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SECTARIAN LINES

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 15, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 20.

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SECTARIAN LINES.

By T.

Sectarian lines are built up mainly by prejudice. We all claim to be seeking for truth, but when a truth comes to us, do we examine the truth for its own sake, not asking, Is it in harmony with our sect? Is it in accord with what we have always believed?
We should not be continually changing from one thing to another by discarding what we hold to-day so as to take up some new thing to-morrow, but we should learn how to tell the flavor of truth. We should learn how to know the truth when we meet it, no matter what the vehicle or means thru which it may reach us. And the truth that we learned yesterday will not have to be discarded so that we may take on more truth to-day; but we hold what came to us in the past so that we may all the more rapidly and safely advance in still broader and more glorious fields of expanding truth. In order to do this we must not allow prejudiceto bind us.
We must stand before God so that the sunlight of His truth will fall fully and directly upon us. And as He fills us with truth we may know that the spirit of truth is also a spirit of unity. Hence we need not feel at all surprised to find that other individuals have found the same truth that we have, and are rejoicing in its benefits. Thus we go on from step to step in the power of truth, and thru truth God brings also unity.
If we are seeking for a unity that will break down sectarian lines and make us all one, we should know at the outset that such a desirable condition can come only thru truth itself. And since the Saviour presents Himself to us, not only as the “Way,” but also as the “Truth,” we should study to be all united in Him, and in Him alone. If we work on these lines, we shall find ourselves united, every sectarian wall that has stood between us having been completely destroyed. But this result has not been argued into us. It has come thru the unprejudiced study of the teachings of Christ. T.