jt^:^4jcgiia^ 
 
a ^: 
 
 kTi 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/forworkofministrOOpattrich 
 
FOR THE WORK OF THE 
 MINISTRY 
 
Other Works by Doctor Pattison 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 i2mo, 281 pages. Price, $1.25 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE SERMON 
 
 i2mo, 402 pages. Price, J1.50 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP 
 
 i2mo, 271 pages. Price, $1.50 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
 
 i2ino, 272 pages. Price, $1.00 net. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 i2mo, 56 pages. Paper. Price, 10 cents 
 
 THE MAKING OF WILLIAM CAREY 
 
 i6ino, 40 pages. Leatherette. Price, 10 cents 
 
 THE SOUTH WIND AND OTHER SERMONS 
 
 i2mo, 288 pages. Price, $1.25 net, postpaid, #1.35 
 
 THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN PREACHING 
 
 i2mo, 425 pages, illustrated. Price, $1.75 net. 
 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
 
Oi^T^nV^OOii 
 
 (/c,y^t<^<:jy^ 
 
» jjjt J I > i j Si 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE 
 
 MINISTRY 
 
 For the Classroom, the Study 
 and the Street 
 
 By 
 
 T. Harwood Pattison 
 
 Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theologj- in the 
 Rochester Theological Seminary 
 
 Author of 
 
 " Tb« History of the English Bible," " The Making of the 
 
 Sermon," "Public Worship," "The Ministry 
 
 of the Sunday-school," etc. 
 
 Elaborated by his son 
 
 Harold Pattison 
 
 Minister of the First Baptist Church, Hartford, Conn. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Bmctlcan JSaptiat publication Society 
 

 Copyright 1907 by the 
 American Baptist Publication Society 
 
 Published February, 1907 
 
 jfrom tbe Sodet^'0 own press 
 
XTO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF MY GREAT FRIEND 
 
 vn'S ifatbcr 
 
 THE LABOR GIVEN TO THE PREPARATION 
 OF THIS VOLUME IS, AT THE WISH OF 
 
 rmy nnotber 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 HAROLD PATTISON. 1907 
 
 468306 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It was the intention of my father to have written 
 this volume on pastoral theology during the vaca- 
 tion of 1904. He had made a rough draft of the 
 table of contents, and it was thus no difficult matter 
 to select from his lectures the material he had in- 
 tended to use in the preparation of this work. These 
 lectures were in the form of notes, and it has been 
 my task to write from these notes the book that is 
 now given to the public. The analysis of each 
 topic treated is, in almost every instance, that of 
 my father's lecture; I have used also the many 
 references, the result of my father's later reading, 
 which were found jotted on the covers of the lec- 
 tures, but not incorporated in them. In addition 
 to the material found in the lectures themselves, I 
 have not hesitated to include all pertinent material 
 which has collected in my own note-books during a 
 ten years' pastorate. In this way the effort has 
 been made to bring the volume entirely up to date, 
 although I have never allowed myself to express 
 views that were not in accord with what I knew to 
 be my father's opinions. In several instances chap- 
 ters were found already written in full by my father, 
 while the concluding chapter was of necessity 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll PREFACE 
 
 written entirely by myself. These chapters are 
 indicated by foot-notes. 
 
 I have chosen to retain much of the atmosphere 
 and style of the lecture-room, in the belief that this 
 will be most gratifying to my father's old pupils, 
 and that they will thus see again the room made 
 precious by so many associations, and hear again 
 the voice of one who was always our friend as well 
 as our teacher. The letters of affectionate remem- 
 brance of my beloved father which have been re- 
 ceived from former students, who are now in all 
 parts of the world, have had no little influence in 
 this decision. Many of us can see him now as he 
 used to pause for some question in the midst of a 
 lecture, and send back the answer that caused a 
 ripple of laughter. That bright, sunny nature of 
 his has helped many of us in after years to answer 
 the questions that have puzzled us in our pastorates 
 as well as in the seminary days. It is hoped that 
 this suggestion of the lecture-room will not be 
 found to detract from the interest of the book as it is 
 read by those who have never known my father as 
 a teacher. The numeral divisions used in the chap- 
 ters are identical with those used in my father's 
 other books, and the summary before each chapter 
 is retained for the same reason. 
 
 While the book is written with the work of the 
 ministry in churches of congregational polity es- 
 pecially in view, still its suggestions and principles 
 are generally of far wider application. It is hoped' 
 also that the membership as well as the ministry of 
 
PREFACE X IX 
 
 all churches that bear the common name of the one 
 Master may here find something of interest and 
 profit. 
 
 Of course pastoral theology cannot be taught, 
 but we can catch the helpful spirit of the teacher, 
 and gather practical suggestions and principles that 
 each of us only really learns in the school of actual 
 experience. Nothing more than this is here at- 
 tempted, for my father fully realized that each must 
 work out his own problem for himself. 
 
 This book has been written in the woods of 
 northern Maine ; and as the work has gone on I 
 have often paused to gaze away across the wilder- 
 ness of wood and water, and have remembered how 
 well my father loved it too. He has often seemed 
 wondrously near as I have tried to do the work 
 which he would have done so much better. 
 
 This volume concludes the series of books which 
 it was the wish of my father's later life to finish. 
 I write the last page with the prayer that notwith- 
 standing all its imperfections, something may have 
 been done that shall not mar my father's own work, 
 and something that will be found helpful, if only 
 here and there, to those who with myself are en- 
 gaged in " the work of the ministry." Never has 
 that work seemed more glorious than now. 
 
 As this book is sent forth I wish to express my 
 sincere appreciation of the kindly criticisms of Prof. 
 Walter Rauschenbusch, d. d., of the Rochester 
 Theological Seminary, who was my father's friend, 
 and is my own ; my gratitude to the Rev. B. N. 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 Timbie, of Kirkwood, Mo., who has copied with 
 painstaking care many of the references which were 
 found in my father's notes ; and to my brother, Prof. 
 Sidney F. Pattison, of Colorado College, whose 
 suggestions have been of great value. 
 
 I know that the discriminating reader will attrib- 
 ute all the faults of this book to myself, all its ex- 
 cellencies to my father. May its perusal be to all in 
 some measure as pleasant and as profitable a task 
 as its writing has been to me. 
 
 Harold Pattison. 
 
 Hartford, Conn., December i, 1906. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBR PAGE 
 
 I. Health i 
 
 II. Ministerial Manliness 23 
 
 III. The Call and the Office 43 
 
 IV. Settlement and Ordination 6i 
 
 V. The Minister at Work 89 
 
 VI. Hours of Devotion 115 
 
 VII. Church Architecture 139 
 
 VIII. The Minister and the Officers of His 
 
 Church 159 
 
 IX. The Minister and the Church Meeting . 179 
 
 X. Church Finance. 199 
 
 XL Christian Beneficence. 223 
 
 XII. Revivals: Lessons from History 251 
 
 XIII. Revivals: Essentials in a Revival .... 277 
 
 XIV. Revivals: After a Revival 305 
 
 xi 
 
Xn CONTENTS 
 
 GHAPTBR f PAGE 
 
 XV. The Minister and Evangelization ... 325 
 
 XVI. The Sunday-school and Young People . 347 
 
 XVII. Pastoral Intercourse: Advantages and 
 
 Characteristics 375 
 
 XVIII. Pastoral Intercourse (continued): How 
 
 Best Promoted 395 
 
 XIX. The Minister as Leader 417 
 
 XX. The Minister in His Social Relations . 441 
 
 XXI. The Minister as Counselor 479 
 
 XXII. The Minister as Citizen 503 
 
 XXIII. Is THE Ministry Worth While? .... 531 
 
HEALTH 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. The Minister should Cultivate Good Health for 
 THE Glory of God. 
 
 1. The Jewish law. 
 
 2. Bible characters. 
 
 3. The Christian philosophy of the body. 
 
 4. History. 
 
 n. The Minister should Cultivate Good Health for 
 THE Successful Prosecution of His Work. 
 
 1. In preaching. 
 
 2. In pastoral work. 
 
 3. In study. 
 
 III. Counsels for Promoting Health. 
 The minister's employment demands health, yet he is not 
 famed for it. 
 
 1. Hours and habits ut woiic. 
 
 2. Rest. 
 
 3. Exercise. 
 
 4. Diet. 
 
 5. The voice. 
 
 6. Do not talk about your health. 
 
r 
 
 HEALTH 
 
 Contrary to a once popular conception that as- 
 sociated ill-health and piety too closely together, 
 health is a prime requisite to ministerial success. 
 
 I. The first and highest reason why good health 
 should be cultivated by the minister, is the Glory of 
 God. 
 
 I. Consider the Jewish law as to priests. Thus 
 the Lord spake unto Moses, " Speak unto Aaron 
 saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their gen- 
 erations, that hath any blemish, let him not approach 
 to offer the bread of his God." ^ As South so finely 
 says, " Solomon built his temple with the tallest 
 cedars; and surely when God refused the defective 
 and the maimed for sacrifice, we cannot think he re- 
 quires them for the priesthood." The Jews are be- 
 lieved to be still the healthiest people in the world. 
 In the fourteenth century, when the black plague 
 was raging in Europe, there was such a notable 
 scarcity of deaths among the members of the Jewish 
 race that they were actually accused of poisoning 
 the wells and rivers to destroy the Christians. So 
 not only as regards their priesthood, but also as 
 regards the whole nation, strict adherence to the 
 
 ^Lev. 21 : 16-24. 
 
4 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Levitical laws has ever made the Jew superior in 
 health to the average man of other nations. 
 
 2. Again we note the part that health bears in 
 ministerial success, when we remember that the 
 characters in Scriptures that have done most for 
 God's glory have been men of sound bodies. Moses 
 climbing the cliffs of Sinai, Samuel battling with 
 Agag, Elijah journeying in the wilderness, these 
 and many other heroes of the Old Testament per- 
 formed feats that required no mean physique. We 
 can recall hardly a prophet, priest, or king, who was 
 not a man of physical strength and sturdy health. 
 
 Nor in the New Testament do we find men less 
 stalwart. Those must have been robust men whom 
 Christ chose for his twelve apostles. The founda- 
 tions of the church needed men of physical force 
 to lay them. " He chose fishermen, among other 
 reasons," said T. De Witt Talmage, " because they 
 were hardy. Rowing makes strong arms and stout 
 chests. . . A Galilee tempest wrestled men into 
 gymnasts." Nor are we to think of the Apostle 
 Paul as an exception to this rule; of slight stature 
 he may have been, but it is not always the largest 
 man who has the most enduring force. Notwith- 
 standing the assertion of his enemies, we do not 
 believe that the man whose ministry was so largely 
 made up of journeyings, perils of waters, perils of 
 robbers, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, 
 perils in the sea, weariness and painfulness, watch- 
 ings, hunger and thirst and fastings, cold and 
 nakedness, abundant labors, repeated imprisonments. 
 
 I 
 
HEALTH 5 
 
 with eight public scourgings, a stoning and a ship- 
 wreck to his credit/ could through the years of his 
 incessant ministry have borne the care of all the 
 churches without a strong body to aid him. 
 
 3. There is also a Christian philosophy of the 
 body which we must not forget. " Your bodies are 
 the members of Christ." ^ The doctrine of Pascal — 
 an invalid during most of his life — that disease is 
 the natural state of the Christian, is taught neither 
 by word nor example in the New Testament. Be 
 thankful therefore, if you have splendid animal 
 spirits. While much may have been done for the 
 glory of God by men here and there without them, 
 such is not the uniform rule. We read in the life 
 of the poet Longfellow : " How much depends 
 upon animal spirits in intellectual efforts! Some- 
 times one dashes on in gallant style and lan- 
 guage flows in rhythmic numbers, at other times 
 one has hardly words enough to furnish forth a 
 tolerable prose sentence." ^ It was John, the be- 
 loved disciple, with whom we naturally connect the 
 things of the spirit rather than the things of the 
 body, who could write, " I wish above all things 
 that thou mayest prosper and be in health even as 
 thy soul prospereth." * 
 
 4. " For health is the first wealth," is a senti- 
 ment of Emerson with which the teachings of his- 
 tory are in full accord. Beecher, himself a noble 
 illustration of his own words, says in one of his 
 
 1 I Cor. II : 23-28. ' I Cor. 6 : 15, 19, 20. 
 
 ' I., p. 350. * III., John 2. 
 
O FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 lectures : " Who are the men that move the crowd — 
 men after the pattern of Whitefield, what are they? 
 They are almost always men of very large physical 
 development, men of very strong digestive powers, 
 and whose lungs have great aerating capacity. They 
 are men of great vitality and recuperative force. 
 . . They are catapults, men go down before 
 them." ^ Among a few of these "catapults " let us 
 recall John Knox, Luther, Latimer, and Andrew 
 Fuller; and to come to times more recent, Joseph 
 Parker, Cairns, Newman Hall, and Moody, whose 
 robust frame and powerful nerves aided him so 
 greatly in his influence with men, and helped to 
 make him, in the opinion of his friend, Professor 
 Drummond, " the greatest human I have ever 
 known." There is reason then in the old rhyme 
 which has it : 
 
 . . . intellect, whose use 
 
 Depends so much upon the gastric juice. 
 
 John Angell James, in an address to the students 
 of Spring-hill College, thus declared the three quali- 
 fications for the making of useful preachers : " First, 
 brains, to take in and receive all the Latin, Greek, 
 and logic your professors can give ; second, bowels, 
 for intellectual power without pathos and tenderness 
 in preaching will not succeed; third, bellows — get 
 out of doors in the summer months and give free 
 play to your lungs in the open air." If it could 
 be said that " to the iron health of the Duke of 
 
 1 1., viii. 
 
HEALTH 7 
 
 Wellington we owe the victories of England from 
 Assaye to Waterloo," as much could also be said 
 of the victories won by Christian ministers that 
 have told for good and the glory of God. History, 
 the Christian philosophy of the body, the vigor of 
 Bible characters, and the Jewish law as to the 
 priesthood — all alike declare the high place God has 
 given to health, in effectiveness and usefulness in 
 his service. 
 
 11. But further, the minister should cultivate 
 Good Health for the Successful Prosecution of his 
 Work. 
 
 1. The strain of a religious service upon the 
 physical system is very great; upon the nervous 
 system it is still more severe. Hard work seldom 
 kills ; it is overtax of the sensibilities that does the 
 mischief. An eminent physician once asked and 
 answered the question, " Whoever heard of a pro- 
 fessor of mathematics dying of overwork? The 
 differential calculus never caused a worse evil than 
 a headache." ^ Few of our hearers realize the 
 amount of nervous force demanded in the conduct 
 of a minister's duties. Robust and radiant health 
 affects the oratorical powers of the speaker and 
 thus becomes an element in the pastor's influence. 
 The feeble, complaining preacher dishonors his pro- 
 fession. In the work of the ministry holiness means 
 wholeness. 
 
 2. No less is this true in the minister's work from 
 " house to house " than in the pulpit. There is the 
 
 1 Austin Phelps, " My Note Book," p. 92. 
 
8 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 necessity in pastoral visitation for putting forth con- 
 tinuous and trying exertion and yet preserving a 
 mind itself cheerful, hopeful, and adequate to all 
 calls upon it. Sympathy is the virtue which must 
 go out from every successful minister if the people 
 with whom he comes in touch are to be healed. A 
 pastor without sympathy will be a pastor without 
 that deep and abiding influence which the church 
 that he serves rightly demands. Sympathy draws 
 deep draughts from the springs of physical strength, 
 and must be natural, not forced, to do its appointed 
 work. Oliver Wendell Holmes hints that he might 
 have chosen to be a minister, if in his youth he had 
 met more of the sound-bodied, sane-minded, cheer- 
 ful-spirited divines of his later days, and fewer of 
 the " wailing poitrinaires with the bandanna hand- 
 kerchiefs round their meager throats and a funeral 
 service in their forlorn physiognomies." ^ One 
 clergyman, he tells us, visiting at his father's house, 
 so often congratulated him " in a sad and wailing 
 voice " on his blessings as a Christian child that he 
 wished he had been born an infant Hottentot. Of 
 all men, the minister has most need to be hopeful 
 and cheerful, for on him alone many a sad life will 
 depend for its brightness, and many a weary heart 
 for its blessedness. Jonathan Edwards, called to 
 the presidency of Princeton College, refers, by way 
 of objection, to his physical ailment, " often occa- 
 sioning," he writes, " a kind of childish weakness 
 and contemptibleness of speech, presence, and de- 
 
 1 Article in "Quarterly Review," Jan., 1895. P- i95. 
 
 i 
 
HEALTH 9 
 
 meaiior, with a disagreeable dulness and stiffness 
 much unfitting me for conversation; but more es- 
 pecially for the government of a college." On the 
 other hand, the power of health and cheerfulness is 
 illustrated by Professor Bruce, who declares in an 
 address delivered in Free St. Enochs, Glasgow, that 
 for success in a city charge, the battle is half won 
 if the minister is possessed of a cheerful spirit and 
 a hopeful temper. The Christian minister must be 
 cheerful. " I don't believe in going about like cer- 
 tain monks I saw in Rome," said Spurgeon, *' who 
 salute each other in sepulchral tones, and convey 
 the pleasant information, ' Brother, we must die/ 
 to which lively salutation each lively brother of the 
 order replies, ' Yes, brother, we must die.' I was 
 glad to be assured upon such good authority that 
 all these lazy fellows are about to die; but until 
 that event occurs they might use some more 
 comfortable form of salutation." 
 
 3. In his study also the minister will realize the 
 blessings of good health. While the dangers of a 
 sedentary life are many, and the faithful minister 
 must spend a large portion of his time at his desk, 
 yet they are not such as to be insurmountable. In- 
 deed, in the list of healthful occupations, the Chris- 
 tian ministry stands at the head. Insurance sta- 
 tistics of both England and America place ministers 
 at one end of the mortality table and liquor dealers 
 at the other. Missionaries compare favorably also 
 with those who remain at home, and the history of 
 Christian missions contains the names of many 
 
10 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 whose terms of useful service have been lengthened 
 far into the twilight of life. 
 
 III. Before we pass on to give some counsels for 
 promoting health, Several Preliminary Remarks are 
 in Order. On the whole the nature of the min- 
 ister's work would seem to be likely to promote 
 health. His task is to help and to heal. While his 
 work draws on his physical resources, its very na- 
 ture should react upon him for good. Every min- 
 ister of long experience will, we think, bear witness 
 to the truth of the words of Leonardo da Vinci, 
 " I am never weary when I am useful." The knowl- 
 edge that one is doing good in the world should 
 promote cheerfulness, and cheerfulness in turn in- 
 fluences health. Bacon might have been writing an 
 essay on pastoral theology when he laid down the 
 following precept : " To be free-minded and cheer- 
 fully disposed at hours of meat and of sleep and of 
 exercise, is one of the best precepts of long last- 
 ing." ^ And boyish-hearted Robert Southey tells 
 us no little of the secret of his own life and influ- 
 ence when he writes : " A healthy body, an active 
 mind, and a cheerful heart are the three best boons 
 nature can bestow ; and God be praised, no man ever 
 enjoyed them more perfectly." 
 
 More careful consideration of the subject, how- 
 ever, may lead us to modify somewhat this opinion. 
 We have already noted that the work of the min- 
 ister is a constant tax on his whole nature, and there 
 certainly is truth in Longfellow's statement, " I 
 
 1 " Essays," xxx. 
 
HEALTH II 
 
 do not believe that any man can be perfectly well 
 who has a brain and a heart." ^ Certain it is that 
 the minister is not, in popular estimation at least, 
 a model of health. Emerson had this in mind when 
 he said, '* to be a good minister and healthy is not 
 given." 2 It is hard for any one who has read 
 Galton's work on " Hereditary Genius " to forget 
 his somewhat unkind description of the evangelical 
 divines who had come under his notice, as very 
 apt to pass their days in " a gently complaining 
 and fatigued spirit." Enough has perhaps been said 
 to show that the question of health should be care- 
 fully considered, not studiously avoided, as well by 
 the candidate for the ministry as by the settled 
 pastor. 
 
 I. The first counsel which we offer regards the 
 necessity of paying particular attention to the hours 
 and habits of work. 
 
 (i) As a rule, conform to the hours of other 
 business men: rise, eat, drink, work, and sleep as 
 they do. 
 
 (2) Do the principal part of your mental work 
 early in the day. There is no need to study in the 
 afternoon. The cause of ill health, weariness, and 
 insomnia in ministers is often to be found in vio- 
 lating this rule. During the morning hours, when 
 men are at their business, the minister should be at 
 his. Dr. R. S. Storrs is only one of many who 
 ascribe their long pastoral vigor largely to the fact 
 that they do all their studying in the day-time. 
 
 i"Life," I., 417. 2 "Life," i,, 144. 
 
12 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 However fixed the habit of doing work at night may 
 have become, and though we may seem then to do it 
 more easily, if we would preserve our health, we 
 should abandon the practice. " Never work at 
 night," said Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the 
 revival of learning, " it dulls the brain and hurts 
 the health." ^ Spurgeon was often in his study at 
 half-past four in the morning, and while for most 
 of us such early rising may not be necessary, yet a 
 fixed hour in the morning sufificiently early to give 
 us ample time for our work is advisable. The best 
 work of the world has been done before the clock 
 struck noon, as Goethe, Scott, and Longfellow, who 
 with many other such masters were early morning 
 workers, by their example attest. 
 
 (3) Do not sit too long at your work. Writing 
 at a standing desk has many advantages, although 
 this practice is more common in England than 
 America. Dean Farrar stood to write, and Cardinal 
 Manning also — " the high desk where Manning 
 stood, not sat to write." The Rev. S. Baring-Gould 
 writes at a high desk, as does also Dr. Alexander 
 Whyte, the Edinburgh minister, the amount and 
 quality of whose composition are a marvel to his 
 fellows. 
 
 (4) Never write when you are tired. Recognize 
 the extent and limitations of your powers. Hus- 
 band your vitality for the chief thing which has to 
 be done. This is a grace at times exceedingly diffi- 
 cult to practise, yet it is one main secret of con- 
 
 1 Froude's " Erasmus," p. 65. 
 
HEALTH 13 
 
 tinuance. At all costs the minister should give 
 himself some recreation the moment he begins to 
 feel fatigued. To work when we are tired is to 
 turn out *' tired " work. 
 
 2. And this brings us to the second counsel: Do 
 not neglect to rest. 
 
 (i) Sleep more hours than the mechanic, who 
 uses his brain less than the minister. A hard and 
 fast law cannot be laid down as to how long we 
 should sleep ; but physicians seem to be fairly unani- 
 mous in declaring that the hours devoted to sleep 
 should not be less than eight. " Nature's soft 
 nurse " certainly demands at least seven hours in 
 which to do her complete work for most men. 
 Beecher's rule it is well to remember : " Whoever 
 and wherever and however situated a man is, he 
 must watch three things : sleeping, digestion, and 
 laughing." It may hardly be needful here to ad- 
 vise that all artificial methods of inducing sleep 
 should be avoided. A healthy man sleeps without 
 effort. The Duke of Wellington and Napoleon 
 could sleep on horseback, and to the faculty of fall- 
 ing asleep at will Gladstone attributed much of the 
 health of his long life. He declared that he had 
 been kept awake only twice after a great speech, 
 and then because he was haunted with a feeling 
 that he had made some misquotation. Gladstone 
 enjoying the profoundest sleep after the rejection of 
 his Home Rule Bill is an example that many a min- 
 ister on a Sunday night would do well to follow. 
 Would that we all with Sir Robert Walpole could 
 
14 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 say, " I put off my cares when I put off my 
 clothes." 1 
 
 (2) For the minister Sunday must be a day of 
 work; but he must take at least one whole day in 
 the week for entire change, or if this be impossible, 
 then two half days. Not to do so is to miss the 
 purpose for which the fourth commandment was 
 given. Monday is probably the day taken by most 
 ministers for this purpose; but some find them- 
 selves on that day too tired to enjoy rest, when 
 gentle work may be better. Tuesday is excellent 
 for this purpose, and Saturday afternoon the min- 
 ister should always be quite free. The Sunday 
 sermons become a different thing to the minister, 
 and we may add to his congregation as well, when 
 he has formed the habit of taking long walks on 
 Saturday afternoons. Oxygen for the body as well 
 as grace for the soul Spurgeon has reminded us 
 " would sweep the cobwebs out of the brains of 
 scores of our toiling ministers who are now but 
 half alive." 
 
 (3) An annual holiday of at least four weeks 
 should be secured by every minister. This should 
 be arranged for at his settlement, and the sensible 
 church insists that its pastor shall take such a rest. 
 No minister can do twelve months' work in twelve 
 months, though he can in eleven. As a rule, preach- 
 ing in vacation-time is to be avoided. It is fair 
 neither to his people nor to the minister himself 
 that he should use his holiday for purposes other 
 
 1 Motley's " Life of Walpole," p. 109. 
 
HEALTH 15 
 
 than that for which it is given. The church should 
 see that the minister's place is supplied through a 
 pulpit committee, and if he would enjoy to the ut- 
 most his vacation, let the minister use his influence 
 to get the best possible supplies. In vacations the 
 minister should really rest, and should spend his 
 time in the woods or by the sea in such an entire 
 change of surroundings that he shall forget in a 
 measure that he ever was a minister. His Sundays 
 so far as possible should be spent away from any 
 church. To the minister alone would we give the 
 advice that in these few brief Sabbaths he find his 
 cathedral among the pines and listen to the voice 
 of God speaking in the running brook The min- 
 ister who thus takes what is sometimes called a 
 " long vacation " will not be exempt from criticism. 
 He will hear quoted, without doubt, the example 
 of the Prince of this world who " never takes a 
 vacation." Our advice is that he pay no attention 
 to such critics, but stolidly pursue the even tenor 
 of his way determined in this, as in all other 
 respects, to be as unlike Satan as possible. 
 
 (4) Too much emphasis cannot be placed on the 
 caution that the minister let himself down as gently 
 as possible after preaching. On Sunday evening 
 there should be no violent exertion, no discussion, 
 no plans made for the next Sunday All care 
 should then be cast aside, and the words of Bishop 
 Hall heeded, " that the student lives miserably who 
 lies down like a camel under a full burden." Let 
 us not forget the example of our Master himself, 
 
l6 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 who in his wisdom and compassion said to his dis- 
 ciples, " Let us go into the desert and rest awhile." 
 The work of the world must be done ; but there are 
 times when it must not be done by us. Time of 
 resting is not time of wasting. That minister only 
 can keep his buoyancy and his power for doing the 
 highest good who takes time to gather fresh 
 strength. As the fields must lie fallow if they are 
 to bear a worthy harvest, so the minister must 
 place the duty of resting second only to the duty 
 of working. 
 
 3. A proper amount of exercise must be taken if 
 the minister would keep himself in proper trim for 
 work. " Every other abstinence," said Lord Pal- 
 merston, " will not make up for abstinence from 
 exercise." If a good gymnasium is not available, 
 then the pulley-machine in the study, or Indian 
 clubs and dumb-bells, will form a substitute. Bet- 
 ter, however, the bicycle; and best of all for most 
 of us, the long walk with some congenial com- 
 panion. However exercise be taken, we counsel that 
 it had better not be in conjunction with pastoral 
 calls, for the mind should be free from care. Per- 
 haps it is not too much to say that an hour's real 
 exercise in the open air is worth two indoors. To 
 read the " Journal " of John Wesley is to discover 
 that this was one of the means by which, as he said, 
 " at seventy-three years old, I am far abler to 
 preach than I was at three and twenty " ^ Those 
 who have climbed the long hill of the Wartburg 
 
HEALTH 17 
 
 have realized at least in part the truth of Martin 
 Luther's statement, " the best exercise and pastime 
 are music and gymnastics, the former dispelling 
 mental care and melancholy thought, the latter pro- 
 ducing elasticity of body and preserving health." 
 The importance of the morning bath many of us 
 recognize, but few have carried it to the verge of 
 the pulpit like Joseph Parker, who was accustomed, 
 after his two-mile walk to the City Temple in Lon- 
 don, to take a bath there and after he was vigor- 
 ously rubbed down by a servant, thus enter imme- 
 diately upon the service in a glow of physical 
 exhilaration.^ 
 
 In the consideration of the exercise which "is 
 profitable for a little," ^ we include change of oc- 
 cupation, which, broadly considered, is truly a part 
 of exercise. Such recreation is to the mind what 
 whetting is to the scythe. It is the " fairy kiss " 
 which Ernest Renan laments was unknown to Mar- 
 cus Aurelius. But of the profit to be gained from' 
 varying our reading, our work, our exercise, we 
 shall have more to say when we come to a future 
 chapter on " The Minister at Work." 
 
 4. We counsel further that especial attention be 
 paid to diet. It is significant that when Cardinal 
 Wolsey built the College of Christ Church at Ox- 
 ford, his first care was the kitchen.^ A touch of 
 dyspepsia alone is needed to convince the doubter 
 of the truth of the words of Cobbett that " the seat 
 
 ^ Adamson's "Life of Parker," p. 215. 
 
 2 I Tim. 4 : 8 (R. V.). a Lowell's " Prose Works," VL, 168. 
 
 B 
 
l8 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 of civilization is the stomach." The minister's wife, 
 if not the minister himself, will recognize the im- 
 portance of the recommendation now given, that 
 hours for meals should be regularly observed. 
 
 In times of revival or special work it is the cus- 
 tom of many ministers to take food after preaching. 
 Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler has made it the practice of 
 a lifetime to take a bowl of hot bread and milk 
 after speaking at night. If this is our habit, we 
 should not hesitate when away from home to make 
 known our wants; in fact hosts who are accus- 
 tomed to entertain visiting ministers have grown 
 used to such requests. The minister cannot be too 
 particular at all times in maintaining the simple laws 
 of health. Worry and indigestion are largely dif- 
 ferent sides of the same thing, either being at times 
 the cause of the other. 
 
 To the two new commandments which R. W. Dale 
 said he wished to add to the ten, "eat enough, sleep 
 enough," we would dare to add a third, " chew 
 enough." The Japanese proverb is to be noted 
 and inwardly digested which declares that " a man 
 digs his grave with his teeth." This connection be- 
 tween the body and the spirit was once illustrated 
 by an old Scottish preacher, who upon hearing a 
 dull minister said with no intentional irreverence, 
 " The Spirit would not be in any place, if a man ate 
 two pounds of beefsteak at breakfast before preach- 
 ing." Even to the average minister, on the average 
 salary, we commend the importance of a simple 
 diet. There was much wisdom as well as wit in 
 
HEALTH 19 
 
 the words Sidney Smith wrote to his friend Arthur 
 Kinglake, Esq. : " I am convinced, . . that 
 character, talents, virtues, and quahties are power- 
 fully affected by beef, mutton, pie-crust, and rich 
 soups. I have often thought I could feed or starve 
 men into many virtues and vices, and affect them 
 more powerfully with my instruments of cookery 
 than Timotheus could do formerly with his lyre." 
 " Plain living and high thinking " go together, as 
 well in the minister's manse as in the philosopher's 
 cell. 
 
 5. A counsel of especial importance to the min- 
 ister concerns the care to be taken of the voice. Do 
 not wrap up the throat or neck more than is nec- 
 essary, and if the laws of health are properly ob- 
 served the use of troches and all artificial aids to 
 the voice will be unnecessary. Food should be 
 sparsely taken before preaching; and care should 
 be taken while speaking to avoid screaming, which 
 does harm alike to the preacher's throat and the 
 hearer's patience. After speaking, the voice should 
 be rested. It is well to avoid speaking at all for 
 a few minutes after leaving the pulpit. On coming 
 into the open air, breathe through the nostrils, and 
 the value of deep breathing then as at all times 
 should be remembered. With refreshing candor, Mr. 
 Moody once said, when he caught a cold from sitting 
 in a draught, that " the draught and the cold were 
 neither a visitation of Providence nor an affliction of 
 the evil one, but simply due to rank carelessness." 
 
 The preacher will do well also to follow the ex- 
 
"20 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 ample of public singers in not letting the voice lie 
 idle too long. Use is a stimulant that the vocal 
 chords demand. 
 
 6. The last counsel, and one which sums up all 
 that has been said regarding the minister's care of 
 himself, is so to live that we have no need to talk 
 about our health. When anybody asks you how you 
 are, always say you are very well — for nobody cares. 
 Robert J. Burdette says to theological students, " Di- 
 vest yourself of the thought that you have lungs, 
 or throat, or liver. Don't dilate on your ailments 
 until the people will think that you have graduated 
 at a hospital." The same thing is thus said by 
 Epictetus in his "Student's Manual" : " If you drink 
 water, don't take every opportunity of saying * I 
 drink water.' " ^ The minister, perhaps not more 
 than other men, should follow the example of Su- 
 sanna Arnold, sister to Arnold of Rugby, who 
 through a martyrdom of twenty years of pain, " ad- 
 hered to her early formed resolution of never talk- 
 ing about herself." ^ No better way can be found 
 of producing ill health than constantly to note its 
 symptoms. 
 
 Thus have I spent my health, an odious trick, 
 In making known how oft I have been sick. 
 
 In conclusion, health is wealth, especially in tlie 
 ministry. As we come to the end of this chapter 
 " Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : 
 
 1 Hatch, "Hibbert Lectures," i888, p. 149. 
 
 2 J. A, Kern, " The Ministry to the Congregation," p. 4. 
 
HEALTH 21 
 
 Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is 
 the whole duty of man." ^ And no law of God 
 needs more to be observed than that which pertains 
 to the " temple of the Holy Ghost." The best way 
 to banish the " blue Monday " from a minister's 
 week, and to postpone the " dead line " in a min- 
 ister's life, is by a proper observance of such coun- 
 sels as these, which are as old as the proverbs 
 of Solomon. 
 
 Let us not always say, 
 " Spite of this flesh to-day 
 
 I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole." 
 As the bird wings and sings 
 Let us cry, "All good things 
 
 Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps 
 soul."^ 
 1 Eccl. 12 : 13. * Browning's " Rabbi ben Ezra." 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Introduction. What is Manliness? What is Ministerial 
 Manliness ? 
 
 I. How Ministerial Manliness is Endangered. 
 
 1. By the popular conception of the minister. 
 
 2. By the general treatment of the minister, (i) In 
 
 years of preparatory study. (2) In his active 
 ministry. 
 
 3. By the work in which he is engaged. 
 
 4. By the congregation to which he ministers. 
 
 II. How Ministerial Manliness can be Preserved and 
 
 Strengthened. 
 
 1. By imitating Christ. 
 
 2. By getting and keeping a true conception of the 
 
 minister's vocation. 
 
 3. By studying examples of ministerial manliness. 
 
 4. By cultivating manly characteristics, (i) Self-denial. 
 
 (2) Courage. (3) Energy. (4) SimpHcity. (5) 
 Humility. 
 
II 
 
 MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 
 
 There are three sources of the quality with which 
 this chapter is to deal. Manhness is the product of 
 constitution — inherited traits and dispositions; of 
 circumstances — environment which is to be con- 
 quered and used; and of choice, the result of our 
 own volition. It is with this third source that we 
 are now chiefly concerned. 
 
 Manliness literally means possessing the attri- 
 butes of a man. What then are these attributes? 
 The answer has differed in different ages and lands. 
 The Christian ideal is what interests us This may 
 be found in the earthly life of Jesus. The author of 
 " Tom Brown's School Days " has well pictured the 
 traits of the perfect man in his little volume, " The 
 Manliness of Jesus.* These attributes are especially 
 prominent in the teaching of Jesus as given in the 
 Sermon on the Mount ; in the lives of the first dis- 
 ciples as portrayed for us in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles; and in the letters of these same apostles as 
 they exhorted their fellow-Christians.^ So faith- 
 fully have these attributes been pondered and fol- 
 lowed that the Christian idea of true manliness is 
 to-day read most widely in that " living epistle " of 
 
 1 Thomas Hughes. 2 phj]. 4 : 8; 2 Peter i ; 5-8. 
 
 25 
 
26 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 which Professor Drummond spoke when, on return- 
 ing from his journey round the world, he said to his 
 students, " Gentlemen, since I was among you last, 
 I have traveled round the world. Do you ask me 
 what in all my travels was the greatest and grand- 
 est thing I saw ? I will tell you — it was a Christian 
 man." 
 
 What is ministerial manliness ? It is manliness in 
 the work of the ministry. It is fleeing, and follow- 
 ing, those things of which St. Paul wrote to Tim- 
 othy, the young Christian minister, that he might 
 " fight the good fight of faith." ^ 
 
 This quality of manliness should run through all 
 our nature: through our moral nature, saving us 
 from the petty insolence of office, and from slavish 
 fear of others ; through our intellectual nature, de- 
 livering us from undue subservience either to tra- 
 dition or to current opinion; through our social 
 nature, making us superior to fashion and class 
 distinction; through our physical nature, teaching 
 us self-denial, bravery, and endurance. 
 
 I. How is this Quality of Ministerial Manliness 
 Endangered? The ministry has its full share of 
 men who have never done what was expected of 
 them — unfulfilled prophecies. No vocation ought 
 to be a more manly one than that of the Christian 
 ministry, and yet in the pursuit of his duties, the 
 minister will encounter tendencies which, unless 
 counteracted, will tend to make unmanly both 
 himself and his calling. 
 
 1 I Tim. 6 : 11-14. 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 2^ 
 
 I. Ministerial manliness is endangered by the 
 popular conception of the minister. By many he 
 is considered to be, in some mysterious way, unlike 
 other men in his nature. A great gulf is believed 
 to lie between the clerical mind and that of the 
 ordinary man. There is enough truth in Voltaire's 
 famous division of the human race into three 
 classes — men, women, and priests — to make it ex- 
 ceedingly difficult for us to forget his words. Only 
 too true was it in the experience of Voltaire him- 
 self, who saw in the priest either the hypocrite or 
 the fanatic. This gulf will be largely bridged if the 
 quality of manliness is discernible. And yet it is 
 possible for the man to obscure the minister, which 
 is a calamity only comparable to the minister ob- 
 scuring the man. An old Scottish parishioner sum- 
 ming up the three successive ministries in a certain 
 parish said : " Our first minister was a man, but 
 not a minister; our second was a minister, but he 
 was not a man; and the one we have at present is 
 neither a man nor a minister." In fiction the cari- 
 cature of the " minister who is not a man " is very 
 common, as for instance the Parson Adams of Field- 
 ing, the Vicar of Wakefield of Goldsmith, the Dom- 
 inie Sampson of Scott, the Chadband and Stiggins 
 of Dickens, Mr. Honeyman of Thackeray, and 
 Amos Barton of George Eliot. As we read over the 
 list of such worthies we understand something of 
 the popular conception to which the caricature bears 
 witness, and recall the words of Cowper, who with 
 pen dipped in something besides ink wrote: 
 
28 Fon THE Work of the ministry 
 
 Oh, why are farmers made so coarse, 
 
 Or clergy made so fine? 
 A kick that scarce might move a horse 
 
 Might kill the sound divine. 
 
 We are all too apt to become largely what people 
 believe us to be, and in this popular conception 
 which still lingers in the minds of many, we 
 recognize a distinct menace to ministerial manliness. 
 
 2. By its general treatment of the minister, the 
 Christian community would seem to be in league 
 with popular conception to destroy his manliness. 
 
 (i) Even in his years of preparatory study the 
 process of undermining a minister's independence 
 is often begun. We recognize that there is much 
 room for divergence of opinion on the question of 
 the propriety of aiding young men for the ministry 
 by such educational funds as are so common among 
 us. The good or evil which such aid does depends 
 largely on individual temperament. What is one 
 man's meat may become another man's poison. 
 And yet we believe that the experience of so manly 
 a man as Phillips Brooks should not be lightly 
 passed by. He writes : " I am convinced that the 
 ministry can never have its true dignity or power 
 till it is cut aloof from mendicancy — till young 
 men whose hearts are set on preaching, make their 
 way to the pulpit by the same energy and through 
 the same difficulties which meet countless young 
 men on the way to business and the bar." ^ 
 
 (2) In his active ministry the minister's manli- 
 
 1 " Lectures on Preaching," p. 36. 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 20 
 
 ness is also in danger, because he is often separated 
 from his fellow-men, even by dress and appearance. 
 We like to remember in this connection the words 
 which that prince of ministers, A. J. Gordon, wrote 
 while in the seminary : " A white tie has nothing 
 more to do with a minister than a sore toe." Though 
 the decline of clerical authority may be an un- 
 doubted fact, yet enough of it often remains to make 
 the minister decidedly uncomfortable when he is 
 asked to tea at the home of some admiring 
 parishioner. 
 
 We feel that there is need to speak here 
 of the salary which the minister earns, and 
 which is too often treated as if it were a gift, in- 
 stead of an honest payment. The minister is not 
 a " hired man," and yet he is entitled to a proper 
 remuneration for hard work done. Above all things, 
 the minister must hold fast to his personal inde- 
 pendence. Emerson with the blood of generations 
 of ministers flowing in his veins, wrote in all se- 
 riousness, '' The clergy are always in danger of 
 becoming wards and pensioners of the so-called 
 producing classes." Self-respect means more than 
 salary. The minister should resolve to live by his 
 ministry. We believe, as a general rule, it is wise 
 for him to leave a church that cannot support him. 
 Either it is not worth maintaining, or he is not. 
 At all events the begging friar should have no 
 modern representative in our ranks. This needs to 
 be insisted upon because the ministry is not univer- 
 sally regarded as on the same plane with other yo- 
 
30 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 cations. The minister should not have money given 
 him: he is worthy of his hire, and with other 
 laborers has equal rights. Donation parties, purses, 
 testimonials, are as a rule to be avoided. Let him 
 preserve his independence even if it means no more 
 half-fare tickets on the railroad and no further use 
 of the " ten per cent, discount to the clergy." We 
 need to beware of the swift moral deterioration 
 which comes to the minister when he consents to 
 be treated in any way as an object of charity. 
 
 3. The minister's manliness is further threatened 
 by the work in which he is engaged. This work 
 deals much with the sympathies, and so may be- 
 come too emotional. Virtues easily become vices. 
 Great care is needed in the use of any special 
 gift, without which our ministry would be fruitless, 
 but the possession of which in too great abundance 
 has caused many a bright and promising ministry 
 to end in weakness and contempt. A flood, as well 
 as a drought, destroys the harvest. 
 
 The very monotony which characterizes his work 
 at times threatens the minister's personality. All 
 work tends to become mechanical, and we must face 
 the truth expressed by Bishop Temple, that " of all 
 work which produces results nine-tenths must be 
 drudgery." Much of the minister's success will 
 depend upon his fidelity to details. In the faithful 
 performance of duties, trifles in themselves, people 
 will discover that we are doing our best, and faith- 
 fulness is one of the watchwords for success in the 
 Christian ministry. Nothing else can take its place. 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 3I 
 
 " My imagination," said Charles Dickens, " would 
 never have served me as it has, but for the habit of 
 commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudg- 
 ing attention." Nothing is a trifle that pertains 
 to a human life. A sense of the value of one's 
 fellows, even the humblest, as immortal beings com- 
 mitted to our care, will teach the minister to esti- 
 mate aright the power of such graces as courtesy, 
 consideration, patience, and forbearance. It was in 
 the conversation with the Samaritan woman that our 
 Lord found ** meat to eat " of which his disciples 
 knew nothing. 
 
 The minister's work removes him from the or- 
 dinary walks of life. His preparation for the pulpit 
 is pursued in solitude, his pastoral work too often 
 falls among the women rather than the men of his 
 congregation. His habits of thought also are very 
 much with the unseen and the eternal, and this is 
 apt to lead, unless care is taken, to that " other 
 worldliness " which Coleridge declares to be as 
 hateful and selfish as worldliness. Certain it is 
 that the man who would heal men must touch them, 
 not with his finger tips, but with all the powers of 
 a robust manhood. 
 
 4. The very congregation to which he ministers 
 may become a source of danger to the manliness of 
 the minister. The scriptural order is not, as popu- 
 larly supposed, " like priest, like people " but " like 
 people, like priest." ^ Phillips Brooks speaks of 
 " the whole unmanly way of treating ministers." 
 
 1 Hosea 4 : 9. 
 
32 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 We cannot do better than quote what he says 
 on this subject : " I wish that it were pos- 
 sible for me to speak to the laity of our 
 churches frankly and freely about their treatment 
 of the clergy. The clergy are largely what the laity 
 make them. It is not good that the minister should 
 be worshiped and made an oracle. It is still worse 
 that he should be flattered and made a pet." ^ And 
 Spurgeon, after referring to Rome's choicest marble, 
 the great Apollo, declares in a message to min- 
 isters, " If it be your trying lot to be the Apollo 
 . . . put an end to the nonsense. If I were the 
 Apollo, I should like to step right off the pedestal 
 and shake hands all round, and you had better do 
 the same; for sooner or later the fuss they make 
 about you will come to an end, and the wisest course 
 is to end it yourself." Brooks and Spurgeon, so 
 different in many things, were alike in their 
 manliness, and their words are golden. 
 
 An emphatic caution should be here uttered 
 against encouraging the congregation, or any mem- 
 ber of it, to treat us as if we were willing to be 
 pampered or petted. Guard against the vanity 
 which courts a compliment or is fed by it. And in 
 the ministry it is unfortunately true that " no mat- 
 ter how mean a preacher a man may be, there are 
 some people who will think him the best preacher 
 in the world." ^ 
 
 To sum up then the dangers which beset min- 
 
 1 " Lectures on Preaching," p. 66. 
 
 2 A. T. Robertson, " Life and Letters of John A. Broadus," p. 154. 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 33 
 
 isterial manliness, we find them in the popular con- 
 ception of the ministry, in the general treatment 
 of the minister himself in years of preparatory 
 study as well as in his active ministry, in the very 
 work in which he is engaged, and in the congrega- 
 tion to which he ministers. These dangers relate 
 not so much to physical frailty and mental inca- 
 pacity as to spiritual and moral weakness, and here 
 the causes for ministerial failure are most frequently 
 found/ 
 
 II. How can Ministerial Manliness be Preserved 
 and Strengthened? 
 
 I. First, by imitating Christ. We recommend a 
 careful study of the temptation of Christ in the 
 wilderness. Appreciate his humanity. His sym- 
 pathy with his fellow-man was genuine, natural, 
 and spontaneous: He felt for and with them be- 
 cause to so great an extent he felt like them. And 
 from such a study there will come, through the 
 varied experiences of life, a personal faith that, with 
 St. Paul, the minister can appreciate what it is 
 to do all things through Christ who strengthens 
 him. Christ in him is character, and the apprehen- 
 sion of such a faith has meant to many a minister 
 the turning-point in his career. Chalmers regarded 
 his ministry as barren until this experience came to 
 
 1 Note. In this chapter, and incidentally elsewhere, reference is 
 made to the danger to ministerial manliness in the tendency of the 
 minister's parishioners to surround him with a halo, or to coddle 
 him overmuch. While such dangers still linger among us, like 
 some of the semi-extinct animals of the Western plains, it need 
 hardly be remarked they were much more in evidence in former 
 generations than in our own. H. P. 
 
 c 
 
34 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 him, and A. J. Gordon received added power and 
 usefulness only after ten years of work in the 
 ministry. 
 
 2. The minister should get and keep constantly 
 in view a true conception of the minister's 
 vocation. Two opposing conceptions here present 
 themselves. First, the priestly, which is set forth 
 in the " ordering of priests " in the Episcopal 
 prayer-book; and second, the congregational, con- 
 cerning which words of counsel are now in order.^ 
 
 The Christian minister must be on his guard to 
 distinguish between the work and the office. We 
 may well take to heart the words of Petrarch, 
 " Where you are is of no moment ; but only what 
 you are doing there. It is not the place that en- 
 nobles you, but you the place." The man makes 
 the office, not the office the man. In the mere title 
 of minister there is little of which to be necessarily 
 proud. The ministry has been disgraced and dis- 
 honored by unworthy men, and it has failed to enlist 
 as large a proportion of the Christian manhood 
 of the age as it ought. Only as work and power are 
 behind his own ministry, has the Christian minister 
 a right to feel proud of the name he bears. The 
 day has passed in which a mere title commands re- 
 spect with intelligent people. A minister must now 
 expect to be judged by everyday standards, and it 
 is best that it should be so. Every worthy man 
 will rejoice that he is judged for himself alone 
 rather than for the office which he holds. No 
 
 1 A. H. Strong, " Theology," p. 504- 
 
 I 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 35 
 
 longer the superior of other men in wit and wisdom, 
 as in the days of the Puritans, the Christian min- 
 ister must nevertheless be superior to other men 
 in other ways before he can hope to lift them. Dr. 
 Landells, of Edinburgh, writes with a plainness that 
 cannot, and should not, be misunderstood : ^ " The 
 main cause of ministerial failure seems to be the 
 insufficient quantity of being in the men. To speak 
 plainly preachers fail because they are not great 
 men. The quality is all that could be wished in many 
 instances ; but there is not a sufficient quantity. . . 
 Great forces are required to move large bodies. 
 And the men who are to lead and move others 
 must be superior in that direction at least to those 
 on whom they exercise a controlling influence." 
 The natives of Burma when they saw a Christian 
 were in the habit of saying, " This is Jesus Christ's 
 man." Just so will all men be drawn unto him as 
 they behold him lifted up and exhibited in our lives. 
 
 It may here occur to some one to ask why so 
 many great movements have been inaugurated by 
 laymen and not by ministers. The answer is, we 
 fear, that ministers have been too " ministerial," too 
 timid, and not manly enough. Great movements in 
 the direction of moral reformation, temperance, so- 
 cial purity, anti-slavery, even revivals of religion, 
 are far too often recorded on the pages of history 
 unheralded and unchampioned by the ministry of 
 the day in which their battles were fought and won. 
 
 3. We recommend the study of special examples 
 
 1 " Christ the Center," p. 38. 
 
36 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 of ministerial manliness. Such books as the follow- 
 ing will be found useful, and should not only be 
 possessed by every minister, but should possess him : 
 " Arnold's Life and Correspondence," " The Life of 
 F. D. Maurice," " The Life and Letters of F. W. 
 Robertson," " The Life of Norman Macleod," " The 
 Life and Letters of Charles Kingsley," " The Life 
 and Letters of Horace Bushnell," " The Personal 
 Life of David Livingstone," " Henry Ward Beech- 
 er's Life" (Scoville & Beecher), "The Life of 
 Henry Dmmmond." A few pages from any one of 
 such books as these, and we catch the spirit of min- 
 isterial manliness which our people will recognize 
 in sermon or pastoral ministration. 
 
 4. Manly ministers are made as well as born, and 
 in the cultivating of manly characteristics the 
 Christian minister should be unceasingly active. 
 
 (i) Among these characteristics the first place 
 is, of course, to be given to self-denial. This virtue 
 preeminently marked Christ himself and was given 
 by him as the first condition of Christian disciple- 
 ship : " If any man will come after me let him take 
 up his cross and follow me." ^ Especially must the 
 Christian minister beware of subtle forms of self- 
 ishness : the undue care of health, the slavish bond- 
 age to habit, the temptation to make mere trifles 
 matters of prime importance. The true man is 
 scarcely conscious of himself. The very fact that 
 the minister is apt to be treated as other men are 
 not should put him on his guard. Self-denial will 
 
 1 Matt. 16 : 24. 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 37 
 
 extend even to the preacher's thought and style. 
 There is an excess in habits of thought and mode 
 of expression as much to be avoided as excess in 
 manner of Hfe. " Let your forbearance be known 
 unto all men." 
 
 (2) Courage is well worthy of the place next to 
 self-denial in the enumeration of manly character- 
 istics. This is a virtue which naturally associates 
 itself with manhood, and is nowhere more in place 
 than in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Spurgeon, 
 who himself knew how to be brave, could write 
 these brave words : " The gospel takes a high tone 
 before the rulers of the earth, and they who preach 
 it should, like Knox or Melville, magnify their of- 
 fice by bold rebukes and manly utterances even in 
 the royal presence. A clerical sycophant is only 
 fit to be a scullion in the devil's kitchen " ^ It could 
 have taken no particular courage for the Puritan 
 ministers to speak their minds, for it was written 
 in the statute, "If any one interrupt or oppose a 
 preacher in the season of worship, they shall be re- 
 proved by the magistrate, and on repetition shall pay 
 five pounds or stand two hours on a block four feet 
 high, with this inscription in capitals, * A 
 WANTON GOSPELLER.'" But it did require 
 courage for Charles Kingsley to appear in his par- 
 son's coat before the Chartist mob at a time when 
 the word parson was thought synonymous with the 
 word coward. " A parson ! " cried the mob. " Yes, 
 a parson," replied Kingsley, " and a Chartist." By 
 
 1 " Treasury of David," I., 20. 
 
38 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 these words was the old proverb proved true, " One 
 shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand 
 to flight." The voice of Dean Stanley was not 
 strong and on many occasions he could scarcely 
 make himself heard in the enormous nave of the 
 Abbey Church; but when the theme was one that 
 only a brave man would choose, he is thus described 
 by Mr. James Bryce : " His tiny body seemed to 
 swell, his chest vibrated as he launched forth flow- 
 ing words. . . It was to him a matter of honor 
 and conscience to defend his principles, and to de- 
 fend them all the more zealously because he stood 
 alone on their behalf in a hostile assembly. His 
 courage was equal to the occasion, and his faculties 
 responded to the call his courage made." 
 
 We cannot leave this attribute, so necessary to 
 the Christian ministry, without recalling the picture 
 of F. W. Robertson as he faced an audience of men 
 who had come to oppose him in his contention that 
 no infidel books should be introduced into the public 
 Hbrary of Brighton. Fully master of himself, with 
 clear, slow utterance he gave his reasons for sum- 
 moning such a meeting. Now a man would start up 
 to interrupt him; now a hiss would be heard; but 
 calm and undaunted he proceeded. A kind of elec- 
 tric excitement seemed to communicate itself from 
 man to man, which at the same time awed and sub- 
 dued and made ashamed the crowd. At last he 
 said : " You have heard of a place called ' coward's 
 castle.* Coward's castle is that pulpit or platform 
 from which a man surrounded by his friends, in the 
 
MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 39 
 
 absence of his opponents, secure of applause and 
 safe from a reply, denounces those who differ from 
 him." From that moment that one slight man was 
 conqueror of the crowd and master of the situation. 
 
 The reference to coward's castle reminds us that 
 true courage is never " a lion in the pulpit and a 
 lamb in the parlor." In the course of the ordinary 
 round of pastoral duty, it will sometimes be nec- 
 essary to speak face to face in quietness on grave 
 subjects with souls that are in moral peril. And it 
 is at such times the minister will ask most earnestly 
 for that courage which he must have or sell his 
 birthright. In a lecture on " Agitation," by 
 Wendell Phillips, we note the following senti- 
 ment, the force of which we recognize, though with 
 its conclusion we have little sympathy. After re- 
 ferring to those persons in a congregation ready to 
 take offense at any word which relates to their 
 earthly pursuits or interest spoken in a tone of criti- 
 cism or abuse, Mr. Phillips says : " As the minister's 
 settlement and salary depend upon the unity and 
 good-will of the people he preaches to he cannot 
 fairly be expected, save in exceptional and special 
 cases, to antagonize his flock. If all clergymen 
 were like Paul or Luther or Wesley^ they might 
 g^ive, not take, orders ; but as the average clergyman 
 is an average man he will be bound by average 
 conditions." 
 
