Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/84



It is generally supposed that an ordained minister of the Gospel is a Christian. Whatever the faults, negligences and shortcomings of other people in other conditions of life, it is tacitly expected that the professing disciples of Christ, the priests, teachers and exponents of holy and spiritual things, should be more or less holy and spiritual in themselves. They are at any rate accredited with honest effort to practise, as well as to preach, the divine ethics of their Divine Master. Their position in the social community is one which, through old-time tradition, historical sentiment, and inborn national piety, is bound to command a certain respect from the laity. Any public disgrace befalling a clergyman is always accompanied by a strong public sense of shame, disappointment and regret. And when we meet (as most unhappily we often do), with men in "holy orders" who,—instead of furnishing the noble and pure examples of life and character which we have a distinct right to look for in them,—degrade themselves and their high profession by conduct unworthy of the lowest untutored barbarian, we are moved by amazement as well as sorrow to think that such wolves in sheep's clothing should dare to masquerade as the sacredly ordained helpers and instructors of the struggling human soul.