River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1872-11-29
The MODERN CLERICAL Type

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church, in Brooklyn, was not only very
beautiful and touching, but it was
text for many meditations With the
immense growth of the press and the
development Of the Lyceum in this
country, the standard, both of expecta-
ton and of performance, in all kinds of
oratorical appeal, is swiftly raised. IF
you add the fact that the official digni.
ty of the clerical profession necessarily
declines when men are measured not
by the function, but by the manner in
which it is discharged, many of the
phenomena of clerical life are explained.
The strict and universal ecclesiastical
organization of the Roman Church,
which no other has equaled, is rivaled
in effect among the other churches by
the social and aesthetic appliances of
another kind. There is now tenden-
cy to union of club life with the
church organization. The church par
lor, with all its resources, is the sign
that the time demands something more
than the solemn Sabbath appeal. The
old puritan New England meeting
house, bare and cold and repulsive. in
which comfort was sin, and whose
hard and straight pews and universal
servity proclaimed that asceticism is it
self virtue, was hardly more different
from the "mass house" than from the
luxurious modern temple, with all its
secular accessories.
But the modern spirit is the true one,
for it does not 'postpone to one day and
to gloomy place, but mingles it with
the week and with the common details
of life. The clergyman is no more an
austcre and separate being, q part of
system, fuuctionary. lie is not a lay
figure, draped with respectable robes,
nor covered ec o6;cio, but he is tried as
other men are, and is powerful and in
fusntial as they are, only by the force
of his own individuality. Of Course
this tends to make the profession real
ity. Intellect and character are the
only vital personal iorces; and the elo-
quence which charms is no longer per
manent in the pulpit if it be not sustain
ed by character. The answer which
was made for Pope Alexander, that he
had done something not as pope, but as
Rodrigo Borgia, no longer avalls. The
r,joinder to that answer is now the con
trolling faith of society: When Rod
rigo Borgia goes to torment for that
ofense, what will become of Pope Alex
ander" The man is no longer separa
ted from the priest. The new faith is
that the goodness Of the man is the pow
er of the priest.
And it is due to the same tendency
that religion is more and more felt to
be a life, aud not ceremony or creed
John Wesley's fancy that creeds were
only the fashion of spiritual clothes, so
to speak, is not figure only, but pro-
found truth. The important fact is the
substance-that is, clothes, not the
fashion in which they are made, which
is the creed. And nothing is more ev-
ident than the relaxation Of rigorous
sectarian lines. The difference between
Mr.. Beecher's. father in Park Street
Church, in Boston, half century ago.
and Mr.. Beecher himself in his own
Plymoth Church, in Brooklyn, to-day,
Is the most striking Illustration of tn
change. The gain to the clergyman,
both in influence and selfrespect, is
immense. He is honored not as a
piece Of hierarchy and ceremonially,
but for himself and ctually.-EDIToR's
EASY CHAIR, In Horper's Magasiae
for December.