The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1903-03-28
rGre Preachers Tell The Truth ?
Prom the Baltimore Alnerican.

From the Baltimore American.
Rev DIR. Madison c. Peters, pastor of
the Baptist Tabernacle, speaking on the
night of March 20, in the Eutaw Place
Baptist Church on 1.-The Attitude of the
Church Towards the Great Public CUES
ton, said:
1t is high time that we talk about the
living scribes and pharisees who fill our
pews and pay our salaries instead of hold
ing gay tournament with the scribes and
pharisees of Judea, wh2 have been dust
aud ashes for nearly 1000 years. People
will always crowd to hear the man who
does not stick, stutter and stammer in tell
ing the truth. The woman broke the
looking glass because it showed the wrin
kles in her face, and those who get vexed
because sin is aimed at do so because they
are shot
The pulpit should not be coward
castle preachers should be prophets and
not parrots, heralds proclaiming the COM
ing day If the preacher lifts his voice,
cries aloud and spares not, he is called
sensational; if impelled by patriotic motives
and filled with enthusiasm for humanity he
applies the social laws of Jesus, he is
dubbed charlatan Instances innumera-
Bile have come within my knowledge where
the preachers dared to tell the truth, but
they soon found themselves out of a job.
THEY DARE NOT.
In the majority of the prominent pulpits
in America today the preachers simply
dare not be uncompromising in their renun-
citation of sin and wickedneSs Such
preaching would drive out the men whose
ill-gotten wealth makes them essential to
the church. because they can make large
contributions And many preacher Is
compelled to credit his hearers with virtues
he knows they do not possess .or the sake
of his bread and butter; for the sake OF
his wife and babies he must avoid truth
disagreeable to his hearers and pander to
preiudices in public which in private he
despises. We are hired to preach what
the people like, and as Faust stepped has
pen in the blood of MephiStopheles and
signed himself to the devil so many a
preacher today, to hold his position, must
sell his manhood to the favor of few rich
and goddess men in his congregation. The
sycophantie cowardliness of the pulpit viii
disappear when the people in the pews will
stand BY the men who won keep their
mouths shut when the people sin. %,Ihe
mightiest force in the world is the aroused
conscience Of a great people, and the chief
ouickener and educator Of the conscience /
in the past has been the pulpit. The press
has taken the place of the pulpit and has /
become today the most important and ef-
fectual support of virtues cause. You
cannot count 80 men in the pulpits Of /
America whose voices are heard and whose /
influence is felt outside of the narrow linz /
its of their own churches.
The man who is enthusiastic about the /
church in its present condition only gives |
proof that he has ceased to be living fac /
tor in the world progress. am not now /
speaking of Christianity which is the life I
and inspiration of our civilization, but do /
say that the church Is not leading the way
in the new civilization What influence 4
the church has she uses 10 conserve the /
heritage Of the past. But who dares say
that the church is molding the future Il I
affords some restraint, but very little in
spirstion.
OTHERS DO THE WORK.
The church ought always to have been /
the first to right the wrongs that cypress (
mankind. but with narrow conception q /
its mission it has sat on high platform Of (
empty dignity, with folded hands, while !
the Young Men Christian Association,
the Woman Christian Temperance Union |
and hundreds of similar organizations are
doing the work which the church should /
have done Ii Is true that the benevolent
works and reforms outside Of the church /
draw their life and support largely from
the church members, but their success Is
not the church success Aud these men
thus engaged, who have appreciated the
largeness of the church mission. have in
many instances been driven cut Of the
church to do the Lord 5 work. Is there
any man who would dare say that all the
Christianity in the world IS ia the church
Yet, If the church had been As broad as
the Spirit Of Christ all the Christianity Of
the world would have been in the church.
What a sorry world it would be if Chris
tianity was not broader than the church.
The reforms Of the most important char
aeter not only receive little support from
the church, but have frequently to en-
counter It's bitterest opposition. When /
the question of slavery first came before
the American churches, with few excep-
tions, they made choice of public favor.
1t was the opportunity OF the church to
have nodded public sentiment, and be-
heve slavery could have been abolished
without civil war, but the church falling
to do her duty our national sin was put
away BY the expenditure Of countless
treasure and millions of lives
SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Most of the social questions Of the
last few years have brought nearly as
much discredit as credit to religion.
About ten years ago one of the biggest
tenement house landlords in New York,
the wealthiest church corporation in the
land attacked the eonstitntionality Of the
statute which the board of health had or
dered, requiring that landlords put water
on every floor, so that the poor people
might wash That one thing did more
to drive the people away from the church
than all the ranting of infdels that ever
lived Do you wonder that those people
looked upon those ehurchmen as lot of
canting hypocrites, who wrapped their
comfortable robes about them and cared
nothing for the suferiugs of others ?
The attitude Of the church on the TEN
peranee question has likewise brought
great discredit on the church The asser-
ton has been made, which amounts to
fact, that the saloon gets its merchandise
from the still house and its continued ex-
istenee from the ''stilr church. Church |
members sign applications for saloon Ii
eenses, while it is a common thing for
church members to rent their stores for
saloons The liquor traffic could not ex-
ist one year without the apathy Of the
church and the delinquency Of the SOW
ereign people in the exercise Of their priv
ileges at the ballot box. If the church
stood up right and down square on the