Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

In the Home Missionary for February, 1856, is the following mournful exhibition of the results of these sectarian divisions:

"Subdivision a Source of Weakness and Destitution.

"Now it is but too evident that our American Christendom is prosecuting its work, in some respects, at a disadvantage. True, funds have been furnished with a commendable liberality; but, worse than a dearth of money—which a few months of vigorous effort, or a prosperous turn in the market might remove—there is a dearth of men. Fields are explored, openings are found, communities are fast forming, and even make urgent requests for ministers, but often there are no ministers to send. The great exigency of the missionary work now is the want of capable and devoted men.

"However we may charge this upon the lukewarmness of the churches, upon the absence of correct views respecting ministerial support—and its consequent meagreness—or on the prevalence among young men of a subtile skepticism, we may not shut our eyes to the fact that the want must continue as long as that unfortunate division of the field continues, which must ever come from divided counsels and sectarian rivalries. Destitutions are likely to last while alienations last.

"Every denomination naturally feels that it must be strong in the centres of population; and so, without asking whether the Church of Christ needs so many congregations there, we crowd our six separate enterprises, of as many rival names, into a little place where two churches would do more good than the half dozen.

"The evils that result from this course are many and various. One consequence of it is a weakening of the unity and the moral force of the Church as a whole. Another is the diminution of the numbers and the strength of the several local societies, so that an amount of assistance many times greater is needed, and this need is prolonged for years, when often its period should have been reckoned in months. But a third consequence of this overcrowding of one portion of the missionary field is the destitution of other portions. While many villages are so well supplied as to leave pastors and churches leisure to quarrel, many rural districts and young communities are almost totally neglected. If all the preachers in the United States were evangelical men, well educated and devoted to their work, they would no more than supply the real wants of the country, upon a system of wise distribution. On a system, then, so unfortunate as this, its destitutions are not supplied; and we hear from all quarters the cry, Send more laborers into the harvest.

"A Cause of Unwillingness to enter the Ministry.

"Again, a fourth consequence of our denominational divisions, and another cause of destitution, is seen in the difficulty of persuading young men of enterprise to enter the ministry. When we consider how the field of ministerial labor is cut up into small parishes, affording to men of superior capacity but a limited scope for some of their best qualities—with scarcely the possibility of much improvement—promising, also, only a meagre support and a moderate usefulness, we can not wonder that young men who are conscious of the ability to occupy a larger sphere, and whose nature thirsts after something stirring and an opportunity for a hopeful struggle and for achievement, should often shrink from the seeming narrowness and hopelessness of the work which is here offered them. We need not praise the truthfulness of their appreciation in all particulars, but have we, on the whole, a right to anticipate a different decision? No. The result is manifestly one that must be expected. There is not the least doubt that this diminution in the size of parishes is also a diminution in the attractiveness of the pastoral office. And so this very multitude of denominations, which has increased the want of ministers, operates, in more ways than one, to diminish the supply.

"A Discouragement and a Weariness.

"But, what is yet worse, it tends to injure the ministry. No preacher but has felt, at times, the depressing influence of a small audience. A large proportion of the missionaries at the West feel this at all times; and often the intellect is jaded, and the heart is wearied out, from the want of that natural stimulus which the presence of a multitude and the pressure of an important occasion alone can afford. If it is discouraging to find your people coming out in small numbers on rainy Sabbaths, what is it to have nothing but small numbers the year through, and year after year? How must this tend to check youthful enthusiasm, and to dull the fires of intellectual and moral energy. If our brethren of the West have not fallen behind themselves, it certainly is not due to the inspiration of large audiences or of populous and able parishes; for, with so many divisions in such sparse and unstable communities, these can not be otherwise than small. Good men will labor on, indeed, under all these discouragements; and the greatness of their faith will make their work and achievement great. They may triumph over these difficulties, but they contend at disadvantage; and the difficulties are real, notwithstanding the highest fidelity.