I have seen a very trenchant article from an American pen on the power of the moneyed members of a church to dictate the tone of the pulpit; and it is a common accusation against ministers, that they flatter the prevailing classes in their congregations. If their congregations are wealthy, they are afraid, it is said, to speak up for the poor, even when justice is calling out on their side; and, if their congregations are poor, they take the side of the working-man, right or wrong. I should question whether temptations so gross as these are much felt. Far more dangerous are the subtler temptations--to truckle to the spirit of the age, to keep at all hazards on the side of the cultivated and clever, and to shun those truths the utterance of which might expose the teacher to the charge of being antiquated and bigoted. Let a preacher dwell always on the sunny side of the truth and conceal the shadows, let him enlarge continually on what is simple and human in Christianity and pass lightly over what is mysterious and Divine: let him, for example, dwell on the human side of Christ but say nothing of His deity, let him enforce Christ's example but say nothing of His atonement, let him extol the better elements of human nature but say nothing of its depravity, let him preach frequently on the glories of the next world but never mention its terrors: and very probably he may be popular and see his Church crowded; but he will be a false prophet.[40] Who were these false prophets, and how did there come to be such numbers of them? These are questions which an attentive reader of the Bible cannot help asking; but it is not by any means easy to answer them. The prophets whose names have come down to us are not by any means numerous; but, besides them, there must have been many other true prophets. There were times when the spirit of religion was breathing through the community, and then men were not wanting who felt called to be its organs. The spirit of inspiration might fall on anyone at any time; no prescribed training was necessary to make a man a prophet. It might come, as it did to Amos, on the husbandman in his fields or the shepherd among his flock. It might alight on the young noble amidst the opening pleasures of life, as it did on Isaiah and Zephaniah; or it might come, as it did on Jeremiah and Ezekiel, on the young priest preparing for his sacred functions.