Voices of Power

To every one who considers the matter, it must be evident that the voices of power are numerous. The novelist, the essayist, the critic, the orator, the singer, the poet, the merchant, the financier, has each his organ. But there are some sources of influence which all acknowledge, partly because they are established, partly because they are prominent, partly because they are universally popular. One or two of these will here be touched on. There is a current impression that the days of pulpit influence are numbered ; that preaching is out of date ; that the Sunday orator has had his time, — a most important and influential time, it is admitted, but still a period that is ended, to be succeeded in the future by a new dispensation, in which the spoken word will be less and less indispensable to human needs. It is the fashion in some quarters to speak of pulpit oratory in terms of criticism, disrespect, and even of disbelief, as of outgrown machinery. We are told of the small number of churches as compared with the population of the cities, of the relatively thin attendance, of the listless audiences, of the lowered standard of refinement on the part of hearers, of the diminished spiritual force of speakers, of the declining tendency to confess authority in doctrinal affairs ; and the intimation is freely given out — supported sometimes by argument, sometimes by facts, not seldom by sarcasm — that the whistling of idle wind and the creaking of officious pulleys have taken the place of the once trumpet-toned gospel.

For this belief there are good reasons, — better than can be expressed in the form of statistics. It is very true that other agencies have to a great extent supplanted the pulpit and taken away a large portion of its ancient office. The preacher is no longer the educated man of the community, the instructor in science, philosophy, literature. He is not, of necessity, the best scholar, the most accomplished writer, the deepest thinker, the most persuasive speaker. He has no longer the whole advantage of academic training. In a period quite within the recollection of living men there were few books, no magazines or cheap papers. Public libraries were almost unknown, — wholly inaccessible to the multitude. There was scarcely any literature, or wide-spread knowledge. The clergyman’s collection of printed volumes was mainly theological. He alone propounded questions, and gave answers to them. He alone was acquainted with prevalent thoughts. Learning was expensive, and hard to get outside of great universities, where the minister was educated. The day is not so very far distant in the past when it was a matter of personal distinction as well as of professional necessity to accumulate wisdom. Clergymen were thus educated to speak, — the only people who were well qualified to express an opinion, not on subjects of religion only, but on topics of society and politics as well. They were the oracles of the period, the educated and richly furnished minds, the possessors of the science and sagacity of their age. That period is ended. Books of every description are multiplied ; magazines are cheap; newspapers are published by the myriad; people read as they run ; information, knowledge, intellectual stimulus, may be had in large measure outside of churches, — more readily outside than inside.

Moreover, there is the institution of the popular lecturer. Here is a speaker who travels over the country, drawing audiences from all classes, dealing with secular themes, and mingling wit with wisdom according to ability. He does not appeal to authority ; he does not resort to tradition. He aims at instruction ; but his chief object is entertainment, and the combination is found attractive to the common ear. The favorite lecturer is, in many instances, a preacher, who lays by the solemnity of the pulpit manner, and thus helps to undermine his profession while seeming to extend its influence: for the arts by which he attracts and holds his auditors are thoroughly popular; he addresses the average intelligence, and he assumes as the ultimate criterion of excellence the common reason. When the lecturer is not a clergyman, he is a lay preacher; and if he is an eloquent man, as he often is, his platform takes precedence of the pulpit, his words are listened to with delight, and his method gradually affects the treatment of religious themes, until the very essence of religious thought is qualified, and the sermon is deprived of its peculiar character. In a word, it ceases to be a sermon, and becomes an address.

