CHAPTER XXXIII.
A CHOICE OF A CHURCH.
I have mentioned that I was educated as a Swedenborgian, or rather a member of the New Jerusalem Church, as the followers of Emanuel Swedenborg prefer to be called. As a boy, I was well read in his works, and was prepared to tilt with all comers in his cause. But I grew less confident as I became more conversant with the world and with general literature. At the age of fifteen I was nominated a Sunday-school teacher in a small Swedenborgian chapel in the Waterloo road, and declined to act because the school was established with the object of converting from the religion of their parents the children of poor Roman Catholic families in that neighbourhood, which I thought an insidious, and therefore an evil mode of disseminating religious doctrine. Of course, this was a sufficiently conceited proceeding on the part of so young a theologian. But the same feeling has grown up with me in after life. I hold that Christians are ill-employed, who spend their strength in missionary attempts to change the creed of other branches of the Christian Church, while their efforts at conversion might be much better utilised in behalf of the heathen, or, what is the same thing in effect, the untaught multitudes in our midst who know nothing whatever of the teachings of the Gospel of Christ.
It will, perhaps, surprise some of my readers to hear that Swedenborg never contemplated the founding of a sect. He was a civil engineer, high in rank at the Swedish court, and was ennobled for the marvellous feat of transporting the Swedish fleet from sea to sea, across the kingdom and over a formidable chain of mountains. He was also what would now be called an eminent scientist, ranking with Buffon, Humboldt, Kant, Herschel, and others of the first men of his day in Europe, and even surpassing them all in the extent and variety of his philosophical researches. His "Animal Kingdom" and "Physical Sciences" are wonderful efforts of the human mind, and still maintain a high reputation as scientific works.
At length Swedenborg conceived the idea that he enjoyed supernatural privileges—that he had communings with angels and archangels—that he was permitted to enter the spiritual world, and to record what he there saw and heard. Nay, even to approach our Saviour himself, in His character of the Triune God, or sole impersonation of the Divine Trinity. Unlike Mahomet and most other pretenders to inspired missions, Swedenborg never sought for power, honour or applause. He was to the day of his death a quiet gentleman of the old school, unassuming, courteous, and a good man in every sense of the word.
I remember that one of my first objections to the writings of Swedenborg, was on account of his declaring the Church of France to be the most spiritual of all the churches on earth; which dogma immensely offended my youthful English pride. His first "readers" were members of various churches—clergymen of the Church of England, professors in universities, literary students, followers of Wesley, and generally devout men and women of all denominations. In time they began to assemble together for "reading meetings;" and so at length grew into a sect—a designation, by the way, which they still stoutly repudiate. I remember one clergyman, the Rev. John Clowes, rector of a church in Manchester, who applied to the Bishop of Lichfield for leave to read and teach from the works of Swedenborg, and was permitted to do so on account of their entirely harmless character.
When still young, I noticed with astonishment, that the transcendental virtues which Swedenborg inculcated were very feebly evidenced in the lives of his followers; that they were not by any means free from pride, ostentation, even peculation and the ordinary trickery of trade—in fact, that they were no better than their fellow-Christians generally. When I came to Toronto, I of course mixed with all sorts of people, and found examples of thoroughly consistent Christian life amongst all the various denominations—Roman Catholics, English Churchmen, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and many others—which taught me the lesson, that it is not a man's formal creed that is of importance, so much as his personal sincerity as a follower of Christ's teachings and example.
I was at the same time forcibly impressed with another leading idea—that no where in the Scriptures have we any instance of a divinely regulated government, in which the worship of God did not occupy a chief place. I thought—I still think—that the same beneficent principle which makes Christianity a part of the common law of England, and of all her colonies, including the United States, should extend to the religious instruction of every soul in the community, gentle or simple, and more especially to what are called the off-scourings of society.
Looking around me, I saw that of all the churches within my purview, the Church of England most completely met my ideal—that she was the Church by law established in my motherland—that she allowed the utmost latitude to individual opinion—in fine, that she held the Bible wide open to all her children, and did her best to extend its knowledge to all mankind. Had I been a native of Scotland, upon the same reasoning I must have become a Presbyterian, or a Lutheran in Holland or Germany, or a Roman Catholic in France or Spain. But that contingency did not then present itself to me.
So I entered the Church of England; was confirmed by Bishop Strachan, at St. James's Cathedral, in the year 1839, if I remember rightly, and have never since, for one instant, doubted the soundness of my conclusions.