Newspaper Page Text
July 10, 1912] THE
aDy loss. When it rained or snowed so that I
could not go to church or was sick, I could gratefully
think, well, I am doing something this
weeK, anyhow. 1 am preaching to the people
that get and read the paper that I prompted
them to take. Every pastor who introduced a
sound and live religious journal to the families of
his charge has seen the 'beneficial results in increased
interest and enlarged giving."
"THE DOER OF IT."
In the Bible's account of Joseph in the prison
in Egypt, it is said, "And whatsoever they did
there, he was the doer of it.'' The same might be
said of the average minister of toAnv
churches there are which do not make a factotum
of the pastor. The result is that the qualifications
for the pastorate have been very much
changed from former years and from the apostolic
example. From being the thoughtful
student, the scholarly expositor and interpreter
of the Word of God, the pastor has become only
the chief executive officer of his congregation.
His reading, so far as he has time for any at all,
is along the lines of administration. He studies
how to make a church successful as an organization
more than what it shall believe or be taught
as to faith. He is literally conducting a business
rather than making an ambassador of himself.
In this the modern day pastors surely have not
the apostolic example. It was a semi-secular
work to which the Twelve declared that they
could not devote themselves, as it would interfere
with their regular ministry. Clearly there were
in the early church, and therefore will be in the
church of to-day if it be rightly conducted, a
ministry of the word and a "serving of tables,"
and the two ought no more to be joined now
than in the days of old. The great business of
the ministry is to unfold the word, to teach the
doctrines found there, to apply these doctrines
or principles to the conditions of life, and to deal
lovingly and helpfully with souls in the discipling
of all God's people. In order to this much
time must needs be spent in reading and medita
tion and profound study. Anything that interferes
-with these interferes with a perfect ministry.
And will any deny that the pastor's devotion
of the greater part of his time to organization
and to the activities-of the church as a
business does seriously interfere with his reading
and study? Does not even too frqently pastoral
visiting, especially of the kind that is most
common to-day, mere light, social, friendly calls,
show its effect upon a man's pulpit work? One
hears often just now of the belief or claim that
the pulpit has lost its power. The claim may be,
to a partial extent, true. But if it 'be true, may
not the loss be accounted for? If the minister
devotes his time to "serving tables," or, like
Taseph, is "the doer" of everything in his
church, how can it be expected that his pulpit
work be such as to command the attention, the
interest, and the acceptance of thoughtful men*
Semi-secular work outside the pulpit and thin
w?i'K in the pulpit almost invariably go together.
How many evenings at home, how many mornings
of uninterrupted study, does the average
pastor of to-day, especially in the large town or
the city, enjoy T How much of his precious time
must he give to organization and societies and
conventions and movements t The conditions are
8uch in most cases that it has come to pass thaV
the best place which the man who is ambitious
88 a thinker and student can possibly have is
some very small, retired, country field, here he
will have a chance to read and to think, and
where he may elaborate something worthy of the
atubassador8hip of the King. It is little wonder
that our best pseachers and profoundest thinkers
c?me from pastorates of this kind.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE 81
PAPAL POLITICS.
Doubtless at the instigation of Roman Catholic
and government officials at Washington,
criminal proceedings have been instituted against
Thomas E. "Watson of Georgia, editor of The
Jeffersonian. Relative to this prosecution, H. W.
Simmons, writing in The Christian Leader, presents
this illuminating exposure:
"Through the activity of the Federal District
Attorney at Augusta, Ga., Hon. Thomas E. Watson
has been placed under bond to appear for
trial on the charge of publishing obscene matter
in a recent ifesue of his magazine.
"It is believed by many that the district attorney
is acting under orders from his suneriors
in authority, and that this proceeding against
Mr. Watson had ith origin in the desire of Republican
officials to win the approval of the
Roman Catholic priesthood, and in consequence
S e votes of the Catholic laity in the approaching
presidential election by embarrassing and possibly
suppressing Mr. Watson's magazine, which,
by its strictures on the Catholic hierarchy, has
given mortal offense to the high dignitaries of
that Church, by legal proceedings similar to those
employed for the past three years against The
Appeal to Reason.
The motive underlying this prosecution of Mr.
Watson is apparent, and when it is known that
the matter printed by him was a quotation from
a copyrighted Roman Catholic book published in
the United States, and mailed to all sections of
the country, twelve editions of it having been
sold the animus of the prosecution is apparent.
