The herald., 1897-07-18

4
things that are Caesars" is text EN-
bracing nearly the whole civil code OF
every country. Good citizenship ant
right living are largely conditions pre-.
mortality. We are aware that thess
questions are beginning to receive al
least some atten ton at the hands OF
preachers of the gospel, but it is respect
slowly along the line of their full appre-
citation.
1t was the Apostle Paul who spoke OF
the necessity of sanctification of the
making the body eft temple for the
indwelling of the Holy Ghost" Has not
the church in its devotion to the interest
of the soul rather overlooked the i'm
effectiveness of preaching has been more
frequently due to the bodily maladies Of
the hearers than the intellectual decrep-
itude of the preacher. In this the pulpit
rules of hygiene might wisely supple
ment the therapeutic admonitions of the
physician Was it not the versatile Hor-
ace Mann who said that "a lying tongue
and a dyspeptic stomach are an abom-
nation to the Lord?" Why should rot
Christian ministers in the discharge CT
their high duties, take man as they 1ind
him, not as an inchoate angel, but as
an intricate piece of machinery imbueG
with an immortal spirit, whose earthly
well-being is essential to his future sal
vation requiring instruction in the to
him mysteries of his earthly life as much
as direction along the road that leads
to heaven?
In late issue of the Homiletic Review
writer, addressing himself to this sub
ject, says:
'Recusants of holy rites" represent
both the leisure and working classes
both brain and Drawn. Many cultivated
people have been chilled into indiffer-
ence by sermons that only repeat what
everybody already knows, and that
dodge critical current questions be-
cause discussion of them is likely to
make men angry.
This is true, and is bad enough, but
the writer quoted adds the more serious
charge that organized labor has de-
vassal of the mill and the counting
room"
The Herald would acquit the great
body of the clergy of this latter charge,
though it is undoubtedly true that in.
cities where the rents paid by million
aire pewholders constituted an import
ant part Of the revenues of the church
subservient preachers this year and
last and the year before, did whatever
they obsequiously could do to shield
wealthy oppressors of labor from the
merited contempt of all honest men.
The greatest fault OF the church touch
ing this phase of the question consists
in the cowardice of silence. A million
aire member of the church is a very
precious quantity and to be husbarded
Has not the time arrived when th=
church should win back recusant peo-
pie? why" says the writer quoted
above, why should not the pulpit win
the widest hearing, reconcile men to
God and to each other and mold the
age" Descanting upon this subject, as,
effecting the United States, DR.. Joseph
Parker Of London says: And surely in
a republic where every citizen is king
or queen, the duties of sovereignty are to
be pointed out by the pulpit as they were
by stout old John Knox, when he con-
fronted Mary Stuart, and by Elijah to
Ahab and Jezebel. The ethics of mar
riage and pareptage, of sanitation and
sociology, the nature of government and
responsibility of law, ought to be stat
eddy expounded with the eloquence
learned in the school Of the Nazarene."
This done 1t will be but the result of an
effect from cause to see the churches
once again thronged with audiences
hungry for instruction and eager to be
filled.