The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1866-11-30
SUNDAY SCHOOLS OF A NEW STYLE

4 The Beechers are natural growths
of Puritanism fair samples of that
intoleranceof belief, which finally loses
itself in impracticableness and unchris-
tian ideas or rank infidelity. They
have ceased to possess Christ's religion,
and are full Of Beecher. religion, alto
! gether different compound, thing
Is chsngeable as the hdes ola chameIe-
on orsan Abolitionist's notion of what
constitutes loyalty.
Ward Beecher's church has been for
years little better than a Sunday ware
house for the medication and dissemi-
nation ofthe blackest sort of Black Re
publicanism. Throngs have been in
weekly attendance to applaud and laugh
on Sundays as they would hardly do
on week days. He has grown popular
has proved a paying card'' for the
trustees, who invested money in build
ing the church in which he holds forth
has received great salaries purchas-
ed lands, and is one of few ofthe cler-
ical lights whose names figure in the
income lists. He affects oddity, and
takes real delightin startling old fash
ioned christians with new notions of
liberality toward worldly pleasures
advocates billiards, occasionally "pun-
ches" a few himself, and drives as fast
horse as any jockey in Brooklyn.
| This Yankee christian has a sister,
not "to fortune and fame unknown
/ she has written bOoks-books in which
the ''colored cusses" whose ancestral
stock once worshipped fetishes in Afri-
ca, figure as heroes and heroines, and
wherein men, Of Southern birth and
white faces are ''no better than they
should be, viewed from the imagina-
tive Beecher's standpoint. The name
/ Of the female, since she ceased to be a
Beecher, is Harriet B. Stowe. She had
somepeculiarnotions, ,religiously which
she has given to the world lately. Wri-
ting Of Sunday schools, she says:
IF the different churches of a city
/ would erect a building where there
should be billiard table, one or two
/ nine-pin alleys, reading-roOm, garden
and grounds for ball-playing, or inno-
cent lounging, they would do more to
keep their young people from the WaNs
of sin, than Sunday School"
]
How do some of our good Lacrosse
admirers of, and believerSin, the Beech
er stock like these recommendations
Which of the religious denominations
in our city will take the necessary steps
for the erection of such a building as
| Uncle TOMS Harriet recommends as a
suitable auxiliary establishment for a
we'll conducted Sunday school?
Under the progressive ideas of Puri-
tanism we may expect to hear some of
our modern divines announce from the
pulpit, after a fervent prayer, that at
| the close of the SERVICES himenlf and
| the superintendent OF Sunday school,
will play the deacons a four handed
gameof billiards, Of five hundred points,
for a new Bible; or hear one minister
challenge another to roll him string
of ten pins for new contribution box!
1t will be startling novelty for a lit
tie time perhaps, to see a champion bat
suspended over the pulpit of the relig-
/ ious shop, boasting the bestnine at base
ball, among those who go to Zion by
the Beecher route.
If this system of keeping 'young
people from the ways of sin" is to come
/ into general use-if billiard rooms and
nine-pin alleys are suitable adjuncts for
the Sunday school, it certainly seems
| to us that first class saloon should al
so be thought of. After billiard and
nine pins, ''drinks all around" would
be the thing, and afford a means for in
! culcating fine moral sentiments, relig-
ious toasts, and pious maxims. New
4 converts should pay for the celestial
cocktails" evangelical juleps," or
"angelic Tom and Jerry" Whenever
a minister received a 'raise of wages
he should "stand the whiskey"-and
appropriations for benevolent purposes
could be decided by rubbers at peak
nuckle," or ''seven up" Is there any
thing more improper or out of charac.
ter in these suggestions, than in the
ideas advocated by Mrs. Stowe.
The fiendish character ofthe religion;
precepts inculcated by New England
fanatics has driven from Sunday school,
and churches hundreds and thousands
and it is by such articles as those sug
gested above, thatthe bloodthirsty big
OTIS seek to fill up their ranksa and kindlc
new interest in their pernicious sys
tenn, borrowing of their father, the dev
il, some of his chief attractions. 1t il
not at all out Of character for New Eng
land. but will seem to those not livinG
in the ''brain Of the Republic" (as tht
egotists term their narrow-minded sec
ton, little out Of character to yok
the temples ofthe Living God with bill
lard rooms and nine-pin alleys. Wha
, Will be the next freak OF Beecher chris
tianity ?-L Lacrosse Democrat.
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