His idea
was, that Christians should meet for religious _worship apart_ from
people of the world,--that though preachers might _preach_ to mixed
audiences, they should reserve their singing and praying, and all that
was strictly worship, for assemblies of Christians alone. He recommended
that the members of the church should meet first, in a place apart, or
in a part of the chapel marked off for themselves, and go through their
devotions all alone, and that the sermon, addressed both to believers
and unbelievers, should be quite a separate service. He had passages of
Scripture, and church tradition, and considerations of fitness and
propriety, by which he recommended his doctrine, and to some they proved
convincing. I began myself, after thinking the matter over for awhile,
to have a leaning towards his views. My friends could so far tolerate
the new views, that they allowed Mr. Bird to preach in their chapels,
letting some one else conduct the singing and praying parts of the
service. But when they found that their own minister began to look with
favor on the new plan, they became alarmed. They could tolerate
peculiarities in others, but they were not disposed to appear before the
world as reformers and innovators themselves. Nor would they allow their
minister to go any farther in the way of reform than he had gone before
they had accepted him as their pastor.
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