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HE pulpit, in our humble opinion, lacks
1 in these days neither consideration
nor power, and though all the talk that
there is about how preachers should
preach and hew hearers should listen, can cer
tainly do no harm, and may do some good. We
are not sure that there is much necessity for it.
“Don't send us duffers.” said the Austra
lians to Mr. Spurgeon, when applying to him
for a supply of young preachers from his col
lege ; and if there only were an infallible mech
anism by which “duffers” could be prevented
from devoting them elves for life to the pulpit,
or sifted out of the ranks of the ministerial pro
fession, when'they have shown their quality, the
grand difficulty would be vanquished. This,
however, must remain a pleasing imagination,
and there might be reasons suggested why a
large proportion of persons, sure, sooner or
later to fail in the pulpit, are likely to make
preaching the business of their lives.
There are few men who pass through youth
without some experience of spiritual ardour,
some sincere exultation and fervor in the moral
nature, some glcw of ambition to be engaged
in the sacred enterprise of bettering mankind:
and this emotional warmth is fitted to raise
the entire mental frame-work into correspond
ing energy, to fill the heart with thoughts,
and the mouth with words. At such periods
a young man and his friends, easily persuade
themselves that he will be an eloquent preach
er. But though the character is not insincere;
though no real deadening of feeling upon spirit
ual things takes place, this fervor may prove
fleeting and the vigor cf thought and luxur
iance of expression dependent upon it, may
vanish. In the meantime, however, the minis
try may have been entered, and there may be
neither the power, nor the will for no one likes
to acknowledge that he has made such a mis
take, to adept another calling. We have glanced
at but one of many causes, which render it
inevitable that there shall be failures among
preachers, and which make it absurd to ex
pect that all churches or mission chapels shall
be filled with attentive audiences. We are in
clined to think, however, that there are causes
which render congregations more difficult to
please, more fastidious, more impatient in the
present day than at any former period.
There has never, indeed, been a time when the
weariness of the hearers has been unknown
even whenever Puritanism was at white heat,
some people complained that they were preach
ed to death.
But it is also true that there never was a
time when so many influences entered into com
petition as new. Periodical literature of the
most fascinating kind, daily newspapers, circu
lating libraries have sharpened the critical fac
ulty of the public and blunted the mental pal
ate for all but superior food.
Pulpit freshness is now more difficult to pro
duce than it ever was in this world, and if
any advice is likely to be of any practical use
to the tens of thousands who preach twice or
thrice every week in the United States, it is
the advice to look this fact squarely in the face
and to take special measures to deal with it.
The main source of freshness in expression is
fervor of feeling, of this there is no doubt;
it has been an admitted common-place since the
days of Horace. The very same ideas, the very
same words, which fall flat when a man cares
little about them, strike heme to the heart
when winged with intense feeling. The history
of the pulpit is full of illustrations of this fact.
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR JULY 3, 1913
MINISTERS OF GOD
By M. H. POGSON.
Mr. Moody was but one of thousands of preach
ers who have found the same, or very nearly
the same, sermons, which had no effect at all
when delivered in a hum-drum., conventional
way, become capable of moving vast congrega
tions when spoken with manifest interest, and
intense feeling, direct from the heart.
It is chiefly, however, in an indirect way
that feeling is kept fresh and keen, and the
grand plan cf filling the heart with heat is to
fill the brain with the fuel of ideas. We are
convinced that the most fruitful of all sources
of pulpit dullness is the habit of beating lazily
over a few stock dogmas, a few regulation
themes. The text is made a mere sounding
board fcr these. When this is the case, the
hollowness of the performance makes itself felt
even though there is a parade of feeling and a
flow of words.
In the whole course of my thirty years’ ex
perience I have never known of a man, who
honestly made the most of his text, being an
ineffective preacher. He might not have a noisy
popularity; he might not draw large audiences,
but he is always listened to with attention,
and he, as well as his hearers, always appeared
to derive satisfaction from his preaching. This
is not strange. The Bible, apart from all theo
ries as to its in piration, is one of the most
interesting volumes in the world. It consists
of an immense variety of separate books, sep
arate, yet combined in real unit yand every one
of those books came into existence under par
ticular circumstanceln many instances, as
in that of the epistles of Paul, the circumstances
were profoundly impressive.
