Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 4, 1906

The possibility that the great power of the Inter-Church Federation recently organized in New York City would be turned into a wrong channel and become an agency of evil, did not escape the minds of some who participated in that gathering. Such a possibility was suggested by the idea which some entertained that the proper use of the power of the federation would be to crush out that to which the federation is opposed. This led the Rev. S. J. Niccolls, a Presbyterian pastor of St. Louis, Mo., in an address descriptive of the conference, to make the following clear statement of the evil of ecclesiastical domination:—

Others again seemed to think that the object was to unite all who call themselves Christians, for reforms in society, and that the bodies thus united could crush out all vice, and bring good men to the front in the rule of society. The good wine of reform seems to have gone to the heads of some most excellent people. The overthrow of political bosses, and the awakened public conscience with reference to political and commercial rascality, seem to some to offer a favorable opportunity for a united church to assert its power. But I, for one, do not think that ecclesiastical bosses would be any better than political ones. The darkest pages of the history of the Christian centuries are those which record the supremacy of ecclesiastical rule. So far as the records show the results, I would rather have the reign of Tammany or of the bossism of St. Louis than that of ecclesiasticism of the Dark Ages. So far as history shows there has never been a church organization, or a combination of them, that was worthy to reign over men. There is only One whose right it is to reign, and who is worthy of a supreme place—Jesus Christ our Lord.