XXV
AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY
i.
Whoever you may be: popes, cardinals, bishops, superintendents, priests, or pastors, of whatever Church, forego for a while your assurance that you—you in particular—are the only true disciples of the God Christ, appointed to preach his only true teaching; and remember that before being popes, cardinals, bishops, or superintendents, etc., you are first of all men: that is, according to your own teaching, beings sent into this world by God to fulfil His will; remember this, and ask yourselves what you are doing. Your whole life is devoted to preaching, maintaining, and spreading among men a teaching which you say was revealed to you by God Himself, and is, therefore, the only one that is true and brings redemption.
In what, then, does this one true and redeeming doctrine that you preach, consist? To whichever one of the so-called Christian Churches—Roman Catholic, Russo-Greek, Lutheran, or Anglican—you may belong, you acknowledge that your teaching is quite accurately expressed in the articles of belief formulated at the Council of Nicæa sixteen hundred years ago. Those articles of belief are as follows:
First: There is a God the father (the first person of a Trinity), who has created the sky and the earth, and all the angels who live in the sky.
Second: There is an only son of God the father, not
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