There is a substantial difference between the two modes of speech. It must not be forgotten that, under one or another form, the preacher assumes the fact of divine revelation either as truth directly imparted, or as a spiritual instinct, or as a philosophy of intuition that pledges the recipient to certain cardinal beliefs of the soul. But criticism throws doubt on the existence of outward communications of knowledge, philosophy discredits intuitive presentiments, and skepticism cavils at the notion of an implanted instinct. The age resents dictation, in an era of magazines and newspapers and journals and reports, of conventions, meetings, and discussions. When men come face to face with each other, and talk things over on rational principles ; requiring knowledge ; demanding that problems shall be considered on their merits, that speech shall be frank and precise, that mystery shall be discarded, and dogmatism condemned, and preaching set at naught, and feeling subordinated to argument, there is impatience of pretension, restiveness under authority, a disposition to break away from tradition. The preacher relies on formulated ideas ; he claims to speak the absolute truth, to bring a message from the Holy Spirit. The assumption is now somewhat attenuated, but it is very old. The Hebrew prophet, who better than any other corresponds to the modern preacher, arrogated to himself the right to speak in the name of Jehovah. He was the Lord’s representative. He disclaimed all ability of his own, made himself of no reputation, claimed no private wisdom or virtue, called himself a servant, and was accepted accordingly. Jesus gave voice to the best anticipations of his race. The promise made to Abraham was the message that dropped graciously from his lips. The proclamation of the kingdom of heaven was the ancient announcement of the Messianic reign. It was not he who founded the heavenly dispensation on any authority of his own. He spoke for his Father. Paul planted his feet on the rock of the old covenant. The Church of Home regarded the Pope as the Lord’s vicegerent, the source of all spiritual illumination, from whom power descended to the inferior priesthood. In the Protestant churches the preacher was the leading figure, and whenever he felt the presence of a holier spirit behind him than had visited his predecessors, a fresh inspiration from the incarnate Word, his heart was aflame with the Holy Ghost. The modern preacher goes through certain prescribed courses of study in a “ school of the prophets.” He takes his diploma from the constituted authorities. He is ordained by the solemn laying on of hands. He is set apart for a peculiar work. He is consecrated a servant or minister of the Highest. Henceforth he speaks words that are put into his mouth. He does not argue ; he announces, declares, affirms. There are certain truths he takes for granted, certain things he knows without experiment. If he chooses to utter his thought on any secular subject, he does not put himself exactly on a level with common reasoners. One will hardly take up a pamphlet written by a clergyman without encountering this peculiarity. The man is a dogmatist on principle. He cannot be anything else. Dogmatism belongs to the profession. It is fortunate for him if it does not eat into his nature.

The skepticism of this generation is of a character to hear directly on the existence of the pulpit. It is rather a matter of temperament than of judgment. It affects conduct more than opinion, being not so much a settled form of reasoned unbelief as a practical disinclination to turn the thoughts in an ecclesiastical direction. The element of “ common sense ” is larger in it than the element of knowledge. It touches the more cultivated and the more intellectually occupied classes. Literary men, as a rule, do not go to church. They prefer to stay at home, and read or write; naturally finding more pleasure in books that engage them than in sermons that do not. The men of science employ the quiet Sunday hours in making researches in their several departments. The time is especially favorable to the nicer experiments of the new physiology. The philosophical student pursues his studies, uninterrupted by duties or by visitors. When classrooms are closed and offices are shut, then is his hour for close examination. Then he can be alone, can read his favorite authors, can enlarge his mind. It is his day of recreation and of rest.

Again, the comic disposition of an age fond of entertainment, amusement, laughter, disliking grave thoughts and averse to meditation, is not attracted to pulpit discussions. The words “ duty,” “ immortality,” “ death,” " responsibility,” are unwelcome to popular ears. Say what one will, the minister’s themes are necessarily serious. He speaks in the name of religion. He represents the soul. His speech drops down from the higher atmosphere of spiritual thought. He has nothing for sportive hearers. It is not his business to tickle idle ears. He is not a jester, a buffoon, a clown, or a merry-Andrew. He is unwilling to make people laugh ; he rarely induces them to smile. It is his office to open the fountain of tears in their hearts, to stir their consciences, to awaken their souls, to rouse their sympathies. He speaks of brotherhood, charity, accountability ; the wisdom of restraining passion, and curbing desire, and keeping the higher life in view. There are things that look unseemly in the presence of the eternal law, and such things he must condemn. There is a mirthfulness, innocent — nay, positively wholesome — elsewhere, that sinks into silence when the awful, invisible Form comes out of the shadow. That form the preacher never can forget. He would be untrue to himself if he lost remembrance of it for a moment. Whatever theme he deals with, the low murmur of the everlasting flood is ever in his ears, and resounds through his language, imparting a deep solemnity to his utterance. He may be tempted to indulge his humor or wit, if he has any, but he yields as to a temptation, regretfully, half remorsefully, fearing lest something may be taken from the edge of his appeal. Even when his theme is neither theological nor technically religious, he is true to his calling as a minister of righteousness. The liberal preacher, so called, is no less austere than his Calvinistic neighbor ; rather more so, if anything, as feeling the importance of correcting a certain latitude of speculation which his “ orthodox ” friend is not aware of.

But if all this be true, — and true in a great measure it may well be, — why is it, one may ask, that the pulpit has not fallen more completely into disrepute? Why is the institution supported? Why are preachers listened to? Why do crowds gather every Sunday to hear what earnest, believing men have to say ? For it is a fact that preaching has not yet sunk into utter discredit. The churches are not deserted. On the contrary, I am inclined to think that, all things being taken into account, more people in proportion “go to meeting” — go intelligently, earnestly, sympathetically, expectantly — than ever went before. My impression is that there is more live mind in the churches to-day than there ever was. Buildings are larger, congregations are more numerous, the word is listened to more eagerly. If an able man has anything to say from the pulpit, an audience is ready for him; and the more authoritatively he speaks, the better they like it. The ancient faithis alive. The old way of presenting it is not obsolete. Skepticism does not appear to have penetrated the heart of the multitude. As the world grows larger, the number increases of those who frequent the sanctuary, as well as of those who stay away.

