Hear “The Church Union.”
By A. M.
IN the August issue of the above paper we read the following: “The Russian Government seems to favor church union, and manifests the same in its own autocratic way. In that country it shall be the ‘Greek’ Church or nothing. No other is permitted to have a secure footing. Only the other day the Lutherans numbered many thousands (twenty, we are informed), who had long worshiped within the empire of the czar; and now they are prohibited. Their fate is, however, that of all the other evangelical people who are of a like citizenship, and who refuse to acknowledge the ecclesiastical headship of the reigning monarch. “Whilst we do, of course, condemn this ‘heroic’ surgery, even in a cause the principle of which is sound—a surgery to which freemen would never submit—[Why not, if the principle be sound?] yet we have been sometimes tempted to wish that there were some authority the rational exercise of which would render impossible the further continuance of useless denominations of Christian believers, or the needless formation of new ones in the future! Meanwhile, in the absence of such a power, the appeal must be made to that piety in the churches which will not forever allow bigotry to get the better of sober thoughtfulness.” The above article, if submitted to the pope, would secure his eager approbation, and at the earliest hour possible he would be glad to favor the friends of “The Church Union” by using such “authority” as “would render impossible the further continuance” and “formation” of Protestant denominations. Then, friends, after having been forced to unite with the Roman Catholic Church, your yearning after “Church Union” would be satisfied, we presume, and perhaps you, in anticipation, date the millennium from that event. Or is it possible that we misunderstand? for another version of the above would be, that the only objection you have to the Russian tyrannical attempts at church union, “the principle of which is sound” (!?), is the accidental fact that it is the Russian Government in the enviable position of “power” and “authority,” and not the supporters of “The Church Union,” whoever they may be. Excuse us for misunderstanding; but you should speak plainer. Or do you find it advisable to wear the sheep’s clothing? “Meanwhile,” may God, in his infinite mercy, continue “the absence of such a power” from our beloved country, for its presence would mark his just wrath over our sins. Include this petition in your prayer, dear reader, the more so since such “piety in the churches” is already “bigotry,” and not “sober thoughtfulness.”—A. M., in Lutheran Witness, Sept. 7.