p. 59 | Fall of Babylon by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · BATTLE CREEK, MICH. · Jan 17, 1871

Fall of Babylon.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

DAILY the evidences increase that our position on this question is correct. The churches are going farther and farther from the Lord. True piety and the spirit of Christ, are becoming more and more scarce. Ministers are being carried away by the spirit of the times, and the love of gain. Rev. L. F. Van Cleve, in The Methodist, April 23, 1870, says: “Our fine churches multiply, wealth increases, and so does the scarcity of competent preachers. The presiding elder is called upon for a satisfactory man, but his assortment is so limited that the bishop must be applied to, and his brains put to the rack, and his authority to the test, to supply the pressing necessity. Just what is needed he cannot tell; but it is very certain that one of the old men won’t do.”

Metaphysicians are intolerable in the pulpit; and doctrinal preaching, such as thrilled and electrified the people some years ago, is too dry now. Practical preaching is too secular, too political, offensively personal, or abounds in impertinent reproofs. A young man, brilliant, poetic, scholarly, of high social position, must be had; one that can create a sensation, and keep the drowsy hearers awake, one that can fill the church with such as will keep its revenues in good condition, one that will be popular in first-class society. But the sensationalist is like the garment of the wealthy, soon old, and he too must give place. An evangelist is sent for to galvanize the congregation into spiritual life. But he draws very much like the latest opera, and about as long. What is to be done?

The Cincinnati Times, July 28, 1870, says: “A well-known clergyman here who comes under the head of Sensationalist, was asked by a friend the other day, why he so often violated good taste both in matter and manner when speaking in the pulpit.

“I will tell you, was the reply, I have no more liking for the kind of sermons I deliver than you have. They are meretricious in rhetoric, and unsound in sentiment; but they are popular; and I must furnish the sort of article my congregation is willing to pay for. You are aware that my predecessor was an able and scholarly man, and extremely conscientious withal; but he failed to fill the pews, and he was requested to resign. If I had obeyed my own inclination as to sermons, I should have shared his fate. I was anxious, however, to retain the position; for I have a large family, and it is my duty to support them. Do you blame me for discharging that duty?”

“Churches now are nothing more than theological theaters, and preachers the actors who are paid so much for performing cleverly and acceptably. When the priestly artists do not draw, their engagement is discontinued. We are forced to make our sermons attractive to those who come to hear them. In consulting our household expenses we must make a liberal surrender of our tastes and convictions. I receive $10,000 a year. If I preached simpler and better sermons, reflecting my real views, I could not get $3,000. So, you see, bread-earning outweighs both aspiration and inspiration.”

This case probably illustrates thousands of others who are in the same position, but are not honest enough to confess it.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Peru, Dec. 28, 1870.