To say nothing of the occasions which come to all alike, — hours of sorrow, of disappointment, of defeat. — that everybody meets and must surmount; of the craving to hear a word of solace, encouragement, instruction, to enlarge the horizon of experience, to obtain a wider prospect of life ; to say nothing of death, that awful, mysterious certainty, so universal in its sway, so uncertain in its issues, or of conscience, whose voice is heard in every breast, the themes of the pulpit possess an inexhaustible fascination for the majority of mankind. The preacher’s cardinal topics are irresistibly interesting. There are grave questions which nobody can answer, yet which everybody asks, — questions that the preacher alone pretends to deal with, that none but a thinker attempts to grasp, but that force themselves on the unthinking mind. To know what answers have been given is a good deal; to be sure that there is no final answer is something. The most light-hearted, even frivolous people, at some moments in their lives, are brought face to face with problems so awful that only earnest minds should confront them, and they, for the most part, are consecrated professionally to the task. The preacher has been educated to consider such problems ; he spends his life in endeavors to solve them ; he has arrived at a certain degree of conviction ; he has won popular confidence by the devotedness of his ministry and the elevation of his life. He is usually noble, simple-hearted, honest, true of intention, single of purpose, disinterested, and sympathetic. He lives in contemplation. He is an idealist. If he is a man of traditions, the traditions he holds by are humane ; they embody the treasured wisdom of the race. Those who resort to him are pretty sure to get all that is known. The purely sensational preacher is rare in any community. There are not many men in the pulpit, if there are any, who study immediate effect more than truth. There may, here and there, be one man of remarkable humor, who is tempted occasionally to present ideas in a mirthful light; but this is incidental to his temperament, not radical in his ministration. His is aim is heavenward, though he may frequently provoke a smile. Theodore Parker used to say that if he were to give expression to all the funny thoughts that occurred to him, his hall would resound with laughter. Fanciful images thronged his mind ; yet nobody doubted Parker’s earnestness of purpose, or questioned the absolute sincerity of his nature. Most people imagined that he was somewhat uncompromising, even grim. A prevailing passion for truth is all that can be asked for. Great genius, the gift of insight, of divination, of prophecy, of eloquent speech, are not to be expected. The saintly disposition is given to few. But the power of personal character is not uncommon, simplicity of intention, purity of mind. Character is very different from genius, accomplishment, or talent in particular directions. It is the force of the unseen world flowing through the soul. There is much in the fact that the minister belongs to no class of men ; that he is neither aristocrat nor democrat, rich nor poor, old nor young; that he is simply human ; that he meets all men on the same terms ; that all doors are open to him; that all domestic secrets are disclosed. The family physician is the only person who has anything like the same universality of influence, anything approaching an equal range of sympathy. No other man in society pretends to it.

When to this is added the quality of personality so generally felt in the preacher, who takes into himself the burden of so much experience, the importance of the pulpit is not surprising. The pulpit should be a mount of vision. A living soul utters oracles there. One hears a voice, sees a form, gazes on an expressive countenance. The lecturer has a portion of the same advantage, but he is not charged with so mysterious a theme, nor does he touch people at so many points. In fact, he does not reach the same people year after year, as the preacher does, and he never addresses the spiritual mind. The audience brings ears, seldom hearts, to the lyceum. It comes in the mood of admiration, not in the mood of worship. Mr. Emerson made the platform an altar, drawingdown fire from heaven upon sticks of wood ; but he was alone. The most persuasive lecturer does well if now and then he can ascend from low themes to lofty contemplations. The personality of the lecturer may be called magnetic, in the absence of a better word. The personality of the genuine preacher is born of the spirit, and is largely made up of the elements of hope, fear, love, aspiration, devotion.

The truth is that faith in the supernatural is not dead; faith in the invisible will never die. The ancient religious instincts of men will change their mode of expression, but they will retain their energy. The scientific method does not threaten them with extinction. The democratic principle does not endanger their authority, and the man who can arouse them is sure of a hearing. Every great epoch has been inaugurated by the pulpit, has been heralded by the preacher. The Hebrew ages were; the Christian age was. The Church of Rome sent out its preaching orders to revive a declining belief; the Protestant reform depended on the pulpit for its extension. Luther’s force was, in great measure parænetical ; so was Calvin’s. In England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, there was a line of orators with their message from the Lord. The Puritan era came in with preaching. The modern pulpit is broader, more elastic, more practical, less theological, less speculative, less doctrinal, less severely logical, but its old spirit of moral operation is preserved. It still appeals to revelation, still falls back on inspiration, still assumes the immediate presence of Deity, — an immanent God, perhaps, but a living God. — with all the old reality and all the old vividness of conception. The radical pulpit simply transfers the divine influence to other fields; it never dreams of abolishing the idea of it. Atheistical it cannot be ; pantheistical it may be ; theistical, in some form, it commonly is.

