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The logical, well-informed man who to-day becomes a church communicant does not so because of the doctrine promulgated by the average pulpiteer, but despite of it. The long night of intellectual slavery has not altogether passed, but on the higher hills already flame the harbingers of Reason's glorious morn.
Nation's champion or apologist; she needs neither. History that corrects the blunders of contemporary critics, will assign to her an honored place long after the paltry penny-a-liner and ranting pulpiteer are forgotten.
These were the Reverend Charles Honeymans of the period, and their following was like unto the following of that popular pulpiteer. Since mention has been made more than once of reading and libraries, it is well to realise the form commonly taken by books. We must not think of the modern bound volume standing on its shelf or open in the hand.
'Least of all did I expect to find my brother a pulpiteer and a moralist with all the popular faith in the domestic virtues, and the quaint conviction that misery dogs the sinner, said Ryder dryly. 'I have used no cant, answered Jim, 'and I said nothing of sin or virtue. I don't ask you to trust God, but to trust man. Be at peace with your kind!
These men had seen, known and suffered the terrible, nameless things; the Unknown God, perhaps, had spoken to many of them in their solitude; and now this being of white waistcoat and phrases must get up and urge them to wash their sins in the blood of the Lamb! In their silence they were preaching to him a sermon such as no mortal pulpiteer ever uttered; but his ears were deaf to it.
He must 'a' been a clock-stopper when he was a kid. Pity to waste all that on a pulpiteer." Later, the Preacher had a full discussion with Belle. The blacksmith had dented Hartigan's armour in several places. Where was the justice in punishing one being for another's sins? Even if the sufferer was willing, it was still wicked injustice. How could repentance wipe out the self-brought injury?
Thus did the pulpiteer cant, while all the congregation, especially the brotherhood of divines, were so surprised at his odd way of preaching, that wonder served them, as grief did Niobe, almost turned them into stones.
But it did the work; and that is the thing after all. His sermons do not seem to be more remarkable when you read them than those of many another pulpiteer, although they are full of thought. We are told, however, that his voice had in it a terrible earnestness, and his manner was so impassioned that he sometimes seemed to forget himself.
I rank myself with the historian in this business of tale-telling, and consider that my sole affair is to hunt the argument dispassionately. He must affect a genial height, that of a jigger of strings; and his attitude should be that of the Pulpiteer: Heaven help you, gentlemen, but I know what is best for you! Leave everything to me.
The minister had a conspicuously well-fed paunch, his smooth face expressed placid self-approval, his tones never for a moment lost the unctuous echo of the pulpiteer. "You have not worshipped with us lately," he observed. "Remiss, remiss. Our services have been stirring three souls redeemed from everlasting torment at the Wednesday meeting, two adults and a child sealed to Christ on Sunday."
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