CHRISTIAN NARROWNESS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1731, 20 February 1874, Page 2

CHRISTIAN NARROWNESS.

Principal Caird, of Glasgow University, in opening the winter session, on Nov. 7, spoke on the above subject as follows : —

l There was a prevalent suspicion that > the clerical profession was not altogether > free from narrowness. — (Laughter.) i Rightly or wrongly, " the notice had got • abroad that the clerical mind was not re- ■ markable for breadth of view — (laughter) i that, on the contrary, it was subject to , certain contracting influences which were • apt to engender in it a host of prejiidices, t caste views of tilings, and mannerisms of i thought and speech, which were singularly I unfavorable to liberality of mind. Uns friendly critics were apt with some show of reason to represent their typical clerical nature as tending more than others lo dogmatism, arrogance of assertion, impatience of difference, and obstinate observantism, as singularly open to the blinding and distorting influence of party spirit, inclined to judge of men and ideas and institutions by absurdly arbitrary and conventional standards, to substitute custom and tradition for reason, and confound intellectual divergence with moral culpability. These accusations were perhaps not altogether groundless, nor would it be 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 clercial profession which ( was apt to have a narrowing influence on its members was the fact of their having constantly to deal with, inferior minds, or at any rate with minds in a seemingly deferential attitude. Severe consors 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 of infallibility. "I beseech you," was the well-known message of Oliver Cromwell to the General Assembly, " I beseech' yon by the bowels of God, think it possible that ye may be mistaken." But the possibility of being mistaken — the humble, tolerant, candid spirit which, conscious of the difficultly of the search for truth, was ever ready to receive further light to admit its ovn errors, and to allow for the inevitable' divergencies of different minds, was, to siy the least, not a very common characteristic of the clerical nature. The creeds apd confessions of conflicting sects could ndt all be absolute truth, yet each was often found insisting on its own and denouncing those of other sects wjth an intolerable tenacity of the minutest scruple' of dogma, which only conscious infallibility could warrant. Arid 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 people— (Laughter.) In rural and mother localities a great part of his -congregation was composed of the humbler classes and ofthe uneducated minds. His normal attitude, therefore, was ( that of speaking as from an elevated stand-point of knowledge to docile and deferential hearers. Whatever his amount of ideas or of professional learning, the strength or weakness of his arguments, - his teaching was listened to with the same uncritical and unquestioning air of respect* Even in other and more culture auditoros, the aoutest listener, whatever might

be his ooinion of the sermon, had no privilege of reply.— (Laughter) And in all positions— amongst the educated and refined, as amongst the ignorant and tincultured — 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 "taken down," no man's ignorance or shallowness was so little apt to be exposed to his 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 being listened to with defference 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 youareataUerman than they.— (Laughter.) Men of genuine ability and learning, of course, could discount all this deference, setting off the greater part of it as due merely to professional prestige. But the majority, who were not such, must more or less succumb to it. The concurrence of other minds, universal assent, silent deference or admiration, the absence of all demurring or disputation, being some of the natural signs of the possession of troth, it was not to be wondered at that by inevitable and constant association it should be supposed that where the signs were, there hlso was the thing signified. By some such process they might, in part at least, account for the intellectual intolerance, the impatience of difference, the tenacious rigidity and selfconfidence which, perhaps not unjustly, was said to be the too common characteristic of the clerical mind.