OUR PULPITS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2483, 5 March 1881, Page 2

OUR PULPITS.

By P.K

One of the most striking features of Protestantism is its liability to schism. It is contended by many persons that frequency of disputes, divisions and dissensions, indicates a brisk spiritual circulation and much activity of thought, others believe that disunion engenders and promotes narrowness, intolerance and bitterness, to the detriment, and blighting of Christian graces of character. At least it appears on careful observation to be an auxiliary to free thought. Reflective minds, being confronted everywhere with different phases of thought, modes of action and varieties of belief, come at last to renounce altogether doctrines which nobody seems agreed about. On the one hand is Roman Catholicism —a vast undivided power—on the other Atheism, Infidelity, Deism, Free Thought—the one offers a wide embrace to all mankind, the other is a dark and tangled, almost pathless forest, lighted by the merest glimmering, but either appears better than sectarian bitterness. One of the most prominent of the sects of Protestantism is the Baptist, a church founded upon a word. The idea upon which the Baptist doctrine is built up is of greater antiquity than is commonly believed—it was in existence at a very early period of the Christian era, and in after years it developed in great force in Germany, spreading itself gradually, under forms more or less diverse, all over Christendom. The use of water is symbolical in all Christian Churches of the washing of regeneration, that must precede admission to membership. How it is to be is a point on which there exists great diversity of opinion, the majority being in favor of sprinkling infants as a token that they are received by Mother Church, and a minority holding that only adults should be admitted and that total immersion should be required of them. Baptism, say the latter, means only immersion of adults, —sprinkling of infants is a profitless and unscriptural proceedding. I am not going to disonss the rival merits of these creeds. The battle of the beliefs grows wearisome.

So far as the administration of the rite of adult baptism goes it appears to me to lack the element of solemnity which is all-essential in a rite. There is something picturesque and poetical about the baptismal font and the proceedings thereat, but the spectacle of grown-up persons going down into a huge bath is just a little unpoetical. The Baptist body in Tirnaru are acquiring a local habitation and a name in the Via Sacra, commonly known as Barnard street. Not being yet financially strong enough to proceed to the erection of a Church, they meet for the present in the Oddfellows’ Hall, a comfortable building. The congregation is in numbers very promising, in appearance highly respectable, hearty and devout in worship. The minister, the Reverend Mr Bray, is a keen compact looking man, full of determination, zeal, and fire. He reads the Scripture moderately well, prays with fervour and readiness. When I heard him he based his discourse upon the passages between verses 25 and 34 of the sth Chapter St. Mark. He analysed his subject with considerable ability, and deduced a capital succession of lessons from it. His stjde of preaching is not calculated to promote drowsiness, being lively and dramatic in the extreme. He is fertile in illustration, and very happy m his phraseology, though given to a style which I cannot but think is affected (of course with a good end in view), being an alteration of catchy expressions and moving pictures, which though it may “ tickle the ear of the groundlings ” becomes wearisome after awhile. I have no doubt Mr Bray has done (nay, I am confident he has done) a great deal of good among certain classes of people ; he is a very superior type of evangelist, in my judgment. But the truth is we are nanseated with this so-called evangelising style. Mr Bray is .capable of a higher line, his mental powers are considerable —he is both a logician and a pleader, and his language is thoroughly well chosen. Should not such a man rather unlock his brains on Sunday than be always bursting open jthe flood-gates of people’s hearts ? The emotions may be played upon till the strings of sensitiveness become relaxed altogether. The service over two office-bearers stand at the door, each holding a plate with a napkin on it in which to receive contributions. The minister appears to be indefatigable in the discharge of his duties, and will soon gather round him a considerable congregation, being, as in my judgment, a man of “ reat grit.” This paper brings me to the end of “ Our Pulpits.” The readers of this journal have been good enough to receive these discursive notes with much favor, for which I am heartily grateful. Before I leave the subject altogether, however, I shall next Saturday venture to present my readers with a paper on that large body who stand outside our pulpit’s influence, the Freethinkers. Free thought, claiming to be the foundation of the religion of the future,deserves now-a-days more than a passing notice.