| Show WHY IT FEELS humiliated TirE THE northern christian advocate feels humiliated this is ii not in consequence of any slight being put upon its editors nor because the methodist church in america for which it speaks has been subjected to any public indignity but simply because that religious organization numbering nearly two millions of members after a hundred hundreds years of labor boasts of assets to the amount of only in personal and real estate devoted to church work the advocate is cha eha chagrined 0 nned dued to think that this is so while one man in new york has amassed during his life time and his son could buy up the whole methodist episcopal church and then have a fortune left if the accumulation of property is the great end in view perhaps that christian journal has some cause for sadness but even then this is not a very bad showing two millions of members and sixty three millions of property does not appear a very small financial proportion which is the advocate serving god or mammon what is the great object cf ef the church for which it speaks the amassing of material wealth or the enlightenment of mankind judging by its lamentations it would appear that mammon was the deity before which it bends and this view is strengthened by the sight of the inevitable subscription tion list and contribution plate which are constant features of every methodist gathering and the tools tois in trade of the average e M methodist eth odis t minister if the success of the early christian church had been gungel by the Advocat advocates gra ela standard the apostles and eiders elders would have had greater cause for feeling humiliated than the methodist editor but they counted souls instead of shekels and rejoiced over con converts convents verbi verhl more than bu buildings edings and chattels and therefore they felt no grief at ut the smallness of their earthly possessions but counted all such things as dross when compared with the higher riches if the advocate felt humiliated at the tile jack lack of true gospel characteristics in its church at the absence of divine divin e power and divine 4 authority in 1 its ts ministers at the V of its representatives in conference assembled exhibited by their they efforts to crush by the arm of the law a society of worshippers wor shippers who whose whore re doctrines they could not overcome by argument at the pride worldliness and vanity of its 9 preachers eachers and people there thene would be some sense in its sorrow and reason in its abasement but as it is the only words which rightly apply to molls toils ts vexation over the thi church accumulations mu lations of a century are disgusting covetousness ilem liem and amazing greed |
