DURING the last fifty years or more, among Protestant congregations there has come a change of thought regarding pastors and preaching. In former days the sermon was listened to with almost the same reverence as that given to the reading of the Bible, and it was considered that both in his ministry and in his sermon the pastor spoke with authority. This point of view has, however, gradually changed, until to-day we find the preacher regarded as a man among men, engaged in a most worthy and helpful work, but whose sermons are simply his opinions of the subjects upon which he discourses, and which edify or not according as the listener accepts or rejects his conclusions.
This changed attitude by no means suggests less reverence for the truth or a lessening religious spirit, for never in the world's history has there been so much activity of righteousness, so much genuine Christliness in human thought as is manifest to-day. It does mean, however, that with the growing tendency to individuality of thought enlightened to perceive pure truth, there is necessarily a diminishing faith in creed and dogma, a tendency away from the manner of the Levitical priesthood, — wherein certain men were set apart in a class by themselves, to engage solely in the ceremonial observances of religion, which were supposed to be far removed from the comprehension of the laity,—and an approach to the day when, through universal enlightenment of human thought to apprehend the truth of spiritual being, all men will be found "kings and priests unto God," made priests "not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life."
We are told that the "endless life," or life eternal, is a knowledge of God and of His Son, and in the world to-day it is being seen that as one by one men grow into a knowledge of the true God, they instinctively give out this good in a better relation to their neighbors, sharing their peace, their wisdom, their freedom with those who will share with them. While this unfolding of universal priesthood even in its beginnings has changed the attitude of the churches toward their pastors, there has grown up with it a mental habit which is as yet scarcely recognized as evil. Although with growing enlightenment of thought men are rejecting creeds and dogmas as not declaring the knowledge of God and of His Son which is life eternal, they have not yet found this knowledge or truth elsewhere, and in this intermediate stage there has grown up a habit of thinking either that there is no fixed truth or that the "truth is what we think about things." Hence the custom of listening to sermons, not to hear the truth, but to see if we believe what is said.
