THE CIUCAGO-LAUBETII ARTICLES 165 



the story of the infant Church as he finds it 



told in the New Testament, he very Boon 

 becomes sensible of what I may call — 

 using the word in the sense in which 

 one uses it of a poem or a picture, 

 — its tender and sympathetic atmo- 

 sphere. There were divisions in the 

 early Church as there were heresies and 

 rivalries ; but, brooding over all, and 

 finding expression in utterances of singu- 

 lar love and devotion, in acts of rare and 

 constant self-sacrifice, there was an atmos- 

 phere which revealed a common purpose, 

 which prized the common fellowship, which 

 strove for the common good. It breaks out 

 in such expressions as those of the great 

 apostle who, speaking of those others 

 who preached Christ from motives more 

 or less single or worthy, yet exclaims, 

 " But every way Christ is preached, and 

 therein I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." 

 Have we ever considered how tremendous 

 must have been the attractive power of this 

 pervading sentiment of loving and self- 

 \ effacing enthusiasm — oiL_a spirit tha t 

 could not forget .£hak_iha whole was 

 larger than any part, and that it was for 

 the triumph of the whole that all alike 



