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10 (300) THE
PROFESSIONAL LEADERSHIP.
Whatever one calls them, "experts," "leaders,"
"organizers," or what not, the agents of
most of the voluntary organizations and movements
which are trying to reform the church
and the world today are simply a new profession,
devoted, of course, to their several causes,
but going about their advocacy with a distinct
declaration that they are "leaders." It does
not seem to occur to them that there is distinct
conceit in the name and profession. They do not
intend it, perhaps, but all the same it is there,
ana sometimes it becomes offensive. Some of the
organizations openly assert that their peculiar
function is that of leadership, and that they will
seek to apply this leadership, not only to theii
own efforts, but "to the movements within
various religious bodies and to the organized
and official missionary societies."
Of course this new profession of "leadership"
is to be supported. Its calls for money for its
own enterprise are constant and urgent. Some
of the organizations maintain a great staff of
officers, secretaries of this, that and the other, for
administrative purposes, besides numerous worker
out in the field, thus making the two kinds,
office leaders and field leaders. They are always
careful to have the wherewithal provided
before they touch a place in their leadership, and
the payments in the aggregate make very handsome
salaries, much handsomer than the salaries
of many of the to-be-led ministers who bear the
brunt of raising them for the peripatetics. The
amount of actual money invested in the profession
of leadership and leadership-ing, taken
as a whole, will be found to bear a very large
proportion to the amount which the professional
leaders stimulate the "led" to add to the gifts
which they have already been making.
The tribe of professional experts or self-styled
and self-appointed leaders is but the same as
that of the old professional evangelists who were
more common ten or twenty years ago than they
are to-day. There are two differences between
the classes. One is that the present profession
branches out into more numerous lines or phases
of work than the old, dealing with more departments
of church activity and classes of men.
The other is that they go "bunched together" in
groups rather than singly or in pairs as formerly.
As a result of this second special feature,
they must needs strike only the "high points"
in the church and hence are seen usually only
in the largest churches or largest communities,
working a round of "campaign cities" only.
The smaller churches and communities are left
to the second-hand "leadership" of men from
these larger places, trained through a fine three
to eight days' course in work and study by the
first-hand "leaders." As to the country districts,
they are left utterly untouched. As a
still further result these "campaign" communities
are simply over-worked, over-inspirationalized.
over-stimulated and educated. They have
had enough of this kind of campaign to have
made them next to perfect. And yet, strange to
say, they are not living up to their privileges.
They are becoming so accustomed to all this
method of being taught by the peripatetics that
they are growing tired of it, and it is becoming
increasingly difficult to get the people together
in these over-inspirationalized communities to
hear the visitors The testimonv ia well niwli
universal just now that the preat bulk of the
people whom most of these "movements" and
"campaigns" pret toprether are simply "the old
pmard," the old faithful souls from the churches
who are always ready to have unloaded upon
themselves all the education and stimulation
which the visitors brinpr, together with all the
CrHtleiam, too, which some of them pour out upon
the church and church members.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
THE BLUE BANNER IN IRELAND.
Certainly the policital crisis which threatens
the Presbyterians and other Protestants of Ireland
is a "case extraordinary" and those affected
thereby are dealing with it, if not by means of
"hnmble petition," at least in a way which
while respectful to "the powers that be" indicates
an uncompromising purpose to preserve
their civil and religious liberty. They have been
constrained by grave political conditions to sound
out a protest and warning that can be ignored
by the party in power only at the peril of internal
peace and the forfeiture of the loyalty of a
powerful body of British patriots. Such a protest
was made against Irish Home Rule, in 1886
and repeated in 1893, but in maernitude and
intensity the recent demonstration even surpassed
those of former years. The Northen
Whig, of Belfast, publishes the proceedings under
these headlines?"No Home Rule: Voice of
Presbyterian Ireland: Historic Muster Under the
Blue Banner," and says:
The Convention of Irish Presbyterians held
yesterday in Belfast to protest against Home
Rule was the largest and probably the most momentous
assemblage ever held under the Blue
Banner in Ulster. It will be remembered, not
for its size alone, but also for the depth and intensity
of the feeling against the Government
proposals which it expressed on behalf of the
church in Ireland. That expression was rendered
all the more striking by the fact that it
was above and distinct from party politics. Both
Liberalism and Conservatism were represented
in the big gatherings which condemned, with
united and far carrying voice, what one speaker
described, amidst thunders of approving applause,
as "a political crime." The declaration
was animated by no petty political feeling, but
was based on consideration for the welfare of
Church and country.
From all parts of Ireland there came representatives
of the church, no fewer than twenty
special trains being employed, and in the streets
of the city yesterday the blue badge was to be
seen on every side. Over forty thousand tickets
of admission were issued, and it was found
necessary to hold no fewer than ten meetings
during the day. All these were attended by
crowded and enthusiastic audiences, and at each
one a resolution which summed up in clear and
convincing fashion the reasons against Home
Rule for Presbyterian point of view was adopted
with acclamation.
