The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-12-05
The Preachers Message
SERMONS THAT HELPS
BY PRINCIPAL A. W. PIERCE,
Barre Academy, Vt.

lister often fails to reach the needs
of his people. 1t is lamentable that
he so often breaches over their heads,
or simply pleases without helping.
In the pews are the vexations and
trials of lives full of labor and dis
enlargement, the consciousness Oh
sin. often with yearning TO De
shown the better way, the sorrows
that only the strong faith in the I'M
mortal life can heal, the hunger Tor
something of which faint glimpses
have been caught that shall feed tier
souls and send them back to work
again better and more hopeful. From
the pulpit too often comes the keen
logic of the controversialist, the alb
struse reasoning of the philosopher,
the fierce denunciation of the theo-
logical disputant, the minute study
of exegete, the theories of the devo,
tee of the higher criticism, the critical
research of the scientist, the rhapsody
of the poet, the sounding periods OF
the orator. or. saddest of all, the I'M
skilled probings after truth OF the
too skeptical preacher who cuts away
the very nerves and muscles OF our
religious faith and life in vain at
tempt to dislodge real or fancleo
@f fr0ICfAK6n
whose creed consists of don't pc
lieves," whose platform is so narrowly
broad that no one but himself can
balance on it. All this is husks Tor
mems deepest needs.
It has always seemed to me that
the appeal to the intellect should
have strictly subordinate place IN
an ideal sermon. A church fails mis-
erably when it makes intellectual or
even ethical culture its message to
the world. Our own church has been
dwarfed and weakened by the domi-
nation of the intellectual over the
spiritual. Sweetness and light are
good, but spiritual insight and rellg-
ious aspiration are better and the
incubation of these latter is the bus
mess of the Christian church. We
are too prone to substitute the lee
ture or the essay for the sermon. L
remember a series of sermons on Ike
lipious Truths from the Fields of
Geology; five of them, with the ex-
treme scientists skeptical conten-
lions stated in the elaborate argu-
ments of the best agnostic and ath-
eistic thinkers, and the religious ele-
ment provided by the preachers
limping refutation of their unwar-
ranted deductions, tucked away IN
the last half of the last lecture. The
story is told Of certain church OF a
sister communion that, while hearing
supplies, listened patiently to twen-
ty-four sermons in succession on the
"Relations of Science and Religion"
The temptations of the world were
never so strong, the need of the whole
armor of God never more pressing,
and we use the church and the pull
pit to discuss ad nouseona such ques-
tions as this. 1t is such preaching
in which you hear the name OF Jesus
so ingeniously sandwiched in between
those of Socrates and Shakespeare,
as though religion were mental cul-
ture and the Son of Man claimed a
place in the world of scholars.
Granted that culture is religions
best ally, it still remains true that
culture is not religion and never will
be. Religion is predominantly heart
and soul, not head. We should have
right beliefs and a reason for the
faith that is in us, but these are sec
ondary to that part of our nature out
of which are the issues of life. "A
handful of good life is worth bush
ell of learning" said old Jeremy Tay-
lor. Many poor ignorant man with
false intellectual conceptions OF al
most every problem of religion, by
Christ-like life and service puts to
shame our more highly cultivated
minds and more rational creeds. The
''heart" is, indeed, "wiser than the
head" and "we can wholly feel what
we cannot clearly see." The church
is not culture club, the sermon is
not an essay. Men are net saved by
ethics or evolution, by the gospel of
culture, or by the gospel of rational
ism. Woe to the people whose min
lister breaches the gospel according
to Herbert Spencer, Matthew Arnold
or Charles Darwin.
One specially prevalent phase of
the predominant intellectualism man
ifests itself in the desire to preach the
controversial or polemical sermon.
Sometimes it takes the form of end
less disputations on matters of theo-
logical controversy, hard hits at the