Fayetteville Observer

From Petersburg.

For the Fayetteville Observer.

PETERSBURG, Aug. 30, 1872.

Mr. Editor--DEAR SIR--In the estimation of the masses, the church is a cold, repulsive and unsympathetic society, composed principally of those who fancy themselves to be wiser and better and holier than others, and not as it is, or ought to be, an institution of mercy, of brotherly kindness, and charity. If a man is poor, or sick, or disconsolate, or broken hearted, then, although his spirit may yearn for a purer and better sympathy than any which the world can give, yet he does not turn to the church as he ought, or as feeling that this is God's home for the lonely, and the only communion or fellowship in which the deepest wants and necessities of his nature can be fully met and adequately supplied. And then, strange to say, we members of churches are too often received with emotions of dread and alarm, especially among the young, and at the bed side of the sick and the dying, rather than with those emotions of love and reverence with which they ought to be welcomed, as friends, as brothers, as christians. Indeed the whole tendency of the times has been to alienate, separate and isolate the christian from the common sympathies of life, as men who resembled in character, rather the cold and unfeeling Priest, than the good Samaritan. And I have no doubt that these false and pernicious views of the church and of the members, have been the fruitful source of much of the infidelity which prevails around us. I hesitate not to say, therefore, that I look upon those mutual benefit societies to which I have referred, as reforms upon the church--as doing the work which God ordained his church to do in the world--as the voice of nature and of God, protesting against her coldness, her lukewarmness and her want of sympathy, and as ultimately designed, in God's providence, to awaken her to the discharge of her neglected duties as his home--his family--his household--his brotherhood on earth. All the good that those societies are laboring to do, should be done by the church, more fully, more freely, more lovingly. Their example should quicken us to greater diligence and energy, and every man, woman and child should be constrained to feel and recognize the fact, that there is no such sympathy, no such love, no such brotherhood, no such companionship, no such bond of union, as that which exists in the body of Christ, all members of which are really "members one of another." But there is only one way in which this great object can be accomplished--not by talking, not by preaching, but by going to work secretly and quietly, as it were, without ostentation or parade, and in the spirit of Christ our Lord. You know what these societies are doing, though you may not see it--they nourish their feeble, they tend their sick, they bury their dead with demonstrations of respect, they support their widows, they educate their orphans, and nothing more is required than the sign or watch-word of membership to unlock the sympathy of the heart. So let us nourish and protect our feeble, though with a stronger arm; so let us tend and nurse our sick and helpless, though with a more fervent love; so let us bury our dead, though with higher and better demonstration of respect and attachment, and that without regard to their outward condition, as rich or poor; so let us comfort and support the widow and the fatherless, though with a purer and deeper sympathy; so let the mystic signs and watch-words of our faith be always recognized as enough, and more than enough to penetrate the soul and unlock the deeper treasures of christian love. "Then draw we nearer day by day, each to his brethren--all to God."

SERENUS.