The Louisiana cotton-boll. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], Attakapas, La.) 1872-1883, 1878-05-23

religious sentiments divorced from con
science and practical principles of duty
The luxury of a tear" is priced b.
many Protestant worshippers who ar
not scEupulous about paying their debts
and may ever look with undue admira
ton upon their neighbors' wives. They
enjoy their own emotions, go to church
to be wrought upon, and pine after al
ecstasy of excitement which they count
as the main thing in religion. Their
devotion is almost exclusively an affair
of the nerves. Sensational preachers
cater to this class of hearers. There
must be something startling, thrilling,
overpowering, or nothing is done in the
pulpit. They reverse the prophets les.
sons, and find God, not in the still, small
voice, but in the whirlwind and earth
quake. Their sermons, though on q
| different order OF topics, are really in the
vein of the Pirates Own Book, and the
awful tale of the Expiring Buccaneer.
The clerical acrobat mounts the pulpit,
and at every extraordinary leap or
gyration his expectant and admiring
auditors exchange chances OF mutual
exhilaration. His voice, now rising to a
deafening shout, and anon sinking to an
almost inaudi5le whisper, makes the
souls (or ~nerves) of his flock vibrate
with alternating sensations, even when
it is n0G ct pr@terea nihH. Besides the
tempestuous gush, there is the softer and
more u%notuous species. Years ago, in a
missionary convention, the famous DR..
Se-and-SO, q corpulent divine, was con-
Guiding the services. An acute hearer
remarked soto UOce, { [ do not like that
man and yet he appears afected"-he
meant moved-"h he weeps over the
hymn; but" added the speaker somewhat
cynically, Gin the case of these very fat
men, there is little distinction to be
made between tears and perspIration."
Not long after that same fat divine
confessed himself guilty of shameful
ofenses against morality. Heaven forbid
that we should disparage honest feeling
of any kind, or genuine religious emotion
when it expresses itself in tears. The
o. the penitent publican is enough
to dissuade from such a cruel error. Yet
the publican said very little, His words
we're few. He did not wax eloquent over
his misdeeds or challenge others to ad-
nire the contritien of one who had been
70 bad. True feeling, it needn't be said, is
simple. 1t is a law of the emo
that they exhaust themselves by
iemonstrative expression, and leave only
'he ghost or counterfeit presentiment Of
behind. Whas are called
tones are fossil feelings, feelings
'nce alive in somebody at least, but
which have left only their shell as a kind
# d~olOrous monument of things dead.
Religious teachers should not satisfy
themselves with moving the %sensibilities
# their hearers, unless the feelings of
conscience are stirred likewise. They
heuld attach no value to feelings which
re not transmitted into conduct, and
which do not prove their reality in the
principles which they generate.
If ye love Me, keep My command
is a text which might proftabIy
% engraved N the walls OF our churches S.
md the habit should be discouraged of
much about the feelings. II any
ne wishes to commit a crime, let him do
) and take the consequences, but not
ak about the distress of feeling. If any
ne wishes to repent, let him cease to do
vii, but not weary our ears with tales of /
is mental anguish" In the domain .
religion, let there be everywhere ab-
'lute sincerity, realities and not shams. I