 (3) Closely akin to courage is energy. It is Car- 
 lyle who says, " The longer I live the more I am 
 certain the great difference between men, between 
 
40 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 the feeble and the powerful, the great and the in- 
 significant, is energy, invincible determination — a 
 purpose once fixed and then death or victory." 
 When Cicero said that action was the first, 
 second, and third secret of eloquence, this was what 
 he meant. In all the manifold duties of the Chris- 
 tian pastor, as well as in speech, there is need for 
 evidence of that " abundant life " which no one 
 should possess in greater fulness than the minister 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 (4) In character simplicity, not complexity, is the 
 sign of greatness. Truly understood, simplicity 
 is entirely consistent with culture and refine- 
 ment; nay, it is itself an evidence of the highest 
 culture and the truest refinement. It has always 
 characterized the truly great man, whether states- 
 man, soldier, author, or above all, minister. It is 
 the simplicity perhaps in the lives of such men as 
 Francis of Assisi, Latimer, and Wesley that is re- 
 membered longest after we close the volume in 
 which their story is told. Simplicity is a source of 
 personal power, and a great force in example, of 
 which the minister who possesses it may be largely 
 unconscious. " Nothing is more wanted," writes 
 Dr. Hort to one of his correspondents " for the 
 regeneration of England than a vast increase of 
 manliness, courage, and simplicity in English 
 clergymen." And we believe that in the simple, 
 unpretentious lives of many of our own ministers 
 we have a regenerating force often too little 
 estimated at its proper worth. 
 
\ 
 
 MINISTERIAL MANLINESS 4I 
 
 (5) Can we close this list of manly characteristics 
 better than by referring to that virtue which has 
 the power to strengthen and beautify all the rest — 
 humility? We write it last because humility comes 
 to most men from increasing knowledge and ex- 
 perience. The longer life lasts, the more can we 
 understand the meaning of La Place who, being 
 complimented near his end on the splendor of his 
 achievements said : " What we know is very little, 
 what we do not know is immense." And Macaulay, 
 that master of English, at the summit of his fame 
 writes in his diary in depreciation of his style, and 
 adds, " But I hope to improve." Humility is most 
 seemly in the ministry of Him who said, "I am meek 
 and lowly in spirit; learn of me." In that spirit 
 of growing respect for his work and his people, 
 which humility ever brings to the true minister with 
 the lengthening years, one recognizes in what he 
 has yet to learn the insignificance of that to which 
 he has already attained. Over his shoulders humility 
 will cast the garb of reverence, and it is in this spirit 
 that we as ministers are to live and do our work. 
 
 Catching the light of Christ we shall be, in in- 
 creasing measure, what he meant us to be, and amid 
 all the glories and the shadows of our life, by every 
 sermon that we write, by every pastoral visit that 
 we make, by our general conversation and bear- 
 ing, by our conduct in administering the aflfairs of 
 the church which we serve, we shall discover as 
 Christian ministers how manly a thing it is to be a 
 Christian. 
 
i 
 
THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. The Call to the Ministry. 
 
 1. How the call comes, (i) Sometimes suddenly and 
 
 unexpectedly. (2) But more often gradually. 
 
 2. How this call can be recognized as genuine, (i) By 
 
 the work of the Holy Spirit. (2) By the providential 
 leading of God. (3) By rigid self-examination. (4) 
 By the judgment of Christian friends. (5) By 
 previous success in Christian work. 
 n. The Ministerial Office. The True Conception 
 Gathered : 
 
 1. From the example of Christ. 
 
 2. From the injunctions of Christ. 
 
 3. From the words of the apostles. 
 
 4. From Scripture terms for the pastoral office. 
 
 5. From the teachings of history and experience. 
 
 6. From popular titles for the minister. 
 
 I 
 
Ill 
 
 THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 
 
 Two subjects have to be discussed in this chapter. 
 The first of these is the call to the Christian min- 
 istry. The second is the scope and character of the 
 ministry itself. The first is introductory to the 
 second. 
 
 I. In considering what we are to understand by 
 a call to the ministry we need to make two Prelim- 
 inary Observations. At the very outset, let us in- 
 sist that the term " call " is to be retained in prefer- 
 ence to any other because it is the most scriptural. 
 Differing in the way in which it comes, adapting 
 itself to the conditions and circumstances of every 
 age, a call to the service of God is always a call 
 from him. " He who wishes to be apt to teach," 
 says Erasmus, " must first be taught of God." 
 Brought before the committee of Privy Council 
 in Edinburgh, in 1682, and asked if he would give a 
 bond to preach no more in conventicles, stout- 
 hearted Henry Erskine answered, " I have received 
 my commission from Christ, and though I were 
 within an hour of my death, I durst not lay it down 
 at the foot of any mortal man." In his pithy way 
 John Newton gave expression to the same convic- 
 tion, " None but He who made the world can make 
 
 45 
 
46 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 a minister of the gospel." The victim of a weak 
 will and of a nature which had yielded all too read- 
 ily to temptation, poor Hartley Coleridge could yet 
 say, " Every man who enters the ministry without 
 a call becomes a worse man than he would have 
 been had he remained a layman. Thank God, I 
 have not that sin to answer for." To James Russell 
 Lowell, a son of the manse, it was clear that " no 
 man ought to be a minister who has not a special 
 calling." Face to face with his congregation in 
 Manchester, after a long and memorable ministry, 
 Alexander McLaren said, " The one thing that war- 
 rants such a relationship as subsists between you 
 and me is this, my consciousness that I have a 
 message from God, and your belief that you hear 
 such from my lips. Unless that be our bond, the 
 sooner these walls crumble and this voice ceases 
 and these pews are emptied, the better." Natural 
 gifts, and the culture which comes with training, 
 the minister may have ; but back of all, and beyond 
 all comparison, the one thing needful for him to be 
 assured of is that he has been called of God and 
 " separated unto the gospel." ^ 
 
 Another preliminary observation is that the term 
 " call," better than any other, describes the first step 
 in the Christian ministry. Although no voice comes 
 to us such as spoke to Moses from the burning bush, 
 or aroused the child Samuel in the temple, or ar- 
 rested Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus, yet 
 as truly as theirs, our ministry must be a vocation. 
 
 I Rom. I : I. 
 
 I 
 
THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 47 
 
 It must be a calling rather than a profession. From 
 the days when the old Hebrew prophets heaped 
 scorn on the man who sold himself to the priest- 
 hood for a piece of bread until now a hireling min- 
 istry has been the curse of the church of God. And 
 he who consents to look upon his vocation as a min- 
 ister of Jesus Christ as merely a profession is, per- 
 haps unconsciously to himself, taking this low view 
 of his work and office. Frederick Denison Maurice, 
 with his lofty conception of the Christian pastor, 
 lamented that so many clergymen to whom he spoke 
 attached little force to the word " calling," and 
 thought only of themselves as having " entered a 
 profession." Even seminary students sometimes re- 
 fer to the salaries churches pay. Against this con- 
 ception of our work we are bound to protest. The 
 true man enters the ministry not for the sake of 
 what he can get out of it, but for the sake of what 
 it can get out of him. It may be well for us that 
 to-day, as much as when he uttered it, Matthew 
 Henry's happy epigram holds true : " The ministry 
 is the best calling but the worst trade in the world." 
 
 I. Turning now to a closer consideration of the 
 call to the Christian ministry, we inquire first. How 
 it comes. 
 
 (i) Without any doubt it may still come, as it 
 came in earliest times, with some unquestionable 
 sign. Sudden and unexpected though it was, its 
 reality remains in the heart of him who listens and 
 obeys, as the ruling power of his life and ministry. 
 With Paul we can say: 
 
48 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Whoso has felt the spirit of the Highest, 
 Cannot confound, nor doubt him, nor deny. 
 
 Now, as always, there are cases in which the call 
 to the ministry is as clear and decisive as to ^ Simon 
 and Andrew when Jesus summoned them from their 
 nets on the sea of Galilee to be fishers of men, or 
 when the voice which spoke to - Saul of Tarsus left 
 him in no doubt as to the reality of his commission 
 to preach Christ among the heathen. There are de- 
 cisive hours for some of us, as for Francis of 
 Assisi, in which a man " finds the germ of a new 
 vocation bursting forth in him, and seized with a 
 passion imperious as the very voice of God, he takes 
 upon his conscience the engagement to pursue the 
 work which is henceforth to be the end of his life." ^ 
 
 (2) But far more often this call comes gradually, 
 with the silence of the dawn rather than with the 
 splendor of the meteor. Naturally this may impart 
 to the question an element of doubt, and yet is this 
 not the more probable experience in a Chris- 
 tian land and to one surrounded by Christian influ- 
 ences? The best ministers, in many instances, are 
 made in the home. The hand that rocks the cradle 
 also guides into this loftiest of all vocations. With- 
 out any question the call to preach comes to many a 
 young man with his conversion. Was not Paul 
 called to be a saint and an apostle at the same time ? * 
 A noble young missionary, who gave his life for 
 
 * Mark i : 16-20. 2 Qal. i : 11-17. 
 
 8 Faugere. See Patrick Fairbaim's " Pastoral Theology," p. 62. 
 
 *Rom. I : I. 
 
THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 49 
 
 Africa, testified that *' he delayed being a Christian 
 because he thought it would bind him to the min- 
 istry while he had other plans." ^ And undoubtedly 
 the persuasion that if he surrenders himself to God, 
 this might mean in his case the sacrifice of his as- 
 pirations and ambitions, and the surrender of his 
 life to the ministry of Jesus Christ, holds back many 
 a young man from decision. 
 
 2. We pass on now to consider how this call, as 
 it comes to any one in the ordinary experience of 
 Christian life in our churches, can be recognized as 
 genuine. 
 
 ( 1 ) Evidently it is so when it is plainly the work 
 of the Holy Spirit. While the believers at Antioch 
 were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy 
 Spirit said, *' Separate me Barnabas and Saul for 
 the work whereunto I have called them." ^ When 
 we are nearest to the throne, we, like the angels 
 that do his pleasure, shall learn most readily what 
 the will of God is. 
 
 (2) At times the call to the ministry will be made 
 plain by the providential leading of God. A disap- 
 pointment in his desire to be a soldier decided F. W. 
 Robertson that it was the will of God that he should 
 rather be a minister. But we need to be watchful 
 over ourselves in this matter. Because a man has 
 failed elsewhere is -no reason why he should con- 
 clude that he will succeed in the ministry. It is 
 well that the world should lose whom the church 
 gains. The minister who makes his mark in his 
 
 *A. C. Good, PH. D. 2 Acts 13 : 1-4. 
 
 D 
 
50 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 chosen vocation would most likely have made his 
 mark elsewhere. 
 
 (3) Only, therefore, after rigid self-examination 
 should we conclude that we are called into the min- 
 istry. Challenge the purity of your motives. Re- 
 member that " a superficial motive swaying the 
 scepter of your life means a superficial, emasculated 
 ministry." ^ Felix Neff, the apostle of the High 
 Alps, said at his ordination, " I chose the office of a 
 preacher of the gospel because the Good Shepherd 
 of our souls has implanted in my breast from my 
 earliest years an ardent desire to declare the glad 
 tidings of salvation to a sinful world. I am con- 
 vinced I do not enter the vineyard of my Lord from 
 mere personal motives." So also in preparation 
 for his examination Matthew Henry was able to 
 declare with confidence that he took up with the 
 ministry not as a trade to live by, nor to get him- 
 self a name or to be better off in the world, and not 
 to maintain a party or keep up a schism. " If 
 only," said Professor Jowett, of Oxford, " we have 
 a passionate zeal for saving men's souls, and tell 
 them of Christ's love for them, and enter with all 
 our hearts into the home-life of our people, we may 
 be sure that we are in our right place." 
 
 (4) In so important a matter we must be influ- 
 enced by the judgment of Christian friends, and by 
 the will of the church to which we belong. This is 
 almost always to be sought. It is well when the 
 local church is on the alert to 'discover in any of its 
 
 * Boynton, " Real Preaching," 20. 
 
THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 5 1 
 
 members gifts which promise to be useful in the 
 ministry. It is even better when the minister is 
 looking out for such persons, and training by coun- 
 sel and study candidates for the Christian ministry. 
 It is best of all, when the first faint aspiration 
 toward this great work rises from the family altar. 
 The home is the earliest nursery for these trees of 
 the Lord's right-hand planting. There was a time 
 when, more than now, our colleges contained in 
 their classes young men who from childhood had 
 looked forward to this as their destination. The 
 late Senator Evarts, who was graduated from Yale 
 in 1837, said that he believed a majority of his class 
 went into the ministry. But in how many cases 
 did these young men come from Christian homes, 
 where at the family altar the honor and blessedness 
 of this work had been frequently remembered in 
 connection with the children kneeling there ? 
 
 (5) Certainly the call has in it one element of 
 promise when there has already been success in 
 Christian work. " A man's call to the ministry," 
 said Dr. Stephen Tyng, *' consists in his ability to 
 preach the gospel and the willingness of the people 
 to hear him." He need not wait for a pulpit in 
 which to discover whether he has true ability. In 
 the Sunday-school and the prayer-meeting, and the 
 various organizations of the church to which he 
 belongs he will soon find whether he is useful and 
 welcome or not. As to facility in speaking it may 
 be questioned whether mere fluency is always a sign 
 of promise. It may be the ripple of the brook 
 
 X 
 
52 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 which flows on forever without any depth or force in 
 it. On the other hand, a sincere pleasure in speak- 
 ing and a conscious power in utterance may augur 
 well for the future preacher. Asked by his min- 
 ister what he was going to do in life, Phillips 
 Brooks replied : " I cannot express myself very 
 clearly about it, but I feel as if I should like to 
 talk." 
 
 Of these tests the first is the most important. 
 To have the conviction that you are in the path of 
 God's good pleasure is essential, and it alone will 
 sustain you through the years of preparation and in 
 many a trial and disappointment in the work of the 
 ministry itself. 
 
 II. The Call is only Preparatory to the Work. 
 We are now ready to consider what is Involved in 
 the Ministerial Office. 
 
 1. Our first answer to this question must be found 
 in studying the example of Christ. To his disciples 
 he said that whosoever would be great among them 
 should find the path to greatness in becoming 
 a minister. The chiefest should be servant of all. 
 This teaching he lifted to its loftiest application 
 when he set it in the light of his own example. 
 " Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered 
 unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom 
 for many." ^ " Let this same mind be in you," says 
 Paul in reference to ministering to others, " which 
 was also in Christ Jesus." ^ 
 
 2. In harmony with the example of our Lord was 
 
 1 Matt; 20 : 25-28- ^P^il. 2 : 5-8. 
 
TPIE CALL AND THE OFFICE 53 
 
 his teaching. If we may judge by the last recorded 
 words of his on the subject — his commission to 
 Peter by the sea of GaUlee — his conception of the 
 Christian ministry was that it was '* an office of 
 shepherding." Not the priest or the preacher, but 
 the pastor was in his mind, when he bade Peter feed 
 his lambs and tend his sheep.^ How deep and last- 
 ing was the impression made on him to whom they 
 were spoken we may judge from the direction which 
 Peter gave to the elders, " Feed the flock of God 
 which is among you . . . and when the chief 
 Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of 
 glory that fadeth not away." ^ 
 
 3. The careful portrait of the good minister which 
 Paul drew in writing to Timothy shows us the apos- 
 tolic idea of the ministerial office.^ In this char- 
 acterization of the pastor we find fifteen traits enu- 
 merated. Thirteen of these have to do with his 
 moral Hfe, and of these thirteen eleven are outward 
 and visible and such as will be recognized if the 
 minister possesses them, and their absence detected 
 and commented upon should they be lacking.* 
 
 4. The terms for the ministerial office which we 
 find in the New Testament are numerous and 
 suggestive. 
 
 The minister is a Builder — i Cor. 3 : 10-15; ^^ 
 Elder — 2 John i : i ; a Father — i Cor. 4 : 14, 15; 
 a Minister — i Tim. 4 : 6; an Overseer — i Tim. 3 : 
 
 ^John 21 : 15-17. 2 I Peter s : 2-4. 
 
 ^ I Tim. 3 : 1-7. See also Acts 20 : 28-31. 
 * I Tim. 3 : 15; and 6 : 11-14; 2 Tim. 4 : 1,2, 5; Titus i : 5. 
 
54 i^^OR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 I ; a Pastor — Eph. 4 : 1 1 ; a Steward — i Cor. 4:1; 
 a Watchman — Heb. 13 : 17. 
 
 Summing up the scriptural teaching on our sub- 
 ject we may note some of the main purposes for 
 which a man is called to be a minister. 
 
 (i) He is to gather in. This Jesus gave as his 
 very first commission to the men who were after- 
 ward to be his apostles, when calling them from 
 their nets on the sea of Galilee, he said, " I will 
 make you to become fishers of men." ^ 
 
 (2) He is to feed. Here we have not the first, but 
 the final commission of Jesus to the same men and 
 by the same sea, when he bade Peter feed his sheep. 
 '* To feed the church of God." Paul, in his last 
 words to them reminded the elders of Ephesus that 
 for this the Holy Spirit had made them overseers 
 of the flock.^ " The minister," said Erasmus, " is 
 then in the very height of his dignity when from the 
 pulpit he feeds the Lord's flock with sacred doc- 
 trine." And Milton's arraignment of the unfaithful 
 pastor is summed up in the one terrible line : ** The 
 hungry sheep look up and are not fed." 
 
 (3) He is to guide, for the true pastor leads but 
 does not drive, and like the successful general will 
 not urge his soldiers to any task from which he 
 himself shrinks. The church as a whole is to be 
 molded and directed by him, but none the less 
 watchful is he to be that each member of the church 
 feels the touch of his hand and responds to the 
 inspiration of his example." " 
 
 » Mark i : 16-18. 2 Acts 20 : 28, « Heb. 13 : 7-17. 
 
THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 55 
 
 (4) "The care of all the churches," to which 
 Paul pathetically refers as the burden which comes 
 upon him daily ^ implies that the good minister must 
 not only gather in, feed, and guide, but that he must 
 also guard. So George Herbert — himself a noble 
 example of this virtue — says, '* The parson, 
 wherever he is, keeps God's watch." When Chris- 
 tian, in " Pilgrim's Progress," was led through the 
 interpreter's house, the first picture which he saw 
 was that of the true servant of God, and to this hour 
 it is the one which every minister will do well to 
 keep before him : " He had eyes lifted up to heaven, 
 the best of books in his hand, the law of truth was 
 written upon his lips, the world was behind his 
 back. He stood as if he pleaded with men; and a 
 crown of gold did hang over his head." 
 
 5. Turning now to the lessons which may be 
 learned from later history and from our own ex- 
 perience as to the true minister of Christ, we men- 
 tion two qualifications which should certainly be 
 found in him. 
 
 He should be a man of character. " Take heed 
 unto thyself," wrote Paul to Timothy, " and unto thy 
 doctrine." ^ Character before teaching. It is the 
 man behind the sermon who makes that sermon 
 weighty arid powerful. It is the minister who evi- 
 dently lives his religion, who will lead others to do 
 the same. 
 
 But in addition to character he should have that 
 adaptability and tact which will be the best proof 
 
 ^2 Cor. II : 28. 2 , Tim. 4 : 16. 
 
56 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 that he is the right man in the right place. The 
 ministry in common with other vocations has its 
 failures. To what is this failure due? In some 
 cases to an unsuitable settlement; in others to a 
 natural ineptitude for preaching; it may be to a 
 foolishness in preaching which argues lack of self- 
 control and balance ; and possibly to unsound views 
 of truth. But we are disposed to think that when 
 the minister fails it is oftener than not from a lack 
 of what we sometimes speak of as tact, or in still 
 plainer language, common sense. This is one of the 
 things which no seminary can teach, although it 
 may be acquired at the cost of hard blows and 
 mortifying defeats in the battle of life. To his 
 students of the first year, old John Brown, of Had- 
 dington, was wont to say : *' Gentlemen, ye need 
 three things to make ye good ministers; ye need 
 learning, and grace, and common sense. As for 
 the learning, I'll try to set ye in the way of it; as 
 for the grace, ye must always pray for it; but if 
 ye havena brought the common sense with ye, ye 
 may go about your business." 
 
 6. We must not omit in enumerating the things 
 which may help us to form a true conception of the 
 Christian ministry, the titles by which the minister 
 is popularly known. These will readily occur to 
 us — Dominie, Elder, Father, Minister, Parson, Rev- 
 erend. Some of these carry their meaning on the 
 surface. The dominie was the Dutch title for the 
 unworldly power in the parish, and parson is 
 only another way of pronouncing the word person, 
 
THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 57 
 
 and points to the time when the minister was the 
 educated representative of inteUigence and the au- 
 thorized center of information in the neighborhood. 
 The title ** reverend " has not passed unchallenged 
 among us. It has no scriptural authority, and 
 many ministers of eminence, C. H. Spurgeon, for 
 example, and R. W. Dale, have been at pains to 
 discard it. To one of his students who inquired of 
 him if it was right to apply the term to a Baptist 
 minister, Mr. Spurgeon replied : " It depends upon 
 who he is. If he is a very small mite of a man 
 that no one would see except with a microscope, call 
 him ' Rev.' If he is anybody that is anybody, you 
 need not." The argument against one title is the 
 argument against all, and much might be said in 
 favor of dispensing with any prefix which seems to 
 separate the minister from his fellows. The present 
 disposition everywhere would seem to be toward 
 a revolt against the pride of professionalism. The 
 white tie, which was once essential in the pulpit, 
 was, let us remember, the badge of superior educa- 
 tion. It was worn not by the minister only, but also 
 by the lawyer and physician. When the Revolution 
 separated us from the mother country, the parson 
 of the parish in England wore his gown on the 
 street, and Hogarth shows him thus arrayed in the 
 drunken revel, and Goldsmith, in the Vicar of 
 Wakefield, in the players' cart. In our reaction 
 against what is merely professional we need beware 
 of what is the opposite extreme. The minister has 
 to be an example to the flock, and that not by going 
 
58 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 down to their level, but by persistently living on 
 a high plane of conduct. It is only too easy for 
 him to become worldly and secular, to catch the 
 prevailing tone and spirit. Against this his life 
 must be a strenuous protest. 
 
 And it must be noted in conclusion that the judg- 
 ment that the world has formed of the true minister, 
 and which is embodied in our popular literature, 
 amounts in itself to an obligation to live worthy of 
 our high vocation. We recall Chaucer's portrait of 
 the good parson : 
 
 Whose eyes diffused a venerable grace, 
 And Charity itself was on his face. 
 
 and Goldsmith's loving remembrance of his own 
 father : 
 
 I More bent to raise the wretched than to rise, 
 I Still in his duty prompt at every call. 
 I He watcht and wept, he prayed and felt for all ; 
 I He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 \^llured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 
 
 It may be added that in no other country on 
 earth is the minister more respected than he is 
 among us. From the days of the Pilgrims he has 
 been a prominent figure in American history. He 
 is so still. Without going down into the arena of 
 partisan politics, he can shape the decisions of the 
 State and of the municipality. He is no more a re- 
 cluse of the study than of the cell ; but a man among 
 men. In his office are embodied many of the finest 
 
 I 
 
THE CALL AND THE OFFICE 59 
 
 elements of the genius of the republic. He holds 
 them as a sacred trust from God and his country. 
 He owes it first to his Master and then to the land 
 which has given him freer scope for his energies 
 than he could find anywhere else, so 
 
 To study with deep research, 
 To build the Universal Church 
 Lofty as is the love of God, 
 And ample as the wants of man.^ 
 
 1 Longfellow, " Tales of a Wayside Inn." 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. Finding a Settlement. 
 
 1. The methods of finding a settlement, (i) Being called 
 
 on " general reputation." (2) Being heard by a com- 
 mittee. (3) Being called by a church with which 
 the minister is already famihar. (4) Preaching as a 
 candidate. 
 
 2. Counsels to a minister visiting a possible field of 
 
 labor, (i) As to what to preach. (2) As to 
 conduct. (3) As to number of candidates. (4) One 
 church at a time. (5) As to social intercourse. 
 
 II. Deliberating on a Call When It Has Been 
 
 Extended. 
 
 1. The size of the church. 
 
 2. The location of the church. 
 
 3. The character of the church. 
 
 4. The unanimity and heartiness of the call. 
 
 Counsels. 
 
 1. No decision without careful consideration as to 
 
 personal fitness. 
 
 2. Do not consult self, but the will of God. 
 Note as to " hiring a minister." 
 
 III. Accepting a Call. 
 
 1. Write a letter of acceptance. 
 
 2. Have a clear understanding as to salary. 
 
 3. Treat the settlement as though a final one. 
 
 IV. Ordination. 
 
 1. Where the ordination should be held. 
 
 2. Order of ordination services. 
 Note as to recognition services. 
 
I 
 
 IV 
 
 SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 
 
 I. Finding a Settlement. Before passing on to 
 consider in detail this important matter a prelim- 
 inary note is needed concerning the claims of the 
 various fields of labor which offer themselves to a 
 candidate for the Christian ministry, and which must 
 be weighed fairly, as in the sight of God. 
 
 First of all we naturally turn to the ordinary 
 pastorate at home, in which we of course include 
 the position of assistant minister or co-pastor. 
 
 Opinion greatly varies as to the wisdom of the 
 young minister choosing a subordinate position for 
 at least a few years after graduating from the 
 schools. The reasons for and against are both 
 weighty, and the matter can as a rule be determined 
 only in the light of each individual case. A young 
 clergyman was once detailing to Dr. Joseph Parker, 
 of the City Temple, London, the advantages of be- 
 coming an assistant minister, when the great 
 preacher interrupted the young man by saying, 
 "Don't; there is one fatal objection to the whole 
 arrangement." On being asked what that one fatal 
 objection was, he replied bluntly, " Human nature." 
 While it may seem best for many men, and hence 
 best for the cause that they serve, to enter at once 
 
 63 
 
64 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Upon an independent pastorate, yet the advantages 
 of some preliminary service, such as the assistant 
 pastorate offers, are being more and more recog- 
 nized and commended by experienced leaders in 
 Christian work. Perhaps these advantages cannot 
 better be summed up than by the five reasons given 
 by the Rev. F. B. Meyer, who for two and a half 
 years was co-pastor with the Rev. C. M. Birrell, at 
 Pembroke Chapel, Liverpool : " ( i ) It relieved me 
 of strain of full pulpit preparation. (2) It gave 
 me a high ideal, which has never left me. (3) It 
 suggested methods of work which have been quite 
 a God-send. (4) It taught me how to conduct 
 church business. (5) It gave me the benefit of very 
 loving and wise criticism on my sermons." 
 
 Still another possible field of labor is that of 
 foreign missionary work, which demands as never 
 before a good reason for the rejection of its claims 
 on the part of the young minister; and home mis- 
 sionary work, to which the prairies of the West and 
 the South beckon their invitation. Then too, there 
 is work in city evangelization, which offers the op- 
 portunity of doing foreign missionary work at home. 
 
 We confine ourselves here, however, to the claims 
 of the ordinary pastorate. 
 
 I. The methods of finding a settlement. These 
 are four at least : 
 
 (i) Being called upon "general fame." While 
 in many ways this is the most satisfactory method, 
 both for a church and a minister, yet necessarily 
 it can apply only to a limited number of men, and 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 6$ 
 
 mainly to those who have been many years in the 
 ministry. 
 
 (2) Being heard by a committee. The practice 
 is not uncommon for a committee of a church seek- 
 ing a pastor to arrange to hear the prospective 
 minister away from his own people. Of this ar- 
 rangement the minister may be entirely unconscious, 
 and it is to be commended in so far as it avoids the 
 possible recognition of a " committee " which is apt 
 to have a disturbing effect upon the members of 
 one's own church. 
 
 While this plan is gaining in favor with our 
 larger churches, yet the minister and the people 
 should in any event come face to face, even if a 
 committee be the formal way in which the church 
 chooses to select its pastor. It is unwise to leave 
 so important a matter entirely in the hands of a few 
 influential members. Anything approaching the 
 " caucus system " is to be avoided, especially in 
 churches of the congregational order. 
 
 (3) A minister is sometimes called by a church 
 with which he is already familiar. This is a pleasant 
 and successful way; but it is not possible in all or 
 even in many cases. 
 
 (4) Preaching as a candidate. The objections to 
 this method have been largely exaggerated. It is 
 by no means an entirely modern method, as is shown 
 by a letter from Zwingli ^ to the congregation at 
 Winterthur, in which reference is made to this cus- 
 tom as common in Catholic Switzerland in the six- 
 
 ^ S. M. Jackson, " Life of Zwingli," p. 18. 
 E 
 
66 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 teenth century. If the minister visits a vacant 
 church in a natural, unaffected spirit, and divests 
 his mind by previous prayer and study of all in- 
 ferior and worldly considerations, preaching as a 
 candidate need not be objectionable. The picture 
 drawn for us by Wordsworth of an unhappy 
 preacher " on trial " in a church in Scotland, by 
 no means applies to all or even the majority of cases. 
 This unfortunate individual " durst not read his 
 sermon; he could not repeat it well from memory; 
 he could not trust himself to the impulse of the 
 moment, and yet he was obliged to speak on, and 
 he seemed all the while to be thinking of nothing 
 but the impression he was making on his critical 
 judges." With a pure ideal of the ministry before 
 us, even when " on view " we can say with Dr. J. A. 
 Broadus, " I am trying to think only of speaking 
 the truth and doing good." ^ 
 
 The second and fourth methods here mentioned, 
 namely, being heard by a committee and preaching 
 as a candidate, can be combined and are thus likely 
 to prove satisfactory. Only in rare instances is it 
 wise, even from the minister's point of view, to 
 accept a call until he himself has stood in the 
 pulpit before the people whom he may serve. 
 
 Where it is possible a short probationary period 
 of a month or more will lessen the possibility of a 
 mistake being made either by the church or the min- 
 ister. This will allow to each such an examination 
 of the other as is likely to be of lasting satisfaction 
 
 1 " Life," 109. 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 6/ 
 
 if a union is effected. It will set at rest doubts lin- 
 gering in the minds of any of the members, as in the 
 case of the church that considered Dr. William Lan- 
 dells in the beginning of his career :...*' Having 
 learnt that the young man in question had studied 
 under Morison, they had grave doubts as to 
 whether he would be sound in the faith; and ac- 
 cordingly before inviting him to preach they wrote 
 to him asking for a statement of his views. His 
 reply was considered sufficiently satisfactory and 
 he was asked to supply the pulpit for four Sundays. 
 At the end of that time all doubts that may have 
 existed in the minds of the members were removed, 
 and a unanimous invitation to the pastorate was 
 given and accepted." ^ But such a probationary 
 ministry is of course only possible to the minister 
 without a charge or to a student about to enter the 
 work of the ministry. 
 
 2. We offer several counsels here to a candidate 
 visiting a possible field of labor. 
 
 (i) As to the sermons to be preached. 
 
 We should say that the best sermon to select is 
 the sermon you know the best. In preaching, en- 
 deavor so far as possible to meet all classes in your 
 sermon — all ages, all conditions of life, all states of 
 heart. To do this choose those topics which deal 
 with the great truths of Christianity. When the 
 late Mr. Brock, so long famous for his ministry in 
 Bloomsbury Chapel, London, was preaching for the 
 first time at a certain church, a good old man came 
 
 1 " Life of Wm. Landells, d. d./' by T. D. Landellg, p. 40, 
 
68 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 up to him after the service and said, " Oh, we have 
 been fed on roast beef to-day." Such a result is the 
 triumph of the visiting preacher, and should be at- 
 tainable by any one whose ideal of the Christian 
 ministry is pure, and whose eye is single. The 
 thought was the same, though the words were dif- 
 ferent, when Ralph Erskine, called on for his judg- 
 ment after a trial discourse, replied, " What is 
 that, moderator? I forgot it was upon trial. I 
 was hearing for the edification of my soul." 
 
 (2) As to conduct. All appearance of candidating 
 is to be avoided. The thought that you are a Chris- 
 tian minister should be so large as to obscure the 
 thought that you are a candidate for a vacant 
 pastorate 
 
 (3) Do not intentionally preach before a church 
 which has a number of candidates. No two names 
 should be before a church at one time, for the al- 
 most inevitable result is a difference of opinion 
 among the members and a resulting unhappiness in 
 the pastoral relation. 
 
 (4) It should be needless to urge that you never 
 knowingly be a candidate in more than one church 
 at a time. Never let the impression be given that 
 you have many calls to churches. This looks as 
 though you were anxious for the church to reach 
 a decision quickly, and though it may not be so in- 
 tended, is apt to be so construed by the brethren to 
 whom such information is given. 
 
 (5) Be very guarded also in social intercourse 
 with the people of the church, Do not talk much of 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 69 
 
 other ministers ; do not ask questions about the late 
 pastor of the church. Remember the words of Lord 
 Bacon, " Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly 
 and tenderly, for if thou dost not it is a debt which 
 will surely be paid when thou art gone." In a 
 word, say nothing which you would regret having 
 said should you become pastor of the church. 
 
 As we have considered in these counsels precau- 
 tions wise for the candidate, it is only fair that here 
 we should add a note to guide the church that may 
 be thinking of calling him. It seems to us that en- 
 tirely too large a place is given in our day to the 
 demand that the minister should be able to " please " 
 his people. The largest functions of the ministry 
 are prophetic, educational, and evangelistic; and no 
 prophet, educator, or evangelist has ever in re- 
 ligious history done his work fearlessly in the sight 
 of God and "pleased everybody." It is unwise 
 from every point of view to raise to the first place 
 a quality which has a place, but far from the chief 
 place, in the requirements for a successful ministry. 
 Three questions have to be answered satisfactorily, 
 however, as to any candidate for a church. First, 
 in character, is he thoroughly reputable, pure- 
 minded, amiable, judicious, studious? Second, in 
 preaching, are his sermons spiritual, scriptural, di- 
 rect, thoughtful, attractive? Has he the physical 
 ability necessary for the pulpit? Third, in pastoral 
 qualifications, has he method, diligence, adaptability, 
 organizing power, experience? 
 
 The following questions received in a letter of 
 
70 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 inquiry concerning a certain minister seem to us to 
 furnish so good a model that we append them with- 
 out further comment : " Is he a good preacher, one 
 whose preaching would commend itself as well-bal- 
 anced, and in accord with a reasonable interpreta- 
 tion of the Scriptures? Is he a student, one who 
 forms opinions after investigation and thought? 
 Is he tactful as a pastor and in working with indi- 
 viduals? Is he a leader of men, and has he good 
 judgment and aggressiveness in this respect? Has 
 he ability as a teacher of the truth? Has he the 
 capacity and ambition for growth? Do you know 
 anything in his character or past record which is 
 derogatory to him? Has he had any trouble with 
 any of the churches which he has served in your 
 vicinity, and if so, was it anything for which he 
 was in any way to blame ? " 
 
 Although no man may be able perfectly to meet 
 such high requirements, yet if like care were taken, 
 longer and happier pastorates might result. 
 
 11. When a call has been extended. What are 
 Some of the Reasons which will Influence a Minister 
 Deliberating upon such a Call? 
 
 I. The size of the church has a place in such con- 
 siderations. The small church has often earnestness, 
 simplicity, and warmth to commend it; but on the 
 other hand, the small church is not necessarily the 
 easiest to manage, as Spurgeon bore witness when 
 he thanked the Lord that he had been called to be 
 the pastor of a large church, because he felt that 
 he had not talent enough to be the pastor of a little 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 7I 
 
 one. On the other hand, while the large church 
 may have steadiness, breadth of view, and inde- 
 pendence, the greatest working power is not always 
 found there. The waste material in our large city 
 churches is one of the heaviest burdens on a min- 
 ister's heart. The church of moderate size is pref- 
 erable, if it be also united and hard-working. No 
 one man, however faithful he may be, can render 
 proper pastoral service to more than two hundred 
 and fifty or three hundred people. 
 
 But there is a point beyond which no minister 
 should choose in regard to his field of service. That 
 church must be taken, whatever its size, to which it 
 seems plain that God has called you. When Thomas 
 Boston was called from his pleasant little village, 
 rendered dear by seven years of pastoral work, to 
 the larger ministry of Ettrick, we are told that, 
 ** leaving all in God's hands he was willing from 
 the first to go or stay as the Lord might give the 
 word." ^ And this same spirit of willingness to be 
 as clay in the hands of the potter must characterize 
 every true minister considering a change. 
 
 2. The location of the church. 
 
 ( I ) As a rule it may be best not to settle in your 
 own State. We advise this not only because " a 
 prophet hath no honor in his own country," but also 
 because a change of manner, dialect, and habit is 
 advisable for the minister himself. Neglect of this 
 very law of nature has brought contempt upon the 
 British aristocracy in their strict adherence to nar- 
 
 1 Thomson, " Life of Boston," pp. 88, 89. 
 
"JZ FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 row lines in the matter of marriage, and a similar 
 neglect in the choice of pastorate has increased 
 narrowness and prejudice in the Christian ministry. 
 
 (2) The country church has peculiar advantages. 
 " No one is so favorably situated for happiness as 
 a clergyman in the country." ^ The events of a 
 country pastor's daily life, seemingly uninteresting 
 in their uniformity, are often hardly worthy of 
 record in the estimate of man, but in the grateful 
 appreciation of those to whom this ministry of love 
 is rendered, and in the real satisfaction that comes 
 to the minister himself, they have a large place in 
 the records of heaven. Let no one underestimate 
 the grade of intelligence common in many a village 
 church. John Bunyan somewhere said : " Men have 
 met with angels here, have found pearls here, and 
 in this place have found the words of life." 
 
 We are not sure that there is much to choose 
 between a country and a city parish so far as the 
 difficulties to be encountered are concerned; each 
 requires the best that a man has in him. Perhaps it 
 is still too largely true that " among a rural auditory 
 the head can only be reached through the feelings, 
 and except for ideas of the broadest and most pal- 
 pably material sort, the teacher in such a position 
 has no scope. In a civic auditory such as an Edin- 
 burgh congregation the capacity is often very little 
 greater, and when it does exist the horrible spirit 
 of church bigotry and narrow-souled orthodoxy is 
 now so rampant that any sort of preaching that 
 
 1 " Life of W. W. Andrews," p. 11. 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 73 
 
 does not bear the broad stamp of orthodox mintage 
 in tone and language is apt to be looked upon with 
 a very suspicious eye." ^ Although these words 
 may not be entirely pat as applied to our American 
 pastorates, yet a high grade of man is needed for 
 the country as well as for the city, and many a 
 country church calls for even more discretion in 
 her minister than the sister church in the city. 
 
 Are not our longest pastorates in the country? 
 We believe that this will be found to be the case, 
 and at any rate, the long country pastorates 
 of New England are one of her chief glories. The 
 country church is certainly better for learning by 
 experience, for recovering from inevitable blunders, 
 for acquiring a working theology. The rural pas- 
 torate affords a greater opportunity too, for quiet 
 study, and a more intimate experimental acquaint- 
 ance with members of the church owing to the per- 
 manency of the people. What George EHot said 
 concerning authorship in such a place may be said 
 with equal truth in regard to the Christian ministry : 
 " Peaceful authorship ! Living in the air of the 
 fields and downs, and not in the thrice-breathed 
 breath of criticism — bringing no Dantesque lean- 
 ness ; rather assisting nutrition by complacency and 
 perhaps giving a more suffusive sense of achieve- 
 ment than the production of a whole * Divina 
 Commedia.' " ^ 
 
 ^ Principal Caird, " Fundamental Ideas of Christianity," Vol. I., 
 xliii. 
 ' " Daniel Deronda," Vol. II., p. 320. 
 
74 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 There is, of course, the shady side to a country 
 minister's Hfe. The income is often meager and 
 the service to be rendered calls for heroic self-sacri- 
 fice. We do not forget the familiar saying about 
 Bishop Butler, that he was " not dead, but buried," 
 when he was hidden in a country parish. But what 
 strong ministers have been trained here ! The claim 
 is often made that the leading merchants of our 
 cities are very commonly born and bred in the 
 country, and we believe that the claim will largely 
 hold good when applied to our ministers. The cry 
 of the country church at present is not so much 
 for more men, as more man, and in this attractive 
 field of labor the best men may well find the call 
 of God. The change going on in country districts 
 and the increase there in the non-church-going part 
 of the community is a call of duty that good men 
 will heed. 
 
 (3) As to the city church, much can be said both 
 for and against it. There is a stimulating air of the 
 city found in the keener and readier apprehension 
 of city hearers, more opportunities for union with 
 other ministers, the advantages which libraries and 
 frequent lectures afford. But the city church does 
 not always make the same high demands of its 
 minister as does the church in the country, if we 
 are to believe the comment of Emerson that " The 
 clergyman who would live in the city may have 
 piety, but must have taste." The city church is 
 often satisfied with spiritual results which seem piti- 
 fully out of proportion to the amount of money 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION ^5 
 
 expended in its own support and to the numerical 
 strength of its membership. In our larger city 
 churches the people are much away, much distracted 
 with engagements of all kinds, and growth is often 
 slow. The small church in a large city has often 
 to battle with almost insurmountable disadvantages. 
 There is, moreover, no solitude comparable to the 
 solitude of a city to an unknown man. Be it large 
 or small, the city church is limited in its range, 
 and too apt to dwell within its own little circle, 
 regardless of the world that surges outside its doors. 
 
 (4) In distinction from the churches already 
 mentioned, there is the suburban church, which 
 makes different demands from the country church, 
 or the downtown church in the city. Too often 
 our suburban churches are made up of the same 
 kind of people, and there is not enough of that 
 variety which, as the spice of the minister's life, is 
 necessary to make his work palatable for a long 
 period of time. But we could have no better wish 
 for a young man starting in the ministry than that 
 he find his lot cast in an outlying district toward 
 which the city is rapidly growing. Under such con- 
 ditions the foundations for a lifelong pastorate of 
 noble and increasing usefulness are often laid. 
 
 Our concluding advice to young ministers de- 
 liberating on a call, is that a church in a large and 
 prosperous country village is often better than any 
 other. " Keep out of the city as long as you can. 
 Do not aspire to the so-called great churches in 
 great places. Go into rural neighborhoods. Begin 
 
76 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 your ministry with the common people. . . You 
 will have time to grow and strengthen yourselves. 
 Your bodies will grow wholesome. Your brains will 
 grow strong. Your nervous system will get tough, 
 so that if ever God opens the door and calls you to 
 a more difficult sphere, you can fill it and do twice as 
 much work with more certainty and with more suc- 
 cess than if called to the larger place in the begin- 
 ning of your ministry." ^ 
 
 3. Careful inquiry should be made by the min- 
 ister in reference to the character of any church 
 which calls him. He should learn something of its 
 past history, and more as to its present reputation 
 in the community. He should take care to inform 
 himself as to the church's real, as compared with 
 its reported, strength in numbers; and in order to 
 learn something of its true spiritual power he should 
 by all means attend one or more of its weekly 
 prayer-meetings. The elements of which it is com- 
 posed may also be a deciding factor as to whether 
 the church is the right place for him. The more 
 various these elements are, the better. All classes 
 and conditions ought to be represented in the true 
 church of Him who " went about doing good." 
 
 4. The unanimity and heartiness of the call itself 
 must be considered in deciding whether or no we 
 should enter the service of the church which has 
 invited us. It should be remembered that the best 
 call is often not unanimous at the first voting. 
 Sometimes the dissentients may be certain persons 
 
 1 Henry Ward Beecher, " Yale Lectures on Preaching," 2 : 6. 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 7/ 
 
 who are quite entitled by the rules of the church to 
 express their opinion, but whose disapproval need 
 not be taken too seriously, in which case for all 
 practical purposes the call is unanimous. But very 
 often the lack of agreement is due to the fact that 
 the voting is intelligent and serious, and is rather 
 to the credit of the church than otherwise. " I 
 don't think much of these unanimous calls," Doctor 
 Wayland once said to Doctor Stowe. " It looks as 
 though people did not judge for themselves." ^ Do 
 not, however, consider a church in which a large 
 and important minority is opposed to you. Often 
 the weight, worth, and objections of the minority 
 will lower the scales below the mark where accept- 
 ance is wise. If you do accept a call which is not 
 unanimous, be sure to cultivate the friendship of. 
 those who oppose you. Very likely it will be true 
 that they are among the most sensible people in the 
 church. No greater triumph is recorded in the life 
 of Doctor Wayland, who was once called to a church 
 where the minority was strong and aggressive, than 
 that which he thus describes : " When I resigned my 
 place it was a matter of great surprise, and I believe 
 of sincere pain to my people. . . No member of 
 that church or congregation now, after thirty-five 
 years, ever meets me without the most affectionate 
 recognition, and none love me more than those who 
 at first bitterly opposed me." ^ 
 
 1 " Life of Francis Wayland," by Francis and H. L. Wayland, 
 p. ii8. 
 2 James O. Murray, "Life of Francis Wayland," pp. 41-55. 
 
78 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Two counsels may be here given before we leave 
 this part of our subject: 
 
 1. Come to no decision without careful considera- 
 tion of your own fitness for the church. Consider 
 your adaptation to the church in your powers as a 
 preacher, your personal habits, your training, and 
 your mental characteristics. Above all inquire 
 whether in this place you can best serve Christ, for 
 " Millions of idolaters would be easily converted if 
 there were more preachers who would sincerely 
 mind the interest of Jesus Christ and not their 
 own." ^ When Phillips Brooks appealed to his rec- 
 tor, Dr. Alexander H. Vinton, to aid him in deciding 
 his call to Boston he received this good advice, 
 which may be helpful to others : " I think a good 
 method of decision in such cases is, after ponder- 
 ing the matter impartially and seeking guidance 
 from above, simply and implicitly to mark which 
 way the feelings lead and to follow their direction." ^ 
 
 2. As a general counsel we would say do not 
 consult self, but the will of God, in your choice of 
 a pastorate. Sometimes this is the first field that 
 offers itself. In this respect the words of Henry 
 Ward Beecher are to be heeded : " Don't hang round 
 idle waiting for a good offer. Enter the first field 
 God opens for you. If he needs you in a larger one, 
 he will open the gate for you to enter." ^ And who 
 
 shall say how large a part the following of this rule 
 
 i ■ ■■ ■ — ' ' 1 ■ ..i ' ■ ■ . ' J/ 
 
 1 Francis Xavier, "Doctor Williams' Miscellanies," p. 175, 
 
 2 " Life of Phillips Brooks," I., 605. 
 
 3 " Life of H. W. Beecher." p. 173. 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 79 
 
 of life had to do with landing the young and 
 unknown Western preacher in the position of world- 
 wide prominence in which the ministry of Henry 
 Ward Beecher closed. 
 
 We feel that a note as to " hiring a minister " is 
 in place at this point. The phrase should never be 
 used, for it shows an unworthy conception of the 
 pastoral office. The vicious plan of hiring a min- 
 ister by the year can hardly be too strongly depre- 
 cated. It degrades the pastoral office, hampers the 
 minister's success and almost forces his work into 
 perfunctory molds such as no minister should tol- 
 erate. Moreover, it places him at the mercy of 
 every grumbler in the parish, inviting them once 
 a year to gather in force for his discomfiture. So 
 sacred a relationship as that which binds pastor and 
 people cannot stand the chill of a too commercial 
 atmosphere. Neither the church nor the minister 
 will prosper and be in harmony when the pecuniary 
 question is forced to the front. This is a practice 
 to which no minister who respects himself ought to 
 submit. And though some of our churches hold to 
 it in the letter, they are no longer really guided by 
 such a practice in the spirit. Not many ministers 
 could afford to follow the practice of Charles Had- 
 don Spurgeon, who used every year to resign his 
 pastorate, and one of the pleasantries of the annual 
 church meeting of the Tabernacle in London was 
 the rising of one of the deacons to move that the pas- 
 tor be reelected for another year, a motion which 
 was always carried with laughter and applause. 
 
80 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 III. Proper Deliberation having been given to a 
 Call, we now come to its Acceptance. 
 
 1. A letter of acceptance should always be writ- 
 ten. It is well to make this brief and to the point. 
 No pledges or promises should be made, and due 
 care should be taken to impress upon the church 
 its own share of responsibility, for on the church, 
 even more than on the minister, depends the suc- 
 cess of the coming pastorate. An excellent letter of 
 acceptance is this from one of the most faithful men 
 that ever graced the Congregational ministry: 
 " Dear Brethren : Believing that your call is God's 
 voice to me, I accept it in the hope that my ministry 
 may be the voice of God to you. Yours in Christ, 
 C. L. Goodell." ^ The Christian minister cannot do 
 better than follow the spirit and brevity of this letter 
 as a model, provided he does not do so too often. 
 
 2. Have a clear understanding as to salary and 
 as to the arrangement for terminating the pastorate, 
 and then let nothing more be said about salary, for 
 in this human world of ours matters pious and 
 pecuniary are not mingled with advantage too 
 closely together. 
 
 3. Treat the settlement as though it were final 
 and for all your life, (i) Do not allow yourself 
 to speak or even think of it as a stepping-stone to 
 something higher. This is a chief cause of " min- 
 isterial restlessness," and jumping ** out of the fry- 
 ing pan into the fire " we believe to be an even 
 more common experience in the ministry than in the 
 
 i"Life of C. L. Goodell, d. d./' p. 199. 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 8l 
 
 kitchen. Remain if possible at least five years in 
 your first pastorate, for " those who hold on are 
 likely to hold out," and moreover, as Dr. John Hall 
 has well said, " The best way for a man to get out of 
 a lowly position is to be conspicuously eflfective 
 in it." 
 
 (2) Do not coquette with vacant churches. This 
 is a fault from which we wish all ministers were 
 entirely free. To encourage a call there is no inten- 
 tion of accepting is dishonorable, and to make capi- 
 tal out of declining it is contemptible. A minister 
 who for a long time cast a white light among us, and 
 a light that lingers still for good in the hearts of 
 many of his fellows, thus records a practice which 
 should be universal : " It has never been my way 
 to encourage formal calls to a change of service 
 unless I thought it probable that I should accept 
 them." ^ For the first year or so it will generally 
 be well to preach every Sunday in your own pulpit, 
 and to conserve your strength for service within 
 the limits of your own parish. 
 
 (3) Be careful not to give the impression that 
 you are coveted elsewhere. Such a course is apt 
 to result in encouraging any discontented persons 
 in the parish to an active opposition, and renders 
 those who are your friends unhappy and fearful. If 
 another church really desires you it is well to keep 
 the matter as quiet as possible until you have come 
 to some definite decision. In any case " let another 
 man praise thee and not thine own mouth." Some 
 
 1 " Life of Austin Phelps," by Elizabeth S. Phelps, p. 38. 
 F 
 
82 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 ministers moreover have a very lively imagination 
 as to " calls." 
 
 IV. We Conclude with some Directions Concern- 
 ing the Ordination of a Minister, and the Holding 
 of such Services as are Customary in the Settlement 
 of a new Pastor. 
 
 1. First, as to the place where the ordination ser- 
 vices should be held. It is peculiarly appropriate 
 that such services should take place in the church 
 with which your spiritual history is most closely 
 connected. Edward Irving chose to have this great 
 solemnity of his life celebrated in the same church 
 in which he had been baptized. But such an ar- 
 rangement is not always possible, and the more cus- 
 tomary method is to hold such services with the 
 church which has called you to its pastorate. The 
 council should be chosen with great care and when, 
 as sometimes happens, ordinations in the same 
 church are not far apart, a new council should of 
 course be chosen for each ordination. 
 
 2. As to the order of ordination services. 
 
 In such churches as have no fixed order of ordina- 
 tion services, the following ^ may be recommended, 
 subject to adoption by the Council: 
 
 (i) Reading, by the clerk of the church, of the 
 letter-missive, followed by a call, in their order, 
 upon all churches and individuals invited, to present 
 responses and names in writing; each delegate, as 
 he presents his credentials, taking his seat in a 
 portion of the house reserved for the council. 
 
 * A. H. Strong, " Systematic Theology," p. 515. 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 83 
 
 (2) Announcement, by the clerk of the church, 
 that a council has convened, and call for the nom- 
 ination of a moderator — the motion to be put by the 
 clerk, after which the moderator takes the chair. 
 
 ( 3 ) Organization completed by election of a clerk 
 of the council, the offering of prayer, and an invi- 
 tation to visiting brethren to sit with the council, 
 but not to vote. 
 
 (4) Reading, on behalf of the church, by its 
 clerk, of the records of the church concerning the 
 call extended to the candidate, and his acceptance, 
 together with documentary evidence of his licensure, 
 of his present church-membership, and of his stand- 
 ing in other respects, if coming from another 
 denomination. 
 
 (5) Vote by the council, that the proceedings of 
 the church, and the standing of the candidate, 
 warrant an examination of his claim to ordination. 
 
 (6) Introduction of the candidate to the council 
 by some representative of the church, with an ex- 
 pression of the church's feeling toward him, and his 
 labors. 
 
 (7) Vote to hear his Christian experience. Nar- 
 ration on the part of the candidate, followed by 
 questions as to any features of it still needing 
 elucidation. 
 
 (8) Vote to hear the candidate's reasons for be- 
 lieving himself called to the ministry. Narration 
 and questions. 
 
 (9) Vote to hear the candidate's view of Christian 
 doctrine. Narration and questions. 
 
84 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 (lo) Vote to conclude the public examination 
 and to withdraw for private session. 
 
 (ii) In private session, after prayer, the coun- 
 cil determines, by three separate votes, in order to 
 secure separate consideration of each question, 
 whether it is satisfied with the candidate's Christian 
 experience, call to the ministry, and views of 
 Christian doctrine. 
 
 (12) Vote that the candidate be hereby set apart 
 to the gospel ministry, and that a public service be 
 held expressive of this fact; that for this purpose 
 a committee of two be appointed, to act with the 
 candidate, in arranging such service of ordination 
 and to report before adjournment. 
 
 (13) Reading of minutes, by clerk of council, 
 and correction of them, to prepare for presentation 
 at the ordination service, and for preservation in the 
 archives of the church. 
 
 (14) Vote to give the candidate a certificate of 
 ordination, signed by the moderator and clerk of 
 the council, and to publish an account of the 
 proceedings in the journals of the denomination. 
 
 (15) Adjourn to meet at the service of ordina- 
 tion. 
 
 We offer here some counsels to the candidate as 
 to his examination and as to the public service. 
 
 I. In your answers do not assume to understand 
 everything. ( i ) Speak as a growing man. Profess 
 yourself still a student, and do not be afraid to re- 
 ply to your questioners by saying frankly, " I do 
 not know," where no po3itive conviction has as 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 85 
 
 yet been reached. (2) Prove that you are called to 
 preach by the statement of your experience. (3) 
 Prove that you are qualified to preach by your state- 
 ment of doctrinal views. Those who are graduates 
 of theological seminaries, as well as those who have 
 not had the advantage of such training, should be 
 especially careful to prove their knowledge of the 
 English Bible. Above all else, such knowledge is 
 essential to qualify one for entrance into the Chris- 
 tian ministry. (4) Careful preparation should be 
 made of the statement of Christian experience, the 
 call to the ministry, and views of Christian doctrine. 
 These statements should be written, but not neces- 
 sarily read. Pay no attention to the fencing which 
 frequently goes on between various ministers in the 
 council. Keep straight on. Say with Paul, " This 
 one thing I do." 
 
