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A RELIGIOUS TEACHER MEASURED BY A “TWO FOOT RULE”

THE LIVING CHURCH, a Protestant Episcopal organ published weekly in Chicago, is supposed to voice the ideas of “the Church,” and to furnish instruction on the religious subjects of the day. It is a 16-page journal, having 4 columns of 13 inches each per page. Deducting 50-1/2 inches for the Headings, Calendar and prospectus we have left 65 feet 1-1/2 inches of solid reading matter, or 3126 quarter inches in length and the width of a usual column of printed matter. These 3126 quarter inches are divided as follows:—

I. Advertisements of
50 Schools 175 qr. ins.
17 Church Bell Foundries, Church Supply Stores 115 ” “
17 Books and Papers 226 ” “
22 Patent Medicines, Soaps and Baking Powder 302 ” “
22 Miscellaneous—Agents Wanted, Insurance, etc. 154 ” “
-— ——
128 Different Advertisements (20 feet 3 inches) 972 ” “

II. Religious, etc.
14 Clippings and Household Recipes 304 ” “
4 Obituaries 46 ” “
20 Diocesan and other Church News 752 ” “
6 Church Ritual, Policy and Instructions 577 ” “
4 Bishop’s Personals 61 ” “
10 Letters and Notes Complimentary and Controversial (4 feet 9-3/4 inches) 231 ” “
10 Miscellaneous Personals 78 ” “
8 ” Church Finances 46 ” “
2 Spiritual Instructions 60 ” “
-— ——
206 Items measuring 2154 qr. ins.
128 as above 972 ” “
-— ——
Total 3126 qr. ins.

Of all this mass of “Stuff,” but two items measuring 1 foot 3 inches—or just a little more than one column (or about 2/3 of a column in ZION’S WATCH TOWER) were devoted to religious or spiritual instruction. These taught of the Divine Nature of Christ, and the necessity for self-examination. Some issues are better and they have fully twice as much spiritual teaching or perhaps 2 to 3 columns—out of 64. But even they are of a kind better left unwritten. Nowhere does this paper teach us to consecrate our poor selves to Christ expecting the reward of the divine nature. Nowhere does it present hopes of our being called Christ’s brethren. It nowhere points to the glorious hopes which have become our ambition to attain.

This paper, “The Living Church,” is recommended highly, and subscriptions are taken for it by the “Clergy,” as they style themselves, of the professed “Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” But as we, the consecrated, now know by actual measurement what this would-be teacher really is, we take notice and govern ourselves accordingly. Leaving behind all the worldly vanities this blind leader of a blind church advertises, and uses its sacred character to recommend, let the true Church, the Stone rejected, press forward to the grand prize.

W. M. W.

[The above is by the Brother who a little more than a year ago was a staunch “Churchman”—Episcopalian—whose defence of that system we published and answered in the issue of Nov. 1887. He is now more of a churchman than ever, but he serves and acknowledges not a human system, but the divine one—the “Church of the Firstborn whose names are written in heaven.” A busy man, the special agent of a leading Fire Insurance Co., he nevertheless is constantly preaching the good tidings among all classes. He orders the Missionary Envelopes and Arp Tracts by the thousand, and seldom a week passes that we do not receive from or through him fresh orders for ten or more DAWNS VOL. I.

The zeal of all who really receive the good tidings with all readiness of heart must surprise former friends, as Paul’s course did his friends. Yet with Paul they can say, “I am not mad—but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.”

—EDITOR.]

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— June, 1889 —