The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-11-29

NEW ORLEANS, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 90, 1868.
RELIGION AND REsPECTABuITY.


..TAe, poor ye hare al,cays 'ciM you."-
Professionals, in great measure, ignore
this passage from our Saviour. In the con-
troversy, some years ago, between kirwan
(Dr. McMurry), and Bishop Hughes, las he
then was), the former tauntingiy- said
"Visit the brick church-Dr. Springs
and St. Patrick's Cathedral, and mark the
difference between the respective cOngre-
cations as they issue from those edifices.'
That is, DR.. Spring people were clothed in
patent leather boots, fine linen, and uneX-
ceptionable beavers-the Catholics-well,
they constitute great majority of
Gods poor, for whom the Church is So
-licitous. Protestants themselves are
awakening to the stern reality of their fail
urc rs church, as will be seen by the fol-
lowing paragraph from the Church Union,
an Episcopal organ, and indorsed by the
Chicago Adrance, a Yankee Puritan Con-
gregational hebdomadal4:
Something is the matter with the Christ
ianity OF New York. 1t does not do the
work for which it was established. True,
it builds costly temples. and is clothed in
purple and fine linen, and fares snmptu-
ously every, day. True, it numbers some
three hundred congregations, all told, and
has two thousand clergymen as ministers in
Madison Square congregation over $1,000 900
last year. True, there is no lack of ability
in its pulpits. True, there are many schools
of the prophets supported by the church in
New York, and Sabbath schools abound.
True, there is no lack of prayer. Fulton
street pours forth its refreshing and never
failing fountain these eleven years, and
there are 10000 enlisted soldiers in the
army of the church in New York. The
church in New York is failure, because
responsibility is the god of the same church.
The aim of every young clergyman seems
to be to get as near to the most respectable |
point in the city, to get his church on Fifth
Avenue if possible, or on some fashionable |
square, and not to rest day,or night till it
be accomplished. We do not deny that the
ministers of the church in New York have
many an hour of enjoyment in humble duty
among the poor, but the main thing seems
to be to get rs far from Water street and
the Five Points as possible, and to cluster,
if possible, around lions Hill. One after
the other evangelical clergymen have pre-
vailed upon their people to move up town,
out of the miserably infected districts.
1t is almost universally claimed by those
who have deserted the lower wards of the
city, that they might have allowed all these
costly churches to have stood to this day,
and remained open as churches for worship
each Sunday, but the people would not
come to church. For ten years John Allen
has been selling bad rum and worse souls
to perdition, and the church bell has sound
ed in his ears every Sunday. Half the peo
pie that attend downtown churches now
are strangers, and majority of the rem
nant are from another part of the city. The
people in the lower wards are wretched
They are poor, blind and naked
they want Christianity in all its primitive
healing qualities badly enough. but they
don't want the Christianity of Fifth Ave-
nue., or of up town. Take two hun dred such
ail- birds as Tommy Holden and Kit Burns,
md empty them down in any up town fash
onable church, and 10! what a scamper
here would be.
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