 2. The public services, usually held on the even- 
 ing following the afternoon sessions of the council, 
 should consist of : ( i ) A sermon ; though this is not 
 perhaps essential, and an address may take its place. 
 Some former teacher or close personal friend, or 
 some one held in especial esteem by the church in 
 which the services are held or by the denomination 
 of which it forms a part, may appropriately be in- 
 vited to take this part of the service. (2) The or- 
 daining prayer. (3) The hand of fellowship. (4) 
 The charge to the candidate. (5) The charge to 
 the church. 
 
 These parts of the service should not be over- 
 powered by music or extended readings from the 
 
86 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Scripture, and there is no need that the entire 
 service should occupy more than from one and a 
 half to two hours. 
 
 Counsels concerning the public services. 
 
 1 . These services should be weighty and serious as 
 befits an occasion of such great importance. There 
 may be no present danger of our going to the ex- 
 tremes common in the olden time in the drinking of 
 punch, wine, and brandy, such as is recorded as late 
 as 1785 at an ordination in Beverly, Massachusetts. 
 There is need, however, that we beware lest the serv- 
 ices assume more or less of a festive character. 
 When Julius Hare was once asked the question as 
 to the value of a living, he replied : " ffeaven or 
 hell, according as the occupier does his duty." ^ 
 And where such issues are at stake, the proceedings 
 should be characterized by solemnity and reverence. 
 
 2. Call men of character, ability, and age to take 
 part. Be especially careful that the ordaining 
 prayer, and the charge to the candidate, are taken 
 by men of experience and recognized piety. 3. 
 Conform to the custom usual in your denomination 
 in all such matters as the laying on of hands, unless 
 you have any conscientious objections. 4. Invite to 
 the services neighboring ministers of other denomi- 
 nations. It is not, however, desirable to appoint 
 them, unless under special circumstances, to take 
 part in the services. An address of welcome to the 
 city or town may be added to the programme of the 
 public services, and this may with propriety be 
 
 1 Julius Hare, " Story of My Life," Vol. I., 468. 
 
SETTLEMENT AND ORDINATION 87 
 
 assigned to some prominent clergyman of the com- 
 munity, who is not himself a member of the body 
 which you represent. , 
 
 Note as to Recognition Services. When the min- 
 ister about to settle has already been ordained, it 
 is necessary to have only a recognition service. A 
 council is not necessary ; but in times of controversy 
 as to fundamental doctrines, it may be well that in 
 some public way the minister state his views of 
 gospel truth. At a recognition service the minister 
 should be recognized in his new field of labor by the 
 church speaking through one of its members; by 
 his brother ministers in the community; and pos- 
 sibly by some leading minister in the denomination. 
 
 For churches of congregational polity it is best to 
 use the word " recognition," of immemorial usage 
 and propriety, in connection with such services, 
 while in churches that cannot call a pastor without 
 the consent of some outside body the word 
 " installation " is more customary and appropriate. 
 
 Perhaps in this chapter we have considered most 
 of the things that can well be treated in connection 
 with a settlement and ordination. But there are 
 many other matters which arise from the special field 
 in which a settlement is made and the peculiar indi- 
 vidual whose ordination is contemplated. These de- 
 tails, however, must be left to those favoring winds 
 of Providence, which so often make good the non- 
 scriptural, but not unscriptural declaration, that 
 " God tempers the cold to the shorn sheep." ^ 
 
 1 Henri Estienne. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. The Minister's Disposal of Himself. 
 
 1. The Christian minister has certain rights of his own. 
 
 2. He must not forget that his life is one of self-sacri- 
 
 ficing service. 
 
 3. The successful ordering of his life will demand 
 
 forethought and planning. 
 Note as to journals and diaries. 
 
 II. The Minister's Arrangement of His Resources. 
 
 1. The pulpit. 
 
 2. The church. 
 
 3. Other claims. 
 
 III. The Minister's Employment of His Time. 
 
 1. Definite hours for study. 
 
 2. The order recommended in the employment of the 
 
 minister's time. 
 
 3. Need for resolution to maintain such an order. 
 
 4. The minister may expect periods of intellectual dearth. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK 
 
 We now take up certain matters which concern 
 the minister himself, his resources, and his time, 
 which may help to solve some parish problems, and 
 make the way easier for the minister at work. 
 
 I. His Disposal of Himself. 
 
 I. The Christian minister in common with other 
 men has certain rights of his own. " Christianity 
 and democracy require the recognition of every 
 man's right to himself," some one has justly said. 
 Unless he pay a proper regard to these rights no 
 one else is likely to regard them for him. " No man, 
 sir, is obliged to do as much as he can," declared 
 bluff old Doctor Johnson ; " a man should have 
 part of his life to himself." There are certain limits 
 beyond which the parish must not be allowed to 
 encroach. The minister's soul is his own. We re- 
 call he e words spoken years ago by Doctor Weston : 
 " My boy, hear me ; if you will let any set of men 
 dictate to you as to how you shall conduct things, 
 how you shall lead meetings, what you shall and 
 shall not preach, you are — a — a — putty man. That's 
 what you are. Why, you soon will be compelled to 
 ask them what kind of a hat you shall wear." ^ 
 
 » " National Baptist," Dec. 2, 1886. 
 
 91 
 
9^ FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Not every minister can afford to manifest quite so 
 much independence as is shown in Doctor Parker's 
 letter of acceptance of Cavendish Chapel, Manches- 
 ter, yet no minister can afford to forget the ring in 
 his words : " As a minister, I claim the most perfect 
 freedom of action. With regard to my conduct in 
 the pulpit, I must be the sole arbiter. . . As a 
 minister I must judge for myself what course I 
 shall pursue out of the pulpit. I cannot promise to 
 do as others do. What my labors may be through 
 the press or the platform, I must determine by cir- 
 cumstances, it being understood that I hold every 
 engagement subordinate to my ministerial respon- 
 sibilities. . . As a pastor I cannot visit for the 
 sake of visiting. At all times I am glad to obey 
 the calls of the sick and the dying, or to guide the 
 truth-seeker." ^ 
 
 The minister has often himself to blame when 
 these rights are forgotten or denied. He may ac- 
 count to his people for the disposal of his time ; or 
 talk too much of what he has to do ; and sometimes 
 he preaches an annual sermon enumerating the ser- 
 mons preached, visits paid, prayer-meetings held, 
 weddings and funerals attended. There may be 
 rare occasions on which such discourses are in 
 order ; but it takes rare men to preach them rightly. 
 Too often they are due either to vanity or to a mis- 
 taken sense of what is due to his people. Few 
 ministers have the grace to report the whole truth 
 on such occasions, and the conscientious pastor is 
 
 1 William Adamson, " Life of Joseph Parker," p. 54. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK 93 
 
 SO well aware of the sermons which he has not 
 preached, the visits which he has not paid, and the 
 meetings which he has not held, that he may well 
 prefer to remain silent altogether. We advise that 
 such annual sermons be for the most part avoided. 
 In what other occupation is this customary ? To see 
 ourselves as others see us, we quote the following 
 letter from a woman who had spent her summer on 
 a farm : " During my vacation I have made one hun- 
 dred and twenty pounds of butter, milked and 
 skimmed one thousand three hundred and forty-four 
 quarts, prepared about one hundred and twenty-two 
 meals, and made one hundred and thirty beds." 
 Many things are interesting only to the man who 
 does them, and the number of letters which we write, 
 or the sum total of occasions in which we have ap- 
 peared in public, or entered the doors of our par- 
 ishioners, are matters that invite criticism, rather 
 than encourage edification. It is not necessary or 
 wise for the minister to account for his every mo- 
 ment, either to his church as a whole or to any 
 individual in its membership. 
 
 2. The minister must not forget, however, that 
 his life is one of self-sacrificing service. We are 
 the servants of Christ, and we are the servants of 
 Christ's people. The ministry exists for the church, 
 not the church for the ministry. We are to lay to 
 heart the instruction of the apostle : " We preach 
 not ourselves ; but Christ Jesus the Lord, and our- 
 selves your servants for Jesus' sake." ^ In another 
 
 1 2 Cor. 4 : $. 
 
94 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 place he says : " For though I be free from all men, 
 yet have I made myself servant unto all that I might 
 gain the more." ^ And had we any doubt in the 
 matter it would be removed by the example and 
 words of Him who declared to his disciples, " I am 
 among you as he that serveth." ^ 
 
 This service is qualified, in the thought of the 
 Apostle Paul, and we gratefully remember that 
 phrase, " Your servants for Jesus' sake." If there 
 ever is conflict between the claims of the church and 
 of Christ we need not hesitate an instant in our 
 decision. We are thankful for this very fact that 
 we are not our own, and in the laborious life of an 
 honest pastor the Christian ministry finds its deep- 
 est interest and fascination. We at least are saved 
 from the troubles of that class referred to by Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson, when he said, with that customary 
 " sir " of his : " Sir, you cannot give me an in- 
 stance of any man who is permitted to lay out his 
 own time, contriving not to have tedious hours." 
 Perhaps more than in any prevoius generation the 
 minister of to-day finds his time filled to overflow- 
 ing. In the multiplied service which makes every 
 day of the week a busy day, the work piling up 
 about him like mountains that seem in the distance 
 to block the pathway of some traveler through our 
 northern woods, there is a call for self-sacrifice of 
 which no minister whose ideal is still unmarred will 
 complain. As he attempts it bravely, the warm 
 glow of love is in his heart, and the approving face 
 
 1 1 Cor. 9:19. ' Luke 22 : 27. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK 95 
 
 of Jesus Christ shines for him with all the glory 
 of God. 
 
 3. The successful ordering of his life will de- 
 mand forethought and planning on the part of the 
 Christian minister. Arrange your work so that you 
 may be of the greatest service. With order a great 
 deal can be done, and done easily, but without it 
 time will be wasted and energies frittered away. 
 The most successful ministers have been those who 
 year after year have followed a carefully determined 
 plan in their work, and who have been as thorough 
 men of business as any of those who sat in the pews 
 before them. To use the expressive phrase of 
 Gladstone, they had " no fringes of time." Baxter, 
 Wesley, Spurgeon, Brooks, were all men who had 
 plenty of time because they were men who used 
 carefully all the time that there was. God's blessing 
 cannot rest upon the labors of the man that " lum- 
 bers up and down in the world all the week." 
 
 In connection with this planning for his work, we 
 strongly urge the keeping of some sort of journal 
 or diary. " It is a strange thing, that in sea voy- 
 ages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and 
 sea, men should make diaries; but in land travel, 
 wherein so much is to be observed, for the most 
 part they omit it — as if chance were fitter to be 
 registered than observation. Let diaries therefore 
 be brought into use." ^ Without a diary life's do- 
 ings are forgotten, the path crumbles away as we 
 leave it, and a few shadows are all that remain 
 
 ^ Lord Bacon. 
 
96 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 of days that are gone. Have the yearly volumes 
 uniform, if possible, and keep them for reference. 
 This may be done by purchasing one of the many 
 excellent diaries published annually, or by writing 
 on loose sheets, which may be bound at the close of 
 the year. Such a record, kept to yourself, will be 
 of great service. In this may be entered the serv- 
 ices, sermons, prayer-meetings, pastoral calls, bap- 
 tisms, weddings, and funerals. Among the many 
 pastor's registers we note the following, and doubt- 
 less there are others equally good : " The Pastor's 
 Record," by W. T. Wylie ; " The Pastor's Register 
 for Private Use," by W. T. Beatly ; " The Pastor's 
 Ready Reference Record," by W. D. Grant. 
 
 Whatever method be chosen it is of the utmost 
 importance that the minister who would maintain 
 the rights which are his own, and at the same time 
 render the service which is due to others, should 
 plan carefully his disposal of himself. A few mo- 
 ments spent in arranging in the morning will save 
 many hours of untangling in the evening. 
 
 II. How can the Minister at Work best make 
 Arrangement of his Resources? The following or- 
 der is recommended because we believe it represents 
 the departments of a minister's work in the order 
 of their importance : i. The pulpit. 2. The church. 
 3. Other claims. 
 
 I. In its range of influence, and therefore its 
 place of importance, the minister should be first of 
 all a preacher ; preaching his very best, which often 
 he will confess to be poor enough, and preaching 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK 97 
 
 on large and liberal themes, rather than small and 
 trivial topics. Do not preach too often if you would 
 preach well, and refuse outside calls to preach in 
 the first months of your settlement. Neither is it 
 wise to exchange much. Be, so far as possible, at 
 home on Sunday morning. What President Eliot 
 once called ** intellectual frugality " in the pulpit 
 robs ministers of their influence in the community, 
 the place of business, and the home; an influence 
 which as Christian ministers it is their mission to 
 exercise. A pastor must be a preacher. Speaking 
 of a certain popular orator, Horace Greeley once 
 
 said to Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler : " Mr. B is a 
 
 pretty man, a very pretty man; but he does not 
 study, and no man ever can have permanent power 
 in this country unless he studies." ^ And power 
 with the people seven days in the week should be the 
 possession of the Christian minister. Repetitions 
 and platitudes, which are the reflections of weakness, 
 are avoided only by hard, steady work at the desk. 
 That old Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, often preached 
 before the House of Commons, whose members in- 
 variably passed a resolution thanking him for the 
 " great pains " he took with his sermon, and re- 
 questing him to print it. When such resolutions are 
 common in our churches men will come to church 
 in greater numbers and will heed at fireside and 
 market-place the influence which it is the mission 
 of the Christian pastor to throw about them. 
 
 In order to give the pulpit the preeminence which 
 
 ^ Cuyler, " Recollections of a Long Life," p. 162. 
 G 
 
98 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 is its due, we counsel that the minister should 
 never give up the practice of studying the latest 
 thought, so far as it is within his reach. The min- 
 ister on whose shelves there are no new books is 
 very likely to be the minister in whose head there are 
 no new thoughts. The old and the new should be 
 mingled, for both are good. The following list of 
 books suitable for a minister's library has been com- 
 piled from twenty-two lists furnished by as many 
 pastors in the active work of the ministry in city 
 and country churches. The request for these lists 
 specified that not more than twenty-five books 
 should be mentioned, and these not too costly, single 
 volumes rather than entire commentaries being pre- 
 ferred. The asterisk (*) indicates that the book is 
 found on more than one list: 
 
 Dictionaries: i. Language — Standard; Webster; ♦Cen- 
 tury, Cyclopedia and Atlas. 
 
 Dictionaries: 2. Bible— *Hastings ; Kuyper (Cyclopedia 
 of Sacred Knowledge) ; Smith ; Vinet. 
 
 3. Synonyms: Fernald; Roget. 
 
 4. Quotations : Hoyt and Ward. 
 
 Commentaries: Barnes; Bible Commentary; Matthew 
 Henry; Jamieson, Fausett & Brown; Meyer; Nicol 
 (Expositor's New Testament) ; Speaker's Commentary. 
 
 Separate books: Beet (Romans, Corinthians); Broadus 
 (♦Matthew) ; Davidson, A. B. (Job, Ezekiel) ; Dods (Gen- 
 esis, John) ; Ellicott (various Epistles) ; Genung (Job) ; 
 Godet (John, Romans) ; Hackett (Acts) ; Harper (Deuter- 
 onomy) ; Kendrick (Hebrews) ; Kirkpatrick (Psalms) ; 
 Lightfoot (all) ; McLaren (Psalms, *Colossians) ; Milligan 
 (Revelation) ; Moule (Romans) ; Murphy (Genesis and 
 Exodus) ; Pusey (Daniel, Minor Prophets) ; Sanday (Ro- 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK 99 
 
 mans) ; Smith, G. A. (*Isaiah) ; Stifler (Acts) ; Westcott 
 V Hebrews, *John). 
 
 Old Testament: Abbott, L. (Ancient Hebrews) ; Board- 
 man (Creative Week) ; Driver (*Introduction) ; Fairbairn 
 (Typology of Scripture); McCurdy (History, Prophecy 
 and the Monuments) ; Ryle (Canon of O. T.) ; Smith, 
 G. A. (*Historical Geography of Palestine) ; Stanley 
 (Jewish Church, Sinai and Palestine). 
 
 New Testament: Boardman (Model Prayer) ; Bruce 
 A. B. (Parabolic Teaching of Christ, Training of the 
 Twelve, Kingdom of God) ; Conybeare & Howson (St. 
 Paul): Edersheim (*Life of Christ); Fairbairn (Studies 
 in the Life of Christ); Farrar (Messages of the Books, 
 St. Paul) ; Geikie (Life of Christ) ; Keim (Jesus of Naza- 
 reth) ; Liddon (*Divinity of our Lord) ; Matheson (*Stud- 
 ies in the Portraits of Christ, Spiritual Development of 
 Paul) ; Pressense (.The Redeemer) ; Ramsey (Paul: Trav- 
 eler, *Citizen) ; Rhees, Rush (Life of Christ) ; Schiirer 
 (Jewish People in Time of Christ) ; Somerville (St. Paul's 
 Conception of Christianity) ; Speer (The Man Christ 
 Jesus) ; Stalker (*Life of Christ, Paul) ; Stevens & Burton 
 (Harmony) ; Thayer (Lexicon) ; Trench (Miracles, Par- 
 ables) ; Westcott & Hort (*N. T.) ; Wundt (*The 
 Teaching of Jesus). 
 
 Theology: Balfour (Foundations of Behef) ; Bruce 
 (* Apologetics) ; Bushnell (*Nature and t\\^ Supernatural) ; 
 Carpenter (Permanent Elements of Religion); Clarke 
 (♦Outlines of Theology) ; Crawford (*Scripture Doctrine 
 of the Atonement); Drummond (Natural Law, etc.); 
 Fisher (Supernatural Origin of Christianity, Nature and 
 Method of Revelation) ; Fiske (Through Nature to God, 
 Idea of God, Destiny of Man) ; Harnack (What is Chris- 
 tianity?) ; Hodge (Systematic Theology) ; Kuyper (Work 
 of the Holy Spirit) ; Martineau (Types, etc.) ; Nash (His- 
 tory of the Higher Criticism) ; Salmon (Christian Doc- 
 trine of Immortality) ; Schultz (Old Testament Theology) ; 
 Smith, H. B. C^heology) ; Stevens (Theology of the 
 
ICX) FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 N. T.) ; Storrs (Divine Origin of Christianity) ; Strong 
 (*Systematic Theology) ; Ullmann (Sinlessness of Jesus). 
 
 2. The claims of the church stand a close second 
 to the claims of the pulpit. Carry your sermons into 
 your pastoral work, and out of it get your sermons. 
 It was while watching a meat dealer sharpening his 
 skewers that Shakespeare grasped the fine concep- 
 tion, " There is a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 rough-hew them how we will," and many a min- 
 ister has found noble sermons in as humble a source. 
 One of Andrew Fuller's great sermons, on " Walk- 
 ing by Faith," was suggested by flooded country 
 roads, over which he was making his way to the 
 Northamptonshire Association. Coming to a place 
 where the water was very deep and not knowing 
 exactly how deep it was. Fuller hesitated to advance. 
 A plain countryman who lived near-by and was bet- 
 ter acquainted with the water than the preacher, 
 cried out, " Go on, sir ; you are quite safe ! " Fuller 
 urged on his horse ; but the water soon touching his 
 saddle, he paused to think. " Go on, sir ; all is 
 right ! " shouted the man ; and taking the farmer at 
 his word, Fuller spurred on his horse, and came 
 without mishap to dry land. This suggested the 
 text, " We walk by faith, not by sight." Chalmers, 
 riding one day on a stage-coach beside the driver, 
 noticed as they came to a certain place in the road, 
 that the driver cut the horse a stinging crack with 
 the whip. *' Why did you strike that horse ? " asked 
 Chalmers. " Why, you see, sir," replied the driver, 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK lOI 
 
 " the leader has a way of shying whenever we pass 
 that stone by the wayside, and so I give him a cut 
 with the whip to get his ideas off it." And from a 
 circumstance so hght Chahners wrote his sermon 
 on " The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." A 
 man who becomes a Christian must get his '* ideas " 
 off the world by being filled with new desires and 
 affections. In his pastoral work the minister hardly 
 need look for sermons, for the sermons are already 
 looking for him. 
 
 Aim to have revival features in the church at 
 once. A new man will appeal inevitably to many 
 whom his predecessor, very likely through no 
 fault of his own, may have failed to reach. These 
 may be won, if approached in the right way, very 
 soon after the minister has settled in his parish, 
 and their coming may result in a widespread revival. 
 
 In the church, aim to do good work rather than 
 much. That " capacity for taking infinite pains " 
 which was Carlyle's definition of genius, should 
 characterize every part of a minister's work. " Oft 
 was I weary when I toiled at thee," is the motto 
 which Rudyard Kipling is said to have carved on 
 the desk at which he does the greater part of his 
 work. It is the small task performed with labor 
 and diHgence on which the measure of a minister's 
 success will largely depend. Do not start too many 
 things at once in a new parish. *' Strengthen the 
 things which remain " rather than spend your en- 
 ergy on new projects. Then let things develop 
 themselves, taking advantage of " the psychological 
 
I02 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 moment " so that the initiative comes, or seems to 
 come, from the people rather than from the min- 
 ister. " My plan has never been to force a prac- 
 tice, but rather to have things forced upon me." ^ 
 If you desire a long and useful pastorate, be careful 
 not to do at the start everything you want to do. 
 Things will come to pass according to your desire 
 better and more surely by being in no hurry to 
 begin them. This is sage advice by one who knew : 
 " A young minister should not put up all his sails at 
 once." ^ 
 
 Be accessible to your people. Have an office hour 
 at the church, or be at home at stated times, when 
 all can find you. Never give the impression, how- 
 ever true the fact may be, that your time is already 
 too full of things that must be done. There are 
 many timid people in every parish who will not ven- 
 ture to give you the opportunity to help them be- 
 cause they think you have no time for them. '' The 
 man that wants to see me is the man that I want to 
 see " ^ should be a sentiment written large over 
 every minister's life. 
 
 3. There are other claims besides those of his 
 own pulpit and church which rightly demand a part 
 of a minister's time and attention. And if his life 
 is rightly ordered, he will be able to perform a 
 large number of them without conflict with closer, 
 and for him, more important, spheres of duty. 
 
 1 Dean Hook, " Life," Vol, I., p. 184. 
 
 2 Donald Fraser, " Autobiography," p. 23. 
 » Cotton Mather, " Life," p. 550. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK IO3 
 
 These claims will chiefly come from the country and 
 the town in whi^h he dwells. They are made by 
 neighboring churches, associations, charities, the 
 ministers' meetings, and committees. But beware 
 of '' busy idleness." *' The crime which bankrupts 
 men and States," as Emerson said, *' is job-work ; 
 declining from your main design to serve a turn 
 here and there." The temptation in our day, we 
 believe, is stronger than ever before that urges a 
 minister to go everywhere and do everything. This 
 kind of work often makes a great outward bustle 
 and show and gratifies a great many people who 
 naturally like to see their minister in great demand, 
 and often enough it deceives the minister himself. 
 But his first care must be for the painstaking prep- 
 aration of his sermon, and for the thorough per- 
 sonal visitation of his flock. These other claims 
 make their rightful demands only on what time and 
 strength may remain to him after the claims of his 
 own pulpit and church have been attended to. In 
 the arrangement of his resources, first things must 
 come first. In regard to minor claims be cour- 
 teous, willing, and — scarce. The proper power of 
 discrimination will develop in a minister with a 
 constantly widening experience. 
 
 III. We come now to emphasize that which has 
 already been more or less hinted at as we have con- 
 sidered the minister's disposal of himself and the ar- 
 rangement of his resources, namely. The Employ- 
 ment of his Time. The secret of Spurgeon's suc- 
 cess was an open one, and every successful minister 
 
104 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 must sooner or later learn it : " Vast capacity for 
 work, and redeeming with great jealousy every hour 
 of his time." 
 
 I. It can hardly be too strongly urged that the 
 minister should settle upon and preserve definite 
 hours for study, and should have a place in which 
 to study at home, or preferably in the church or 
 some building where offices are rented. Above 
 most men, the minister can, if he will, make his life 
 one of hard, regular, and useful work. We ad- 
 vise that regular hours should be announced to the 
 congregation, with the request that they do not break 
 in on them needlessly. A weekly notice, printed in 
 the calendar of the church or posted on the bulletin- 
 board will, if worded in the right way, be recog- 
 nized and regarded willingly by the people. The 
 following notice we take from the weekly calendar 
 of a large and active church, and very similar no- 
 tices can now be found in many like publications. 
 
 '* The pastor may be found at his residence, 
 
 Street, each day of the week except Sunday and 
 Monday, from i : 30 to 2 : 30 unless absent from the 
 city. Unless there is urgent and immediate necessity, 
 he cannot see callers in the morning. In case of 
 sickness or death, or for any other pressing cause, 
 he will willingly see you at any hour of the day or 
 night. The rightful demands of this pulpit are the 
 reasons for placing any restriction as to the time of 
 calling. You will recognize the justice and necessity 
 of it." This announcement of regular hours is en- 
 tirely practicable, even in country parishes, for 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK IO5 
 
 where there is a will the way can be found. After 
 a little the people in either country or city churches 
 will learn to respect their minister all the more be- 
 cause he insists on doing his work '' decently and 
 in order." Sooner or later the busy pastor must 
 come to some such scheme if he would employ his 
 time to the best advantage. However reluctantly, 
 he will find himself compelled, with R. W. Dale, 
 whose noble ministry in Birmingham was noted 
 alike for the amount which he did and the thorough- 
 ness with which he did it, to " harden his heart," 
 and during the morning hours close his study obdu- 
 rately against intrusion.^ This was Dr. Dale's prac- 
 tice " as he grew older." We read also in the " Life 
 of Phillips Brooks " that " his hours were regular 
 in the later years." We may well profit in the be- 
 ginning of our ministry by what others have learned 
 only toward the close. 
 
 Do not be too indulgent to visitors during your 
 working hours. Sometimes men whose mission is 
 urgent only to their own imagination will force 
 themselves past the door, however stoutly barred it 
 may be. It is not always possible to keep our study 
 hours in the morning " as impregnable as Gibral- 
 tar," as was the custom of Dr. R. S. Storrs, of 
 Brooklyn, whose ministry lasted over half a century 
 and closed with universal honor. The following 
 rules for a minister's study were laid down by the 
 late Baldwin Brown, of Brixton, and they are as 
 sensible as they are whimsical: " i. Do not have a 
 
 1 A. W. W. Dale, " Life of R. W. Dale," p. 510. 
 
I06 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 sofa or easy chair. 2. It is well to stand while your 
 visitor stays. He too will stand and go all the 
 sooner. 3. If there is a clock in the room, keep it 
 always ten minutes fast, to prevent your visitor 
 missing his next engagement." The minister, like 
 one of the de Medicis, will do well to profit by an 
 example, not otherwise excellent, '' Midas was not 
 more sparing of his money than Cosimo of his 
 moments." ^ But we must leave the minister by his 
 own tact and determination to deal with the visitor 
 who seems determined at times to prevent definite 
 hours for study. The name of such visitors is 
 legion and they are thus recognized by Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes : " Don't you know how hard it is for 
 some people to get out of a room after their visit 
 is really over? One would think they had been 
 built in your parlor or study and were waiting to 
 be launched." 
 
 2. We recommend the following order in the em- 
 ployment of the minister's time: The morning for 
 study; the afternoon for visiting; the evening for 
 services and home. This order will generally hold 
 good ; but in some cases circumstances will of course 
 make it wise to alter it. Chalmers' plan was to 
 give, " Nine to one to his study ; one to four-thirty 
 for recreation; four-thirty to six, dinner; six to 
 eight, visiting; eight to eleven, to letters and lit- 
 erature." But for most men the rule of Dr. T. L. 
 Cuyler is better : " Study your Bible and other good 
 books in the morning ; the door-plates of your people 
 
 1 W. H. O. Smeaton, " The Medicis," p. 40. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK IO7 
 
 in the afternoon." Whatever order you may de- 
 termine upon, remember " In the morning — soli- 
 tude." 1 
 
 It will be of interest here to note the working 
 hours of authors. Carlyle tells us that his monu- 
 mental work, " The French Revolution," was com- 
 pleted by working six hours a day. Bancroft, the 
 historian, was accustomed to work seven hours 
 before the clock struck two in the afternoon, but 
 did it in two instalments, commencing at five in 
 the morning. We are told that " Gladstone's daily 
 itinerary is somewhat as follows : About ten o'clock 
 in the morning he is in his study, and reads and 
 writes steadily until luncheon, which latter function 
 takes about half an hour, and then he retires again 
 for more work. After this comes a drive, and then 
 after dinner another period of reading. He con- 
 tinues with great regularity the severe course of 
 study which he mapped out for himself upon retiring 
 from public life." The late Doctor McCosh, once 
 president of Princeton College, heard, as a student 
 in Scotland, Chalmers deliver a lecture on " System- 
 atized Work, Rest, and Exercise." To the sound 
 maxims there learned he credited much of his suc- 
 cess, and always worked ten hours a day. Mr. 
 Crockett, the novelist, does most of his creative 
 work, strangely enough, before breakfast, rising at 
 half-past four. It will be better for most of us to 
 follow in the footsteps of W. D. Howells, who gives 
 from nine to one to the writing of those stories 
 
 1 Pythagoras. 
 
I08 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 which have dehghted his generation. The hours of 
 Doctor Watson of Liverpool (Ian Maclaren), are 
 practically those of the order we have recommended 
 to be observed : He '' works from nine to one, thus 
 securing four uninterrupted hours for study. After 
 lunch he goes out to pastoral work or to some pub- 
 lic meeting. Correspondence occupies him till din- 
 ner, and if the evening is free from outside 
 engagements, he again writes till eleven." 
 
 With the schedule of this author, who is also a 
 minister, we pass on to offer a caution against 
 overwork. Ministers are too apt to lay the flatter- 
 ing unction to their souls that they are overworked. 
 Unwisely worked possibly they are ; but we believe 
 that nine-tenths of the alleged breakdowns from 
 brain work are due to other causes. The nail, if not 
 the minister, is thus squarely hit on the head by one 
 whose long-continued service proved that he prac- 
 tised what he preached : " It is the want of method, 
 not the excess of toil, breaks down a clergyman." ^ 
 Ministers as a class are not overworked. They must 
 do a good deal of hard work, and many of them 
 have to work harder than they should; but were 
 they to take the place of some newspaper editor or 
 busy merchant, there would be no more talk of over- 
 work. " The excited restlessness and fuss so fa- 
 miliar in modern clerical circles," of which Arch- 
 bishop Tait bids us beware, will do more to break 
 down a man in the ministry than almost all other 
 causes combined. Let a minister be punctual in 
 
 lEzra Stiles Gannett, "Life," p. 158. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK IO9 
 
 keeping his engagements, methodical in the order- 
 ing of his time, and his ministry in its place will be 
 as useful as that of Hugh Stowell Brown, to whose 
 lifelong ministry in Liverpool we have before re- 
 ferred. From his private diary we cull the follow- 
 ing account of a Sunday's work : " I call to-day's 
 work pretty full. Morning service as usual. After- 
 noon a baptismal service, with address. Perhaps 
 seven hundred present; several young people bap- 
 tized. Evening the usual service, and after that to 
 Solway Street on foot and Lord's Supper admin- 
 istration there all by myself. Came home not in the 
 least tired, and ate a mighty supper, and sat talk- 
 ing and reading and walking about the dining-room 
 until after one A. m. It was certainly twelve hours 
 of incessant work — brain, heart, and voice; and I 
 never felt better than I do now after it. Nothing 
 extraordinary in the amount; it is of common, al- 
 most constant occurrence; but I make a note of it, 
 as it were once for all, and I feel thankful for the 
 health and strength given to me. In these services 
 the prayers of course are extempore, and the preach- 
 ing without a scrap of paper or note of any kind, 
 so that the mind is on the stretch all through the 
 day. . . I have been able to do this without a 
 break for twenty-eight years." 
 
 3. Enough has been said to show the importance 
 of the minister resolutely persisting in keeping these 
 hours for study and work. Better far to be " slave 
 to a bell and vassal to an hour " than fitful, un- 
 punctual, and indolent, as the minister who has no 
 
no FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 fixed working hours will almost certainly become. 
 Against these temptations the minister should set 
 himself to battle, and one of the chief secrets in 
 employing his time to the best advantage is to learn 
 that he should always be beforehand with his work. 
 We can only write at ease as a sufficient margin is 
 allowed before the publisher sends for the copy or 
 the congregation gather for the sermon. And a 
 pastoral call that is made on the jump is apt to be 
 one neither satisfactory to the minister nor appre- 
 ciated by the parishioner. To get thus beforehand 
 with his work, Phillips Brooks — and none surely ad- 
 ministered a larger parish than he — was accustomed 
 to return from his holiday five days before its ex- 
 piration, and the same forethought is noticeable in 
 all that he did. Like Richard Baxter, he " never 
 seems to have been bustled ; but he was always busy, 
 and thus he found time for all he had to do." 
 
 There is na workeman 
 
 That can bothe worken well and hastilie. 
 
 This must be done at leisure, parfaitlie/ 
 
 Especially should the minister stand up resolutely 
 against mere impulses and whims. He must work 
 when he does not feel like it; the liking for it will 
 come. To quote Phillips Brooks again, " The first 
 business of the preacher is to conquer the tyranny 
 of his moods, and to be always ready for his work. 
 It can be done. The man who has not learned to 
 do it has not really learned the secret of Jesus, 
 1 Chaucer. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK III 
 
 which was such utter love for his Father and man, 
 between whom he stood, as obliterated all thought 
 of himself save as a medium through which the di- 
 vine might come to the human." ^ It was Long- 
 fellow's custom never to refrain from writing be- 
 cause he was " not in the mood." He saw in the 
 mood " reluctance to the manual labor of quoting 
 one's thoughts, perhaps to the mental labor of set- 
 ting them in order," which he characterized as 
 " often sheer laziness." 
 
 It is the methodical man who has time, and it is 
 the methodical man who does things worth while. 
 We gaze with amazement at the shelf of books writ- 
 ten by Dr. Rudolf Stier and wonder how one man 
 could have completed so much. But those works 
 are a monument to method, for " upon his study 
 table there habitually lay a note-book upon one page 
 of which was noted down what was each day to be 
 done, and upon another page what he had accom- 
 plished. Thus he could tell just how each day had 
 been spent." ^ 
 
 4. The minister may expect to encounter times of 
 discouragement and periods of intellectual dearth, 
 when the pastoral visit becomes irksome and the 
 sermon well-nigh impossible. 
 
 My pens are all split, 
 
 And my ink-glass is dry; 
 
 Neither ink, common sense, nor ideas have I.' 
 
 ^ " Lectures on Preaching," p. 65. 
 2 " Life of Dr. R. Stier," p. 282. 
 ' Cowper. 
 
112 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 All preachers have such seasons. No religious 
 biography that has not its page or pages of such 
 record. Whatever the causes, the cures are near 
 at hand, and while easier to advise than to practise, 
 we offer them in closing this chapter: 
 
 (i) Do not let yourself worry. The temptation 
 at such times is to be worried into an activity which 
 is not natural. " Among all the wretched, I think 
 him the most wretched who must work with his 
 head, even if he is not conscious of having one." ^ 
 
 (2) Rest yourself from one kind of work by do- 
 ing another. One of the secrets of Joseph Parker's 
 constant freshness is thus recorded in his life : " One 
 precaution he carefully observed — to have always on 
 hand, even in the study, two very different kinds 
 of work. Variety, he found, kept the mind from 
 staleness and from strain." ^ 
 
 (3) Read, but read favorite authors whom you 
 have found stimulating to thought, and at such 
 times do not be afraid to read novels, for the 
 light literature so called is fitted for the light head. 
 
 (4) Carefully abstain from composition. Such 
 periods are not to be confused with those times of 
 mood, to which reference has already been made. 
 Exchange pulpits with some other minister or re- 
 lieve yourself of your routine work by taking a few 
 days' absolute rest, at any cost. Dr. Samuel John- 
 son's dictum holds true, " He that is himself weary 
 will soon weary the pubHc." 
 
 ^ Lessing. 
 
 3 William Adamson, "Life of Joseph Parker," p. 513. 
 
THE MINISTER AT WORK II 3 
 
 (5) Pay especial attention at such times to health 
 and exercise, for more often than not the causes are 
 mainly physical. 
 
 Prepare for such a season of discouragement 
 which often follows the first interest and excite- 
 ment of settling in a new parish. '' It is a common 
 thing, almost universal, for a person newly settled 
 to get discouraged and run low somewhere about 
 the close of the second year. Some break down. 
 Others work up all their ideas, and grow discour- 
 aged and lazy, preach hasty, extempore sermons; 
 and are either dismissed, or living through and see- 
 ing the danger, begin to rise and grow. And this 
 has been the turning-point with many a man." ^ 
 
 Thus in his disposal of himself, the arrangement 
 of his resources, the employment of his time, the 
 minister at work will commend himself to his fel- 
 lows. For him the dead-line in the ministry will 
 recede, and it will be long before he says : " I am 
 too old, O king, and slow to stir; so bid thou one 
 of the younger men here do these things." ^ 
 
 1 Dr. Lyman Beecher's " Life," Vol. II., p. 250. 2 Herodotus. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 [. What is Meant Here by Hours of Devotion. Illus- 
 trated from 
 
 1. Scripture. 
 
 2. Eminent ministers. 
 
 II. Why Such Hours are Specially Needed. 
 
 1. To preserve and increase spiritual power in the 
 
 ministry. 
 
 2. To prepare for active service. 
 
 3. To protect against dangerous tendencies. 
 
 III. How Such Hours Should be Spent. 
 
 1. In prayer. 
 
 2. In solemn covenanting with God. 
 
 3. In meditation. 
 
 4. In devotional reading, (i) Books of devotion. (2) 
 
 Religious biography. (3) Devotional poetry. 
 Concluding Counsels. 
 
VI 
 
 HOURS OF DEVOTION 
 
 I. By hours of devotion we mean Special Seasons 
 of Retirement for Quiet Meditation, for Prayer, and 
 for Devotional Reading, distinct from the daily ex- 
 ercise of prayer and meditation. We counsel that 
 a regular time be set apart for this exercise, and 
 that it be jealously preserved. Saturday evening 
 is very suitable for most ministers; but see to it 
 that the Sunday's work be all complete, the mind 
 free from pulpit worry and at ease. This has been 
 a common custom among our most effective preach- 
 ers. In the " Life of Thomas Boston " we read 
 that " the intervening rest of Saturday (after finish- 
 ing his sermons on Friday) secured for him a 
 greater reserve of strength and freshness for his 
 Sabbath ministration." ^ The Saturday evening for 
 quiet thought and prayer was religiously set aside 
 also by John Angell James, whose ministry of 
 forty-seven years at Carr's Lane Church, Birming- 
 ham, remained sweet and true to the last : " He 
 always read on Saturday evening books which 
 powerfully moved the religious affections or which 
 assert the awful dignity of the ministerial office." ^ 
 
 ip. 76. 
 
 s R. W. Dale, " Life of John Angell James," p. 607. 
 
 117 
 
Il8 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 We need to remember that a preparation of heart 
 is quite as essential as a preparation of head to 
 perform perfectly the duties with which we are 
 entrusted. 
 
 I. We seek illustrations of this truth in the pages 
 of Scripture, which ring with calls to prayer and 
 devotion, and are filled with instances of this call 
 heard and heeded. It was as David the king " sat 
 before the Lord " that the desire was born within 
 him that he should build a house for God to dwell 
 in,^ a desire which was to come to its perfect ful- 
 filment in the glory of the temple of Solomon ; and 
 it was as Daniel " set his face unto the Lord God " 
 that Gabriel touched him " about the time of the 
 evening oblation." " But not to multiply illustra- 
 tions from the Old Testament, we come at once to 
 the example of Christ, with whom the hour of great 
 action followed constantly on the hour of special 
 devotion. " Rising up a great while before day " 
 he goes forth ^' into a solitary place " ; ^ and after 
 some great miracle of power, such as the feeding 
 of the five thousand, we find him departing " into 
 a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening 
 was come he was there alone." * Only when he feels 
 the touch of his Father's hand does he come down 
 from the mountain or appear from the desert. Then 
 the preaching of the sermon at which men mar- 
 veled, the teaching of the disciples who were to 
 found his church, and even the raising of the dead, 
 
 * 1 Chron. 17 : 1-16. 2 Dan. 9 : 3, 4. 
 
 'Mark i : 35. * Matt. 14 : 23. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION IIQ 
 
 seemed work easy and simple. In all the acts of his 
 daily life we find that *' wonderful mixture of devo- 
 tion " which speaks of the hours of communion with 
 God which had preceded. If these hours were nec- 
 essary for our Lord, must they not also have the 
 first place in the life of his minister? Only in 
 such hours shall we begin to understand the mean- 
 ing of those words, '* who in the days of his flesh, 
 when he had offered up prayers and supplications, 
 with strong crying and tears unto him that was 
 able to save him from death and was heard in that 
 he feared." ^ The apostles' example followed close 
 on that of their Lord. When the choice of the 
 first deacons was to be made the Twelve bade the 
 brethren, " Look ye out among you seven men of 
 honest report," while they themselves were to " con- 
 tinue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of 
 the word." ^ Paul's care for the churches is nowhere 
 more plainly shown than when he declares to the 
 Romans, " Without ceasing I make mention of you 
 always in my prayers," ^ and he can find no higher 
 commendation of Epaphras, whom he praises to the 
 Colossians, than this : " Who . . . always laboring 
 fervently for you in prayers that ye may stand 
 perfect and complete in the will of God." * Pray- 
 ing without ceasing was Paul's great safeguard 
 against danger; and having bidden the Ephesians 
 put on the whole armor of God, he follows his de- 
 scription of that armor with the words, " Praying 
 
 1 Heb. 5:7. " Acts 6 : 4 (K- V.). 
 
 » Rom. 1 : 9. *Col. 4 : 12. 
 
120 THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, 
 and watching thereunto with all perseverance and 
 supplication for all saints." ^ It was because John 
 '' was in the Spirit on the Lord's day " that he 
 " heard behind him a great voice," ^ and it is only 
 as we are in the Spirit that we too shall hear that 
 voice revealing unto us things divine for the comfort 
 of the people whose ministers we are. 
 
 2. The experience of eminent Christian ministers 
 confirms the testimony of Scripture. We cannot 
 do better than quote the words in which they 
 acknowledge what such hours of devotion have 
 meant to their lives, or to note the record which 
 other hands have made of their custom and practice. 
 
 (i) Joseph Alleine, of whom it has been said 
 that " sometimes he would suspend the routine of 
 parochial engagements and devote whole days to 
 these secret exercises, in order to which he would 
 contrive to be alone in some void house, or else in 
 some sequestered spot in the open valley." ^ 
 
 (2) Jonathan Edwards " enjoyed sweet hours on 
 the banks of Hudson's River, in sweet converse with 
 God." His inward sense of Christ " he knows not 
 how to express, otherwise than by a calm, sweet 
 abstraction of soul from all the concerns of this 
 world. . . Far from all mankind, sweetly conversing 
 with Christ, and rapt and swallowed up in God." * 
 
 (3) David Brainerd, whose journal we commend 
 
 1 Eph. 6 : 18, 19. 2 Rev. i : 10. 
 
 * Stanford's " Life of Joseph Alleine." 
 
 * Phelps' " Still Hour," p. 11. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION 121 
 
 later as a book of devotion, is thus described by 
 Jonathan Edwards, to whose daughter he was en- 
 gaged : " His Hfe shows the right way to success 
 in the works of the ministry. He sought it as the 
 resolute soldier seeks victory in a siege or battle; 
 or as a man that runs a race for a great prize. 
 Animated with love to Christ and souls, how did 
 he labor always fervently, not only in words and 
 doctrine in public and private, but in prayers day 
 and night wrestling with God in secret and 'tra- 
 vailing in birth ' with unutterable groans and 
 agonies until Christ were formed in the hearts of 
 the people to whom he was sent." ^ 
 
 (4) Prayer was the vital breath also of that hero 
 of the cross, Fletcher of Mandalay. While holding 
 communion with his God, he seemed to lose all 
 sense of time. Once, we are told by one who was 
 present, he was so filled with the sense of God's love 
 that, being able to contain no more, he cried out, 
 " O my God, withhold thy hand, or the vessel will 
 burst ! " Another of his friends narrates how even 
 in his earlier life his first salutation was, " Do I 
 meet you praying ? " Sweet indeed was the usual 
 reply if ever the misconduct of an absent person 
 were mentioned, " Let us pray for him." Through- 
 out his whole life Fletcher seemed to be ever 
 climbing that ladder which connects earth with 
 heaven. 
 
 (5) The testimony borne to the life of Payson 
 in that charming book, " The Still Hour," is like 
 
 1 " Life of David Brainerd." 
 
122 FOR THE WORK OF THE MIxVISTRY 
 
 those already mentioned. " We read of Payson that 
 his mind at times almost lost its sense of the ex- 
 ternal world in the ineffable thought of God's glory, 
 which rolled like a sea of light around him at the 
 throne of grace." ^ 
 
 (6) Henry Martyn, the story of whose life has 
 been such an inspiration to thousands of his toiling 
 brethren, describes an experience that came to 
 him : " In my first prayer for deliverance from 
 worldly thoughts, depending on the power and 
 promises of God for fixing my soul while I prayed, 
 I was helped to enjoy much abstinence from the 
 world for nearly an hour. Afterwards in prayer 
 for my own sanctification, my soul breathed freely 
 and ardently after the holiness of God, and this was 
 the best season of the year." 
 
 (7) F. D. Maurice, that philosopher whose words 
 were not always understood, but who ever moved 
 men by his Christlike life, is thus pictured in a 
 sacred moment : " Very frequentU if one came into 
 his room at all suddenly, the result was to make him 
 rise hurriedly from his knees, his face reddened, and 
 his eyes depressed by the intense pressure of his 
 hands, the base of each of which had been driven 
 and almost gouged into either eye-socket, the fingers 
 and thumbs pressed down over forehead and head. 
 The Greek Testament open at some special point 
 which had occupied him at the moment he kneeled 
 down lay on the chair before him." ^ 
 
 1 Phelps' " Still Hour," p. 9. 
 
 2 " Life of F. D. Maurice," Vol. II., p. 285. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION I23 
 
 (8) Among the papers of Francis Wayland a let- 
 ter was found dated Maulmain, March 17th, 1838, 
 written by Adoniram Judson, which shows the 
 deep devotional life, as well as the moral courage, 
 of the great missionary : " Allow me to hope 
 that amid your arduous engagements you will 
 not forget every day and hour to maintain a close 
 walk with God. You have probably none about you 
 who would care to exhort you to this. How much I 
 feel the necessity of being exhorted myself, and 
 how difficult I find it to attain even for a moment 
 to ' that beauteous light I see from afar ' I cannot 
 express. But we may be sure that this will be worth 
 worlds to us when we come to die." 
 
 (9) The name of Andrew A. Bonar has doubtless 
 already occurred to the mind of many reading this 
 chapter. With Bonar the claim of devotion was su- 
 preme. " Unless I get up to the measure of at least 
 two hours in prayer every day," he writes, " I shall 
 not be satisfied." But this lesson was not learned 
 at once. " I was," he says, " living very grossly, 
 laboring night and day in visiting, very little prayer- 
 fulness. I did not see that prayer should be the 
 main business of every day." From these hours of 
 devotion there came a strength which enabled him 
 to do his labor without exhaustion, and to bear 
 everywhere with him that bright peculiar influence 
 which cheered the sick in their pain, and opened 
 the hearts of men for spiritual conversation as 
 naturally as did Jesus by the wellside of Samaria. 
 
 (10) Dr. Alexander McLaren once wrote to Dr. 
 
124 POR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 W. J. Dawson, then an unknown student for the 
 Methodist ministry, a letter in which is found his 
 own deep secret : " I have always found that my 
 own comfort and efficiency in preaching has been 
 in direct proportion with the frequency and depth 
 of daily communion with God. I know no way in 
 which we can do our work but by: a. Quiet fel- 
 lowship with him; b. resolute keeping up of a stu- 
 dent's habits. . .; and c. conscientious pulpit prep- 
 aration. The secret of success in everything is, 
 trusting God and hard work." 
 
 We read reverently such pages as these from 
 which we have quoted. They reveal those sacred 
 times which are to be pondered rather than much 
 spoken of. They reveal likewise the source from 
 which came the strength that resulted in the emi- 
 nence which the world beheld. Such experiences 
 will be found repeated in all lives that are truly 
 great, for, after all, greatness is only goodness be- 
 come visible in deeds and audible in words. The 
 strength for such deed and word is found for all in 
 just such hours of devotion and communion with 
 Christ. 
 
 II. Having now in mind what is meant by hours 
 of devotion, we are ready to ask the question, Why 
 Such Hours are Specially Needed by the Minister? 
 We give three reasons : 
 
 I. To preserve and increase spiritual power in 
 our ministry. If we are to do greater works than 
 our Master, as he has promised, we must possess 
 that power to raise a soul from the dead which he 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION 12$ 
 
 manifested also in raising a body from the grave. 
 The key for ministerial success in this direction is 
 close to our hand : " Ye shall receive power, after 
 that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Only as 
 this spiritual power is enshrined in our own hearts 
 shall we hear our people declare, " When our pas- 
 tor prays, it is right into the heart of God. When 
 he preaches, it is right into the heart of the sinner." ^ 
 2. To prepare us for active service. The people 
 may complain now and again if their minister goes 
 away to the mountain or to the desert ; but they will 
 not complain when he returns to them with new- 
 found power. In scientific thought this quiet is 
 also imperative, as well as in the Christian min- 
 istry. The advice given by Darwin to young Ro- 
 manes may well be noted here : " Above all, 
 Romanes, cultivate the habit of meditation." A 
 monastic life is not called for in the ministry of 
 to-day, but God does often take his children apart 
 to teach them. For forty years Moses dwelt 
 in the wilderness before he did his great work 
 of deliverance. Elijah, for an equal length of 
 time, dwelt also alone. John the Baptist was a 
 man of solitude, and Jesus took much time to be 
 apart with God. In Arabia, Paul for three years 
 dwelt quietly with his new-found Lord, and it 
 was upon the lonely " Isle that is called Patmos " 
 that the Revelation came to John. In the same 
 loneliness dwelt Luther in the Wartburg, Bunyan 
 in the Bedford jail, and Wesley in his secluded 
 
 ^ Baron Stow, " Life," p. 123. 
 
126 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 chambers.^ In such loneliness the minister will re- 
 ceive his best preparation for active service, for 
 " while I was musing, the fire burned." 
 
 3. To protect us against some dangerous tend- 
 encies in our ministerial work. " Then I saw that 
 there is a way to hell even from the gate of heaven." 
 This old maxim, from '' The Pilgrim's Progress," 
 recalls a pathetic passage in the life of F. W. Rob- 
 ertson, in which he points out that no man is more 
 in danger of losing his own soul than is the min- 
 ister. While it is true that the moral dignity and 
 the sacred objects of a minister's work inspire him 
 with a confidence not easily baffled, and that there is 
 much of heaven " naturally connected with an office 
 whose sole business is to conduct men thither," ^ 
 yet without hours of devotion the Christian min- 
 ister is too apt to become " salt that has lost its 
 savor." Among these dangerous tendencies we 
 mention : 
 
 (i) Over-familiarity with divine things. Like 
 " daily handled fire," even God's word may sear 
 and harden the soul that handles it, and the per- 
 petual life and freshness of spirituality is thus in 
 grave danger of being dissipated. The very bloom 
 and luster of the higher Christian life may be 
 brushed off and dimmed by over-handling if means 
 be not taken to prevent it. Unless meditation be 
 cultivated the fragrance departs from the life of 
 a busy minister and his pulpit loses its force and 
 
 1 George F. Pentecost. 
 
 8D. P, Kidder, "The Christian Pastorate," p. 55;?. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION 127 
 
 grip. Devotion is '* a fine corrective for that spirit- 
 ual hardening to which the priestly life is continually 
 exposed." ^ 
 
 (2) Narrow and unworthy views of the min- 
 istry. It is easy to slip, almost unconsciously, into 
 the way of looking at the ministry as a profession, 
 as simply the fulfilment of so much work for so 
 much remuneration. Natural as this is it must be 
 avoided by all means. That dread of " hereditary 
 clergymen " to which Dean Hook confesses is a 
 dread felt by all good men who would constantly 
 feel in their ministry the same divine impulse that 
 first brought them to it. We must keep our heads 
 above the clouds, our only thought being how the 
 Lord may be glorified.^ 
 
 (3) The strain of a life of aggressive activity. 
 The minister is committed to a life of aggressive 
 conflict. He must constantly fight sin, and the na- 
 ture of his work also forces him to inform himself 
 on the controversies of Christendom. But how 
 much more than such conflicts as these is religion! 
 It is a great misfortune for a minister to over- 
 develop the combative side of his nature, firing at 
 every head which he sees above the battlements of 
 the enemy. Necessary as it is that we should be 
 good soldiers of Christ, we have need also to be- 
 ware lest we forget the devotional side of our lives. 
 In fact, the one is the corrective of the other, for 
 " devotion is by far the best sedative to excite- 
 
 1 " Church Quarterly Review," April, 1896, p. 241. 
 «John Watson, "The Clerical Life," p. 132. 
 
128 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 ment." ^ The life of controversy which PhilHps 
 Brooks lived in Philadelphia calmed down in Bos- 
 ton to the life which dealt with principles and was 
 devoted largely to realms apart from political strife. 
 A minister's highest usefulness, we believe, is only 
 attained when he learns that happy mean between 
 glittering generalities and too personal application. 
 " Little as I have lately got of separate moments, it 
 is a great blessing and it is clear that to get it 
 is one's true work," ^ is the conclusion to which 
 many besides Archbishop Benson have come in the 
 work of the ministry. While we are constantly 
 learning that religion needs to be carried into busi- 
 ness in our country, still we all know what Dr. 
 John Hall meant when he wrote, " In Europe people 
 do not enough carry religion into their business. 
 Here I think they carry business into their re- 
 ligion a good deal." ^ Remember that religion, as 
 the minister lives and preaches it, must be oil upon 
 troubled waters, as well as a firebrand hurled against 
 the enemy's encampment. 
 
 (4) In recounting the dangers of ministerial work 
 we must not omit the infirmities of our own nature, 
 such as personal ambition, vanity, and self-con- 
 sciousness, to which lives lived so much in pub- 
 lic are peculiarly liable. We are told how Doc- 
 tor Bonar — the story has been credited to others 
 and is indeed of general application — in the early 
 
 1 " Life of Cardinal Manning," Vol. I., p, 438. 
 
