Some of the reasonings of both the Established and Free Church courts on this matter would be amusing were they not so sad. ‘Feed my lambs,’ said our Saviour, after His resurrection, to Peter; and again twice over, ‘Feed my sheep.’ Now, let us suppose some zealous clergyman setting himself, on the strength of the latter injunction here, to institute a new order of preachers. As barbers frequently amuse their employers with gossip, when divesting them of their beards or trimming their heads, and have opportunities of addressing their fellow-men which are not possessed by the other mechanical professions, the zealous clergyman determines on converting them into preachers, and sets up a Normal School, in order that they may be taught the art of composing short sermons, which they are to deliver when shaving their customers, and longer ones, which they are to address to them when cutting their hair. And in course of time the expounding barbers are sent abroad to operate on the minds and chins of the community. ‘There is no mention made of any such order of prelectors,’ says a stubborn layman, ‘in my New Testament;’ ‘Nor yet in mine,’ says another. ‘Sheer Atheism,––Deism at the very least!’ exclaims the zealous clergyman. ‘Until Christianity was fairly established in the world, there was no such thing as shaving at all; the Jews don’t shave yet: besides, does not every decent Church member shave before going to church? And as for the authority, how read you the text, “Feed my sheep!’” ‘Weighty argument that about the shaving,’ say the laymen; ‘but really the text seems to be stretched just a little too far. The commission is given to Peter; but it confers on Peter no authority whatever to commission the barbers. Nay, our grand objection to the pseudo-successors of Peter is, that they corrupted the Church after this very manner, by commissioning the non-commissioned, until they filled the groaning land with cardinals, bishops, and abbots, monks and nuns,––
“Eremites and friars,
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.’”
Now, be it remembered that we are far from placing the Church-employed schoolmaster on the level of the parson-employed barber of our illustration. Rationally considered, they are very different orders indeed; but so far as direct Scripture is concerned, they stand, we contend, on exactly the same ground. The laity would do well in this controversy to arm themselves with the New Testament, and, if their opponents be very intolerant, to hand them the volume, and request them to turn up their authority. And, of course, if the intolerance be very great, the authority must be very direct. Mere arguings on the subject would but serve to show that it has no actual existence. When the commission of a captain or lieutenant is legitimately demanded, it is at once produced; but were one to demand the commission of a sergeant or boatswain’s mate, the man could at best only reason about it.
This passage has been referred to in several Free Church presbyteries, as if the writer had affirmed that the schoolmaster stands on no higher level than the shoemaker or tailor. We need scarce say, however, that the passage conveys no such meaning. By affirming that in matters of chimney-sweeping men choose for themselves the best chimney-sweeps, and in matters of indisposition or disease the best physicians, we do not at all level the physician with the chimney-sweep: we merely intimate that there is a best in both professions, and that men select that best, as preferable to what is inferior or worse, on every occasion they can.
We have learned that what was actually intended at this time was, not to ordain, but only to induct our schoolmasters. And their induction would have made, we doubt not, what Foigard in the play calls a ‘very pretty sheremony.’ But no mere ceremony, however imposing, can communicate to a secular profession a spiritual status or character.
A fac-simile of this letter was reproduced in the columns of the Witness.––Ed.