CHAPTER VII.02

What a strange state of things Paul, Cephas, and Apollos would find if they would come to the world to-day! The little tree that sprang up at Corinth has grown up into a tree like Nebuchadnezzar’s, with many of the fowls of heaven gathered into it. Suppose Paul and Cephas were to come down to us now, they would hear at once about our Churchmen and Dissenters. “A Dissenter!” says Paul, “what is that?” “We have a Church of England, and there are those who dissent from the Church.” “Oh, indeed! Are there two classes of Christians here, then?” “I am sorry to say there are a good many more divisions. The Dissenters themselves are split up. There are Wesleyans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Independents, and so on; even these are all divided up.” “Is it possible,” says Paul, “that there are so many divisions?” “Yes; the Church of England is pretty well divided itself. There is the Broad Church, the High Church, the Low Church, and the High-Lows. Then there is the Lutheran Church; and away in Russia they have the Greek Church, and so on.” I declare I do not know what Paul and Cephas would think if they came back to the world; they would find a strange state of things. It is one of the most humiliating things in the present day to see how God’s family is divided up. If we love the Lord Jesus Christ the burden of our hearts will be that God may bring us closer together, so that we may love one another and rise above all party feeling.

In repairing a church in one of the Boston wards, the inscription upon the wall behind the pulpit was covered up. Upon the first Sabbath after repairs, “little five-year-old” whispered to her mother: “I know why God told the paint men to cover that pretty verse up. It was because the people did not love one another.” The inscription was; “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”

A Boston minister says he once preached on “The Recognition of Friends in the Future,” and was told after service by a hearer, that it would be more to the point to preach about the recognition of friends here, as he had been in the church twenty years, and did not know any of its members.

I was in a little town some time ago, when one night as I came out of the meeting, I saw another building where the people were coming out. I said to a friend, “Have you got two churches here?” “Oh yes.” “How do you get on?” “Oh, we get on very well.” “I am glad to hear that. Was your brother minister at the meeting?” “Oh no, we don’t have anything to do with each other. We find that is the best way.” And they called that “getting on very well.” Oh, may God make us of one heart and of one mind! Let our hearts be like drops of water flowing together. Unity among the people of God is a sort of foretaste of heaven. There we shall not find any Baptists, or Methodists, or Congregationalists, or Episcopalians; we shall all be one in Christ. We leave all our party names behind us when we leave this earth. Oh that the Spirit of God may speedily sweep away all these miserable walls that we have been building up!

Did you ever notice that the last prayer Jesus Christ made on earth, before they led Him away to Calvary, was that His disciples might all be one? He could look down the stream of time, and see that divisions would come—how Satan would try to divide the flock of God. Nothing will silence infidels so quickly as Christians everywhere being united. Then our testimony will have weight with the ungodly and the careless. But when they see how Christians are divided, they will not believe their testimony. The Holy Spirit is grieved; and there is little power where there is no unity.

If I thought I had one drop of sectarian blood in my veins, I would let it out before I went to bed; if I had one sectarian hair in my head, I would pull it out. Let us get right to the heart of Jesus Christ; then our prayers will be acceptable to God, and showers of blessings will descend.