The Relations Of Clergymen To Women

Kecent events have given rise to a resh discubsion of the relations of lergymen to women, some of which have een wise and gome widely otherwise. It s supposed by many that the pastor is a man peculiarly subjected to temtations ;o unchaste " conversation" with the female membera of his flock. It is unoubtedly and delightfully true that a opular preacher is the object of genuine iffection and admiration to the women who sit under his ministry. A true woman respecta brains and a commanding masculine nature ; but if there is any one ,hing which she naturally chooses to lide from her pastor it is her own temta,ion8 - jf 8he has any - to illicit gratificaions. She naturally desires to appear well to hini upon his own grouud of 3hristian purity. To exposé herself to lis contempt or condenination would be 'orbidden by all her pretensions, profesions, and natual instincts. A bad woman might undertake to atone for, or to cover up, her outside peccadillos by the nost friendly and considérate treatment of her pastor, but she would not naturaly take him for her victim. It is precisey with this man that sho wishes to apear at her best. Any man with the ilightest knowledge of human nature can see that her selfish as well as her Chrisian interestB are against any exhibitions of immodest and unchaste desires in the jresence of her spirital teacher. There are only two classes of women with whom a minister is liable to have what, in the languarge of the world, would be called " dangerous intiinacies." The flrst consists of discontented wives - discontented through any cause connected with their husbands or theniselves. A wouian finds herself married to a brute She suffers long in silence ; her heart is Droken or weary, and she wants counsel, and is dying for sympathy. She tells her story to the one man who is - to her - iuide, teacher, inspirer, and friend. He givea her the best counsel ot wnicn ne is capable, comforts her if he can, sympathizes with her, treats her with kindness and consideration. That a woman ahould, in many instances, look upon such a man as little leas than a god, and come to regard him as almost her only solace amid the daily accumulating trials of her life, is as natural as it is water to run down hill. That she ehould respect him more than she oan respect a brutal husband-that halfan hour of his society should be worth more to her heart and her self-re8pect than the miserable years of her bondage to a cruel master - is also entirely natural. He oannot help it, no can he flnd temptation in it, unless he chooses to do so. Women, under these circunistances, do not go to their pastor eitherto tempt or to be tempted. There is another class of women who aro thrown, or who throw themselves into what may be called an intímate as sociation with the clergy. It is a cías that have nothing else to do so pleas ant as to be petting some nice man, t whose presence and society circumstance give them admission. They are a ver harmless set - gushing maiden ladies aged and discreet widows with nic houses, sentimental married woraen, wh with no brains to lend, are fond of bor rowing them for the ornameutation of a possible social occasions. A popular min ister receives a great deal of worship f rom this class, at whioh, wlien it is not to irksome, we hare no doubt he quietly laugbs. The good old female parishioner who declared that her pastor's oup of tea would be " none too good if it were all molasses," was a fair type of these ' timental creatures, to whom every I ter possessing the grace of courtesy is fair game. To suppose that a pastor, j ciently putty-headed to be pleased with this sort ofworship, or gufnciently inanly to be bored by it, is in a field of temptation to unchastity, is simply absurd. One is too feminine for such temptation, and the other altogether too masculino. When these two classes are set aside, what have we lett 'r1 Virtuous and contented mothers of virtuous daughters - daughters whom be baptizes in their infancy, trains in his Sunday school, marries when they are married, and buries with sympathetic tears when they die. In such families as these his presence is a benédiction ; and to Buppose that he is tempted here, is to suppose him a brute and to deny the facts of human nature. We verily believe there is no class in the community so Httle tempted as the clergy, and there certainly is no class surrounded on every side with such dissuasives from unohaste conduct. To a clergyinan, influence and a good name are inestimable treasures. To stand before confiding auidences, Bunday after Sunday, and preach that which he knows condemns himself in the eyes of a single member of his ttock, must be a crucifiíion from whose tortures the bravest man would shrink. There are bad men in the pulpit without doubt. There is now and then a woiuan who would not shrink from an intrigue with such, but women do not choose ministers for lovers, nor do ministers, as a class, flnd themselves subjected to great temptations by them. If ministers are tempted by the circumstances of their office, they may be sure that they are moved by their own lust and entioed, and that their office may very profitably spare their services. As a class, the Christian ministers of the country are the purest men we have. We believe they average better than the Apostles did at the first. Jesus, in his Httle company of twelve, found one that was a devil. The world has improved until, we believe, there is not more than one devil in a hundred. In any scandal connected with the name of a clergyman and a female member of his flock, the ptobabilities are all and always in favor of his innocence. The man of the world who keeps his mistress, the sensualist who does not believe in the purity of any man, the great community of scamps and scalawag8, are always ready to believe anything reneoting upon a clergyman's chastity. It only remains for clergymen themselves to be careful to avoid the appearance of evil. Nothing can be more sure and terrible than their punishment when guility of proetituting their office, and nothing is so valunble to them as an unsullied name. To preserve this, no painstaking can be too fatiguing, no selfdenial too expensive, no weeding out of all untoward associations too exacting. -