Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1906-10-21
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DECLINE OF THE PULPIT.

\ e3rrespondent of the New York Evening Star asserts that the mod ern pulpit has lost much of it's power b influence men for good. There are. he says, many reasons for this and one of the principal reasons IS that the congregations are now better educated than they were formerly, and that the preachers, consequent W. cannot interest their hearers, as in days gone by There was time, we are told, when the preacher was "tbe source of knowledSc,@ the "edu- cated" man, the learned man ol the community He was the community repository of knowledge, and his nnioue position gave his preaching commanding force and authority. But that time has passed. The preacher no longer carries the keys of knoWl- edge. and outside of his especial ters he has no word for the people of the present. Generally he Is not a scholar. a philosopher, a historian, d man of science a thinker, a specialist or authority on anything, and there fore his preaching, except i'll d mar TOW field. is without influence and has greatly declined.
 This presupposes that unless the oc- cupanls of pulpits are great phlloso- phers, historians, or scientists, they can have no influence upon their audi ences. It takes for granted that every pulpit ought to be a university chalf occupied by some great scholar ca pablo of drawing an audience, by learned lectures on topics of scientific interest But according to the Des- erct News. this is one of the great ms takes of the modern times, and one which many preachers themselves fall into. and therefore drive away their hearers by learned dissertations on various dry topics. John the Bap- fist did not draw the immense audi enceS around him in the wilderness by means of any learned lectures upon the uuestionns with which philoso- phers were busy. but because he had d message from God to His people con corning the coming of the kingdom of heaven. and because he delivered that message faithfully, rehukinS sin and urging repentance. The presence or the Holy Ghost was the secret of his power and influence.
 The apostles of our Lord were sim ilarly endowed. It Was the power of the divine Spirit that made their preaching an irresistible force. IL was not their oratory. nor their phi losophy. Paul warned his brethren against the falsely so-called philoso- phy of the world, and il was his boast that. when he came to Corinth, a not ed center of ancient culture, he did not come with eXcellency of speech or of wisdom" for he says. "I deter mined not to know anything among you. save Jesus Christ, and Him cruel fed Whatever may have been the sentiments of the great apostle to the Gentiles, when he addressed the Stoio philosophers on the Mars hill at Ath- ems, at Corinth. he humhlv proclaimed the doctrine which the philosophers of the world branded as "foolishness And that proved a power for good.
 It was always thus. Doctors 0 philosophy and theology gladly lis tened to the humble shoemaker, Jacot Boehme. John Bunyan to this da, is profitably studied by scholars a; well as the unlearned Sturgeon uset 10 draw immense crowds Ia the Me 1ropolitan tabernacle by the mos oldfashioned but earnest appeals {, his fellow men. II is not true tha learning and rhetoric constitute tn
 power of the pulpit. If it is withou influence, it is because the Spirit o God has withdrawn from it. And fo