Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-03-19
From the Augusta Constitutionalist.
READING WRITTEN SERMONS

hGADlNI w hlIIEN SGhmoNS.
There are in the United States, perhaps,
sixty-fve thousand places of worship belong
ing to our different denominations of Evan
gelical Christians. To minister to the con-
gregations who frequent these churches, in
holy things, there are nearly fifty thousand
clergymen-a majority of them men Of learn
ing, of piety, and of zeal, who have volun-
tarily consecrated theirlives to their calling,
and, by careful and elaborate preparation,
have fitted themselves for its duties. These
fifty thousand ministers, thus devoted and
thus prepared, have the privilege to address
millions of hearers, every Sabbath during
the year-to make direct personal appeals to
them, and to present an er part" statement
of the claims of the religion of the Bible.
No class of public speakers have equal ia
cilities afforded them, or speak under circum-
stances so favorable to the attainment Of
their objects. The'law protects them by
recognizing the Sabbath as civil as we'll az
divine institution, and by enacting penal
ties against secular employments upon that
day, and against the interruption of religious
observances. Public opinion aids them by
giving its tremendous and overwhelming
sanction, to the propriety and importance of
the duties in which they arc engaged and of
the results which they seek to accomplish.
A vast systemof agencies, organized by the
Churches in subordination to the Pulpit, for
the diffusion of, religious truth aids them,
and they have the additional and important
advantage of addressing audiences, predis-
posed by a thousand influences of education,
association, prejudice and policy, to give
them respectful hearing, and receive with
out argument or question, the message Of
glad tidings which they bring. What
great power ought the Pulpit to be, in evan
gelizing the world and yet how inadequate
are the results it accomplishcs, when we con-
slider the timc, the talent, the learning and
the zeal which it employs, and the circum-
stances under which its ministrations are per-
formed.
These remarks are suggested by an article
in the February number of the Southern
Literary Messenger, entitled "The Inefi-
cheney of the Pulpit" 1t is an able and
caustic paper, presenting with great strength
and truthfulness, many objections to the
modes in which all the Evangelical Church
es of this country employ the instrumental
ty of preaching, and giving reasons for the
fact apparent to every rejecting man, that
the Pulpit does not make the impression
which it ought upon the public mind. The
following extract from that article presents
one of the principal causes, operating against
the efficiency of the Pulpit and the progress
of our Churches The reference in this ex-
tract is to the Presbyterian and Episcopal
Churches particularly, but its point should
be felt wherever written sermons are read
from the desk:
One of the chief obstacles in these church
es to more rapid and marked success, lies,
we believe, in the character Of their preach
ing. Eleven thousand Presbyterian and
Episcopal sermons are delivered every week;
and how are they delivered Accustomed
as we are to good speaking in this country,
let any one saunter, some Sunday, into (for
example) Presbyterian church. After
hearing the choir sing hymn or two, and
one very short, and one enormously long
prayer, the preacher commences the main
service of the occasion. He is boxed up in
pulpit. He would think it sacrilege if he
omitted to take a text, and accordingly
text he. takes--applying naturally, or in the
way of a conceit, to his subject. With this
placarded thus in imagination above him,
and which, according to his taste, he recurs
! to constantly as a sort Of retroio-he launch