“No more, than that the sheep and tiger, the hare and the cat are of the same family. He might believe that the tiger and the lamb might be together, but the lamb would be inside the tiger, and that there would be peace among the churches only when all the others would be in the bowels of one.
“There is a great deal made of that scripture phrase of the lion and the lamb lying down together, but each sect wishes to be the lion.
“This may be a crude way of stating the case, but is it not a fact that the Roman church will never rest until it has devoured all the others? The Anglican church and its infant in America are always crying out for unity, but is not this ever the cry, ‘Come into me?’ It ill becomes the adherents of the Church of England, that dissented from the Church of Rome, to throw stones at those who dissent from them. Each of the sects, and they all are sects, claims to be the body of Christ. What a wonderful number of bodies he must have! If they are all in one body, what a disturbed condition it must be in! If Jesus was divine, it is sacrilegious to think of all the discordant elements shut up in him, or if he was only human, still it is mortifying to think that his teaching and example should produce such a variety of beliefs and actions.
“The Roman church, to begin with, regards all others as schismatic, heretic, their clergy as lacking lawful orders, their sacraments and ordinances as null and void. The Roman church declares that its restoration to civil power is necessary, ‘that when the temporal government of the apostolic see is at stake the security and well being of the entire human family is also in jeopardy.’ This church insists that the state has no rights over anything which it declares to be within its domain, and that Protestantism being a mere rebellion, has no rights at all; that even in Protestant communities the Catholic bishop is the only lawful spiritual pastor. She claims everything.
“The Anglican church would like to affiliate with the mother church, be considered as a branch or offshoot, but the mother church will none of it. She will have no bastard children in her family. She must be all over all. The Anglican after such a snub comes with his apostolic succession and assumed divine rights, treats others as the Roman serves him. Both have their different creeds and rituals, ceremonies, millinery, exclusive consecrated churches and graveyards, in which none of the outside world may be laid to rest.
“None even can enjoy the last inheritance of mankind unless he happens to belong to their folds, they making death a sort of human judgment day, in trying to forestall the Almighty by keeping their sheep from the goats.
“And as we go on, the separations continue in almost endless variety, each sect attacking the other. Their papers or organs are full of sneers and slurs, bitter acrimonious attacks on each other, while they all assume to be of Christ. Yet they wonder that the churches do not reach the masses. What would the masses get by going into them?
“Another view. A church established by law or by some means may be considered a very respectable, proper and orthodox thing and all that, but what can it do to relieve me of my individual responsibility to God? I am not answerable to the church for the eternal welfare of my soul. I myself must look to that. Go to church, believe in the church, accept its creeds. Some of this may be a help to me, to quicken my thoughts, enlarge my understanding, but I deny any divine power or authority in it over me. Will the church take my place and be judged for me, relieving me of any final judgment? If not, how can I rely on it when there is a final settlement between God and myself? At last I am to stand naked and alone. This is the truth. ‘Thou wast alone at the time of thy birth; thou wilt be alone in the moment of death; alone thou must answer at the bar of the inexorable Judge.’
“Nothing can come between me and God. I am what I am, and so shall I remain forever.
“If I could get some one to do my thinking, to believe for me and to relieve me of all mental and moral responsibility in the end; if any one of these ecclesiastical leaders, from the self styled infallible pope down to the street Salvation Army shouter, could give me a quittance from sin and a sure deed to an inheritance in heaven, it would be well to trust them. Not one of them is sure of heaven himself. Yet they uphold their different creeds as if the Almighty had written and signed them with His own hand. Their assurance is only equaled by their impudence, when they demand of every one, ‘Believe as I tell you,’ as if the eternal destiny of human souls was in their say so.