t as much interest in the agitated question of liturgies as
would make us say ten words about it, we are interested more than we can
tell in the question, How shall the officiating ministers, in all the
churches, give so much point, and adaptedness, and vigor and blood-red
earnestness of soul to their public devotions as shall make all the people
in church feel that it is the struggle for their immortal life in which the
pastor is engaged? Whether it be in tones that strike the ear, or with a
spiritual emphasis heard only in the silent corridor of the heart, let all
the people say Amen!

Myself.--What do you think, Dominie, about all this talk about
sensationalism in the pulpit?

Scattergood.--As far as I can understand, it seems to be a war between
stagnation and sensationalism, and I dislike both.

I do not know which word is the worst. It is the national habit in
literature and religion to call that sensationalism which we ourselves
cannot do. If an author write a book that will not sell, he is apt to
charge the books of the day which do succeed as being sensational. There
are a great many men who, in the world and the Church, are dead failures,
who spend their time in letting the public know that they are not
sensationalists. The fact is that they never made any stir while living,
nor will they in dying, save as they rob the undertaker of his fees, they
not leaving enough to pay their dismission expenses.

I hate sensationalism in the pulpit so far as that word means the preaching
of everything but the gospel, but the simple fact is that whenever and
wherever faith and repentance and heaven and hell are proclaimed with
emphasis there will be a sensation. The people in our great cities are
hungry for the old gospel of Christ. If our young men in the ministry want
large audiences, let them quit philosophizing, and hair-splitting, and
botanizing, and without gloves take hold of men's sins and troubles, and
there will be no lack of hearers. Stagnation is worse than sensationalism.

I have always noticed that just in proportion as a man cannot get along
himself he is fearful of some one else making an excitement. Last week a
mud-turtle down by the brook opened its shell and discoursed to a horse
that was coming down to drink. The mud-turtle said to the horse: "Just as I
get sound asleep you are sure to come past and wake me up. We always used
to have a good quiet time down here in the swamp till you got in the habit