224 HEREDITY. 



Some think that the churches of the evangelical 

 denominations are not benefited by union, if the 

 organization representing the union looks like a 

 supplementary body. But the palm needs the fingers, 

 and these are not a separate palm. The benevolent 

 associations which take care of missions on other 

 shores are fingers to the palm of the church; the 

 benevolent associations which take care of the 

 orphans and the blind and the deaf, all at the bot- 

 tom unite with the church, and are only fingers to 

 its palm. They are in no sense rivals. So our em- 

 ployment bureaus, and young men's Christian asso- 

 ciations, are in no sense rivals of the church. I am 

 not defending the idea of erecting young men's 

 Christian associations into separate churches, or of 

 making them or any other union organization in any 

 particular independent of the body of God's house, 

 any more than the fingers are independent of the 

 palm. The advocacy of such separation is all brush- 

 fire talk, and amounts to nothing. When an Amer- 

 ican evangelist is accused of holding the idea of 

 forming a new ecclesiastical order, and erecting 

 young men's Christian associations into churches, 

 the charge is only a specimen of copperhead attack 

 of a man who has foes enough ahead of him. [Ap- 

 plause.] 



There is a necessity for a union not only of 

 churches of one denomination, but of all the leading 

 denominations, if we are to have any thing like the 

 Elberfeld plan or the Germantown carried out. One 

 of the results effected at Philadelphia was a very 



