Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1889-06-21
TOADI7SM IN 7YIE Pulpit.
Preaching Erctmsire'y far tie fieh-1m-

| Preaching EEctMSirc'Y for f"e Hte"-AM
| moral English C!eryvne'.
1t is an unpleasant facs that clergy
men in this country are sometimes found
toadying to the whims and caprlces OF
rich men, says clerical writer in the
New York Tribune. have spoken OF
this matter before, but do not think l
have ever told little anccdote that
illustrates the tendency in striking
way. A newly installed pastor OF GER
! tain church was exceedingly anxious to
capture for his church wealthy and in
tluential man who was unconnectcd with
any church. SO he took pains to learn
all pet ideas of the magnate, including
his love of orchids and Holstein cattle,
and wrote sermon in which all these
ideas were skalfullv brought into prom
inence. But the magnates attendance
at church was somewhat uncertain, so
the dominic kept this sermon as re-
serve to be used when the great man
should be present. He had to wait
eight weeks for this event; but at last
his victim sauntered in, and the sermon
was delivered in fine style. You will
of course, expect me to say that he
landed his big fish in one OF the most
expensive pews. But alas for the van
ity of human hopes! the sermon con-
tanned some chance illusions to God,
and as the magnate was an agnostic he
was deeply offended, and promptly
hired Il pew in a radical Unitarian
church, in which the existence of God
was virtually an open question. This
is one of the evil tendencies of the vol
untary system. But there is another
side to the question. DIR. Magee, Bishop
of Peterborough, England, gives some
facts which show in a startling way, the
evils of State church. ''Since have
been a Bishop" he says, Il have been
called upon to institute four clergymen,
of whom one was paralytic, another so
aged and intirm that, on the ground Of
his age and infirmity, he asked me for
leave of perpetual absence from the inn
portant parish to which l had just in
stituted him; third was a reclaimed
drunkard, who was presented to a bene-
flee situated only few miles from the
scene of his former intemperance, and
where the scandal Of it was unhappily
notorious; the fourth q can hardly
bring myself to say it, had resigned a
public Office he had formerly held sooner
than face an Investigation into charge
Of the most horrible immortality, the truth
Of which he did not dare to deay to me.
in each Of these cases the facts were per-
fectly we'll known to the respective pat
ron. As regard severy one Of these was
advised that had no legal power to re-
fuse institution; and as regards the last
it is simply a fact that the man to whom,
at the risk of a lawsuit, refused in
stitution could the next day have bought
across the counter in London-with the
same ease and with more secrecy than
he could have bought railroad ticket
"a cure of souls in the shape of do
native, on which he might at once have
entered, without any human being hay
ing the right to ask him so much as a
single question. For aught [ know to
the contrary he may have done this,
and that miserable man, stained, as he
is by his own confession with nameless
vice, may now be the benefited and IT.
removable minister of parish in the
Church of England.