 2 " Life of Archbishop Benson," Vol. II., p. 29. 
 8 " Life of Dr. John Hall," p. 162. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION I29 
 
 days of his ministry, after a Sabbath of unusually 
 successful work, was alone in his study. To him 
 a majestic personage appeared and offered to weigh 
 with his scales the measure of his zeal and ana- 
 lyze it in the crucible which he carried. Very will- 
 ingly the young minister submitted to the test, and 
 this was the result: Of one hundred parts, bigotry 
 was ten, personal ambition twenty-three, love of 
 praise nineteen, pride of denomination fifteen, pride 
 of talent fourteen, love of authority twelve, love of 
 God four, love of man three. Whether or not this 
 story is true, do we not all as ministers of Christ 
 need to place our zeal in the crucible of truth and, 
 as the result is known, cry with Paul, " Where is 
 boasting ? " This danger of the flesh is thus well 
 portrayed by James Martineau : " The native pro- 
 phetic fire often burns into false heats of impa- 
 tience and presumption upon young hearts, and 
 tempts them to decline the toils and despise the dis- 
 cipline of steady culture. But this belongs to its 
 human infirmity, not to its divine excellence, and 
 entails the curse inseparable from pride and con- 
 ceit." Enough has been said of this matter to show 
 how necessary it is that we, in the performance of 
 our sacred duties, pray often to the Lord of the 
 harvest that as we try to do his work he will blow 
 away the chaff and save only the wheat. 
 
 III. How should these Hours of Devotion be 
 Spent ? 
 
 I. Prayer, as of first importance, has the first 
 place. To prevail and " have power with men " 
 I 
 
130 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 we must first prevail and " have power with God." 
 That ministry which is attended with unction will 
 be attended with success, as is illustrated in the life 
 of William Wilberforce, where we find this re- 
 solve : " Pray for pardon, acceptance, holiness, 
 peace; for courage, humility, and all that I want; 
 for love and heavenly-mindedness. . . Pray for my 
 country, both in temporal and spiritual things. . . 
 Pray for political wisdom. . . Think over my en- 
 emies with forgiveness and love, over my friends 
 and acquaintances, and pray for both." ^ We have 
 need to pray for our people as well as for ourselves 
 in such quiet hours. We recall how Samuel Mar- 
 tin was accustomed to shut himself up in West- 
 minster Chapel from time to time, stopping at each 
 pew in order, and kneeling in prayer for those who 
 usually occupied it. The minister, both as pastor 
 and preacher, can only save souls as he spends much 
 time in secret prayer. Nay, he can only save his 
 own soul and walk himself in the way of God's 
 appointing as he often heeds the injunction, " Be 
 still, and know that I am God." The minister who 
 prays for his people is the minister for whom the 
 people will pray. If we choose the proper time and 
 place, it is well to say to certain of our people, 
 " Don't forget to pray for me, whenever you have 
 the King's ear." - Pray the most when you feel like 
 it the least. Then the need is greatest, and He who 
 is the resurrection and the life shall breathe upon the 
 
 » " The Life of William Wilberforce," by his sons, Vol. II., p. 210. 
 2 C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION I3I 
 
 dry bones that they may Hve, and you shall know 
 again the joy of his salvation in that divine and 
 life-giving harmony, which " of stones can raise up 
 children unto Abraham." 
 
 2. The hours of devotion which begin with prayer 
 should also contain moments spent in solemn cove- 
 nanting with God. By this we do not mean micro- 
 scopic self-examination ; rather let God " make dili- 
 gent search." " Search me, O God, and know my 
 heart; try me and know my thoughts; and see if 
 there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the 
 way everlasting." * It is only as we confess our 
 sins before God, and are assured of his gracious 
 promises that he will in nowise cast out those who 
 thus come to him, that we can receive him with our 
 whole hearts, as Prophet, Priest, and King. From 
 such solemn covenants have come the most blessed 
 ministries, and in such earnest dedications of our- 
 selves to God we learn to read aright the dread of 
 Paul, " Lest having preached to others, I myself 
 become a castaway." On the fly-leaf of the pocket 
 Bible of the lamented Dr. Maltbie Davenport Bab- 
 cock the following covenant, which it would help all 
 to copy, was found written : " Riverdale, N. Y., 
 November 7, 1899. Committed myself again with 
 Christian brothers to unreserved docility and 
 devotion before my Master." 
 
 3. We mention also the importance of meditation. 
 No man should withdraw himself from the thud of 
 the steam-hammer and the whistle of the locomotive. 
 
 1 Psalm 139 : 23-34. 
 
132 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 We should all live in the midst of men and women 
 who are dependent upon their industry for their 
 daily bread, and in the good relations subsisting 
 between men should rejoice to find our *' bit of 
 blue sky." ^ Yet there are other places where the 
 sky is blue, and among them those quiet anchorages 
 where we lie still and the heart is fixed on God. 
 " Contemplation is fire, unction, ecstasy, savor, rest, 
 and glory," ^ and in it we ever find a source of peace 
 and joy. In the silence, called by St. Ambrose 
 "the conversation of God," we shall acquire that 
 strength and happiness of eternal truth which this 
 age of rush and noise and fussiness specially needs. 
 In the right direction are those " quiet days " and 
 " retreats," which are now not uncommon even 
 among bodies of Protestant ministers. Whether 
 these times of meditation are held in the company 
 of others, or alone by ourselves, the mind of the 
 Lord will be declared in them to heart and con- 
 science, and his face imprinted within will reflect for 
 us his saving judgments and his secret approvals.^ 
 4. Devotional reading will be found most helpful. 
 Before giving a list of such works as are useful 
 for this purpose, we note the caution that they must 
 be read devotionally, not in haste or in a " business- 
 like " way. These books, as Emerson says of the 
 " Imitation of Christ " and " Thoughts of Pascal," 
 " are for the closet, and to be read on bended knee." 
 
 1 " Life of Bishop Frazier," by Thomas Hughes, p. 242. 
 
 2" Sons of Francis," by Ann Macdonnell, p. 71. 
 
 3 " The Cure of Souls," by John Watson, pp. 299-301. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION 133 
 
 We classify devotional reading, for the sake of con- 
 venience, under the heads of Books of Devotion, 
 Religious Biography, and Devotional Poetry. 
 ( I ) Books of Devotion. 
 
 a. Some of these are of ancient date, such as 
 the " Confessions of Augustine," about whom Spur- 
 geon said : " No man will so minister to a minister 
 as Augustine." " The Imitation of Christ," by 
 Thomas a Kempis, probably lies on the bookshelf 
 of more ministers than any other book save the 
 Bible. We especially commend " The Practice of 
 the Presence of God," by Brother Laurence. 
 
 b. The Puritan age will be found rich in books 
 of this nature. We mention Jeremy Taylor's " Holy 
 Living and Dying " ; Baxter's " Reformed Pastor," 
 and " Saint's Rest " ; Bunyan's " Grace Abounding," 
 and, of course, his " Pilgrim's Progress " ; Leigh- 
 ton's " Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter." 
 A prominent place must be given to the letters of 
 Samuel Rutherford, the godly pastor of Anwoth, 
 which glow with intense and holy devotion, and 
 which are characterized by Cecil as " one of my 
 classics." Bishop Thomas Wilson's " Sacra Pri- 
 vata " and Pascal's " Thoughts on Religion " are 
 both of great value. 
 
 c. The eighteenth century, though not so rich, 
 yet gives us at least three books which should not be 
 passed over. These are Doddridge's " Rise and 
 Progress of Religion in the Soul," Adams' " Private 
 Thoughts on Religion," and Jonathan Edwards' " A 
 Treatise Concerning Religion." 
 
134 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 d. The list of modern authors commended for 
 purposes of devotion will naturally be longer, 
 though not more valuable, than those lists which 
 have already been given. We cannot, of course, 
 pretend to give all that are well worthy of men- 
 tion, but only those which have been found person- 
 ally helpful : Goulburn's " Thoughts on Religion " ; 
 Phelps' " Still Hour " ; James Hamilton's " The 
 Mount of Olives"; Sheppard's " Thoughts on Pri- 
 vate Devotion," a book which powerfully impressed 
 James Martineau, whose " Endeavors After the 
 Christian Life " should also be mentioned ; Tho- 
 luck's " Hours of Christian Devotion " ; " The Ad- 
 dresses to Candidates for Ordination," by Bishop 
 Wilberforce ; " The Mission of the Comforter," by 
 Julius C. Hare ; Pusey's ** Addresses to Companions 
 of the Love of Jesus " ; Kempe's " Companions for 
 the Devout Life " ; Thomas Binney's *' Four dis- 
 courses on the Closet and the Church " ; " The 
 Sermons and Addresses of Drummond," and of 
 Phillips Brooks ; George Mattheson's " Hours of 
 Retirement," and in fact almost any book that comes 
 from his pen ; Moule's " Private Prayer " ; A. J. 
 Gordon's " In Christ " ; and T. C. Upham's " Prin- 
 ciples of Interior or Hidden Life." The books by 
 F. B. Meyer and Andrew Murray are too numer- 
 ous to mention, but will be found helpful especially 
 at certain stages in the minister's growth. 
 
 It is remarkable how large a number of these 
 works of devotion are by Roman Catholics or Epis- 
 copalians of the High Church type. Doctor Dale 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION 1 35 
 
 once expressed to Doctor Fairbairn his conviction 
 that notwithstanding the false theological principles 
 and exaggerated ecclesiastical claims of the Tractari- 
 ans, " in the devotion of these men a new endowment 
 of the Holy Spirit came into the life of England," 
 and we believe we may truly add, " and of the 
 world." A recent writer of the Roman Catholic 
 communion says : " For one whom our books of 
 controversy have brought round, twenty at least 
 have yielded to the power of our devotions." In 
 the excellence of this devotional spirit we thankfully 
 rejoice with the will to profit and the mind to 
 appreciate. 
 
 (2) Religious biography. *' The lives of learned 
 and holy men are the most profitable of all books 
 to a minister." ^ 
 
 a. The lives of men who have been eminent for 
 holiness : " The Life of Dr. William Marsh," by his 
 daughter ; A. A. Bonar's " Memoir of R. M. Mc- 
 Cheyne," called by Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler a " per- 
 petual tonic " ; " The Life of Caesar Malan " ; " An 
 Account of the Lord's Dealings with George 
 Miiller." 
 
 That preacher to preachers, F. W. Robertson, 
 chose " when he could as his books of devotion the 
 lives of eminently holy persons whose tone was not 
 merely uprightness of character and highminded- 
 ness ; but communion with God besides." - Well 
 too, may we come to such men for inspiration and 
 
 1 Rev. W. Bull, •• Life," p. 339- 
 
 2 " Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson," Vol. I., p. 2. 
 
136 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 light, " for man is the image of God, and all that 
 is most gracious in man reveals God." ^ 
 
 h. The lives of men eminent for usefulness: 
 " Life of John Angell James," by Dale ; " Life of 
 Doctor Chalmers," by Hanna ; " Life of John New- 
 ton," by Bull ; " Life of Kingman Nott," by Nott ; 
 '' Life of Doctor Todd," by Todd ; " Life of Doctor 
 Beecher," by Beecher ; " The Autobiography of Fin- 
 ney " ; and a book perhaps less known, but equally 
 well worth reading, " The Life of Dr. Constans L. 
 Goodell." 
 
 The Hves of missionaries are filled with this spirit 
 of devotion. Our space permits us to mention only 
 the lives of Henry Martyn and David Brainerd, 
 and the journals of Wesley and Whitefield. 
 
 c. Men eminent for beauty of character : " Life 
 of James Hamilton," by Arnot ; '' Life of John Dun- 
 can," by Brown ; " Life of Francis Wayland," by 
 Wayland ; " The Letters of the Baroness Bunsen," 
 and " Memorials of a Quiet Life," by Hare ; and 
 especially the *' Life of Doctor Arnold," by Stanley, 
 and the " Life of Charles Kingsley," by his wife. 
 
 The lists here given cannot in any sense be taken 
 as complete. The list of one man will never be 
 that of another, and each of us will make such a 
 collection of books for himself. Have in your 
 library one shelf for your own favorites, to be 
 turned to at those seasons set apart for devotion.^ 
 
 1 A. W. W. Dale, " Life of R. W. Dale," p. 521. 
 
 - Such a shelf was in Professor Pattison's own library, and 
 " The Saturday Night Shelf " was ever held sacred by his children 
 when searching for books. H. P. 
 
HOURS OF DEVOTION 137 
 
 In the reading of biography the caution is in place 
 that we do not seek slavishly to imitate those whose 
 lives we read. These men were all very different 
 one from the other, and in being themselves lay their 
 strength. We cannot feel as Brainerd, McCheyne, 
 or Henry Martyn felt, but by their examples we 
 can be stimulated to self-consecration. 
 
 (3) Devotional poetry. Among poetry suitable 
 for devotional purposes a list of volumes and sep- 
 arate poems could be mentioned which would form 
 a book in itself. Not to lengthen out such a col- 
 lection indefinitely, we content ourselves with noting 
 only the following : " Lyra Germanica " ; Herbert's 
 Poems ; Schaff's *' Library of Sacred Poetry " ; 
 Keble's " Christian Year " ; " Hymns of the Ages " ; 
 " In Memoriam " ; and W. T. Stead's " Hymns that 
 Have Helped." 
 
 We conclude this chapter on Hours of Devotion, 
 having attempted to define their meaning, to give 
 reason for their need, and to indicate how they may 
 be spent, with the following counsels of Alexander 
 McLaren, who is in every way so well qualified to 
 give them : " Dwell in the secret place of the Most 
 High. Remember the saying of the great Reformer, 
 ' The heart makes the divine,' and that other word 
 of the great church father, that * three things go 
 to furnish the great theologian: prayer, meditative 
 contemplation of the truth already won, and the 
 experience and conquest of temptation.' We must 
 be first and foremost good men if we are to be good 
 students or good ministers. . . The first, second 
 
138 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 and third requisite for our work is personal god- 
 liness; without that, though I have the tongues of 
 men and angels, I am harsh and discordant as 
 sounding brass, monotonous and unmusical as a 
 tinkling cymbal. Only the love of God in the heart 
 will * fill all the stops of life with tuneful breath ' 
 and evoking all the harmonies of the soul, make 
 of our words and works a perpetual anthem, sweet 
 in the ear of God, and revealing him to the hearing 
 of men. Like our Lord we must go to the mount 
 of Olives, when the people go every man to his 
 own house. Then shall we be able, at early morn- 
 ing, and noontide, and evening, to come down to the 
 temple and teach. Then, and only then, will the 
 common people hear us gladly, and men be con- 
 strained to say, * It is not ye that speak ; but the 
 Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.' " * 
 
 1 " Counsels," pp. 23, 24. 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 1. Why this subject needs to be considered. 
 
 2. The essentials to a successful study of the subject. 
 Note. Two reasons why Baptist church architecture is 
 
 distinct from others. 
 
 I. Utility the First Consideration in Contemplating 
 
 THE Plan of a Church. 
 
 1. The exterior. 
 
 2. The interior. The church a place of worship, (i) The 
 
 shape of the audience room. (2) The place for the 
 organ and choir loft. (3) The pulpit, and principles 
 of acoustics. (4) Provision for the ordinances. 
 
 II. Seemliness Demands that the Church Should be 
 
 Beautiful as Well as Useful. 
 Let us " worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." 
 
VII 
 
 CHURCH ARCHITECTURE^ WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 
 TO BAPTIST CHURCHES 
 
 The subject to which we now come is eminently 
 practical. It demands far more intelligent con- 
 sideration than it has yet received from the min- 
 istry. In our theological seminaries little, if any, 
 instruction is given as to the church building. The 
 student graduates from our halls and is turned loose 
 on congregations as ignorant as he himself of the 
 first principles of church architecture, with the prob- 
 ability that at least once in his ministry he may 
 need to build a meeting-house. At such a time 
 some idea as to what the church edifice should be is 
 really almost as necessary to him as is a clear under- 
 standing of the trichotomous theory of a man's na- 
 ture or the precise scope of the Greek aorist tense. 
 That he will have associated with him a building 
 committee helps little, if at all. The ordinary build- 
 ing committee is, if possible, more ignorant of the 
 business in hand than is the ordinary minister. As 
 a rule he and they alike are at the mercy of the 
 architect. And to this hour the architect belongs to 
 
 ^ This chapter was written practically as it is here given by 
 Professor Pattison, who was an architect before he became a 
 minister. 
 
 141 
 
142 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 a profession with which any man, however unedu- 
 cated, may number himself. He is not even certifi- 
 cated as is a plumber. Too often he designs and exe- 
 cutes the church for his own glory. Very rarely 
 do you find one of the craft who has any clear 
 perception of what may distinguish the Congrega- 
 tional church edifice from the Episcopal, or the 
 Baptist from the Presbyterian. Doctor Guthrie 
 gives voice to a general experience when he writes 
 to a friend : " The children of this world are wiser 
 (than we) in their generation. Theaters are built 
 for good sight. How many churches are not? 
 Stuck full of pillars, roaring with echoes, and God's 
 light of day so dimmed and diminished in passing 
 through painted windows that the Bible or the 
 prayer-book is read with difficulty, the features of 
 the preacher are lost, and he himself appears like 
 a distant object looming through mist. No men 
 appear to be more ignorant of their profession than 
 church architects." ^ To this sweeping indictment 
 there are, of course, notable exceptions; but the 
 minister ought to be equal to controlling the vicious 
 rule, and proving himself intelligently capable of 
 molding the architect to his own ideas. Trinity 
 Church, Boston, was built from the plans of the 
 greatest of American architects. It was superin- 
 tended by a committee such as perhaps only Boston 
 could furnish, men of culture, judgment, zeal, and 
 business capacity. But Trinity Church is the em^ 
 bodiment of the thought of Phillips Brooks : " His 
 » " Life," Vol. II., p. 196. ""^ 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE I43 
 
 ideas are written in the structure ; he supported and 
 stimulated the genius of the architect, turning it 
 to his own purpose," ^ and so Trinity Church may 
 to-day be regarded in a certain sense as his 
 monument. 
 
 Before engaging in the enterprise of building a 
 church, the minister would do well to study, if only 
 in a simple and preliminary way, church architecture. 
 In the Middle Ages the ecclesiastics were their own 
 architects, and to their taste, as well as to their 
 devotion, we owe the great cathedrals of Europe, 
 to see which it is worth crossing the Atlantic. 
 
 Since this book will fall into the hands of many 
 Baptist ministers, a special remark on Baptist archi- 
 tecture will be useful. Baptist church architecture 
 is distinct by virtue of two points. It is the 
 church architecture of congregationalists ; and Con- 
 gregationalism is of all church polities the most 
 democratic. The minister is not a priest. He is 
 one of the people. He cannot be separated from 
 his congregation by a sacred line dividing chancel 
 from nave; nor can he be perched up above their 
 heads in a bird's-nest pulpit, as though he were a 
 speckled fowl of peculiar breed not to be let mingle 
 with " the birds round about." ^ And differing 
 again even from other congregationalists, the Bap- 
 tists practise a rite which calls for a distinct effort of 
 the architect's art, and which if truly and reverently 
 expressed in the baptistery will preach a sermon of 
 itself. 
 
 * " Life," Vol. n., p. 125. 2 Jeremiah 12 : 9. 
 
144 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 I. Plainly in contemplating the plan and design 
 of such a church, the First Consideration will be 
 "Utility. The building must answer its purpose. If 
 needs be, we must sacrifice ornament to construc- 
 tion; and as Oliver Goldsmith wrote of one of his 
 literary projects, we must determine " to please by 
 xhe goodness of our entertainment rather than by 
 the magnificence of our sign." There is beauty in 
 holiness, but not necessarily is there holiness in 
 beauty. It is well that the church building be in 
 good taste, but it is imperative that it be the thing 
 which the congregation needs. 
 
 I. For this reason we will not pause just now 
 on the outside of our building, save to say that in 
 common with every one who puts up a structure 
 in the sight of his fellow-men, he who builds a 
 church should have some regard for his neighbor. 
 We have no right to plant down on the street an 
 abortion, ungainly in form, incongruous in outline, 
 imbecile in design, which shall be a perpetual out- 
 rage on the neighborhood and an insult to the feel- 
 ings of the passers-by. There is really no serious 
 conflict — some churches known to us to the con- 
 trary — between utility and good taste. When the 
 Baptists of Providence planned their meeting-house, 
 they turned to London for a model, and reproduced 
 one of the most graceful of Sir Christopher Wren's 
 designs. To this hour the spire of that old church 
 is one of the most attractive objects in the city. Its 
 long-continued plea for taste is the pleasant side 
 of a truth which cuts both ways. Too many of our 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE I45 
 
 churches recall the words of Mark Antony — words 
 of which half is certainly true: 
 
 The evil that men do lives after them; 
 The good is oft interred with their bones. 
 
 2. On the threshold of our church we stop to plead 
 for a large and spacious vestibule. It should be 
 ample enough to contain a fair part of the 
 congregation coming and going. Here can be ex- 
 changed the greetings of the people, so as to pre- 
 vent that irreverent talking, laughing, and whisper- 
 ing so generally perpetrated by active members of 
 the church, deacons, officers of the society's com- 
 mittees, and women of the innumerable organiza- 
 tions which our sisters affect. The babble of various 
 tongues, although due to ignorance and thought- 
 lessness, none the less offends the true worshiper. 
 This vestibule, if it open on the street, should be 
 sheltered from draughts, so that it can be used in 
 summer-time for meetings of the Christian En- 
 deavor Society or for the weekly prayer-meeting. 
 It will be as near an approach to the open air as 
 our climate in most latitudes allows. The doors 
 into the church should be large and sufficiently 
 numerous ; and the same remark applies to the doors 
 from the church into the lecture-room. The main 
 room should connect directly with that, so that an 
 after-meeting can be held with as much ease as pos- 
 sible, and with as little loss of time. There should 
 be, opening out of this large vestibule, a minister's 
 study, ready of access from the street. A minister 
 K 
 
146 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 should no more have his place of business in his 
 home than should a lawyer. 
 
 Passing into the main room, our principle of 
 utility insists that it shall be planned with a view to 
 the work which has to be done in it. The story 
 is told of a famous bishop, that after having dedi- 
 cated a fine new church he fell into a silent mood, 
 and when some one ventured to ask, " Do you not 
 like our church ? " he said, " Oh, yes, it is a grand 
 establishment, with only three faults, you can 
 neither see, nor hear, nor breathe in it." How 
 many of our own churches lay themselves open to 
 these same charges our soul knoweth right well. 
 
 Here let us say at once, and with all possible 
 emphasis, that to us it seems plain that the chief 
 purpose of the church is worship. To this act — 
 which is indeed a spirit rather than an act — we are 
 ready to give the widest possible interpretation, but 
 by the assertion we must stand. The church is not 
 a preaching room; it is not designed for the per- 
 formance of a choir or the gyrations of a quartette ; 
 it is not intended for spectacular efforts, or for the 
 promotion of congregational sociability. It is a 
 place for worship. 
 
 ( I ) For this reason the form of the room should 
 be " churchly" The more the thought of the wor- 
 shipers can be saved from the distraction of seeing 
 other people coming or going the better. It is no 
 recommendation of a church that every one can 
 see every one else. We are not met here to compare 
 bonnets. The feeling of curiosity, of criticism, of 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE I47 
 
 interest in trifles, should not be excited or fed. The 
 worship is common worship, and in the ordinary 
 church, so far as may be, it should be family wor- 
 ship. The opera chair is to be avoided as much as 
 the family pew is to be encouraged. The pew, 
 however, should be as low in the back as possible; 
 it should be little in evidence when the congre- 
 gation is seated, and while comfortable, it should not 
 tempt to repose or sloth. 
 
 I have already said that the minister, as one of 
 the people, should, as far as may be, be among them 
 in the act of worship. The old days of the high 
 and narrow pulpit seem to have gone. But the pulpit 
 itself has not gone. The early church introduced 
 the desk because the roll or book was in constant 
 use. Biblical preaching is likely to need a Bible. 
 When the sermon becomes an oratorical display, a 
 piece learned and then repeated by rote, the pulpit 
 will very likely be dispensed with. The minister 
 is no longer one of the people, but takes his place 
 with the actor or lecturer on the stage. The wor- 
 ship of the congregation would be facilitated if it 
 were made possible to kneel during prayer. As it 
 is, one does not wish to inquire what proportion of 
 our people even outwardly assume a position suited 
 to devotion. But for this they are not wholly re- 
 sponsible. Until it becomes usual with the congre- 
 gation to kneel or at least to lean forward, with the 
 head bowed on the hand, it will be difficult to enjoy 
 undisturbed the exercise of prayer which to some of 
 US seems to be full as important as the sermon itself. 
 
148 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 (2) With the question of music we are concerned 
 only so far as its place in the building is under 
 discussion. And our choice would be for an organ 
 on one side of the platform upon which stands the 
 preacher's desk. By building it a step or two above 
 the level of the floor of the church — and this floor 
 itself should rise gently toward the end farthest 
 from the pulpit — and giving ample room for a suf- 
 ficient choir, the music will lead the worshipers, but 
 not as something distinct from them. The singing 
 will then be congregational; and when the happy 
 day dawns in which the quartette is relegated to 
 the rummage sale of unnecessary lumber — the 
 chorus choir will regain its place as of the people, 
 for the people, and by the people. In some of our 
 churches the choir-loft is placed at the opposite 
 end from the pulpit, and this arrangement has dis- 
 tinct advantages. Mr. Frank Damrosch, when once 
 asked, " Where in the church do you think the choir 
 should be located ? " answered : " It is better, as a 
 rule, to have the choir out of sight. I believe that 
 the highest impressions are not made through the 
 eye. The ear, in my opinion, is a more direct way 
 to the soul. When I am listening to the music from 
 a fine orchestra I enjoy it most if I turn my head 
 away, so that I do not see the players, and it is 
 the same way with a choir. Some of the most ef- 
 fective church music I have ever heard was from 
 a choir in a gallery at the back of the church, where 
 the congregation could not see it." 
 
 (3) Coming to the sermon, what we have to re-. 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE I49 
 
 quire at the hands of the architect is a room in 
 which all can see and hear. We can find little 
 to help us in the design of the cathedral, modeled 
 after the temple, with its altar and sacrifice, rather 
 than after the synagogue, with its desk and expo- 
 sition of Scripture. Faith cometh by hearing. The 
 principle which Phillips Brooks ^ kept foremost in 
 planning his great church in Boston is the true prin- 
 ciple for us. God has appointed the foolishness of 
 preaching rather than gorgeous rites calculated to 
 impress the imagination, by which to save them that 
 believe. The church must symbolize a place for the 
 proclamation of the gospel. This is so self-evident 
 that we may be tempted to think there will be no 
 difficulty in getting just such a room as we need. 
 All the more because so many and such excellent 
 models are ready of access to architect and building 
 committee. The principles of acoustics are not hard 
 to learn; neither is it hard to know what fixtures 
 in a building are tolerably sure to interfere with 
 easy hearing. A dome is likely to give forth an 
 echo; a flat roof not. Galleries will absorb sound, 
 high walls will not. A gallery at the end of the 
 church farthest from the preacher, if bowed out- 
 wardly, will probably rouse an echo. A vaulted 
 space behind him will do the same. The old New 
 England meeting-house, modeled after the early 
 Christian churches, was generally good to speak in, 
 and good to hear in. The Gothic — and especially 
 rhf cheap and tawdry Gothic of many modern 
 
 1 " life," Vol. II.. p 12^. 
 
150 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 churches — full of corners, and angles, and projec- 
 tions, is a very playground of a pandemonium of 
 echoes. But because no intelligent consideration is 
 given to this most important subject we have the 
 same experience as a worthy Scottish elder, who 
 said not long since that in his church they were 
 " grievously troubled with the agnostics of the 
 building." The late Doctor Wayland, commenting 
 on a fashionable church known to him, wrote: 
 " There were, it is true, one or two trifling defects. 
 The people could not see; they could not hear. 
 The remarks of the minister were a sort of confi- 
 dential communication to the rafters. What the 
 people heard was at second-hand, after the echoes 
 had done with it. The church humbly requested 
 the architect to make some changes which would 
 obviate these defects. He replied in a somewhat 
 lofty tone that he could not consent : ' The changes 
 would not suit the style of the architecture.' " 
 
 This matter is one in which the preacher is di- 
 rectly and closely concerned. His comfort, and 
 more than his comfort, his efficiency are both in 
 question. He should aim at building a room in 
 which it shall be not only easy to hear, but hard 
 not to hear. He should study the principles of 
 sympathetic construction. We have admirable ex- 
 amples of churches in which the speaker is in touch 
 with his people from the first moment when he rises 
 to speak. And alas, if dreadful warnings can help 
 us to beware, we have churches in which it is al- 
 most impossible to obey the injunction to preach 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE IS I 
 
 the gospel to every creature. We have in mind a 
 church with many admirable features, but which 
 consists chiefly of an excessively ornate baptistery 
 and an exceedingly active echo. We are tempted, in 
 the remembrances of many a sermon delivered under 
 circumstances which made it, as the old Puritans 
 would have said, both " pious and painful," to agree 
 with one of our writers when he says : " We do not 
 know whether decapitation would be considered suf- 
 ficiently severe punishment for an architect who 
 should keep on constructing houses so imperfect in 
 this important respect as many churches and public 
 halls are. He might be forgiven seven times, but 
 we think it would be a mistaken charity to forgive 
 him seventy times seven." 
 
 (4) The main room in the Baptist church build- 
 ing is a place of worship, and it is also a place for 
 preaching; but it is more. Two ordinances, very 
 simple but very impressive, are to be provided for — 
 baptism and the Lord's Supper. If the organ flank 
 the pulpit on one side, the baptistery may very well 
 be placed on the other. It should never be on the 
 platform back of the pulpit. It should be in full 
 view of the congregation from all parts of the room, 
 and it should be always open. So few architects 
 know anything of Baptist ways that the minister 
 must himself see to it that ample space is pro- 
 vided for dressing-rooms. The baptistery should 
 have sloping ends, not steps, and it should be easy 
 of access from the back. Great care should be taken 
 to keep it neat and in good order, and nothing 
 
152 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 should be done by which the seemHness of the or- 
 dinance may be diminished. The table used at com- 
 munion should be used for nothing else. It should 
 not be loaded with flowers, or employed for writing 
 purposes, still less (as I regret to say has been done) 
 should it be degraded by making it the prop for 
 a stage for lyceum lecturers or stereopticon enter- 
 tainments. These, indeed, should not be held in the 
 church at all. 
 
 11. But when we have urged that utility is the 
 chief consideration in planning our church, when 
 we have insisted that it must serve the purposes 
 of devout worship and respond to the demands of 
 the sermon and set forth in a decorous way the two 
 beautiful ordinances of our faith, is there nothing 
 further to be said? In answer to this inquiry we 
 would remind you that honor and majesty are 
 before Jehovah; that strength and beauty are in 
 his sanctuary.^ The church should not only be 
 commodious, it should also be beautiful. Let us 
 say frankly that in our judgment much can be urged 
 in defense of the old-fashioned meeting-house, with 
 what has been called its " look of quiet, respectable 
 ugliness." ^ It was reared by men who believed that 
 " He who was born in a manger, should be preached 
 in a barn," ' and who had the courage of their con- 
 victions. On the other hand, much can be urged in 
 defense of Phillips Brooks' words about his study: 
 " I believe that I have a right to live here with this 
 
 iPs. 96 : 6. 2 Newman Hall's "Life," p. 316. 
 
 « Stanford, " Life of Doddridge," p. 123. 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE 1 53 
 
 beauty and luxury about me. I enjoy it all, and I 
 do my work as a Christian minister better for hav- 
 ing these surroundings. A man is no better Chris- 
 tian for wearing overalls than for working in a 
 beautifully furnished study. He can be one in 
 either situation, if only he have the spirit of 
 Christ." ^ David was honored of God, and not re- 
 proved, when he said to the prophet, " Lo, I dwell 
 in a house of cedar ; but the ark of the covenant of 
 the Lord remaineth under curtains." " Do all that 
 is in thine heart," was the answer of Nathan, " for 
 God is with thee." And from that thought that 
 God's house should be not less fair and well fur- 
 nished than his own sprang, in time, the temple at 
 Jerusalem, exceeding magnificent. God has him- 
 self reproved the rigid and pernicious spirit which, 
 measuring the mission of religion by its own narrow 
 standard, challenges the consecration of beauty to 
 his service with the inquiry : " To what purpose is 
 this waste ? " There is, as Darwin found out to his 
 delight, " a tendency in nature to ornamentation." 
 " Verily," as Tennyson said when he pointed rev- 
 erently to the rose, " God has taste." The whole- 
 some insistence of that great apostle of practical 
 Christianity, Thomas Guthrie, needs still to be 
 sounded forth now and again, " There is no sin in 
 beauty, and no holiness in ugliness." Architecture 
 is so far moral that it writes in stone " every na- 
 tion's vice or virtue." - It is so far religious that 
 
 1 " Life," Vol. II., p. 788. 
 
 2 Ruskin, " Crown of Wild Olives," pp. 55, 60. 
 
154 I'OR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 it embodies the faith of the worshipers in all the 
 centuries. The faith of the Puritan is to be spelled 
 out in the old plain meeting-house, and not his 
 faith only, but also his fear; his dread that with 
 the eye for beauty in the church design and fur- 
 nishing would come back the banished religion of 
 vain ceremonials and sensuous forms against which 
 he had lifted up his earnest voice and shattering 
 fist. Many years ago the late Dr. R. W. Dale, of 
 Birmingham, invited us to write for a magazine 
 of which he was then the editor, and when we pro- 
 posed the subject of " Congregational Church Ar- 
 chitecture," he demurred in a letter which breathed 
 the very spirit of the Puritan. " What," he asked, 
 " could be said on the subject? All that was needed 
 in a meeting-house was four walls, a floor, and a 
 roof." His biographer writes of him that Doctor 
 Dale " feared that the adornments of religion — mu- 
 sic, architecture, eloquence — which gratify the taste 
 and stimulate the emotions were blinding men in our 
 times to the essential realities of faith." ^ To quote 
 his own words, " The shadow of Peter passing by 
 may heal the sickness of the nations, but it will 
 only accomplish that beneficent result if Peter's 
 heart is occupied with the supreme work which the 
 Master has given him to do." Yet there was heal- 
 ing in the shadow, and provided it be not made su- 
 preme, so is there joy and peace and inspiration in 
 the church which is beautiful as well as serviceable. 
 We may easily get back of the era of the splendid 
 
 i"Life," pp. 353. 354- 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE 1 55 
 
 cathedrals of the Middle Ages, which without doubt 
 clouded the faith they enshrined, and gave no ade- 
 quate expression to the simplicity of our Christian 
 religion. Doing so, however, we come on no deso- 
 late region over which ugliness broods like a night- 
 mare — as it does over some of our church buildings 
 to-day. 
 
 " The worship-room," as the word in the New 
 Testament may be rendered, even when at the end 
 of the third century it rose to the dignity of a dis- 
 tinct building, was very simple and unpretending. 
 The believers were poor. There was danger of per- 
 secution if they drew attention to the place where 
 they gathered. But when, soon after this time and 
 in the reigns of Christian rulers, the splendid ba- 
 silicas, which were courts of law or merchants' ex- 
 changes, were granted to the Christians for pur- 
 poses of worship, beauty as well as strength entered 
 into the sanctuary. Now the church of form and 
 design most suitable for our congregational wor- 
 ship — and which is preserved in very simple lines 
 indeed, but still with sufficient closeness to the orig- 
 inal in the oblong New England meeting-house — 
 was shown to the world. With our towers without 
 bells, and our spires swaying in the wind, and our 
 echoing aisles and pillars obstructing sight, we have 
 too often aped the medieval pattern — a pattern only 
 to be copied well at great expense — and have lost the 
 lines of the first buildings dedicated to Christian 
 worship, lines which to this hour remain peerless for 
 congregational uses. 
 
156 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 In those early days there was no baptistery, for 
 the river or running brook sufficed. When the 
 baptistery came to be built, it was an honest tank, 
 ample, sometimes placed in a building devoted ex- 
 clusively to the service of baptism. Such a build- 
 ing we cannot have now, nor would it serve any 
 good purpose if we did. But we can at all events 
 copy the honesty of the early baptistery and let it 
 seem to be what it is. It is not a river, but an 
 artificial tank. The pretense that it is something 
 else by means of representations of the banks of 
 the Jordan, with impossible pictures of water which 
 does not move, even though it be a masterpiece of 
 the nearest sign-painter in the village, is too violent 
 an outrage on good taste, as well as too flagrant 
 a sham and make-believe to merit any other treat- 
 ment than silent and compassionate contempt. It 
 need not be taken seriously. Such puerile vagaries 
 are not likely to become general. They belong to 
 the babyhood of art and to the infancy of religion. 
 The growth of culture and a clearer view of the 
 reverence due to the ordinances of our Lord will 
 make them impossible. The only thing to be feared 
 where they are perpetrated is that they will feed the 
 sensational and spectacular elements in religion, 
 against which Baptists have constantly protested, 
 and which do more than anything else to mar the 
 spiritual teaching of a service that is impressive by 
 its very simplicity. 
 
 Of what has been said in this chapter this is the 
 sum: The two main points to hold in view in our 
 
CHURCH ARCHITECTURE 157 
 
 church architecture are usefuhiess and seemliness. 
 We should take care that the main room be suitable 
 for worship, for the delivery of the preacher's mes- 
 sage, and for the observance of the ordinances of 
 baptism and the Lord's Supper. Three essentials 
 it must demand, and these are that the people must 
 see, must hear, must breathe. These being secured, 
 we may go on to consider the claims of taste. Let 
 us " worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." 
 It is no whim or caprice which affects us with rev- 
 erence in a great cathedral. Inspiration and as- 
 piration are feelings which are involuntarily quick- 
 ened as we worship there. Daniel Webster burst 
 into tears as he entered Westminster Abbey. The 
 power of association is so great that we must take 
 it into account in building our church. The chil- 
 dren growing up in our congregations should not 
 associate religion with a building which violates 
 the first principles of sound taste; they should not 
 associate its ordinances with cheap spectacular de- 
 vices ; they should not associate the preaching of the 
 w^ord with the stage of a theater or the rostrum of 
 a peripatetic lecturer. The design of the building 
 should not make worship difficult. This is the seri- 
 ous fault of the amphitheatrical form, as the lesser 
 fault is that the preacher cannot see and address all 
 his congregation at once. We need travel no farther 
 than the first Christian churches to find an arrange- 
 ment which, happily, survives in the ordinary oblong 
 meeting-house, and which is at the same time 
 reverent and convenient. 
 
158 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 But our main contention is that whatever be the 
 plan of the church, it be constructed with a view 
 to work and to worship. It must quicken such feel- 
 ings as stirred the soul of Jacob when he awoke 
 from his vision with the words, " Surely Jehovah 
 is in this place," and the soul of Peter, when on 
 the mount of Transfiguration he cried, " Lord, it 
 is good for us to be here." It is no mere " audi- 
 torium " — a word borrowed from the theater and 
 sadly suggestive of the congregation which conies 
 to hear a preacher and not to worship God — it is 
 much more and much better than this: it is the 
 house of the Lord. And the main purpose of every 
 room in the church building should be to serve the 
 needs of religion on its active or its passive side. 
 Neither on the mountain nor at Jerusalem can we 
 now fence off the place in which the Father is to be 
 worshiped. He seeketh everywhere in all our con- 
 gregations for the true worshiper who worships in 
 spirit and in truth. To this ideal everything else 
 is to be subservient. We plead that our church be 
 a place of worship, and that in it we so build and so 
 work that the presence of our Lord may be our 
 continual possession ; for " it is he, and not the 
 carven timbers and the jeweled stones which we 
 may bring, that makes the place of his feet 
 glorious." 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE 
 
 OFFICERS OF HIS 
 
 CHURCH 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. Business Officers. 
 
 1. The trustees. 
 
 2. The treasurer. 
 
 II. The Deacons. 
 
 1. The duties of the deacons. Settled by: (i) New 
 
 Testament teaching. (2) EstabHshed usage. 
 
 2. The choice of the deacons. 
 
 Explanation of qualifications mentioned in the New Test- 
 ament, (i) They should be men of good repute. 
 (2) They should have gifts as well as graces. (3) 
 They should be men vigorous in body and mind. (4) 
 They should be specially qualified: a. By ability to 
 work pleasantly with their brother deacons, b. By 
 respect and love for their pastor. (5) They should 
 be in some measure representative men. 
 
 3. The election of deacons, (i) For a term of years 
 
 rather than for life. (2) Preparation of the church 
 for a coming election. (3) The Board of deacons to 
 be consulted as to the choice. (4) The public 
 recognition of newly elected deacons. 
 
 4. The pastor's relations with his deacons, (i) Always 
 
 treat and speak of them with respect. (2) Meet 
 with them regularly once a month. (3) Train them 
 to respect the pastoral office as well as their own. 
 (4) The prayer-meeting before public worship. 
 
 III. The Church Clerk. 
 
 1. His duties as a recording secretary, 
 
 2. Not to receive correspondence referring to the 
 
 spiritual business of the church. 
 
 3. Proper preservation of church records. 
 
 IV. The Prudential Committee. 
 
 1. Qualifications for fitness. 
 
 2. To be elected each year. 
 
 3. Women members. 
 
 4. Advantage of this committee. 
 
V. The Sexton. A functionary of much importance. His 
 
 duties limited and defined. 
 
 VI. The Officers of the Sunday-school and Young 
 
 People's Society. To be elected, or approved, by the 
 church. 
 
 VII. Women Workers in the Church. Work for which 
 
 they are especially adapted. The question of 
 deaconesses. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE MUNISTER AND THE OFFICERS OF HIS CHURCH 
 
 I. In considering the minister and the officers of 
 his church we turn first to the Relation the Minister 
 Should Sustain to the Various Business Officers. 
 We counsel that before accepting a call you se- 
 cure from the proper authorities a full statement of 
 the present financial condition of the church. Do 
 not enter upon your pastorate under any mistaken 
 conception. This will save you from disappoint- 
 ment afterward, and is one of those matters which 
 can be attended to with ease and propriety before 
 settlement, but which may subsequently be the 
 source of unhappy disagreement. 
 
 1. The trustees have charge of the property, and 
 their duties and responsibilities are in many of our 
 States defined by law. The pastor will not vote 
 for trustees, but he may by his counsels secure the 
 selection of wise, vigorous, and reputable men. If 
 possible let them be earnest and active members of 
 the church. The trustees should give a financial 
 report at least once a year at a meeting of all the 
 members of the church. 
 
 2. For the treasurer of the church have the best 
 business man that can possibly be secured. Let 
 him firmly refuse to advance any money not already 
 
 i6^ 
 
164 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 in hand. If he is a man experienced in church 
 finance he will see to it that every effort is put 
 forth to increase the income rather than to curtail 
 the expenditure. The treasurer should keep a 
 church bank account separate from his own; the 
 failure to do this has resulted in many instances in 
 serious trouble. 
 
 The minister had better be present, but not pre- 
 side, at financial meetings of the church, unless 
 custom or the laws of the church manual require 
 him to be the presiding officer. It is inevitable that 
 the minister should be called upon to advise and 
 suggest in financial matters; but it is unwise for 
 him, as a rule, to take upon himself the oversight 
 and control of them. 
 
 II. The Deacons of the Church are in some 
 cases the trustees also ; but where it can be avoided 
 such an arrangement seems undesirable, for the 
 distinctive duties of each office if properly attended 
 to are all that should be demanded of any body of 
 church officers. 
 
 I. The duties of the deacons are settled, 
 
 (i) By New Testament teaching. The passages 
 in the New Testament referring to this subject are 
 only two, but as they are of such weight, and as we 
 shall have occasion to refer to them later, we give 
 them here in full. The first passage is that in which 
 is recorded the occasion which gave rise to the 
 institution of the office : " And in those days when 
 the number of the disciples was multiplied, there 
 arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the He- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE OFFICERS 165 
 
 brews, because their widows were neglected in the 
 daily ministration. Then the Twelve called the 
 multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It 
 is not reason that we should leave the word of 
 God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look 
 ye out among you seven men of honest report, full 
 of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may ap- 
 point over this business. But we will give ourselves 
 continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the 
 word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude ; 
 and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of 
 the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and 
 Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, 
 a proselyte of Antioch; whom they set before the 
 apostles ; and when they had prayed, they laid their 
 hands on them." ^ 
 
 The second passage is the instruction Paul gave 
 to Timothy concerning the deacons : " Likewise 
 must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not 
 given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; 
 holding the mystery of the faith in a pure con- 
 science. And let these also be proved; then let 
 them use the office of a deacon, being found blame- 
 less. Even so must their wives be grave, not slan- 
 derous, sober, faithful in all things. Let the dea- 
 cons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their 
 children and their own houses well. For they that 
 have used the office of a deacon well, purchase to 
 themselves a good degree, and great boldness in 
 the faith which is in Christ Jesus." ^ 
 
 1 Acts 6 : 1-6. » I Tim. 3 : 8-13. 
 
l66 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 (2) The duties of the deacons are also properly 
 defined by the established usage of the individual 
 church. While this may modify or add to the du- 
 ties taught in the New Testament, it should never 
 be allowed to supersede them. Dr. John Hall, in 
 an article devoted to this subject, once expressed the 
 belief that the existence of so many societies in local 
 churches was largely due to the fact that the deacons 
 failed to apprehend their duties. It is certain that 
 a deacon has not done his whole duty when he has 
 passed the bread and wine at the communion, sent 
 remittances to a few and worthy poor, and attended 
 as pall-bearer an occasional funeral. Properly dis- 
 tributed the tasks which a deacon should perform, 
 if he does them for Christ's sake, will crush no 
 one, and we believe that as a whole the deacons in 
 our churches bear their part of the burden nobly. 
 
 2. We pass now to the qualifications which should 
 govern the choice of deacons. These have been 
 mentioned in the passages from the New Testament 
 already referred to, and from this instruction we 
 find that nine distinct requisites are made by Paul, 
 and three by the apostles at an earlier date, that 
 should characterize the men selected for this office. 
 ( I ) Deacons must be " grave," by which is meant 
 men worthy of respect and of weight, or as put by 
 Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, to whose very able 
 articles ^ on this subject we commend our readers, 
 " Not a light-headed creature that counts for noth- 
 ing in the community." (2) Deacons must not be 
 
 *• " Homiletic Review," Nov. and Dec, 1899. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE OFFICERS \(fj 
 
 ** double-tongued," saying one thing to one man 
 and another thing to another. (3) Neither must 
 they be men " given to much wine " ; not self-in- 
 dulgent or prone to carnal or fleshly things. (4) 
 " Not greedy of filthy lucre " is the next requisite. 
 This we may apply in our day to mean not such 
 as are known to be sharp in trade or hard in busi- 
 ness, for to quote Professor Rauschenbusch, " We 
 have not many drunken deacons nowadays, but 
 God rid us too of deacons who never swallow cider, 
 but swallow houses and farms without winking, and 
 who stop short when they come to the tenth com- 
 mandment." (5) Deacons are to hold " the mystery 
 of the faith in a pure conscience." The word con- 
 science is to be written large over the word or- 
 thodoxy, for even God can do nothing with a man 
 wiio prays but is not pure. (6) Again, deacons 
 must be " proven men " ; not beginners or imma- 
 ti:2re; men who have already won their reputation 
 as being worthy of trust. (7) Once more the 
 apostle says, " Let them serve as deacons if they 
 be blameless " ; not perfect, for even in a deacon 
 perfection is hardly to be expected, but men whose 
 fellows recognize that their selection to such an 
 office in the church of Christ is fit and right. (8) 
 Deacons also must be men " who are husbands of 
 one wife," a qualification on which we feel no com- 
 ment is necessary. (9) But while it is not difficult 
 to discover deacons who are not bigamists, still in 
 this day, when fathers and children seem sometimes 
 to have strangely changed places, it is well to re- 
 
1 68 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 member the qualification which is joined to it, 
 namely, '' ruling their children and their own houses 
 well " ; in other words, before voting for a deacon 
 we should observe his wife and children. 
 
 We turn now to the qualifications mentioned by 
 the apostles in the book of Acts. (lo) Deacons 
 should be men of " good report," a qualification 
 which has been touched upon already in mention- 
 ing those given by Paul, (ii) Deacons should also 
 be men " of wisdom," by which is meant not chiefly 
 men of theological or encyclopedic knowledge, but 
 men of good judgment, common sense, and tact, 
 who when problems arise in the church shall be 
 able to aid the minister in their proper solution. 
 (12) And lastly, deacons must be men who are 
 " full of the Spirit " ; " the Spirit— ah, that implies 
 everything — natural character glorified, natural wis- 
 dom illuminated, natural determination set on fire." ^ 
 
 Applying now these directions for the choice of 
 deacons to the present century and existing con- 
 ditions, we find ourselves warranted in declaring 
 that deacons should be: 
 
 (i) Men of good repute. This is absolutely es- 
 sential as is shown by its practical repetition in the 
 qualifications referred to in the New Testament 
 passages. 
 
 (2) Deacons should have gifts as well as graces — 
 ability as well as piety. 
 
 (3) They should be men vigorous in body and 
 in mind. To secure this have some young men in 
 
 ^ Professor Rauschenbusch. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE OFFICERS I09 
 
 the diaconate, for vigor is contagious, and while 
 old men do young men good, young men do old 
 men no harm. 
 
 (4) Other qualifications are ability to work pleas- 
 antly with their brother deacons, and respect and 
 love for their pastor. 
 
 (5) The deacons should in some measure be rep- 
 resentative men, representing the various sections 
 of the church, and representing as well the best 
 which the church contains. Such men are apt to be 
 busy men; but such are needed for deacons, and 
 such will heed the call when appealed to in the 
 highest way. Many such men are too busy to as- 
 sent to the wish of the pastor or their fellow-mem- 
 bers that they accept the office of deacon; but few 
 will be found too busy to take gladly this office, 
 when it is shown them that it is the will of Christ. 
 Happy the church which can say, " It has ever been 
 the happy lot of our church ... to be blest with 
 deacons who knew how to support their office with 
 dignity without pride, with authority without 
 usurpation, with activity without officiousness." ^ 
 
 As we close this list of qualifications we think we 
 hear some discouraged minister exclaim, " Where 
 shall we find such men?" The answer is close at 
 hand. We believe that such men are to be found 
 in almost every church. Look for them among that 
 vast body of men who, perhaps heretofore inactive, 
 have yet been faithful in what they did and gave, 
 often with too scant recognition and appreciation. 
 
 1 " Life of John Angell James," p. 135. 
 
I/O FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 God pity that church of Christ in the twentieth 
 century which cannot find such men in her fellow- 
 ship for her deacons, when the church of the first 
 century had no difficulty in securing seven. 
 
 3. And this brings us fairly to the right point 
 for considering the election of deacons. 
 
 (i) It seems preferable to elect men to the diac- 
 onate for a term of years rather than for life; 
 a worthy man can always be re-elected ; but if a man 
 is elected for life and proves himself unfit, his 
 removal results in wounds that often never entirely 
 heal. 
 
 (2) When a deacon is to be elected the church 
 should be prepared to act intelligently in the matter. 
 The membership may be trained in the subject at 
 the public worship by sermons from appropriate 
 texts, and by bringing the matter in a proper way 
 into the less formal prayer-meeting service. 
 
 (3) Consult with the brethren already on the 
 board of deacons as to good men to choose. They 
 with propriety may talk up the matter quietly and 
 feel the pulse of the church. 
 
 (4) After a deacon has been elected, we advise 
 that he be publicly recognized at the first communion 
 service, or at the first covenant-meeting following 
 his election. Such public recognition has the war- 
 rant of Scripture,^ and is also eminently proper and 
 fitting. Though the " laying on of hands " may be 
 dispensed with, yet an appropriate service can easily 
 be arranged. 
 
 1 Acts 6 : 6. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE OFFICERS I7I 
 
 4. The pastor's relations with his deacons should 
 be referred to before closing this part of our 
 subject. 
 
 ( 1 ) Always treat and speak of them with respect, 
 for they are the elected representatives of the 
 church. In this human world deacons will be hu- 
 man; but we believe Spurgeon speaks only words 
 of truth and soberness when out of his experience 
 he says : " The church owes an immeasurable debt 
 of gratitude to those thousands of godly men who 
 study her interests day and night, contribute largely 
 of their substance, care for her poor, cheer her 
 ministers, and in times of trouble as well as 
 prosperity remain faithfully at their posts." 
 
 (2) It is well for the minister to meet regularly 
 with his deacons once a month. This meeting may 
 be held in the home rather than in the church, and 
 should be devout, sociable, and business-like in its 
 character. Such meetings, however, can only be of 
 fullest value, as they be more or less confidential, 
 and what is brought up at such times should be 
 religiously so regarded. 
 
 (3) The minister may train his deacons to respect 
 the pastoral office as well as their own, and the 
 wise pastor can tactfully teach the manner in which 
 he, as a minister, should be treated by them, as well 
 as constantly recognize the manner in which they 
 should be treated by him. He has a right to re- 
 quire those qualities in his deacons which they 
 rightfully demand in their minister. 
 
 (4) Especially do we commend a brief prayer- 
 
172 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 meeting, attended by the pastor and deacons only, 
 before the pubHc worship of Sunday morning. This 
 meeting should consist simply of prayer, and while 
 a single prayer on each occasion may be sufficient, 
 it should be attended, so far as possible, by all these 
 servants of God who have been set aside for the 
 church's highest welfare. 
 
 III. We now consider the office of Church Clerk. 
 
 1. The clerk is valuable as a recording secretary, 
 and it is his duty to keep the church books in order, 
 and to sign letters of dismissal. 2. The pastor 
 should himself receive all correspondence in refer- 
 ence to the spiritual business of the church, and at 
 the deacons' meeting, at which the clerk should be 
 present, it should be read over and action decided 
 upon. 3. The pastor will do well to keep the church 
 books within reach, as free access to them is a right 
 which his duties as a minister demand. All records 
 and books should be kept, if possible, in a fire- 
 proof safe in the church building. 
 
 IV. The Prudential Committee, known in some 
 churches as the " Advisory " or " Church " Com- 
 mittee, is the most important of all the committees 
 which church work makes necessary, i. Its mem- 
 bers should be especially selected for their fitness 
 to see inquirers and candidates for membership. 
 
 2. We advise that such a committee should be elected 
 each year, only a certain proportion of the members 
 being eligible for reelection the succeeding year. 
 Moderate change is always healthful, and it is only 
 fair that membership on this committee should, in 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE OFFICERS 1 73 
 
 the course of time, include all available members in 
 the church. The prime requisite, fitness, should en- 
 tirely obliterate all artificial lines which wealth and 
 social position elsewhere draw. 3. Women may 
 with advantage be on this committee, as so many 
 women come before it to relate their experiences, 
 and as many of its other duties can, in the nature 
 of things, be better performed by women than by 
 men. 4. While such a committee has generally 
 power only to recommend, and not to determine, the 
 action of the church, yet the great advantage in 
 having such a committee is that it prepares work 
 for the monthly church meeting, saves time, and 
 prevents unnecessary discussion. Of this com- 
 mittee, the minister should always, and the deacons 
 may well, be permanent members. 
 