The conditions of a powerful pulpit to-day are essentially the same as formerly: devotion, sincerity, open-mindedness, transluceney of soul. The pulpit must contain consecrated men, who live for the highest thought, the noblest life, the purest sympathies ; who are out of the world, do not seek its prizes, do not court its applause ; who are not sectarians, not churchmen, not polemics. — men who lay by their individuality, their pride, their self-sufficiency; who are no hypocrites or pretenders; who do not strut, vapor, put on airs of superiority, or practice affectations of any kind, but who stand fairly on the border line, where humanity blends with divinity. — men of glowing enthusiasm, of invincible hopefulness, of perfect goodwill, friends and servants of mankind. Such are not rare, and they are becoming less uncommon with every generation. It will be generally allowed that the great need in all communities and at all times is of men of this stamp. The culture of the moral nature is still the chief concern. The prevalence of knowledge renders compulsory a finer interpretation of nature, history, experience. We depend on the pulpit to supply this perennial demand. We depend on the pulpit to furnish the conditions of its maintenance. The habit of fault-finding because it does not satisfy them is an evidence of the expectation that exists yet in the world of thinkers. That people are discontented, that they complain, that they stay away from church, may be a good sign. The pulpit should be based on the attribute of intellectual power. The occupant of it should be held to a high standard. It is our duty to insist that the Sunday shall not be wasted, given up to quacks, drivelers, buffoons. My quarrel with the community is that it is too acquiescent; criticises too little; is too easily satisfied ; accepts mediocrity of learning, talent, devotion ; abuses too mildly ; ridicules too gently. The people who say the hardest things are, unfortunately, people who do not begin with aspiration. Religious men are the first to detect imposture. The pulpit can be trusted to purge itself from intruders. A distinguished preacher once said, “ When I wish to throw stones at the church windows, I shall go outside.” It was well remarked, for to throw stones is a hostile and rather a lawless proceeding. It is true, all the same, that the real improvement of the pulpit comes from the inside, from the growth of serious opinion among earnest men, who see what the age and the soul require. The correspondence between John Ruskin and certain clergymen of the Church of England, published two or three years ago, throws much light on the prevailing tendency towards a more spiritual understanding of the pulpit’s office; the short preface by Dr. Matteson displaying admirably the temper of the leading ecclesiastics. As, in the case of a battle, the hard fighting is done by the ordinary soldiery, whose disciplined valor carries the day, so, in this warfare of religion, the ordinary labor is performed by obscure men, whose names are never spoken, and whose consecrated lives attest their fidelity to the highest interests of man. The officers bear the brunt of the criticism, but they do not fill the ranks.

The best and the worst has been said about the pulpit, yet it is not probable that any agency will ever take its place. Its very imperfections — and in the nature of things it cannot be all it aims to become — act as a constant spur to its improvement. Other ministrations, honorable and capable as they may be, do not propose to themselves the same objects, of course cannot produce the same results. The newspaper press, for instance, reaches a greater number of people, serves a greater number of wants, touches vastly more points of interest, deals with more immediate concerns, strives after a more comprehensive enlightenment; but its whole design is different. It has another ideal, which it endeavors to reach, but which in proportion as it is attained is seen to be essentially distinct from that of the preacher. The time has gone by when praise of the newspaper press is called for, or is timely. Blame of it is out of place. An attempt to understand the secret of its power is alone wise. That its domain is immense, its sway almost boundless, its stride prodigious, must be evident to all who have eyes to see. In 1776, but little more than a hundred years ago, there were thirty-seven papers of all grades in the United States. Of these, nine were in Pennsylvania, seven in Massachusetts, four in New York. All of them, with a single exception, were weeklies, and this one was a semi-weekly. There was no daily paper in the country. Five years ago there were eight thousand papers of all orders, of which New York had the largest number, Pennsylvania the next in quantity, while Massachusetts ranked seventh or eighth. Now the dailies are all but numberless. A century since, there was a paper for one in thirty thousand people. Five years since, there was one for live thousand people. In 1876, there were in this country eight thousand one hundred and twenty-nine periodicals of every rank, with a total circulation of something over a billion. The population of the country was, at the same time, a little over thirty-eight million. There certainly is room enough for the growth of the press. It is not likely soon to overpass the pulpit. We sometimes hear people talk as if there were danger of an inundation from newspapers ; but can any such event be anticipated ? There is more ground for the opinion that we have not newspapers enough for the needs of the people. Less than fifteen years ago, there may have been started, on an average, six new papers a day, yet the actual increase in five years previous to 1876 was only about two thousand. The others had died, or been consolidated, or shrunk from view. The large controlling papers, on which the smaller papers feed, are very few. The metropolitan press is comparatively small. Most papers owe a great deal to the scissors, to the art of making extracts from the great journals ; therefore, unless the towns are to become cities, and small journals great ones, — an event at present beyond conjecture, — the power of the newspaper press must have its numerical limitation.

