BEECHER AND PLYMOUTH CHURCH.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4211, 18 September 1874, Page 3

BEECHER AND PLYMOUTH CHURCH.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —-I think .you are deserving of thames for the “ sparing” and impartial notices which have appeared iu your journal respecting Homy "Ward Beecher, and the attempt lately made, but happily defeated, to sully his honored name. The criticisms you have passed upon him in one of your leading columns to-day I cannot hut regard as unjust, and such as should not pass unchallenged. With your permission I wish to offer a few comments on what is there stated ; but before doing so, allow me to correct one or two misstatements the bare occurrence of which should put your readers on their guard as to the reliableness of the other parts of the article. Hr. Beecher is not a minister of the Presbyterian Church, as seems to be implied. He has been a minister of the Independent or Congregational body for the last twenty-five years, and that body'is hot an offshoot from Presbyterianism, but a separate growth. Again, he is not, as affirmed, the “proprietor of Plymouth Church,” nor is it an institution farmed by him for his personal gains ; nor are his “ profits” proportioned to his dramatic power as an artist to run them in, to use your own expression. I cannot lay my hands at this moment on such evidence ns might make clear to your readers the falsity of these last statements, hut it is easily procurable. As lam tolerably conversant with Beecher’s writings, and well informed of the doings of his Church, as sot forth in his paper, the Christian Union, I think without any assumption I may claim to bo as well acquainted with this matter as yourself. Non have selected Beecher and the Plymouth Church as notable examples of a vicious system which reigns in New York—one of its features, that of pew auctioning, is specially singled out for rebuke. Now I don’t wish to appear either as the apologist or defender of. any method of parcelling out a Christian church, for such is repulsive to my feeling; but tliis excrescence is not a whit more objectionable than the order of things in churches here and elsewhere, which passes without remark. As far as I can see, the principle involved is this ;—“ Is it proper to sell— or, to let, which is the same thing—for money, the right to occupy a part of a building devoted to Christian worship.” All tire rest I hold is quite accidental, such as whether the selling or lotting is announced by the minister, or by a newspaper advertisement ; whether the sellers are churchwardens, deacons, elders, or a person specially appointed ; or whether the prices be fixed by the sellers, or be loft to the regulation of the buyers. I don’t think, therefore, you need travel to New York to find illustrations of this vicious system. We have it here, if it be what you say ; for .the principle' H the same in both cases, though the methods of applying it be different. lam at a loss to understand how you have come to know the motives of any, or of all, who attend Plymouth church, which enables yon to speak so confidently of its being patronised. But even if all you say bo granted—are there no patronised churches amongst us ? Arc there no persons here who go to church as they go to the theatre, to be pleased—or to exhibit thenfinery ? Are there none who regard churchgoing as a badge of respectability ? —an association with what Thackeray calls “ the best people.” If such exists then amongst us, it is not due to pew-auctioning, nor peculiar to the ’“vicious church systems” of New York, but to a cause lying much deeper. If I understand your criticisms of Beecher rightly, they amount to this ; That ho is one who looks mainly to the fleece and not to the flock ; that to such a church and congregation as his, “ the plain old-fashioned creed of the Christian would be intolerable,” and that “ the doctrine of the preacher must be adapted, not to the hearts of his hearers, but to their vanities, and to the inflation their views have attained as to their own relation to the world, and the world to them.” Low, lam bold to affirm, that such a characterisation of Beecher and his teaching is unqualifiedly false, and made without any sufficient knowledge. In proof of what I say, I would refer you to two very appreciative articles upon him and his teaching, which appeared in the “Cotemporary Review ” of last year, or the year before from the pen of the Rev. H. R. Haweis, a distinguished clergyman of the English Church. But further in support of my view I point you to his published sermons, which furnish examples of such fearless plain-speaking respecting the vices and vanities of the political, fashionable, and church life of to-day as cannot be surpassed. If he is as you seem to think, a mere gain-seeking preacher to the fashionable world of to-day, I cannot conceive of any utterance more repellent to that class then many of his published sermons. With your regrets about the absence of the “sincere preachers, who wore passing rich-on forty pounds a year,” I have no sympathy. Thera is no connection, nay, I believe there is a positive disconnection between beggarly remuneration anil effective services ‘iu the case of ministers, as in that of other men ; happily the days are passed when the members of this “passing rich” class to whom you allude require to supplement their forty pounds by appealing pauper-like to some clergy relief society, or advertising for cast-off garments to clothe their naked children. When religious teaching, which, according to the highest authority, is our chief work, shall meet with something approaching to adequate remuneration, then it shall not be considered strange for their more eminent teachers to receive at least a half or third of what falls to the lot of an ordinary successful business man.—l am, W. H. West, Congregational Minister. [Hr. West takes us somewhat too literally, and at the same time, in his confessed ignorance, is somewhat too assuming as to the accuracy of Ins impressions. We dare say that in other places there is to bo found a good deal of the fashionable piety of which wo coinplain as so distressingly apparent in New York ; hut we surely are not to blame because we pointedly spoke of what Mr. West, as well as ourselves, must regard as a moat regrettable thing, whore it was rampant. “ The laborer is worthy of his hire,” but we cannot syinpatliiae with the spirit which draws no distinction so far as pecuniary rewards are concerned, between the Clradgriuds of society, and those who are “called” upon by the voice of the Lord to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven by seeking on earth the salvation of souls. There must be hypocrisy somewhere.] ♦