To treat a scripture text therefore with hon
est desire to ascertain what, when set in the
light of ether texts, it means: To follow the
leading lines of Gospel truth as they shine out
again and again under varying modes of inspi
ration; is not only a spiritually profitable but
a mentally exhilarating operation. Closeness
of thought, clearness of exposition, accuracy
of logical deduction are naturally stimulating
and pleasant to the human mind, and the Bible
affords the amplest opportunity for their dis
play. This, however, asks real application,
honest and concentrated work, and the temp
taticn is great to shirk such labor and to take
some old world theological problem or formula
and beat it out into goody, goody platitudes.
There is another reason why frank and
searching exposition of scripture may be es
chewed. It is no secret that there is a class of
hearers who like nothing so well as to have
the dogmas and phrases long sanctioned by
authority repeated, with a reasonable amount
of variation, again and again and yet again.
If congregations indulge this humor, if they
always suspect heresy when the preacher says
anything to which they are not accustomed and
have not been accustomed since childhood; they
di an injustice both to themselves and their
pastor. They make it impossible for the lat
ter to avail himself of the floods of light which
have within the last century been thrown upon
the Scriptures and they condemn themselves
to the wearisome reiteration cf formulas which
other generations believed to be commensurate
with the whole truth of God, but which as
suredly were not so. As a practical hint, the
advice sometimes given to preachers to dwell
on particular moral failings, seems to us to be
a good one. Prudence no doubt is necessary,
but a pastor is bound to have an eye fcr the
besetting sins of his locality or audience, and
to know how to hit them. Though offense will
be taken in some instances, the gain will on the
whole outweigh the loss.
The poet is enjoined by the critic to instruct
his readers, or to smile or weep, which ever he
pleases, “anything but sleep,” and the preacher
who does not confine himself to the denun
ciation of those abstract iniquities, in respect of
which we may declare ourselves miserable sin
ners for forty years without the faintest mean
ing, but attacks such real and rampant vices
as evil speaking, rancorous envy, purse pride,
tippling and petty dishonesty, will at the worst,,
have no trouble from drowsy indifference in
his congregation.
The duty of restitution has, it seems, been
made at rare intervals the subject of discourse
and on one occasion, it is said, a rousing sermon
by Mr. Moody produced SIO,OOO of conscience
money for the secretary of the treasury. This,
suggestion would obviously meet with the ap
proval of our national government, and if our
leading preachers could be induced to deliver
a series of pulpit orations in accordance with
this idea, in New York and Brooklyn, a hand
some surplus might be the result. It would be
advisable, however, not to announce the theme
of the reverend orator in advance, for in that
case some of the richest members of the con
gregation might stay at home on account of
sudden indisposition.
The present is an outspoken age. Whatever
the public mind thinks it will express. It will
have no reservation and no concealment. Os
late it has been expressing it 3 mind pretty free
ly on church questions and religious matters,
and, among other things, serious charges have
been preferred against the modern pulpit. Min
isters have been denounced as inefficient, and
their preaching tame and profitless. This ques
tion has been largely canvassed in newspapers
and magazines, but it is still questionable
whether any clear case has been made out.
GRUNTS AND GROANS.
By A. C. Ward, D. D.
The great Pennsylvania railroad system has
adopted a sure way of testing the efficiency of
its men. All train crews are required to sub
mit to a breath-smelling . test to determine
whether liquor has been drank. The “ultimat
um” is “anyone having the odor of liquor on
his breath will be suspended or discharged.”
Petitions for a state-wide vote on a bill pro
hibiting the shipments of liquors into “dry”
territory are now being circulated in all parts
of Ohio. What the Webb law means amongst
the states the Ohio law proposes to do between
its counties.
The New York Eveniirg Journal put a whis
key bottle at the head of a grave and a glass
at the foot, and says “This is the most ex
pensive tombstone in the world.”
In the North Dakota state penitentiary there
are only three women prisoners. Until recently
there was only one. This condition is said to
be due to “No saloons.” The state has a very
low percentage of “lew-character” women.
The people of Arkansas believe that next Jan
uary they will practically be free from saloons.
Instead of the people petitioning to get the sa
loon out, the saloons will have to beg to come
in. Best of all, the women wil Ibe permitted to
have a say so in the matter.