CHRISTIAN NARROWNESS.

Evening Star, Issue 3419, 5 February 1874, Page 3

CHRISTIAN NARROWNESS.

Principal Caird, of Glasgow University, in opening the win’er session, on Nov. 7, spoke on the above subject as follows : There was a prevalent suspicion that the clerical profession was not altogether free from narrowness.—(Laughter.) Rightly or wrongly, the notice had got abroad that the clerical mind was not remarkable for breadth of view—(laughter)—that, on the contrary, it uas subject to certain contracting influences which were apt to engender in it a host of prejudices, caste views of things, anl mannerisms of thought and speech, which we*;e singularly unfavorable to liberality of mind. Unfriendly critics were apt with some show of reason to represent their typical clerical nature as tending more than others to dogmatism, arrogance of assertion, impatience of difference, and obstinate obseryantism, as singularly open to the blinding and distorting influences of party spirit, inclined to judge of men and of ideas and institutions by absurdly arbitrary aud conventional standards, to substitute custom and tradition for reason, aud confound intellectual divergence with moral culpability, 'these accusations were perhaps not altogether groundless,, nor would it he difficult to point out some of the conditions of the clerical profession which gave rise to that special kind of narrowness with which its members were charged, . Proscribed or protected opinions—that was, opinions that were shunned or sheltered for any other reason than their own inherent falsehood or truth—were fatal to mental breadth. Now whilst such narrowing influences were not wanting in other professions, perhaps from its peculiar conditions, the clerical profession was most affected by them. _ Another condition of the clerical profession which was apt to have a narrowing influence on is members was the fact of their having constantly to deal with inferior minds, or at any rate with minds in a seem™giy deferential attitude. Severe censors of the clerical order were in the habit of accusing its members of an overweening confidence in their own opinions, amounting often to a virtual claim to infallibility. “X beseech you,” was the well-known message of Oliver ' romwell to the General Assembly, “ I beseech you by the bowels of God, think it possible that ye may be mistaken.” Rut the possibility of being mistaken—the humble, tolerant, candid spirit which, conscious of the difficulty of the search for truth, was ever ready to receive further light to admit its own errors, and to allow for the inevitable divergencies of (riff, rent minds, was, to say the least, not a very common characteristic of the clerical nature. The creeds and confessions of conflicting sects could not all be absolute truth, yet each was often found insisting on its own and denouncing those of other sects with an intolerable tenacity of the minutest scruple of dogma, which only conscious infallibility could warrant. And yet, if they considered for a moment the conditions under which the clerical calling was prosecuted, they should be less disposed to see in that tendency of the clerical mind anything to wonder at. A clergyman was one who was almost constantly employed in ‘•talking down” to other ptople -(Laughter.) In rural and other localities a great part of his congregation was composed of the humbler classes and of the uneducated minds. His normal attitude, therefore, was that of speaking as from an elevated standpoint of knowledge to docile and deferential hearers. Whatever his amount of ideas or of professional learning, the strength or weakness©! his arguments.hist; aching was listem d with the same uncritical and unquestioning air of respect. Even in other and more culture aduditories, the acutest listener, whatever might be his opinion of the sermon, had no privilege of reply.—(Laughter ) And in all positions— amongst the educated and refined, as amongst the ignorant and uncultured—there was a purely conventional respect which attached to the office and its function, whatever the learning or ability of the functionary. Thus it happened that the whole professional life of even average commonplace clergymen was passed in an atmosphere of deference. No man’s opinions were subject to so few tests of argument, no man was so little liable to be “jiaken down,” no man’s ignorance orshallowness wassolittle apt to bo exposed to bis own consciousness, no man s self-confidence was so seldom wounded, and the probable effect of that on his own intellectual character it is easy to see. It was exceedingly difficult for a man always treated as an authority not to think he was one. —(Laughter.) A man who was always bciug listened to with deference could hardly help coming to believe in his own wisdom. It was impossible to be going on from week to week explaining things to everybody-to be always, so to speak, intellectually patting people on the head—without a growing conviction that you are a taller man than they. —(Laughter.) Men of genuine al-ijity and learning, of course, could discount all this deference, setting off the gt eater part of it as due merely to professional prestige. Bub the majority, who were not such, must more or leas succumb to it. The concurrence of other minds, universal assent, silent deference or admiration, the absence of all demurring or disputation, bring some of the natural signs of the possession of truth, it was not to be wondered at that by inevitable and constant association it should be supposed that where the signs were, there also was the thing signified. By some such process they might, m part at least, account for the intellectual intolerance, the impatience of difference, the tenacious rigidity and self-confidence which, perhaps not uujustly, was said to be the too common characteristic of the clerical mind.