Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-03

People will always flock to hear such a
pulpit orator as Beecher. How much he
accomplishes in these latter years, in
pointing souls heavenward, the Unseen
Judge can best determine.
There is homelike simplicity in the
Congregational service, to which
I must confess considerable par
TALLY. The tenacity with which
given churches cling to certain forms of
worship, is noticeable. The opening with
a short prayer, the singing of two hymns,
with reading of scripture and ''the long
prayer sandwiched in, the sitting of the
audience while one hymn is sung and ris-
ing with the other, are customs which
seem to be rock-rooted. When Beecher
was uttering what 1 style s'the
long prayer in the Congregational
service, recalled how, good many years
ago, ''us boys" used to regard this so-called
Long prayer as very much extended by
poor preachers to fill up the time and en-
able them to put in an hour and half at
devotional exercises, with only scanty
sermon. The sermon was sup
posed to have something new
in it and require a little thought.
but ''the long prayer" would permit
of platitudes and repetition, and bright
boy attending on some such administra-
tions of divine worship could almost re-
peat, in advance. the utterance of the
preacher. 1t was good deal like witness
r21o Il
knowing just how, when and
where the "points" came in. Beecher
adheres to the conventional
style and has ''the long prayer" though no
one can accuse him of lack of originality
or desire to fill up the time and shorten
| dull sermon.
The singing in Plymouth is led by a
choir of between sixty and seventy with Or
gan accompaniment, and the congrega-
ton joins very cordially. Every one seemed
to feel that it was a sort of family
circle, and sang as the spirit moved.
| THE SERMON.
| The preliminaries being completed, Mr..
Beecher took for his theme First CORN
thians, i; 90, "a and second chapter 1 to 5
inclusive. He said he proposed to preach
a series of sermons of which this was the
first, to show that the views of advanced
thinkers was in conformity with true Chris
tianity. He proposed to do this for his own
sake, that he might be heard; for his
church's sake, because there exists, he
said, between every pastor and his people
a kind of obligation of honor that they
should know what it is that he believes
and that he is teaching to them and their
children. He would do it also for the
sake of a multitude of ministers that
were perplexed in their beliefs; that could
not quite keep on in the old ways of theol.
ogy, yet could not accept the new, and
who therefore hang between all winds, 90
ing neither one way nor the other. BE
did it also as reply to those who say that
Plymouth church and its pas tor have wa
dered away from the truth.
FOOLS MULTIPLYING.
This was an evident allusion to Beech
er's recent declaration of theological in.
Dependence He said he had received let.
tiers asking"if he believed in the immor.
tally of the soul, and he had seen letters
to his friends asking if he believed in q
personal God.
"Such questions not only show that the
fools are notan dead, but they are actually
on the increase"
An audible smile ran through the audi.
ence at this atterance, and when that SUBJ
sided he added:
1
How long must a man preach, how
widely must mans preaching be printed
and distributed before men will under
stand the least thing of the substance of
his doctrine and the testimony of his life p
Perhaps it was fancy, but could not
but think there was an irony and tired
bitterness in this utterance, and that his
mind was wandering to the great unpleas-
ant period of his life, when he seemed to
feel that his calling and public walk in
life should have proved a shield and buck
Ter against such an accusation?
PAUL A DARwINIAN AT AN EARLY DAY.
After proceeding at some length to show
that the apostle Paul was an advanced
theologian in his views, he burst forth in
the following Darwinian passage:
'Paul thought that there was double
nature, Paul of the flesh and Paul OF
the spirit, and men have been reading this
for ages, but when Darwin comes and saws
man was once lower animal, they say such
teachings are atheistic. Why, before OAR
win was thought of, or his great-great-
great-grandfather, Paul was Darwinian
and taught that each man was two men.
and that one man was animal, and
that the other was spiritual creature,
a rational soul. The hypothesis of
one school is that man is developed
from the animal kingdom. 1t is held that
man is the child of the ape, and that our
ancestors were monkeys; but these are not
the beliefs of the more enlightened evolu-
tionists. They teach that going back
along the line of development you will
come to point where-not monkey or
an ape, but somewhere back-there was a.
point on which man and ape were together,
and that they have been diverged. The
ape developed towards the left, growing
| of x,,uSolo on1 Lo~o o,l Al.