_ A vicious constitution ought never to be fostered by
indulgence. But I really hope that your Association, which I presume
will be the model one for this country, will be careful to reject the
exceptionable morality of the French teacher, and while you adopt his
practical scheme in its worthy features, will also make it manifest
that you esteem Jesus Christ as the true Master.
I may say that the more I compare the principles of Association adopted
by you, with the general state of society, the more I admire the former
and become dissatisfied with the latter. I feel great anxiety for your
success. I feel deeply anxious that the friends of Association should
be students of the gospel of Christ, that care might be taken to carry
out the glorious doctrines of the Son of God. I do not mean
sectarianism. I mean that religion, that pure morality, that
spirituality which Jesus Christ exhibited in his own life; not the
religion of the _ascetic_, but the social, the benevolent, the
philanthropic, the Godward aspirations of the spiritual man.
My wife and myself often converse about the propriety of uniting with
you. We become disgusted with the social arrangements with which we are
connected. In worldly society we mourn over the outbreaking vices not
only of the low, but of those who are highest in rank; and when we seek
satisfaction of mind and heart in the church, lo! even there
selfishness rules supreme, and a profession of religion covers up the
meanest propensities of the sanctimonious worshipper.
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