80 CnURCU UNITY 



evils are already realized. No centralized 

 embodiment of spiritual force, like " The 

 Church " of the middle ages, is available for 

 combating them. It is doubtful whether 

 the expression, " The Church," has, to the 

 ordinary man of the world, any meaning 

 whatever. If he frames a thought corre- 

 sponding with it, he probably thinks of the 

 Roman Catholic Church, which, if he is not 

 a Catholic, awakens in him no veneration, 

 lays upon his conscience no restraint, no 

 commandment. 



Yet, in the face of the perils referred to, 

 religious teachers, each in his little patch 

 of the Lord's vineyard, serenely go on, in- 

 culcating the old divisive church polity, 

 unfortunately having influence enough to 

 continue the anarchy, and even to invest 

 it, in the minds of many excellent Chris- 

 tians, with a sort of sacredness. Nine 

 tenths of the good people thus preventing 

 each other from religious usefulness no 

 doubt surmise their error, and might easily 

 be led to act differently; but, not being 

 experts in theology, they suppose their 

 present course somehow right because the 

 ecclesiastical authorities over them approve 

 it, particularly as, by sedulous begging in 



