DIVISION WITHOUT CAUSE.
By G.
THE work of “reconstruction” after the Civil War in the United States, began in political circles the moment arms were laid down. In a few years the political machinery moved on as before. Even the soldiers who faced each other in deadly conflict long ago met each other in peace, and “clasped hands across the bloody chasm.” Not so the religious factions North and South. We still have the distinctively Northern and Southern Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. Moreover, some of these religious divisions were made before the political crisis came over the same subject. Men were quicker to formally break friendship and united labor religiously than politically, and the religious breach is much longer in healing. Altho the cause of the existence of all these Northern and Southern “wings” (slavery) was removed nearly forty years ago, the prejudice lingers, despite many resolutions, joint committee reports, and such-like, in favor of union. This long-continued separation of Christians professing the same creed is brought to mind by the following item of current news:— The two Presbyterian Synods in Missouri, which are connected respectively with the Northern and Southern General Assemblies, met in joint session last week for the first time since the organization of the Presbyterian Church South, in 1861, and appointed a board of management, consisting of twelve members from each Synod, to have charge of Westminster College, which has heretofore been controlled by the Southern Synod alone. The divisions with reference to creed are not so strange, as there is always the tendency among men to draw away disciples after themselves, or to lead out in something new, besides true reformation that has come out from popular error, and found organization necessary for the dissemination of truth. But the continued conflict of persons of otherwise like belief, over a dead issue, seems like maintaining controversy for the love of it. The Lord’s prayer for His disciples is that they may be one, as the Father and Son are one. And His true disciples will always work to that end. G. THIS [National Reform] Association earnestly opposes everything of the nature of a union of Church and State, but maintains with equal earnestness that the separation of Church and State does not involve the divorce of the State from the Christian religion. The Church and the State are organisms; religion is a principle which should animate and control them both.—Christian Statesman. But the State is not and can not be controlled by the principles of the Christian religion; and for that reason it can not properly be united to the Church. The State is an institution designed to control people who will not be controlled by the principles of the Christian religion. If all could be controlled by those principles, there would be no need of a State government to enforce order and respect for men’s natural rights. The proper State government is one whose function is altogether civil, and the proper sphere of the church is in the realm of spiritual things. The kingdom of God is not of this world. When He is ready to set up His kingdom in the earth, He will dispense with all earthly governments. They will then have served their purpose, and will pass away.