Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1885 — Church Religion. [ARTICLE]

Church Religion.

"What is my opinion of church religgion ? There are two religions, one the religion of the church, and the other the religion of Christ; and, while I have all love and honor and respect for the simple beauty, noble unselfishness, and perfect charity of Christ’s religion, 1 am forced to confess that church religion does not exert upon me that influence one would suppose it should, deprived as it undoubtedly is, from Christ Himself. It has become human-* ized I think, until its Christliness is obscured, and in the effort to make its humanity artistic, it is dehumanized, and there is remaining a nondescript principle, alike unsatisfactory to God and man. There is a oonstant wail among church people that the growth of the church is slow, and they attribute it to the wickedness of the world. The world is wicked, but wickedness appreciates personal comfort i arid friendliness of meeting, and greeting and association, and that, l am sorry to say, prevails far more in wicked places than it does in the churches. The divine spirit is of course first to be considered, but the consideration of it demands the preliminary of physiqal consideration, and the church should be attractive in its people and an inducement shown distinctly, by the actions of those who profess Christ, that this religion does not stake them so aristocratic or so fasliionable or so high toned that they cannot extend the right hand of fellowship to a stranger within their gates, or the wanderer who] seeks

m i . ■ 1 • the fold. A little bit of thoughtfulness goes a long way, but it must be started before it can.go. Faith is not worth a. hill of beans if there be not works, And it is works that make the church temporal a success and transforms it. into a foundation upon which shall be built a superstructure of faith, whose towers and pinnacles lift their summits into the light of Christ's love, and whose hospitable doors are open to al,l of earth to come. Bevivalists, evangelists, and that class of religionists are successful and build up the churches, because they preach Christ’s religion, not church religion, f They belong to no church, and so assert, but they work for the church, for that is the only fold they have to put the rescued in, but they wouldn’t know their converts in a couple of years if they should meet them, and their converts wouldn't want to know them, for church fashion decries the recognition of the common herd, and represses any feeling, save cold formality. I don’t know how it will come out, and I wouldn’t want to say all these cold people would not go to Heaven, because if they went the other way, they would freeze the place over and knock the eternal fitness out of half of our hereafter.—Mrs. Brown, in Merchant Traveler. 1 . •. d