 V. We are here reminded of that important func- 
 tionary, the Sexton, or Janitor, given by our Eng- 
 lish cousins the imposing title of Beadle. A good 
 sexton is as much to be coveted as a good minister. 
 In fact, we are not sure but that he is more diffi- 
 cult to secure. There is much truth, as pastoral 
 experience will teach, in T. DeWitt Talmage's opin- 
 ion thus expressed in one of his essays : " King 
 David, it is evident, once thought something of 
 becoming a church sexton, for he said, * I had rather 
 be a doorkeeper,' and so on. But he never carried 
 out the plan, perhaps because he had not the quali- 
 fications. It requires more talent in some respects 
 to be sexton than to be king. A sexton, like a poet, 
 is born. . . The sexton is the minister's blessing, 
 
174 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 the church's joy, a harbinger of the millennium." 
 We fear sometimes in these days when the problem 
 of service is such a difficult one that there is a 
 danger of the model sexton taking his permanent 
 departure. We read almost with envy the descrip- 
 tion of Andrew Clark, the beadle of the old kirk 
 of the Cotton Row, which is given in the life of 
 Robertson of Irvine : " Andrew was one of the good 
 old stock of * bedrals.' His bedralship being a her- 
 itage from his father before him, the kirk and its 
 belongings he came to regard with a sort of proprie- 
 tary instinct. It was his kirk, in a sense in which it 
 was not the kirk of any other individual. Toward 
 the minister, when young, he was fatherly and pa- 
 tronizing, and was indulged in many little liberties 
 on account of his sterling worth." ^ 
 
 The sexton should be in full accord with the min- 
 ister, for we had almost said that more of the pas- 
 tor's comfort and usefulness depends upon his mak- 
 ing friends with the sexton than with any other one 
 officer of the church. The sexton should be accus- 
 tomed to divine almost by instinct what is the right 
 thing to do during the services, as to the opening 
 or shutting of windows and doors, the lighting or 
 lowering of lights. He should be held responsible 
 for the cleanliness and order of the church, the 
 neatness of the surrounding grounds, and for the 
 performance of those many other duties which 
 pertain to no other officer. 
 
 In some countries the sexton shows people to 
 
 *A. Guthrie's, "Robertson of Irvine," pp. 173, 174. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE OFFICERS I75 
 
 their pews; but while for us this does not seem 
 desirable, yet he should be within easy reach in 
 the vestibule and about the building during the 
 early part of every important service. In large 
 churches he is employed with advantage wholly by 
 the church and in that case may be called on prop- 
 erly to collect pew rents and attend to minor matters 
 of that nature. 
 
 VI. We shall refer only briefly here to the Of- 
 ficers of the Sunday-school and Young People's So- 
 ciety, as we shall have occasion to refer to them at 
 length in a later chapter. These officers should be 
 elected by the church, or at any rate their election 
 should be ratified by the church. The list of offi- 
 cers recommended for election may be made at the 
 annual meeting of these organizations and then 
 submitted to the church for its approval. Some 
 such plan as this should be invariably followed. 
 Especially is this necessary in these times when the 
 influence of the young people is so universally recog- 
 nized, and the importance of their work everywhere 
 acknowledged. It is well that they should be in 
 close touch with the church itself of which they are 
 such significant parts. 
 
 VII. The Women will ever form a large propor- 
 tion of the church fellowship, and among the work- 
 ers of the church no more faithful and efficient 
 body will be found. Ministering to our Lord dur- 
 ing his earthly life, they minister in all our churches 
 to him still. If such organizations do not already 
 exist, the minister will do well to organize the 
 
176 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 women of the church for mission committees; for 
 church benevolence work ; for carrying out improve- 
 ments in the building; for visiting; and as we have 
 already recommended, they should have their place 
 as members of the advisory or prudential committee. 
 
 The office of deaconess has received especial atten- 
 tion from the Episcopal Church, and has practically 
 settled itself in other bodies. Every church has 
 such persons, although they are not always officially 
 recognized. The question of a distinct body of dea- 
 conesses, however, is worthy of consideration. The 
 sympathy and devotion of women eminently qualify 
 them for discharging many of the duties pertaining 
 to the office of deacon. That deaconesses were com- 
 mon in the early church seems probable from the 
 words in first Timothy that we have already con- 
 sidered, " Women in like manner must be grave, 
 not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things." ^ 
 Some have understood this passage as referring to 
 the wives of deacons ; but the more likely interpreta- 
 tion would seem to be that the reference is to women 
 who were themselves serving as deaconesses. At 
 any rate the only case where the title of deacon is 
 found directly applied to any person in the New 
 Testament is to a woman — Phoebe.^ The Pilgrim 
 fathers held in veneration the orders of deaconesses 
 and had them in their churches, and our churches 
 to-day seem to be favorably disposed to restoring 
 the order. 
 
 With all the officers of the church the minister 
 
 ii Tim. 3 : 11 (R. V.). 2 Rom. 16 : 1. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE OFFICERS I77 
 
 should be in close touch. He should use his influ- 
 ence in having competent officers chosen, doing this 
 always quietly. If possible once a year gather at 
 your home the officers of the various departments 
 of the church, in separate detachments, and discuss 
 informally the particulars of the work entrusted to 
 them. In beginning a new pastorate, it is a wise 
 plan to do this as soon as possible, as it lets them 
 know your sympathy with the work which interests 
 them, and gives you, in the quickest way, informa- 
 tion you might otherwise be long in acquiring. 
 
 This chapter has dealt with many secular matters 
 which are in reality very spiritual. Only as minister 
 and officers learn to work in unison, to engage in 
 that " team-work " which is so effective in other 
 realms than the football field, do the wheels run 
 smoothly and hence swiftly. In no other relation- 
 ship of the church life will the minister be more 
 conscious of the weakness of human nature in 
 himself and others. In no other phase of his work 
 will the minister have more reason to rejoice in the 
 victories of grace over the flesh than in his frank 
 and tactful dealings with the officers of his church. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE 
 CHURCH MEETING 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Preliminary Counsels. 
 
 1. Study the laws for conducting meetings. 
 
 2. If possible let all church business be considered 
 
 previously at the deacons' meetings. 
 
 3. Do not break in on devotional meetings with business 
 
 of a secular character. 
 
 4. Do not vote yourself. Preside by virtue of your office 
 
 unless the custom is different. 
 
 I. The Covenant Meeting. 
 
 II. The Examination and Reception of New Members. 
 
 III. The Dismissal of Members. 
 
 IV. Meetings for Miscellaneous Business. 
 
 V. Cases Calling for Discipline. 
 
 1. Be slow to move in the exercise of church discipline. 
 
 2. When discipline seems necessary, consult with the 
 
 deacons and advisory committee. 
 
 3. The officers concurring with you, bring the matter 
 
 before the church. 
 
 4. A public report of the committee on discipline. 
 
 5. Express no opinion personally regarding the case. 
 
 6. In all cases of discipline be especially solemn and 
 
 tender. 
 
 7. Action having been taken by the church, the minister 
 
 should follow up the offender; he is still his friend, 
 though not his pastor. 
 
IX 
 
 THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING 
 
 Before we pass on to consider the minister's re- 
 lationship to the various church meetings we give 
 some preHminary counsels. 
 
 1. The minister should be conversant with the 
 laws for conducting meetings. We recommend the 
 following books as furnishing what it is essential 
 that every minister should know concerning this 
 matter : Robert's " Rules of Order for Deliberative 
 AssembUes " ; Dr. P. H. Mell's " Guide to Parlia- 
 mentary Practice " ; Dr. G. T. Fish's " Guide to 
 Conduct Meetings " ; Professor Rutherford's little 
 manual, entitled " The Church Member's Guide." 
 While many other excellent works might be added 
 to this list, any one of those mentioned will be found 
 sufficient for the minister's purpose. 
 
 2. If possible, let all church business be consid- 
 ered previously at the deacons' meetings. It is 
 well that no new business be considered about which 
 there is likely to be difference of opinion, unless 
 previous notice be given. This should be clearly 
 stated in the church manual. 
 
 3. Avoid, as far as you can, breaking in on de- 
 votional meetings with business of a secular char- 
 acter, and however convenient, never hold business 
 
 181 
 
l82 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 meetings on Sunday, except in cases of extreme ne- 
 cessity. Where it is the custom to bring up business 
 at the regular church prayer-meeting, let it come 
 at the beginning rather than at the end of the meet- 
 ing. By this arrangement no one save the late- 
 comers will miss anything; punctuality is thus 
 encouraged, and at the same time the decks are 
 cleared for the real purpose of the gathering. 
 
 4. At church meetings do not vote yourself. Pre- 
 side by virtue of your office at all church meetings 
 except those where matters relating to finance are 
 under consideration, unless the custom is different. 
 It seems natural that the minister should always 
 serve in this capacity, nor should there be any real 
 occasion for putting another in this place, except 
 in rare instances, when the minister will naturally 
 perceive that some other than himself should preside. 
 
 I. The Covenant Meeting first claims our atten- 
 tion. The practice of holding the covenant meet- 
 ing on Saturday afternoon is still found in some 
 churches; but it is usually held on the regular 
 prayer-meeting night which precedes the com- 
 munion Sunday. Attendance at the covenant-meet- 
 ings should be confined to members of the church 
 where this is practicable. It is a question whether 
 we have not carried publicity too far. What is there 
 for a member of the congregation to come to, if he 
 join the church, to which he is not admitted before? 
 At meetings of this character the covenant should 
 often, if not always, be read, and every member of 
 the church should be trained to take some part in 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING 183 
 
 the meeting, so far as time allows. It is an old 
 custom, and not a bad one, on such occasions to 
 begin with the occupants of the first row, it being 
 expected that each one in the room in turn should 
 take some part. While some may be frightened 
 away by such an arrangement, many others will be 
 grateful for an occasion that in a measure applies 
 gentle coercion to the performance of a recognized, 
 but to them difficult. Christian duty. Once a year 
 the church roll should be read at the covenant meet- 
 ing, and means should be taken that absent mem- 
 bers be represented by some friend or by a letter 
 addressed to the minister or clerk, to be read at 
 this gathering. 
 
 We note as to the covenant itself that it should 
 bind the members to Scripture practice, but to no 
 more. For example, while we firmly believe the 
 Christian's duty to his fellow-men is not complete 
 until he has denied himself indulgence in intoxi- 
 cating liquors, for his weaker brethren's sake, yet 
 in such matters the appeal should be made to the 
 individual conscience; to insert into the covenant 
 a clause forbidding the use or the manufacture of 
 intoxicating drinks is not in accord with the letter 
 or spirit of the fourteenth chapter of Romans. We 
 *' are not entitled to institute new conditions of 
 communion," * and matters which are properly left 
 to individual conscience may not be rightfully 
 demanded as universal duties. 
 
 II. The examination and reception of new 
 
 * W. R. Williams, " Religious Progress," p. 120. 
 
184 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 members, after the preliminary examination by 
 the proper committee, properly takes place at the 
 monthly church meeting. The candidates should be 
 encouraged to give an oral testimony before the 
 church, but in the cases of very young children and 
 of women whose voices may not be heard through- 
 out the room, it may be well to have them prepare 
 a statement, which may be read by the pastor, the 
 candidate rising at the close to acknowledge and 
 affirm it as his own communication. The minister 
 can do much in preparing the candidate beforehand, 
 and by a pleasant, conciliatory manner draw him 
 out in the meeting itself. The examination before 
 the prudential committee should obviate the 
 necessity for much public questioning. 
 
 When a member is received by letter, let him be 
 publicly introduced to the church ; let him rise, and 
 if possible say a few words. 
 
 In every instance the new member of the church 
 should be instructed as to his privileges and re- 
 sponsibilities. The private interview in the pas- 
 tor's study, or the call which the pastor makes at 
 the home for the purpose, and the occasional ad- 
 dress or sermon on the subject, will furnish ample 
 opportunity for such instruction. Give to each a 
 copy of the covenant, and such articles of faith, 
 general regulations, list of members, and other pub- 
 lications as are printed by the church. It is well 
 in the public testimony to have these matters re- 
 ferred to by the candidate, for the new member is 
 not only taking his stand as a Christian, but is 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING 185 
 
 subscribing to all the responsibilities, as well as 
 accepting the privileges, which church-membership 
 entails. 
 
 III. The Dismissal of Members. Any member 
 of the church who leaves to take up a permanent 
 abode elsewhere should be heartily encouraged to 
 take a letter of dismissal to another church of the 
 same faith and order in the place to which he goes. 
 If his leaving is not final, let him be granted a 
 letter of commendation. In no case should any 
 church-member be long permitted to be out of con- 
 nection with the Christian church, for it is as easy for 
 the average mortal to drop out of church affilia- 
 tion as it is difficult for him to enter it. In many 
 cases the member departing is not prepared to decide 
 at once upon his church home in the place to which 
 he goes, and a proper interval must necessarily be 
 allowed for him to find the particular church best 
 suited to his need or in which his best service 
 can be performed. In such cases it is well for the 
 pastor to write a private letter to that pastor of 
 the church in the place which he thinks would on 
 the whole be most helpful, asking that such atten- 
 tion and courtesy be shown the new-comer as may 
 lead to fellowship with that church. This should 
 generally be done with the knowledge and consent 
 of the member himself, and it should be made very 
 plain that there is no desire to lose him from the 
 church from which he goes, but only an earnest 
 solicitude for his own spiritual welfare and 
 happiness. 
 
l86 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 When a member has been dismissed, find out 
 as soon as is possible whether the letter has been 
 presented and accepted. This is usually done by 
 sending with the letter itself another letter to be 
 returned by the clerk of the receiving church, in 
 which it is stated that if, after an interval of six 
 months, the notice of acceptance is not received, he 
 will be considered still a member of the church from 
 which he has gone. The request for a letter of dis- 
 missal is frequently made by the minister or clerk of 
 the church which the member desires to join. Many 
 persons hesitate to ask for letters of dismissal to 
 other churches because they do not know exactly 
 how to make the application, and will gladly accept 
 the offer that such letter be written by one of the 
 church officers. Such an engagement often results 
 in a more prompt transference of membership, and 
 if generally adopted there would be fewer names 
 to add to the list of members dropped in our 
 associational minutes. 
 
 Some churches do not grant, as a rule, regular 
 letters of dismissal to churches of other denomina- 
 tions, though as such letters are couched in terms 
 of general Christian commendation we fail to see 
 the reason for refusing to do so. In such 
 cases, however, the pastor should at least write a 
 private letter to the minister or church to which the 
 person goes, commending him or her for Chris- 
 tian worth, and expressing such wishes for his wel- 
 fare as the case warrants, and stating that at his 
 own request he has been dropped from the church 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING 187 
 
 roll in order that he may be received by the church 
 of another order. In so transferring persons to 
 another denomination extreme courtesy should ever 
 be shown. Let us remember how fully the spirit 
 of the old saying is in accord with the mind of the 
 Master : 
 
 In essentials, unity ; 
 
 In non-essentials, liberty; 
 
 In all things, charity.* 
 
 The church roll should be carefully kept, and 
 should be revised once every year. The best time 
 for this is generally the time of the annual roll- 
 call. The non-resident members should be writ- 
 ten to and affectionately urged to transfer their 
 membership in all cases where there is no good 
 reason known for their not doing so. The names 
 of those whose present residence cannot be traced 
 should, after one or two years, be erased. So far 
 as possible membership statistics should represent 
 the actual strength of the church. An " awful warn- 
 ing" in this regard lies before us on a page taken 
 from the minutes of a certain Association in which 
 one of the churches reports a resident member- 
 ship of two hundred and twenty-nine and a non- 
 resident membership of three hundred and ninety, 
 reporting a total membership of six hundred and 
 nineteen! Such examples are not difficult to find, 
 and notwithstanding the difficulty of keeping the 
 church roll clean and its record true, yet the nu- 
 
 1 Attributed to Rupertius Maldenius. 
 
l88 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 merical condition of the church should honestly rep- 
 resent its strength and influence. For lack of such 
 careful keeping of the church roll most church lists 
 are of very uncertain value. 
 
 IV. Meetings for such Miscellaneous Business 
 as will come up in the course of a church year. 
 Under this head we consider the election of offi- 
 cers, which in most churches occurs at the regular 
 annual meeting. This should be called after ade- 
 quate and distinct notice beforehand, the announce- 
 ment being made on at least two preceding Sun- 
 days. At this annual meeting all back church min- 
 utes should be heard and approved, reports given 
 by the officers for the year just completed, and 
 such other business transacted as " properly comes 
 before a regular church meeting." January is a 
 good month for this meeting. It corresponds with 
 the beginning of the ordinary business year. The 
 only objection to this month is that it is apt to turn 
 the attention of the church and congregation too 
 prominently to matters of business at a time when 
 they should be doing their best work in winning 
 souls for Christ and in aggressive measures for the 
 extension of his kingdom. For this reason the an- 
 nual meeting is held sometimes in the early spring 
 or autumn. The custom of following this meeting 
 with the annual social meeting of the church and 
 congregation is a good one. There should be given 
 each year some such social occasion, to which the 
 members look forward eagerly, and which should 
 form a rallying day for the forces of the church. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING 1 89 
 
 This is an age of publicity, and we caution that 
 business meetings of the church should not be re- 
 ported in the newspapers, as such reports do little 
 good and may do great harm. These meetings 
 should be confined to the church-membership. 
 
 V. Cases Calling for Discipline are perhaps the 
 most difficult to deal with among all the matters 
 that properly come before a church meeting. Dis- 
 cipline needs to be exercised for the sake of the 
 offender, whose soul is in peril; for the sake of 
 the church, which is bound to maintain a high stand- 
 ard of character; for the sake of the world, which 
 the church would influence; and for the sake of 
 Christ himself. 
 
 I. It is well in the exercise of church discipline 
 to move slowly, especially if you have newly come 
 to your charge. Remember that some evils cannot 
 be remedied and others ought not to be touched, 
 for more evil is done by touching them than by 
 letting them alone. Never encourage rumor and 
 gossip; these are not proof. Although you should 
 be always willing to hear complaints against mem- 
 bers if the complainer stands ready later to state 
 his charge before the proper committee, yet there 
 is no reason why the minister should allow him- 
 self to become the repository of the evil thoughts 
 and suspicions of persons who insist that on no 
 account should their names be mentioned in the 
 matter. If possible, in cases that may seem to re- 
 quire action consult your predecessor in the pas- 
 torate. His experience will often be extremely 
 
190 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 profitable, and through his counsel a way may be 
 found which never would have been discovered by 
 the new pastor if left to himself. Exhaust every 
 other means before resorting to discipline. These 
 are found in " the three steps of gospel labor " : 
 go to him alone ; take two or three with you ; tell 
 it to the church and let them deal with it. '' More- 
 over, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go 
 and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; 
 if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 
 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one 
 or two more, that in the mouth of two or three 
 witnesses every word may be established. And if 
 he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the 
 church ; but if he neglect to hear the church, let 
 him be unto thee as a heathen man and a 
 publican." ^ 
 
 2. When, however, it becomes plain that discipline 
 is necessary, consult with your deacons and advisory 
 committee. The generally recognized grounds for 
 discipline in churches are : ( i ) Disorderly Christian 
 walk, and (2) departure from Christian doctrine 
 and practice. 
 
 (i) Moral courage and common honesty demand 
 that one who brings reproach on Christ by a fla- 
 grantly inconsistent life should be dealt with. Es- 
 pecially is this demanded where the offender is 
 prominent and well known. Church discipline is 
 needed to-day; but it was more common among 
 our forefathers. Here is a record, dated 1663, taken 
 
 ^Matt. 18 : 15-17. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING I9I 
 
 from an English Baptist church-book : " John 
 Christmas, for not loving Ann his wife, as he 
 ought, and for speaking hateful and despising 
 words against her, giving her occasion to depart 
 from him for his unkindness, after sundry ad- 
 monitions was withdrawn from." We are glad that 
 John Christmas was brought to a better mind, as 
 appears from a later entry : '' John Christmas, after- 
 wards sending for Ann his wife again, and prom- 
 ising amendment, after her coming back again to 
 him, desired to be a partaker with the church in 
 holy duties, was again joined in fellowship." And 
 again we read of a case where the church looked 
 after one of its members whose farming interests 
 were in danger of being placed before the interests 
 of his soul : " Appointed James Southwell to speak 
 to Joseph Whittam once more respecting his ab- 
 sence from chapel and meeting and going about to 
 see cows on the Lord's Day." It is satisfactory to 
 record that in the following case the steps taken 
 resulted in the retention of membership : " Mary 
 Calvert, having procured provisions at divers places, 
 and neglected to pay for them, J. Hodgson, H. 
 Sutcliffe, and W. Sunderland are desired to con- 
 verse with her and report the result of the case to 
 the next church meeting." While it may seem to 
 us as though the former generations went too far 
 in this matter, using a microscope of too high a 
 power in scrutinizing imperfections of their fellow- 
 members, yet such a state of things cannot but be 
 better than too great leniency. The following entry 
 
192 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 from " Pepys' Diary" (1665) causes us to regret 
 that the sermon was not better, but to rejoice in the 
 penitence of the man whose discipHne preached 
 louder than words : " And so by coaches to church 
 four miles off, where a pretty good sermon and a 
 declaration of penitence of a man that had under- 
 gone the church's censure for his wicked Hfe." 
 (2) Even more caution is needed in dealing with 
 matters that pertain to a departure from Christian 
 doctrine and practice than in those relating to a 
 disorderly walk. In Cotton Mather's church, in 
 Boston, discipline was exercised in all cases of 
 " adultery, drunkenness, lying, gambling, theft, evil 
 speaking, slander, idleness, keeping bad company, 
 neglect of family worship, and profane swearing." ^ 
 But this list, unhappily, does not exhaust the 
 grounds for discipline. We take the following ex- 
 tracts from the minutes of Zion Baptist Church, 
 Tenterden, which illustrate how in those " good old 
 times " the belief in discipline was carried into mat- 
 ters of doctrine as well as life : " December 25th, 
 1790. Agreed for Brother W. and Brother W., Jr., 
 to inquire of Brother H. and his wife relative to her 
 daughter having her child sprinkled whether or 
 no they anywise countenanced the same." " Janu- 
 ary 9th, 1797. We do exclude J. T. from our com- 
 munity for despising the pastor as a preacher and 
 contempt of the admonition of the church respect- 
 ing the means of grace. Also our minister is to 
 write to E. M. to inquire of her views respecting 
 
 i"Life of Cotton Mather," p. 184. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING I93 
 
 US as a church, as we understand she speaks con- 
 temptuously of the people in general." We are 
 in doubt whether the following case is one of doc- 
 trine or of walk: *' May 7th, 1797. The church 
 agrees that Brother C.'s conduct — as a professor — 
 in joining and singing songs with the world de- 
 serves censure." 
 
 It is difficult to repress a smile as we read 
 over these and many other records of dis- 
 cipline in those early days; but such discipline 
 was no laughing matter for those subjected to it. 
 To-day heresy trials are becoming especially com- 
 mon. In their failure to bring about any good re- 
 sult we read again the caution to hesitate long 
 before arriving at any judgment in regard to your 
 brother's belief. Only after the most thorough 
 consultation with your deacons and others sur- 
 rounding you in an advisory capacity, and an in- 
 vestigation which goes to the root of the whole 
 matter, should any further steps be taken concern- 
 ing the disorderly walk or departure from Christian 
 doctrine of a fellow-member. 
 
 3. If, however, after such proper investigation 
 the deacons and others concur with you, the matter 
 should be brought before the church. To bring 
 this charge the advisory committee may be all that 
 is needed ; but there may be reasons, and there gen- 
 erally are, for choosing a special committee for the 
 case involved. Some such resolution as the fol- 
 lowing is now in order : " A case which, in our 
 judgment, calls for discipline has come to the 
 
194 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 notice of the pastor and deacons of this church. 
 
 They recommend that Brother be requested 
 
 to act with Deacons and in investigating 
 
 the case." 
 
 4. When the committee is prepared to report, 
 either (i) the case should, upon their authority, 
 be declared cleared, omitting entirely the name of 
 the person suspected; or (2) if discipline be neces- 
 sary, the case should be made public to the church 
 and action taken upon it, the offender always being 
 requested to be present. 
 
 5. Throughout the conduct of the case remember 
 to express no opinion yourself personally, but speak 
 as uttering the will and decision of the church. To 
 make or prosecute the charge is to lose the dignity 
 of your position and to handicap you for future 
 dealing with the individual to bring him to 
 repentance. 
 
 6. In the act of declaring discipline necessary the 
 pastor should be especially solemn and tender. The 
 three steps having been taken which our Lord gives 
 in the case of the brother who trespasses,^ we should 
 proceed in the spirit of the admonition of Paul: 
 " Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest 
 he fall." ^ Remember that it is " ye which are 
 spiritual " who are to *' restore such a one in the 
 spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also 
 be tempted." ^ We are not to count the offender 
 " as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother " ; * 
 
 1 Matt. 18: 15-17. 2 I Cor. lo : 12. 
 
 » Gal. 6:1. * 2 Thess. 3 : 14, iS- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING I95 
 
 and even that '* strawy " epistle, as Luther called 
 the Epistle of James, thus tenderly closes : " Breth- 
 ren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one 
 convert him, let him know, that he which converteth 
 the sinner from the error of his way shall save 
 a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of 
 sins." ^ 
 
 When action is to be taken, see to it that only 
 church-members are present at the meeting called 
 for this purpose, and beware of newspaper re- 
 porters. Under no circumstances should the details 
 of such a meeting become public property. 
 
 7. When action has been taken by the church, 
 the pastor should privately follow up the offender. 
 You are still his friend and must aim to win him 
 back. Some years ago a member of one of the 
 most prominent churches of this country was dis- 
 covered to be a defaulter to a large amount. He 
 had passed upon him a heavy sentence, the judge 
 holding that his activity in the church only aggra- 
 vated his guilt. The condemned man wrote a peni- 
 tent letter to his church, resigning his membership. 
 The pastor, when this letter was read before the 
 church, expressed the strongest sense of the guilt 
 of the offender's course, but also his own confidence 
 in his repentance, and offered a resolution, which 
 was unanimously passed, retaining his name on 
 the church roll : " In the faith that no man more 
 needs the influence of a church than those who 
 have fallen into sin and have sincerely repented." 
 
 ^ James 5 : 19, so. 
 
196 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Such action was considerate, not only to the of- 
 fender, but also to the character of the church and 
 its influence in the world, for as has been said: 
 " The church is more liable to be compromised in 
 the eyes of the world by retaining in fellowship 
 the prosperous wicked than by continuing in its care 
 the unfortunate wicked." ^ 
 
 Whether the one we seek to influence is still re- 
 tained in the membership or excluded from it, the 
 action of Andrew Fuller is a model for the Christian 
 ministry : " June 14th. Went out to see some fallen 
 brethren; convinced that there is no art necessary 
 in religion, resolved to proceed with all plainness 
 and openness; did so, and hope for good effect. I 
 left each party with weeping eyes; but oh, how 
 liable to sin myself ! " 
 
 The prevailing opinion in most of our churches 
 is that all business meetings are dry, and that any 
 member who cannot pray or perform other spiritual 
 offices will make a useful treasurer or business man- 
 ager. The minister must combat such opinions, and 
 do all in his power to show that spiritual motives 
 should elevate all the church meetings, and that if 
 only the spirit of service is true and high the dull- 
 est task receives an ennobling touch. There is 
 nothing secular that should not be spiritual, and 
 there is no real distinction between the business 
 and spiritual sides of a church's life. Whether in 
 the covenant meeting, the examination and recep- 
 tion of new members, the dismissal of members, 
 
 * " Natipnal Baptist," 1891. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH MEETING 19/ 
 
 the meetings for miscellaneous business, or in the 
 consideration of cases calling for discipline, the 
 Christian minister should show his discernment of 
 the call of Christ in every department of life, and 
 the enthusiasm borne of a noble motive. Unless 
 the secular interests of the church are made spiritual, 
 the spiritual interests of the church will sooner or 
 later become secular. 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. The Pastor, While Interested, Should not be Promi- 
 nent IN the Financial Management of His 
 Church. 
 
 1. He has his own special work to do. 
 
 2. Other men, who are in business, are more likely to be 
 
 skilful in finance than he. 
 
 H. Distinguish Between Church Finance and Chris- 
 tian Beneficence. Failure to Support the Church 
 A Proper Reason for Discipline. 
 
 HI. Church Finance and Christian Beneficence to be 
 Kept Apart from one Another; but not Alto- 
 gether Independent. The Giving to Each to be 
 Rightly Proportioned. 
 
 IV. Care Should be Taken that the Method Adopted 
 
 FOR Raising the Ordinary Income of the Church 
 Does not Interfere With Contributions for Be- 
 neficence. Methods Adopted for Raising Money 
 FOR Current Expenses. 
 
 1. The pew rental system. 
 
 2. Weekly offerings and free seats. 
 
 3. Weekly offerings and assigned sittings. 
 
 V. Church Finance Should be One Index of Church 
 
 Prosperity. 
 
 1. As a rule, the church which is doing faithfully its 
 
 work has no difficulty in paying current expenses. 
 
 2. Special appeals should be avoided if possible. 
 
 3. Special expenses may, however, be met by special 
 
 contributions. 
 
 4. Methods of raising money which appeal to inferior 
 
 motives are not to be recommended. 
 
 VI. The Income Should Meet the Expenditures. The 
 
 Church Should be Thoroughly Acquainted With 
 THE State of the Finances. 
 
 VII. Contributing Should be General and Proportion- 
 
 ate. 
 
1. General — every one should give. 
 
 2. Proportionate — one objection to pew rents. Principles 
 
 deduced from what has been said. 
 
 VIII. The Taking of the Offering a Proper Part of 
 THE Religious Service. Suggestions as to the 
 Form Which May be Used. 
 
 IX. There Should be Proportion in the Disposition of 
 
 THE Church Income. 
 
 1. Salaries. 
 
 2. Expenses incident to the conduct of worship. 
 
 3. The paying of interest on debts, or possible taxing of 
 
 church property. 
 
 X. Salary of Pastor Largely Determined by the 
 
 Amount and Character of His Work. 
 
 1. The spiritual ground for such a belief. 
 
 2. The similar testimony of experience. 
 
 XI. The Pastor Has a Right to Expect the Church to 
 
 Meet Promptly its Pecuniary Promises. How a 
 Necessary Increase in Salary Should be Secured. 
 
X 
 
 CHURCH FINANCE 
 
 I. We shall treat in this chapter of such Prin- 
 ciples of Church Finance as the minister may find 
 useful in the management of his church. It is safe 
 at the outset to give again the caution that the 
 minister, while interested, should not be prominent 
 in the financial management of his church. He 
 must, however, not be indifferent to it, nor disas- 
 sociate himself in any way from those having the 
 finances of the church in charge. Upon the finances 
 depend in great measure the prosperity of the 
 church and the success of the pastor, and it is in- 
 consistent as well as unreasonable for the pastor 
 to isolate himself altogether from their manage- 
 ment. In a wise way he may be the power behind 
 the throne, but he must never be the throne itself. 
 There are other reasons, but perhaps it will be 
 sufficient to mention only two, why the pastor 
 should not prominently appear in the financial 
 management. 
 
 I. He has his own special work to do, and if 
 his time is taken up with the anxieties and details 
 of business matters, he will find it impossible to 
 give that thorough attention to the special duties 
 which his position rightfully demands. While the 
 
 203 
 
204 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 brethren were busy choosing the seven who should 
 be appointed " over this business " (the selection 
 of the seven deacons) the disciples gave themselves 
 '* continually to prayer and to the ministry of the 
 word " ; ^ their example is one eminently wise for 
 the minister of to-day to follow. 
 
 2. Other men who are in business are more likely 
 to be skilful in finance than the minister. We are, 
 however, aware how prevalent in church finance are 
 slipshod methods. A sublime faith that much of 
 this work can go undone, and that more can just 
 as well do itself, seems in many quarters to 
 take the place of works. But we believe that every 
 pastor can, in time, discover men who have con- 
 secration as well as business ability, to whom busi- 
 ness matters may be safely entrusted. These men 
 on their part should be sufficiently broad-minded 
 not to resent the minister's interest, or interpret it 
 as interference. Without the pastor's advice and 
 suggestion they are crippled in their work, as no 
 one knows the church like the pastor. It is per- 
 fectly reasonable that he should encourage them 
 in every way possible, as without adequate financial 
 support his hands are tied and no aggressive work 
 is possible. But we would bid any minister beware 
 of undertaking the pastorate of a church which 
 burdens its pastor with the details of financial man- 
 agement, and demands that he should take the 
 laboring oar in its execution. 
 
 II. Church Finance must be distinguished from 
 
 lActs 6 : 1-4. 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 205 
 
 Christian Beneficence. Church support is not char- 
 ity. To sustain the church to which one belongs 
 is not optional; it is obligatory. The failure on 
 the part of any member to do his part is to break 
 covenant obligations and to expose himself to 
 church discipline. Concerning the objects of Chris- 
 tian beneficence there may be differences of opin- 
 ion ; but to support the church of which one is a 
 member is simply a point of common honesty. 
 
 A church has a perfect right to discipline a mem- 
 ber for niggardliness, and it is wise to do so. The 
 cause of Christianity would be greatly helped, not 
 hindered, if all churches were brave enough to fol- 
 low the example of Tremont Temple, in Boston, 
 which we note excluded in one year about fifty for 
 refusing to help meet the expenses of worship. 
 
 Ministers do well to avoid churches which have 
 this curse of stinginess, for it presents an obstacle 
 to effective work which few ministers have the 
 strength to overcome. There is no good reason why 
 the minister's heart should be embittered and his 
 moral power impaired, if not destroyed, by this 
 bane which has no right to hang like a miasma 
 over any Christian church. 
 
 III. While Church Finance and Christian Benefi- 
 cence should be distinguished from one another, 
 they should not be altogether Independent. They 
 should be kept apart so that no credit for giving 
 be taken, when in fact only a payment due has been 
 made. It is scarcely honest, and it is certainly 
 unwise, for church returns to lump together all 
 
206 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 money contributed for current expenses and 
 beneficence. 
 
 But, on the other hand, these two should not be 
 entirely separated. Giving should be proportionate. 
 Churches have been known to contribute liberally 
 to missions to the heathen and at the same time to 
 pay their pastor inadequately. Such a one-sided po- 
 sition shows that something needs readjustment, 
 whether in the Christian church or in the home of 
 Mrs. Jellaby, of Dickens' immortal story. 
 
 IV. Great Care should be Taken that the Method 
 Adopted for Raising the Ordinary Income of the 
 Church does not Interfere with Benevolent Con- 
 tributions. Where the weekly offering system pre- 
 vails it should provide envelopes for beneficence as 
 well as for current expenses. It is a reproach to 
 a church when the number of envelopes for the one 
 predominates largely in the offering over the num- 
 ber of envelopes for the other. The church which 
 is too much occupied in raising its own income to 
 give adequately to missions and other objects of 
 beneficence will be punished for it. Ministerial ex- 
 perience all goes to show that the church which 
 thinks too much about itself will have increasing 
 difficulty in paying its way, while the church which 
 seeks first the kingdom of God in all its breadth and 
 fulness rarely has on its hands serious problems 
 relating to its support. 
 
 We note here certain methods adopted for rais- 
 ing money to meet the current expenses of the 
 church. These are: 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 207 
 
 1. The pew-rental system. While grave objec- 
 tions are rightly urged against this method pure 
 and simple, yet in a modified form it has been found 
 to work well in many churches. It is certainly 
 wrong that the gospel, which is to be " without 
 money and without price," should ever become a 
 gospel which can only be heard at five cents a 
 Sunday under the gallery and in a draught, or at 
 five hundred dollars a year half-way up the center 
 aisle. On the other hand, as in Trinity Church, 
 Boston, in the time of Phillips Brooks,^ pews may 
 be so rented and such a liberal accommodation pro- 
 vided for those who pay no rent, that the evils to 
 which this system is heir may be diminished, if not 
 altogether destroyed. 
 
 2. The reaction from the pew-rental system is 
 seen in the system of free seats and weekly offer- 
 ings. By this system sittings are not even assigned, 
 and each one gives according to his will. When 
 this plan has been tried it has succeeded for a time, 
 but in the end the church making the trial is usu- 
 ally forced to abandon it. This system is an ideal 
 to be cherished, but we fear not to be fulfilled until 
 conversion and sanctification become synonymous 
 terms. 
 
 3. The third system we commend, as usually be- 
 ing the best, is that in which seats are assigned 
 annually and reserved for the contributors independ- 
 ent of the amount pledged. In many churches it 
 is preferred to assign seats permanently on the 
 
 ' " Life of Phiriips Brooks," Vol. II., p. 142. 
 
208 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 principle " first come first served " ; those who come 
 last, whether rich or poor, taking such seats as 
 may be left, or as shall become vacant. This system 
 seems to us to avoid the objections of pew rents 
 and at the same time, with constant care and watch- 
 fulness, adequately to provide for current expenses. 
 The " business principles " of a certain large church 
 as recorded by its treasurer lie before us, and form 
 an excellent model for other churches that would 
 abolish a deficit and manage their finances on lines 
 that have been found practicable. This church as- 
 signs sittings to all freely, but gives to each person 
 at the beginning of the year fifty-two envelopes in 
 which to place his weekly pledge. The church is di- 
 vided into six sections, over each of which is placed 
 a collector, who is responsible for the collections in 
 his section. Should any person fail to give his 
 contribution for four consecutive Sabbaths, the col- 
 lector calls upon him. It is assumed that either he 
 has moved from the city, or is negligent and needs 
 to be " stirred up by way of remembrance," or has 
 been overtaken by misfortune, in which case he is 
 always excused from payments as long as may be 
 necessary. The experience of this church shows 
 that it is the small contributions that pay the bills, 
 as our Roman Catholic brethren long ago discov- 
 ered. In the words of this treasurer, " when the 
 annual meeting comes around, everybody comes up 
 smiling." 
 
 V. Church Finance Should be One Index of 
 Church Prosperity. 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 209 
 
 1. As a rule the church which is harmonious, 
 hard at work, and growing, has no difficulty in pay- 
 ing all its expenses. People give willingly and suf- 
 ficiently when they are satisfied. On the civic as- 
 pect of this truth Mr. John Bright well says: 
 " Where was there a bad government whose finances 
 were in good order? Where was there a really 
 good government whose finances were in bad or- 
 der? Is there a better test, in the long run, of the 
 condition of the people and the merits of the gov- 
 ernment than the state of the finances ? " We fear, 
 however, that we must modify this statement on its 
 ecclesiastical side by saying that while there never 
 was a bad church whose finances were in good 
 order, there have been some good churches whose 
 finances were in bad order. But this anomalous 
 condition of afifairs has generally been due to a 
 carelessness easily remedied by the introduction of 
 a better system or the election of better financia) 
 managers. 
 
 2. We counsel that special appeals for current 
 expenses should be avoided if possible. The objec- 
 tions to such appeals are that they are spasmodic 
 and tend to unsettle confidence ; they are sensational 
 and tend to injure regular giving; they often lack 
 principle, the appeal being made ad misericordiam; 
 and they invariably grow weaker in their effect, 
 until the special appeal becoming the regular and 
 the ordinary, the phrase loses its meaning, and the 
 " special appeal " is a periodic or intermittent 
 failure. 
 
210 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 3. Special expenses may, however, be met by 
 special contributions. By special expenses we mean 
 a possible deficit in the treasury, caused by unbusi- 
 nesslike management on the part of the treasurer 
 or by hard times in the community ; a church-build- 
 ing debt calling for the payment of interest ; repairs 
 and renovating of the church building, or enlarge- 
 ment of the church's accommodations. But such ap- 
 peals are better made before the expenses are in- 
 curred than afterward. The best time to circulate 
 the subscription paper is when a church deficit first 
 looms in sight. Discouragement and paralysis ever 
 follow in the wake of a deficit. 
 
 4. Methods of raising money which appeal to 
 inferior motives, such as church fairs, entertain- 
 ments, and the like, are not to be recommended. 
 As a rule they injure the church, lower the dignity 
 of the ministry, incur the contempt of the world, 
 impugn the generosity of the church, and in some 
 instances affect public morals injuriously. Such 
 methods often wound Christ " in the house of his 
 friends." The progressive spirit of California may 
 be made manifest, but hardly the unworldly char- 
 acter of the members of two of her churches, when 
 we are told that in a certain town the church of 
 one denomination gave a " grand hop " in aid of 
 its church work, and the church of another denom- 
 ination in the same place replenished its treasury 
 by two dramatic entertainments, " The Humorous 
 Drama, * Down by the Sea,* " and " The Amusing 
 Farce, * Rough Diamond.' " We hope that all 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 211 
 
 similar methods may be found to be like the gold 
 in sea water, unprofitable for commercial purposes. 
 But all fairs and lotteries, melodramas, and enter- 
 tainments, pale into insignificance beside the method 
 adopted by a church in the South. The widely 
 distributed poster thus gives notice of the following 
 extraordinary event: 
 
 Notice! — He will Hang on June 20th. There will be a 
 Grand Excursion from Darien to Brunswick Thursday, 
 June 19th. $1. Everybody Can Go Cheap, Go and see a 
 wonder that has not taken place in Glynn County before in 
 20 years. The steamer will leave Darien wharf at 3 on 
 Thursday evening, and there will be a big supper and 
 Hop at the Hall in Brunswick on Thursday night. Will 
 return on Friday evening. $1. Round Trip Only $1. Chil- 
 dren Not Excepted. Remember, good order will be en- 
 forced. Remember, Refreshments will be had on the 
 steamer. Remember, a good band of music will attend. 
 Remember, we will go Thursday, June 19th. Remember, 
 round trip only $1. Remember, no difference made for 
 children. Come one, come all, and Go with us. Tickets 
 can be had any time from the Committee. 
 
 Dr. G. W. H^ 
 
 Rev. James G. K- 
 
 Committee.^ 
 
 The event referred to in this notice is the hang- 
 ing of a colored man. A hanging and a hop, with 
 refreshments and a good band of music, and all 
 for one dollar, must have improved the church 
 finances, if not the public morals. No words of 
 condemnation can be found strong enough to ex- 
 
 *" Independent," June 19, 1884. 
 
212 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 press our disgust at this incident. But the evil of 
 which this is a most emphatic illustration is one that 
 insidiously attempts to gain an entrance into nearly 
 every church, and well deserves the condemnation 
 of all men whose eyes are single in the service 
 of God. The church which is noted for the ex- 
 cellence of its entertainments, and whose efficient 
 management thus keeps full the treasury, is the 
 church which is generally noted also for the fewness 
 of its conversions and the poverty of real Christian 
 effort. Phillips Brooks has this to say concerning 
 this matter : " The church degrades the dignity of 
 her grand commission by puerile devices for raising 
 money, and frantic efforts to keep herself before the 
 public which would be fit only for the sordid am- 
 bition of a circus troupe. You must cast all 
 that out of the church with which you have to 
 do, or you will make its pulpit perfectly power- 
 less to speak of God to our wealth-ridden and 
 pleasure-loving time." ^ 
 
 The church conscience must not be suffered to 
 fall below the individual conscience. In raising 
 money for expenses, in incurring debt, and in de- 
 vising methods for clearing a debt a church will 
 sometimes do collectively what individual members 
 of that church would never think of doing. The 
 following letter written by Mr. Ruskin to a person 
 asking him to subscribe for the building debt of 
 an " iron chapel " was severe ; at the same time it 
 was not undeserved: 
 
 * " Lectures on Preaching," p. 240. 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 213 
 
 Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, May 19th, 1886. 
 Sir: I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of 
 all people in the world the precisely least likely to give you 
 a farthing! My first word to all men and boys who care 
 to hear me : " Don't get into debt. Starve and go to 
 heaven, but don't borrow. Try first begging — I do not 
 mind, if it is really needful, stealing ! But don't buy things 
 you cannot pay for." And of all manner of debtors pious 
 people building churches they can't pay for are the most 
 detestable nonsense to me. Can't you preach and pray be- 
 hind the hedges or in a sandpit or a coal-hole first? And 
 of all manner of churches thus idiotically built iron 
 churches are the damnablest to me; and of all the sects of 
 believers in any ruling spirit, Hindoos, Turks, feather 
 idolaters, and Mumbo Jumbo log and fire worshipers, who 
 v/ant churches, your modern English evangelical sect is the 
 most absurd and entirely objectionable and unendurable to 
 me ! All which they might very easily have found out from 
 my books — any other sort of sect would — before bothering 
 me to write to them. Ever nevertheless, and in all this 
 saying, your faithful servant, 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 VI. The Income Should Meet the Expenditure. 
 A church is not like a business. It is not a specu- 
 lating concern, and it has no opportunity for making 
 money. Its income is represented by the contribu- 
 tions. Let these contributions therefore regulate 
 the expenditure. 
 
 We have said in another place that the treasurer 
 of the church in his payments should never exceed 
 the income of the church. We repeat it here, for 
 we would emphasize this counsel. Sometimes the 
 treasurer anticipates receipts and pays away money 
 v/hich has not yet come in. This should never be 
 
214 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 done. The church should at once be told if there 
 is a deficit in the treasury, and it should be met 
 there and then. The rule that the expenditure 
 should never exceed the income is a wise one, how- 
 ever, only as it is firmly grasped at two ends, not 
 one. As much care should be given to looking 
 after the sources of income as is given to the 
 apportioning of appropriations from that income. 
 
 The church should be thoroughly acquainted with 
 the state of its finances. The sources of income 
 will be increased if the people are assured that there 
 are no dark corners in the financial system. There 
 are many churches in which there would be more 
 liberality if there were more openness in money mat- 
 ters. Every one in the church should be made fully 
 acquainted with the condition of the church treas- 
 ury. It is an unhealthful condition when the 
 people are not interested in finances, and they can- 
 not be interested in matters of which they know 
 nothing, or next to nothing. 
 
 VII. The Contributions for Church Expenses 
 should be General and Proportionate throughout 
 the Membership. 
 
 I. It is no doubt easier to pay the current ex- 
 penses from a few large subscriptions, but such a 
 condition in a church is neither healthful nor wise. 
 A church is injured by having to depend on one or 
 a few \vealthy persons. Their purses amount to 
 an endowment, and thereby the church is pauper- 
 ized in spirit. In one of our wealthiest and smallest 
 States a circular letter was recently addressed to 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 21$ 
 
 all the churches of a certain denomination asking, 
 among other questions, how large a proportion of 
 the membership made any pledge for church ex- 
 penses. Out of the ninety -three churches replying to 
 this question about half reported that not fifty per 
 cent, of their membership gave anything for this 
 purpose, and in some cases the proportion fell to 
 one-tenth. If this State may be regarded as fairly 
 typical of the conditions elsewhere, it reveals a 
 state of weakness which threatens the prosperity of 
 the kingdom of Christ. Every one should give un- 
 less there is some special reason to the contrary. 
 Even the young children should have their en- 
 velopes and should be accustomed to the thought 
 that they have a part in the church's maintenance. 
 The young converts should be trained to this from 
 the first, and should be instructed by the pastor in 
 this duty as one of the most important of their 
 covenant obligations. Even the very poor will be 
 glad to give a sum proportionate to their means, 
 and we know of one church which grants to its 
 dependent poor a sum above the proper allowance, 
 sufficient to enable each one to return in his en- 
 velope five cents a Sunday to the church treasury. 
 There is no reason why people should receive the 
 benefits of the church, its preaching and singing, its 
 heat and light, for nothing ; and there is every rea- 
 son why all should bear their part in the cost of 
 these things. General giving means general in- 
 terest, for people are interested in what they pay 
 for. The pastor should carefully scrutinize the 
 
2l6 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 church to learn whether the contributing is general, 
 and should see that it become so as quickly as 
 possible by those means which suggest themselves 
 as adapted to the peculiar conditions of the 
 individual church of which he has the oversight. 
 
 2. Contributing should be proportionate as well 
 as general. One objection to pew rents is found 
 here : The rich man is least heavily taxed ; the poor 
 man, possibly with a large family, pays more in 
 proportion to his income and gets less. Another 
 evil follows upon this: there spring up class dis- 
 tinctions entirely out of place in the Christian 
 church. An examination of the contributing list 
 often reveals the comparatively insignificant 
 amounts which the rich give and the over-gener- 
 osity of the poor. In any case the poor as well as 
 the rich should not be neglected in this matter. It 
 is often the poor who make the gifts which are large 
 in the sight of God. In the church of Christ the 
 master and the servant, the employer and the em- 
 ployed, the socially great as well as the socially 
 insignificant, should be found side by side, giving 
 as a part of their devotion to sustain the worship 
 in which they are engaged together. 
 
 From what has been said on this subject we 
 deduce the following principles : 
 
 1. Every member and regular attendant at the 
 church should give something to support it. 
 
 2. The giving should be, as far as possible, Sunday 
 by Sunday. 
 
 3. The appropriation of sittings should be entirely 
 
CHURCH FINAiNCE 2\J 
 
 independent of the amount given. The assignment 
 of seats seems wise in most churches, as it keeps 
 the famiHes together and gives to all that home 
 feeling in the church which is scarcely possible 
 when every one sits anywhere. 
 
 4. No preference should be shown because of the 
 wealth, social position, or influence of any member 
 of the church. 
 
 5. The support of the ministry and the defraying 
 of incidental expenses should not be suffered to 
 interfere with the general beneficence of the church. 
 
 VIII. The Part of the Public Worship Assigned 
 to the Taking of the Offering should be as Relig- 
 iously Performed as any other Part of the Service. 
 The ordinary collection should be announced rev- 
 erently, and the minister may repeat passages of 
 Scripture while it is being taken, the offering being 
 received with a brief prayer. In some of our 
 churches at the conclusion of the offertory prayer 
 the congregation rises and sings the Doxology ; and 
 surely at no other part of the service is it more 
 appropriate to " praise God from whom all bless- 
 ings flow " than when we " worship the Lord in the 
 beauty of holiness." 
 
 In all cases where money has to be asked for it 
 should be urged that giving is " as unto the Lord." 
 Giving is a religious exercise, and the motive ap- 
 pealed to should always be the highest; as a mat- 
 ter of fact the more religious a man is the more he 
 gives '* as God has prospered him." In illustration 
 of the fact that the most earnest Christians are 
 
2l8 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 usually the best givers, we note these words of 
 Henry Ward Beecher, in which he contrasts the 
 offerings made in the lecture room, where the 
 prayer-meetings are held, and those made in the 
 audience room, of Plymouth Church : " Our lecture 
 room holds about three hundred people, and we 
 collect from thirty to eighty dollars there every time 
 we pass the plate. Our best Christians attend the 
 weekly meetings, and they are always the most gen- 
 erous. In this congregation that numbers over 
 three thousand we don't average one cent per head 
 in our collections." Though it takes many kinds of 
 people to make a world, yet we believe that the wide 
 world over this experience will be found to hold 
 true. 
 
 IX. In the Disposition of the Church Income a 
 Proper Proportion should be Observed. 
 
 1. The salaries are by no means the only ex- 
 penses in church administration; but they should 
 have the first place. Unless the pastor's salary is 
 an excessive one, which we hardly need say will 
 rarely be the case, it should never be reduced, where 
 curtailment of expenses is found necessary, except 
 as a last resort. 
 
 2. Next in importance come the expenses incident 
 to the conduct of public worship, such as those for 
 music and the choir, the provision of hymn-books, 
 heating, lighting, and repairs. 
 
 3. And last comes the expenditure necessary to 
 the paying of any interest on the debt, which no 
 church should have, or the possible taxes on the 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 2l9 
 
 church property, which there are many reasons for 
 beUeving churches should rightly pay. The church 
 should set an example in paying tribute to Caesar. 
 X. The Salary of the Pastor will, to a very large 
 Extent, be Determined by the Amount and Char- 
 acter of the Work which he does. We are aware 
 that the average salary of ministers is far too small, 
 and that the amount of work done by the faithful 
 pastor is proportionately large, yet we believe it 
 to be true on the whole that, comparing the salary 
 of one parish with another, the work performed 
 will be found to balance the salary paid. We have 
 yet to see the pastor who was faithful in doing his 
 best wanting for the necessities of daily life. 
 
 1. The spiritual ground on which such belief is 
 justified is this : " Therefore take no thought, say- 
 ing. What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or 
 Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all 
 these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heav- 
 enly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these 
 things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and 
 his righteousness; and all these things shall be 
 added unto you. Take therefore no thought for 
 the morrow : for the morrow shall take thought for 
 the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the 
 evil thereof." ^ 
 
 2. The testimony of experience is similar to that 
 of Scripture teaching. There are both more min- 
 isters than churches and more churches than min- 
 isters; because there are churches which ought not 
 
 iMatt. 6 : 31-34. 
 
520 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 to exist, and ministers who are not really qualified 
 for their work. 
 
 Dr. Howard Crosby puts another side of the mat- 
 ter most wisely : " Because a minister is never to 
 be anxious, we can not affirm that a Christian con- 
 gregation is to starve him. Because a minister is 
 to suffer martyrdom cheerfully for Christ, no Chris- 
 tian congregation need suppose that it is called upon 
 to furnish the fagots and the fire. The average 
 pay of Christian ministers in this country is the 
 same with the pay of the better class of manual 
 day-laborers, and of course much less than the 
 pay of journeymen artisans. Ministers ought to 
 be satisfied with this, but congregations ought not 
 to be satisfied with it. It should make the churches 
 of the land ashamed in sackcloth, that they give 
 less to the support of their ministers than they do 
 to their house-servants. It is not from the right 
 of the ministers that I would argue the point (min- 
 isters are not to press rights if they have them), 
 but from the contemptible niggardliness of the 
 people. If the church had a just appreciation of 
 the Lord's gift in ministers, it would provide amply 
 for those who have given their lives to its 
 edification." ^ 
 
 XL The Pastor has a right to expect that the 
 Church should meet its Pecuniary Promises to him 
 Promptly. The minister has his bills to pay, his 
 obligations to meet, his character for honor and hon- 
 esty to maintain. He has at the same time to 
 
 i"The Christian Preacher," p. i8i. 
 
CHURCH FINANCE 221 
 
 obey the injunction of Paul : " Owe no man any- 
 thing." As he values his usefulness, he must not 
 get into debt, for " hope inspires a man who is earn- 
 ing for future expenditure; debt drives the man 
 who is earning for past expenditure; and it makes 
 an immeasurable difference in life whether one is 
 driven by debt or inspired by hope." ^ 
 
 The obligation of the church to be prompt and 
 regular in paying the pastor's salary is all the 
 weightier because it is not often possible for him to 
 recover legally. Sometimes the salary is paid ir- 
 regularly and meanly. If this is necessary, the pas- 
 tor will be the last man to complain; but in some 
 cases the church officers would hardly be at ease in 
 this matter if '' the appeal unto Caesar " were in 
 order. To sell the church edifice in order to liqui- 
 date the debt to the pastor is certainly heroic treat- 
 ment, but in one case in which it was done the 
 Chief Justice before whom the matter came de- 
 cided for the pastor, and gave his views in plain 
 speech. While we do not commend entirely the 
 method pursued by this minister, we do commend 
 the views expressed by the judge: "If any debt 
 ought to be paid, it is one contracted for the health 
 of souls, for pious ministrations and holy service. 
 If any class of debtors ought to pay, as a matter 
 of moral as well as legal duty, the good people of a 
 Christian church are that class. We think a court 
 may well constrain this church to do justice. It 
 is certainly an energetic measure to sell the church 
 
 \ Lyman Abbott, 
 
222 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 to pay the preacher, nor would it be allowable to 
 do so if other means of satisfying the debt were 
 within reach." 
 
