Article November 28, 1901 Issue

Religious Items

with contributions from T. L. Cuyler, Henry Drummond

The Baptist ministry seems to be in a bad way. For a long time the length of pastorates in the Baptist Church has been much below the Unitarian average, which, we believe, is still above that of any other denomination in New England. One thing is certain: any Church which draws a dead line for its ministers and discards them at the age of forty has a dead line of its own and that not very far ahead. Men of ability and foresight will not long enter the service of a Church which can properly be described as in the following clipping from the Watchman: "Most of the speakers and writers who discuss the so-called 'dead line' in the ministry observe that there is no such line for men who keep alert and up to date. constantly acquriring and growing. We do not know about that. Most of the pulpit committees that ask us to recommend possible pastors, practically says: 'We do not want a man over forty. There is no use of our presenting the name of a man over forty.' Now that is a condition, and not a theory, no matter what the theorists may say, there is a real and growing discrimination against men on account of their age, irrespective of their ability or effectiveness. The man of fifty does not get a chance. Too many pulpit committees will not even consider him. He is ruled out as soon as his age is mentioned. To cite the call of Dr. Lorimer to New York at the age of sixty-two is not to the point. There are very few Lorimers; and, if the majority of our ministers above fifty have got to be Lorimers in get a pastorate, their outlook for a place in which to work is very slim."

The Christian Register.

FOLLOWING THE PREACHER.—A recent editorial in one of the leading daily papers, in referring to certain religious tendencies toward centralization of forces in some of the larger Churches, significantly and suggestively says that "the drift has been toward literary and ethical preaching." This drift in itself may not be deplored. but the eloquence of such preaching has attracted many people from the more obscure Churches lying outside of these great centres, and has virtually led them to look upon the Church as a sort of spiritual hotel for transients, rather than the spiritual home which it should be. The plea of those who drift about after the intellectual preaching which most accords with their religious fancies, is no evidence of any real gain in spiritual knowledge, for in the end, this habit only leads to spiritual loss; their religious convictions, if any, consisting of layer after layer of things having no unity or consistency.

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