Christian Century . med. This led to my determina-tion to enter the Divinity School of theUniversity of Chicago, where I found aspirit of free, earnest scholarship, ofearnest inquiry, which was to me likethe light of a new day. After graoua-tion I went to the pastorate of a church of some importance in a city of onehundred thousand population; and withenthusiasm, for I believed the churchto be free and open minded. I evendreamed of soon being able to admit the unimmersed Christians into thechurch, as one of the ways of promotingChristian union, which seemed to me thefundamental plea of the Dis
Christian Century . med. This led to my determina-tion to enter the Divinity School of theUniversity of Chicago, where I found aspirit of free, earnest scholarship, ofearnest inquiry, which was to me likethe light of a new day. After graoua-tion I went to the pastorate of a church of some importance in a city of onehundred thousand population; and withenthusiasm, for I believed the churchto be free and open minded. I evendreamed of soon being able to admit the unimmersed Christians into thechurch, as one of the ways of promotingChristian union, which seemed to me thefundamental plea of the Disciples, andan end greatly to be desired. But three years experience taught mathat for the majority of people notonly in that church but in the state,there was no road to Christian unionexcept upon the basis of a fixed, dogmaticstatement of faith. And 1 further foundthat to preach the gospel without puttingit in terms of that definite statementwas to fail of response from many goodpeople in the church. Now I had come. Rev. Harry F. Burns. to believe that this fixed and well-knownstatement of things was not adequateand implied an artificial definition ofsalvation. These were the bitterest hoursof my life, for I had come to see thatthe Disciples plea for union was not tobe taken ar its face value in many in-stances for it rested upon a narrow, dog-matic basis, upon which its realizationwas impossible; and I had come to be-lieve that in most churches of the Dis-ciples one would find most people un-prepared to appreciate any statementof religious truth which did not containthe fixed phrases to which their earswere accustomed. FURTHER STUDY. Then came two more years of Univer-sity study during which I supplied con-stantly various Congregational pulpitsin city and country, and talked much with ministers in Congregational churches, for it had seemed to me thatI should find in this fellowship an op-portunity to work for the things whichare worthful and real in our modernworld without th
Size: 1133px × 2205px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectchristi, bookyear1913
