The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1876-02-13
Vacant Churches.

which neither have q stationary preacher,
nor one who visits them at stated times.
1t says: -
sThere are 500 vacant churches in the Soutn-
ern Presbyterian Church. Ihere are %oo
preachers who are either superannuateos OF
are professors, teachers or otherwise "ibhou1
charge The whole number OF churches 10
1897, and the whole number OF Presoue,s' s ~
Guiding licentiates, is 1854. consequently oeI
prea 10 hers do about all the pastoral WORK done
for the entire Church.
There are 1897 churches, 500 Of which
are vacant. This leaves 1877 not vacant.
As there are but ssl active preachers, we
may suppose that the idea meant to be
conveyed 10 that these ssI preachers attend
to the 1877 churches, and that the 52O
other congregations have no preachers st
ali. The Presbyterian goes on to remark
that this statement of facts has been cir
culating around the country creating quite
a sympathetic commiseration for the
Southern Presbyterian Church, which COM
miseration it, the Presbyterian, hopes to
be sincere. This remark about sincerity
appears to be ironical and smacks good
deal of Geneva, but that has nothing to do
with the merits of the case. Our point is
that there are no merits 10 this case.
The Presbyterian seems to think 1t by no
means bad thing that these churches are
vacant" Quotation:
The fact that we have 520 more organized
churches chan we have preachers, cannot be
regarded as an evil unessit can be shown that
q Presbyterian church, without preacher,
is not only useless, but worse than useless.
oh
preacher is "worse than useless" then its
vacant condition can be regarded as an
evil, otherwise it's vacant condition is no
evil. That is to say If the church had
preacher it would be simply useless, but if
it has none it is worse than useless. We
concede to our neighbor the truth of it's
proposition, (the first instance of the kind,
perhaps, in our journalistic existehce)
we concede that the vacancy of $50 of its
churches cannot be considered an evil.
Nay, as we are agreeing with our neighbor
for the first time, we will go further and
admit that if all the 1897 churches were
vacant, it would be no evil, but, on the
contrary, q splendid thing.
What we do not quite see into, however,
is our neighbours position TO the effect
that a vacant church is not vacant at all,
at all.
But it would be great mistake to suppose
that those vacant churches, as they are called,
are of no value to the cause OF Christianity.
We have known of instances of this
latter kind where the elders conducted the
services for years.
There may be n real live church where in
the Providence of God there is no regular pas
toIate. We take it that auy church is live
church which keeps up it's Sabbeth School,
Prayer Meetings and Sabbath devotions.
There now! If one church can be a
olive church" with bout a parson, then every
one of them can be on the same footing,
and We can have q live Presby terion Church
in it's whole extent without any preachers
or parsons whatever; Presbyterian with
out presby ters. That is going back OF
Mr.. Calvin awfully.
There is, then, no necessity for preacher
in the Church, Tor as our peighbor call
them-pastors). The Church may exis
composed of laity exclusively The par
sons are handy that's all. They have n
powers delegated from Christ as head q
the Church, and vested in them by virtu
of their office. They are merely Ia tn
position of the president of religious as
sociation, and useful as such.
If this is getting to be the popular vie'
of the case, we do not at all wonder at tn
growing number of vacant churches
An economical congregation will sooner c
later come to the conclusion that an eide
without a salary does mighty near" I
we'll as parson with salary. The vi
tue of humility will be found coming TO
ward conspicuously and suggesting th
. "this congregation is too poor and uniu
d pOrt&nt to be worthy of minister" "
, think that the $50 churches aforesaid W
~ gradually expand into a long list.
9 In fact, it is reasonable. Why shou
~ folkspay heavily for what can be had, near
a. as good, for nothingF 1t is no joke to su
~ port ones own family aud then contribu
20 to the maintainauce, of another, and pc
Oh haps very big one, yea, perhaps a We