The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1883-12-13
Preaching Made Easy,

Readers of the Daily Nea0s may have
recently noticed an advertisement of a
literary bureau, which offers to furnish
to order sermons, advertisements, lee
lures, write-ups, etc." The manager
of the bureau was found by a reporter,
after a long hunt yesterday. He is a
| little round fat man, with a face which
beams like the full moon rising behind
a hedge. His little dark ayes glitter
beneath a pair of steel-bowed spectacles
like diamonds, and roll about like balls
of quicksilver; and he wears a gray
mlstache, utshort and stifflike a worn
out brush. When he lays down his
cerebral work and takes up the thread
of idle gossip he holds a lighted match
to a huge brier-root pipe, and settles
back in his revolving office chair till he
reaches a position of placid content
ment.
as there much doing in literary cir
cles nowadaysp" asked the reporter.
"Well, there's enough to eepfour of
us busy" he replied. There's a very
good demand just at this season for
what we call write-ups, fancy advertise
ments, business notices and the like.
Yes, the winter and holiday trade is on,
you know, and we are kept quite busy,
indeed"
"How is the demand for Sermon to
order?"
ssHa, ha! o, az for sermons, there
isn'tso much of that done. In fact L
wouldn't care to say publicly and above
board that there is any of it done in
Chicago, but 1 might as well tell you,
~confidentially, there is"
"To what extent are sermons furnish
Il L A. - -.ss41-o =. 4l.-
city,"
IA great many sermons are written
to order here in the course of a year.
But we hardly ever come in contact
with the clergymen ordering the dis
courses. The business, you see, is
principally done by correspondence.
The clergyman sends us the points he
wants elaborated. In many cases he is
so particular and outlines his sermon
so completely that very littlei is required
of US except revision and rewriting"
"Your patrons, then, it would seem,
are chiefly persons who are not deficient
in ideas SO much as in the literary
knack?"
Eyes, sir, our orders come mostly
from extempore men, or men who think
they are written out, and imagine that
they can get something fresh and in
spring from a layman. There's moth
ing original, strictly speaking, that can
be said by the best of s~ermonizers. No,
I never heard a sermon written by one
of us delivered. I've often tried to fol-
low them up, but I never could do it.
Yes, sir, I am free to say that we write
a good many sermons for the preach
ers, but in nc instance that l am aware
&c ho ua rra Aonn INV xunrH for FIJI Er.cf-
class clergymen-they are scholarly
selves. Yes, I consider it very skillful
work to indite m that will be
pleasing to Chicago audiences; two SER
mons a week are all a man wants to do,
l can tell you that. 1 have no doubt
the gospel looks a little fresher coming
through a layman now and then. Per-
haps he knows more of the sins of the
community. Perhaps a clergyman
can't always see what is going on in a
community when he is very much ele-
waited and looks too high"
"What do you do in the way of
poetry P" inquired the reporter.
considerable. Yes, there's consid-
cradle machine poetry written to order
in our establishment. l have no speci-
ulcuS Ou udhl UClO dO pICSClG, III II L
were up at the house l might show you
some. We grind out machine poetry
as well as the most of them"
"Whom do the applications come
from ?n
almost invariably from love-sick
people-and not always young either.
You can put that down. They are al
ways wanting passionate stanzas-
something to suit the other party, you
know.
"'The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact
"As for epistles, applications for these
come to us almost invariably from love.
sick people, too. Occasionally a re.
vengeful or satirical letter is in demand,
in which some man or is told
some very bitter things. o yes, oul
work is done exclusively by gentlemen
we couldn't trust the ladies with such
confidential work, you know. There's
four of us to do the work, which we
divide into three classes-heavy, medi
UNI and light"
"What sort of work comes under thu
head of heavy-sermons?"
"'Yes, that's the worst of it all. Ii
the medium class come write-ups. fol
the newspapers, for business men
fancy and novel advertisements anC
business letters. The light work, a!
you might know, is the love-letter bust
ness-although for me that would bt
the heaviest of all. We have a young
man who is a specialist in the line, ant
he's the LATEST one among us. Poetry
i too, comes under the head of ligh
work, though it certainly would b.
heavy to some folks. But some people
have the faculty of grinding out rhyme.
beyond all account. Now and theI
they Urn out something pretty clever
too. No, sir, we have any calls
to write wills; l suppose they would
come under he head of mournful work
The last epistle we wrote was to accom-
pany a gift of affection"
''Do you grind out any literature OF
political topics?"
1--WE have had orders for a number O
biographical sketches of political can
didates; but it's singular to me that WI
have Eve had any political speeche.
to do. There's lots of proxy speech
writing done in Washington, you know
A large proportion of the speeches. de
livered there undergo revision at leasr
by some expert. Most political aspir
ants think they can speak eloquent,
extempore, but they can't. They thini
it sounds better, and reflects more cred
!, ita5ly on their intellect"
"What of your line of work from tn,
financial point of view"
every good; we get good pay TO
what we do. Asermon generally bring
, about fifteen dollars-that will have t.
l be a good one, too. We frequent,
] have to re-write a sermon several time
, before it proves satisfactory. w,
usually ask twenty-five dollars for
tip-top intellectual discourse, but W,
rarely get more than ten or fifteen dol
l lars. That is all the second-han,
preachers "a afford to pay. A first