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Show Plain Talk by Fearless Preachers m Pulpit Might Have Averted Great War By REV. T. F. DORNBLASSER of Chicago The warring nations of the world stand in gTeat need of prophets at this time. They have had priests and preachers by the thousands, but few prophets like Elijah and John the Baptist. They have had an abundance abun-dance of expert ministrants at the altar, but few fearless preachers in tho pulpit. ilow many preachers in Europe have dared to rebuke their sovereigns sover-eigns to their faces? How many chaplains have dared to rebuke their superior officers in the army and navy ? The ministry of the state churches has been practically muzzled. The men in the pulpits who should have warned the ruling classes against greed and unholy ambitions confined themselves largely, for the sake of peace and their bread and butter, to the established ritual. If Europe had been manned by prophets instead of priests and ritualists, rit-ualists, this calamity might have been averted. Prophets are not cowed by the threats and chains of rulers. They are not subservient to their -wealthy parishioners, who pay them handsome salaries. The high-salaried preacher who boasts of it and looks patronizingly upon his brethren of low degree usually wears a muzzle over his mouth. He knows that pew rents come in much more cheerfully when he prophesies smooth things to the people, and especially from his rich parishioners. The popular pulpiteers of today are the clerics who dress to suit the ladies, who talk to please their pew holders, and who disport sufficiently to win the favor of the pleasure-loving crowd. I am speaking of the high-salaried, fashionable pulpits, which hy their commanding position should be watch towers of national safety, hut for lack of courago and conviction con-viction on the part of their occupants they are echoes of public sentiment ti)r3 high priests of popular amusement. |