32 EEV. F. D. HUNTINSTON B 



son in this case, and not so many disinterested critics j-^* 

 most, if not all, of whom are in the habit of taking a part 

 in the active aifairs of life, who themselves saw much of 

 what is related, and who do not believe that it can injure 

 the morals of community to place before it a concise account 

 of what was seen by thousands, and in which so many were 

 prominent actors ? I cannot agree to the assumption that 

 the Press is not quite as likely to prove as good, as con- 

 scientious, and as useful a guardian of public morality, as 

 the Pulpit. 



Upon the day that Mr. Huntington delivered this criti- 

 cism it is strange that he should have chosen such subjects 

 upon which to employ his well-known and powerful talents. 

 The present age abounds with really grea.t themes, — themes 

 to which great minds instinctively recur whenever they 

 undertake to instruct the less gifted, and the discussion of 

 which is especially adapted to express^ occasions of public 

 worship and humiliation. 



I might point the reverend gentleman to the great, the 

 all-absorbing question of Slavery, the solution of which is 

 supposed to involve that of our future national life. There 

 is the kindred subject of the Nebraska abomination, which 

 threatens to convulse the Union, from New York to San 

 Francisco. The Temperance question, too, about which so 

 many legislatures are at this hour concerning themselves 

 with so deep an interest, might well have claimed an hour's 

 consideration. Tne War topic, — the great political move- 

 ments now so intimately connected with Religious Freedom, 

 — the philosophy or the errors of the " spiritual phenom- 

 ena," which has over three millions of believers in its truth 



