PREACHERS AND PRUNING HOOKS

The subject announced by Dr. Straton for his annual Jeremiad at Phillips Brooks House tonight bears no less formidable a title than "The Battle Over the Bible". To those who still keep the flavor of their Gaelic ancestry this may seem a delightful topic for a clergyman's address. But to anyone who has a sincere interest either in the church or in religion it is but one more bugle call in the crazed crusade of notoriety seekers who think the troubles of the church good press agent material. For some time now the attempt on the part of certain New York preachers to fill their churches and to cover themselves with glory, has made of religion the farce which many people delight in thinking it. Truly great preachers like Dr. Fosdick whose stand has been unique in its clarity and sincerity of purpose, though they admit the need of internal reform, refuse to consider the irregularities of church doctrine as absolute issues of war.

But there are those who always love a dispute. Eagerly they parade their opinions until the front pages of the press sacrifice murders and politics for evolution and heresy trials. Since the time of Socrates men have delighted in being the "gadflies" of their states, their churches, their homes. Indeed, such "gadflies" have often been useful and helpful. Yet now, if the clear message of any religion can help order the confusion of mind so apparent everywhere, it is the duty of the ministers of that religion to cease their eternal warfare. Surely the time has come for the Protestant church to turn its "swords into plougshares and its spears into pruning hooks".