The Red Cloud chief., 1877-08-30
Fashionable Preachers.
4 sketch as IL From Life.

| III Il New 1OEk letter I'd Tile t1dit-
ford Times the salaries and abilities of
New York preachers are discussed,
from which it appears that DIR. John
Hall has $4,000 in gold and a fine house,
rent free; Doctor Potter-of the lucky
Potters-Sl2,OOO and the well known
parsonage adj )ining the church, free;
and Doctor Morgan Dix. of Trinity.
$1,000, being the highest paid in New
York, and probably in the United
| States. There are 81 who receive 81 900
and over, most of them belonging 10 the
Episcopal denomination.
There are numbers of comparatively
obscure preachers who receive from
$1,000 to $4,000. who are superior in
ability to some of the -. but il has be.
come a fact pretty we'll known To the
church goer in the metropolis that the
clergyman is not paid so much for his
theological talent as for something else.
There is no Episcopal clergyman there,
for instance, who receives a salary of
$1,000. whose performance in the pull
pit from Il theological and literary
point of view, is anything but fl ALTERING
to the taste and intelligence of the con-
gregatiOn. and TIE effect has been TO
drive away the people of mature under
standings. but his popularity remains
undiminished with the young and the
mundane.
He possesses the something alluded
10, which is cool, if not better than
talent. He has good manners, he dreS-
ses well. he goes to balls and the most
fashionable watering places, he tllrts
with the young women, gives them
bouquets, toys with their rings, and
behaves all through his intercourse
with them like an accomplished lay
nan of the knickerb ECKER Club
Hence the feminine opinion that "he -
so nice"
This kind of a person has become al
most typical preacher in all the large
| cities, and is growing IN popularity
throughout the country. He is the re-
cipient of barrels IT enDrJll.rei slip
pers. braces and smoking caps. He is
the lone and favored man in the midst
of the sewing circle and the tea drink
ing. He is up To the chin in fashionable
gossip of the neighborhood. and the
color and texture of alter cloths. He
does not intrude his religion on any
one, but when he speaks of 1t he exhib-
its care and circumspection lest some
cause of Offense should appear IN his
words. In Il word, he is smooth and
unctuOus on subjects which have to
do with the conscience and his call
ing.
The strength of this kind of a minis
ter lies with tho women. and especially
the young ones. He is not apt to be a
favOrite with the men, for to them he
IS not "A women and hardly a man. bu,
IA sort of eunuch, whose opinions on
the practical affairs of life are of no
value.
There are old fashioned people in
ItVtiy SoiiSiVSutioh u IIDIu oit
against this latest product of fashion
dDie CIiIsCianity, ana VINO make nsid-
iOuS comparisons between it and the
simplicity and dignity which marked
the lives of the fishermen of Galilee, but
they are generally III a minority. 1t
would indeed require a great stretch
OF the imagination to see this parson a
Ia mole. going about the hills of Judea
in the exercise of his priestly calling,
administering to the sick and cOnsoling
the afflicted, preaching in the midst of
mobs, and dying IN the cross for the
faith If necessary. Such a picture is a
long way of, viewed from the interior
of the church now in vogu.
The priest, to he effective. should not
look upon life is a comedy. but as a
great drama, in which he appears in the
most eventful scenes-the birth. the
marriage, the sickness of soul and BODY.
and the death-in all Of which he is the
spiritual teacher and CONSIDER. The
badinage of the drawing room and the
dinner table over the wine. and the
chaf over the trivial platitudes Of rout-
mary existence are not for him. His
acceptance Of the sacred trust conlihed
to him involves "A complete renuncia-
ton of such pleasures. if they may be
SO called.
When he lives up to this conception
of his calling he ennobles it, and when
he speaks from the pulpit. his words
have a value which those Of a hyacin-
THAN parson can never have WASH