p. 163 | Reaching the Masses by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 13, 1859

Reaching the Masses

By Editor

THE PULPIT AND THE MASSES.—The New York Christian Intelligencer asks if the pulpit of this day reaches the masses of the people, and fears it does not. We quote:

Upon luxurious couches, surrounded by gilding and carvery, on a pleasant Sunday, when not too hot or cold, too wet or dry, a gaily-dressed multitude listen sleepily, first to the soft music behind them, and then to the musical voice before them; and when the hour-and-a-half is spent, the rustling silks move out to the sound of the organ, and the pulpit remains a cold, unmeaning piece of mummery. Outside, the multitude rush by unheeding and unheeded. There is no pulpit for them. Vice and misery, in ten thousand forms, are rioting, and stifling, and destroying; cruelty and oppression are rampant amid our churches, and the groans of the victims mingled with the church-bells. Does the pulpit reach the masses? That is something for us to answer as Christians. For if it does not the masses will reach and overturn the pulpit.