mogony of the earth. Of course, there must always remain some¬ 
 thing of that mystery which hangs about existence and environs 
 us at every turn ; something of that infinity which must forever be 
 beyond human limitations. There is, and must forever be a realm 
 of faith which is beyond sight. All I mean to affirm is, that the 
 verities of our holy religion, properly understood, are not less 
 certain than our knowledge of science ; the one being the outward 
 and visible and the other the inward and invisible ^pression of 
 the divine Being. For, in the church of the future, GOD \vill be 
 all in all. And, as works of science do not create but reveal what 
 IS so religion will be understood and seen to be inherent and 
 necessary ; not an outgrowth of the teachings of the Bible merely, 
 but that this holy Book itself is a mere outline of the Being who 
 is the Life of life, and whose laws encompass us, “m whom we 
 live and move and have our being that the truths of the Bible 
 are true, not because they are written but because they are a 
 transcript of what “was from the beginning with God. We 
 shall see in this the true grounds of infallibility, and transfer our 
 adoration from a book manipulated by man, to Him who is the 
 Author and Source of truth, and who is above all possibility of 
 perversion • through which we shall be able to answer those who 
 bring even the Bible into the defence of their pet schemes of 
 
 iniquity. , , , ■ r 
 
 But when and how will this new era be ushered in ? 1 answer^ 
 
 it will come in God’s own time. We may look for it, and, if God 
 wills do something to promote and hasten it; but it can come 
 only ’in God’s own time. It will come as the spring comes, break- 
 in^ the icy bands of winter, releasing ten thousand streams, and 
 awakening to life all nature. It will come as a new world comes 
 into being when the morning stars rejoice together and all the sons 
 of God shout for joy. It will come in the inspiring breath of the 
 Almighty, and the glory of our salvation will be his, all his.