 When his income is insufficient, the minister does 
 wisely to let the fact be known. Paul had no hesi- 
 tation in thus referring to his needs,^ yet ministers 
 have often had to suffer when possibly a word to 
 the wise would have relieved their anxiety. Doctor 
 Gill once said to his deacons : " I could eat more 
 if you gave me more to eat." Though he may 
 not be able to form an epigram, yet the pastor, if 
 his income is insufficient, should be able to mention 
 the fact frankly to those interested in bettering 
 matters. When his own honest wants demand it, 
 and the finances of the church can bear it, the min- 
 ister should have a private talk with some trusted 
 deacon or elder or trustee, with whom the entire 
 management of the matter should be left. We have 
 confidence also to believe that he who in the labor 
 of Christ is willing to suffer inconveniences, en- 
 dure hardness, and forego rights, will not trust the 
 Lord in vain, and being anxious about nothing save 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness, shall 
 find added unto him in due time all things that 
 are needful and right. 
 
 ^ Phil. 4 ', 14-17. 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. Beneficence Must be Measured by the Standard 
 Which Jesus Instituted. What This Standard 
 IS Appears from His Teaching, His Spirit, His 
 Life and Death. 
 
 n. Giving Should be Regular, Systematic, and 
 Religious. 
 
 1. Regular in time, and systematic in method, as shown 
 
 by the law in the old dispensation, and by the 
 principle of the new. 
 
 2. Religious, as forming part of divine worship. 
 
 HI. Set Yourself, from the First, to Develop the Benef- 
 icence OF Your Congregation. While not Neg- 
 lectful of the Rich, Begin With the Young and 
 THE Poor. 
 
 IV. Emphasize in Your Teaching and Practice the 
 
 Privilege of Giving. Beneficence is Emphatically 
 a Privilege. 
 
 V. Insist, However, if Necessary, Upon the Obligation 
 
 to Give. This Obligation Scriptural and Neces- 
 sary. 
 
 VI. In Making Appeals for Benevolent Contributions, 
 
 Ground Your Appeals on Principles and Facts. 
 " The motive power that will open their purses." 
 
 VII. Collect Annually for the Various Denomina- 
 
 tional Societies. The Weekly Offering System 
 to be Supplemented by this Collection. 
 
 VIII. The Congregation Should be Kept Thoroughly 
 Informed on the Subject of Missions. Means by 
 Which this can be Done. 
 
 IX. Let the Deserving Poor in the Church be Cared 
 
 for by the Church Itself. How the '* Fellowship 
 Fund" may be Replenished, and Need of Care in 
 Guarding the Entrance to Church-Fellowship. 
 
 X. Do NOT LET the BeNEFICENCE OF THE ChURCH BeCOME 
 
TOO Exclusively Denominational. Charity is • 
 Christian, not Sectarian. 
 XL Take an Interest in any Charity Organization in 
 Your Community. 
 
 1. Do not encourage spasmodic and irresponsible 
 
 beneficence. 
 
 2. In no case give aid w^ithout previous examination. 
 
 3. When called to aid cases of need, endeavor to preserve 
 
 the self-respect of .the recipient. 
 
XI 
 
 CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 
 
 While Christian Beneficence and Church Fi- 
 nance are two very different things, yet many of the 
 principles appHcable to the one are relevant to the 
 other. It is said that Shakespeare never repeats, 
 and though that may be true about words, it cer- 
 tainly is not where principles are concerned. There- 
 fore, following so eminent an example, we shall have 
 reason to repeat in this chapter such principles as 
 apply to both these subjects, as well as to mention 
 certain principles pertinent to Christian beneficence 
 alone. 
 
 I. Christian Beneficence must be measured by the 
 Standard which Jesus Instituted. What this stand- 
 ard is appears from his teaching regarding the 
 Widow's Mite. Turning from the rich men who 
 were casting their gifts into the temple treasury and 
 beholding that " certain poor widow casting in 
 thither two mites," he said, " Of a truth I say unto 
 you that this poor widow hath cast in more than 
 they all: for all these have of their abundance cast 
 in unto the offerings of God : but she of her penury 
 hath cast in all the living that she had." * 
 
 The spirit of Jesus as well as his teaching throws 
 
 ^Luke 21 : i-4. 
 
 227 
 
228 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 light upon this subject: "For ye know the grace 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, 
 yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through 
 his poverty might be rich/' ^ To measure fully 
 the standard of beneficence as instituted by Jesus 
 is impossible, for all the meaning of his life and 
 death must first be read into it : " Who gave himself 
 for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, 
 and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous 
 of good works." ^ Christian giving then begins 
 when an element of suffering is present in the giv- 
 ing. " Give until you feel it, and then give until 
 you don't feel it," ^ is a direction for the distribu- 
 tion of charity which finds its warrant in the teach- 
 ing and spirit, life and death of the Master himself. 
 The truest giving in a Christian sense can only be 
 of that which costs us something. It is said that 
 Doctor Hook, once Vicar of Leeds, on a certain 
 occasion asked a rich parishioner for a subscription 
 to a church. His friend drew a check for a thou- 
 sand pounds and gave it to the vicar with the re- 
 mark, " There ; I shall not feel that." " As I am 
 a collector for a church, I thank you," said Doctor 
 Hook, " but as I am your minister, I am bound to 
 tell you that a gift which you do not feel is, in 
 God's sight, not a gift at all." Whereupon the 
 parishioner wrote an order for another thousand 
 pounds. We are not told whether the good doctor 
 persevered until the point of suffering in this particu- 
 lar church-member was reached, but at any rate his 
 
 ^2 Cor. 8: 9. 2 jitus 2 : 14, ^ Mary Lyon. 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 22^ 
 
 counsels were scriptural, as no doubt the checks 
 were useful. Beneficence is a much better word 
 than benevolence, as it goes deeper, and more fully 
 expresses the spirit that should animate the Chris- 
 tian believer; benevolence means well-wishing, but 
 beneficence means well-doing. We counsel that the 
 stronger word be always used when referring to this 
 subject. 
 
 II. Giving should be ( i ) Regular and Systematic, 
 and (2) Religious. 
 
 I. When we say "regular" we refer to time; 
 when we say " systematic," we insist on method. 
 Such giving is in accord with the law in the old 
 dispensation : " And concerning the tithe of the 
 herd or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth 
 under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the 
 Lord." ^ The Christian as well as the Jew needs 
 constant reminder that " thou shalt remember the 
 Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power 
 to get wealth that he may establish his covenant, 
 which he sware unto thy fathers." ^ What is thus 
 set forth in Old Testament law is also laid down in 
 New Testament principle : " Upon the first day 
 of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, 
 as God hath prospered him." ^ We believe that a 
 steadily increasing number of people are giving 
 systematically and regularly in the spirit and letter 
 of these verses. While the giving of the tenth as a 
 Jewish law is not incumbent upon the Christian, 
 yet to give less than a tenth speaks poorly for the 
 
 1 Lev. 27 : 32. 2 Deut. 8:18. » i Cor. 16 : 2. 
 
230 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 triumph of Christian faith. One-tenth of one's 
 total income, it would seem, is as little as the Chris- 
 tian in moderate circumstances should allow him- 
 self to give. It is well to remember, however, that 
 with the increase of income should come increase 
 of percentage, for ten per cent, of an income of 
 ten thousand dollars is really much less than the 
 same percentage of a smaller income. To set aside 
 a just proportion regularly for the Lord's purse is 
 a source of blessing and satisfaction appreciated 
 only by those who for years have practised it. It 
 reveals, as perhaps nothing else can, the gracious 
 providence of a loving Father, and renders one 
 able to answer a far greater number of appeals for 
 objects of a desirable character than would be pos- 
 sible without some system of proportionate giving. 
 
 2. In distributing a proper proportion of our 
 means to objects of beneficence, or in urging others 
 to do so, we should never forget that giving is a 
 religious exercise as well as a regular and systematic 
 duty. As a rule collections should be taken at 
 every service, for " we deprive souls of a privi- 
 lege when we don't make a collection." ^ The 
 custom to-day largely prevails of collecting the 
 amounts for current expenses and Christian benefi- 
 cence in separate envelopes at the same offering. 
 Therefore the directions given in the previous chap- 
 ter as to a suitable offertory service are to be 
 remembered here.^ 
 
 A failure to make the offering a part of the 
 
 * Spurgeon. -See p. 217. 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 23 1 
 
 Spiritual exercises in public worship has put the col- 
 lection on the wrong basis, and the collections have 
 suffered less than the worshipers. The fact that 
 this element has not been emphasized is, we believe, 
 the chief cause why many people give so little when 
 the offertory plates are passed. They come to pray, 
 to praise and to meditate, but not to give. The 
 dissection of one collection of which we have knowl- 
 edge resulted in the following revelation: There 
 were present at the service about two hundred and 
 seventy-five persons, and on the plates were one 
 hundred and sixty-five coins; supposing each coin 
 represents one giver, at least one hundred and 
 ten persons allowed the plates to pass with- 
 out placing anything upon them. Of the one 
 hundred and sixty-five who gave, five contrib- 
 uted one dollar each, six fifty cents each, twenty-six 
 gave twenty-five cents each, forty-one gave ten 
 cents each, fifty-six gave five cents each, four gave 
 three cents each, two gave two cents each, and 
 twenty-five contented themselves with placing one 
 cent in the offering. As this collection was taken 
 in a church that was noted for its liberality, we fear 
 it reveals a state of affairs exceptional only in its 
 munificence. Even in some of our largest churches 
 the receipts from a Sunday evening collection barely 
 pay for the trouble of passing down the aisles. Such 
 a condition shows us that a certain sexton was not 
 far wrong when he estimated the value of strangers 
 in a church at three cents a dozen. Here surely 
 is a mission for every minister, and as he learns 
 
232 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 to emphasize the religious aspect of giving the 
 people will in time realize that copper collections 
 mean copper prayers and copper praises, and the 
 offertory plates will assume a more golden aspect. 
 III. The minister should set himself from the 
 first to Develop the Beneficence of his Congregation. 
 
 1. Begin with the beginning — the young. Many of 
 the philanthropists of our own day bear witness 
 that the taste for giving, and for influencing others 
 to give, was acquired in their earliest years. Giving 
 is hardly a natural instinct. It certainly requires 
 educating, and unless our ministers set themselves 
 diligently to this task, such education will be largely 
 neglected. None so fittingly can explain those 
 principles of the duty and privilege of Christian 
 beneficence which Christ laid down, and which the 
 succeeding centuries have so richly illustrated. The 
 people as a whole recognize the minister's right 
 to be their instructor in this matter, and the younger 
 they are when he commences his instruction the 
 greater will be the result. In the words of one 
 of the governors of an Eastern State, whose life 
 gave point to his speech, " It is hard giving until 
 you get used to it. You must be educated. The 
 way is to keep giving. The more you do the easier 
 it will be." 
 
 2. Another class that is often neglected in such 
 ministrations is made up of the poor. A prominent 
 layman, himself a wealthy man, recently said to 
 the writer that of all the men whom he knew who 
 once were poor and now were rich, not one of them 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 233 
 
 in the day of his prosperity gave in proportion as 
 generously as he gave in the time of comparative 
 poverty. The minister should see to it that as the 
 income of his members increases their gifts cor- 
 respondingly increase, and thus by easy stages the 
 poor man who gives his pence will, when prospered, 
 give his pounds. Unless the beginning is made 
 with the Christian when he is poor the pastor's 
 efforts will not be largely successful. 
 
 3. The effort should be constantly made to secure 
 a contribution from every one. Too many large 
 collections represent only large separate contribu- 
 tions, and many churches that pride themselves upon 
 their beneficence have reason only to be proud of 
 a few wealthy and conscientious contributors. 
 Churches are pauperized by imputed beneficence. 
 A noted lecturer on religious subjects once made 
 public his calculation " that nine-tenths of all con- 
 tributions to foreign missions come from one-tenth 
 of the membership of our churches," and urged that 
 this fact " ought to be seriously pondered by at 
 least two million sixty-six thousand six hundred 
 and eighty-eight American Baptists." ^ By prop- 
 erly developing the beneficence of his congregation, 
 many a minister has raised the highest monument 
 to his own understanding of the will of Christ. 
 Under such leadership some of our large down- 
 town churches, when left by the wealthy members 
 who formerly were their support, have been sur- 
 prised to discover that the amount given for 
 
 1 Joseph Cook, 1888. 
 
234 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 beneficence was as large as ever, though the member- 
 ship was drawn chiefly from the poor streets in 
 the neighborhood. 
 
 4. The minister should certainly preach upon 
 this subject as well as make it a part of private in- 
 struction. Sennons, however, both in their com- 
 position and in the circumstances of their delivery, 
 should be wisely (not cautiously) given. Only as 
 the preacher is free from suspicion that he is a 
 " special pleader " is he effective in influencing the 
 people. The case recorded by Doctor Behrends ^ is 
 an instance in point. *' A prominent New York pas- 
 tor," said he, " told me recently that the most ef- 
 fective sermon which he ever preached on Chris- 
 tian giving fell upon a Sunday when the baskets 
 were not passed, and the people knew that they 
 would not be. He did it deliberately, and the result 
 amazed him. When the next collection was taken 
 everybody was eager to give, and the contributions 
 doubled. They stayed there too. The effect was 
 permanent." 
 
 That it shall not seem as though we in any way 
 underestimated the importance of people of wealth 
 in our congregations, we note here that it may 
 be well to instil the principle that giving during 
 one's lifetime is better than bequeathing after one's 
 death. While we are to honor those who make be- 
 quests in their wills to charitable objects, we are 
 to accord the highest honor only to those who are 
 generous in life as well. We share with Lord 
 
 1 " The Philosophy of Preaching." 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 235 
 
 Shaftesbury his preference for munificent donations 
 rather than '' munificent bequests." Apart from the 
 fact that giving is the duty of the living rather than 
 of the dead, in this day of the exaltation of legal 
 cleverness one can never know that his written will 
 shall ever be executed. As Mark Twain once re- 
 marked on this subject, " In all this world there 
 is no joy like to the joy a lawyer feels when he 
 sees a good-hearted, inconsiderate person erecting 
 a free library, or a town hall, or a hospital, in his 
 zvill. He smiles the smile that only he knows how 
 to smile, and goes into training for the anaconda 
 act. Perhaps no one has ever known a dead man 
 to try to do even the least little simple thing, without 
 making a botch of it. The truth is a dead man 
 ought to lie still and keep quiet and try to behave." 
 We recognize, of course, the importance and ap- 
 propriateness of bequests, but the whole matter is 
 settled for us by the simple principle, " These ought 
 ye to have done, and not to leave the other 
 undone." ^ 
 
 Our concluding counsel to the minister desiring 
 to develop the beneficence of his people is briefly 
 this: Rely on the many rather than on a few. 
 Where this has been courageously and continuously 
 done few churches have ever found it necessary 
 to leave their downtown positions, with their ex- 
 ceptional opportunities for truly Christian work, and 
 seek uptown sites, where the financial millennium 
 is erroneously supposed already to have been ushered 
 
 1 Matt. 23 : 23. 
 
2-}y(^ FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 in. The records of more than one church show that 
 quite as much money has been collected when the 
 members were neither numerous nor wealthy as 
 when the church largely consisted of well-to-do 
 people. The inspiration of this new spirit of faith 
 and liberality is the privilege which the Christian 
 pastor should covet for himself. 
 
 IV. The Pastor should Emphasize in his Teach- 
 ing and Practice the Privilege of Giving. It is 
 not well to place the thought of giving as a duty 
 constantly first. We are grateful that those words 
 of the Lord Jesus, " It is more blessed to give than 
 to receive," ^ are recorded in the pages of Paul, 
 though omitted in the pages of the Gospels. Per- 
 haps it is lack of practice of this virtue that has 
 instilled in the popular mind something disagree- 
 able and irksome in the thought of the giving of 
 one's means. While we are not to give in order 
 that we shall be blessed, yet in so doing we are 
 blessed. However large, the amount bestowed in 
 Christian beneficence is as nothing compared to 
 those gifts returned in the act by the hand of God 
 to the giver himself. Well did Horace Bushnell 
 once say that the great problem of the church " is 
 the Christianization of the money power of the 
 world," and with even keener insight Gladstone re- 
 vealed his own simple and godly life when he said : 
 " The diffusion of the principles and practice of 
 systematic beneficence will yet prove the moral spe- 
 cific of our age." The pastor should be generous 
 
 1 Acts 20 : 35. 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 237 
 
 himself, because he is a man before he is a min- 
 ister, and the privileges he preaches to his people 
 are his as well as theirs. He should be generous 
 also because as an example to the flock his gen- 
 erosity will prove contagious. Practising what he 
 preaches, he will be able to preach what he prac- 
 tises with a force and a power that no theoretical 
 knowledge of the subject, however excellent, could 
 furnish. 
 
 We desire here to enter a protest against using 
 the word " begging " in any connection with Chris- 
 tian beneficence. In an old church-book, which we 
 are glad to think has all the width of the Atlantic 
 between it and us, we read this entry : " Agreed to 
 allow Brother M. Bentley some wages for begging, 
 also leave to choose his own companions, and that 
 he be desired to beg everywhere." When this word 
 is used by the solicitor it shows a misconception of 
 the whole matter of giving as viewed by Christ; 
 and when it is used by one appealed to for 
 some proper object it discloses a want of a sense 
 of stewardship which is as unworthy as it is 
 lamentable. 
 
 The minister need not be astonished at any reve- 
 lation of meanness on the part of any of the mem- 
 bers of his church. Such may be due to previous 
 lack of training, to a heritage received from min- 
 isters of the past, or to original sin, that heritage 
 from a still remoter antiquity. We are not sur- 
 prised that a noted preacher once exclaimed: 
 " When I look at the congregation I say, ' Where 
 
238 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 are the poor ? ' When I count the offertory in the 
 vestry, I say, ' Where are the rich ? ' " The treas- 
 urer of a certain Presbyterian church, himself an ac- 
 countant, has written a striking paper on " Financial 
 Worship." In this paper he sets forth that it is 
 well-nigh impossible to talk about beneficence, sys- 
 tematic or otherwise, systematic parsimony being 
 a more accurate title. He concludes with the con- 
 viction, " If Christians are not trained to give when 
 young, nothing short of dynamite will move them 
 when they have grown old." Let the Christian min- 
 ister remember, and let him emphasize again and 
 again both in teaching and in practice, that giving 
 is in many ways the very highest form of worship, 
 because the most unselfish, involving as it often 
 does self-denial and sacrifice, as prayer and praise 
 do not. 
 
 V. While the thought of giving as a privilege 
 should have the first place, Insist if necessary upon 
 the Obligation to give. Giving as an obligation is 
 thus set forth by Paul in his charge to the elders 
 of Ephesus, " Ye ought to remember the weak." ^ 
 The peremptory command in the law of Moses, 
 " Thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine 
 hand from thy poor brother," ^ finds its echo in the 
 words of John the Baptist on the banks of the 
 Jordan : " He that hath two coats let him impart 
 to him that hath none; and he that hath meat let 
 him do likewise." ^ This obligation is none the less 
 forceful when uttered by the lips of the " beloved 
 
 »Acts 20 : 35- ? Deut. 15 : 7. ^Luke 3 : u, 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 239 
 
 disciple," and couched in terms that show the in- 
 fluence of the spirit of Christ : '* But whoso hath 
 this world's goods, and seeth his brother have need, 
 and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, 
 how dwelleth the love of God in him ? " ^ for " he 
 that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how 
 can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " ^ Martin 
 Luther showed a knowledge of all time, as well as 
 of the day in which he lived, when he said : " Every 
 man must be converted three times — in the head, 
 in the heart, in the pocket." The Protestant min- 
 ister can scarce follow the example of a prominent 
 Roman Catholic prelate in Canada, who not long 
 ago, after announcing that he did not wish five 
 and ten-cent pieces in the collection, locked the 
 doors of the church and followed the collectors 
 to see what each person contributed. It is quite 
 within the bounds, however, that each person unit- 
 ing with a church be required immediately on en- 
 tering the fellowship to pledge a definite amount. 
 There are, of course, wrong ways as well as right 
 ways in which to insist upon this scriptural obli- 
 gation. Though the church may not specify the 
 amount which shall be given, or designate the pre- 
 cise objects of beneficence for which contributions 
 must bfe made, it should see that every member helps 
 sustain the church, and answers, as far as his means 
 allow, the call of the great world which lies without 
 its boundaries. 
 VI. When he makes appeals for benevolent 
 
 * I John 3 : 17. * I John 4 : 20. 
 
240 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 institutions, the minister should Ground his Appeal 
 on Principles and Facts. At such times the wise 
 preacher does not say much about the collection, 
 but he spares no pains to inform his hearers as to 
 the subject for which he is appealing, and thus plant 
 in their hearts '' the motive power that will open 
 their purses." The presentation of these motives 
 is all the more powerful when its direct application 
 is left to the conscience and the sympathy of the 
 people themselves. Mr. Riddell, when pastor of 
 the " Church of the People " in Glasgow, learned, 
 from experience, where the emphasis in this matter 
 should be placed : " Formerly," he said, " I used to 
 tell the Lord, and ask his people; now I ask the 
 Lord, and tell his people." 
 
 VIL An Offering should be taken Annually for 
 the Denominational Societies. Where the custom 
 of giving for these various objects through the 
 weekly envelope system prevails, these annual col- 
 lections should still be taken, for they allow stran- 
 gers and those who have not made a weekly pledge 
 an opportunity to assist in the work. The annual 
 offering also affords an excellent opportunity to 
 urge all who have not done so to begin the custom 
 of weekly giving, and cards should always be dis- 
 tributed in the pews for this purpose. The system 
 of giving weekly for beneficent objects has the great 
 advantage of being independent of the weather. 
 Where the offering is taken annually, a wet Sun- 
 day may make a difference of hundreds of dollars 
 in the subscriptions for the kingdom of God. A 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 24I 
 
 collector should be appointed for each specified ob- 
 ject, and the subscription should be worked up be- 
 fore the collection, the pastor and others assisting 
 by visiting the people. The pastor who thoroughly 
 acquaints himself with the work of each society, 
 and is continuously interested in them, will be able 
 vastly to increase the offering of his church. He 
 who is not thus in touch with each society will have 
 only himself to blame for the constantly diminish- 
 ing gifts of his people. Of course when the weekly 
 offering is entirely devoted to meeting the current 
 expenses there must be a special arrangement for 
 these collections. But the weekly envelope system, 
 supplemented by the annual collection, seems to us 
 on the whole the most satisfactory disposition of 
 the matter. 
 
 VIII. The subject of Missions is so preeminently 
 important that we make special mention of it in this 
 Consideration of Christian Beneficence. The con- 
 gregation should be kept thoroughly informed on 
 this subject, for its own health as well as the ex- 
 tension of the work of Christ demands it. So far 
 as we know there is no instance of an active, holy, 
 harmonious church which is at the same time cold 
 as to missions. Foreign missions should have the 
 first place, because they represent the widest need 
 and are specially mentioned in the marching orders 
 of our Master. Under missions, however, we in- 
 clude the whole range of subjects that refer to the 
 extension and preservation of the Redeemer's 
 kingdom from our own borders and outward. 
 Q 
 
242 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Information as to missions can be circulated in many 
 ways, among which we mention the sermon before 
 the annual offering ; constant mention in prayer ; the 
 occasional visit of a missionary or others who have 
 been on the field, the living person always creating 
 an intenser interest than the spoken or written word 
 can ever arouse; the work of the women's mission 
 bands, in whose work the pastor should heartily 
 co-operate ; and the regular missionary prayer-meet- 
 ing, called in some of our older churches the '* mis- 
 sionary concert." Such meetings should be held 
 at least once a month. Hang plenty of maps and 
 models on the walls of the room, that the appeal 
 may be made through the eye as well as through 
 the ear. At these meetings the minister may lecture 
 familiarly on famous missionaries. He may use 
 the stereopticon, slides for which, illustrating great 
 missionary themes, may now be rented from almost 
 all our leading missionary societies. The world may 
 be divided into geographical parts and each part as- 
 signed to a member of the missionary committee, 
 which should be appointed annually, each one be- 
 ing required to keep track of his particular territory 
 and report at the meetings any happenings of spe- 
 cial interest in it. This plan has been found to 
 work well, and may be followed every other month 
 throughout the year. 
 
 The missionary prayer-meeting should include 
 home missions, foreign missions, city missions, the 
 Sunday-school, and all other agencies that properly 
 take their place under the vast term of missions. 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 243 
 
 IX. The Deserving Poor in the Church. We 
 counsel that they be cared for by the church itself. 
 The term '' fellowship fund " is preferable to 
 '' poor fund " in public reference to our fellow- 
 members not so well off in this world's goods as 
 ourselves. This fund may be appropriately replen- 
 ished by a collection at the Lord's Supper. In the 
 words of Justin Martyr in one of the apologies 
 which he addressed to the emperor on behalf of 
 Christians, " Those who are prosperous and will- 
 ing give what they choose, each according to his 
 own pleasure, and what is collected is deposited 
 with the president, and he carefully relieves the 
 orphans and widows and those who from sickness 
 or other causes are needy, and also those in prison 
 and the strangers who are residing with us, and in 
 short, all that have need of help." 
 
 Some churches levy an annual tax for the sup- 
 port of this fund; this has worked most success- 
 fully, every male member being assessed a dollar 
 and every female member fifty cents. The fellow- 
 ship fund should never be administered by the pas- 
 tor himself, but by the church treasurer or such 
 almoner as may be specially appointed for the pur- 
 pose. Take great care to select a man who is ju- 
 dicious and sympathetic, as his character and temper 
 will have quite as much to do with the efficiency 
 of the fund's administration as the money contrib- 
 uted. In mentioning this fund in the annual reports 
 to the church, of course the names of no persons 
 benefited in the disbursements should be mentioned. 
 
244 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 The care which fraternal orders take of their 
 unfortunate members is often, by way of contrast, 
 cast reproachfully in the face of the church. Too 
 much emphasis can hardly be placed on the decla- 
 ration that no member of the church should be 
 suffered to receive relief as a pauper from the 
 city or township if this can be possibly avoided. 
 Keep the membership of the church clear of un- 
 worthy, thriftless, and self-seeking persons. Some 
 people will enter a church as a convenient gratuitous 
 life-insurance, and expect the church to take care 
 of them and theirs. Rowland Hill's ready wit and 
 quick insight into character was equal to the occa- 
 sion when an old woman of this type came to see 
 him. 
 
 "So you wish to join the church?" 
 
 " If you please, sir." 
 
 " Where have you been accustomed to hear the 
 gospel ? " 
 
 " At your blessed chapel, sir." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, at my blessed chapel ; dear me ! and 
 how long have you attended with us ? " 
 
 " For several years." 
 
 " Do you think you have got any good by 
 attending the chapel?" 
 
 " Oh, yes sir ; I have had many blessed seasons." 
 
 " Indeed ! Under w^hose ministry do you think 
 you were led to feel yourself to be a sinner?" 
 
 " Under your blessed ministry." 
 
 " Indeed ! And do you think your heart is pretty 
 good?" 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE ^4^ 
 
 " Oh, no sir ; it is a very bad one." 
 
 " What ! And do you come here with your bad 
 heart and wish to join the church?" 
 
 " Oh, sir ; I mean that my heart is not worse than 
 others; it is pretty good, on the whole." 
 
 " Indeed ! That's more than I can say ; I'm sure 
 mine's bad enough. Well, have you heard that we 
 are going to build some blessed almshouses ? " 
 
 " Yes sir, I have." 
 
 "Should you hke to have one of them?" 
 
 " Yes sir, if you please." 
 
 " I thought so. You may go about your business, 
 my friend; you won't do for us." 
 
 X. Do Not Allow the Beneficence of the Church 
 to become too exclusively Denominational. Chris- 
 tian beneficence should remember all whom Christ 
 remembered, and should be made to include hos- 
 pitals, city missions, homes for the aged, blind, 
 infirm, and kindred institutions. Charity is Chris- 
 tian, not sectarian, and we learn to know and love 
 our Christian neighbors by joining with them 
 whenever possible. 
 
 XI. The Minister should take an Interest in any 
 Charity Organization which may be in his com- 
 munity. We commend to every pastor the study 
 of this subject, and bespeak for the Charity Or- 
 ganization Society his hearty support and co-opera- 
 tion. No other society does more good, as it pre- 
 vents duplication of aid and other abuses to which 
 charity is liable. This leads us to three remarks 
 regarding the distribution of beneficence. 
 
246 FOR THE WORK Oi< THE MINISTRY 
 
 1. Do not encourage spasmodic and irresponsible 
 beneficence. This is a most important matter. The 
 unwisdom of much that is called charity is shown 
 by the " London Quarterly Review," which says that 
 each year in the city of London more than forty-five 
 million dollars is distributed in public and private 
 doles; and more than one-eighth of the population, 
 or more than half a million, are assisted by the other 
 seven-eighths. Charity organization evidently has 
 a wide field among the more than one thousand 
 societies which give relief in that great city. In 
 New York we find that the evil has not much les- 
 sened by coming across the Atlantic, if the esti- 
 mate of George William Curtis be true, that 
 " half the enormous sum given every year for char- 
 ity is not only absolutely wasted, but actually in- 
 creases pauperism, knavery, and crime." ^ We fear 
 that the statement made by Mr. Curtis will be 
 more than borne out by those having knowledge 
 of the subject in any of our centers of population. 
 
 2. In no case should aid be given without pre- 
 vious examination, for " charity's eyes must be open 
 as well as her hands." ^ Archbishop Whately, one 
 of the most generous of men, boasted that he had 
 lived many years in Dublin, and given away thou- 
 sands of pounds, but never a penny to a beggar.^ 
 Such a boast could be made only by one who was 
 as conscientious in his giving as he was large- 
 hearted in his impulses. Giving to street beggars, 
 
 1 1882. 2 Thomas Fuller. 
 
 '"Selections from Whately," p. 19. 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 247 
 
 and to those who knock on our doors for aid is 
 money worse than thrown away. The late Howard 
 Crosby once stated publicly that he had caused to 
 be investigated every application for charity that 
 had come to him through a series of years, and 
 he had yet to find a single genuine case. The testi- 
 mony of one of the vice-presidents of a charity 
 organization, whose experience of eleven years in 
 a large city gives weight to his words, is that " out 
 of all the applicants that have come to us in these 
 eleven years we have found but one that was de- 
 serving; that was a poor, partially crippled boy, 
 whose story we found, on investigation, to be ab- 
 solutely true." For the sake of that boy it was 
 well worth while to listen patiently to all the other 
 applicants, and it is only as similar patient pains 
 are taken that charity can do real good. The 
 growth of the tramp and of all the semi-pauper, 
 semi-criminal class, is alarming, while the exist- 
 ence of the " rounder " is demanding loudly the in- 
 determinate sentence and reformatory methods. 
 We cannot all become experts in charity, but we 
 can all insist on such a careful examination and in- 
 vestigation that the genuine and deserving will be 
 helped, and the idle and dishonest will be exposed. 
 Thus may we have a part in solving the problems 
 that confront the criminologist and at the same 
 time manifest the very essence of organized and 
 Christian charity. 
 
 3. The caution needs to be observed that in aid- 
 ing cases of need we should endeavor to preserve 
 
248 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 the self-respect of the recipient. Where actual sick- 
 ness does not prevent the appHcation of the rule, 
 work should be required for money given. The 
 words of Archbishop Whately are still true, as the 
 wisest of our charity workers will bear witness: 
 " People will do what you pay them to do ; if you 
 pay them to work, they will work ; if you pay them 
 to beg, they will beg." The influence of all giving 
 which does not encourage the recipient to make any 
 return is to destroy independence. Better far give 
 nothing than in giving take away that which bread 
 can never replace. It should be remembered, how- 
 ever, that in times of industrial depression, when 
 work fails and income ceases, there are far more 
 cases of real need than under usual conditions, 
 and the ordinary rules do not, and should not, 
 apply. 
 
 In closing this chapter on Christian beneficence, 
 in which we have attempted to measure the sub- 
 ject from the standards instituted by Jesus, and 
 passed on and practised in no day perhaps better 
 than our own, we cannot do better than commend 
 the words Horace Bushnell spoke a few years 
 before his death : ** What we wait for, and what 
 we are looking hopefully to see, is the consecration 
 of the vast money power of the world to the work 
 and cause and kingdom of Jesus Christ. For 
 that day, when it comes, is the morning of the new 
 creation." And that day will come only as in the 
 life of the churches, and of the world they influ- 
 ence, there is increased spirituality and consecration. 
 
CHRISTIAN BENEFICENCE 249 
 
 When a church is low spiritually, money must be 
 pumped slowly and painfully; but when our min- 
 isters, our committees, our people, become really 
 abiding-places of the Holy Ghost, money springs 
 forth for God's work like water from the rock that 
 Moses struck in the wilderness. 
 
REVIVALS 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Introduction. The literature of the subject. 
 
 I. Revivals are Divine in their Origin. 
 
 II. Revivals Have Formed a Continuous Feature in the 
 
 History of the Church. 
 
 III. Revivals are Necessary to the Welfare of the 
 
 Church. 
 
 IV. Revivals are not Brought About Irrespective of 
 
 Means. 
 
 V. Revivals are Uniformly the Result of Scriptural 
 
 Faith and Teaching. 
 
 VI. Revivals Produce Moral Changes. 
 
 VII. Revivals are not Uniform in Secondary Features. 
 
 VIII. Revivals Have Been Closely Connected With 
 Educational Institutions, Missions, and General 
 Church Enterprise. 
 
 IX. Revivals are Beneficial to the Minister's Spiritual 
 
 Life. 
 
 X. Certain Men are Specially Qualified for Carrying 
 
 ON Revival Work. 
 
XII 
 
 REVIVALS. LESSONS FROM HISTORY 
 
 As preliminary to the subject of the Minister and 
 Revivals, it will be well to draw some lessons from 
 a study of the history of revivals in all ages. 
 
 A revival is " a normal working of human nature 
 moved by supernatural forces," ^ and the foundation 
 of revivals is laid in reason as well as in experi- 
 ence. Revivals are universal in their occurrence, 
 being peculiar to no sect or section, and to believe 
 in their necessity it is only necessary to have some 
 acquaintance with history. Revivals are often 
 spoken of as a modern American product. It is 
 true that peculiarities, growing out of the national 
 temperament and history, have made American re- 
 vivals remarkable; but in the sense of their being 
 confined to one country or age rather than another 
 revivals are neither modern nor American. " They 
 have never been provincial. All the past is dotted 
 over with them ; all the future must be the same. 
 Our hope of the world's conversion is a dream, 
 if religious progress is to be measured by that of 
 the intervals between these great awakenings of 
 the popular heart." ^ Objections to revivals arise 
 
 1 Herrick Johnson. 
 
 2 Austin Phelps, "Men and Books," p. xi. 
 
254 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 either from ignorance of the part they have played 
 in the rise and progress of the Christian church, or 
 from the crudities or superficiality by which some 
 particular movement has been characterized, but 
 which are no intrinsic part of the revival itself. 
 Horace Bushnell, whose fair-mindedness was only 
 equaled by his lion-heartedness, and who is some- 
 times quoted as opposed to revivals, thus speaks 
 his mind in words of truth and soberness: 
 
 I desire to speak with all caution of what are very un- 
 fortunately called revivals of religion; for, apart from the 
 name, which is modern, and from certain crudities and 
 excesses that go with it — which name, crudities, and ex- 
 cesses are wholly adventitious as regards the substantial 
 merit of such scenes — apart from these, I say, there is 
 abundant reason to believe that God's spiritual economy 
 includes varieties of exercise, answering, in all important 
 respects, to these visitations of mercy, so much coveted in 
 our churches. They are needed. A perfectly uniform 
 demonstration in religion is not possible or desirable. 
 Nothing is thus uniform but death. . . The Christian church 
 began with a scene of extraordinary social demonstra- 
 tion, and the like, in one form or another may be traced 
 in every period of its history since that day. . . But the 
 difficulty is with us, that we idolize such scenes, and make 
 them the whole of our religion. We assume that nothing 
 good is doing, or can be done at any other time. And 
 what is even worse, we often look upon these scenes, and 
 desire them, rather as scenes of victory than of piety.* 
 
 In this chapter we shall endeavor to set forth 
 certain lessons which the literature of the sub- 
 ject teaches, which may aid the reader to a better 
 
 * Horace BushncU's " Christian Nurture," pp. 59, 60. 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 2$$ 
 
 appreciation of the practical side of revivals, which 
 will be subsequently considered. 
 
 I. We learn first that Revivals are Superhuman 
 in their Origin. 
 
 I. This is evident from both the Old and the 
 New Testaments. The valley of dry bones — " Lo, 
 they were very dry " — is a place that others than 
 Ezekiel have visited when *' the hand of the Lord " 
 was upon them. The experience of the prophet 
 also, in hearing a noise and beholding a shaking 
 and, " Lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon 
 them, and the skin covered them above . . . and 
 the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood 
 up upon their feet, an exceeding great army," ^ is 
 one duplicated in the life of many a minister of 
 to-day. 
 
 The superhuman agency in the new birth, as set 
 forth by Jesus in his interview with Nicodemus, is 
 the agency recognized and acknowledged in every 
 true revival of religion. For whether it is the ruler 
 of the Jews alone with the Master on the housetop 
 by night, or the great assembly bowed and swayed 
 by a force whose power is undeniable, though not 
 understood, in both cases the marvel is the same. 
 " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hear- 
 est the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
 cometh, or whither it goeth; so is every one that 
 is born of the Spirit." ^ It was only after the first 
 disciples had been endued with power from on high 
 that the first great revival followed.^ 
 
 ^Ezek. 37 : 1-14. ^john 3 : 8. a Luke 34 : 44-53« 
 
256 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 In the book of Acts we have frequent ilhistrationa 
 of the work of the Holy Spirit; the divine pres- 
 ence, who does his work through human agencies. 
 
 2. All after history is but a continuation of these 
 first acts of the first disciples. Illustrations of the 
 superhuman origin of revivals are numerous. Re- 
 vivals have sprung up when the church was most 
 corrupt and inactive, and often the most diligent 
 search reveals no human causes to explain the 
 sudden quickening. 
 
 The revivals of the eighteenth century are cases 
 in point. These were the most powerful, wide- 
 spread, and permanent of all such religious move- 
 ments. From this period date the rise of Method- 
 ism, the preaching of Whitefield, the birth of the 
 evangelical school in the Church of England, and 
 the sermons and other works of Jonathan Edwards. 
 Consider, however, the low condition of religion 
 previous to these revivals. About the end of the 
 seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth 
 centuries most of the churches in the American col- 
 onies, as well as in the United Kingdom, were in 
 a comparatively moribund state. In England, 
 Arianism and Deism prevailed; and in New Eng- 
 land, Increase Mather says, " Conversions have be- 
 come rare in this age of the world." As we should 
 expect, the preaching of the time was as lamentable 
 as its doctrines. Tillotson and Bull, lights in the 
 English established Church, reveal in their sermons 
 little that is calculated to awaken the sinner, and 
 less that would tend to bring him to Christ. In 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 257 
 
 1760 William Romaine knew no more than six or 
 seven " gospel " ministers in England ; and Bishop 
 Burnet says of candidates for Episcopal ordina- 
 tion, " They can give no account, or at least a very 
 imperfect one, of the contents even of the gos- 
 pel. Those who have been ordained cannot make 
 it appear that they have read the Scriptures, or any 
 one good book since they were ordained." Among 
 English Dissenters " a cold, comfortless kind of 
 preaching prevails everywhere." And lest we be 
 tempted to congratulate ourselves that the churches 
 of this country were in better condition, we record 
 the complaint of Increase Mather : " During the last 
 age scarcely a sermon was preached without some 
 being apparently converted, and sometimes hun- 
 dreds were converted by one sermon. Who of us 
 can say that we have seen anything such as this ? " 
 The morals of the time also reflect the low state 
 of its preaching and its doctrine. In England such 
 was the general dissoluteness and depravity, that 
 the increase of population was only one million in 
 one hundred years (1651-1751), whereas in the suc- 
 ceeding one hundred years, notwithstanding war, 
 the increase was fourteen millions. According to 
 Bishop Butler the age had now at length " dis- 
 covered Christianity to be fictitious." Religion was 
 made a subject of mirth and ridicule by many in 
 revenge for having so long interrupted the pleas- 
 ures of the world. This condition of things is 
 duplicated in our own New England : " Our de- 
 generate New England, what art thou come to at 
 
 R 
 
258 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 this day? How are these sins (profanity and drunk- 
 enness) become common that were once not even 
 heard of?"^ 
 
 The superhuman ekment in revivals is opposed 
 in our day, as in every day, both in the world and 
 in the church, by rationalism. Rationalism in the 
 world insists that the order of nature is inviolable, 
 its laws supreme, its forces mechanical; and this 
 same spirit in the church, though clad in disguis- 
 ing garb, assumes that all that is needed for a 
 revival is proper machinery, a more earnest efifort, 
 and the multiplication of means. Facts are, how- 
 ever, the best refutation of the claims of rational- 
 ism, and nowhere do they better maintain their 
 character for being stubborn things. What but the 
 fulness of the Spirit accounts for the power of 
 Whitefield, Spurgeon, Moody, and a host of others 
 whose influence was so mighty because they dis- 
 claimed all credit for the strength through which 
 they could do " all things " ? Verily as we remem- 
 ber such names we have but the modern illustra- 
 tions of the truth declared of old, " God hath chosen 
 the foolish things of the world to confound the 
 wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the 
 world to confound the things which are mighty." ^ 
 Nay, Paul himself is loyal in disclaiming the power 
 as his own by which the force of the Spirit was 
 demonstrated. He came to the church at Corinth, 
 " not with excellency of speech or of wisdom," 
 but " in weakness and in fear and in much 
 
 * Increase Mather. » i Cor. i : 27. 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 259 
 
 trembling. And my speech and my preaching was 
 not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in 
 demonstration of the Spirit and of power : that your 
 faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but 
 in the power of God." ^ 
 
 II. The Corollary which naturally follows the 
 demonstration of the superhuman origin of revivals 
 is found in the fact that Revivals have formed a 
 Continuous Feature in the History of Religion. 
 The reigns of Asa and Hezekiah are only two more 
 illustrations of a time of religious awakening and 
 refreshing following a time of dearth and discour- 
 agement.^ The lives of Elijah and the other prophets 
 widely and continuously uphold the principle that 
 " the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall 
 the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord 
 sendeth rain upon the earth." ^ The book of Ezra 
 and Nehemiah will repay careful study by such as 
 desire further evidence of this truth. 
 
 The day of Pentecost was, in a sense, the birth- 
 day of the Christian church. Certain characteristics 
 of that wondrous event are common, in greater or 
 less degree, to all those revivals which have con- 
 tinued in the church from that day to this. As we 
 read the second chapter of Acts we observe the 
 following characteristics attendant on this descent 
 of the Holy Spirit : ( i ) Continuous, united, believ- 
 ing prayer. (2) Simple, fearless preaching of 
 Christ. (3) Divine energy. (4) Open espousal of 
 
 ^ I Cor. 2 : 1-5. 2 2 Chron. 15 : 15; 3 Chrgn, a? : ;;9, 
 * I Kings 17 : 14. 
 
260 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Christ's cause. (5) Objection, and derision on the 
 part of many. (6) The formation of a visible so- 
 ciety. (7) Solemn awe among some of the 
 unconverted. (8) Joy in discipleship. 
 
 This testimony of the Old and New Testaments 
 is repeated in the centuries of the early Christian 
 era when revivals were almost continuous. In the 
 dark ages we have only scanty history, but such 
 as we have tells us that the light has never been 
 entirely put out. To sit in the great square at 
 Florence is to recall the martyrdom of Savonarola 
 and the mighty revival which glowed only the more 
 gloriously when the rulers of the city tried in vain 
 to quench its bright and shining light. They de- 
 stroyed his body indeed, but were powerless over 
 his soul. 
 
 The name of Wycliffe pictures for us England 
 bent in study once more over her Bible, or listening 
 to the words of the preacher which awoke again her 
 sleeping but not dead religious instincts. Through 
 the work of Tyndale the Bible was circulated far 
 and wide. Then comes Latimer, as closely associ- 
 ated with the movements of the English Reforma- 
 tion as was John Knox with the Reformation across 
 the border in Scotland. Then Calvin arises, a man 
 as strong as his doctrine, and to this day the city 
 of Geneva bears the imprint of his mighty teaching 
 and personality. Baxter and his contemporaries 
 then press to the front, suggesting the flame that 
 burst forth at Kidderminster, and the Cromwellian 
 period, when the zeal of revival fired the shots and 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 261 
 
 unsheathed the swords which heralded the time 
 when men should find in the American colonies 
 what they had never attained in the older country. 
 The first shots of the American Revolution were 
 fired on the battlefields of Cromwell, and this Ameri- 
 can commonwealth owes much to the spirit of re- 
 vival which was as the powder behind those bullets. 
 
 In more recent times we trace more easily the 
 continual revivals which have been features of the 
 eighteenth century. To any one who studies these 
 movements more thoroughly than is our province 
 here, the following dates and names will have sig- 
 nificance: 1729, the Holy Club at Oxford; 1730, 
 Tennent in New Jersey; 1744, Northampton and 
 Jonathan Edwards; 1739, Wales and Howell Har- 
 ris; 1740, the movement which had its origin in 
 Cambuslang, in Scotland.* 
 
 The nineteenth century is still so close to our 
 own that we need but mention Nettleton, Beecher, 
 Finney, Kirk, Knapp, Moody, yes, and Phillips 
 Brooks, in whom the spirit of the Puritan joins 
 forces with the liberalism which the Puritan ab- 
 horred, the fusion resulting in a powerful evangel; 
 ism which shall influence us for many a long day 
 to come.^ 
 
 ' " The Erskines," p. 122. 
 
 * Mention should here be made of the Welsh revival of 1905. 
 Had my father lived to see it he would have followed it with the 
 greatest interest, and he would have rejoiced to think that we see 
 now but " a little cloud . . . like a man's hand," which foretells 
 " a great rain." We refer our readers to the account of this mighty 
 revival written by W. T. Stead. H. p. 
 
262 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 In following through the course of history the 
 continuous features of revival it will be of especial 
 interest to the American reader to note the 
 movements peculiar to our own country. 
 
 1. The revivals of the Massachusetts Bay Col- 
 ony (1630- 1 650), which have as their key-note 
 spontaneity as opposed to formalism. 
 
 2. The revival in New England under Jonathan 
 Edwards (1735-1745), distinguished by the em- 
 phasis given to the doctrine of justification by faith. 
 
 3. The revivals in the South (1799- 1803), begin- 
 ning in Tennessee and Kentucky, and distinguished 
 by the place given to divine sovereignty. 
 
 4. Next we turn to New England again, always 
 a congenial soil for revivals, and there find the 
 movements of 1830- 1835, culminating in Finney. 
 These have as their central thought human agency 
 or man's duty. 
 
 5. Then comes the Millerite teaching, injurious 
 in its effects (1840-1845), in which the second 
 coming of Christ was the dominant note. 
 
 6. The revivals of 1857-8, setting forth the unity 
 and priesthood of believers. 
 
 7. Moody and those who have stood with him 
 (1874-1877), who drove home with texts of 
 Scripture the doctrine of imputed righteousness. 
 
 8. The names of Jones and Small reflect the teach- 
 ings of perhaps more worthy masters in other coun- 
 tries, which speak to our own age everywhere of 
 union with Christ developing practical righteousness 
 
 (1884- ). 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 263 
 
 From this continuous series of revivals the con- 
 clusion may reasonably be formed that revivals are 
 a necessity. Man being what he is, his spiritual life 
 has its tides, his moral nature has its growth and 
 may have its retrogression; his intellectual nature 
 is subject to progress or decline. For this condition 
 of things revivals are eminently adapted, as " the 
 zest of life — individual, corporate — consists in a 
 succession of fresh beginnings. Revival is the word 
 that spells life and progress." ^ The world will 
 never be conquered by the piety which *' quietly 
 attends the services of the sanctuary, but expends 
 its zeal and enthusiasm within the domestic circle." ^ 
 From all that has been said up to this point con- 
 cerning the continuous revivals in the church of 
 Christ to which history bears witness, we believe 
 we are warranted in the conclusion that for the 
 quickening of the Christian as well as for the con- 
 version of the unsaved, revivals of religion are a 
 necessity. 
 
 III. Revivals are not then phenomenal, but con- 
 tinuous, and as such are Necessary to the Welfare 
 of the Church. No church has been prosperous 
 without revivals. We are sanctioned in expecting 
 them when we employ the proper means. Have 
 we not the promise, " Ye shall seek me and find me 
 when ye shall search for me with all your heart." ^ 
 The revival often does what nothing else could do 
 for the church, and the judgment of Dr. G. C. 
 
 1 Canon Gore. 1899. 
 
 2 Kirk, "Lectures on Revivals," p. 59. 'Jer. 29 : 13. 
 
264 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Baldwin, whose forty-one years' pastorate qualified 
 him to speak on this subject, is worthy of most care- 
 ful consideration : " After laboring a few months, 
 I became satisfied that the church . . . needed what 
 physicians say elderly people often need, * a posi- 
 tive alterative.' Therefore, at my advice, they in- 
 vited Elder Jacob Knapp, the celebrated evangelist, 
 ' to come over and help us/ . . Our church was 
 thoroughly revived, and large were the additions 
 made to its membership. . . My judgment is that 
 most churches need a similar ' alterative ' to break 
 up frigid formalities, and be aroused to aggressive 
 work; that therefore they ought, at least once in 
 every two or three years, to hold special services, 
 use special means, secure special aid in the person 
 of an experienced minister, who will do among 
 them what Paul urged upon Timothy, ' the work 
 of an evangelist.' " ^ 
 
 It is well for the minister to beware of forming, 
 still less of expressing, hasty and partial opinions as 
 to revival methods and revival workers. Men and 
 methods honored of God must be honored by his 
 ministers also, however these may vary in training 
 and experience. " Take an expectant attitude. . . 
 Never allow your mind to settle down in a quiescent 
 state under the conviction that the policy of the 
 pulpit is fixed by the past for all time." ^ New 
 wine needs new wine-skins, new generations need 
 new men, and new problems need new methods to 
 
 1 Baldwin, " Forty-one Years' Pastorate," pp. 42, 43. 
 
 2 Phelps, " Men and Books," p. 16. 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 265 
 
 solve them. And yet the new is always like the old ; 
 though its application be different, its substance is 
 the same. Let us then never lose our power of 
 adaptability. This will largely guard us against 
 that danger to the welfare of the church of Christ 
 which is seen in opposition to revival ways and 
 means. 
 
 IV. History teaches us the lesson that Revivals 
 are Not Brought about Irrespective of Means. Even 
 in the periods of deadness which have so often pre- 
 ceded revivals, there have been some who ever 
 prayed and worked for quickening in the church, 
 and conversions in the world. Only life begets life. 
 Doddridge prayed in England, and Mather in New 
 England; and the Holy Club, Wesley, Hervey, 
 Whitefield, prayed in Oxford ; and the work of Rev. 
 W. McCuUock prepared the way for the revivals 
 in Cambuslang and Scotland generally. It was the 
 masterly preaching of President Timothy Dwight 
 in 1802 that awakened in Yale College an intense 
 religious interest. And in 181 5 the conversion of 
 forty out of one hundred and five young men then 
 in Princeton was due, under God, to Dr. Ashbel 
 Green. The powerful religious influence of Mary 
 Lyon made itself constantly felt in Holyoke Sem- 
 inary, of which she was the founder and the 
 principal. 
 
 The employment of means, as well as trust in 
 God, is necessary to bring about revivals, and the 
 two should never be separated. They are balancing 
 truths, and if either one be removed, the whole truth 
 
266 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 is necessarily absent. " I began my ministry," de- 
 clared Dr. Constans L. Goodell, *' in the belief that 
 man must wait for God. Sow the seed faithfully 
 and wait. There is a half-truth here. I am likely 
 to end my ministry with the strongest conviction 
 that God is waiting for man. The seed is sown; 
 the fields are white; it remains for the harvest men 
 to gather sheaves, working often together in pray- 
 ing bands and revival bands, cheering each other as 
 with psalm and song they * shout the Harvest 
 Home.' " ^ 
 
 The causes which have produced revivals have 
 been various. They have differed as widely as those 
 of individual conversion. The causes of the various 
 revivals in New England are found to be the re- 
 moval of the church tax; a death in a ball-room; 
 an alarm of cholera; commercial depression and 
 financial convulsions.^ As we believe that God 
 stands behind every revival, so somewhere between 
 the revival and God will be found the cause which 
 he uses for the glory of the church and the good of 
 men. 
 
 V. Revivals are uniformly the Result of Scrip- 
 tural Faith and Teaching. Some great idea, whose 
 greatness is enforced by scriptural authority, has 
 been at the heart of every religious movement 
 that has constituted an historical epoch.^ Thus 
 Whitefield presented such themes as Original Sin, 
 
 i"Life," p. 124. 
 
 * Kirk, " Lectures on Revivals," pp. 93-95, 142. 
 
 * Kirk, "Lectures on Revivals," pp. 106, 107. 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY zdj 
 
 Justification by Faith, the Nature and Necessity of 
 Regeneration, the Person and Work of the Holy 
 Spirit — in Conviction, Conversion, Sanctification, 
 and Witnessing to the beHever's Sonship and Adop- 
 tion. Wesley aroused a consciousness toward God, 
 emphasized to the individual the Fatherhood of God, 
 and proclaimed a salvation for all full, free, and 
 immediate. He called out evangelical philanthropy 
 and brotherly love, and intensified the missionary, 
 working spirit of religion. And if we turn the 
 pages of Nettleton's sermons we discover the same 
 weighty and scriptural themes discussed : " Obliga- 
 tions of the Divine Law ; Depraved Character of the 
 Natural Heart; Free and Indiscriminate Offers of 
 the Gospel; Reasonableness of Immediate Repent- 
 ance; Variety of Excuses Used by Awakened Sin- 
 ners; the Manner, Guilt, and Danger of Opposing 
 the Holy Spirit." ^ 
 
 It is not for us to say what doctrines should 
 specially be preached by ministers of Christ; but 
 that some doctrines must be preached, and these 
 founded on the supreme authority of God's word, 
 we believe heart and soul. Choose those doctrines 
 which for you are not a creed, but a life, and a re- 
 vival, sometimes slow and sometimes swift, will 
 follow, your labors 
 
 VI. The genuineness of a Revival is proved by 
 its Producing Moral Changes. A doctrine is not 
 believed, in the scriptural sense, until it is practised. 
 A revival which affects the worship and religious 
 
 * Sprague, p. 293. 
 
