The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1895-11-29
THE PULPIT FOR THE TIMES.
The Last Sermon of Series Preached at
the ArmOry by Rev. w. b. MatteS0n.

the ArmOry Dy RSV. w. ID. mdttS>uh'
Rev. w. b. Matteson closed his special
series of Sermons for the Times" last
Sunday morning. The special topic was
1.-THE Pulpit for the Times"
As the physician must know first the
principles of his art and then also under
stand the particular needs of the case to
which he is called to minister so it is es-
sential that the preacher should add to
an understanding of the eternal and un-
changing principles of truth and right
eousness a comprehension OF the special
needs of his own times. The remedy
must fit the disease. Preaching, in this
sense, must be adapted to the times.
Christianity gives prominence to the
preacher. Christ was essentially preach
or. He went about preaching the gos-
pei of the kingdom" The apostles relied
ior the conversion of the world upon
Athe foolishness OF preaching"
1t is important to have a clear concep-
zion of what true preaching is. We say
that the preacher should preach the
gospel" but this still leaves it to be ask
ed, what does preaching the gospel in
volve?
The preacher, first of all, witnesses to
the reality of mans spiritual nature.
Many tendencies of our times disparage
or deny this. The spirit of the age is
materialistic. Never more than now do
men need to be taught that, ''life is more
than meat and the body than raiment;"
that it profits a man nothing to 'gain the
whole world if he thereby lose his own
soul" The preacher for the times insists
not upon mans relation to the world or
TO other creatures, but upon his divine
capacity for fellowship with the infinite
God.
In being a spiritual, the preacher be-
comes an ethical teacher The laws of
the spiritual life are ethical laws. High
spirituality and low morality are the con-
tradction of each other. The ancient
prophets, the early apostles, Christ him
self gave themselves to this chiefly-the
holding up of pure and exalted ethical
ideals as one against the lower ideals of
the age to which they spoke. The
preacher upholds this higher ideal to the
individual. All that touches the moral
life and influences character concerns
him. This is not always understood.
A minister breaches on "What shall we
read" believing that reading touches
moral life, and a brother minister, either
differing in opinion publicly rebukes
him for not preaching the gospel" He
breaches on Amusement" believing, as
Is entirely manifest, that character is
largely affected by what we do in our
hours of play; and again meets the objec-
ton that The is not preaching the gospel"
But, to preach on those things that touch
the moral life, is to follow the example of
Christ and the apostles lit is to preach
the gospel in the spirit in which they
preached it.
The preacher not only holds mp the
ideal for the individual but Tor society.
Especially in our age, with its new social
sciences it has become plain that the in
aividual is inextricably interviewer with
society, that we cannot save the individ-
ual unless we save society. The early
temperance workers labored almost ex-
olusively with the individual. Save the
drunkard," was the cry. Today temper
ance workers concern themselves chiefly
with the proximate cause of intemper-
ance-the saloon. "Down with the sal
oon," is their cry. By and by they will
go back farther stih-they will under
stand that the ultimate cause is rooted in
social conditions. The disease is as deep
rs civilization. The cure is the whole
range of social reform. The drunkard is
only incidentally the product of the sal
con. Back of the saloon are questions of
wages, food, relation of capital and labor,
questions that root themselves deeply in
the very structure of modern civilization.
1t is superficial gospel that tries to suit
the drunkard, or stops with denouncing
the saloon. The true preacher will con-
slider also those deep-lying social condi-
tions. If an epidemic RACES true, prac-
tical christianity will not be satisfied with
giving consolation to the dying, it will
concern itself also with the causes and
conditions that have occasioned the cpl
demic. 1t will strive to remove these.
The pulpit for the times will then con-
sider-not only the immediate personal
result or the nearest superficial cause; he
will have his message respecting the
deeper causes and the producing condi-
hons.