STERLING BRINGS IN HIS RESERVES.
That evening after dinner Mr. Sterling brought over his distinguished friend. Dorothy had invited Mr. Walton to return and form one of the group.
"Doctor," said Mr. Page, with a smile and a wink at Mr. Sterling, "I guess you will have to set us all straight. Mr. Walton here is about to enlist Dorothy and Mr. Sterling under the Baptist flag."
"Miss Dorothy seems to think the Bible commands her to be put under the water," remarked Sterling, "and she does not believe at all in infant baptism. She insists that these things prevent her joining our church, and she talks as if the Baptist doctrines are nearest to the doctrines which she believes the Bible to teach."
"Am I stating it correctly?" asked Sterling of Dorothy.
"Mr. Sterling is right in saying that I believe in immersion and not in infant baptism, and therefore I do not feel it would be right for me to join his church."
"May I ask why you feel that you cannot join his church?" asked the Doctor in a gracious manner.
"If I think the doctrines of the church are wrong, do you think I ought to select that as the church for me to join?"
"May I ask another question?"
Sterling's hopes rose as he saw the Doctor entering upon the discussion. He felt there could be but one result.
"Mr. Sterling has mentioned that you thought very favorably of the doctrines of the Baptists. One of the cardinal doctrines of the Baptists is religious liberty. That means they believe in the right of every individual to interpret the Scripture for himself. Do you believe in that doctrine?"
"Certainly. Don't you, Doctor?"
"I see you are putting me on the witness stand," he said with a smile. "I answer that I assuredly do believe in such individual liberty; but it seems to me that the Baptists are inconsistent. They demand individual liberty and yet they cry out against us Presbyterians because we interpret the Scriptures in a way different from them. You say, Miss Page, you cannot join the Presbyterians because of their beliefs, but I should not think that that ought to concern you. If you hold that everyone must interpret the Bible for himself, then that is what the Presbyterians are doing. In doing that they carry out the Baptist doctrine of individual accountability to God."
Sterling was delighted. It was just as he had expected. He saw in a flash that if the Baptists were true to their doctrine of religious liberty they could not demand that he change his faith, but must accord him a perfect right to his belief.
"Excuse me, Doctor," said Dorothy, "I do not think you understood me. I do not blame the Presbyterians for drawing their own conclusions about the Bible and believing just what they think the Bible teaches rather than what somebody else thinks it teaches. I grant them this right, but it does not follow that I must therefore join their church. I say let the Presbyterians follow what they consider to be the teachings of the Bible; but let me do the same and let me not feel that I must join their church."
"No, my young friend, I would not say you must join the Presbyterian church; but may I ask why you should find it impossible to join that splendid body of Christian people? If everybody must follow his own convictions of Bible teaching, would you say you cannot fellowship those who do not interpret the Bible as you do?"
"Doctor, I do not say I could not fellowship the Presbyterians, or anybody that may understand his Bible differently from me. I can respect them and believe them to be better Christians than I am. But I don't think I ought to join their church unless I believe their doctrines."
"Well, my daughter, you will never find a church with every member believing just as you believe."
"What does a denomination mean, anyhow, Doctor? Does it not mean a body of people believing a certain set of doctrines?"
"Yes."
"It seems to me to be somewhat after this fashion. I guess I have no right with my small knowledge about these things to be theorizing, and yet is it not this way? Here in the world we find a multitude of Christians. As they read the Bible some understand it one way and others understand it another way, and still others another way, and those therefore who understand it one way get together in one great company and those understanding it another way get together in another great company and so on, and these large groups are the different denominations, and this simply means that people believing alike naturally come together and fall into line under one name."
"Why, yes; that certainly sounds sensible, daughter," said Mr. Page. "I guess that those people who believe as Mr. Walton believes about baptism and other matters are called by the name Baptists, and that those who believe the doctrines that Dr. Boardman believes call themselves Presbyterians. Now of course you would not respect a person believing as the Baptists do and joining the Presbyterians. He is not a Presbyterian in belief and he ought not to call himself such nor be known as such."
"Doctor," asked Dorothy, "would you want a person to join your church if he would not accept the doctrine of your church?"
"Since I come to think of it, my fair questioner, I don't think we would take in such a person. If you cannot accept the teachings of the Presbyterian church, then probably you ought not to join, though I confess I am not as strict as some of my brethren. If a person is with us in the fundamentals, then we can overlook such minor matters as baptism and the like. I think the trouble with the Christian world today is that we are magnifying the non-essentials and neglecting the weightier truths."
"You say baptism is a minor matter?" asked Dorothy with some surprise.
"Why, certainly, my daughter. Christ himself must be pained when he sees his people so anxious about external forms rather than about matters of heart, of life."
"That greatly bewilders me, Doctor. It has been intimated several times that these matters about immersion and infant baptism and church government are minor matters, that there are other doctrines that are of greater moment; but let me ask, are we to disregard and treat these as we please? Must we not try to obey these commands as they were originally commanded and practiced? Besides, Doctor, it seems to me that this beautiful ordinance with its impressive teachings was given great prominence by Christ. His last great command to the apostles had baptism in it, and when people were converted under the preaching of the apostles the first thing they always did was to be baptized, as if baptism was one of the things that had to be done and done at once. Christ was himself baptized and he commands us to be. I don't see how you could wish it to be plainer than that. I cannot understand how a person can say that one command of Christ is not as important to be obeyed as another. When you talk that way about a command, does it not sound as if it did not make much difference whether we obeyed the command at all?"
