Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 04
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Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 04
Literature -- Collections
Secondly, churches organized upon elective affinities of men are
contrary to the spirit of the gospel. We may associate with men who are
of like taste with ours. We have that privilege. If men are
knowledgeable and intellectual, there is no sin in their choosing for
intimate companions and associates men of like pursuits and like
intellectual qualities. That is right. If men are rich, there is no
reason why men who hold like property should not confer with each other,
and form interests and friendships together. If men are refined, if they
have become æsthetic, there is no reason why they should not associate
in the realm of beauty, artists with artists, nor why the great enjoyers
of beauty should not be in sympathy. Exit all these are not to be
allowed to do it at the price of abandoning common humanity; you have no
right to make your nest in the boughs of knowledge, and let all the rest
of the world go as it will. You have no right to make your home among
those who are polished and exquisite and fastidious in their tastes,
whose garments are beauty, whose house is a temple of art, and all whose
associations are of like kind, and neglect common humanity. You have no
right to shut yourself up in a limited company of those who are like you
in these directions, and let all the rest of men go without sympathy and
without care. It is a right thing for a man to salute his neighbor who
salutes him; but if you salute those who salute you, says Christ, what
thank have ye--do not even the publicans so? It is no sin that a man,
being intellectual in his nature, should like intellectual people, and
gratify that which is divine and God-like in him; but if, because he
likes intellectual people, he loses all interest in ignorant people, it
convicts him of depravity and of moral perversion. When this is carried
out to such an extent that churches are organized upon sharp
classification, upon elective affinities, they not only cease to be
Christian churches, but they are heretical; not perhaps in doctrine, but
worse than that, heretical in heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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