When brethren become alienated they frequently do not want to settle their difficulties, but to get an advantage over an opposing party. No court of appeal nor anything we can say will reconcile them. If we, in any part of the affair, agree with them, they there agree with us; but if we in any part of it differ from them they there differ from us. There the matter ends. Still, we will try and give a little attention to the matters in hand.
There are cases where nothing can be done. In other words, there are cases that can not be settled. Church members become like the man’s rails that had been in a crooked fence so long that they would not make a straight fence. Church-members sometimes have been crooked so long that they will not become straight. They continue in their alienation so long that it becomes a kind of habit with them and food for them. They can not do well without it.
If a church is about equally divided by a difficulty and can not settle the matter among themselves, and will not refer the matter to a committee, it simply can not be settled. A case that can not be settled must remain unsettled. We answer, that in that case nothing can be done. Some cases of difficulty will never be settled in this world, and will have to be referred to the last judgment for adjudication. It would be well, though, in such a case as stated, for the disaffected party to consider the matter well, and see to it that they have acted wisely and in the Spirit of the Lord in the whole matter. On the other hand, the church party should review the whole ground carefully, and see to it that all they can do to open the way for the disaffected party to become reconciled and brought into the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace be done. Let no stone remain unturned, no effort untried and nothing remain undone that might bring peace.
[OUTWARD APPEARANCE.]
WE have made a standing arrangement for paper this year, of which the present pamphlet is a sample, and we shall do our utmost to have the whole volume printed in a neat and legible manner. As to fine paper, covers, etc., they are like fine clothes only necessary to encase the bodies and souls which will not pass without them. You have, no doubt, seen the preacher wrapped in the finest broadcloth, and a golden chain for a watch-guard, who, after a labored effort for an hour would only prove that he was a human frame, finely clad, but no preacher. In clothing our thoughts in pamphlets, as in clothing our persons, the proper rule should be, to have the apparel just such as not to be noticed at all, and then the thoughts in the pamphlet or the man himself may be seen. Let the attire be neat enough not to be observed for its shabbiness, and plain enough not to be noticed for its fineness, that the person in the attire may be seen. It is true, it is desirable to have a paper printed plain and neat, but all this and fine paper into the bargain will never make it go, if there be not some life, spirit and power in the articles themselves.
Some men seem astonished that their publications do not circulate, seeing that they contain such a display of the most elegant literary taste, not seeming to be aware of the fact, that not one common reader out of fifty ever perceives the mighty effort at all. Yet there can be no objection to fine style. The difficulty in that class to which we refer, is not that they write in fine style, but that there is nothing but the style—neither soul, body, nor spirit.