Editorial February 17, 1906 Issue

"Progressing toward Unity."

Archibald McLellan

WE are indebted to the Indianapolis Star for the following report of a sermon recently delivered by Rev. J. A. Milburn, formerly of Indianapolis, but now the pastor of one of the leading churches in Chicago. He said :—

"Things are now progressing toward unity. The highest compliment you can pay a man is to say that he is consistent, which means that his faculties are balanced and he has unity in his life. Unity of church, which is so much desired, will not come from wishing that the church were a unit. It will not come from presbyters getting together and saying 'We will have one church.' The unification of the church is to come by a process of absorption.

"Whichever church has the most good in it and is most like Christ's model will absorb the others. If it is the Presbyterian Church, that church will gradually take in all the other Protestant denominations. If it is the Baptists, they will absorb the rest. . . . The reason so many people take up Christian Science is that church gives them more than the orthodox churches. Denominations like that are giving them light, while we give them the husks and doctrines. There is not enough in the natural to satisfy. What we need in life is God. We need belief in Christ and in the power of prayer. If preachers preach long, dry sermons, it is often because the people who hear the sermons are dry. It is very good to have the Apostles' Creed recited ever so often, as your pastor does, but Jesus Christ might as well have never lived, so far as your redemption is concerned, if he does not rule your heart.

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