DER REICHE HERR IM TEICH. BY THE EDITOR. Der Bauer Batdorf war gar reich, Es war ken Land im ganza Teich, Bei Batdorf wohnt' en deutscher Knecht, Hot g'wisst was Letz is, un was Recht- "Ich hab," sagt Batdorf zu seim Knecht, Von dir Ich now mol wissa moecht. "Ei ja," sagt Hans, "des wees Ich woll." "Ich wees net ep Ich's saga soll Du schlagst mich steif un krumm!" "Dei Antwort is mir ewafiel Es macht mich g'wiss net boes; "Raus mit der Sach, mei smerter Knecht, "Well, wann Ich mus, dan mus Ich, denk, Ich thu's gewiss net gern; Du hoscht die Schuld wann Ích dich krenk- "Alls Christus in der Wueschte war, Da kam der Satan nah, Un hot Ihn dort versucht so gar, Er soll ihn beta a'! "Un wann Er's thaet, dann kaem Ihm zu Der Reichthum aller Welt! Der Heiland hot ihn abgethu: "Weck Satan mit deim Geld." "Damals warscht du net weit awek- Fallscht uf dei Knee, und rufscht gans keck- "Darum sitzt du in fetter Waed, RADICAL ERRORS OF THE AGE. BY THE EDITOR. There is a German proverb which is to the effect, that too little and too much spoils every play. The same thing spoils also more solemn things than plays. This is indeed a prominent danger to which human weakness is always exposed, and the cause of most human errors. This was the trouble in the church at Corinth, when they formed themselves into parties around Paul, Apollos, and Cephas. They could not account of the ministers of Christ in their true official position; they had to exalt them above it, or degrade them below it. When Apollos went up, Paul went down, in their estimation. Instead of holding to Paul and Apollos, it was with them Paul or Apollos. The cause of their error was in this, that they separated the office and the man. Instead of respecting the man for the office, they forgot the office in the man. They glorified the natural abilities of the man. His eloquence, or power of argument, or natural attractiveness of manner, was the basis of their reverence and esteem; and the absence of these was the measure of their depreciation of him and his office. Moreover, it was preaching ability which was the principal, if not the sole ground of their favoritism; as if the preaching office constituted the principal function of the holy ministry, and furnished all that God has provided, and that man needs. Hence, because Apollos was, as we now say, "a powerful speaker," some said we are of Apollos. Even in their favorite they did not recognize the ministry in its complete idea, in its general functions, but only the single prophetic, or teaching office. Nor did they recognize the oneness of the ministry, which, though represented in different persons, has the same aim and end; in which various personal gifts and talents may be harmoniously useful. One planteth and another watereth; but these are oneand their several ministrations tend to the same result. Each is good in its place; and both only successful as God giveth the in crease. They also fell into the farther mistake of measuring the good accomplished, by present, or immediate apparent results. This cannot be done. These labors flow together. The results flowing from any single ministry cannot be distinguished so as to enable us to say what must be accredited to each. Every one's work shall only be manifest, when the day of judgment shall declare it. Nothing must be judged before the time. It is only required of a steward to be found faithful. Time will unfold the success; and God will at last judge aright, and reward or condemn accordingly. Setting aside all the side issues which they had made in regard to the ministries which had been exercised among them, St. Paul tells them in brief what the true nature of the Christian ministry involves, and how the office ought to be regarded on their part. "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." Some said we are of Paul, others we are of Apollos? Thus they virtually exalted these ministers of Christ, or rather debased them, as heads of their own parties; and looked not beyond them to Christ, whose ministers they were. Account of us, Paul would say, not as organs of your parties, but as ministers of Christ. We stand to His will, not to your wishes. Nor are we preachers merely, to be regarded according to the measure of our eloquence. There are other functions included in our ministry besides, and beyond, preaching the truth. also "Stewards of the mysteries of God." Our ministry includes the entire mediation of Christ-the functions of His priestly and kingly offices, as well as of His prophetic office. Not only the word is to be taught you, but the atonement of Christ, of which that word testifies, is to be made over to you. All that Christ has secured for you by His death and life-all that is involved in His grace is to be made over to you by a real mediation which He carries forward in His Church, through His ministry, and by means of His sacraments and ordinances. The Church is his house, and household. In it are the mysteries of His grace. We are the stewards in His house, to minister in those mysteries. Thus, as Christ reaches the people with His mediation through the Church, He appoints His ministers as the stewards over those mysteries to the people. What is to done in the Church they do for Him-in His stead. They are not owners or masters of the house. This honor belongs to Christ. But they are in His stead as stewards, to do, and to be, in the Church, what stewards are over the goods entrusted to thein. There is in them no source of grace; but the mysteries which they are appointed to dispenso are the true mediation, through which the people reach Him who is head and source. Ministers, in their own persons, are not mediators, but as stewards of the mysteries their office is a true mediation. When a wealthy man appoints a steward over his property and business, it is well understood by all in his employ, or in any way connected with him, and dependent on him, that all these things do not belong to the steward, and that what they receive is from the owner himself; but it is just as well understood that all their doing for, and receiving from, the owner, is mediated by the steward, into whose hands the matter has been entrusted, and through whose stewardship it is conducted. Christ carries forward His work of salvation by His threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King. These offices He carries forward through His ministry, as His stewards in the Church on earth. The ministry, is therefore, a mediation between