Year: 1862

40 very dPpIopIIdto IoT SuHudv TeduiHy,
we give the following excellent article, from
the Boston (Mass.) Courier, the Old line
Wing organ of that State:


POLITICAL PREACHING.


Our genial and amiabie cotemporary, the
Saturday Evening Gazette, says:


"The fact is from some cause or other
there seems to be Il great falling off among
our people in attending church services; as
comparing the number of our population
with the seatings in our churches, the pre-
ponderance of the former over the latter is
very marked. Some of the clergy are try.
ing to solve the question but have not yet
found the remedy"


1t is not remarkable that the clergy are
not competent to solve this question; a man
is not able to see anything which is on the
top of his own head. The fact is true be.
yond all controversy, and melancholy fact
it is too. No: only in this city, but through.
out this state-and, we fear, through most of
New England-the interest in religion, is de
cining. The attendance upon church SER
vice is comparatively meager. Practical if
not theoretical iu6delity is spreading like a
dry rot throughout the land. The number
of men who are living virtually without God
is on the increase. The heather virtue of
pride, self'esteem, selhreliance, active cour-
age, are rising in the estimation, and the
Christian virtues of meekness genleNess
patience, and long utfering, are declining.
Among young persons especially, of both
sexes, there is marked want Of vital and
practical Christianity, and prevailing lack
of interest in its minstrations and observan.
W. 6
persons is impatience of discipline, resi- ,tance
of authority, a fierce assertion of assumed
rights. To exact obediance is an outrage;
to yield obediance is weakness. Restraint
of all kinds is resented as wrong; and un.
checked lberty-the power to do anything
and everything that the natural and unre
generate heart prompts without let or hin
drance-is valued as the highest good of
man.


And what is the cause of this unnatural
state of things! What has led to all this
free thinking, and to the law,ess conduct
which is the legitimate chi id Of free think
ing2 No one cause can explain it ALI but
certainly the Clergy themselves are in part
Levites, we read that Na,lab and Abidue, o.,
fered strange fire before the Lord which he
commanded them not. And there went up
fire from the Lord and devoured them. In
these words, the narrati of a transaction,
there is ALSO q sYmbo c sense, aud the ex
preston of a vita! and enduring truth. The
clergy of New England have been Offering
strange fire before the Lord;" anil the inevi.
table retrbution has followed. And this
strange fire" is the vulgar fire of secular
politics the fire of worldly passions which
wastes and consumes the heart on which it
feeds. In such y heart the Christian yraces
can no more take root than roses and Ill
lies will flourish in the Stag and refuse Of
furnace. Politics are psurping the place OF
religion to deporale extent, in the pulpit
of New England. Sermons are degeuerated
into stump speeches. The clergy are taking
more and more active part in political
movements. You will hardly find polili.
cal convention in which one or more of the
most active members are not clergymen. If
you enter New England church on any
Sunday Of the year, the changes are at least
even tha; you will hear political harangue,
which part of the audience will be moved to
applaud, and part to hiss.


Ana the political opinions which are en-
unciated from the pul pit are generally ar
companied with a most offensive dogmatism
and positiveness. This is natural enough
The clergyman is regarded with peculiar def
erence, as a man removed from the secu
lar struggles and secular stains, and set
apart TO break the bread Of life to the peo
pie. He is rarely contradcted; he is never
subjected to an intellectual rough and tum
bic; an atmosphere of respect surrounds
him, which protects him as cotton protects
diamonds. Upon sacred and religious top
les, he has a right to speak with authority
not anly to soothe and heal and bless, but
warn and rebuke and admonisb; he is false
to his trust, if he do not. But the habit o,
mind thus generated, is easily transferred to
to secular themes. The priests authorative
tone is easily assumed when be speaks on
topics which he and his Pensioners stand
on the same plain of observation, and where
their vision is qaite as like to 30 as good as
his. How common it is to see young
chick Just hatched from divinity school,
running about with the shell yet upon his
head who will undertake to settle any qnes-
ton of administration or government as
easily as he will pull off his glove! The
mistake is in supposing that in regard to
these problems, you can come to satsfac
tory solution by some short cut Of inspira'
ton, by the intuitive moral sense; whereas
the contrary is notoriously the fact. There
is often Iadricro disproportion between
the tone and manner with WHICH dogmas
are uttered from the pulpit and the sqbsta1-
tial value Of the opinions themselves. 10
hear and see the preacher, one would sup
pose that he was enunciating the oracles of
God, while what he was really utterlng is
some shallow sentimental or mischevious