The New York herald., 1873-09-08

The Orthodox Ministry 1t Work.
Yesterday may be said to have opened the
fall campaign of the pastors and churches
against the sins and wickedness that lurk
among them, destroying their vitality and
hindering their usefulness. As it became
them, therefore, the sermons were direct and
pointed. DR.. Dix, presenting the Lord Jesus
Christ as on example for our imitation in all
things, took occasion to contrast the Bible
with other books and, while they perish, this
has lived for ages because of its theme. The
Doctor maintained that those who do not
follow Jesus to-day are as blind as Bartimeus
was in the days of Christ upon earth. He
thinks the glow of the world and dazzling
pageantry of the day, directing the minds of
men in channels that are not right, cause the
dissensions in the Church and in the world
DR.. Deems also held up Christ for his
peoples imitation, and the Bible as the perfect,
fawless mirror of the spirit of Christ, who,
being in the form Of God, took upon himself
also the form of o servant. The form in the
spiritual world was that Of God the form
upon this earth was that of man. Man-God-
God-Man; this was Jesus, who loved not His
life, even unto death, that He might save q
ruined race; and the standard in the world
to come will be the measure Of our love to
Christ, and not the value of our worldly pos
sessions or titles or honors.
The Rev. Mr.. Hamilton. late of Belfast, Ire
land, who was installed over the Scotch Pres
byterian Church in Fourteenth street, yester-
day, also held up Christ as the souls great
object of worship and alteration and imitation.
His ministry among them he said, should be
of Christ and Him crucifed, always. Jesus
Christ. he declared, should be his keynote,
and certainly none other is needed, and no
better can be had Would that every minister
in the land could make such declaration and
Ito it
Notwithstanding the repeated failures which
history presents, and the equally numerous
failures which our own experiences reveal, of
the impossibility Of man trying to serve two
masters faithtully-God and Mammon-we
yet see men laboring with might and main to
do this very impossible thing. Hence they
must be reminded oft and again that it cannot
be done, and that it is the part of wisdom to
give up the fruitless task and serve the Lord
only. This Dr. Quinn did yesterday in the
Cathedral. He did not, however, as some
theological teachers do, condemn the accumu-
lation of riches. While he cautioned the peo-
pie against placing too much interest and
trust in them he showed how they might be
made means Of grace and salvation to many
man. And surely, apart from such uses,
wealth is valueless.
On the same general topic Father Gleason,
in St. Francis Xavier's church, presented the
context. The righteous, whose lives are
devoted exclusively to God and His cause; the
slaves of Mammon, to whom religion, duty
and conscience are dead letters, and between
these two the lukewarm time-servers, who pre-
tend to serve God, but hold on to the world
with both hands. Alas how numerous this
class is in every church
The Rev. Mr.. Bjerring began yesterday
series of sermons on the faith and doctrines
of the Orthodox Eastern Church. from which
it appears that in some very important points
Greek Christians differ materially from the
Latin Church. While they accept seven
sacraments, as taught in the Scriptures, they
hold to them spiritually, rather than literally,
and in many things they approach more
nearly to Protestants than to Roman Catho-
lics.
Rev. DR.. Clarke yesterday presented some
exceedingly ludicrous and absurd ideas about
vacations. He would like to see all the stores
in the city shut up, Wall street deserted and
no paper published in any part of the world
from the beginning of July until the begin
ming of September. We do not see wherein his
plan looks we'll, either near at hand or afar off,
and the most charitable opinion we can pass
upon it is that it is put forth simply and purely
as q sensation. 1t is absolutely Utopian, and
any attempt to realize it would be the most
supreme folly and madness, and the reasons
will appear to the mind of every sane man.
Better have no vacation at all from the cradle
to the grave than have such one even for
two months.
Mr.. Talmage, having resumed his services
in the Academy, Brooklyn, slashed right and
left yesterday at the sceptcs of the
present day, who, when we come up
to take full, old-fashioned drink
of pardon and comfort out of the Gospel
well, tell us that it is not fit to drink, and offer
us instead the wells of philosophy, art and
science. For our boyhood faith they try to
substitute Atlantic Monthly religion. They
offer us mint juleps of worldly stimulants,
when nothing will satisfy us but drink Of
the water of the well of Bethlehem Wonder
how Mr. Talmage became so familiar with
the fancy drinks of the dayp He would not
exchange the poorest room in an earthly house
for the finest heaven that Huxley or Stuart