Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-01-25

For God ia not the author of confusion, but
of peace, as in all churches of the saints.-I.
CORINTHIANS XIv:33.
It is recorded of a certain scriptural
character-if she is not scriptural We beg to
place the responsibility upon the broad
shoulders of the honorable secretary of war,
who is our authority on the subject-that
in an agony of repentance for one of her
youthful indiscretions while practicing the
art of baby farming, she exclaimed:
80, bitter is my cup
How ever could l do it
mixed those children up,
And not creature knew it."
There are great many ministers of tbs
gospel, who, if attacked with kindred re-
morse, would be forced to employ the senti-
| ment if not the words of this Individual
who, for want of better name, We will call
Buttercup. The facility with which they do
the mixing process is truly remarkable, and
long before their hearers learn the distinc-
ton between right and wrong they are SO
muddled with contradictions in dogma and
| doctrine that they can scarce give rational
exposition of that which they believe or that
which they disbelieve.
| It is a weakness of some intelligences to
affect superiority of understanding over the
common herd in the expectation re-
alized-that they will receive credit for more
learning than they possess. To mystify
their hearers is therefore the first aim of
many of the clergy. They talk learnedly of
points of doctrine of which they have bu. an
| imperfect conception; they dilate upon this
or that religious theory with many words
and few lucid ideas; they discuss questions of
social economy which have puzzled the best
minds of the world for centuries with an air
of perfect familiarity, and by every means
within their mental scope seek to create c
glamour by which they may become noted
in the circles in which they move as possess
ed of extraordinary learning and mental cru
dition. This is especially noticeable in the
| younger members of the profession. Fresh
from the examining they have received in
college, they enter the pulpit with the idea
that they will burst like a meteor from Cim-
merian darkness and electrify those about
them with their intellectual prowess. Some
times they learn by experience that they
have taken the wrong tack, and settle down
into the humdrum of ministerial life, but
they never seem to realize that their duty is
to enlighten the people rather than to mys-
tify them.
We scarcely know whether to ascribe the
propensity of the clergy to middle their
hearers to personal vanity or to lack of IN
derstanding of their mission. Though the
doctrines taught in the bible are plain and
simple, studied effort seems to be made to
invest them with mystery. One preacher
interprets text of scripture in one way and
another gives it an entirely different mean
ing. One assures US that we will be saved
by faith; another declares that faith without
works is dead; while third asserts that
tree is known by its fruits, and that good
fruits are alone necessary to salvation. We
are assured from one pulpit that God is q
being of love-a father who loves and pities
his children; from another we ara told that
he is a stern avenger, visiting the iniquities
of the father upon the children to the third
and fourth generation. Here we are assured
that repentance of sin is alone requisite to
salvation; there that he who violates the law
in one particular is guilty of violating it in
all. One pulpit sends forth the incense of for
giveness; another hurls the maledictions of
deity upon the devoted heads of those who
come to worship. One can never start for
the sanctuary on Sabbath morning with a
justifable conception of whether he will re-
turn with feeling of ecstacy at the assur-
ance of divine love and protection, or in the
agony of despair caused by the conscious
ness of having offended the majesty of his
creator. Orthodoxy seems to be most ine1-
tr1cably mixed as to the character and attri-
butes of deity. If he is father filled with
love for his creatures, he cannot at the same
time be an avenging Nemesis, visiting con-
dign and horrible punishment upon his chill
dren for the most trivial faults.
What all religiously inclined people to-day
require above all things is an authoritative
enunciation of doctrine. There is perfect
Babel of sounds all over the religious world,
and the effect is to confuse every person who
has aught to do with the subject. Ministers
complain that there are SO many doubling
Thomases in the church. How can they
wonder at it when they themselves furnish
the cause for doubt. They present to-day
an argument that is totally irreconcilable
with the argument they advanced last Sun
day. They present conflicting doctrines be-
fore their audiences, and then expect to find
them in full accord with what they conceive
to be religious truths. The ide. is pre-
posterous to men of the world, no mat
ter how it is regarded by the ministers them
selves. We want to see greater harmony of
doctrine-less Little Buttercupism-in the
pulpit. Let us have straightforward, con-
sistent doctrine which everybody can IN
derstand, so that one can believe or disbe-
lieve emphatically. As long as the pulpit is
filed by Buttercups, however, we can scarce
expect such state of things, and must be