The primary object of the newspaper is to convey enlightenment to the multitude. In the beginning it professed simply to supply intelligence regarding current incidents of importance. When the world was small the paper was small. When intercourse was difficult and infrequent, papers were of necessity local in their scope, limited in their circulation, restricted in their horizon. The Wide, Wide World was a child’s look over a fence. With the expansion of the universe, new scenes were brought to view; and with increasing facilities of communication, fresh curiosity was awakened. The demand for information extended. Now the great newspaper gets news from every part of the planet. In every chief centre, in every great city, there must be correspondents, charged with the duty of reporting deeds and transactions. If an event of public interest occurs in Egypt, India, Rome, Constantinople, Mexico, or wherever else, special commissioners are sent out, keen observers, trained writers, careful chroniclers of history, to transmit intelligence in regard to everything that passes beneath the eye. The cost of all this is something fabulous. The amount of energy, of enterprise, of disciplined skill, required is fairly beyond computation. The brain-work of the editor in chief — of the subordinates, too, for that matter — must be prodigious, and it is unceasing.

Then the external facts must be explained, accounted for, and interpreted. Their meaning is to be disclosed, their tendency indicated, their consequence foreshadowed. Hence the prominence of the editorial column, the necessity of comment by experienced minds who have made the subjects a study. The best statisticians, critics, historians, financiers, scholars, must be employed to reduce to reason the crude material of phenomena. This addition is of comparatively recent origin. Sixty years ago there were no editorial contributions. It is an acute Bostonian, as high-minded as he was sagacious, who has the credit of this innovation. He was himself a singularly able man, of great penetration and enlightened public spirit; but he secured the service of the most competent men in Massachusetts, for his purpose. His editorials acquired fame all over the country; they were copied in other papers, and laid the foundation of the system that has become habitual as well as adequate and conscientious.

Conscientious, it is repeated. For behind every fact lies a moral no less than an intellectual cause. The antecedents are often exceedingly subtle. Phenomena are subject to law; they implicate conscience ; they are connected with the inner history of mankind. These relations must be indicated : hence the press preaches. The editor is, in a certain sense, a preacher; he must tell about the right and wrong of movements. There is an ethics of the press. To meet this requirement, men exercised in the knowledge of moral questions are employed. Many clergymen write for the papers. Pulpits are subsidized. Of course, the moralizing is more or less conventional. It appeals to the general conscience. It rarely soars above its occasion, or leaves the beaten track of conviction. The paper assumes the average moral sentiment of the community, — the highest average sentiment, certainly, — and is compelled to be, in substance, commonplace. It cannot diverge far from accepted principle, for by so doing it would be unfaithful to its leading purpose, which is to enlighten the minds of its contemporaries, not directly to elevate their consciences. It takes existing laws of duty for granted, follows the road of tradition, and, however fresh and forcible it may be in expression, abides by conceded examples. Now and then an editor ventures on original theses, indulges in speculative lucubrations, or propounds ethical theories beyond his calling. But this is felt to be out of his province, and is set down to the account of some private eccentricity. The task of uplifting the souls of men is committed to other hands, and if entrusted to him alone would hardly be fulfilled. To him belongs the office of the interpreter, not that of the prophet. Unquestionably, his influence may be great in extending the sphere of the pulpit, in holding the preacher to the level of his vocation, in distributing moral forces, but his power to originate them is small.

