The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-03
THE PULPIT OF TUE FUTURE.


THE PULPIT OF Tue FUTURE.
The Rev. Philip E. Holp, of Water
town, South Dakota, is lecturing on al
mage and His Tricks" It is good sign
of the times that even the clergy are be-
ginning to speak out against such q hter-
airy fakir in the pulpit as Talmage. Inc
clerical crank is tolerable, for he only
brings the pulpit into theological con-
tempt. but the clerical mountebank Ike
Talmage brings it into moral contempt.
An intelligent man who undertakes to
read one of Talmage's crazy-quilt sermons
will find a few alleged facts floating on
shallow and shoreless goose pond OF green
Thought. This clerical mountebank. Tai
mage. was once brought to trial before his
presbytery for lying, and no less man than
the late Rev. DR.. Henry ]. Van Dyke was
the prosecutor. The testimony was over
whelming that Talmage had been guilty
of persistent lying and conduct tnat
would disgrace man in decent
business circles but he was equal to the
occasion, for rising he made theatrical
appeal to the sympathies Of the audience
and announced his strong desire to shake
hands with and kiss all his enemies. "If
I ever have said anything that you are
sorry for I am willing to accept your
apology with thanks and blow you all
kiss seemed to be the mood of DR.. Tai
mage. Everybody cried and kissed and
kissed and cried except the Rev. DR.. Van
Dyke, who drily remarked that trial OF q
question of fact was not settled by dis
play of ELUSIVE sentiment, and walked out
of the room. \
The circulation of Talmage's sermons
is like the circulation of Rider Haggard's
novels; it is like gaudily painted band
wagon full of picturesquely dressed
musicians convulsively pumping thunder
out of sounding brass and tinkling Gym.
balls. The Talmage class of clerical
mountebanks have had their day; the
people begin to note the difference be-
tween fluent clerical charlatan and fakir
in the pulpit and sincere preacher Of
pure personality and spiritual persuasive
ness and power, like Phillips Brooks, who
find something better to do than to stone
Christian missionaries for believing
that fellow creature will not be damned
for ignorance of what he never had a
chance to know; something better to do
than to snatch Sunday newspaper out of
the public hands; than to stop Sunday
trains; than to prescribe music, art and
the theater. Bishop Phillips Brooks be-
lieves that an upright and unselfih mis-
sionary should not be rejected for work
among the heather because he believes
God is sufficiently merciful not to damn
a barbarian eternally for ignorance Of
Christ when he never had chance to
know Christ.
Some three years ago great Protestant
denomination debated for weeks concern
ing that subject of thrilling consequence to
the wretched in this world, viz: the en-
richment of the prayer book. Another
convention grew purple with an exciting
debate over the propriety of instrumental
music in churches. People who do any
thinking and have any moral courage
commensurate with their intelligence are
that waste weeks. like the old medieval
schoolmen, over tweedledum and tweedle-
dee in theology; who fondly imagine that
the salvation of dying world is put in
jeopardy by Sunday law, by the circula-
ton of a Sunday newspaper, the run
ming of Sunday train, the
playing of instrumental music in
churches, or the entertainment of the
idea that God is too just to damn any
human creature for life of religious dark
ness when he never had a chance to see
the light. The people are very tired of the
obsolete preacher who says, II believe in
election and damnation, election for my
self and damnation for most other people
and take great comfort in it."
The new voice of the modern pulpit, as
we hear it from Bishop Brooks, and men
of his school of thought in all denomina-
tons, says:
Be more afraid of the littleness than the large
ness of life. Seek with study and with prayer
for the most clear and confident convictions,
and when you have won them hold them so
largely and vitality that they shall be to you not
the walls which separate you from your breth-
feu VINO nave Otner CONVICTIONS tnan yours, but
the medium through which you enter into I'M
Outstanding of and sympathy with them.
Such men will have the ear of the grow
ing generation when the Brooklyn taber-
nacle is deserted and its clerical Roscius
become mere local tradition. No pulpit
ever lacked power that had sweet, sim
cere, noble life in it. If church is diving
or dead it is because there is death or
paralysis in its pulpit. The great preacher
is one who filings an honest, humble, SIM
pie warm heart ahead of him and fights
his way up to it; the glow of blessed life
makes sermon a burning and shining
light, no matter how plain and rugged the
delivery The great pastor need not
speak much, nor speak long, nor strive by
rhetoric's artful aid, for if his life is elo-
quent in its daily purpose and perform
ance the people never care to consider
whether he is great preacher or not;
they feel that there is stainless soldier on
their walls whose plain sermons, striking
squarely at sin, sound, as Theodore Parker
said, like battle-axe on a robbers door
posts"
The meeting of the judiciary COMMITTEES
of the house of delegates with the men,
har1 # H. -