A Humbug

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A Humbug.

The so-called Reverend J. L. Hatch is a patent humbug.¹ For the sake of notoriety, he threw himself into the van of the Sunday car movement, after the energy of others had ensured its triumph; and now he comes out with a long letter to Dr. Bellows,² endorsing that gentleman's opinions about the stage. Mr. Hatch, like every other man, has a right to differ from the universal sentiment of the religious world on any or every question of social interest; but he is practising a deceit on the public when he announces his views as the sentiments of "a Brooklyn clergyman." The Brooklyn clergy, of all people in the world, repudiate him and his views (as his former congregation has done) and refuse to consider or treat him as one of themselves. It so happens that our own ideas in a great measure accord with those of Mr. Hatch on several points; but we do not therefore the less condemn his duplicity in stealing the livery of the church to serve the stage in. He is not a clergyman, either in fact or in sentiment; and his assumption of that character is calculated rather to retard than advance the movements which are favored with his unnecessary advocacy.

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