268 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 sentiment of the church, but not its morals, is no 
 revival at all. Moral changes have invariably fol- 
 lowed these great religious movements. To take 
 a single illustration, the Methodist revival of the 
 eighteenth century rescued the rural population of 
 England " from brutality of mind and manners and 
 gave them a more refined association on earth, and 
 a warm hope of a still better existence hereafter." ^ 
 To preach morality is not to preach the gospel, but 
 to preach the gospel is to preach morality. The 
 noblest natural ethics look poor and dim when com- 
 pared with the perfection for which Christ bade us 
 strive, and to secure which he left his Spirit that we 
 might " press on toward the goal." It is only when 
 " whatsoever things are lovely " are seen issuing 
 from the life which has accepted Christ that the 
 Christian name stands for Christian reality. Jo- 
 seph Cook well says that what is needed now is 
 " to Christianize Christianity " ; in other words, to 
 show forth by actual example the power of the 
 teachings of Christ to produce moral changes. And 
 this result, which is both a test and a tribute, has 
 been the characteristic of every genuine revival. 
 
 VII. Revivals, however, are Not Uniform in 
 their Secondary Features. 
 
 I. They may be classified by the means which 
 are chiefly employed. We recall in this connection 
 the quickened interest in theological discussion 
 which characterized the Protestant Reformation, 
 and the revival at Northampton under Jonathan 
 
 1 Howitt. 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 269 
 
 Edwards. The origin of revivals has often been 
 found in the prominence given to preaching, as in 
 the case of Whitefield and many others. Some re- 
 vivals have been preeminently noted for prayer, such 
 as the time of refreshing which came in the great 
 Irish revivals of 1858. Again, they have been re- 
 markable for revived interest in the Bible, as the 
 many religious currents set in motion by Moody 
 bear ample witness, which remind us of what John 
 Milton said at the time of the great revival in the 
 sixteenth century : " Then was the sacred Bible 
 sought out of the dusty corners, where profane 
 falsehood and neglect had thrown it." 
 
 2. Revivals may be classified again by their main 
 results, shown in personal character (Tauler, Pascal, 
 Zinzendorf, Gerhardt, Fox), or in the popular esti- 
 mation of doctrine. We have already seen, in the 
 case of revivals in America, that a clear and dis- 
 tinct doctrinal note rang in each of these special 
 calls of God to his people, yet no two of them rang 
 the same note. And this is likewise true of revivals 
 in all countries and in all times. In the Protestant 
 Reformation Luther preached justification by faith; 
 and England was roused from her sloth and in- 
 difference by the heralding of the good news of 
 free grace by Wesley. 
 
 Sometimes the main result of a revival is best 
 seen by its effect on national life, as when the Ref- 
 ormation affected Scotland so profoundly that by 
 the hand of the venerable Earl of Sutherland Scot- 
 land's covenant with the Lord was signed. Or the 
 
2yO FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 dominant characteristic which sums up the results 
 of a revival may be noted in aggressive Christian 
 work, which may be said to be the marked feature 
 of the revivals of to-day. 
 
 But whatever the means employed or the result 
 attained, never has there been a revival where per- 
 sonal loyalty to Jesus Christ, and the glory of his 
 kingdom, was not the meaning and the mainspring 
 of it all. 
 
 VIII. It is somewhat remarkable that revivals 
 have been so closely connected, in America at least, 
 with educational institutions, as well as with mis- 
 sions, and with general church enterprise. The 
 motto of one of our leading colleges. Pro Christo et 
 Ecclesia, might stand over the doorway of many of 
 our best schools of learning. The tabular statement 
 given by Kirk will be of interest in this connection:^ 
 
 Yale, 36 revivals, resulting in at least 1200 con- 
 versions; Dartmouth, 9 revivals, 250 conversions; 
 Amherst, 12 revivals, 350 conversions. 
 
 Several of our colleges have been born through 
 revival movements. Periodical visitations of divine 
 power have in the past had much to do with giving 
 to our colleges that healthful tone for which they 
 have been noted. 
 
 Tim.es of revival have also meant fresh impulse 
 to the missionary movement, and missionary en- 
 thusiasm has often revived a slumbering church. It 
 was David Brainerd's dying message to his Indian 
 congregation that they should remember to keep 
 
 1 " Lectures on Revivals," p. 148. 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 27 1 
 
 Stated periods of prayer for the conversion of the 
 world. The united efforts of Hall, Richards, and 
 Mills, three students in Williams College, aroused 
 such a spirit in the churches that the American 
 Board in an address to the '* Christian public " de- 
 clared, " The Lord is shaking the nations ; his 
 friends in different parts of Christendom are roused 
 from their slumbers, and unprecedented exertions 
 are making for the spread of divine knowledge and 
 for the conversion of the nations." 
 
 And these quickenings, which have spread in their 
 influence far beyond the seas, have been instru- 
 mental at home in founding and strengthening those 
 special agencies for the good of the community, 
 such as the Young Men's Christian Associations, 
 which to-day stand as beacon lights in Christian 
 service. 
 
 IX. Not the least of the beneficial effects of re- 
 vivals has been the Increased Spiritual Health and 
 Power of the Minister Himself. While doubtless 
 there are many good and earnest men who are not 
 friendly to such movements, yet on the whole the 
 vast majority of the most active men in the min- 
 istry will be found committed to a firm faith in 
 such seasons of Divine visitation. The late Professor 
 Porter, of Andover Seminary, in his lectures on 
 revivals, thus graphically described the several 
 classes of clergymen whom he found in opposition 
 
 to revivals : " A was one of those good men 
 
 who are under the dominion of a sluggish tempera- 
 ment. . . B was a man of literary taste, an 
 
272 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 idolater of books. He laid down his favorite au- 
 thors with reluctance to attend a prayer-meeting. 
 C was fond of social avocations, giving the en- 
 ergy of his being to the lighter forms of social 
 
 intercourse. D overloaded himself with secular 
 
 cares." ^ 
 
 The minister who makes his influence felt deeply 
 and widely recognizes his own need of being brought 
 to a high plane of thought and feeling. This a 
 revival does; it forces the mind to new spheres of 
 thought, brings higher impulses to the heart, and 
 breaks up those ruts in which the wheels move heav- 
 ily, and which the monotonous routine of life has a 
 constant tendency to wear. Many a preacher is 
 indebted to revival movements for a revision of his 
 homiletical habits. What great preachers, what 
 powerful methods of aggressive work, revivals have 
 brought to light, and the revelation has come often 
 to no one with greater surprise than to the minister 
 himself. 
 
 The minister needs to learn the human heart, and 
 at times when the Holy Spirit works with special 
 grace in the hearts of men that mask, which all of 
 us wear and which hides from the world our 
 strength as well as our weakness, is removed. The 
 revival shows the minister his fellow-man as well 
 as God, and shows him man in the light of com- 
 passion, which after all is the only safe medium of 
 judgment. 
 
 X. As we close this chapter on revivals and the 
 
 ^Kirk, p. 6i. 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 273 
 
 lessons taught from history concerning them, we 
 do well to remember that while every minister 
 should be capable of conducting a revival, Certain 
 Men are Evidently Specially Qualified for this 
 Work. Timothy is bidden, " Do the work of an 
 evangelist," ^ yet Paul also recognizes that this gift 
 is possessed by a certain class of men in a marked 
 and special degree.- It is saying nothing against 
 evangelists as a class when we remark that such men 
 have often, perhaps generally, failed as ministers 
 to one congregation. The right thing in the wrong 
 place fits no better than the proverbial round plug 
 in a square hole. The evangelist is a man who has 
 special gifts. These are often not of the highest 
 order, and he may be himself intellectually ill bal- 
 anced; but he has power and skill in preaching the 
 elements of religion and in leading inquirers to de- 
 cision. We should be glad that we cannot all be 
 men like Finney, Knapp, Swan, Vassar, or Moody, 
 for it is best that every man should be himself. 
 Let us then be ourselves, to the praise of God and 
 for the profit of his children. " For the body is not 
 one member, but many." ^ 
 
 The literature on the subject is large and varied, 
 and an exhaustive catalogue would be out of the 
 question. We may, however, recommend the 
 following works under the fivefold division of: 
 
 1. Histories of Revivals in General. 
 
 2. Histories of Special Revivals. 
 
 3. Biographies. « 
 
 *2 Tim. 4 : 5, 2 Eph. 4 : 11. »i Cor. 12 : 14-31. 
 
 S 
 
274 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 4. Works Indirectly Illustrating Revivals. 
 
 5. Works which will be of Service in a Revival. 
 
 1. Histories of Revivals in General. 
 Kirk, *' Lectures on Revivals." 
 Conant, " Narrative of Revival Incidents." 
 Sprague, " Lectures on Revivals." 
 Colton, " American Revivals." 
 Johnson, " Revivals." 
 
 Hervey, " Handbook of Revivals." 
 Fish, " Handbook of Revivals," 
 Earle, " Bringing in the Sheaves." 
 Newall, " Revivals, How and When." 
 Torrey, " How to Promote and Conduct a Suc- 
 cessful Revival." 
 
 Mason, " The Ministry of Conversion." 
 Cuyler, "Recollections of a Long Life" (Ch. 
 VII). 
 Chapman, " Revivals and Missions." 
 
 2. Histories of Special Revivals. 
 
 Edwards (Jonathan), "Narrative of Surprising 
 Conversions." (See Allen's "Edwards," pp. 132 
 seq.) 
 
 Macfarlan, " Revivals of the Eighteenth Century." 
 
 Weir, " The Ulster Awakening." 
 
 Stevens, " History of Methodism," 
 
 Gibson, " The Year of Grace " (1857). 
 
 Wesley (John), "Life," "Journals," and "Ser- 
 mons." 
 
 Whitefield, " Life, Journals, and Sermons." 
 
LESSONS FROM HISTORY 275 
 
 Tyler, '"Prayer for Colleges" (prize essay; cf. 
 
 " Life of Noah Porter," p. 14 seq.). 
 
 Hood, " Vignettes of the Great Revival." 
 Walker (Dr. George Leon), "Some Aspects of 
 
 the Religious Life of New England." (Eighteenth 
 
 and nineteenth centuries.) 
 
 3. Biographies. 
 
 Finney, " Memoir " (by Himself). 
 
 M'Cheyne, " Memoir and Remains." 
 
 Beecher (Lyman), "Autobiography and Cor- 
 respondence." 
 
 Vassar, " Uncle John Vassar." 
 
 Kirk, " Life," by Mears. 
 
 Sprague, " Annals of the American Pulpit." 
 
 Nettleton, " Memoirs." (See also " Life of Fran- 
 cis Wayland," Vol. L, p. 108.) 
 
 Moody, " Life." 
 
 Haslam, " From Death Unto Life." 
 
 4. Works Indirectly Illustrating Revivals. 
 Eliot, "Romola," "Adam Bede." 
 
 Stephen, " Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography." 
 Bushnell, "Christian Nurture" (2nd edition). 
 
 5. Works which may be of Service in a Revival. 
 Baxter, " Reformed Pastor." 
 
 Dwight (Timothy), "Theology." 
 James, " The Anxious Enquirer." 
 Hall, " Come to Jesus." 
 
 Bums (W. C), " Notes of Addresses" (Nisbet, 
 1869). 
 
276 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Arthur, " The Tongue of Fire." 
 
 Finney, " Revival Lectures." 
 
 Phelps, " The New Birth." 
 
 Chamberlain, " Handbook of Bible Readings " 
 (Chicago, 1878). 
 
 Moody, " Sermons," and " Readings." 
 
 Pentecost (George), Tracts and many small vol- 
 umes. 
 
 Shute, " Suggestive Passages for Christian 
 Workers." 
 
REVIVALS: ESSENTIALS IN 
 A REVIVAL 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. Preparation of Heart on the Part of the Minister. 
 
 II. A Quickened Church. 
 
 III. Personal Contact With the Unconverted. 
 
 IV. A Wise Employment of Means. 
 
 1. Preaching. 
 
 2. Pastoral work. 
 
 3. Special services. 
 
XIII 
 
 revivals: essentials in a revival 
 
 I. Among those things which are essential in 
 a revival we mention first of all a Preparation of 
 Heart on the Part of the Minister. He needs to 
 be made ready himself. The direction given to the 
 first preachers of the gospel before the day of 
 Pentecost was personal before it was general: 
 " Tarry ye . . , until ye be endued with power from 
 on high." 
 
 1. One sign of this preparation of heart will be 
 increased solicitude for the salvation of souls. Ly- 
 man Beecher said he " felt in his bones " this anx- 
 iety for the welfare of others. Once when this 
 sturdy old hero of forty revivals was asked, " Doc- 
 tor, you know many things ; but what do you think 
 the main thing?" he replied, "It is not theology; 
 it is not controversy ; it is saving souls." 
 
 2. Another sign by which the minister shall know 
 that the revival spirit is drawing nigh will be in- 
 creased desire for seasons of private prayer. In 
 preaching the minister sows the seed, but in his 
 prayers he waters it and it springs forth. The pre- 
 eminence given to prayer by the Apostle Paul is 
 most noticeable, and yet even in his case revival 
 did not always follow immediately in answer to 
 
 279 
 
280 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 his petitions. Through prayer we prevail with God, 
 but God chooses his own time for showing the re- 
 sults of our spirit of intercession. Surely Paul was 
 speaking more of prayer than of preaching when, 
 fearing lest grievous wolves should enter the fold, 
 he reminds the elders of Ephesus that " by the space 
 of three years I ceased not to warn every one night 
 and day with tears." ^ At those times when the 
 spirit of prayer is especially our own we shall feel 
 a strong inclination to particularize the cases of 
 those within touch of our influence. Like our Mas- 
 ter, our greatest and best will be for the one rather 
 than the many. Cotton Mather on his days of special 
 intercession, is stated to have individualized with 
 more or less minuteness the case of each mem- 
 ber of his church, which numbered more than four 
 hundred persons. The burden of souls which comes 
 to us as ministers is due to our withdrawal from the 
 presence of our fellows, by whose standards we are 
 apt to measure ourselves, and our entrance into the 
 presence chamber of God. John Welch, found on 
 cold winter nights weeping on the ground and 
 wrestling with the Lord for his people, is no exag- 
 gerated case of what many another minister has felt. 
 3. An unwonted power in preaching will often 
 give the signal that a revival is near. " We believe 
 it is the institution and ordinance of preaching 
 which keeps the religious instinct alive in any land ; 
 the great revivals and awakenings of any age have 
 usually been preceded by the tongue of fire — the 
 
 1 Acts 20 : 31. 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 28 1 
 
 kindlings of soul beneath the glow of speech." ^ 
 This preaching should be pointed and searching, 
 as words spoken " by a dying man to dying men." 
 Before the revival of 1858 in Ireland, the minister 
 of the parish in which it began had been long pre- 
 paring for it. From his ordination in 1841 he had 
 cherished an intense desire for such a time of re- 
 freshing, and had repeatedly preached to his people 
 with special reference to the quickening of dead 
 souls and the outpouring of the Spirit.- Take as 
 an example of revival preaching this sermon by 
 Spurgeon (January 12, 1868), on the subject, 
 " Good Earnests of Great Success," from the text, 
 " And the word of God increased and the number 
 of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly " (Acts 
 
 6:7). 
 
 Introduction. 
 Parallel between the circumstances at that time 
 in Jerusalem and just then in his own church. 
 
 I. What are the means by which this prosperity may 
 
 be procured? 
 
 1. The operation of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 2. Plain preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 3. Holy living to back it all up. 
 
 4. Individual, personal exertion. 
 
 5. Much earnest prayer. 
 
 6. Intense glowing spiritual life. 
 
 II. The results which flow from this prosperity. 
 I. Souls are saved. 
 
 1 Weir, " The Ulster Awakening," p. 26. 
 
 2 E. Paxton Hood, " The Vocation of the Preacher," p. 419. 
 
282 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 2. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ is glorified. 
 III. The alternative which stands before this church, 
 and every other church: 
 
 Either prosperity or retrogression. 
 
 Appeal to the unconverted in answer to their 
 ** wonder what I am making all this stir about." 
 
 It will generally be found that the preparation for 
 revival begins in a single heart, and it is well when 
 that heart is the minister's. But he should not be 
 surprised if it shows itself elsewhere. When the 
 minister is conscious of an increased solicitude for 
 the salvation of souls; an increased desire and ear- 
 nestness in secret prayer; a power in the words of 
 the sermon that drives through the crust about 
 men's hearts into the heart itself, then the light has 
 come, and it will soon spread from the minister to 
 his people and on to the community at large. 
 
 II. But quite as necessary as the preparation of 
 the minister's own heart is The Quickening of the 
 Church Itself. 
 
 I. This quickening will be revealed by an un- 
 wonted disposition to pray. Often at such times it 
 will be well to devote the week-night service en- 
 tirely to prayer. But the minister should not be 
 content with the ordinary occasions which furnish 
 opportunity for prayer. He should multiply them 
 and appoint sectional or other prayer-meetings. Let 
 separate classes in the Sunday-school meet in the 
 church or at one another's homes for prayer. In- 
 vite the deacons and church officers to meet with 
 you to pray. Encourage the mothers of the church 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 283 
 
 to gather by themselves to remember before God 
 their children and the members of their families. 
 Divide your church up into districts and hold neigh- 
 borhood prayer-meetings, say in four different parts 
 of the city or town every night for a week. By the 
 end of that time the whole community will know 
 that the church is in prayer. 
 
 2. With this spirit of prayer will appear a desire, 
 on the part of the church, to be more humble and 
 penitent — a disposition which will welcome the ap- 
 pointment of a special day for prayer and fasting. 
 Fasting is now almost obsolete in many churches, 
 but it has been a means of great blessing in the 
 past. The celebration of extraordinary seasons of 
 devotion by the church is a practice to be recom- 
 mended. The laying aside of much of our work 
 to give us time for special prayer is of great gain. 
 
 3. Preceding a revival a special solemnity will 
 mark the administration of the ordinances. Baptism 
 will lose entirely any denominational or controversial 
 atmosphere, and the service will appeal to the un- 
 converted as a sermon without words. The Lord's 
 Supper will have the power to call forth renewed 
 consecration; unspoken, the question will be asked 
 again, " Lord, is it I ? " ^ Then will the injunction 
 of the apostle be obeyed, " Let a man examine him- 
 self, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of 
 that cup." 2 Some of our greatest revivals have 
 originated in companies of disciples as they sat 
 about the table of their Lord. History recounts 
 
 » Matt. 26 : 22. « I Cor. 1 1 : 28. 
 
284 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 that it was immediately after " communion seasons " 
 that the mighty revivals began at the kirk of Shotts, 
 Scotland (1630) ; at Kilsyth, Scotland (1739) ; and 
 at Ahoghill, Ireland (1856). 
 
 III. A third essential to a revival is Contact with 
 the Unconverted. When the Romans shortened 
 their swords they lengthened their territories. Per- 
 sonal work for Christ is a duty. Christ touched 
 men to heal them. Without such contact we cannot 
 hope to win men to Christ. What Lord Melbourne 
 objected to in his rector, " the application of religion 
 to private life,'* accomplished by the personal in- 
 terview and the house-to-house visitation, is the 
 proper work of all who call themselves Christians. 
 If this duty is neglected by the church, the church 
 will be neglected by the masses. 
 
 But how can this hand-to-hand work be brought 
 about ? 
 
 I. In answer we caution the minister to be 
 on the lookout for any appearance of feeling in 
 the congregation. This will follow the appearance 
 of power in himself. The experience of Lyman 
 Beecher is an experience which, thank God, has 
 been oft repeated in the lives of other ministers: 
 " I . . . preached. I saw one young man with his 
 head down. I wanted to know if it was an arrow 
 of the Almighty. I came along after the sermon and 
 laid my hand upon his head. He lifted up his 
 face, his eyes all full of tears. I saw it was God." ^ 
 From very small beginnings in our congregations 
 
 " 1 " Life," Vol. I., p. 139. 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 285 
 
 revivals of religion often start. Dr. Theodore L. 
 Cuyler says that the first revival he ever enjoyed 
 began with a mechanic's little daughter, who spoke 
 of Christ to a young man to whom she brought a 
 bundle of shoes. Long before Mr. Moody became 
 famous he once held a prayer-meeting in a mission 
 chapel connected with Doctor Cuyler's church. It 
 was attended at first by perhaps a dozen people. 
 '* Uphill work, this," the young minister said to him 
 one evening. In reply Mr. Moody gave one of 
 those sage counsels which made him in after years 
 the recognized exponent of common sense in re- 
 ligious work : " Yes, but if you want to kindle a 
 fire, you whittle off a few shavings and start them; 
 then you pile on the wood. I am trying to kindle 
 a few hearts." 
 
 2. When the revival spirit begins to show itself, 
 individualize the congregation. Let the minister 
 and the members of the church seek for opportuni- 
 ties to converse personally with the unconverted. 
 Never were disciples increased more rapidly by the 
 church than during the first century, when every 
 disciple felt himself a preacher, and felt his brother 
 a congregation. " Hand-picked fruit is always the 
 best." It is certain that if this individualizing 
 method were more in evidence in the church of 
 Christ, there would be little need for one generation 
 to go down to its grave before every creature even 
 unto the uttermost had heard the words of the Lord 
 Jesus. This method is recognized as supreme by 
 political organizations for the winning of a cam- 
 
286 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 paign. A young politician of Brooklyn recently 
 thus expressed his own practical faith in individual 
 work : " I believe that any church composed of five 
 hundred people, as thoroughly organized and as 
 deeply in earnest for the conversion of a city to 
 
 Christianity as was the club, of Brooklyn, for 
 
 carrying the city election, would be simply irre- 
 sistible. . . Personal conversation is the most in- 
 vincible weapon on earth. Allow me as a layman to 
 say that in my judgment the church is largely neg- 
 lecting this powerful method, and is delivering its 
 messages to the crowd, where the personal is lost 
 in the general. Speaking to everybody in the mass 
 often influences nobody in particular." 
 
 3. Have some meeting every Sunday to call out 
 manifestations of feeling. If no opportunity ex- 
 ists in the ordinary arrangement of the church serv- 
 ices, make one. Hold an after-meeting when the 
 evening service is concluded, even if no such thing 
 has ever been done in the history of your church. 
 Take the last five minutes of your young people's 
 meeting and give there the invitation that those 
 especially anxious about spiritual matters may make 
 themselves known. In some way, we had almost 
 said in any way, get in touch with the unconverted. 
 
 4, Be sure and follow up each case of interest at 
 once. Delays are nowhere more dangerous than in 
 the cases of religious inquirers. The minister should 
 spend a portion of Monday in doing this, as on 
 Tuesday it may be impossible to influence to action 
 the heart that has cooled. 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 287 
 
 IV. In a Revival of Religion there must always 
 be a Wise Employment of Means. 
 
 I. Above all other agencies honored by the Holy 
 Spirit in quickening the church and converting the 
 world is preaching, (i) While preaching alone 
 will not do everything, yet without preaching no 
 revival of widespread significance has ever occurred. 
 Nothing can take its place. Music never filled a 
 church continuously with people, although it has 
 filled many a church with its own sound echoing 
 down the empty aisles and over the sparsely occu- 
 pied pews. Neither " singing the gospel," " Bible 
 readings," nor any other device has, or ever can, 
 play the important part which preaching has had in 
 all revivals. " Faith cometh by hearing," and in a 
 very literal sense we may ask with Paul the question, 
 " How shall they hear without a preacher ? " ^ 
 
 (2) As to the character of the preaching best 
 fitted to times of revival, we say first of all let it 
 be your very best. You are now in the most vigor- 
 ous spiritual condition, and yet will do justice to 
 yourself and your opportunity only as due time 
 is given to preparation. To depend chiefly on the 
 inspiration of the moment is to dishonor God's 
 Spirit, for he nowhere promises to do all the work, 
 but only to give that aid by which good work be- 
 comes effective. Study the character of such preach- 
 ing in men like Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight, 
 Lyman Beecher, and C. G. Finney of generations 
 that are past, and observe it also in such later 
 
 * Rom. 10 : 14-17. 
 
288 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 preachers as Hugh Aitkin, Knox Little, Spurgeon, 
 or Rainsford of New York. 
 
 Perhaps the chief thing which will be noticed in 
 the sermons of such preachers as these is that, how- 
 ever they differ in other respects, they all aim at 
 immediate results. Expect that the bullet will hit 
 the bull's-eye, and if this is your expectation and 
 determination, when the target is examined you 
 will find the mark of the shot not far from the 
 center. Classify your hearers and direct your words 
 to each one. The various classes are present in 
 greater or less degree in every congregation. Aim 
 at them that they may be hit, not for their hurt, 
 but for their healing. Among those people in the 
 pews before you sits " the moralist," and you must 
 find the loose joint in his armor; "the backsHder " 
 is there, call forth for him the memory of better 
 days and the certainty that they may come again 
 with a new-found faith ; ** the indifferent " is more 
 largely represented than any other class, he is the 
 most difficult to reach, but must be roused at any 
 cost from his deadly lethargy. Other kinds of 
 hearers are the " perplexed," honestly asking Pi- 
 late's question, "What is truth?" "the seeker," to 
 whom you can say, " This is the way ; walk thou in 
 it " ; " the convicted," with a keen sense of his own 
 sinfulness, but with a vision yet blurred of the 
 uplifted Christ ; and " the decided," who is just 
 waiting for the opportunity to make a good 
 confession of Him whom he has believed. 
 
 (3) If it be asked what subjects are most suitable 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 289 
 
 on which to preach at seasons of revival, we answer 
 without a moment's hesitation : the great foundation 
 truths of the gospel. We want no by-products now, 
 no interesting but comparatively unimportant 
 themes. Turn to the life of Christ and study for 
 your subjects his lines of thought in his conversa- 
 tion with Nicodemus and the woman of Samaria 
 and Zacchaeus the publican. Study the Acts of the 
 Apostles and see what subjects they chose, for they 
 addressed hearers much like your own, and they 
 never shot arrows into the air. We copy the follow- 
 ing themes, used by one of our most honored and 
 successful preachers in special evangelistic effort in 
 his own church : * Monday, " Repentance " ; Tues- 
 day, " Conversion " ; Wednesday, " Remission of 
 Sins " ; Thursday, " Times of Refreshing " ; Friday, 
 " Preaching Jesus Christ " ; Saturday, " Restitution 
 of All Things." While themes similar to these are 
 common in all preaching of this nature, the re- 
 markable thing here is that the choice of texts was 
 confined to three consecutive verses, found in Acts 
 3 : 19-21. We underline the text of each evening, 
 that it may be readily seen how closely the text and 
 theme are connected together in this significant 
 passage : 
 
 '" Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your 
 sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing 
 shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he 
 shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached 
 unto you : Whom the heaven must receive until 
 
 iDr. R. H. Horton. 
 T 
 
290 FOR THE WORK OF THE MIxMSTRV 
 
 the times of restitution of all things, which God 
 hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets 
 since the world began." 
 
 If Peter could refer to all these subjects in the 
 course of a single address we need find no difficulty 
 in treating them adequately in the course of a week. 
 
 (4) The homiletic characteristics of this kind of 
 preaching will be short introductions; simple divi- 
 sions ; apt illustrations ; powerful and constant appli- 
 cation ; and a cumulative conclusion, with an earnest 
 and direct appeal for a decision for the right then 
 and there. 
 
 (5) The spirit of preaching of this nature is most 
 important. While people will forget most of the 
 words which we utter, and will be totally uncon- 
 scious of the homiletical structure of our sermons, 
 they will remember the spirit which created for them 
 an atmosphere in which they preached to them- 
 selves a sermon better than our own. There is 
 need that the preacher prepare himself even more 
 than his sermon. Faith should characterize every 
 note in the preacher's voice. It is God's pleasure 
 that sinners should be converted, and that saints 
 should be built up in the most holy faith. Through 
 revivals he has brought both these objects to pass 
 in countless instances. It is God's way. Show 
 your belief in it. It is God's way, and you are now 
 in it. Such preaching should be pervaded through- 
 out by that indescribable quality termed unction. 
 The preacher should bear evidence of the anointing 
 from the Holy One. If he is filled himself with 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 29I 
 
 the Holy Spirit in the quiet hours of preparation 
 that have preceded, the divine presence will over- 
 flow, like the cup which ran over in the hand of 
 David, and goodness and mercy shall bless with 
 tenderest ministry those to whom he speaks. As- 
 surance is another characteristic which must dom- 
 inate revival preaching. A clear clarion note must 
 send the gospel message from a heart that believes 
 to hearts that are waiting to receive. Preach as 
 one who is persuaded of the absolute verity of the 
 message which is delivered. 
 
 2. Pastoral work must follow preaching. Now 
 is the time to drive the message home like a nail 
 hammered in and clinched. 
 
 (i) Visit all whose needs are made known by 
 the prevalent revival spirit. But let these visits 
 be timely and businesslike. Do not now make social 
 calls on your people. Visit as the doctor visits, with 
 a definite purpose, and leave with each one, as the 
 representative of the Great Physician, just what that 
 peculiar case requires. 
 
 (2) Have stated hours to receive calls, either in 
 your house or in the church. Inquirers should not 
 be received when the minister is alone in either of 
 these places. While it is not necessary to have any 
 one in the room when those desirous of religious 
 conversation come, yet some trusted deacon or ju- 
 dicious friend should be near at hand. The reasons 
 for this will be obvious to all who have had much 
 pastoral experience ; to others we say, follow the di- 
 rection and the reason will in due time appear. 
 
292 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 The minister cannot be too careful of the reputa- 
 tion either of himself or others. To err is human, 
 but it is well to err on the side of safety. 
 
 (3) A number of carefully selected books or tracts 
 will be found exceedingly useful in dealing with 
 the various inquirers. Such books as James' "Anx- 
 ious Enquirer " are by no means out of date, and 
 the tender, direct words of Newman Hall in his 
 little volume, " Come to Jesus," will be found ex- 
 ceedingly helpful. Leaflets from Moody, Andrew 
 Murray, F. B. Meyer, and others, can be most 
 profitably used. While it is impossible here to make 
 special mention of particular tracts, yet such as are 
 well adapted to this purpose can be readily secured 
 from the publication societies of all our leading de- 
 nominations and from other tract repositories. We 
 especially commend those by Edward Judson and 
 George F. Pentecost, which, brief and to the point, 
 apply admirably to the various classes of cases 
 met with at a time of revival. Do not, however, 
 rely too much on books or printed pages, for they 
 are all inferior to the living voice. They are sup- 
 plementary only, and may be left to deepen the 
 impression, or to confirm the counsels already given 
 by the minister in the course of his pastoral work. 
 
 3. Special services are a means often employed 
 and greatly honored in revival work, (i) Addi- 
 tional meetings should grow naturally out of those 
 which already exist. Let the increased interest 
 demand more meetings, rather than appoint extra 
 meetings to get up interest, 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 293 
 
 (2) As long as possible do the work yourself, and 
 beware of employing a professional revivalist until 
 such a course becomes absolutely necessary. In a 
 sermon preached at the Old North Church, in Hart- 
 ford, on the twentieth anniversary of his pastorate, 
 Horace Bushnell once uttered a word that may be 
 spoken as a caution here : " The only real difficulty 
 I have ever encountered in my ministry that cost 
 me a real and deep trial of feeling related to the 
 matter of evangelistic preachers, and vv^hat may be 
 called the machinery system of revivals. Things 
 had come to such a pitch in the churches, by the 
 tensity of the revival system, that the permanent 
 was sacrificed to the casual, the ordinary swallowed 
 up and lost in the extraordinary, and Christian piety 
 itself reduced to a kind of campaigning or stage- 
 effect exercise. The spirit; of the pastor was broken 
 and his powers crippled by a lack of expectation, 
 for it was becoming a fixed impression that that 
 effect is to be looked for only under instrumentalities 
 that are extraordinary. He was coming to be 
 scarcely more than a church clock, for beating time 
 and marking the years, while the effective ministry 
 of the word was to be dispensed by a class of pro- 
 fessional revivalists." It is to be remembered that 
 the evangelist of the New Testament preached to 
 the heathen, the un-Christianized. The modern mis- 
 sionary is an evangelist in the New Testament sense. 
 The revivalist is too often coarse, mechanical, ill- 
 taught, and mercenary, and while many excellent 
 men are to be numbered among evangelists, it is 
 
^94 ^OR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 wise that the minister do his own work to the Hmit 
 of his strength. 
 
 At these special seasons organize your church for 
 work. Appoint committees on neighborhood meet- 
 ings, singing, Sunday-school work, ushers, adver- 
 tising and distribution, the press, and finance. The 
 minister should always be an honorary member of 
 these committees, as well as ex-ofUcio chairman of 
 the executive committee composed of the various 
 chairmen. Send a pastoral letter to each one of your 
 members, in which you invite their co-operation, 
 request their prayers, and announce the hours of the 
 services. Enclose in this letter two cards, to be filled 
 out with the names of those for whom each member 
 is especially anxious ; one to be kept as a constant re- 
 minder and the other to be returned to the minister. 
 A card may also be sent to each one which, when 
 signed, enrolls him among those who promise by 
 personal effort to bring others to Christ. We refer, 
 however, to such cards with some doubt, as some- 
 times, in the cases of persons who find it easy to 
 promise but hard to perform, they do actual harm. 
 At special services, cards suitably printed may be 
 employed to advantage in obtaining the names of 
 those who either have decided to enter the Chris- 
 tian life, or who are willing to have it known that 
 they are seriously considering the matter. Such 
 cards have many advantages over a more public 
 confession of religious interest, although they should 
 never take the place of a courageous and public 
 stand for the right by the new convert. 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 295 
 
 (3) When the minister finds himself unable to do 
 all the work himself, the aid of some brother min- 
 ister should be sought. A minister can best help 
 another minister in his work. He understands the 
 situation, and appreciates the extent and limits of 
 the work required better than any other can. 
 
 (4) If it is found desirable to engage an evangel- 
 ist, great care should be taken in a wise selection 
 of the man. Many excellent men with a special 
 faculty for this work are available. A good evan- 
 gelist will not only do good while he is present, 
 but will do it in such a way that no after effects 
 of a disagreeable or disastrous character imperil the 
 usefulness of the pastor. In any case, whether a 
 professional revivalist be engaged or not, do not 
 talk too much of '' the revival," nor trust to the 
 machinery of revivals which is necessary indeed, 
 but which it is well not to have too much in 
 evidence. 
 
 (5) Public meetings for inquirers should of 
 course be held in connection with these special serv- 
 ices. Sometimes such meetings are held after the 
 Sunday evening service, in which case they should 
 be short. Begin perhaps with a verse or two from 
 Scripture, then call for brief personal testimonies 
 from Christians, and then give an opportunity for 
 decision. Sometimes an after-meeting is held after 
 each special service, but in this matter there can be- 
 no invariable rule. It is generally wise in the first 
 of the special meetings to omit the after-meeting 
 and allow the people to go home, even when an 
 
296 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 unusual impression has been made. It is not al- 
 ways well to draw the net, and often if it be 
 omitted for a night or two, more will be gained by 
 one haul than in a number. Beware of placing too 
 much emphasis on the after-meeting. Seek that 
 the word shall find entrance wherever it is pre- 
 sented, and that no suggestion be permitted that 
 may look like even a brief postponement of the 
 surrender of the heart to Christ. 
 
 During revival work, keep around you the wisest, 
 most spiritual, and most respected members of the 
 church. Avoid by all means prominence on the part 
 of any whose daily walk is not a credit to their 
 Christian confession. Choose your workers from 
 your best, and encourage them to bring inquirers, 
 and to train the young converts in " the way of God 
 more perfectly." 
 
 (6) Classify the inquirers; obtain their names, 
 their previous history, and their present condition. 
 Not all seek Christ alike. Deal with each separately 
 in the light of what you know concerning him. 
 Great harm has sometimes been done by trying to 
 make the cases of all conform to the type of some 
 specially well-known conversion. We need to be- 
 ware, lest we make the mistake which so retarded 
 the religious life o-f Dr. Austin Phelps, and which 
 he thus records : " It was under the preaching of 
 Mr. Barnes that I made a profession of religion, at 
 the age of eighteen years. . . It was no fault of 
 my pastor or of my parents that I went through a 
 period of despair, my old notion of conversion, as 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 297 
 
 a re-creation of moral nature, caused me untold 
 misery. . . The make of my mind required a calm, 
 slow, thoughtful conversion, like Baxter's. In- 
 stead of that, I tried to force upon myself an 
 experience like Brainerd's and that of the elder 
 Edwards." ^ 
 
 (7) In dealing with inquirers use the Bible. Read 
 the passages applicable rather than recall them from 
 memory. " Thus saith the Lord " is worth in- 
 finitely more than " thus saith " any one else. Pre- 
 pare and note down in the flyleaf of your Bible 
 references likely to be useful; giving the chapter 
 and verse let the inquirer turn to the passages for 
 himself. Among such passages the following should 
 never be omitted, which refer to the love of God, 
 the work of Christ, and the belief necessary for 
 salvation: John 3 : i6; Romans 3 : 25 ; Galatians 
 3 : 13; I Peter 2 : 24; i John 2:3;! John 5 : 
 I. Moody's advice on this matter is worth remem- 
 bering : " Those not convicted very much, take them 
 right into Romans, third chapter; put in the knife. 
 Those conscious of their guilt should be dealt with 
 tenderly; pour in the oil. Some do not believe in 
 instant salvation; point such to such cases in the 
 Bible; others are afraid they will not hold out; 
 take such into Isaiah forty-third chapter (verses 
 2 and 19). If any stumble at the word 'believe,' 
 then try the word ' trust,' then the word * receive.' 
 Some stumble on the words * born again.' Refer 
 such to I John 5 : i." 
 
 1 " Life," pp. 34. 35- 
 
298 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 (8) Never lose sight of the chief end sought in 
 conversion. It is God's glory that you are seeking 
 to enhance. Let nothing dim the sublimity of this 
 thought; no other end should even so much as 
 approach the place where the glory of God must 
 reign supreme. 
 
 (9) Especial care is necessary in revival efforts 
 not to make religion seem so easy as to be un- 
 worthy of the most earnest and instant effort. 
 Let there be no minimizing of human sin or guilt. 
 The Christian path should never be described as 
 though it were one perpetually bordered by roses. 
 Honesty is always the best policy. Sin is black, 
 and the Christian life no easy one to him who walks 
 it manfully. Sin is more than ignorance or weak- 
 ness. The claims of Christ set aside incurs a great 
 and awful responsibility. Liberalism went too far 
 when " a skeptic was not now regarded by us as a 
 criminal, but as an invalid." ^ 
 
 (10) Beware also of pressing the claims of re- 
 ligion unwisely. A little experience in revivals 
 teaches that there is a point in the development of 
 the work of divine grace at which it is expedient 
 that human persuasion should cease. At such times 
 silence, which leaves the awakened sinner alone with 
 God, is wiser than speech. Mechanical methods can 
 be carried too far or worked so mechanically that 
 the creaking of the machinery becomes audible and 
 jarring.^ What we mean is thus expressed in the 
 
 * " Life of Archbishop Benson," Vol. II , p. 145. 
 
 * " Phelps," p. 549. 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 299 
 
 words of another : '' This evening we had a mission 
 with a full church. I fear the plans of conducting 
 them are wearing very thin. There was too much 
 of mechanical up and down movement for silent 
 prayer, closing eyes, singing fragments of hymns, 
 etc., and too much teaching for an address. And 
 the language which it is thought proper to adopt 
 in the mission hymns, the want of dignity, the fa- 
 miliarity with ' our great God ' and the incessant 
 entreaties of the preachers * just ' to do this, * just 
 to believe,' ' just to accept,' * just to kneel down a 
 moment,' and the way in which, when arguments 
 are a little difficult, a modern missioner shirks them, 
 and keeps exclaiming, ' I want you to cultivate the 
 habit of prayer,' * I want you ' to do this or that, 
 * I want you to give your heart now to God,' are 
 quite ruining the decent language of piety." ^ 
 
 (11) On the other hand, endeavor to bring to 
 an instant and complete surrender in all cases where 
 this is possible. Upon this point remember that you 
 have to deal with a deceitful heart, hence: 
 
 a. Avoid all controversy. You cannot solve every 
 mystery. It is now your work to exclude all 
 irrelevant doctrines, and press home admitted truths. 
 
 h. Give no countenance to the spirit of " try- 
 ing." It is " whosoever will." Acceptance, not 
 endeavor, is the duty of the present moment. 
 
 c. Never give such advice as, " Go home and 
 think it over." No ! " Now is the accepted time." 
 
 d. Avoid also such counsels as " Pray for a new 
 
 *" Archbishop Benson's Life," Vol. II., p. in. 
 
30O FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 heart." No ! All is now ready. The unwillingness 
 is not with God. Surrender your heart now! 
 
 e. Do not ask such questions as " How do you 
 feel now ? " " How I feel " is not the question, 
 but " Do I love ? " and " What I will do." 
 
 fi2) Make thorough work of all that you do 
 in connection with revival movements. Be on your 
 guard now as never before against shallow religion. 
 See each person privately and repeatedly, and never 
 trust entirely to public avowals, such as rising, lift- 
 ing the hand, coming forward, or the repetition of 
 some such phrase as " I love Jesus." Never pro- 
 nounce any one converted. This is beyond your 
 province. God's Spirit alone can do that. Let us 
 remember these words of the late Hudson Taylor, 
 that hero of the Inland Mission : " In the work of 
 evangelism there is a division, man doing the preach- 
 ing and God the convicting. If I thought I had 
 got to produce a conviction of sin in a Chinaman's 
 heart I would never try it." 
 
 (13) Bring the converts as soon as possible to 
 public confession, and to union with the church. 
 But do not make the ordinances too prominent, for 
 conversion is more than joining the church, and 
 salvation is not synonymous with baptism. 
 
 (14) Throughout conversations with inquirers 
 keep self out of the way. Beware of appealing to 
 your own experience. Say nothing, if all you can 
 say refers to yourself. There are times when man's 
 voice had better be silent that God's silence may 
 speak to the awakened conscience. As there are 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 3OI 
 
 no two cases of conversion which are alike on rec- 
 ord in the New Testament, so now the divine agency 
 in the work of grace is evinced by variety, not 
 uniformity.^ 
 
 (15) Throughout your intercourse with inquirers 
 be careful to honor the Holy Spirit. Three classes 
 of characteristics are found in revivals : 
 
 a. Physical excitement, which is wholly or chiefly 
 animal. " It is fostered by rubbing of hands, tones 
 of voice, tones of song, affecting stories, mere 
 hortatory appeals, and social bodily contact. It can 
 be worked up any day in a crowd by a skilful 
 leader." ^ But while such excitement is not grounded 
 in rational conviction, there is an excitement which 
 rightfully has a place at such times. " God's truth 
 is for the mind. The mind is the rational road to 
 the heart. If the truth excite, the excitement is 
 based on rational grounds, and is good, and only 
 good." ^ While therefore excitement is not to be 
 encouraged, it is not to be ignored. It is a " physio- 
 logical accident." * Conversion must touch the 
 whole nature, physical, intellectual, and spiritual. 
 Great wisdom is needed in treating religious ex- 
 citement. It is inseparable from revivals, and we 
 should be rightly surprised if feeling were entirely 
 absent where such momentous issues are involved. 
 We should wonder indeed if Ezra on hearing his 
 people had profaned themselves with strangers had 
 
 * See James' " The Varieties of Religious Experience." 
 
 2 Herrick Johnson, "Revivals: Their Place and Power," p, 13. 
 
 3 Herrick Johnson. * Weir, " The UMer Awakening," p. 3. 
 
302 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 remained entirely calm. We like him all the 
 better because of the extreme agitation manifested : 
 ** I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked 
 off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat 
 down astonished." ^ And now comes the natural 
 result on the people of such feeling manifested 
 for their sins : " When Ezra had prayed . . . weep- 
 ing and casting himself down . . . the people wept 
 very sore." ^ 
 
 No excitement should astonish the Christian min- 
 ister so much as indifference. This is the standing 
 wonder with God, " My people doth not consider," ^ 
 and with Christ, " If thou hadst known ! " * In- 
 difference is the strongest barrier to the reception 
 of the truth, and any amount of excitement is pref- 
 erable to it. While it is well in revivals to say as 
 little as possible about excitement, yet it is further 
 to be remembered that physical and mental excite- 
 ment cannot be abaolutely separated from one 
 another. Tauler, describing in his preaching the 
 joy of a saved soul at the coming of the Bride- 
 groom, was once interrupted by a voice crying, ** It 
 is true," and the speaker fell dead in the rapture 
 of the moment. " Ah, my dear children," Tauler 
 continued, " if the Bridegroom calls this dear soul 
 away, we must not detain it; but I will cease." 
 Such cases have been by no means infrequent in 
 revivals. On the whole subject of excitement 
 we say what John Wesley said in his journal in 
 
 1 Ezra 9 : 3. 2 Ezra 10 : i. 
 
 "Isaiah i : 3. * Luke 19 : 42. 
 
ESSENTIALS IN A REVIVAL 3O3 
 
 referring to an eminent visitation from God in an 
 English town : '* Satan likewise mimicked this work 
 of God in order to discredit the whole work ; and yet 
 it is not wise to give up this part any more than 
 to give up the whole. At first it was doubtless 
 wholly from God. It is partly so at this day; and 
 he will enable us to discern how far the work is 
 pure and where it mixes or degenerates." ^ 
 
 b. The moral as well as the physical characteristic 
 of revivals needs to be noted. We have already re- 
 ferred to this in the tendency at such times of so 
 many people to declare that they will " try " rather 
 than that they will " trust." Such cases should be 
 treated with the tenderest sympathy, for this is so 
 excellent a resolution that we should know how to 
 deal with it judiciously. An honest purpose to live 
 a cleaner and truer life is by no means to be de- 
 spised, but we need tactfully to insist that the only 
 safe basis is found not in outward reformation, but 
 in inward regeneration. Before a new life is pos- 
 sible without there must be a new life within. 
 " Except one be born anew, he cannot see the 
 kingdom of God." ^ 
 
 c. A word as to the spiritual characteristics of 
 a revival. These are what you must chiefly work 
 and watch for. The new life manifests itself in 
 new motives. Physical manifestations are entirely 
 untrustworthy, and moral reformation is only insured 
 as a consequence of spiritual renewal. 
 
 1 " Heart of John Wesley's Journal," pp. 263, 264. 
 *John 3 : 3 (R. v.). 
 
304 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 To close this chapter with a very practical word, 
 we advise that throughout the revival you avail 
 yourself of the press. Give every reasonable as- 
 sistance to reporters. But beware of sensational ad- 
 vertising, and of that puffing in the papers which 
 deceives no one, but discredits the movement. 
 Above all do not be in haste to give statistics. Sta- 
 tistics are a well-nigh unmixed evil. One of our 
 foremost religious teachers writes thus, in a private 
 letter, concerning his own experience as a pastor: 
 '' I found again and again that I could not put 
 figures together without emotions of vanity and 
 self-assertion, which took the glory right out of 
 the hands of God." The desire to compile statistics 
 strengthens the tendency to shallow trickery that 
 so easily brings immediate results. Many a good 
 man has been made to lie by addition and multi- 
 plication. Figures rarely tell the truth, and as they 
 can be made to say anything, they may as well, by 
 their omission, be allowed to say nothing. 
 
REVIVALS: AFTER A REVIVAL 
 
 V 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. Prepare for the Reaction Which is Almost Sure to 
 
 Follow a Revival. 
 
 1. To some degree reaction is inevitable. 
 
 2. But it may be moderated. 
 
 II. During a Revival, Therefore, Work for the Future 
 
 as Well as the Present. 
 
 1. Do not be anxious chiefly for numbers. 
 
 2. Character the chief thing. 
 
 3. Complete the good work begun. 
 
 III. Train Those Added During a Revival. 
 
 1. Correct natural errors. 
 
 2. Instruct in classes. 
 
 IV. Interest the Church in the Recent Converts. 
 
 V. Keep Converts in the Church Prayer- Meeting. 
 
 VI. Keep up Aggressive Christian Work. 
 
 1. Let the aggressive work of the church be sustained. 
 
 2. Pay continual attention to the Sunday-school. 
 
 3. Do not materially change the character of your 
 
 preaching. 
 
 4. Methods for gathering in those who have been 
 
 impressed. 
 
 5. Keep track of those who did not come to a decision. 
 VII. Find Congenial Associations for Those Added to 
 
 the Church. 
 
XIV 
 
 REVIVALS : AFTER A REVIVAL 
 
 I. Revivals are Almost Sure to be followed by 
 a Reaction, for which the Minister Should be 
 Prepared. 
 
 I. To some degree such reaction is inevitable. 
 It is due in part to physical, mental, and nervous 
 exhaustion, and is no more blameworthy than was 
 the discouragement of Elijah when he cast himself 
 *' under a juniper tree." The Lord cured him by 
 giving him something to eat and drink, by putting 
 him to sleep, and setting him to work.^ In much 
 the same way the Lord deals with his people still. 
 He gives them at such times not prayer and ex- 
 hortation, but food, drink, rest, and worthy em- 
 ployment. When the body is refreshed, the mind 
 and heart regain their normal health. 
 
 Such inevitable reaction is due also to the re- 
 turn of daily life to its accustomed channels, and 
 it is not easy at first to adjust one's self to the 
 usual and commonplace. Few revivalists or evan- 
 gelists stay long to follow up their work. Finney, 
 however, was a noteworthy exception. He once re- 
 mained seven months in the city of Rochester after 
 the great revival there. The new convert needs 
 
 * I Kings 19 : 4. 
 
308 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 help to aid him to apply the new-found life to old 
 problems and fresh opportunities. 
 
 2. While to a certain extent reaction is therefore 
 sure to follow a revival, an excessive reaction may 
 be avoided. 
 
 (i) Such reaction involves backsliding or falling 
 away, and is often due to the shallow surface work 
 done during the revival itself. It is work of this 
 nature, which constructs the building before the 
 foundations are dug, that has cast such a reproach 
 over revivalism. To such superficial work is due 
 the large proportion of losses in churches which 
 live by periodical revivals. The experience thus 
 described by one of our most noted evangelists is 
 unfortunately all too common : " You may get 
 people to commit themselves by some outward sign, 
 as though they were making a declaration before a 
 sheriff, and six hundred, eight hundred, or perhaps 
 two thousand cards are * handed in ' as the result. . . 
 A year after you find a lot of people denouncing 
 the evangelist's work right and left. There are 
 ministers who will have nothing to do with it. 
 ' Why,' they say, ' look at that last time. We had 
 two thousand cards handed in. I got twenty for 
 my share, and could not get three out of the twenty 
 to confess conversion to me.' " ^ The representa- 
 tive denominational paper of one of our largest re- 
 ligious bodies declares that out of every ten gained 
 to its church, seven are lost. The percentage of 
 loss in another of our great denominations is shown 
 
 1 Interview with the Rev. John McNeill. 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 3O9 
 
 in its year-book to be about twenty-three persons 
 out of every hundred members, and this percentage 
 is increasing, for the average lost for the last four 
 years which are mentioned is thirty per cent., or 
 nearly one-third. Such records are blots on evan- 
 gelistic work, and we believe that there is no suf- 
 ficient reason why such a state of things should be 
 allowed to continue. 
 
 (2) But while in part this reaction may be due 
 to the character of the work done during the re- 
 vival, its cause is often to be found in the failure 
 of the minister and his workers to follow up wisely 
 the results of the revival. These are tempted to 
 relax their efforts in religious work when they really 
 should only change their methods. Visiting is 
 dropped when it should be kept up. The workers 
 do not furnish training or find work for the con- 
 verts, whereas they should draft them at once into 
 forms of church work suited to their capacity, and 
 should form them into classes, such as will be re- 
 ferred to later in this chapter. Unless the new 
 convert is given both work and instruction he will 
 weaken and die. 
 
 II. During a Revival, therefore, Work with the 
 Future as well as the Present in view. 
 
 I. Be not anxious chiefly for numbers. The 
 habit of numbering converts in a revival, to which 
 we referred in the preceding chapter, is in danger 
 of great abuse. The standard of numbers is fal- 
 lacious. Hearts are better counted than heads, and 
 converts should be weighed as well as numbered. 
 
3 TO FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 2. Be careful to have evidence that each convert 
 is bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. The 
 strongest additions to a church are often made in 
 times of ordinary interest. A man who deHberately 
 makes up his mind to be a Christian in spite of the 
 coldness about him, is pretty apt to be a firm and 
 loyal disciple, strong in faith and clear in con- 
 viction. There is danger lest a large number be 
 swept into the church on the waves of a revival, 
 whose after-lives do not show that depth of char- 
 acter and grasp of conviction which should follow 
 genuine conversion when proper care and training 
 are given by those in charge of the church. 
 
 3. Realize then the imperative necessity for com- 
 pleting the good work which has been begun. 
 Sanctification is progressive. In the good phrase 
 of the book of Acts, those who come into church 
 fellowship are "being saved." Salvation is a con- 
 tinuous process rather than a single act, and the 
 minister's duty will lie along the line of constant 
 care for the sheep that have been gathered into the 
 fold. The discovery of the special points of weak- 
 ness as well as of strength in each new member, 
 and his education and encouragement in the light 
 of this knowledge, will call for all the prudent 
 leadership and thought which the minister can 
 command. 
 
 III. Therefore, we Give with Emphasis the Coun- 
 sel that Those who are Added to the Church During 
 a Revival should be Carefully Trained. 
 
 I. Errors into which such converts are liable to 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 3II 
 
 fall must be corrected at the start. It is easier to 
 nip the weed when it sprouts than when it is well 
 rooted. Errors which are especially common to 
 such converts are the belief that feeling is of the 
 first importance in religion, that constant at- 
 tendance on a number of meetings is essential, and 
 that a personal experience at conversion is suf- 
 ficient for the whole after-life. The minister can- 
 not too strongly impress these new disciples with 
 the fact that there must be fresh experiences, con- 
 stant discovery of new truths, and a deeper delving 
 into old ones. They must clearly apprehend that 
 religion is life, and that life needs new supplies of 
 energy and faithful performance of new duties 
 which new opportunities reveal. The very fact that 
 such converts have been received at a time of re- 
 vival contributes to the belief on their part that 
 spiritual life is spasmodic and tidal rather than 
 continuous. The following illustration is in place 
 here: In a powerful revival in Amherst College, 
 the more zealous Christian students once sent a pe- 
 tition to the faculty that for one week the collegi- 
 ate curriculum might be suspended, in order that 
 the whole time and interest of the students might 
 be concentrated upon the concerns of eternity. 
 Above question was the object of the petition, and 
 the methods proposed were plausible ; but the presi- 
 dent, the Rev. Doctor Humphrey, had had large ex- 
 perience in revivals. He told the young men that 
 their policy was unv/ise, and said in substance that 
 their theory assumed that the Holy Spirit was 
 
312 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 pressed for time and was in haste to go elsewhere. 
 The routine of collegiate duties was the very test 
 which God had then and there ordained of the sin- 
 cerity of those religious conversions.^ We are apt to 
 forget that the greater part of our time is not to 
 be spent on the mountain with God, but with our 
 fellows on the plain. On the ordinary levels of life 
 as well as on the peak of the mount, we shall find 
 God present. 
 