This is the most important limitation of the press, and herein it differs from the pulpit, which holds its occupant to the highest mark of ideal aspiration. The more completely he loses himself in heavenly contemplations, the better men are satisfied. The limitations in question may be explained by the fact that the newspaper press is a great business, and must obey the rules of business. Its expenses are enormous. The salaries, rents, costs of correspondence, of editorial writing, of news agencies, reporters, and the rest are incessant as they are absorbing of money. It, requires a large outlay to start a daily paper, and to maintain it when started. And this must be made good, and more than made good ; otherwise the result is failure. Here and there, to be sure, a paper is begun and continued for a time, longer or shorter, in some particular interest that commands the support of a special individual or company, but this does not count. The press, as a rule, is a venture, conducted on the principle of every pecuniary investment. It offers to the capitalist a fair return for the money he has put into the shares, and if no such return is forthcoming, the investment is not a good one. There are papers that represent more than a million of dollars. If this sum is derived from subscriptions, as it seldom or never is, the public taste must be primarily consulted. If it is derived from advertisements, the business community must be accommodated. The advertisements depend on the circulation ; the circulation results from the popular approval. Thus, at last, the public sentiment is made the test of excellence. It is impossible to see how this dilemma can be escaped. There may be papers that live for a while without advertising, — sectarian organs, Sunday-school journals, instituted for denominational purposes, — but they are small and insignificant. And these seek advertisements, though not often with success, inasmuch as their constituency is not large, and is formed of people who are already attached to the cause advocated. Here is an unavoidable peril, not merely financial, but moral; for the public mind nowhere is remarkably high-toned. Remunerative advertisements must be invited ; must be, if possible, secured. How far policy may be stretched to meet the exigency will rest on the conscience of the editor or editors. At all events, policy must be invoked. Most papers advertise their circulation, of course with a motive, which appears on the face of the proceeding. Deference to a subscription list is sometimes increased by this means. A falling off of circulation will be injurious. The management may regret this necessity of pleasing a fickle public, may rebel against it. may suggest, teach, remonstrate, inculcate, enjoin ; but can circumstances be controlled ? Even when the multitude becomes infatuated, possessed, maddened by some strange prejudice, some unwarrantable persuasion, must not the conductors of the paper be careful how they run counter to the tide ? No paper that loves its own existence can afford to defy the world. No paper dares be so independent that it will put itself in opposition to all opinion. It is dependent on its very independence. If its patrons maintain it, all is well. But its patrons must maintain it. If the editor sets at naught their judgment, he as certainly drives his vessel on a rock as does the head of an ordinary enterprise.

Here is the distinction between an ideal and a practical profession. The ideal profession stands upon principle ; the practical profession stands upon policy. Every calling, as soon as it leaves principle for policy, incurs the danger of moral depreciation. The pulpit does so even more fatally than the press, because its aims are higher. Under the old system of ecclesiastical supremacy, the preacher was upheld by the church. The community was directed by the priesthood. The power of spiritual authority was universally acknowledged. The minister was therefore independent of social influence. He was strong in the support of his superiors, who silently backed his word. Men might like what he said, or they might dissent from it; they were compelled to listen, because the speaker was countenanced by celestial inspiration. In the days of Catholic supremacy, just before the Reformation, a class of preachers was sent out to revive the drooping faith of the believers. Their moral audacity was amazing. They went everywhere with their encouragement and rebuke. They stood before monarchs, princes, gentlemen, ladies. The Pope himself came under their censure, for greater than any earthly dominion was the deathless spirit he represented. In the early days of Protestant rule, the voice of the Holy Ghost in the soul was louder than any human clamor. The period of Puritan energy was also the period ol implicit confidence in the monitions of the superterrestrial nature. In these days of naturalism, under the democratic system, the prevailing faith in a revealed will gives the pulpit courage. The wish of the majority sometimes overbears the speech of the timid man. He must consult the press before he utters his conviction on any matter of divided sentiment. We have all known instances where conscience clashed against expediency, where the multitude rose up and overturned the authority of the pulpit, and the minister was obliged to depart from his place. The pew rents dwindled, and a new administration was thought more likely to “ edify.” This event frequently happened in the years that preceded the civil war ; but a purely spiritual exigency may arise which brings the common sense of the hearers into collision with the soul of the prophet, and then the consequence is equally disastrous. The preacher who regards his calling as a business, as the novelist has often described him, is lost. He preaches what the congregation likes to hear. He prophesies smooth things, because such only are attractive, such only draw the people who pay. Hence devices for gaining audiences ; sensational sermons; loud declamations; the facility with which men persuade themselves that they believe what they have discarded; the habit of thinking one thing in the study, and saying another on Sunday. The office thus becomes a bargaining shop, and it lapses at once into spiritual degeneracy.

This danger the press is exposed to continually and inevitably. How far it eludes the danger it is not for me to say. The editorial conscience can alone answer that question. A curious concomitant of this deference to polite opinion is the tone of infallibility the press assumes. It is obliged to speak with authority in order to keep the confidence of its supporters. It must abide by its assertion; otherwise it weakens its grasp on its adherents. Consistency is its jewel, even if it be consistency in misjudgment and mistake. To retract is perilous ; to correct an error is to confess it; to give prominence to a recantation is humbling. To forgive is always difficult; to ask forgiveness requires almost supernatural virtue. None but noble minds can do that. He who grants looks down on a suppliant; he who asks looks up to a judge. He who admits no judge more exalted than personal inclination or popular approval will not often take the attitude of humiliation. It is done sometimes, not often, still less habitually ; for it is a hard thing for a paper with a hundred thousand readers who pin their faith to its columns to take back its own asseveration. Fidelity to its main purpose forbids its making concessions which might impair its force.

