The New York herald., 1871-05-02
Reverend Clap.Trap.

Reverend Clap.Trap.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was leaving the
Earth he commissioned His disciples and their
successors to preach the Gospel; and, because
Of this commission and the sacredness of the
office which it instituted, ministers of the Cos
pei are, by common and universal consent,
called reverend" In these latter days this
term, like many others, has come to be used
promiscuously, and men who have no rever-
ence for Christ or for His Word are styled
reverend" just as much as those who love and
revere both. BY common courtesy, also, a very
wide latitude Is given In these days to Cos
pei preaching, and very much that is nothing
better than twaddle and trash passes current
among certain class of people for the pure
Gospel of the Lord Jesus. Very much more
of it also belongs to the platform or the lee
ture room, and not to the pulpit. But people
with etching ears" must be amused and
tickled, and there are tsreverends" ever ready
to cater to this vitiated taste, and to say bold
things because they dare to say them, and be-
cause, being said in pulpit and to reli-
gious (?) audience they may not be held legally
responsible. The Rev. o. B. Rockingham is
minister of this stamp, and his Gospel
preaching demands vast stretch of charity
to enable any Christian mind to accept it as
the GLORIOUS Gospel Of the blessed God"
Our columns from time to time can testify that
there Is In 1t very little Of the spirit Of the
Master, nothing Of the manly independence Of
Paul, or the child-like and unaffected SIM
plicity and love Of John. 1t is from beginning
to end sensational or nothing.
On last Sabbath this reverend gentleman
discoursed on ''The Agencies of Providence"
and in the course of his sermon, after denying
providential agency altogether and throwing
the Bible overheard as human composition,
he launched out boldly in favor of man-s'the
grandest magazine Of living force in the
universe" Every great invention of the
world he said, is the. result of human labor
and human genius, and no one, we believe,
will deny this But having secured mankind
in general as basis to work upon, he became
bolder and selected s'four rogues, uneducated,
who have no moral culture and no social
status, and whose frauds the newspapers are
daily exposing" upon whom to pour out the
vials of his wrath; and to these he added
'stwo scoundrels who manipulate the stock Id
Wall street." Mr. rockingham may know his
men better than we do or he may not. If he
does not he can hardly be justified in uttering
such strong language upon rumor and biassed
newspaper reports, and if he does, he should
not utter such clap-trap in the pulpit and call
it preaching. Far better for himself and
more consistent and honest, would he appear
or kindred topics, and charge an admission
fee. Then the unwary would not be taken in
by specious advertisements of religious SER
vices and preaching by the Rev. o. B. Froth-
ingham.
Without designing at all to defend tho
''Ring," or the corruptions of our city rulers,
we do most earnestly protest against such
utterances, whether made from pulpit or plat
form, as being set down to the praise or blame
of the Christian ministry. II is not Gospel
preaching in any sense, and in the name
Of the great mass Of unsectarian Chris
ClanS VINO accept Tue HERALD as Cneir
organ we enter this protest. II might
perhaps, with great pertinencc, be asked at
this time whether all such whines are not the
wall Of the disappointed ones rather than the
genuine sorrow of the heart for our city's con-
dition. From some recent developments we
are very much afraid that change Of party
rulers, from democrats to republicans, hero
would be like jumping from the frying pan
into the fire-we should be worse of, and not
better. We know what we have now, but we
do not know how much worse we might get. We
are as heartily in favor OF good and honest
government as any other citizen, but we be-
lieve there is something more than a longing
after good government at the bottom of all
this whining. There are but FIVE loaves and
two fishes, and the secret sorrow arises with
the question, what are they among 30 manyf
There is not enough to go oil round. That is
the whole secret.