Christ and His people, between Him and the world. "I send you forth-he that heareth you, heareth me. He that despiseth you despiseth me." This idea of the Christian ministry, overlooked, or ignored, in the Church of Corinth, is no less in our own age misunderstood, or if understood, is a rock of offence. Not only the children of the world, but even the children of the Church, would fain see behind it a man in the dark, motioning to them to beware, to look to their dignity as men, and their rights and liberties as the equals of others. They want no mediations-no interventions, between themselves and Christ. They recognize no stewards of divine mysteries; and will have nothing done to them, or for them, in the name, and by the authority, of Christ. In a man like themselves they can see a governor, whom they acknowledge as the official representative of the higher powers that be, and they can assent to his right and power to sign their death-warrant if they have deserved death for crime, or to pardon them if he finds that in justice it can be done; but no analagous power can be recognized in a steward of higher powers to whom Jesus Christ has clearly and positively committed such tremendous and solemn official prerogatives! If the stewardship of divine mysteries in the Church does not mean this, let him who is informed on the subject tell us what it means. If it does mean this, let us believe it, and rejoice that the Head of the Church, who has passed from view, and is at the right hand of power and glory in the heavens, is still so graciously near to us by and through the stewards of His mysteries-so that we can still touch Him in His sacraments, see and hear Him as He teaches and rules among usand regard His Church as indeed His body, in which we may hear His beating heart of love, and feel the flow of the warm blood of His life in His veins, as if He were as near to us as He was to Mary when she touched Him, to Thomas when he laid his fingers into His wounds, and to John when he lay on his bosom at supper. There is a deep, strong, wide, and growing repugnance to this whole idea of official mediation. It is in some cases intelligent; then it is practical infidelity. In other cases it is unintelligent; then it is a prejudice agreeable to the natural heart and therefore easily imbibed. This aversion to mediation rests on the pride and natural selfsufficiency of man. It is the fruit of a false individualism. Man would stand alone. Though he may still reverently acknowledge his relations to God, as required in the moral law; yet as to men, he regards it humiliating to confess those subordinations without which no organized society can exist in family, State or Church. When one says to him in reverence, "That is the President!" he answers bravely, "I am one of the men who make Presidents!" In the same spirit, when one says, "That is one of the Lord's anointed," he finds it easy to reply, "I am one of those by whose will he occupies his place!" This spirit says, we acknowledge nothing above us but God; and by that saying sweeps away all that lies between God and the individual man in the very nature of the organization of family, State and Church. Thus, in fact, God Himself is cast out and lost, because all the merciful media tions by which, and through which alone He is our God, are disowned-which shuts out all the condescending and adjusting attenuations by which He approaches toward us, and all our approaches to Him are cut off and rendered impossible. In all of the three remedial offices of God's economy of salvation alike, are these mediations disowned practically, if not theoretically. Look, for instance, at the prophetic or teaching office. It is plainly the order in God's economy to teach men by men, and through men. In no other way, so far as we know or can think of, is revelation possible. This mode God has adopted; and this mode the common sense of humanity has endorsed. Call them what you may, magi, scalds, bards, seers, or prophets, these have been, in all ages, and among all people, lofty spirits, first class men, by some means or power of office lifted higher than the general crowd, and who consequently first caught the dawn of the rising light-the watchers or signal men, whose feet were beautiful upon the mountains-and who became the heralds of the good news they saw and heard, to the dwellers in the vales of humbler life. In opening His revelation upon the world, God did not disown this fact, but used it, and still uses it in its spread. His light first broke upon the minds of those whose aptitudes for it were strongest and best. The light reflected first where there were surfaces capable of reflecting it. Thus in the patriarchal age, God enlightened a family through its patriarchal head-afterwards a tribe by a family-still later nation by a tribe. In the New Testament, Christ illumined first those nearest to Him, His own Apostles. Through them the circle widened from land to land, and from century to century, one generation being the bearers of light to the next; so that evermore the many were taught by the few. God revealed Himself to men through men. He does so still. We What is there strange, dangerous, or humiliating in this? What compromise of individual dignity, what surrender of right in confessing it except it be the right of being self-willed, and willfully ignorant. All kinds of knowledge spreads in the same way. Science widens its sphere by the operation of the same law. constantly accept, with implicit confidence, the principles of science which others have established, when we have not at all the ability or opportunity of verifying them for ourselves. We believe implicitly and accept the results-and build on them, on trust of those whom we know have verified them. To this men are not averse; because their selfishness is not curbed, but promoted by it. Men feel no sense of humiliation in accepting from the incumbent of a learned chair the truths he has verified, or the light he has gathered, or inherited by virtue of his genius. They feel no sense of shame in taking implicitly the opinion and advice of a lawyer, the directions and prescriptions of a physi cian, or the injunctions of one skilled in commerce, mechanics, or agriculture. In all these spheres it is implicitly acknowledged, and without any sense of individual humiliation, or fear of jeopardizing personal rights, that man must be taught by man-that man must believe in man-that some men are the superiors of others |