The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-04-27

to the bedside of an old dying man
up in Boston and Emerson stumbled
and he was confused and he got off
lot of meaningless platitudes and
the dying old man said, Look here,
young fellow, if you don't know your
business better than that, you'd bet
ter go home"
WE'LL Emerson took the old mans
advice and he went home and he got
out of the church because he had no
business in the church, and he became
enormously useful in other ways to
the world.
Preachers Give
Reasons for Failure
A United States senator was travel
ing out on a train in Nebraska and he
met three preachers who were COM
planning that their audiences were
small He asked the first preacher il
he believed the Bible is the word OF
God and the preacher smiled pityingly
and he said, mot in the crude ordin-
airy sense in which it is accepted"
Then he got off great string of
vague, metaphysical phrases that
didn't amount to three whoops this
side of perdition.
He asked the second preacher if he
believed in the future life. "Oh," he
said, mot in personal immortality"
But he believed in the essence of life
and that it was indestructible and a
lot of nonsense and poppy-cock and
that sort of stuff.
Then he asked the third man if he
believed in the divinity of Jesus
Christ and this shepherd smiled a sort
of sickly smile and he said, well, all
men are divine"
And the preachers themselves had
given the reason why they were talk
| ing to wood and Varnish.
The prime essential for a man, If
| he wants to succeed in the ministry,
| is vital Christian faith, my friends.
! 1t is worth more to him than all the
| learning in the world. If that learn
! ing is going to knock the Christian
| faith out of him and if preacher
honestly can't believe, then I've no
! quarrel with him but, tell you, he
has no business to stay in the pulpit
and preach poppy-cock and nonsense,
NOT bit!
I Then, he is taking money under
| false pretenses and if a preacher
doesn't believe, to him say, if he is
/ decent and honest he will not stay in
the pulpit and vomit out his unbelief
If you don't believe in God, don't stay
in the pulpit. l will fight to the last
ditch.
And so / think a Christian faith
as necessary to the preacher as mathe
MATES is to an engineer. Just as nee
essary, all through. Now, the ques
ton was once put by Moody, "What
! is the best work in which a minister
can engage?"
And the man answered the question
by saying This is the work of God
that We believe on him whom he hath
sent" and Moody agreed that tina
was the best answer to the question
Preachers Fear to
Preach the Truth
i / think that the clergy, today, j.
weakened by a spirit of compromise
. They are afraid to preach Christian
|, ity, many of them, for two reasons
. First. they are afraid it won't draw, i
they preach it, and second, they dom
believe it themselves. That is why
[ l am telling you exactly the who'll
+, thing in a nutshell If you want t
know what is the matter with on
) clergy, today. I will tell you what i
| the matter with it. and tell you, m,
friends. the ungodly have hearty re
spect for the minister who is absC
lutely sincere and breaches the gospel
/, oh, not politics, not socialism. ant
/ a lot of other "isms" and "ssms" T.
audiences of men and women, VIII
/ read the newspapers every day. Their
| is nothing more superfIuous and asir
! Inc than to have fellow drag polite
into the pulpit, for the average weas
el-eyed, ward-heeling, whiskey-soake,
politician can give him cards an
/ spades and beat him.
i During one of presidential can
paigns, there was preacher in NeI
! York who attacked one of the cand
! dates. night after night His audienc
gradually diminished and finally tn
man he attacked was elected and h
stood up one night and said, Nov
what is there left for US to do?"
II A good old saint said, "Nothin:
J Doc, but to preach the gospel"
N 1 think that the strength of tn
| Catholic church lies largely in thei
fidelity to principle and their hatre
of compromise. They don't compr,