Another source of limitation in the newspaper press is the necessity of paying attention to local politics. This is not a fault, nor even a misfortune. It may, indeed, imply a most excellent quality; for in a democratic country politics ought to be a leading concern of the people, and the task of informing the general mind about it, of scrutinizing candidates, testing questions, and estimating issues, is of primary importance. Great discussions are continually agitated. The merits as well as the demerits of causes are exhibited, the proportions of phenomena are ascertained, and in the course of debate absolute principles are brought into view. All this is admirable as bearing on the higher education of the community at large. Every considerable paper is, fortunately, obliged to have political sympathies ; every leading paper must undertake political advocacy. The sympathies grow from year to year more generous; the advocacy becomes from year to year most just and noble. That the public mind is enlightened by the uninterrupted agitation, the general conscience purified, the standard of equity raised, the level of truth elevated, is heartily conceded ; nay, is gratefully acknowledged. That this is in great measure due to the efforts of journalists cannot be doubted. At the same time, it would be miraculous if the habit of confining attention to the details of party management did not weaken the faculty of ideal contemplation, and render difficult, to say the least, the duty of considering everlasting ideas. This task devolves on other shoulders, not of necessity more willing or able, but suited to another kind of burden.

The press is a great power for distributing intelligence of all kinds. It is a vast popular educator, in science, the useful arts, taste for literature, music, painting, sculpture, in all that belongs to human existence in this world. A critic, a keen observer, a man of singular intelligence, himself a distinguished preacher, once said to me that he never read a paper that he did not come across something he wished to cut out and preserve ; and he was prevented from doing so only by the number of such paragraphs. This too is the experience of other men, as I can bear cheerful testimony. This power of the press is increasing continually, and is becoming more and more beneficent. To every one who can look back half a century, it must be evident that in quality as well as in quantity the improvement is immense. That there is room for more will be admitted by none so eagerly as by editors themselves, who are tireless in their endeavors to raise their calling to the rank they perceive it should hold. The real friend of his kind must rejoice in the signs of such advance, for they prove that one of the chief agents of civilization is about its work.

The mission of the stage is no less lofty and peculiar than that of the pulpit or the press. Though its office is primarily to entertain, it aims at doing this in a way more refined and elegant as time goes on, thus promoting the æsthetic education of society. The epoch of Puritan protest against the theatre is gone by. Amusement is no longer associated with vice. The sources of turpitude have been, once and for all, removed from buildings devoted to dramatic art. Clergymen need no longer defend the stage. The best actors move freely in the choicest circles. Even orthodox preachers show, by their attendance at places of theatrical entertainment in foreign cities, that their objections are not founded on principle, but rather on local convenience, and that they would gladly introduce a more generous form of culture at home. The deeper religious objection, that the actor’s profession is essentially unreal, illusory, artificial, false, hypocritical, perhaps, inasmuch as he must pretend to be somebody else ; must simulate a kindness, a state, a virtue, not his own ; must wear borrowed clothes, and put on a mask, and seem to be noble when he is at heart base, is gradually disappearing under finer influences, at the common demand for higher conception, for more consummate skill, for nicer delineation of character, for a delicate quality of dress and decoration which a generation ago were unknown. Coarseness is scarcely tolerated in our days ; rudeness is severely criticised. The arts of expression are cultivated because they are insisted on.

The passion for the drama, it is on all sides confessed, has its seat in human nature. The church admitted this long ago, in the miracle plays, by which received doctrines were commended to the uneducated classes. The church must admit it again in the new shape prescribed by the modern spirit, welcoming its gay coadjutor to a share in the task of educating society. For the actors themselves — the foremost of them—are doing what they can to render their profession acceptable to the worthiest men and women. They work hard ; they study incessantly ; they consult the best standards of feeling. If they are ingenious in producing meretricious effects by the use of paint, cosmetic, and costume, it is simply because the public inclination runs in that direction, not because they themselves love ornament or the resort to tricks. As fast as they are permitted they will elevate the standard of taste. Their business is to make moral sentiment attractive : not to promulgate absolute ethics, not to diffuse information, but to make such morality as exists appreciated, and to recommend it by all the means at their command. The appetite for high tragedy is less and less importunate. Bold, melodramatic effects are seldom produced. Violent ethical contrasts are avoided. Strong painting of moral peculiarities is no longer in vogue. The finer shadings of life are indicated, — a sign of healthy realism in thought and emotion. The desire for comedy is chastened by a very considerable refinement in the character of comedy itself, which is taken out of the region of buffoonery and burlesque, and carried up into the domain of wholesome merriment.

