The advocate., 1894-04-11
CHAPTER XXI.
TROUBLE IN THE CHURCH.

Minds Of moderate calibre ordinarily con-
denim everything which Is beyond their range.
LA RoCHEFoUCAULD.
You have many enemies that know not
Why they are 80, but, like the village ours,
Bark when their fellows do.
-SHAKEsPEARE.
The Rev. Marshall Mason was hav-
ing trouble with his church.
Twice of late he had been guilty of
preaching the gospel which Christ
preached-a dereliction which few
orthodox churches to-day are willing to
condone. The preacher is expected to
confne his remarks to the "sweet bye
and bye" and is not to meddle with
brethren engaged in the pious task Of
constructing Christian wheat corners,
or prayerfully occupied in evolving
Christian coal trusts, in this present
world. To repeat in the modern pulpit
the dangerous doctrines taught by
Jesus of Nazareth, and to actually in
sist that those doctrines shall be taken
seriously 1O2C-Who that believes in
'business" and political economy can
be expected to tolerate such uncleriCal
conduct in the preacher he helps to
pay? No clergyman need look for
large returns from the gospel hat
when passed to get him aid in carrying
out the incendiary project of preaching
the gospel as a practical message to
men in this world; and no respect
able" church will long permit its hat to
be used for such an improper purpose
So Brother Mason was having trouble
with the brothers and sisters of the
Risington Congregational church; or,
properly speaking, they were having
trouble with him.
Within six years he had preached
himself out Of two pulpits already-one
in New England, and the other in the
far West--before he received call to
the struggling congregation at Rising
ton; and he had come here with the
determination of building up cOngre-
cation Of workingmen and working
women, and of other people Of liberal
mind and culture. But his eloquence
had induced society to make his church
fashionable" and now, near the end
Of his second year, he found himself
once more in a pulpit which real es-
tate, cash, bonds and business gener-
ally, with their accustomed and
accursed arrogance, sought to control.
He determined to rebel and to preach
the truth; and there was, therefore, as
have already twice remarked, trouble
in the church.
The reader may judge of the effect
Of Mason's preaching from these few
gems extracted from one of his SER
mons:
"Social and political changes often
seem hopelessly slow at first, but they
finally break upon the world with
amazing suddenness. Events move
with startling rapidity when God takes
a hand in human affairs"
Government and theology both alike
appeal to fear-the most ignoble of all
human sentiments. Government says,
obey, or you shall diep while theology
meets the doomed wretch at the foot of
the Scaffold and says, Believe, or you
will be damnedp The threat of death
here, the threat Of damnation here
after-these are the means by which
authority and theology have compelled
mankind to maintain the social hell in
which we live."
''If professed Christians had been
half as industrious in trying to get
heaven to come to the poor as they
have been in trying to get the poor to
go to heaven, this world would have
been a paradise long ago."
''We know very little about a next
world; and when we consider what men
have made of this world, we must be
tempted to doubt whether an all-wise
God cares to trust such creatures with
another one"
The next week after Kate's journal
istic efforts which had resulted in the
Ainrhf Of Claranna Dianal tha Rev Mar