A low tide comes in society affairs; adversities have been realized, and the faint-hearted are prophesying failure. Who but the few "stand-bys" are among the hopeful and helping; those always readiest with their money, always in their places at the worship service, or in the conference meeting or the Sunday-school? What would be the courage of the minister but for this loyal church-guard ever to be depended on?
A church edifice is to be built, or a church debt cancelled? Who shall lead in the business? the minister? Yes, if he can more conveniently than any other one. But what shall his "lead" be without followers? On whom does he most rely? On those laymen who are only waiting for his word to begin the work. Their generous zeal will awaken new interest in others, and this "striving together" of minister and people will insure success.
A pastor is out on a mission of private charity. The case of a poor widow, or sick and needy husband and father, or some suffering and desponding one needing help and comfort, is tugging at his heart-strings, and the immediate resources of his pocket are not equal to the demand. What then? He knows just where to go, directly, quietly, to the counting-room, or store, or farmhouse of that layman whose religion makes him glad to "do good and to communicate," and whose worldly store gives him opportunity thus to bless himself as he confers a blessing on others.
A college needs an additional endowment. Money is required. The president or some other friend of the institution goes forth in confidence that, on a truthful representation of the needs, certain ones will listen with interest and liberally respond to the call, and, as the annual report at the next Commencement declares, he is not disappointed. He has consulted the laymen.
The General or State Convention makes its annual call upon the parish for its apportioned contribution to the funds for the general work of the church, and its extension beyond existing parish lines; for missionary operations in the waste places, that they may be blessed with the light and joy of the Gospel. Who will be sure to meet truly and promptly this call? The loyal layman who has made himself acquainted through the church journals and from his minister in the pulpit with the just and holy demands of this enterprise, and who has never indulged himself in laying back from it, saying, "We have enough to do to meet our own parish expenses!" No, he and such as he now cheer the heart of his minister, and make glad sister parishes, and add credit to the whole church.
A blessing like this cannot be too highly prized, cannot awaken too strong a thanksgiving. A faithful ministry the church must have or fail. But this ministry, to be strong and prevail, must have for its fresh inspiration the hopeful eyes and ready hands and throbbing hearts of a constant and loyal laity.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK.
"No man can be assured of his own salvation, except he see the same salvation in the same Saviour for all men, as well as for himself; which is to love his neighbor as himself."—Richard Coppin.[59]
THAT the errors connected with what has been deemed the Orthodoxy of the past are passing away is undeniable. We have been noting this on every page of this volume. The Christian pulpit and the religious and secular press are bringing out new confirmations of it continually. Take two indications; first, the emphatic utterances coming from the Episcopal Church in England and America. It is Rev. Charles Kingsley who writes: "I preach to you a Son of God who has declared everlasting war against disease, ignorance, sin, death, and all which makes men miserable. Those are his enemies, and he reigns and will reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet, and there is nothing left in God's universe but order and usefulness, health and beauty, knowledge and virtue, in the day when God shall be all in all." It is Canon Farrar at Westminster Abbey who is awaking deep interest in his vigorous exposures of the hideousness of the old ideas of a wrathful God who would punish some of his simple offspring hereafter "without relief and without end." His volumes entitled "Eternal Hope" and "Judgment and Mercy," are full of references to the opinions of others in the past, who have opposed these errors,—although most of them are not new to readers and students of Universalist literature,—and are among the harbingers of that coming day when the absurdities which he assails shall be numbered among the things that were. His admissions of the force of the arguments of Universalist writers are such as will awaken new inquiry in many directions, notwithstanding he takes occasion to affirm of himself most distinctly, "But I am not a Universalist." We can only say that, if he is not, he is doing no small share of a work which will tend to make others avowers and defenders of this faith. Others of the ministry in England, like the late Dr. Maurice, Rev. Frederick Robertson, and Rev. Stopford Brooke, have given their testimonies in behalf of these higher and clearer views of Christian theology. In America, such men as Drs. Holland and Phillips Brooks, are advocates of the improved theology, the last-named explicitly affirming his faith in the final salvation of all souls. Dr. Heber Newton, rector of the Anthon Memorial Episcopal Church at New York, in his sermon on the death of the late Rev. Dr. Chapin, said that—