The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-09-05
A Dearth of Hearers.


hearers. 1t is certainly true that we have
not ministers enough to meet the needs of
the world, or even of our own Christian
country and the indications of a ripen-
ing harvest, with an increasing demand
for Christian laborers in every land, shows
a still greater deficiency in prospect. But
whether we look at the churches of differ
emit denominations in city or country, we
cannot fail to be impressed with the fact
that there is a very general and very seri-
GUS detection in attendance upon the
preaching of the Word. There is not
city of any size, and we do not except this
great city with its million and a quarter
of people, where there are not to be found
numerous houses of worship that are only
half, or less than half filled, from Sabbath
to Sabbath. And when we come to the
smaller towns and villages and country
places it is the rule to find districts of a
few hundred people with a full assort-
ment of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (of one
kind or more), Congregational, Baptist,
Methodist, and perhaps several others.
In very many cases each one of these
churches has an attendance of only few
score, not all having even score of regu-
lar attendants. We venture on this we'll
worn theme, not for the usual purpose of
illustrating the evils of sectarianism, but
to suggest one obvious reason why there
are not ministers enough among the
churches to go round, and why there can
not be expected to be enough We have
little right to be complaining of famine,
while there is so much waste or to won
der that sufficient number of young men
are not offering for positions which are so
restricted both as to scope and support.
In some parts of the country, and in
numerous places, there is not so much
famine of ministers as surfeit of
churches. The decay of church-going,
and the limited attendance where there
has been no decay, is to be accounted for
on various grounds. We cannot now
enumerate them. One plainly is, that the
church service, and especially the sermon,
is not as notable feature in mems lives
as it was before these days when "mauy
run to and fro, and knowledge is in
creased" Even in the country, the news
paper, the post-office, the telegraph, the
cheap publications, the circulating IL
brary, are not only supplying demands
for which people once looked largely to
the pulpit, but are serious diversion
from the ministrations of the sanctuary.
The Sunday paper pursues the people to
their remote summer resorts, and at all
seasons is a too successful rival of the
morning service. And as to evening SER
vice, that is rapidly becoming something
(which decayeth and waxeth old, and is
ready to vanish away" In other words,
the pulpit has been robbed Of one of its
chief elements of extraneous attraction
as mental stimulus, and more or less
novel and exciting episode in an isolated
and uneventful life. So that we may
rather wonder that church-going retains
as general a hold upon the people as it
does. Another clew is to be found in the
fact which we have recently adverted to-,
the lack, in 80 many instances, of an at
tractive pulpit manner. Since the people
have come into possession of so much
reading matter, in daily and weekly news
papers, magazines, cheap books of every
sort, the distinctive charm and power of
oral instruction must be found in the
magnetism and vigor of the speakers per-
sonality. If the manner of its delivery
adds no emphasis and imparts no vitality
to the written matter, if his presence and
countenance and voice, his earnestness
and sympathy, are not commentary and
an illumination to the words he utters, he
is at sad disadvantage. The truth is
hindered and marred, rather than helped
and glorifed, by passing through his lips /;
and it makes the draft and strain upon
the purely spiritual appreciation of the
nearer unduly great. There is no dis
guising the fact that there is growing
lack of sympathy between the masses of
the people and the church, as represented
in the Sabbath services. Too much of
the preaching, also, has certain far-away
aspect and sound to the plain man, who
comes in from weeks knocking about
in the world. The atmosphere of the
university and the theological school, the
essayish form of the sermon, or its evil
| dent existence for its own sake as work
of homiletic or Evolutionary art-not to
speak of its too frequent nervelessness
and lack of muscular grip-removes it
into region outside of mems sympathies,
intellectual or spiritual. They are not
made to feel the reality to themselves of
those things which the service represents,
and either stay away or become listless
hearers. We want more preachers who,
metaphorically speaking, take off their
coats-at least, who bring the gospel nome
to the man of to-day as the preacher of
the Jordan and his Master, the Prophet of
Nazareth, did in their day-and we may
be sure that "the common people" will
shear them gladly" We have sufficient
indication of this in the marvellous sue
cess of such unconventional preachers as
Spurgeon and Moody. Many cultivated,
thoughtful Christians may not feel the
need of such ministrations; they may
even criticise the multitudes who throng
to the camp-grounds in summer and to
the evangelistic services in winter, and
who listen with wrapt attention to such
men as speak even in the simplest
language directly to the hearts Of men,
and in the spirit of the great themes on
which they dwell. But we shall not
remedy the famine of hearers from which
the church is suffering, unless we learn
their secret of breaking up and onltivating
the fallow field of the human heart. And
what we need as an essential complement
to all the rest, is the power of the Holy
Ghost. For when the Spirit of God takes
of the things of Christ aud shows them tc
men, there is eloquence, and novelty, and
magnetism, and dramatic intensity, the
sense of realness and self-concerp, and