United States or Croatia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Well, he is a queer sort of fellow, I fancy," said Angus. "He was one of the Methodists; but they say those folks have had a split, and Whitefield has broken with them. He travels about preaching, though, as they do; and they say that the reason why he took to field-preaching was because no church would hold the enormous congregations which gathered to hear him.
But the worldly advantage enjoyed by the Sunday keeper was so considerable that all who did not hold to the finest scruple of conscience in their conduct passed over to the majority, and were excluded from the communion as a precaution against the Sunday keepers becoming a majority in the church and taking it away from the Sabbath keepers, as did actually occur with one of their congregations in Vermont.
Are there no ministers or congregations that we ever heard of, who have a regulation length for their prayers, and would scarcely think they had prayed at all if their devotions were as short as most of the prayers in the Bible? Are we in no danger of believing what Christ here tells us is pure heathenism that many words may move God?
But most of all I like looking up at that vast second story of the street, coming in over one like waves, like seas all these happy, curious tops of 'buses; these dear, funny, way-up people on benches; these world-worshippers, sight-worshippers, and Americans all these little scurrying congregations, hundreds of them, rolling past.
All societies and congregations were placed on the same footing precisely, i.e., they "had power to provide for the support of public worship by the rent or sale of pews or slips in the meeting-house, by the establishment of funds, or in any other way they might deem expedient." From 1783 to 1787 there was throughout the United States a general disintegration of political parties.
The Romans generally were tolerant of creeds and cults, and the ceremonial of Judaism, especially its Sabbath, appealed to many of them. In the time of Pompey, an important Jewish community existed in the cosmopolitan capital of the Empire, and later we have records of a number of congregations.
He does not now address them as his brethren, as he usually does. He addresses them as Galatians in order to remind them of their national trait to be foolish. We have here an example of bad traits that often cling to individual Christians and entire congregations. Grace does not suddenly transform a Christian into a new and perfect creature. Dregs of the old and natural corruption remain.
Nowadays Consultor to several Congregations and a Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore, he placed his immediate ambition in a Canonry at St. Peter's, and harboured the dream of some day becoming Secretary of the Consistorial Congregation, a post conducting to the cardinalate.
Camp-meetings were held in some places; as, for instance, in the neighborhood of Antwerp, where the congregations numbered often fifteen thousand and on some occasions were estimated at between twenty and thirty thousand persons at a time; "very many of them," said an eye-witness, "the best and wealthiest in the town." The sect to which most of these worshippers belonged was that of Calvin.
Their whole spiritual office was ordered after the manner of Calvin at Geneva, and of the Refugee Presbyterian Congregations. In each congregation were deacons in charge of the alms, appointed by the government, or, like the elders, by the Presbytery or Consistory. The whole care of gathering, keeping and distributing all alms was given to them.
Word Of The Day