"
L'Isle smiled for a moment, but went on earnestly to say: "We believe
that Christ not only gave us a father, but founded a church, and we
will not let go our hold upon it, as some sects and nations have done,
out of mere opposition to Rome. Our forefathers by God's providence,
set earnestly to work reforming it where corrupted, repairing it when
dilapidated, but did not pull it down, in the presumptuous hope of
building up another. They purified the temple, but did not destroy
it. They removed the idols, but did plough up and sow with salt the
consecrated spot, because it had been defiled."
"I see" said Moodie warmly, "that you aim your anathema at the Kirks
among other Christian bodies."
"Without anathematizing any one," L'Isle answered, "we take comfort to
ourselves, in the conviction that our church is a continuous branch of
that which the Apostles founded in Christ, and that it might have been
in essentials what it now is, were its history as closely connected
with the Greek church, as it is with that of Rome, or had it ever
stood unconnected with either of them. Never having been rebuilt from
its foundation, it has lost its apostolic character.
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