The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-04-01
CONCERNS THE MINISTERS.
REV. ". F. DICKERM44N DIsCU USSES
 THEIR HONESTY.

The Seculnrization of the Church-LntrO-
 duction of Business Methods-A Church
 Should Preserve It's Spiritual Dignity
 Ministers and Holy Writ.
 Rev. w. F. Dickerman, pastor of the
 Church of the Messiah, delivered a
 most thoughtful and instructive ser-
 mon last evening on the subject Can
 Minister be Honest?" before a large
 audience. He spoke in part as fol-
 lows:
 q am not so sure about the sincerity
 of the minister. He is best by peculiar
 circumstances in the life of the present
 day. In Europe there Is a statue of a
 monk which at a distance looks as
 though the priest was kneeling in pray
 CT. but when one draws nearer the ob-
 server sees that the monk is really
 A minister does not always represent
 minister does not always represent
 all that he might wish and desire. Un-
 der the black coat or gown is the same
 human nature.
 "When was in the Methodist minis try Presbyterian minister approached
 me on Monday morning and asked me
 what the requisites for Methodist mi
 ister were. I saw that he had some thought In mind and so I asked him what he thought they were. He replied,
 Ignorance, inpudence and good lungs.'' So I smiled and said nothing. But such an incident simply Illustrates the feel ing ministers often have towards each other, although they all claim to be la- boring toward the same ends
 "In these days churches have become secular The minister has become a man of the world, mixed up In the world strife. And so while the church has gone out into the world, it has been in- fiuenced by some of the worlds baser elements. The church work has become business. The minister as well as a business man has become a hustler. Special music and entertainments of all sorts have been dragged into church work. There is not a church of the present day that depends entirely on it's bare religious work. Existence would hardly be possible for a church without side shows and cunning devices to draw people to the church. The church has become a social institution and gets largely it's vitality and power from the social side of its life, rather than from it's religious doctrines. The church has come to rely less and less on its inher- ent spiritual vitality. But the church should support something of its spirit ual dignity along the line of the em- ployment of methods Here churches are very liable to go astray. We have a notable instance of this in the intro duction of the Boys brigade into the church. The church pretends to follow the teachings of Christ, and if anyone ever taught the doctrine of peace on every occasion, Christ did. Yet we ob- serve in our time the spectacle of churches introducing a manual of arms musketry and military terms and phrases. I saw the reason for this in a paper to-day, which stated that the young men had fallen away from the church so that something had to be done to keep them. That is to say, religion on its own merits had failed, 1 and an appeal to arms is made-an ap- peal to the martial, cumulative spirit. | This shows what desperate straits the l church is sometimes driven to to main | tain itself. It might be construed to | show that Christianity upon its merits ! alone was futile.
 "A minister becomes dishonest when | he cares more about his salary than I his work-when he is a mere hireling. l The minister of to-day also has pecu- far theological environment. Every hing in theological circles is in a state | )f flux Ministers are either evading | certain questions or else making use of ldroit expressions which convey only | lalf the truth. What they leave unsaid | conspicuous by it's absence. I leard a lecturer before the students In Il he Yale Divinity school a few weeks tgo say. You must admit, young gen. lemen, the errancy of the Bible.' If hat statement had been made there en years ago it would have shaken the -ery foundations of the divinity school. These theologians, however, always Iualify their statements with a but n this way they beg the question. They ay there are errors in the Bible, but hat it is inspired. Well, what good Loes that do? It only shows how dis Ionest people are. Why do they admit t and then try to cover it up? The Bible is a valuable book and records the eligious experiences of our brothers of he past, but they are not content with hat. They want to ascribe magic to 1t. But we must remember that there was aith and hope in the human heart as yell as religion long before any book