Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1879-08-24
SENSATIONAL PREACHERS.

In our new nation, which has not rolled
long enough down the stream of time, tc
wear off all it's rough edges and sharp points
perhaps one of the most offensive and mis-
chievous of all our crudities is the popular
and sensational preacher. All orthodox
sects agree that we have had no miricles
since the days of the apostles, but these fel
lows would make us believe that the days OF
miracles are never to cease, and that each is
a miracle in himself-not miracle OF
grace" but regular out and out phenom-
enon. And as a general thing they are not
to blame, except so far as they are hypocrites.
A young man with any tolerable talent or
personal graces, who enters the ministry,
takes, to our mind, one of the most trying
steps within the reach of any man. He is
made the target for the unmarried, young
and old; pet, by light headed matrons, and
prey to fulsome fattery, worked slippers,
Turkish wrappers, smoking caps and pen
wipers, and if he does not soon begin to think
himself the most popular and talented man
alive, and scan his mirror oftener than his
heart ; he's a miracle of grace" and no
question One of the most popular and tai
ented men in the Episcopal Church, Rev.
Phillips Brooks, we know to have been COM
PEELED to change his rooms so often to keep
away from annoying visits that he was
compelled to abandon splendid parish and
accept one in Boston at a very much reduced
salary. But all men are not Phillips Brookses.
Where hattery failed to touch his religious
nature, and turn his head, it has thousands
of victims, to the disgrace of sacred calling,
and the ruin of many bright intellect. 1t
is sufficient to point out such a clerical
coquette as Talmage, such bubbles as
Moody-bubbes stirred up by some
revival tempest, where many a man
has drifted into a current accidently
and 1oated along without either will or power
Of his own. The Tennents and Mathers and
Brainerds, and Wesleys; whose lives and
labors have come down to US surrounded by
such grand halos, did not belong to the class
of the Beechers and Talmages and Spurgeons
and the general revival spawn which has
made the pulpit of the last quarter century,
simply rostrum, "where men display to
congregations wide, devotions every grace,
except the heart" what kind of religion is
likely to spring from such cultivationl what
kind of seed are such men likely to sowl
Their honied words and distorted phrases,
and fiashy rhetoric must be caught by the
'pen of the ready writer" as they drop from
their sacred lips; and spread out in the broad
pages of a journal be scattered overthe landas
though they were the leaves that are for the
healing of the nations. 1t is a mercenary
dodge; but popular men must have money,
and cannot afford to waste their brains for
naught. Is it any wonder We have doubters
and scoffers, and open infdelity or that there
is no "vision" in the land in our days; and
that thinking men, whose instincts are re-
ligious, too often fall into a general neglect
of all observance of the commonest forms, or
any pretensions to piety. There is a heavy
curse in store for these men who are putting
christianity "to an open shame"