So Chaste a Thing Is Loneliness (verse)
Hall, Amanda Benjamin
98 THE COMMONWEAL December I, 1926 diseases affecting our characteristic "American Chris- tianity" is Christian unity. To secure this desidera- tum, as Christ prayed for its continuance--"that...
...of Eastern Orthodoxy subject to the application of Christian charity...
...This church has the general reputation of being "static," and hopelessly (for "American" religious purposes) "ritualistic...
...So far, the Roman Catholic Church has failed generally to commend itself to Americans as a basis for unity...
...and Modernist ("Broad Church...
...This body hardly comes into con- sideration here for that reason...
...There are many, of course, who will have nothing to do with Christianity...
...The sympathies of individual Anglicans (in America "the Protestant Episcopal Church") are, of course, divided according to the school of thought most prevalent among local memberships...
...Christian unity, from every rational and spiritual viewpoint, can be worthy of its name only if it is gen- erally inclusive and is remedial of the general condi- tions which have been outlined here...
...To secure this desidera- tum, as Christ prayed for its continuance--"that they may all be one"--a long, hard road must be traveled by American Christians...
...Like royal strangers, self-contained and deep, The favor of their thoughts is disallowed Since they have rich reserves that they must keel~--Oh, let no one confuse them with the crowd...
...Evangelical ("Low Church...
...It is hard to blame such persons, be-came the quantitatively "bigger half" of American Christianity is not only unauthentic according to Chris- tianity's own historic tests, but wastes such power as it possesses through placing emphasis upon the wrong things...
...98 THE COMMONWEAL December I, 1926 diseases affecting our characteristic "American Chris- tianity" is Christian unity...
...The Eastern Orthodox have made little impression upon American life...
...Reconciliation among these three "historic Catholic churches" as a broad basis for church unity is as yet only in its academic stages...
...many ecclesiastical courtesies exchanged between Anglicans and the Orthodox, especially since post-war persecutions of the latter have made tracts...
...Anglicanism would of[er a logical basis for unity if it could be reconciled internally in questions of "churchmanship" and practice...
...American Anglicanism (which possesses influence far beyond its relatively small membership) thus diffusing its forces to the vanishing point so far as the possible exercise of a recondling function is concerned...
...Anglicans are divided among themselves, accord-ing to the lines of demarkation indicated by their three historic schools of thought: Anglo-Catholic ("High Church...
...Chaste a Thing Is Loneliness So chaste a thing is loneliness, so proud A state, I wonder why the lonely weep, Who, pure and cold as children in their sleep, Meet angels, unbewildered and unbowed, And speak them, with such grace are they endowed...
...In the matters of general organization and ideals, Angli- cans and such of the Eastern Orthodox as are repre-sented in our country, are more or less at one with her...
...It seems never to have aroused the enmity of the "fighting type" of sectarians--possibly because it is, itself, outspokenly "non-Roman," or even "anti-Roman"--qualities which would serve to commend it to sectarians generally...
...A great and sweeping change must come over the majority of "American Christians" if they are ever to make Christianity count in our land...
...Of the three Christian bodies claiming identity with the original organism, or a high degree of participa...
...Something has been done on all three fronts: rapprochement between Roman Catholics and Anglicans (as in the Malines Conversa- tions...
...But let all see their faces, singular And celibate each one as some white star, Behold their pain and envy their despair, The splendor of their arrogance torlorn, And only ask forever what they mourn-So chaste a thing is loneliness, so rare...
...It may be said that all other Christian bodies are lined up against the Roman Catholic Church...
...Sectarians, in general, fear and hate her, and possess diverse ideas with respect to ideals and or-ganization...
...Among certain sectarian denomina-tions this feeling has grown into a settled dread and fear, expressed by an open hostility, a large portion of which state of mind is due to ignorance and un-reasoning prejudice...
...The general run of Americans hardly consider the Eastern Orthodox, un- less occasionally, and then academically...
...AMANDA BENJAMIN HALL...
...Perhaps the chief uniting consideration in this alignment is the general sectarian belief that Roman Catholics are, somehow, a "foreign" group---i.e., not so much a church with a preponderatingly large membership of non-Americans, but (more important- ly) a body owing its allegiance to a foreign power-- the Papacy...
...between Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox (by way of submission to the former) in the cases of Uniate clergy and congregations, "Ruthe-nians," etc...
...To these it seems a wild medley of frustrations and cross-purposes...
...Probably most of these have seen sectarianism and believed it to be Christianity...
...tion therein, along with historical continuity (the apos- tolic succession) the Roman Catholic Church is by far the strongest, quantitatively, in the United States...
...Conversions to this type of the Christian religion are very few and far between in the United States...
...Pan-Protestantism"--i.e., "unity" to the exclusion of Roman Catholics and with little attention paid to the Orthodox, or to Anglicans other than extremists of the "Evangelical" and "Broad Church" orders, would seem, if ever consummated, to divide sectarian- ism and the adherents of historic Christianity more sharply and decisively than ever before...
...many prejudices overcome, many exercises of individual and corporate humility performed...
Vol. 5 • December 1926 • No. 4