The Ulster Hall, the Assembly Hall, Rosemary
Street Church, May Street Church, and Great
Victoria Street Church were each the scene of
gatherings remarkable for their dimensions, unanimity,
and the spirit of resolution which they
demonstrated. Four meetings were held in the
afternoon, the audiences at these being very
largely composed of those who had travelled
from a distance?including two hundred from
Dublin?whilst the several evening meetngs
were attended in the main by the folk of the city
and district. In one instance an open-air meetng
had to he held, and even with the elaborate
A _ 3 - - -1 v 3 % ?
arrangements maae, a consmerame numDer were
unable to get an opportunity of hearing any of
the speeches, so immense was the muster.
What occurred yesterday tells Englishmen and
Scotchmen today that the lapse of a quarter of
a century has made the Unionism of Irish Presbyterians
far more intense than it was in 1886.
It tells Great Britain that Irish Presbyterians
haae subordinated every interest, every article
of traditional political faith, to this great
question of the Union. It presents the problem?
a tough one for any Government, no matter how
unscrupulous or desperate?of 423,000 people in
Ulster sternly determined to resist the Government
Home Rule policy to the bitter end. His
tory has shown what sacrifices Presbyterians
will make for faith and liberty. And the Presbyterians
of to-day in city and in country are
made of just as stern stuff as those of James
II's time.
In the course of a few weeks the Protestant
Episcopalians and the Methodists of Ireland will
ranee themselves beside the Presbyterians of Ireland.
endorsine with equal firmness and determination
the declaration made by the latter yesterday.
That action will bring 400,000 Ulster
UTH [ February 28, 1?12
Episcopalians and 50,000 Ulster Methodists?
making a total of 873,000 souls?into the phalanx
ranged against Home Rule in the Northern
province.
THEY CANNOT STOP.IT.
To those who attach no importance whatever
to the matter of apostolic succession through
Episcopal or Roman Catholic ordination, there
is something amusing about the notion. For instance,
just now Romanists are much stirred up
over the fact that the Jansenist bishons of Hoi
land, who are in full connection with the
hierarchy, and who possess all the "grace" that
can possibly exist in "orders," have ordained
certain bishops for the Old Catholics of Germany,
three others for the Polish Mariavites,
and one Englishman, the latter a married man.
But how can the apostolic line be stopped? If
it is projected down some undesirable track, it
is a valid line, and heresiarchs are constituted as
valid a body as any other. It is impossible to
head it off. If tactual succession makes the true
church, then those new bishops are not pseudo
bishops,, and their ordination of others is as
valid as their own. The true church runs along
tactual, not biblical or spiritual lines
"What is that 4Ne Temere Decree' to which
villi Vinv<? nfton roforro/1 nf loto?" S!a ooUo nr>o
J vv% MMT V WX AVAVI.AVU WA 4V? bV < k/V UOOO VUC
who seems not to have read all that has been
written concerning it. It may be well to repeat
that it is a decree from the Vatican which sets
aside all civil authority and laws in respect to
marriage and treats with contempt all marriage
contracts which are not made according to the
law of the Roman Catholic Church. To use the
words of our neighbor, The Standard, "it declares
in substance that the marriage of all
Catholics (both parties Catholic), by a minister
or civil magistrate is no marriage at all; the
marriage of all former Catholics, who have become
Protestants, or infidels, by a minister or
civil magistrate is no marriage; the marriage of
a Catholic to a Protestant who was never baptized
in the Catholic Church, by a minister or
civil magistrate is no marriage." While pluming
itself as a church which is so opposed to all
divorces, that it will never marry divorced parties,
it evades its own law by pronouncing certain
marriages no marriages at all and hence the
divorced parties not divorced because, forsooth,
never married. The rottenness of the decree is
surpassed by only one thing, and that is the condition
of those divorces, who, in order to get the
sanction of the church to their second marriage,
are willing to accept the holy church's decree
and to admit that they were not married before!
The partnership of the United States government
with the liquor interests is the boast and
security of the latter and the menace of the
country. Regardless of one's views on the saloon
question, as to license, or high license, or no
license, or State-wide prohibition, or local option,
the present situation in which, under the
protection of the United States law, liquor men
may ship their products into States which have
prohibited the trade, is the grossest possible
violation of States' Rights. Under it, as the law
stands at present, no State can regulate its
internal affairs or make laws which it deems for
the welfare of its people. The Sheppard-Kenyon
k;ii n ? _:n
uiu iiutt uciuie v/uugrctw wut remeay mis condition
of affaire and give justice to the people.
It will take away the power of a designing and
self-interested few to thwart the will and laws of
a whole people because these few purposely put
themselves in another State. It will prevent the
Federal government's nullifying State laws for
the benefit of a few outside those States. ?
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