The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1865-07-24
A POPULAR PREACHER ON POPULAR
PREACHING.


The Rev. Professor Card, in an address re-
Gently delivered at the ordination of the Rev.
George Stewart Burns, to the High Crurch
parish of Glasgow; Scotland, said;
Stew positions lead SO directly to publicity,
or satisfy so readily the craving to be seen,
known, and talked Of as that of popular di-
vine. In all communities rural or civic, the par
son is man of mark and importance. Even
if he be a man oflittle abliity-one who in any
other walk of life would never be known or
heard of-here there is an adventitious defer
ence and respect, which, due to the Office, is in
most minds transferred, apart from his own
merits, to the man who occupies it. The squire
receives him at his table; the bow obsequious of
the smutched artidcer, the wondering homage
OF children, await him as he goes forth on his
parochial rounds; an atmosphere of Difference
surrounds him, very pleasant to a.weak mind,
not unpleasant to'a strong one. And then,
translate the youthful and ambitious minister
from the modified publicity of country pari h
to the unmeaSured publicity and manifold
excitements of a town charge, and is there not
much then to feed the vanity and satisfy the
love OF display, or power, or praise, and so to
present irresistible fascination to many mind
which higher motives would fail to move?
who, if he be accessible to such influence,
is so much sought after, feted, fattered as the
competing congregations contend-whose pres
ence is so eagerly solicited by charitable socie-
ties, sunday school managers and churches
that have debt to clear of? Whose name is
SO eagerly coveted by getters-up of soirees and
public meetings, and plastered on walls and
boarding in big letters as sure attraction to the
hunters after religious amusement? Who
wakes in susceptible breasts an admiration the
semi-sacredness of which blinds the subject of
it to the human clement that mingles with it,
and to whom do tasteful gifts and presentations
so often hint homage which the tongue may
not speak?
Then think of the weekly excitement which
the pulpit brings to him whose passion is for
po pular applause. The crowded pews, the
motion, and the stiffness when the object of
unusual interest appears, the halfimpatience
ofpsalms and prayers mere preliminaries to the
great point of interest; the hushed waiting still
ness, the kindling eyes and flushed counte-
nances, while the skillfully constructed climax
is being wrought up, and sentence after SEN
tence, rising in interest falls from the orators
lips; and then, as the goal is reached, and the
exhausted speaker pauses, the long-drawn sigh
ofrelieved suspense, the interchanged glances
OF sympathetic admiration, the momentary
rustic over the auditory, and then the settling
OF themselves anew for another dose of rhetor-
lcal excltementl What an ordeal is that for
weak head and vain heart to go through i
what incense rises on such scene-a sweet
odour In the nostrils of the too conscious idol
OF the hourl There is inherent weakness in
such ministry amid the superficial fiutter of
success. The secret of popularity hunter is
sooner or later found out Discerning minds
perhaps see through his shallowness, pious
minds fall back from one who lives for self, and
the educated, supercilious skeptical class, in
stead of being influenced by him, pride them
selves on penetrating the claptrap ofreligious
excitement, and find in the whole affair fresh
theme for disdainful criticism and epigrammat-
ic articles on popular preaching"