The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-06-02
Bill ArJp's Letter .
Bill Does Not Like the Modern Sensational Sermons
But Old Time Preaching.

There seems to be an unusual commo-
ton in the field of religious thought.
Out of two or three hundred different
Christian creeds and forms of worship.
one would suppose there We're already
enough to choose FROM but some new and
startling ones keep coming in and the
eager, craving minds of the unsettled
people are falling out with the old and
falling in with the new theories and doc
trines There is no cause for very great
alarm in this, for it proves the natural
instructive desire of weak and unsettled
minds for some religion that will satisfy
and comfort the longing heart. 1t proves
the universal belief in God the creator
and the universal desire to secure His
favor. There is nothing new or strange
in this. 1t is history repeated. One hun
dred and eighty years ago Alexander
pope the great poet and philosopher,
wrote:
pFor modes of faith let graceless zealots
fight;
He can't be wrong whose life is in the
right.
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity
Pope was a great and good man ana
died a Christian His devotion to his
mother was intense and beautiful. He
took the tenderest care of her and she
lived with him until she died, in her
ninety third year. This is tribute enough
for any man.
There are many men of many minds.
There are some in our day just like those
of Athens of whom st. Paul wrote, VINO
spent their time in telling or hearing
some new thing" Even some preachers
have morbid craving for sensation and
they create a commotion wherever they
go They belong to the church militant
and believe in thunder and lightning and
cyclones and even war as agencies for
the propagation OF Christianity. The
newspapers are crowded with abstruse
essays on the new religion both for and
against. These distract the skeptical and
unsettle minds OF many, but only for
time Spiritualism did the same thing
for half century, but happily it has run
its course as the last census shows
large decrease in the number of its fol-
lowers. But true Christianity moves on
serenely amidst all these connections.
Meteors and comets may come and go
even the sun itself may for brief in
tervaI be eclipsed; but, like Christianity,
it shines on year after year, century af-
ter century, bringing light and life to the
world.
Maybe this sensational preaching is
needed in these degenerate times, When
the spirit of war and the love of money
seem to have demoralized the young men
of the land: when murder and suicides
are of daily occurrence, and getting mon
ey by gambling in stocks and other short
cuts to fortune has become a national
sin. But to my mind, the old conserya-
tive modes are still the best. | don't
like the preacher who ascends the pulpit
with a whip in his hand and cracks its
lash at every malediction. That would
be all right if every man had pulpit and
a whip, so that he could fight back. If
l were good enough to be preacher
would take a text and stick to 1T rever-
emily and plead with the people in the
name of the Lord. Old DR.. Arson, Of
Savannah was my ideal of a preacher;
a man of God whose very presence in the
pulpit increased our reverence for it. His
texts still linger in the memories of those
who listened and carry with them more
enduring solemnity. When David pleaded
with the Lord for forgiveness and said,
Remember not against me the iniquitics
of my youth" every one recalled with
grief and sorrow the many, many errors
of his young life. What grief to every
man are the sins of his youth and how
earnestly he wishes they could be blotted
out from his own memory. l recall an
other text, when David exclaimed in the
agony of his heart, my sin is ever before
me-" What a subject for an earnest
eloquent divine-the impossibility of es-
Gaping from the memory of sin.
But the love of God was his favorite
theme, and the helplessness of man in
contrast. We know not whence We came
nor whittier we are going. We cannot