The Portland daily press., 1874-11-03
TERMS $500 PER ANNUM IN ADVANCE.
THE PRES S.
TUESDAY MORNING NOV. 8, 1877.
The Relations Of Clergymen to Women.

The Relations Of Clergymen to Women.
Recent events have given rise to fresh
discussion of the relations of clergymen to
women, some of which have been wise and
some widely otherwise. 1t is supposed by
many that the pastor is man peculiarly sub.
Jected to temptations to unchaste "conversa-
tion" with the female members of his flock
1t is undoubtedly and delightfully."- true that a
popular preacher is the object of genuine af
lection and admiration to the women who sit
under his ministry. A true woman respects
brains and commanding masculine nature
but if there is any one thing which she natur-
ally chooses to hide from her pastor it is her
own temptations-if she has any-to illicit
qualifications. She naturally desires to ap.
pear well to him upon his own ground Ol
Christian purity. To expose herself to bis
contempt or condemnation would be forbid
den by all her pretensions, professions. and
natural instincts. A bad woman might un-
dertake to atone for, or to cover up, her out
side peccadillos by the most friendly and con-
siderate treatment of her pastor, but she
would not naturally take him for her victim.
1t is precisely with this man that she wishes
to appear at her best. Any man with tie
slightest knowledge of human nature can see
that her selfish as well as her Christian inter-
ests are against any exhibitions of immodest
and unchaste desires in the presence of her
spiritual teacher.
There are only two classes of women with
whom minister is liable to have what, in
the language of the world, would be called
dangerous intimacies." The first consists
of discontented dwives-discontented through
any cause connected with their husbands or
themselves. A woman finds herself married
to brute. She suffers long in silence; her
heart is broken or weary, and she wants
counsel, and is dying for sympathy. She tells
her story to the one man who is-to her
guide, teacher, inspirer, and friend. He
gives her the best counsel of which he is ca
pable, comforts her if he can, sympathizes
with her, treats her with kindness and con.
sideratiOn. That a woman sLoald, in many
instances, look upon such a man as little less
than God, and come to regard him as al
most her only solace amid the daily accumu
lating trials Of her life, is as natural as it is
for water to run down hill. That she should
respect him more than she can respect bru-
tai husband-that half-an-hour of his society
should be worth more to her heart and her
self-respect than the miserable years of her
bondage to cruel master-is also entirely
natural. He cannot help it, nor can he find
temptation in it, unless he chooses to do so.
Women, under these circumstances, do not
60 to their pastors either to tempt or to be
tempted.
There is another class of women who are
thrown, or throw themselves, into what may
be called an intimate association with the
clergy. LII a class that have nothing else to
do 80 pleasant as TO be petting some nice
man, to whose presence and society circum-
stances give them admission. They are a
very harmless set-gushing maiden ladies,
aged and discreet widows with nice houses,
sentimental married women who, with no
brains to lend, are fond of borrowing thera
for the ornamentation of all possible social
occasions. A popular minister receives a
great deal of worship from this class, at which
when it is not too irksome, we have no doubt
he quietly laughs. The good old female par
ishoner who declared that her pastors cup of
tea would be "none too good If it were all
molasses," was fair type of these sentimen-
tai creatures, to whom every minister pos
sessing the grace of courtesy is fair game. To
suppose that pastor, sufficiently putty
headed to be pleased withthis sort of worship,
or sufficiently manly to be bored by it, is in a
field of temptation to unchastity, is simply
absurd. One is too feminine for such tempta-
tion, and the other altogether too masculine.
When these two classes are set aside, what
have we left? Virtuous and contented moth
ers OF virtuous daughters daughters whom
he baptizes in their infancy, trains in his Sun
day-School, marries when they are married,
and buries with sympathetic tears when they
die. In such families as these his presence
is benediction; and to suppose that he is
tempted here, is to suppose him brute and
to deny the facts of human nature. We veri-
ly believe there is no class in the community
so little tempted as the clergy, and there Ger
tainly is no class surrounded on every side
with such dissuasives from unchaste conduct.
To clergyman, influence and good name
are inestimable treasures. To stand before
confiding audiences, Sunday after Sunday,
and preach that which he knows condemns
himself in the eyes of single member of his
flock, must be crucifxtion from whose tor
lures the bravest man would shrink. There
are bad men in the pulpit without doubt.
There Is now and then woman who would
not shrink from an intrigue with sach, bat
women do not choose ministA-s for lovers,
nor do ministers, as class, md themselves
subjected to great tepptations by them. If
ministers are temp0ed by the circumstances
of their office, sney may be sure that they are
moved by sneir own lust and enticed, and
that tlelr office may very proftably spare
theif services.
As class, the Christian minister of the
country are the purest men we have. We
believe they average better than the Apostles
did at the first. Jesus, in his little company
Of twelve, found one that was devil. The
world has improved until, we believe, there
is not more than one devil in a hundred.
In any scandal connected with the name of
a clergyman and female member of his
flock, the probabilities are all and always in
favor of his innocence. The man of the
world who keeps his mistress, the sensualist
who does not believe in the purity of any
man, the great community of scamps and
scalawags, are always ready to believe any
thing rejecting upon clergyman's chastity.
1t only remains for clergymen themselves to
be careful to avoid the appearance of evil
Nothing can be more sure and terrible tAan
their punishment when guilty of PROSECUTING
their office, and nothing is so yasuable to
them as an unsullied name 10 preserve
this, no painstaking can be to- fa:guing, no
self-denial too expensive, po wedding out of
all untoward associations too exacting.-Dr.
J. G.. Holland, IN Scri1ner's Jor N00em6er.