ian Association, which is comprised of
earnest and active members of all orthodox denominations. The platform
of the former may be determined from the following significant language:
"The Anniversary of the Young Men's Christian Union was the first
instance in which so many of the leading minds in the various branches
of the liberal and progressive portion of the Christian church have met
on one common platform, for the purpose of discussing the practical
bearings of that higher type of Christianity which refuses to be limited
by any dogma, or fettered by any creed."[259] One of the speakers, in
explaining the relations of the Union to the church, said: "We maintain,
then, that we are _in_ the church, _are_ the church--not a part of it,
but the whole church,--having _in_ us the heart and soul of orthodoxy
itself, the essence of all that gave life to its creed, the utmost
significance and vital force of what it taught and still teaches, in
what we conceive to be a stuttering and stammering way, in a cumbrous
and outworn language, with a circuitous and wearisome phraseology; but
meaning really what we mean, and doing for men essentially what we are
doing. All that we claim is a better statement of the old and changeless
truth, a disembarrassed account of the ever true and identical story....
We have not separated ourselves from the brethren [orthodox]; we hold
them in our enclosure; we are always ready to receive them, to welcome
them. We are not expecting they will receive us, on account of their
providential position. We have an intellectual perception of what the
times demand and what the future is to be. We can see clearer than they.
We can see why they are wrong; they cannot see why we are right--but
they will presently.... The actual presence of God in the world, in all
his love and mercy, supplying our deficiencies, helping our
infirmities, consecrating and transforming matter, giving sanctity and
beauty to life--this is what the _renewing_ of the old faith offers to
humanity.

"The indistinct perception of this faith and the divine craving to see
it clearly, and bring it to the sight of others, has led to the
existence and organization of the Liberal churches, and indirectly to
the formation of the Young Men's Christian Union. Faith in man as the
child of God, his word and residence, authorizing the freest use of
thought, the profoundest respect for individual convictions, the firmest
confidence in progress and in