Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-18
ST. BoTOLPH AND HIS FOLLOWERS.


 Boston has subject for conversation which will wear well, and the St. Botolph club of | that city has a good deal of advertising
 which it would doubtless much rather do without The St. Botolph was organized 8 few weeks ago, and numbers among it's mem bers more than two hundred and fifty of the eminent citizens of Boston. Several pro- fessors of the religion of Jesus Christ, and nine ministers of His holy gospel" belong to the new club Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks is 8 member, and another Episcopal minister, the Rev. Leighton Parks, is also member, and the Unitarian Church is represented in the club by the Rev. Drs. Samuel K. Lothrop, George E. Ellis, Rufus Ellis, James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, and the Rev. William Everett and Minot J. Savage. Rev Phillips Brooks was also one of the signers of the call for the formation of the club. The St. Botolph proclaimed in the public press that it would furnish wines, liquors and cigars to its members, and the statement to this effect was signed by ministers of the gospel, among others revered for their general ability and character. Joseph Cook, who generally man. ages to make his preludes interesting, saw this statement and read with deep grief and surprise the names of some of it's signers. He saw his duty in the premises clearly, and did not hesitate to perform it. In the course of his next prelude he talked right out in meet ing" Said he among other things ''You are christening a saint in Boston (St. Botolph) who has whiskey bottle in one hand and Testament in the other. Here are the names of oinic cH of the sacred profession whether they are quite sure that they are not increasing the responsibility of fashionable living in this city? They think it an impertinence that I refer to this topic. I think it an impertinence that they faunt their public announcement in the face of this city. I think it an impertinence that they Haunt their announcement in the face of their own churches and of ninety-nine out of hundred of the ministerial profession. I am not assailing here the ministry, nor any indi- viduals in the ministry, for I have reverence for all these men. think they are misled. think they are in that worst of all bondages, the submission of the pulpit to fashion, to wealth, to luxury; for if there is anything needed in @ great city in modern times it is a keen edged conscience in the representatives of Gods house when they face trade, when they face fashion, when they face corrupt pol ities, when, anywhere, by night or day, they are called on to exercise before the public their functions, and to keep their skirts clean from whatever can add to the temptations of young men," These words of MT. Cook were received with much applause, and it must be admitted by all that they were hearty and to the point. Many will also admit that Mir. Cook had abundant reason for so speaking.
 But the Rev. Joseph Cook does not stand alone in his powerful protest against the action of the St. Botolph club. andth attitude taken by the ministers of the gospel who are mem- Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society have held a meeting and declared that it is in the exercise of their official obligations that they are now unexpectedly called upon to invoke the considerate attention of the comm unity to an unprecedented form of opposition to the best public sentiment of Boston and of the Com monwealth in relation to the morals of the city and State. Nothing but the gravest consider ation could induce them to make this appeal. The appeal made contains the following: 'In view of these premises, the members of this board would regard themselves as recreant to their duty to the public if they did not make this appeal, and reproduce the. fact that lay men of great eminence. and particularly that olergymen of the highest standing, have thus, by their public acts, taken issue with the friends of temperance, sealed their own lips against it's proper advocacy, thrown the weight of their example into the scale of immortality, and tempted young men into the paths of ruin It is always a matter of great regret when influential laymen do anything to de- prave the public morals, but that regret passes into astonishment when c consecrated lips are defled with wines, liquors and cigars, and reaches it's culmination when they pro- claim it to the worId.''
 St. Botolph will perhaps continue to flour ish with "a whisky bottle in one hand and Testament in the other," but the good men among his followers have had what other good people regard as their sin very plainly and forcibly set before them, and it is for them to settle the matter with their own consciences. Possibly they do not think that by their action they put the cup to their brothers lip, or that there is any harm in such proceed ing if they do.