Is your Christianity, then, he would say, a respecter of
persons, and does it condone the sin because the sinner can contribute to
your coffers? Was there ever a Simony like this,--that does not sell, but
withholds, the gift of God for a price?
The world naturally holds the Society to a stricter accountability than it
would insist upon in ordinary cases. Were they only a club of gentlemen
associated for their own amusement, it would be very natural and proper
that they should exclude all questions which would introduce controversy,
and that, however individually interested in certain reforms, they should
not force them upon others who would consider them a bore. But a society
of professing Christians, united for the express purpose of carrying both
the theory and the practice of the New Testament into every household in
the land, has voluntarily subjected itself to a graver responsibility, and
renounced all title to fall back upon any reserved right of personal
comfort or convenience.
We say, then, that we are glad to see this division in the Tract Society,
--not glad because of the division, but because it has sprung from an
earnest effort to relieve the Society of a reproach which was not only
impairing its usefulness, but doing an injury to the cause of truth and
sincerity everywhere.
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