"Well, my daughter," said the Doctor, "I glory in your zeal and courage and I bid you follow your convictions; but you must remember one thing, and that is that you will probably never find a church all of whose members believe exactly alike. Suppose you find some in the Baptist church that believe something that you do not believe. How can you conscientiously stay in with them?"
"I do not think it is a question as to what every individual member believes, but what are the doctrines by which that particular denomination is known? There are certain truths which the Baptists believe, and when you say you are a Baptist people know just what you believe. As I understand it, there are certain truths which all Christians believe, and on those points we are all one; and although we may not be in the same organization, yet I think we are like soldiers, all fighting in the army of our King."
"Yes, my daughter," said the Doctor, "we all belong to what is called the church universal."
"But," continued Dorothy, "there are other matters about which there are differences, and this makes the army break up into different regiments; but we all still have the same Commander."
"You are quite a little theologian," said the Doctor with a smile. "May I ask my young theologian a question? How do you manage to swallow the Baptist doctrine of close communion?"
"They do not seem close in their communion," promptly replied Dorothy, "not any closer than you Presbyterians."
"You surely are a valiant defender. How do you prove that?"
"You believe, do you not, Doctor, that no one ought to come to your communion table who has not first been baptized?"
"Yes, that is our rule. I certainly would not advise one who has not been baptized to come to the table."
"The Baptists believe that, too."
"But the Baptists do not think I ought to come with them, and yet I have been baptized."
"Yes, but you have not been Scripturally baptized—so the Baptists think."
"But what have they to do with my baptism? I am satisfied with it. I believe it is Scriptural. I thought the Baptists contended for individual freedom in interpreting the Bible. I follow my conscience with my Bible and decide that I must be sprinkled, and now you say the Baptists say I ought not to commune because I have not been baptized the way they prefer. In other words, the Baptists want me to interpret the Bible not as my conscience decides, but as their conscience decides. If I have followed my conscience about baptism, what more could you ask of me as to my baptism, and why should the Baptists therefore refuse me a place at their table?"
"Doctor, I don't think they refuse anybody a place at their table. I expect that is where so many people get the wrong idea about the close communion of the Baptists. Mr. Walton says that they keep no policeman at their table to keep people away. I think that is very important to remember. They believe that everybody must interpret the Bible according to his own conscience, but that does not mean that they think that everybody that does this will interpret the Bible as was originally intended. But they do leave it to every man's conscience."
"Ah, you are mistaken there, my little lady. That is just what the Baptists do not do. They do not leave it to other folks' conscience, but—"
At this point the Doctor turned to Mr. Walton and said:
"Mr. Walton, I think it is one of the calamities connected with the life of the Christian church today that so much of her energy is expended in arguing about differences rather than in discoursing on their agreements. I think denominationalism is a blight on Christianity, and if we could banish it and unite our forces, presenting a solid front to the enemy in heathen lands as well as in our own land, we would sweep the field for our Lord and Master."
"But, Doctor, how can we get rid of denominationalism?" asked Dorothy. "Can we ever get all men to think alike and to interpret the Bible alike?"
"It is not that, my daughter," said the venerable man. "We must all have our individual peculiarities, but we must subordinate these to the great mission before the church of Christ."
"What do you mean by subordinating our beliefs?" asked Dorothy. "I do not see how it weakens the Christian army for Christians to have their own individual beliefs. It seems to me it makes Christians a stronger people for them to be people of conviction and not for each one to treat Christ's commands lightly. Let us not weaken at the point of conviction in order to strengthen at the point of courtesy and friendship. Why, I should think that the greatest success would come by each denomination pressing forward along its own convictions."
"Will you let me say," remarked Mr. Walton, "that I believe that the next epoch in the life of the Christian church will be a move not towards denominational unity that is so much talked about now, but rather towards an emphasized denominationalism in the highest sense of that term? The church in her march of conquest loses rather than gains in many of her attempts at union. Mark you, I do not say in all her attempts at union, but in many of them. True denominationalism means that the Christian church falls into certain divisions according to their interpretations of the Bible. The trouble with many efforts at Christian union is that the chief effort is not towards bringing the church to one view of the Bible truth, but the pressure for union is often along the line of expediency. A thousand times better is it for each denomination to press along the path of its own individual convictions as to Bible teaching; then will each denomination be stronger. There will be higher mutual respect. Some of these denominations may be, and undoubtedly are, mistaken in many of their views, but by such loyalty they at least exalt the Bible to the loftiest place. They put the emphasis on its study, and if true union ever comes it will come from such focusing of study on the Bible. Under the light of its teaching the denominations that are in error may see and abandon their error. Intenser denominationalism in the truest sense of that word is the secret of success. When the slogan is 'one denomination as good as another', the Bible truth fades into minor importance; expediency, custom and other current considerations assume control and Christianity is the loser. If each denomination surrenders its differences in order to come together, they may find after they have come together they have not much left that is worth coming together for. If they put a light value on some of Christ's commands, the danger is that they will come to look lightly upon all of Christ's commands."