Year: 1877




We take it that one of the primal
reasons why so many men do not 60 to
church is that the preaching does not
interest them. Many will go from duty
or force of habit, but most people will
stay away unless there is something to
draw them. Accordingly the preacher
must be able to interest. 1t is not enough
that he can talk learnedly about alb
stractions of doctrine, but he must be
able to talk of things that will hold the
attention of men. 10 this end he must
speak in language understood by those
he addresses and here is one OF the
most serious difficulties in the minis
ter's career.


The language of the study is not the
language of common life. The young
minister is turned out of the theological
mandatory, and the characteristics of
the shop stick closely to him at every
step. In the schools he has acquired
heological-metaphysical dction which
will inevitably fail to be understood by
his hearers. He talks of categorical
imperatives," and if he delivers himself
with sufficient 4" ore rotunda " many feel
that it is luminous and logical, but the
most will not only not understand it,
but they know they will not " The
hungry sheep look up and are not fed"
Said we'll. known Congregational min.
lister to us not long since. "If | were
to 60 through my ministerial career
again with the advantages of my expert
ence before me, | would revolutionize
my method of preaching. would dis.
card the stilted language of sermons and
talk to men in the language men use to
each other" Note the great preachers
of our time, or indeed of any time, and
see if this be not one of the leading ele.
ments of their success,-that men un-
derstand what they say. Prithee, if
thou hast anything to say, deliver thy
self like man of the world"


It's no secret that many intelligent
men are repelled from the churches
through "a feeling of disgust at the pc
culiarity of the arguments of the preach
er. Stephen Foster says he would go
to church if the preacher would give
him i chance to reply. But the very
fact that there is nobody to reply, and
that nobody can reply, constitutes a
weakness in the pulpit. In
a country grocery-that great audience
room of the people-a man advances a
and Immediately every lis.
tener's wits are at work devising some
way to floor" the speaker. All sorts
of weapons, from the stiletto of sarcasm
to the proadsword Of argument, are
to the onset, and he indeed
must be good fence though he have
the shield of truth, who can Withstand
such an attack.


But the preacher knows he is safe,
and this very safety is weakness. There
is nobody to dispute his propositions,
point out the weakness of his arguments,
laugh at his slips in reasoning, or sar-
castically inquire after the health of the
men of straw whom he remorselessly
shoots down from his impreguable fort
ress just six feet above the contradic-
ton" We should not agree with Mr..
Foster, whom Lowell calls 81 kind of
maddened John the Baptist" that an
open platform is the panacea for all
evils, but we sometimes think tha: if
the average clergymen should take a
few intellectual buffets from the loun-
gers in corner grocery store, he would
have more realizing sense of the fitness
Of things in his pulpit discourses.-Lan-
sing Republican.