It is beginning to be suspected, in fact, that the actor, and not society, is the principal victim of the profession. He is the sufferer from insincere conditions, if there is any. He must, labor at night, when other people enjoy themselves ; and his labor is especially exhausting to the nervous energy, so that he must sleep through the sunniest hours of the day. He is cut off seriously from social intercourse, even in the period of his fame ; and until his fame is acquired he has no chance to go into the world. The chief interests of mankind — business and politics— have but little part in his life. The movements of social reform pass him by. He dwells habitually in a world of his own, a world apart from his fellow creatures. He belongs to a caste. His notions of behavior are suggested by his environment. His ideas of virtue are apt to be characterized by the peculiarities of a remote and fanciful ideal. The moral persuasions of a distinct order are visibly impressed on his mind. Both his virtues and his vices are incident to a calling that shuts him up in a species of isolation from his kind. His temptations are his own; his victories, too, are his own. Other men have stronger supports, and deserve sterner judgment for errors. In my own experience, both the men and the women merit more honor than is meted out to them.

There have been times when the stage was made to minister directly to the political, social, and moral guidance of mankind ; when it was wielded as a force by kings and courts ; when its writers regarded it as the object of their lives to satirize folly in the interest of wisdom. In a word, the playwright was a prophet. But, as a rule, the office of the actor is to entertain. This is no mean function. A sorely tasked clergyman of Boston used to frequent, when he visited New York, a certain theatre, well known then, where he was sure to be shaken out of his cares by side-splitting laughter, and sent home a new man. The actor, as it befell, was no model of private virtue, but he performed this vast service for his fellow men. Better offices are rendered now, but they are the same in kind. To diminish in some degree the pressure of toil is a great blessing. Unhappily, they who least need to have the pressure lightened, the leisurely, pleasure-seeking classes, are the chief supporters of the theatre. But the most cultivated people, the most responsible members of the community, will become the patrons of it in proportion as its office is better appreciated. Still, the multitude require. more than the few, this solace of entertainment, for they have not so many resources in their homes and their daily life. They are the people who need to be amused. They bear the heaviest burdens of existence. The rich or educated classes can do without amusement, on ordinary occasions, or can obtain it through other channels. During the days of terror in Paris that marked the French Revolution, in 1793, between twenty and thirty theatres gathered crowds every evening, the actors and actresses exerting themselves to keep quiet the agonized spirits of the metropolis. In the darkest hours of our civil war, when the ministers were sustaining drooping hearts by holding before them the precepts of eternal justice; when the daily papers published bulletins of dismay, and tried to put the most cheerful interpretation on disaster, the theatres of New York were thronged as they never had been before by men and women who wished to escape from painful thoughts. To some the mirthfulness appeared unseemly, but they who saw deeper beheld with thankfulness this provision for relieving the tension of an overcharged nervous system. Laughter follows close on tears.

This point cannot be too strongly stated. It would be a real misfortune were the actor to undertake the duty of the preacher; for then he would not carry the multitude with him, and the presentation of moral ideas would be sentimental, if not extravagant. For the actor to play the reformer would be a serious mistake, because be would inevitably be betrayed into fustian or silly pedantry. He would disgust many, and amuse none. All attempts to “ purify the stage ” by making it an adjunct of religion disclose a singular ignorance of the true mission of both. A play written for philosophers would not interest merchants, manufacturers, or artisans. Acting that might please saints could not be acceptable to sinners, as the majority of men are. The stage must represent the society it entertains. The player must be popular. Society, indeed, would be the gainer if actors and actresses would study to accommodate themselves better than they appear to do to the most refined moral sense of the community ; if they would accept in good faith their duty as educators of their generation. The customary dependence on the hair-dresser, the milliner, the dealer in cosmetics, the costumer, is not encouraging to moral excellence. The adaptation of French plays, with their inevitable meretriciousness, to say nothing of their daintily concealed lubricity, is not a sign of elevated taste. But this may be a passing fashion. The increasing popularity of American plays argues a nobler future, a more complete adaptation to the ideas of a young, aspiring people.

The actor is an artist. He belongs to the great brotherhood of the masters of perfect form, and he must not confound electric lights with beauty, or make paint a substitute for principles. The introduction of personal charms as a guarantee of histrionic talent, or a passport to histrionic success, as if it were enough to be beautiful, is fatal to lofty attainment, either in morality or in art, and should be frowned at instead of being indulged, as it is by a too generous profession.

That the stage has a very dignified career before it cannot be doubted ; that it will rise above its difficulties must not be questioned ; that it holds in its possession a mighty power for good will be gladly believed by enlightened minds. Its function is intellectual, and therefore boundless in possibility. There is simply no end to its capabilities. Though its office is to entertain, it is also its office to cultivate, to refine, to elevate, quite as distinctly as the work of the press is to impart a complete information, or as the task of the pulpit is to inspire the human soul. These are the three sources of power. All other agencies are but variations on the themes they propose. As time goes on, the peculiar differences in their design will probably be disclosed more and more. They will come to respect one another as fellow workers, and to rejoice each in the other’s success ; all jealousy and envy being laid aside, as between real artists who are endeavoring to promote the well being of humankind.

O. B. Frothingham.