It is time, my friends, that this long divorce between the natural and spiritual worlds should be broken off, and that we should know that even now we may breathe the celestial ether, and have our common life transformed and illumined by infinite spiritual glories.
We have said that the end of Christianity is not the salvation of individuals; but do not let it be thought that we overlook the worth of individual character. For heroism and holiness we have an unspeakable reverence. The saints and poets and sages of all time are the choicest gifts of God. The virtue, the beauty and the devotion that now shine in the lives of private men and women, still assure us that all is not and cannot be a failure. The ultimate result of the life of humanity will doubtless be found in symmetrical and harmonious individuals; and in a perfect Christianity we shall look to see an angelic love radiant from every face. But while there is disease and imperfection in any part of the human body, there cannot be perfect health in any other part; just so while there is disease and imperfection in humanity, of which the human body is an image, there cannot be perfect health in any individual. Perfect men and women are possible only in a perfect society.
Finally, the sum of our remarks on the relation of Association to Christianity, is briefly this: Association fulfils the promise of Christianity; it shows the means whereby peace on earth and goodwill among men are to be realized. It harmonizes the forms and relations of society with the spirit of Christianity; in a word, it makes them forms and relations of brotherly love, and not of selfishness and discord, and thereby renders possible the accomplishment of the final aim of Christianity, which is the salvation and spiritual life of universal humanity.
THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS, FROM THE HARBINGER, BY WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING.
A prophecy in the spirit of this age announces that a new era in humanity is opening, and sounds forth more fully than ever before the venerable yet new gospel, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Doubtless, in all generations, the seers and the seekers--who are usually one and the same--have felt that their times were the culminating points of history, the mountain of vision, the border overlooking the promised land. Doubtless, the great of all nations and ages have felt that they were a peculiar people, called to a peculiar work, inspired and led by divine guidance to sublime ends. No age, no people, have wholly wanted such signs of providential commission.