An Apology for Christ.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3035, 6 November 1878, Page 1

An Apology for Christ.

Mr Beecher's lecture on Thursday . night in contempt of the poor, and in fulsome adulation of the rich and in a ruthless torturing of the New Testament to suit the argument to the wishes of the land-grabbers, the money-pigs and the unscrupulous monopolists generally,' merits a title more expressive and compacl than can be deduced from the head-lines of the reporters. We therefore under lake to supply this defect by calling it " An Apology for Christ.' 1 There is nothing new or very brilliant in it. Those who hare read the Brooklyn pastor's' sermons, published from time to time in his newspaper organ, if they were present at his lecture, heard only nn indifferent rehash of the most worldly parts of some of those sermons. For a quarter of a century Mr Beecher hag been known above all of his cloth in America as the rich man's preacher, the flatterer of weath; and in a worldly sense this flattery has been a bonanza to him and to the- \ Plymouth Church corporation, whose pews and stocks hare (until quite recently) rated a greater per cent, above par than New York Central or United States 6's. In a commercial age and a purely commercial community, satisfied with the mere forms and ceremonies of religion as an aristocratic and fashionable amusement, the commercial, money- getting and money* worshipping preacher, who limits his discourses to the "charms of love," the "wonders of art," the "graces of refinement," the "power of riches," the "delights of fine houses, fine pictures, fine dress and magnificent equipages," and who scrupulously shuns all unpleasant allusions to "death, hell and the grave," and never clouds his metaphors with disagreeable sentiments in favor of the poor, is always in demand at the highest rates of compensation. This is one of the reasons why Mr Beecher has for so long a time realised from his Plymouth worshippers a salary above that of the average paid to the twenty*six Bishops of the Church of England. If it has brought him into awkward contrast with Christ and all of the Twelve Disciples but the one who sold his Master to the bitter death of crucifiction, the cir« cumstance has caused no worry, no doubt, no remorse to the Plymouth pastor, whose wit has been equal to his avarice and to the occasion. His wealthy patrons are told that the Sermon on the Mount is little better than a piece of cunning jugglery. It don't mean what it says as all. To accept it and most of the other teachings of the early Christians literally "would turn the world upside down." Money is the supreme god in the eyes of such a preacher. And in this fixed view, he exhorts the youth of the country to spurn that condition of poverty which the great Master and his truest and best interpreters, from Peter to Luther and Wesley, imposed on themselves, and turn all their thought and effort to the , making of money—the accumulation of riches. Ah, .Mr Beecher, this is not religious teaching—it is fraud and falsehood ; the language of the Pharisee and the hypocrite—of those who turned the Temple into a place of merchandise, as hateful to Christ and. all truly religious men and women, whether Christians .or not, as the virtual exclusion of the poor from the church by the sale of the; pews to the highest bidders. When you, as the professed minister of One whose whole life taught that honest poverty was a thing not to be dreaded or despised, gravely tell the young men and women of this city that money-getting is the great aim and object of life, and even a high Christian duty, you tell them what every honest reader of the New Testament knows to be a lie, more destructive of true religion than all the teachings of atheism. You do worse than this. You lead them by the power which your namett give to the falsehood into the most dangerous paths of vice and immorality for the acquisition of riches. You become a corrupter of youth, an ally of 'those frauds aud crimes which have enabled so many scoundrels to plead the popular argument of success in their defence. You are talking to the ears of these successful frauds and holding them up to our youth as examples better worthy of emulation than the great Master and his poor and lowly followers. You are not merely merchandise of your own falso teachings, but you are as plainly as language can well put it telling bur young men and maidens to make merchandise of religion and that Christianity is a cheat and a humbug. _ . % . We have had quite enough of this with- - out your reiteration. More than every other cause is the fashionable flatterer of vice in high places, mercenary, money, getting, God-insulting and poverty-con-temning preacher of this ngv responsible for the fearful decay of religion and the utter departure of its spirit from the churches. Men of this character do not want to preach to the poor : do not wish to see the sons of toil, with hard hands and patched clothing, come into their churches. They have room only for those who can pay and p«y well. Go home, Mr Beecher, and be very sure, an you go, that you carry with you ; the best wishes hs well as the good coin, of that class of men in this community who, if they had been his contemporaries, would have flung Chbist into prison and kept him there till he had starved ; and that with you will also go ihe bitter reproaches of that other class vhom the Master most loved, but whom you have outraged, insulted and contemned. Is I hero, for honest po forty, . Wh'ad hang hi* head and a' thut, The coward knave, we pa*s him by, And dare bo poor for a' that.

A t table, be an biting of your food as you please, but don't, be bittr in your re* marks. < The man who made an impression on the heart of a coquette hat become * skilful stone-cutter.