Likewise, one's sense of the proprieties is readily
offended by too detailed and intimate a handling of industrial
and other purely human questions at the hands of the clergy.
There is a certain level of generality below which a cultivated
sense of the proprieties in homiletical discourse will not permit
a well-bred clergyman to decline in his discussion of temporal
interests. These matters that are of human and secular
consequence simply, should properly be handled with such a degree
of generality and aloofness as may imply that the speaker
represents a master whose interest in secular affairs goes only
so far as to permissively countenance them.
It is further to be noticed that the non-conforming sects and
variants whose priesthood is here under discussion, vary among
themselves in the degree of their conformity to the ideal scheme
of sacerdotal life. In a general way it will be found that the
divergence in this respect is widest in the case of the
relatively young denominations, and especially in the case of
such of the newer denominations as have chiefly a lower
middle-class constituency. They commonly show a large admixture
of humanitarian, philanthropic, or other motives which can not be
classed as expressions of the devotional attitude; such as the
desire of learning or of conviviality, which enter largely into
the effective interest shown by members of these organizations.
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