The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1917-08-04

The Rev. William Sunday has
passed to his temporary rest, writes
Shane Leslie in America. His voice
will no longer cry over the wilderness
of Harlem, make straight the way of
the Lord" with every variation OF
slang imaginable to an athletic mind,
and we ask where are we? Whether
people heard him or not, they seem
to be the same old spiritual sixpenses.
They do not deny the sincerely or
envy the business methods shown by
his mission. Both leave them neither
warm nor cold. But they feel the
pathos of his efforts.
1t seems fatuous to discuss whether
slang is reverent or not in preaching.
The medievals flooded the street cor
ners with religious slang. Many
"F'riar Friday" called folk to repent
ance with crude and bitter words that
shocked as much as they melted.
When slang was needed, the Church
never turned an eyelash. Ecclesias-
tical slang, now a lingering affection
of ritualistic life, was once an art.
But the holy slang of the medievals
touched the sublime When civiliza-
ton was stepped in religion, slang
came as variant. When civilization
is materialism, as today, there is dan
ger that religion presented in slang
may fall to it's own foible.
No doubt the comic element in man
almost as clearly distinguishes him
from the beast as does the religious
element. Laughter and religious
ectasy are somewhat akin. Physic-
ally prayer and laughter can be ridicul-
ously alike, the opened mouth, the
shaking organs of the body, the salt
tears and the feeling of katharisis or
publication in the mind. Theological
ly one has a high mystical value. The
other has not. One cannot laugh one
self into heaven or slip under the bars
by twitting St. Peter. Some of us go
too far in imagining God saying: 81
hate your jokes, and religious slang
is an abomination unto me-" Nor can
we say that God has sense of humor,
that as He is omniscient He must
know what sense of humOr is.
Charles Kingsley thought the Creator
actually had comic sense and called
attention to the crab in proof. We for
bear to think whether the heavenly
Hierarchy has been amused or not by
the antics in the New York Taber-
nacle.
The Salvationists gave us what
Huxley called "corybantic Christian
ity" and Billy Sunday has given us
galvanic Christianity. It could hardly
be otherwise. The time of the halle
lujah maenads has passed. The Sal
walton Army has become respectable
and slow. It bespoke a kind of spirit
ual drill and massage. But now there
is no time for loose tweakings or for
casting a net at venture. Consum-
mate business methods are necessary
to throw up an immediate result that
can be flashed in advertisement and
handled by journalism. Christianity
in New York lies too dead for massage
and it requires galvanization. And it
got it!
All that sheer business.sense could
posters, stenographers and printers did
their work. A conventicle claque was
provided and the converted reconvert-
ed to enthusiastic order. Thousands
shook a prophets hand, thousands
hoped believed.
It seems too good to be true. Is
Heaven as easy to get to as going
to a circus and shaking hands with
the entertainer? The music is cheer
full, if one understands music, and the
entertainer is arresting even to an
old habitue of vaudeville, but somehow
if one understands the difficulty of re-
ligion, it is all pathetic. Mr.. Sunday
has no doubts, no internal strife, no
theology. The Kingdom Of Heaven
can be handed out like oyster-soup
and for the purpose of supplying SAVIOR
and condiment to the old-fashioned
mush. Billy Sunday plays the part of
the appetizer until the audience feels
that what is only soup has got the
very sparkle of champagne. In all Of
this some good is done to the irreli-
gious and many folk are left happier
and more comfortable in body and
soul than they ever felt before. But
with the orthodox, the stupid and the
judicious there is left faraway sense
Of pathos, pathos that in 1000 years of
Christian history we have not got fur
Their than this. For what does such a
mission lead to? Can it be called a
revival? Is it a fitting prelude to the
apocalypse Of war?
A religious revival such as took
place in Wales some years ago seemed
moving of the soul. Men and women
prayed in tears all night, in the lonely
mountain chapels. The evangelists
wrestled like some weak swimmers in
their agony. There was no advertise.
ment, no finance, no laughter. The
dim cravings Of the Celtic spirit seemed
to be seeking some new underlined
channel of religious expression in de.
fault of the old. There arose mystic
crv for Cod M man knew Or could