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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18510, 22 March 1922, Page 6

CHURCH UNION. TO IHE EDITOB. Sir.—Very many of your readers mil agree with your correspondent Mr T. C. Morris that the clergy of the different denominations are the chief obstacles to church union. Mr Morris appears to believe that if the Christian men and women of these denominations would meet to consider their differences, church union would soon result. If ho is right, the sooner they do it the bettor for church and State. But they seem to be incapable of doing anything without their ministers. Every congregation is in a helpless condition without its reverend gentleman ‘‘the minister.” It was not so in the earliest churches. We do not rend of any reverend gentleman in those churches. The decay of Christianity began when the reverend gentlemen came into the churches. There is far more life in the Salvation Army than in any of our churches. And it is because the Army has no reverend gentleman, all the members ministering in some way or other. We have in (his country churches of Christ which profess to represent to us primitive Christianity, 'fhey tell us that they have no reverend gentleman ministering to them, but if you attend some of the meetings yon will find that ‘‘the preacher” or “evangelist” is as much a reverend gentleman, as much a as you will find anywhere else, with the result that they make no headway. All the churches make no progress because they arc unlike (he primitive churches. Those early churches were united; they all preached the gospel; they were all engaged in good works; they did good to all men. Were this the stale of the churches in Dunedin there would be no abject povertyin our city; there would be food and fire and clothing for the destitute. The writer of a leaflet entitled “Sectarianism, the enemy of God and man: the way to Church Union.” points out that in the Now Testament more is said about unity than about anything else, and that it becomes easily practicable when sectarians return to what was taught and instituted by the Apostles of Christ Ho also points out that any jurv of intelligent Jews or Atheists would probably be agreed as to what the Apostles taught and instituted. Then, as Mr Morris suggests, let the Ciristian men and women of the various denominations come together and sec if they cannot agree as to what New Testament Christianity really is. There does not seem to he any excuse whatever for the present divisions, which have so long rendered the churches comparatively ineffective.—l am. etc.. Oxk Cucucii.