XIICHURCH UNITY
I have in mind a tiny country village containing one large Catholic church and four small Protestant churches—Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal. The Catholic church holds services every Sunday, every holy day and on many other occasions; these services are well attended. Although the four Protestant churches are very small they are not small enough; some of them have long periods when they are not opened at all, and the others are never crowded.
It is not surprising that there should be many sects and denominations among Protestants, for the central principle of Protestantism is individual judgment, which makes uniformity neither possible nor desirable; and, indeed, in large cities it is a good thing that we have so many and such a variety of sectarian church services.
For the variety is not in religious faith; they are all following the same religion. The varietyis in the form of worship, what I call religious etiquette.
There are many people who on account of their parentage and early associations love an elaborate ritual, with the clergy in uniform, the vested choir, etc. There are other persons, equally devout, who are repelled by ritualism; they like to see the minister in mufti and to have a service as informal and simple as possible. There are those who would be shocked by the language used by certain soap-box exhorters, but if they cannot endure these things they might remember that God has to listen to them, and take them as a compliment. Perhaps that is what is meant by the Divine Patience. These people feel religiously at home only in a dignified and elaborate service. But there are others who in a “high” church feel as if they were at an opera; their senses may be touched, but their hearts are cold. They are spectators, not worshippers.
How fortunate it is then that in every city of reasonable size every Protestant has the power of choice. If one church service or preacher “gets on his nerves” he can go elsewhere, where his precious nerves will be soothed rather than ruffled, and he can worship God with an etiquette to which he is accustomed.
When a young man and woman become engaged to be married it is extremely probable that during the courtship they will at one time or another discuss religion; the girl will probably ask the man for his views on the subject.
During the engagement of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, when their communications had to be mainly through the post office, she wrote out her religious views, and he immediately responded in an unequivocal manner. Four years later he used these two letters as the basis of his poemChristmas Eve. Elizabeth pointed out the various characteristics of Christian worship, from Roman Catholics to Unitarians, saying that despite the irritating features in many church services she could worship in any of them, though she preferred those of the Dissenters. She was one of those rare persons who combine the most passionate convictions with the largest tolerance. Too often religious convictions produce bigoted narrow-mindedness; too often tolerance is merely a complimentary description of indifference.
There can be, then, genuine church unity without uniformity, and I repeat that in large cities this is well.
But there are, anyhow, two instances where Protestant churches should combine and agreeon uniformity as well as on unity. These two are foreign missions and small country towns. The advantage of the former needs no argument; among the many advantages of the latter is one, often overlooked. The minister can omit in his public preaching all nonessential parts of his belief and confine his preaching sermons to the very heart of the Gospel.
I have the best of reasons for knowing this can be successfully accomplished, because in the small corner of Michigan where I am now writing we manage it every Sunday afternoon.
Huron City, on the nail of the “thumb” in Michigan, was in 1865 a very much larger town than it is today. In the old times of lumbering, when the vast pine forests came down to the shore of Lake Huron, this Huron City was a scene of fierce and profitable activity. But after the terrible forest fires of 1871 and 1881 the whole region passed from a timber to an agricultural district, not without difficulty. Gradually the people left and in most cases literally took their houses with them. Today Huron City has no post office, no railroad, no telegraph. It is composed of a schoolhouse, a Methodist church, a general store, a community house, two or three farmers’ dwellings and our summer home. I love it with all my heart.
Every year the Methodist pastor, who has two churches besides this one under his charge, yields me the courtesy of his Huron City Methodist pulpit for the summer, and here we have a service every Sunday afternoon to which farmers and “resorters” come from many miles around.
The point that I wish to emphasise is that in all isolated communities like this it is not only desirable but possible for members of widely different churches and denominations to unite. In order to find out how many religious sects were represented in the audience we distributed cards on which the members of the congregation were asked to write their names, home town and church. Here are the results on the last three Sundays:
Adventists, 2; Baptists, 57; Roman Catholics, 42; Community churches, 11; Congregational, 39; Episcopalian, 83; Evangelical, 30; Jew, 6; Latter Day Saints, 6; Lutheran, 29; Methodist, 549; Moravian, 1; Presbyterian, 170; German Reform, 13; Christian Scientist, 12; Swedenborgian, 2; Unitarian, 3; Universalist, 1; United Brethren, 1; United Church of Canada, 4; members of no church, 8.