Sermons, English -- 19th century; Theology -- Sermons
The main practical difficulty, with some at least of the peace-makers,
is, how to carry themselves toward the undoers of peace, the disuniters
of souls. Perhaps the most potent of these are not those powers of the
church visible who care for canon and dogma more than for truth, and for
the church more than for Christ; who take uniformity for unity; who
strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, nor knowing what spirit they are
of; such men, I say, are perhaps neither the most active nor the most
potent force working for the disintegration of the body of Christ. I
imagine also that neither are the party-liars of politics the worst foes
to divine unity, ungenerous, and often knowingly false as they are to
their opponents, to whom they seem to have no desire to be honest and
fair. I think, rather, they must be the babbling liars of the social
circle, and the faithless brothers and unloving sisters of disunited
human families. But why inquire? Every self-assertion, every form of
self-seeking however small or poor, world-noble or grotesque, is a
separating and scattering force. And these forces are multitudinous,
these points of radial repulsion are innumerable, because of the
prevailing passion of mean souls to seem great, and feel important. If
such cannot hope to attract the attention of the great-little world, if
they cannot even become 'the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,' they will,
in what sphere they may call their own, however small it be, try to make
a party for themselves; each, revolving on his or her own axis, will
attempt to self-centre a private whirlpool of human monads. To draw such
a surrounding, the partisan of self will sometimes gnaw asunder the most
precious of bonds, poison whole broods of infant loves. Such real
schismatics go about, where not inventing evil, yet rejoicing in
iniquity; mishearing; misrepresenting; paralyzing affection; separating
hearts. Their chosen calling is that of the strife-maker, the child of
the dividing devil. They belong to the class of _the perfidious_, whom
Dante places in the lowest infernal gulf as their proper home. Many a
woman who now imagines herself standing well in morals and religion,
will find herself at last just such a child of the devil; and her misery
will be the hope of her redemption.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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