"All politicians are keenly alive to the fact
that the Catholic vote can be transferred by the
priesthood to the political party making the highest
bid for it, and in their eagerness to obtain it
they are disgustingly obsequious and fawning
v* ?1??
w mc uaiuuuu ciergy. in ox one political journal
of wide circulation and influence will give space
to a criticism obnoxious to Catholics, even if the
facta given be conceded true by Catholic historians.
"The monstrous injustice of thfe prosecution
is apparent. The book from which Mr. Watson
made the quotations is mailed to tens of thousands
all over the country by its Catholic publishers,
and nothing said. Watson prints a few
extracts from it, and this action calls for a
Governmental prosecution for circulating obscenity
through the mails. Harmless when mailed
by a Romanist; deserving of Federal prosecution
when mailed by a Protestant. Permitted to
be mouthed to female communicants by the
Roman priesthood, forbidden to be mentioned by
any one else.
"A few months aeo the eatalocme of ?
Catholic publishing house wafc sent me. In it
was advertised a manual for the use of the priesthood.
A summary of the contents of each chapter
was given. One of the chapters was so vile
that even the summary of contents was printed
in Latin.
"The liberty of the press is itself in danger.
Many official acts of the Government for three
years past have been of an alarming tendency.
Editors have been thrown in prison, and their
periodicals loaded with court costs, because of
their exposure of ininnitnma Onwrnmont
cials and their practices. The wrongful suppression
of one periodical may result in the
liberty of the press being practically annulled.''
Hierarchical government in the Church unquestionably
tends towards the training of all
young people connected witjj a church governed
that way against a democratic government. The
very essence of the unlimited monarchy is in
it. The Boston cardinal was right, from his
view-point, when he referred to Massachusetts
} U T H (825) 11
as "a province" of the greatest monarchy on
earth. And yet the Romanists claim that their
Church is not in principle opposed to the fundamental
principles of this American Republic 1
A long-suffering pastor is again overwhelmed
with advice and counsel and suggestions from
New York as to the best method of conducting
his work in the rural South. He thinks he knows
how to run his own church, how to develop its
various activities, how to adjust himself to the
conditions immediately around him. The voluminous
papers coming to him find a quick road
to the waste-basket and fire-place, where they
belong. We are inclined to think that there is
a huge waste in the multigraph, printing, and
postage bills of the bulk of these self-appointed
advisors. They might find some better use for
their money.
We find much fault with thnsp. wVip dm*
their pulpits against any but regularly ordained
preachers and preachers of their own faith. But
do we not sometimes swing too far to the other
extreme and open ours too freely! There are
two ways in which the latter is done. One is
the too hospitable manner in which we admit
speakers of all kinds, visitors even to secular
conventions, lecturers, agents, men of unknown
faith, propagandists of some new notion or old,
revamped vagary. The other is the too free
language which is often admitted, the over familiar
tone, the 6lang phrases, the coarse and offensive
language, especially affested hv a "ortoin
class of strolling evanagelists. Of the two evils,
closed pulpit or open pulpit, if either has to
be tolerated, the smaller is that of being ex
elusive and admitting only men and speech, dull
perchance, some may think them, marked by
loyalty and reverence.
Here is the way in which a distinguished prelate
of the Koman Church argues that one should
not say "Koinan Catholic" but "Catholic" in
speaking of his church: "1 do not say itoman
Catholic, for that would suppose that there was
another Catholic Church than ours. Only we
have the right to the name of Catholic; and only
WA. ll'hfl ?ro in 'lL iL" "
?, w ujjlxuu vvnu uie xvioiner unurcn
in Home, whence the successor of Peter rules the
entire kingdom of Christ on earth, can claim
title." Fine reasoning, that! "We must not be
called Roman, for only we who are in union with
the Mother Church in Rome are entitled to remove
the name Roman!
The ways and conditions of the liquor traffic
are well illustrated by the following facts:. New
Orleans is cursed with about two thousand saloons.
It has also several great breweries. One
of the latter, in sharp business competition with
thfi nthpWI tVlQ n? Aa-rr J !
???> vuu?i uaj lunucu but; price 01
beer about two dallars a barrel. The next day
it was gravely stated that "the first gun" was
fired by one of the big breweries which will fight
the price-slaching, by the announcement that one
hun ired and sixty of its saloon customers would
"stand pat" on the old price. The intense loyalty
thus shown in Davincr nwirl-v fcwn rlrtllor?
more per barrel for tbeir beer than it can be
bought for on the market seems remarkable until
one remembers that vast numbers of saloon licenses
are paid for, when taken out or renewed,
by the big breweries, which get their money back
by a small amount extra paid on each barrel
bought. Two or three years ago it was given out
that more than thirteen hundred of the saloon
licenses of New Orleans were thus paid for by
the breweries. r