THE PULPIT.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 1003, 10 September 1872, Page 2

THE PULPIT.

The Rev. A. Robertson deserves credit for stepping beyond pulpit routiue, and undertaking to discuss before his congregation the important subject of national education in lieu of delivering the ordinary Sunday evening sermon. It is difficult for ordinary men of the world to understand the clerical feelings which makes preachers shrink from touching any subject unless it is at least I,SOO years old. There may be matters occupying the daily attention of all the intelligent members of their church, matters of the greatest moment to the intellectual, and moral, and spiritual well-being of the people, but the average preacher feels in some way, and possibly he is right, that they hnvc no concern with him or his vocation. He prefers to fill up his due half hour's delivery with retailing again some mud-worn platitudes in connection with somo

jueb subject as the theological devintions of tlio Israelites, or the moral irregularities of their kings. However, if preachers like to take this course, B ud disregarded the life of the world arouud them s they are hardly justified jn complaining, as they sometimes do, that they are also ditr-garded by the world. It is evident enough that ff hen they take up subjects in which people feel any interest, they receive their fair share of attention. The public press may in this way he taken a3 a fair indication of the general public, and we see that the daily newspapers have been quite ready to report, and to comment on what Mr Robertson had to say on a subject of such general interest as education. There is, of course, a temptation to the preacher to treat questions of all kinds ex cathedra, and to settle them in an authoritative manner that leaves the other side no chance at all. But, certainly, there is less likelihood that this tendency would be indulged in with regard to secular subjects that men are known to differ about, that must be decided by argument, and by the view of the greater number, and where an opinion can claim no authority beyond that which it can establish for itself of the conviction of men iu general. The habit of occasionally discussing matters of this nature, limited by these conditions, would exercise a very healthy effect on pulpit rhetoric and logic, that might ultimately be exhibited even when deaJiig with subjects of a different a id.--'Australasian.' 'JwiR