The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-09-13
PRETTY PREACHERS.
From the Saturday Review. ]

10 beings oil tne rougner eeX-let Us honestly
confess it-One Of the most charming Of those
ever current surprises which the commonest
incidents of the holidays never failed to afford is
the surprise of finding themselves to church.
Whatever the cause may be, whether we owe our
now access OF devotion to the early breakfast and
the boredom of q bachelor morning, or to the
moral compulsion of the cunning display of
prsyer-books and hymnals In the hall, or TO the
temptation OF that chattiest and gayest of all
walks-the walk 10 church, or TO an easy con-
science thatspurs us to set good example to the
coachman, or to sheer impulse of courtesy TO the
rector, certain il lis that week after we have been
longing at the cubwindow, and wondering how
ell the good people get through their Sunday
morning, we find ourselves safely boxed ia the
family pew, and cheering the family amen !"
No doubt much that our temper springs simply
from the change Of scene, and If the first week 10
the country were time for selfanalysis, we
might amuse ourselves with observing what sud.
rush from town.
There is pleasant irony In being denounced
from pulpit and platform as jadsd voluptuaries
and then finding ourselves able 70 trample through
coppices and plunge into cowsheds as il we had
never seen cowshed or coppice before. But
there Is more than the pleasure of surprise in the
peculiar development Of attendance at church.
Piety brings its own reward. We ind ourselves
invested with new domestic interest, and brought
into far closer and warmer domestic relations.
Mamma looks a great deal more benignant than
usual and the girls lean ones arm with more
trustful confidence and deeper sympathy. A new
bond of family union has been found in that vic.
tory of the pew over the club-wndOw. But earth
ly pleasure is always dashed with little disap-
pointment, and one drop Of bitterness fingers in
The cup Of joy. IL only Charlie and papa would
remain awake during the sermon. They are so
good in the psalms, SO attentive through the les
sons, so sternly responsive TO each commandment,
that Il is said to see them edgng toward the CON-
Portable corners with the text, and fast asleep
der the application. Then, too, there is so little
hope OF reform; not merely because men on this
point are utterly obdurate, but because il Is i'm.
possible for their reformers even to understand
their obduracy. For with both the whole ques
ton is pure question Of sympathy. Men sleep
under sermons because the whole temper of their
minds, as they grow into a larger culture, drifts
further and further from the very notion Of preach
ing. Inquiry, quiet play of thought, a somewhat
indoent appreciation of the various sides of every
subject, an appetite for novelty, shrinking from
the definite, certain pleasure in the vsgue-these
characteristics Of modern minds are hardly char
scteristics of the pulpit
There are, Of course, your drawing room spout.
ers who can reel off artistic poetic or critical
discourse Of any length on the rug. But, as
rule, men neither like TO pump upon their kind
nor be pumped upon. They like quiet, genial
talk which turns over everything and settles
nothing. They like to put their case, to put their
objection, but they like both to be brief and ten
tative. AS rule they talk with their guard up,
and say nothing about their deeper thoughts or
to be as great bore as a man with dogma, or
the man with hobby. A sermon, therefore, from
the very necessity Of its structure, is the very
type Of the sort Of talk that revolts most men, On
the other hand, women really enjoy preaching.
Mammals reply to the natural inquiry as to the
goodness Of the sermon" Ny dear, all sermons
are good ''-is something more than q matronly
sDub, IL is the inner conviction Of women. She
likes, not merely a talk, but good long talk. She
likes being abused. She likes being dogmstized
over and irampled on. In fact she has very little
belief in the intellect. But then she has an i'm
mense faith In the heart. She lives in q world Of
affections and spmpsthies. She has her little tale
of passion in the past that she tells to herself
in the dusk of the autumn evening. She believes
that the world at large is moved by those i'm.
pulses of love and dislike that play great part
in her own. And then, too, she has her practical
housekeeping side, and likes her religion doae up
tiops," and " applications" and handed over the
counter for immediate use. And so while papa
quarrels with the rector's forty minutes his inds-
criminate censure Of a word utterly unknown to
me- his defamation against Pusey or Colonso, or
while Charlie laughs over his rhetoric and senti-
ment, woman listens a little sadly and YEARLY,
and longs for Q golden age when husbands will
love sermons and men understand clergymen.
1t is just from this theological deadlock that We
are freed by the Pretty Preacher. II the world
laughs at the Rev. Olympic Brown, ii 10 not be.
cause she breaches, but because she prisons her.
self in pulpit. The sure evidence that woman
Is TO become the preacher OF the future is that
woman is the only preacher that men listen to- Il
IL hard to imagine any bride short Of the national
debt that would have induced Us to listen through
the dog-days of the last few weeks to the painting
rhetoric OF Mr.. Spurgeon. Bat II Is harder TO
imagine the bride that would have aroused us 70
fight as we lay beneath the plane tree and listened
to the cool ripple of the Pretty Preacher. OF
course II is a mere phase in the life of woman, a
short interval between the dawn and the night.
There is an exquisite piquancy In the raw, shy
epigrams of the abrupt little dogmatist who is
Just out of her teens. Her very want OF train
ing and science gives a novelty TO her hits that
make her formidable In the ring. No doubt, too,
as we have owned before, there is faint and
delicate attraction about the fading flower Of
later years that at certain times and places make
II not impossible TO sit under her. But the sphere
Of the Pretty Preacher lies really between these
extremes. She 10 not at war with mankind, like
the nymph of bread and butter; nor does man
kind suspect her of subtle designs in her DISCOURSE
as il suspects the elder homilist. Her task is just
as easy and graceful and natural herself, aRd,
moreover, it is always in season. She never sui.
fers serious reflection to interfere with the whirl
OF town. She quite sees the absurdity Of q ser
mon at o'clock tea. No one Is freer from the
boredom Of long talk when there 10 chance Of
o boat or a ride.
But there are moments when one Is too hot, or
too tired, or too lazy for chat or exertion, and
such moments are the moments Of the Pretty
- a. Il