A message in the form of a letter from Monsignor Bonomelli was read
to the delegates attending the World Missionary Conference, held in
Edinburgh, June, 1910, part of which reads:
All of you feel the need of a church, which may be the outward
manifestation of your faith and religious feeling, the vigilant
custodian now and here of Christian doctrine and tradition. It
sustains and keeps alive religion and individual activity, in
virtue of that strong power of suggestion, which collectively
always exercises on the individual.
“Sir,” exclaims Johnson, “it is a very dangerous thing for a man
not to belong to any church!”
And this is true. How many of us would fall a thousand times
were it not for this support!
From the various churches and religious denominations,
into which you Christians are divided, there arises a new
unifying element, a noble aspiration, restraining too great
impulsiveness, leveling dividing barriers, and working for the
realization of the one holy church through all the children of
redemption.
(441)
=Church, Obligations to the=--See OBLIGATIONS TO THE CHURCH.