1.111, SECULARISATION OF Tab PULPIT. D R. BARRETT, the new president
of the Congre- gational Union, did a public service on Tuesday • morning, by his eloquent address on the great danger in- curred through that too common and too complete seculari- sation of the pulpit which is now becoming the fashion in almost all the pulpits of the more popular and more demo- cratic denominations. He held that the prominence now given in the pulpit to social and economic questions, to the discussions on the best means of ensuring to the over- worked and underpaid labourer, that minimum living-wage and minimum share of leisure which is essential to him if be is to become a reflecting and earnest religious man at all, was a source of danger to the religious life. But some of those who listened to his warning seem to have understood it very inadequately. For example, the Daily Chronicle of Wednesday replies that the Hebrew prophets were not of this mind, that their utterances "were full of the higher politics from beginning to end. In fact, the prophets were (as John Stuart Mill, following M. Salvador, declared), the permanent democratic Opposition of ancient Israel, doing perpetual battle with the decorous conservatism of priest and scribe." That, no doubt, is true, but the drift of Dr. Barrett's remarks is not touched by it. It was not the "higher politics" of prophetic enthusiasm that Dr. Barrett depre- cated, but the lower politics of political or economic die- quisition,—the diversion of the attention from the spiritual and moral questions at the basis of all true life, to that elaborate and generally highly disputable determination of the best means of social and political reform, which turns the minds of men from contemplating the righteousness of God into assaults on the impracticability and wayward- ness of men. Nothing would be more absurd than to maintain that the Hebrew prophets " secularised " the pulpit. No doubt Micah prophesies against those who "covet fields and take them by violence, and houses and take them away," and who are described as the oppressors of the people. But on what does he found his denuncia- tions? On the very character of God. "Is the spirit of the Lord straitened, are these his doings ? Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly ? " Is that a secularisation of the pulpit ? Does Micah turn his dis- course into an argument for the nationalisation of the land, or for the appropriation by the State of the "un- earned increment" in the value of property ? Does his exhortation "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God," branch out into demonstrations of the iniquity of private property and the intolerable evil of millionaires however generous, charitable, and eager for the triumph of justice ? When Amos denounces the cove- tousness and luxury of his fellow-countrymen, does he wander off into discussions which would be fitter for argu- ment in a Committee of the House of Commons or a County Council, and forget altogether that God is the author of the Commandments, and that he rules the people through the law which he has written upon their hearts, and the moral order which was established in the Heavens before it was manifested to man ? What is the background of all his denunciations of human evil? "For, lo, he that formeth the mountains and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning dark- ness and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, the Lord, the God of Hosts is his name." The last place in the world to go for arguments in favour of "the Secularisa- tion of the Pulpit," is the record of the prophetic writings of the Jewish people. No one who cares, as Dr. Barrett cares, for the vivifying of the hearts and consciences and wills of the people, wishes to banish the denunciation of unrighteousness from the pulpit ; and indeed his address expressly exhorts those who occupy the pulpit to prefer delivering 1..‘ the soul from sin," even to the charitable work of delivering the body from suffering, which is also part of the duty of every religious man, and a duty rooted in his love of God. But the evil against which Dr. Barrett protests is not the too great interest of preachers in the deeper principles of political righteousness, but the diversion of people's thoughts from those subjects which unite them in a common reverence, to those subjects which divide them in judg- ment. It is the greatest possible political evil, instead of a political good, that equally good men of different political parties should be prevented from meeting on the common ground of worship by the partisanship of the religious teacher for special political views. Now and again, no doubt, when such questions as the abolition of slavery, or the immoralities of trade, or the covetousness of an aggressive war, are at issue, it will be the duty of a true religious teacher to apply the religious lessons of revelation to the moral issues before the people whom he addresses. But nothing can affect political morality more injuriously than the habit of making the pulpit the scene for political controversy on all these numerous subjects on which men equally good and earnest and generous at heart are honestly divides. No sincere Unionist doubts that there are plenty of equally good men (though he does not think them equally wise) who are enthusiastic Home.rulers. No sincere Home- ruler doubts that there are plenty of equally good men (though he too does not think them equally wise) who are conscientious Unionists ; and nothing but mischief, and serious mischief, can come of any use of the pulpit which prevents politicians of both kinds from meeting together on the neutral ground of a common faith, and there learning to appreciate and, perhaps, to reverence oppo nents from whom in political creed they differ widely. Everything which tends to political rancour tends also to political fanaticism, and there is no surer road to political error and disaster than by political fanaticism. The very best security for the sort of political discussion that is really fruitful is mutual respect between men of opposite parties. But the whole tendency of the modern habit a secularising the pulpit is to prevent the existence of mutual respect between men of opposite parties. It is not human nature that feuds between the supporters of (say) a. vehemently socialistic minister or clergyman and those who dislike and discourage the preaching of such a minister or clergyman, should not aggravate differences which ought to be as much attenuated as is consistent with the honest upholding of sincere opinions. The secularisation of the pulpit does the utmost damage to that mutual goodwill which is not only at the root of all useful political con- troversy, but of all sincere religious brotherhood.
But besides this, Dr. Barrett was certainly justified in saying that the secularisation of the pulpit diverts the attention of Christians from the deepest of all grounds of pure moral and social convictions,—the groundof divine example. Men who give their time to the exposition of semi-political or wholly political doctrines, cannot possibly dwell adequately on the ultimate foundation of the prin- ciple of sacrifice in the self-sacrifice of a divine Being. Yet without fixing mind and heart on that, it is, as Dr. Barrett says, quite certain that men would first lose their delight in contemplating the divine love, and then, as a consequence, that it would not be long" before they lost the human love, as well." It is also true that the engrossing, though far from elevating, habit of politic,alcontroversy has a very great tendency to substitute mere " opinions " on all subjects for those much deeper " convictions " which are at the root of all sound opinions. If we learn to know God, we cannot help distinguishing between those convictions which are directly derived from his character and laws, and those mere opinions which are built up on more or less dubious interpretations of more or less complex human experiences. Wherever you find a man whose politics are more eager and enthusiastic than his religion, depend upon it that you find a man who has nothing that can be called true convictions, but only at best vehement and generally angry and contentious views. And this is the type of mind to the fostering of which the secularisa tion of the pulpit powerfully and manifestly tends. Dr Barrett, we believe, performed a great service not only to religion, but to politics, when he protested against this growing tendency to merge religion in politics. After all, the character which is most deeply identified with the amelioration of the lot of the poor is 'the religious character, not the political. It was Christ, who never gave us a single discussion of secular politics, whose Gospel was first preached to the poor, and the only con- sequence of substituting political for Christian doctrine will be that one party in the State will advocate the cause of the poor in a contentious and irritating tone, while the other party in resisting these exaggerated tenets will often be drawn into equally mischievous exaggerations on the other side. Even now it is religious conviction which brings about a great deal more of beneficent equalisation in the different human lots, than any sort of political partisanship.
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