THE CRITIC IN CHURCH.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 717, 4 July 1878, Page 2

THE CRITIC IN CHURCH.

[by mentor.] Your advertising columns have recently announced that services of a spepial, or, at least, guasi-special, kind were being delivered at Wesley Church by the Rev. H. Dewsbury, and my attention being thus diregted to the subject, I think the present an opportune time to convey some idea of those services, and of the youthful preacher who has so recently come amongst us. The ecclesiastical policy of : the Wesleyan body, as most of your readers are aware, necessitates the fre- !

quent removal of their ministry from one ' charge to another—three years' consecutive labor in any one locality being t\ie •maximum period. No doubt this singular characteristic of Methodism has its advantages. Apart altogether from thti theoretical idea of itinerancy which JohnWesley, their laborious and gifted founder, j so expressly enjoined, there is the more l utilitarian ;idea of change—love of change which may be often unquestionably thoroughly reciprocal. A captious, exacting, or censorious people—an uninviting, unsocial, or uninteresting locality - are gladly exchanged by the pastor for a sphere of labor more promising, or more congenial ; while, on the other hand, an inferior preacher, in whose hands the Church may have dwindled away—an intermeddling or officious pastor, with an unhapp3" gift of setting everybody by the ears—is eagerly exchanged by the people for an utter stranger, who, at least, can hardly be worse liked, and may, perchance, prove a man after their own heart. Underlying all this there is, besides, a very large question—one, indeed, which sufficed, in 1843, to rend iu twain the most prosperous and vigorous ecclesiastical Church establishment in the world. I refer, of course, to the memorable disruption of the Church ot Scotland. The principle was the choice by the people of their own pastor. Here —and now in a vastly more democratic country, and in a purely voluntary organization the Wesleyan congregations have no voice whatever in the matter, yet they feel no grievance ; perhaps, indeed, they love to have it so, and on the whole perhaps it is just as well it should be'so. But what of the Shibboleth of that noble band who voluntarily- forsook the beloved Church of their fathers, and went forth to beggary or death for the maintenance inviolate of this very principle '? I desire not to abate by a hair's breadth my cordial admiration for such self-sacrifice for conscience sake—a grander moral spectacle has not been presented to the world in modern times,- —but to the student of ecclesiastical history such paradoxes are puzzling, and he may well be excused if he is occasionally surprised, or even shocked, by the vehemence of polemical controversy, as assuredly he must be by the incongruities of ecclesiastical history. But to my theme. It is the Pev. H, Dewabury and his discourse of Sunday morning. [ll an ordinary way it would be unfair to drop in upon a congregation as I did, I know, all unobserved, and indulge in any sort of criticism upon a single hearing. But, then, the service was advertised ; it is somewhat special, I assume ; it is in no danger of being beneath the rank of the preacher's ordinary discourses, and doubtless some results are anticipated from special publicity, even if " a cliiel aiming thorn takin' notes " is not one of theiy. I oiler n» apology, therefore, for my intrusion, and think no other explanation necessary ; all the more, moreover, because my observations will be made in no captious or hypercritical spirit. 'But first of all, the church itself, i It is a neat, unpretentious structure, externally very pleasing. On revolting the ] interior my favorable anticipations are hardly realised. The walls looked cold. | the roof dull, the seats rigid, the pulpit ; paltry. The preacher, the actor, anci the orator, have much in common. Ho has this prominence over the mere writer, that he appeals to the heart or intellect of his audience rira tm.-v. The drilled actor looks can-fully to states accessories, and such profane tricks of the stage were not discarded by a recent distinguished i visitor who came and went from amongst jus '"'as an angel unawares." The orator i chooses a platform, an example I should I like to see more exlensivety followed in the churches. I desire, however, iu my frank avowal of sympathy for the preacher on this occasion, who had so much to surmount in internal circumstances, who. cribbed, cabined, and conlined in the little box so slightly elevated above his audience, with the horrid weatherboards . fur a background, did, nevertheless, prove himself superior to such palpable, and, I should think, unnecessary disadvantages. I am aware that the surroundings of a preacher—decorative and ceremonial—are very much a matter of taste ; that no principle is involved ; that thy dungeon or the cave, the bare b.W"» ®he sequestered glen, tlip grassy slopes, nature's manifold solemn temples, have on many a memorable occasion far transcended in solemnity and impressiveness the most elaborate ceremonials in the most gorgeous of structures ; and I have heard the praises of God in sequestered woods of the Scottish Highlands, guing up in strains nobler far than when led by the most cultivated choir or the grandest

organ. , The preacher, the orator, or the actor, I who nevertheless discards all adventitious I aid in the exercise of his vocation, makes j.a vast, if not a fatal, mistake— fatal, we mean, to his effectiveness and his popularity. Ido not mean to say that if the ' weather-boarding behind the pulpit at ! Wesley Church was replaced or obscured by some economical arrangement more pleasing to the eye, and, if possible, so construot'ed as to modulate the sound—a desideratum easy of accomplishment, since acoustics has become elevated into a science—that the preacher would have been more impressive—more earnest or impassioned he could not have been—--1 hut Ido say such an improvement would most probably have modulated the jorkincss and undue emphasis so conspicuous in' the preacher's elocution, not only spoiling the effect, but rendering almostincomprehensible some of his most carefully studied and elaborate periods. Not only should congregations not discard such accessories! in theii- religious services, but I hold it to be due to their pastor—and to themselves, if they would profit to the utmost by his ministrations—that such considerations should have the prominence which they undoubtedly deserve.

I am not advocating Ritualism ; nor am I discarding Puritauisin : both will be found, if analysed, to be very much the jiroduct of society, of circumstances, or of the age. What I do urge, however, is founded on the fitness of tilings, and the moral will, I trust, be sufficiently pointed, even if I have failed to adorn my subject. To resume, however ; and before dis--.-misaing the question flippantly denomiI uated ■' The Externals of Public Worship," I observed the rev. gentleman unceremoniously walk down the passage, hat in hand, and enter the pulpit, like a newspaper reporter going to his seat no solemn music announced to the assembled worshippers that their pastor, was about to enter the l< - Holy of ; Holies," no obsequious, beadle marched be- i

hind to shut the pulpit door ; it was a commonplace proceeding, shorn of all solemnity and impressivenesa. Now, gentle reader, do not, I pray you, misunderstand me. I attach no superstitious reverence to what is perhaps mere custom or etiquette ; but nevertheless I confess to beiug predisposed in favor of any method calculated to impress the audience, and surely the ambassadors for Christ, the Divine tilled with the spirit of his lofty office, like the priests of old, who took their shoes from off their feet when they approached the altar of the Most High God, may most appropriately he surrounded by something more of solemnity in their arrangements, honoring to God and pleasing to all. For the symbol I care nothing ; for the thing signified everything. A recent writer says very pi'operly, I think, in advocating the introduction of a higher class music into our churches that " The devil should not have the best music." No, nor the best temples, nor the best of anything. lc was the late Dr. Guthrie who said, when blandly remonstrated with on being about to put on his gown and bands in a \Vcsleyan church, pointing to a pair of old slippers it was his custom to wear for greater comfort in the pulpit, " And shall I take these oil' also." (To be continued.)