A Plea for the Sabbath-School System: Delivered Feb, 2, 1830, at the Anniversary of the Gettysburg Sunday School (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Plea for the Sabbath-School System: Delivered Feb, 2, 1830, at the Anniversary of the Gettysburg Sunday School

When we inquire, how did a ministry, which bad he come corrupt, fail to lose its influence over the community, we find, that, either ignorance and superstition among the people, or an unholy union of civil and ecclesiastical powerdependently of these auxiliaries, exert but little influence over an enlightened, virtuous people, is almost a self-evident truth. But the experiment could never be made. Such is the reciprocal influence, which the clergy and laity exert up on one another, that within certain limits, their characters run parallel to each other and even when changing for bet ter or worse, they will as a whole, never be found occupy ing contrary extremes. Piety among the members of the church, tends to preserve and elevate the piety of their minister. Their prayers strengthen him, their admo nitions stimulate him, their high expectations prevent his standard of duty from sinking low. Amid a wordly people, the whole current of influence is reversed. In his intercourse with them, the servant of God finds nothing terwarm his heart. The desire ofpleasiug them, tempts him to relax a lit tle the requisitions of the gospel, and the fear of losing his subsistence, sometimes prevents him from preaching against fashionable vices. The students taken from such a lake warm people to fill the future ranks of the ministry, will gen orally he very different from those, brought forth and matured amid the fire and heat of religious revivals. Yet, without the two causes above specified, a ministry by becoming cor rupt would necessarily lose its influence.

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