 2. It is most important that in every church 
 classes be formed for the instruction of new con- 
 verts in the doctrines and practice of religion. We 
 are commanded by our Lord to teach them " to 
 observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 you." 2 
 
 It may be necessary to form two such classes ; 
 one for the children, which may meet regularly 
 on some afternoon of the week, and another for 
 those of older years, which may more conveniently 
 gather in the evening. We counsel that the min- 
 ister teach these classes himself. A wide range of 
 subjects may be appropriately chosen, but it is al- 
 ways better to confine our instruction within such 
 limits as are conducive to thoroughness. Among 
 the themes which should be impressed upon the 
 minds of these new converts we mention the follow- 
 ing: The Fundamental Truths of Christianity; the 
 History of Christianity ; the Clauses of the Church 
 Covenant ; the Ordinances — Baptism and the Lord's 
 
 1 Phelps, "The Theory of Preaching," p. 553- 
 
 2 Matt. 28 : 19, 20. 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 3I3 
 
 Supper; Church-Membership: its Privileges, Ob- 
 Hgations, and Meaning ; the Bible ; Prayer ; the Dif- 
 ficulties of Faith ; Harmonizing Philosophy, Science, 
 and History with Religion. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Archer, than whom none ever gave 
 himself with greater enthusiasm to the religious 
 improvement of the young, once chose this outline 
 for a course of study on the Bible for the young 
 men anj women of his church whom he invited 
 to his house: (i) Introductory Lecture. (2) The 
 Bible: its Literary History. (3) Its Claims. (4) 
 Its Purposes. (5) Its Science. (6) Its Ethics. 
 (7) Its Politics. (8) Its Poetry. (9) Its Elo- 
 quence. (10) Its Style of Teaching. (11) Its 
 Results. (12) Its Interpretation.^ 
 
 From the outline given above it will readily be 
 seen that such " instruction classes " mean work for 
 the minister. They do require work and their in- 
 terest cannot be sustained without it. The glean- 
 ings out of the storehouse of his general informa- 
 tion will not do for the teacher of such a class. 
 For the special preparation required, an hour every 
 day — provided it be the first and best hour in the 
 morning — will generally be found sufficient. And 
 from that hour given to such special themes will 
 come suggestions for sermons and illustrations in- 
 numerable, so that the hour is in reality given to 
 work which will find its outlet in other channels 
 than the class under consideration. 
 
 1 John MacFarlane, " Memoir of Thomas Archer," pp. 74, 75, 
 79, 81. 
 
314 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 There is no need to continue such classes in- 
 definitely. A two or three months' course will be 
 found amply sufficient. Sometimes when the days 
 of the week are crowded to their utmost already, 
 the best time for meeting the class, or at least its 
 adult members, may be the regular hour of the 
 Sunday-school. The minister should of course ob- 
 tain the consent of the Sunday-school teachers for 
 the absence from their classes of all who are eligible 
 for this instruction class. 
 
 IV. It is a matter of Much Importance that the 
 Church take an Interest in the Recent Converts. 
 There is often a sad contrast between the eager- 
 ness displayed to get persons into a church, and the 
 indifference shown as to what becomes of them 
 afterward. " Churches," said Dr. W. M. Taylor, 
 " bend all their energies towards the securing of 
 accessions to their membership, as if that were the 
 sole end to be obtained. Pastors, Sabbath-school 
 teachers, office-bearers, members, labor and pray in 
 public and exhort in private in order that they may 
 lead men to Christ and to a public confession of 
 him. And then, when they have got their names 
 on the communion roll, they leave them to take 
 care of themselves ; and they go and look after 
 others. But, in reality, this is only the beginning 
 with them; and to leave them thus untended is the 
 greatest possible mistake." ^ 
 
 Any members of the church who have shown 
 themselves specially interested in individual cases 
 
 1 W. M. Taylor, " The Ministry of the Word," p. 96. 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 315 
 
 during the revival may well be requestea by the 
 minister to keep an eye upon them afterward. As- 
 sign each convert to the care of some one member 
 who will act in a tactful and kindly way as his 
 special guardian. Thus will the minister, like Ar- 
 gus, become many-eyed. He will know constantly 
 of the religious progress of the new converts, as 
 well as detect the first signs of backsliding, coldness, 
 and indifference. 
 
 V. Keep the Converts in the Church Prayer- 
 meeting. There is a danger in these days of sep- 
 arate young people's meetings that the church be- 
 come too much divided into sections. All meetings 
 of the church belong to all members of the church. 
 Beware lest the church prayer-meeting be monopo- 
 lized by a few of the older brethren. If such a 
 custom has become crystallized, break it up. While 
 in no wise relegating the older, members to the 
 background, still encourage the young to take part 
 in the meetings with them. It is not essential that 
 some venerable brother always speak first in a meet- 
 ing; but let all, old and young, have a recognized 
 place in the mid-week service. Sometimes the min- 
 ister will do well to choose subjects for this meet- 
 ing especially suitable to the new converts. Such 
 a subject we take from the note-book of a certain 
 busy minister : " Babes in Christ." They must be 
 taught: I. To Breathe — Prayer; 2. To Feed — God's 
 Word; 3. To Trust— Life of Faith; 4. To Walk-- 
 Christian Work. 
 
 VI. After the Revival, Keep Up Aggressive 
 
3l6 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Christian Work. There are three reasons why this 
 should be done. i. The first converts to Christian- 
 ity were thus occupied. Their first thought after 
 they had come to Christ themselves was for others. 
 Andrew brings Simon Peter, Philip finds Nathanael/ 
 and thus other footprints were soon found follow- 
 ing their own. 2. Moreover, aggressive Christian 
 work should be the normal condition of a church. 
 The injunction of the apostle to his " beloved breth- 
 ren " is to be " ahvays abounding in the work of 
 the Lord." ^ A church that is wide-awake, active, 
 and progressive is the only kind of church that 
 conforms to the New Testament model. To pride 
 ourselves on a polity patterned after the New Tes- 
 tament while we drowsily perform the routine such 
 polity demands is practical heresy. Using the word 
 in its nobler sense, aggression is the key-note of 
 Christianity. In this atmosphere the new convert 
 will have a chance to grow, and it is the normal 
 condition of things which he has a right to expect 
 on entering the Christian fellowship. 3. Such work 
 will keep the convert happy and useful. Dr. Ste- 
 phen Tyng once formed an " Andrew and Philip 
 Society " of young men who would be Christ's 
 fishermen. Each Sunday evening the members of 
 this society were scattered through the congrega- 
 tion to give an invitation to every young man in 
 sight to take tea with the pastor the next Sabbath 
 evening. When that night came Doctor Tyng met 
 them at a simple supper in the parlors of the church. 
 
 ^ John I : 40-46. 2 I Cor, j 5 ; jg. 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 317 
 
 After this was over, he went to his study, the young 
 men remaining together until the hour of church 
 service. What opportunities to be fishers for men 
 such a custom must have furnished, and how that 
 meal taken together must have opened the doors 
 to many for a wider Christian usefulness ! There- 
 fore we say to every minister, Keep up the highest 
 spiritual standard in your church; maintain the 
 evangelistic method; never let your method cease 
 to be aggressive. You will make mistakes? Make 
 them, plenty of them, for the only man who never 
 makes a mistake is the dead man lying under five 
 feet of earth in the cemetery. 
 
 We speak now more particularly of the ag- 
 gressive work which should be kept up after a 
 revival. 
 
 T. Let the usual aggressive work of the church 
 be sustained. Do not press on to new fields of 
 religious activity to the neglect of the old and 
 tried. Every church of considerable size and influ- 
 ence should have connected with it mission stations, 
 branch Sunday-schools, and the like, which demand 
 rightly the minister's first care and thought. In 
 such stations and schools he will perhaps most 
 easily find places for the new converts to work. 
 In this way many a mission station more than war- 
 rants its existence, and in keeping the parent church 
 healthy and active performs a part which would be 
 well worth while leaving out of consideration en- 
 tirely the good that is done in its immediate 
 neighborhood. 
 
3lB FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 2. Pay continual attention to the Sunday-school. 
 We do not advise any minister to be a regular teacher 
 in the school, especially if this follows the morning 
 service, but he should be present in the school every 
 Sunday. He should remain at least through the 
 preliminary exercises. He does wisely if he takes 
 time after these are concluded to visit from class 
 to class, remaining in the room to the close of the 
 session. In this way, in the course of a year, every 
 class can be personally visited by the minister, and 
 he is enabled thus to come in touch with every 
 teacher while at work, and with every pupil while 
 receiving instruction. The minister should meet the 
 teachers occasionally for prayer when religious in- 
 terest is at its common pitch as well as in the special 
 times of revival. From the Sunday-school of to- 
 day comes the church of to-morrow. In the school 
 no one person should have more influence than the 
 minister himself, and he should covet as his own 
 the love and regard of the scholars, by which in due 
 time he will be enabled to lead them to Christ. 
 
 3. After a revival also do not materially change 
 the character of your preaching. The character- 
 istics of directness, fervor, and pungency need to 
 be cultivated and the element of appeal should never 
 be left out of any sermon. In fact, the character 
 of preaching suitable to a revival is largely the 
 kind always needed. The minister should never 
 allow himself to preach sluggish and dull sermons 
 at times of only ordinary religious interest. It is 
 the preacher's business always to reflect the life and 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 319 
 
 light of God, not the deadness and dimness of his 
 congregation. We strongly advise that at least once 
 a month a sermon should be preached especially 
 addressed to the unconverted. It is a wise policy 
 in our day sometimes to preach in the morning a 
 sermon eminently suitable for Sunday evening, and 
 one that would usually be given in the morning, in 
 the evening. Sinners do not entirely compose our 
 evening hearers, nor are the pews in the morning 
 exclusively filled with saints. 
 
 4. Have some method by which to gather in those 
 who are impressed and concerned. We often fail 
 because we do not cast the net regularly. Be bold 
 in this matter. For this purpose a short prayer- 
 meeting may be held after the regular Sunday even- 
 ing service. Although it may not be well to hold 
 an after-meeting every Sunday night, yet never 
 omit it for any long period at a time. Vary it, and 
 never allow the people to know exactly what comes 
 next. Let it be " bright, brief, and brotherly." If 
 you have in your church men fitted to conduct such 
 a meeting, you may with advantage sometimes dele- 
 gate this work to them, while you remain in an ad- 
 jacent room to see those who wish to speak with 
 you. 
 
 A Monday evening meeting has sometimes proved 
 most effective and useful in this connection. This 
 meeting should be exclusively for the instruction of 
 converts, and some intelligent, well-rounded, and 
 well-balanced deacon may be placed in charge. Such 
 practical matters may here be dealt with, as " means 
 
320 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 of growth," " the duties of church-members to 
 each other, to the pastor, etc.," or a preHminary 
 study of the lesson for the next Sabbath may be 
 given. The minister meanwhile should be in a room 
 near-by to see inquirers one by one. 
 
 In the weekly prayer-meeting too, frequently call 
 upon those interested or anxious for themselves or 
 for others to rise. The methods by which such ex- 
 pressions are called for in our day are many and de- 
 vious ; but on the whole the quiet invitation to such 
 persons to rise boldly upon their feet for a moment 
 seems the best. In the old days, inquirers were 
 asked to take the front seats, later the invitation to 
 rise became general, then to lift the hand was the 
 customary method, and now we hear the invitation 
 sometimes given for all the people to bow in prayer, 
 with closed eyes, while any who are anxious should 
 indicate it by the uplifted hand ! We trust the limit 
 has been reached in this matter, for some of the 
 complex methods now in vogue border perilously 
 upon the ridiculous. Pious tricks are always re- 
 sented by a man who respects himself, and a good 
 confession is best made by no such shifts or devices. 
 
 Times come in every pastorate when conversions 
 become few and scattering. When such periods ar- 
 rive, speak to the church frankly about it. Set 
 them praying and even appoint a special season of 
 prayer for revival. 
 
 This leads us to say a few words concerning the 
 week of prayer which has become so largely an 
 institution among us. We have little sympathy with 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 321 
 
 the officious service of certain religious bodies which 
 parcel out all conceivable topics of prayer accord- 
 ing to their pleasure for the various nights of the 
 week. Our advice is never follow such made-to- 
 order subjects. They will be found either of so 
 general a nature as to be practically worthless,- or 
 poorly adapted to the particular needs of your own 
 church. Choose topics of your own. These will 
 occur to you in the usual round of pastoral experi- 
 ences. Then send to every member of the church 
 a card on which the topics for each evening are 
 printed. Prepare yourself most thoroughly for 
 these meetings. We do not believe that the week 
 of prayer has survived its chief usefulness; but we 
 doubt exceedingly whether it is wise to have any 
 stated time for the observance of this season. The 
 first week of January is of all times the worst, for 
 then the business men are exceedingly occupied, and 
 the diversions incident to Christmas and the New 
 Year have not fully subsided. Far preferable to 
 the first week in the year is the season of Lent, 
 which has many reasons to commend it for the ob- 
 servance of special meetings for prayer and medi- 
 tation. If, however, the spring time is not the best 
 season for your particular church, then the late 
 autumn or early winter will very likely be found 
 most suitable. But on the whole the first weeks in 
 the spring, when the ice breaks up and goes out 
 of our ponds and rivers, and melts from many 
 churches as well, will generally be found the best 
 season for the week of prayer. It is a matter of 
 
 V 
 
322 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 record, easily verified, that most of the members 
 of our churches came to Christ at this season, 
 
 5. Never grow discouraged as you seek to keep 
 up aggressive work in your church, and to sustain 
 it in all the ordinary as well as the extraordinary 
 means employed. Take heart and plod on through 
 the woods, and in due time light will shimmer 
 through the trees and you will find yourself out 
 on the cleared land. Never give up as hopeless 
 any particular cases, and keep track of those who 
 were interested in the revival but never came to a 
 decision. " If they do not come now, they will be 
 better prepared to come next year " ; ^ and minis- 
 terial experience justifies such an assertion as this, 
 for with patient, brave endeavor such people do 
 generally in time come to the desired haven. 
 
 VII. Find as far as possible Congenial Associa- 
 tions for Those Added to the Church. When the 
 revival is over, there is a danger that the spiritual 
 tone of the church will be lowered, and that amuse- 
 ments, fairs, and sociables will take the place of 
 prayer-meetings. By this the delicacy and vigor of 
 Christian faith, in its first days, will be injured. 
 Avoid this by every means in your power. Yet do 
 not neglect meetings for social purposes. Intro- 
 duce young people to one another, and encourage 
 Christian friendships which may ripen into life- 
 long attachments. At the close of each year bring 
 together for a social evening all who have joined 
 the church in the course of it. Every few years, if 
 
 * Abbott's "Life of Beecher," p. 213. 
 
AFTER A REVIVAL 323 
 
 not annually, hold a sociable for all those who have 
 come into the fellowship during your pastorate. 
 It is not difficult for the wise minister to plan social 
 occasions which are suitable and helpful in every 
 way, and which will prove no detriment to the vital 
 spiritual interest of the church. There is a startling 
 contrast between a revival and a rummage sale! 
 Keep the pendulum from swinging too far, but 
 keep it moving, nevertheless, for the clock must tell 
 time. 
 
 To sum up such counsels as are here given for 
 the period after the revival, we say, be prepared 
 for a reaction which may be controlled and mod- 
 erated; be as busy in training those added to the 
 church as you were in urging them to come into its 
 fellowship ; and in all ways complete the good work 
 of which the revival was but the beginning. Tie a 
 knot in the rope that will prevent it from slipping. 
 
THE MINISTER AND 
 EVANGELIZATION 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Introduction. The Minister as Evangelist. 
 
 1. Recognized in Scripture. 
 
 2. An office neglected by us. 
 
 3. Which must be revived. 
 Counsels. 
 
 1. Study your church. 
 
 2. Survey your field. 
 
 3. The church an aggressive center. 
 
 4. Go outside ordinary church work. The mission chapel. 
 
 5. Go outside of both church and chapel. 
 
 6. Co-operate in evangelistic movements. 
 
 7. Train your cong^regation to work with you in such 
 
 enterprises. 
 
XV 
 
 THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 
 
 In this chapter we propose to deal with the work 
 of what is sometimes called the Institutional Church. 
 The minister's task is threefold: He should be a 
 preacher, a pastor, and an evangelist. This office 
 of the evangelist may be defined as that of a 
 missionary herald of the gospel. 
 
 I. The office is recognized in Scripture in the 
 teaching and example of Christ,^ in the lives of the 
 apostles and early believers,- and in the injunctions 
 of New Testament writers.^ 
 
 " Go out into the highways," said Jesus. The 
 text of his first sermon is significant of his whole 
 life : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because 
 he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the 
 poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, 
 to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering 
 of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
 bruised." 
 
 We see the first disciples obedient to this instruc- 
 tion, preaching in many villages, yet not confining 
 their efforts to crowds. Philip sits with the eunuch 
 
 ^ Matt. 10 : 5-41; 25 : 35-40; Luke 14: 23; Matt. 11 : i; Luke 
 4 : 18, 19. 
 
 2 Acts 8 : 4, 25, 26; 9 : 32; 21 : 8. 
 ^ Eph. 4 : 11; 2 Tim. 4 : 5. 
 
32S 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 in his chariot, Peter finds " a certain man named 
 ^neas," and Paul speaks to the sailors in their 
 ship or the soldiers about him in his prison. 
 
 In his letters to the churches we find Paul honor- 
 ing this office — " he gave some evangelists " — and 
 then, as though fearful lest his direction should be 
 applied too exclusively outside the ranks of the 
 regular ministry, he urges upon the young preacher 
 Timothy, that he " do the work of an evangelist." 
 
 2. Although this office has a prominent place in 
 the New Testament, it has been an office too large- 
 ly neglected by us. The settled pastorate and 
 the local church have been suffered to absorb too 
 exclusively our attention. 
 
 (i) This has been due in part to a narrow con- 
 ception of the gospel ; some have confined that con- 
 ception to the salvation of the individual, while 
 others have declared it to apply mainly to the bet- 
 terment of the race. But both these theories ought 
 to be recognized and harmonized. The betterment 
 of the race depends upon the salvation of the in- 
 dividual, and the salvation of the individual becomes 
 increasingly possible only through the betterment 
 of the race. In the past the church has so placed 
 in the forefront of her message the salvation of the 
 individual that to-day we see the reaction in a keener 
 social instinct, which has a tendency to err in going 
 as far toward the extreme of socialism as the other 
 view toward the extreme of individualism. " I 
 am bold enough to hope that there may yet be 
 found room enough in Christianity for both. It is 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 329 
 
 probably going to be one of the achievements of the 
 wider and better balanced theology which one trusts 
 is to come out of the present confusion in the 
 twentieth or some other century, that it will frame 
 some larger conception of Christ's salvation, big 
 enough to embrace and harmonize these two rival 
 theories of it — the personal religious salvation of the 
 soul from sin and the ethical and social salvation of 
 the community from wrong and suffering." ^ 
 
 Truly " a man is not fit to go as missionary to 
 China who will not work with the needy at his own 
 doors," ^ and it is easy for all of us to be so pos- 
 sessed with one great idea that there is no room for 
 others which have an equal right to bed and board. 
 The shame which Canon Liddon felt for himself 
 on his return from a Salvation Army meeting, when 
 he thought of his own work at St. Paul's, is a 
 shame that belongs to many others who have never 
 felt it. We pray for the time when the mind of the 
 church shall be as broad as the mind of the Master. 
 ** The mind that was in Christ Jesus " speaks with 
 infinite pity to a sinful woman taken in the very 
 act, weeps over the great city of Jerusalem, and 
 dies upon the cross of Calvary for the whole wide 
 world, even " unto the uttermost." 
 
 (2) The neglect of this office by many a minister 
 has been almost forced upon him by the very nature 
 of his work. His preaching, pastoral care, and in- 
 cidental services have been more than enough for 
 all his time and energies, and many a man because 
 
 1 Dr. Oswald Dykes. 2 " Life of John A. Broadus," p. 67. 
 
330 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 of the burdens of the pastorate has gone wrong' 
 just here. Because he could not do evangeHstic 
 work when he would, in time he has come to feel 
 that he would not do evangelistic work; if he could. 
 (3) To the unreasonable claims of the local 
 church, and to a false conception of what a church 
 is, must also be charged much of the past neglect. 
 Two hundred years ago Richard Baxter uttered a 
 bitter cry : " The work of the church is exceedingly 
 retarded by an unworthy ' retireness.' . . Christians 
 live like snails in a shell, and look but little around 
 into the world and know not the state of the world 
 nor of the church, nor much care to know it, but 
 think it is with all the world as they fancy it is 
 with themselves. . . Many ministers are of such re- 
 tiring dispositions that they scarcely look beyond 
 the border of their own parishes.'' While we do not 
 entirely sympathize with the following declaration 
 of James Russell Lowell, yet there is enough truth 
 in it to make it pungent : " Christ has declared war 
 against the Christianity of the world, and it must 
 down. The church must be reformed from founda- 
 tion to weather-cock." ^ True it is that as churches 
 grow large and wealthy they have a tendency to 
 become inefficient in the world of evangelization. 
 '' The church which ceases to be evangelistic will 
 cease to be evangelical." ^ It is quite possible to hold 
 all the forms of evangelical doctrine without being 
 ourselves evangelists. Both the safety of the church 
 and the welfare of the masses largely depend 
 
 1 " Life," Vol. I., p. 98. « Doctor Duff. 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 33 1 
 
 Upon a true conception of what the church really 
 is. The words of Dr. A. J. Gordon are none too 
 strong when he says : " In this world, as well as 
 in the world to come, there is an impassable gulf 
 between Dives and Lazarus. If the church delib- 
 erately chooses the company of Dives, putting on 
 purple and fine linen and faring sumptuously every 
 day, she cannot eat with Lazarus. The attempt 
 may be made to effect conciliation by tossing biscuits 
 across the gulf. . . But this will not do." The 
 familiar complaints that churches are incompetent 
 to distribute the bread of life, and that they are 
 " trying to dam up the water of life that it might 
 be distributed only to regular subscribers," are, we 
 are grateful to think, becoming more rare as the 
 church is waking to a wider and truer interpreta- 
 tion of her mission. Firm in his belief that the 
 church is now trying to do her duty, Phillips 
 Brooks had little sympathy with such complaints, 
 and we cannot better express our own conviction 
 than by quoting his : " The churches to-day are 
 honestly trying to bring the water of life to all 
 men. They blunder and they fail ; but they do try. 
 And I do not know, for myself, any other agency 
 with which I can combine such poor effort as I can 
 make in that direction, except with them." ^ 
 
 3. We thank God for a widening conception of 
 the gospel and for a truer understanding by the 
 church of her duty and privilege. Still there is need 
 of more breadth and of more truth in this matter, 
 
 1 " Life of Phillips Brooks," Vol. II., p. 561. 
 
332 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 and the task devolves upon the present generation 
 to complete the work of the generation that is past, 
 and to revive still further among us the work of 
 the evangelist. The work of the evangelist may be 
 a distinct office, and there are doubtless many men 
 who are evidently better adapted for this work than 
 for any other. Still the work ought to be attempted 
 by every minister. 
 
 It should be remembered in this chapter that by 
 the word evangelist we mean more than the mere 
 leader of special or gospel services. We mean this 
 indeed, but much more. He is a man who preaches 
 the " good news " by every means in his power,, 
 and who seeks to bring men into sympathy and fel- 
 lowship with the church, as well as to establish new 
 churches where none are in existence. A minister 
 without this evangehstic spirit will be necessarily 
 destined to cut narrow swathes in the fields white 
 for the harvest, while the minister who possesses the 
 evangelistic spirit, or better, is possessed by it, v;ill 
 swing his scythe with ever-increasing effectiveness. 
 
 The words pastor and evangelist are, when truly 
 interpreted, largely synonymous. In our preaching 
 the people come to us, in our pastoral work we go 
 to the people. But how about the vast numbers 
 who neither come to us nor expect us to go to 
 them? All ordinary means fail to reach them, and 
 we must therefore go after them. They are those 
 " other sheep " who also bear the mark of the Good 
 Shepherd. His voice speaks to the under-shepherds, 
 the pastors whom he hath appointed, saying: 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 333 
 
 " Them also I must bring." ^ Unless we shepherd 
 these members of the great flock of Christ our 
 ministry as Christian pastors is incomplete, and the 
 purpose for which we were called remains in part 
 unfulfilled. " Were I again to be a parish minister," 
 said Leighton, " I must follow sinners to their 
 houses, and even to their ale-houses." This follow- 
 ing of men that we may bless them with the good 
 gifts of Christ is the special work of the evangelist, 
 and in this work every pastor should take his part. 
 
 There are many admirable theories propounded 
 as to how the masses may best be reached; but 
 there is only one theory which will ever be ef- 
 fective, and that, in the words of Mr. Moody, is' 
 "to go and fetch them." General Booth's four 
 principles, early formed and still held to, are au- 
 thoritative, for he has shown their efficiency: " i. 
 You must go to the people with the message of sal- 
 vation instead of expecting them to come to you. 2. 
 You must attract the people, so as to induce them to 
 come within earshot. 3. You must save the people 
 by pushing them to decision, working up to the given 
 end, and then striking when the iron is hot. 4. 
 You must employ the people, for there is no way of 
 keeping saved except by being busily engaged in 
 saving other people." 
 
 We ofifer here seven counsels which may aid the 
 pastor to justify his name, and his church to justify 
 its existence in the energetic performance of 
 evangelistic work: 
 
 * John 10 : 16, 
 
334 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 I. Study carefully the church of which you are 
 the pastor. Know where each member lives ; the 
 locality in which most of the members live ; the dis- 
 tant districts where some of the members reside; 
 the capacity of the membership; the work being 
 done by each member of the church, noting those 
 who come to both services on Sunday, those who 
 attend the prayer-meetings as well, and those who 
 speak. Make a list of all members who do nothing 
 at all. Cross off from this list the names of the 
 very aged and those who because of special family 
 cares, illness, or other proper cause are unable to 
 do anything, and go to work to draft all the rest 
 into active service. Many of these will work read- 
 ily if you can point out a special garden-patch for 
 their cultivation. Do not place too much credence 
 on the excuse, " I am too busy." Men are rarely 
 too busy to do what they want to do, and they want 
 to do whatever they can do well, and they do well 
 those things on which they have worked hard. One 
 comes, in time, to regard even the problems of 
 higher mathematics with affection if he grinds at 
 them hard enough. There is a sense in which work 
 not only is a sign of life, but produces life itself, 
 for effects are sometimes causes, and causes some- 
 times effects. An English preacher says truly, 
 " What is needed to put life into churches is to 
 revert to the original idea of a church, and make 
 it a society * to provoke unto love and good works.' 
 Suppose every time we met together we kept this 
 purpose in view, we should find one thing, I think, 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 335 
 
 that he ' prayeth best who loveth best/ and that 
 Christian business is a wonderful help to Christian 
 devotion." So let the pastor learn the field and 
 the forces. 
 
 2. Next survey the city or district in which your 
 pastorate lies. Discover where there is need of 
 more church accommodation, and where there is 
 no need. Learn what is being done by other de- 
 nominations, and which are the growing districts 
 that afford a special opportunity for work such as 
 you contemplate. These points and others which 
 will readily occur to the pastor examining the field, 
 may be noted by colors upon a chart or map. In 
 a country church such a map or chart may be ex- 
 tended to large districts, or even to the whole 
 Association. 
 
 3. Make your church the center from which 
 radiate the various activities of evangelistic work. 
 It should be the hub in the wheel, the spokes being 
 the agencies of aggressive work, and the tire the 
 limit of the district in which your pastorate lies. 
 " The churches must become their own mission 
 centers," ^ and there are few churches to which this 
 injunction is not applicable. That church is in a 
 lamentable plight indeed which is all center and has 
 no circumference. 
 
 Have some service on Sunday popular in its char- 
 acter, with free seats, good music, hearty singing, 
 and earnest, bright addresses. Such a meeting as 
 that held for men in England and known as " The 
 
 1 Dr. John Cliflford, 1902. 
 
336 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Pleasant Sunday Afternoon" ("P. S. A.") has 
 been of inestimable service in that country, and we 
 hope to see it introduced effectively in ours. 
 
 Endeavor to have the church open all the time. 
 Never mind how it bristles with signs for men's 
 meetings, mothers' meetings and the rest, if each 
 sign stands for a reality. When no services are be- 
 ing held it is well that those passing by the open 
 doors should know that an opportunity is ever af- 
 forded to enter for quiet meditation and prayer. 
 A church with fast-locked iron gates is a painful 
 reminder of the days when the Bible was chained 
 to the walls of monastery libraries. It is no credit 
 to a church to have need of replacing its carpets 
 only once in ten years, and the bill which should 
 always be large in every church is that for light 
 and heat. 
 
 Hold social meetings in the week. Have a read- 
 ing-room for young men, a gymnasium, if possible, 
 and classes for young women and for children, 
 thus striving to meet the need of all classes and 
 conditions by every possible means. We urge that 
 every wide-awake pastor visit and study the work 
 of such churches as the Judson Memorial Church 
 (Baptist) or St. George's Church (Episcopal), of 
 New York City, Bethany Church (Presbyterian), 
 of Philadelphia, the Berkley Temple (Congrega- 
 tional), and the Ruggles Street Church (Baptist), 
 of Boston, and many others which are doing work 
 equally as great and good. Happy the pastor who 
 so seeks to grasp the opportunities that are close at 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 337 
 
 hand, that when his work at last is finished he can 
 say what Dean Stanley said on his deathbed : " I 
 have striven amid many frailties and weaknesses 
 to make Westminster Abbey a great center of 
 religious activity." 
 
 4. By all means let the pastor preach outside of 
 ordinary church work. Here we speak of the 
 mission chapel. 
 
 (i) Having found the place for such a chapel, 
 hire a large room and thoroughly canvass the neigh- 
 borhood, and visit personally so far as you can the 
 families near-by. Endeavor to get people on the 
 spot interested in the enterprise; some of your own 
 church-members who live close at hand, and mem- 
 bers of the neighboring families who very likely 
 are members of no church. Be sure and have your 
 working nucleus resident. Such undertakings can- 
 not be handled with tongs, and in this respect, as 
 well as in many others, the Roman Catholic Church 
 has much to teach us. Her priests gain no little of 
 their power by living themselves among the people 
 of their parishes. 
 
 (2) When you have secured a suitable room and 
 the support and interest of people living in the 
 neighborhood, begin the work slowly. Be content 
 perhaps to start with a Sunday-school, adding an 
 evening service, with sermon when events warrant it. 
 But from the very first have always a week-night 
 service for prayer and conference. 
 
 (3) The time having come for erecting a chapel 
 building — and it is surprising sometimes how soon 
 
 W 
 
JO 
 
 8 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY^ 
 
 such a time does come— let it be churchlike in form, 
 with rooms for classes and prayer-meetings, which 
 may be so arranged as to be thrown open to enlarge 
 the audience room. A baptistery should be put 
 in at once, as it is an evidence of expectancy and 
 faith. Give the chapel building an attractive name, 
 and never call it ** the mission." We shall not here 
 attempt to settle that much-argued question whether 
 some poor people are not happier in their own mis- 
 sion halls than in regular churches. Be it our part 
 only to recommend emphatically that the chapel 
 building be not unchurchly in form, or dubbed with 
 the name that suggests dependence if not pauperism. 
 
 (4) In organization, such an enterprise should 
 look toward becoming an independent church from 
 the first. Again we advise that its working and 
 governing members should live on the spot. Be- 
 ware even of drawing your strength too much from 
 the distant home church. Nowhere more than in 
 such endeavors is it true that God helps those who 
 help themselves. At the very beginning weekly 
 offerings should be taken, and if the envelope sys- 
 tem can be introduced it will aid the spirit of 
 independence and self-respect. 
 
 Keep this chapel constantly occupied. Prayer- 
 meetings, teachers' meetings, mothers' meetings, 
 meetings to train helpers in speaking and prayer, 
 bands of hope, temperance societies, young people's 
 meetings, all can in time be introduced, and each 
 will bear its part in making of the chapel what 
 business men sometimes call " a busy place." 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 339 
 
 (5) As to the management of such a chapel. It 
 should have its own pastor, who in the beginning 
 may be the assistant pastor of the home church, and 
 he should be surrounded by a committee of willing 
 and capable workers. 
 
 5. The pastor should lead his church to widen 
 its endeavors beyond both the church and the chapel. 
 Open-air services are finding a place among us as 
 never before. Organize a band of your young people 
 or other workers, obtain permission from the civil 
 authorities, and go out into the parks where the 
 people gather on summer Sundays in such large 
 numbers. Cottage prayer-meetings may be held in 
 the winter-time as a sort of continuation of the 
 open-air work of the summer. This is a great 
 means of bringing those who are out of touch with 
 the church within her helpful influence. People 
 who never go to church, or who are supposed to 
 be opposed to the church, will often be found very 
 willing to have their homes used for this purpose. 
 They will even take a good deal of pride in the 
 fact that their homes have been so selected. The 
 pastor, of course, cannot always, or even often, lead 
 such a meeting; but there is no great difficulty in 
 discovering suitable persons for this work. We 
 have known many cases where the Sunday-school 
 lesson has been made each week the subject for 
 such home prayer-meetings with excellent results. 
 
 6. The pastor should co-operate in all evangel- 
 istic movements in the community. 
 
 Never stand aloof from any work in which other 
 
340 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 churches invite you to engage with them. Go in 
 heartily for a canvass of the whole city or a sec- 
 tion, if such is contemplated. Join with them in 
 united services on Thanksgiving Day and similar 
 occasions. Let your sympathy for all benevolent 
 and aggressive societies which are working in your 
 city or town be known. Do all that you can for 
 such organizations as the Young Men's Christian 
 Association, the Women's Christian Temperance 
 Union, and the Salvation Army. Visit and get to 
 know the officials of any reformatory, industrial 
 school, prison, almshouse, or hospital which may 
 be in your neighborhood. Intelligently study their 
 work and assist them by every means in your power. 
 We wish here to speak a special word of commenda- 
 tion of the organization known as the Federation 
 of Churches. This society is doing much to check 
 the waste of effort in the activities of our churches, 
 and to bind all together in a spirit of unity in the 
 task of evangelization, and of the overthrow of the 
 civic and social evils which are so entrenched in 
 custom and public sentiment. 
 
 Every pastor is especially adapted to certain kinds 
 of work and he will do well to become a specialist 
 along these lines. Not all men in the ministry 
 could have stood at the jail door every Monday 
 morning when prisoners were discharged and, tak- 
 ing the men by the hand, furnished them with such 
 material and spiritual help as gave them a new 
 chance and a new hope. But this work F. B. 
 Meyer did for years in Leicester. Neither coulcl 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 34I 
 
 every minister have spoken at the noon hour of 
 Mondays to the working men while they ate their 
 dinners and smoked their pipes. But this Joseph 
 Parker did in the City Temple schoolroom in Lon- 
 don. Still others have held meetings for tramps and 
 for thieves and have had their invitation to attend 
 such meetings so eagerly accepted that the rooms in 
 which they have been held have been filled with the 
 particular class they aimed to reach. Let each pas- 
 tor find his special power, and if he does not know 
 what this may be, let him experiment until he dis- 
 covers it. Along that line let him do his work 
 as well as co-operate in the various evangelistic 
 enterprises in his community. 
 
 While we confess our faith in what is termed 
 "social Christianity " or the " social gospel," we do 
 not wish to be interpreted as believing for a mo- 
 ment that Christian sociology can ever take the 
 place of the simple and faithfully preached gospel 
 of Jesus Christ. There is really no antagonism be- 
 tween the two, the one being the complement of 
 the other. On this whole subject we commend the 
 words spoken by one of our sanest thinkers and 
 greatest preachers : 
 
 Help that is flung to people, as you might fling a bone to 
 a dog, hurts those whom it is meant to benefit, and pa- 
 tronizing help does little good, and lecturing help does 
 little more. You must take blind beggars by the hand 
 if you're going to make them see, and you must not be 
 afraid to lay your white, clean fingers upon the feculent 
 masses of corruption in the lepers' glistening whiteness 
 
FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 if you are going to make him whole. Go down in order to 
 lift, and remember that without sympathy there is no suf- 
 ficient help, and without communion with Christ there is 
 no sympathy. . . We hear a great deal to-day about a 
 social gospel. . . Only let us remember that the gospel is 
 social second, and individual first, and that if you get 
 the love of God and obedience to Jesus Christ into a 
 man's heart, it will be like putting gas into a balloon. 
 It will go up and the man will get out of the slums fast 
 enough, and he will not be a slave to the vices of the 
 world much longer, and you will have done more for him 
 and for the wide circle that he may influence than by 
 any other means. . . I am sure that, under God, the great 
 remedy for social evils lies mainly here, that the bulk of 
 professing Christians shall recognize and discharge their 
 responsibilities.^ 
 
 7. No pastor is equal to the task o. carrying on 
 evangelistic work alone. Neither does a corps of 
 paid assistants prove entirely adequate for such 
 work. Such assistants are by all means to be em- 
 ployed, but they never can take the place of volun- 
 teer lay helpers. Not long ago a minister, most 
 prominent in city evangelistic enterprises, declared 
 that he would give all his paid assistants for one 
 truly motherly woman of the type so common a 
 generation ago, who would do the work gladly 
 without pecuniary acknowledgment. In these busy 
 days great emphasis needs to be laid on the value 
 of lay work in the church, and we believe that 
 slowly but surely it will take its true place. Train 
 therefore, your congregation to work with you in 
 such enterprises. As an indication of how far 
 
 * J. C. Carlile's " Alexander McLaren," pp. 68, 69. 
 
THE MINISTER AND EVANGELIZATION 343 
 
 conditions are improved in this regard, the Rev. 
 James Stalker notes these words, written in 1842, 
 which appear in " McCheyne's Memoirs " : " My 
 (prayer) meeting is still the hour and a half, nor 
 do I see how I can shorten it. . . A stranger started 
 up and prayed one evening. I did not interrupt 
 him or take notice of it, but have thought it best 
 to forbid it. None but ordained servants should 
 speak in churches." This statement is note- 
 worthy as coming from the most prominent mem- 
 ber of the school which has since gone farthest in 
 welcoming external aids in the work of the min- 
 istry. It shows us how far we have traveled in 
 a little more than half a century. While it is well 
 that a certain line of separation be drawn between 
 clergy and laity, as each have work which they can 
 do better than the other, yet only as the two halves 
 are joined is the perfect circle described. The fol- 
 lowing advice given by a Scotch layman may well 
 be applied to any church which demands the impos- 
 sible of its pastor and is correspondingly negligent 
 in demanding the possible from itself : " If your 
 pastor is not bringing in so many fish as you would 
 like, don't go across the boat and take his seat; 
 keep to your own line. There are as many fish on 
 the lay side of the boat as on the clerical, and if 
 you want a good catch, both sides must do their 
 part." 
 
 Church homelessness is widespread to-day. The 
 work of attracting within the doors of the 
 church those who have no church home by helpful 
 
344 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 and inspiring influences can be better done by the 
 people than by the pastor. The young men 
 of the community can be influenced best by 
 young men, and some society, Hke the Brother- 
 hood of St. Andrew in the Episcopal Church, can 
 do more toward bringing young men to the church 
 and Sunday-school than a barrel of sermons with- 
 out their aid. Again, the task of inviting strangers 
 to our churches through personal invitations left at 
 the hotels on every Saturday night, is one that many 
 of us while traveling have learned to appreciate. 
 Whether the invitation be accepted or not, it does 
 much to let those who stay over a Sabbath in our 
 cities know that the church desires to do what she 
 can toward palliating the miseries and the dreari- 
 ness of Sunday in a hotel. But on Saturday night 
 the pastor had better be quietly in his home, and a 
 band of laymen will do this work far better than 
 he. We have no space here to mention in further 
 detail the multitude of methods by which the lay- 
 men may help the minister and the minister may 
 help the laymen, and both together help, in holy 
 partnership, the church of Christ. We add only 
 that it is the wise minister who sets others to work, 
 while he keeps his eye over the whole, but does 
 not attempt to do everything himself. 
 
 In considering the minister of Christ as an evan- 
 gelist, and emphasizing the fact that he must be this 
 as well as preacher of the gospel and pastor of a 
 church, we would utter the caution that there is 
 danger of allowing the spiritual mission and work of 
 
THE MINISTER AND HVANGELIZATION 345 
 
 the church to be subordinated to its social and phil- 
 anthropic activities. But this danger need not pre- 
 vent the pastor from remembering that as a min- 
 ister of Jesus Christ his work is threefold, not two- 
 fold, and that he should do his part toward placing 
 the office of evangelist on its rightful level with 
 that of preacher and pastor. We are grateful for 
 the many noble and eminent ministers in our times 
 who have been all these. To lift men from physical 
 and moral filth, to clasp hands with them at jail 
 doors, to lift them from shame and point them to 
 Christ, to give them recreation and pleasure as well 
 as instruction and advice, this is to do the work of 
 a Christian minister. The work of the evangelist 
 will ever be found to make the minister a better 
 writer of sermons, and a better comforter within 
 the circle of his own church. Best of all, to do the 
 work of an evangelist, in the broad sense in which 
 we have here sought to interpret it, is to hear the 
 voice of the Master as he speaks now and here, 
 " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto . . . these my 
 brethren, ye have done it unto me." 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND 
 YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. The Sunday-school. 
 
 1. Have a clear conception of its true nature. 
 
 2. Keep in close contact with officers and teachers, for 
 
 purposes of (i) Devotion, (2) Business. (3) Pre- 
 paratory study. (4) Christian aggression. 
 
 3. Keep in close contact also with the scholars, (i) Be 
 
 present in the school every Sunday. Value of cate- 
 chising. (2) The occasional address. (3) The 
 young men's Bible class. (4) In times of special 
 religious interest. 
 
 II. The Young People of the Congregation. 
 
 Note. — An appropriate service for the dedication of 
 infants. 
 
 1. As to pastoral visiting. 
 
 2. As to the public service. 
 
 3. As to bringing into the church-fellowship. 
 
 4. As to subsequent training and life. 
 
XVI 
 
 THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 In this chapter we shall speak of the minister 
 and his young people. As these are so largely 
 found in every church identified with the Sunday- 
 school and the young people's society, these or- 
 ganizations will here demand much of our attention. 
 
 I. First, as to the Sunday-school. 
 
 I. A clear conception of its true nature is most 
 important. The Sunday-school, or better Bible- 
 school, is emphatically a place for teaching. As in 
 the divine worship of Sunday morning the sermon 
 is prominent, and as at the mid-week service prayer 
 is, or should be, most in evidence, so the explana- 
 tion and study of Scripture should occupy the first 
 place in a teaching service or Sunday-school. We 
 do not mean that such teaching should seek mainly 
 to impart information, for not information of the 
 mind, but formation of character, is the great task 
 of the Sunday-school teacher. The teacher's duty 
 is to arouse within the scholar the religious life, 
 to tell him how to come near to God, to make 
 him a citizen of the kingdom, and then so further 
 to teach and exercise him that he in his turn shall 
 win and teach others. This is the real province of 
 information. Without it the mere memorizing of 
 
 349 
 
facts is as nothing. These words of that great 
 preacher, F. W. Robertson, should be written large 
 for every Sunday-school teacher's guidance and 
 encouragement : " Not in the flushing of a pupil's 
 cheek or the glistening of an attentive eye, not in 
 the shining results of an examination, does your 
 real success lie. It lies in that invisible influence 
 on character which He alone can read who counted 
 the nameless seven thousand in Israel." ^ 
 
 With this clear conception of the true nature of 
 the Sunday-school's tasks should go also a recog- 
 nition of the Sunday-school's place in the church 
 organization. It is not distinct from the church, 
 but forms an integral part of the church. The min- 
 ister is responsible for its prosperous management, 
 and by virtue of his position is the superintendent 
 of the superintendent. If he is faithful to his of- 
 fice he will ever keep a watchful eye on the char- 
 acter of the teachers and of their teaching, and 
 while he should never be prominent in the election 
 of officers, he should see to it that the best men 
 available for the places are selected. 
 
 2. The minister, of course, can only hope to be 
 influential in the work of the Sunday-school as he 
 keeps in close contact with the officers and teachers. 
 
 ( I ) He should often meet with them for purposes 
 of devotion. A weekly or monthly prayer-meeting 
 for this purpose is most admirable. This meeting, 
 however, should be of the most informal character, 
 and ample time should be allowed for free con- 
 
 * Sermon on Elijah, 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 35 1 
 
 versation upon the religious condition of the classes. 
 Let the meeting be short, earnest, and to the point. 
 To insure this the minister had better preside him- 
 self. The most favorable time for such a meeting 
 will often be at the close of the Sunday-school ses- 
 sion, if the school meets in the afternoon; or just 
 before the morning service, if the usual hour for 
 the Sunday-school is at noon. 
 
 (2) While the meeting just referred to will be 
 chiefly devotional, distinct and regular meetings 
 should be held for the consideration of routine 
 work. Teachers' business meetings should be held 
 monthly, and while attended by the minister, they 
 need not necessarily be presided over by him. We 
 recommend that new teachers be chosen by vote 
 after due trial of capacity and character. The wise 
 minister knows right well that the cry for more 
 teachers will be heeded and satisfied only as he 
 seeks to raise the bars, and not as he lowers them. 
 Make it mean something to be a Sunday-school 
 teacher; elevate the office to a height to which not 
 every one can attain, and for which none is chosen 
 too easily, and you are on the high road to success 
 toward securing teachers who ha^'^e more than mere 
 willingness to commend them. 
 
 The officers of the school should be chosen at 
 an annual meeting, and such election should always 
 be subject to the confirmation of the church. While 
 full reports of the school attendance and amount of 
 the offering should be given at each session of the 
 school, these reports should not be made too long, 
 
352 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 and if possible should contain something more each 
 Sunday than mere figures. Statistics alone never 
 interested any one outside of the Government Bu- 
 reau of Vital Statistics. But a proper interpretation 
 of those figures may be made to mean much even 
 to the youngest scholar. We emphasize again that 
 which has been mentioned in another place/ that 
 collections at the sessions of the school should not 
 be all expended on the school itself, but be largely 
 appropriated to benevolence. Such funds should 
 never, under any circumstances, be used for picnics, 
 treats, or suppers, but should be given for the ex- 
 tension of the world-wide kingdom of Christ. These 
 gifts should be made to teach with no little force 
 the purpose for which the Sunday-school exists. 
 
 (3) The close contact which is necessary between 
 minister, officers, and teachers of the school may be 
 further enhanced by their meeting together in a 
 class for the preparatory study of the lesson. In 
 most of our churches the minister will be found the 
 most efficient teacher for such a preparation class. 
 The conduct of a preparation class is not such hard 
 work as the minister who has not tried it may im- 
 agine. In the study which he gives to fit himself 
 for this meeting he will find texts for sermons and 
 suggestions for his mid-week service which will 
 make all his other work correspondingly lighter. 
 Such a class is necessary for many reasons; by it 
 interest is quickened in the Bible, the teachers are 
 trained to clear views of truth and to the best 
 
 1 " The Ministry of the Sunday-school," pp. 161-2. 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 353 
 
 methods of teaching, and a high standard of ef- 
 ficiency is maintained, so that incapable teachers 
 who read stories or talk gossip may be either re- 
 formed or eliminated. If this class is properly re- 
 cruited it may include those who are willing to take 
 classes occasionally, and may thus be made to pro- 
 vide teachers for emergencies. Not the least of the 
 advantages of such a class will be found in the in- 
 fluence which it brings to bear on the congregation 
 of Sunday morning. It puts intelligent listeners 
 into the pews. 
 
 This class may be conducted in two ways. It may 
 either be colloquial in its character, the leader re- 
 ceiving questions and inviting remarks, or it may 
 be expository. In this case the leader gives an 
 exposition of the lesson for a half or three-quarters 
 of an hour. This Bible reading, as it may well be 
 called, is not an example of the way in which the les- 
 son should be taught by the teacher, but is rather 
 an opening up of the passage of Scripture by the 
 minister to his people. It does not supplant the 
 work which every teacher must do for himself, but 
 it only supplements that work. Therefore the at- 
 tendance of others than teachers is to be encouraged. 
 
 We advise that this class be held on an evening 
 when the whole time can be given to it. It is 
 neither fair to the regular church prayer-meeting 
 nor to this teachers' meeting that both be held on 
 the same evening. There is a wide difference of 
 opinion among teachers as to the best evening for 
 such a purpose. Some prefer that the class should 
 
 X 
 
354 FOR T^li^ WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 meet early in the week, in order that the teachers 
 may be started in their lesson study; others urge 
 that the close of the week be chosen, as then the 
 teachers may compare the result of their own study 
 with that of the minister. Every night has its dis- 
 advantages as well as its advantages; but we our- 
 selves prefer Friday or Saturday evenings. In his 
 lectures delivered to the students of the Yale Di- 
 vinity School,^ the greatest author in this country 
 who could be quoted in this connection, has this to 
 say on the weekly teachers' meeting : " Indeed, with- 
 out a weekly meeting of teachers as a preparation 
 class, a Sunday-school is hardly deserving of the 
 name. It certainly cannot do properly the work of 
 the Sunday-school in the Sunday-school sphere." 
 
 (4) As the minister leads the devotion of his of- 
 ficers and teachers, joins with them in their routine 
 work, and gathers them together for preparatory 
 study of the lesson, he will be able to direct them 
 into paths of Christian aggression. The Sunday- 
 school was first of all a means for reaching the neg- 
 lected and depraved in the immediate neighborhood 
 of its place of meeting. But times have greatly 
 changed since the foundations of the modern Sun- 
 day-school were laid by Robert Raikes in the slums 
 of Gloucester in 1780. Now the school has a mis- 
 sion far beyond the walls of the church in which it 
 is held, or even the limits of the neighborhood in 
 which it is placed. Especially should the minister 
 be on his guard against a tendency of the school 
 
 ^ " The Sunday-school," by Henry Clay Trumbull, d. d. 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 355 
 
 to confine itself to the children of the congregation. 
 See to it that a meeting be held either at the home 
 of the minister or superintendent, in September or 
 October of each year, for the purpose of talking 
 over schemes and nurturing ambitions for a wider 
 influence. At this meeting new plans and sugges- 
 tions should be broached, which have been well 
 thought out and considered beforehand. The pas- 
 tor may thus find in his school the best soil for de- 
 veloping that spirit of Christian aggressiveness 
 without which all work becomes uninteresting. The 
 constant manifestation of this spirit which seeks the 
 new, as well as the spirit which preserves the old, 
 will .bind the minister closely to all who have the 
 interests of the school upon their hearts. 
 
 3. The pastor must come into close contact with 
 the scholars of the school as well as with its teach- 
 ers and officers. 
 
 (i) The minister should be in the school every 
 Sunday. " Frequently visit your Sabbath-schools if 
 it is only to walk through them," ^ and often little 
 more than this is possible for the minister ex- 
 hausted by the morning service. He should always 
 remain through the opening exercises, and at least 
 occasionally through the entire session. 
 
 In the old days it was customary for the minister 
 to catechize his young people, and the question of 
 a catechism is one that merits serious consideration 
 in our day. While many denominations do not use 
 the catechism so much as formerly, it is still a 
 
 * Spurgeon. 
 
FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 mighty source of influence and power in the Pres- 
 byterian, Episcopal, and Roman CathoHc Churches. 
 We beheve that the disagreeable features associated 
 with this mode of instruction have been humorously 
 exaggerated until an actual injustice has been done. 
 Dr. John Todd paints for us a very different picture 
 from that which is traditional : 
 
 In those days there were no Sabbath-schools, and at 
 noon the children were drawn up in front of the deacons' 
 seat and "catechized," that is, repeated the Assemblies' 
 Catechism to good Deacon Pierce; and great was our joy 
 when we received the good man's smile of approbation. 
 But was not this a hardship? Not at all; we enjoyed it. 
 But was not that old catechism dry? We never thought 
 of it in that light. But did you understand it? Yes, just 
 as well as I now understand one of Euclid's definitions: 
 "A point is that which has position but not magnitude."^ 
 
 None of the catechisms which are now in ex- 
 istence for churches other than those already men- 
 tioned is quite satisfactory. For us there is still none 
 so good as the Shorter Catechism, which has 
 strengthened and clarified the brains of thousands of 
 Presbyterian boys and girls the world over. While 
 we may not agree with all its doctrines, yet, when in- 
 telligently taught, it is a most helpful aid in forming 
 well-balanced character. It has a way of instilling 
 a certain amount of iron into the moral constitu- 
 tion, which makes men resolute to do the right 
 in the fear of God. The great benefit of this 
 mode of instruction is thus described by a Welsh 
 
 * " The Story of My Life," pp. 40, 41. 
 
 « 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 357 
 
 correspondent : " At sermons and prayers men may- 
 sleep or wander, but when one is asked a question, 
 he must consider what he is." If the catechism is 
 not used, the minister should, at all events, en- 
 courage the memorizing of verses. We are thank- 
 ful to know that now, before children graduate from 
 the lower departments of our best Sunday-schools 
 they are required to learn by heart the books of the 
 Bible, the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, the 
 Beatitudes, the Twenty-third Psalm, and in many in- 
 stances the Apostles' Creed, which is not the pos- 
 session of any one church but of all Christendom. 
 We should add to such a list certain Scripture pas- 
 sages and verses which, once memorized, will never 
 in after life be entirely forgotten. These are " the 
 little Bibles," which Luther so earnestly com- 
 mended. A compilation of such texts is not hard to 
 secure, as they are published by a number of our 
 denominational societies.^ 
 
 We feel sure that we have been the losers by the 
 passing of the catechism. We look to our ministers 
 to bring back to the children the priceless possession 
 of the fathers, not necessarily by giving us the 
 identical catechism on which they were reared, but 
 at any rate by substituting that which shall make 
 men bearing the fathers' likeness. Of Doctor Dod- 
 dridge's catechizing his biographer writes : " Before 
 public worship the children were catechized. On this 
 and other occasions the catechism was made the 
 
 1 See " Treasure Texts," The Pilgrim Press, and " Hid in the 
 Heart," The American Baptist Publication Society. 
 
^ORK OF 
 
 basis of affectionate conversational teaching, parents 
 and other members of famiUes being present. 
 Thomas Fuller said, ' A good pastor catechizeth his 
 people in the elements of religion, except he hath 
 (a rare thing!) a flock without lambs, and all of 
 old sheep ; yet even Luther did not scorn to profess 
 himself discipulum catechismi, a scholar of the cate- 
 chism.' " ^ In the opening exercises of the school 
 a few minutes may well be always allotted to the 
 pastor for such " catechizing." 
 
 (2) We have dealt thus fully with the importance 
 of the minister's presence for at least part of the 
 Sunday-school session, and what he may do while 
 there, because of the splendid opportunity which it 
 gives him of coming into closer relations with the 
 scholars. But his efforts in this direction should by 
 no means end there. We shall speak in detail later 
 in this chapter on addresses suitable for children 
 and young people.^ In such an address given oc- 
 casionally at the close of the ordinary session of 
 the school the minister will find another of his 
 opportunities. 
 
 (3) When the minister feels able to undertake it, 
 and the necessity of the work demands it, he may 
 come closer still to a few of the scholars by teach- 
 ing a young men's Bible class. We advise that this 
 class be conducted, at least after the opening exer- 
 cises, in a room separate from the school. Young 
 men like to be by themselves at times, and they 
 
 ^ Stanford's " Life of Doddridge," pp. 129-130. 
 2 See pp. 366-368. 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 359 
 
 should be encouraged to handle freely the questions 
 with which their minds are exercised. The teacher 
 for such a class is difficult to find, and the minister 
 often finds himself obliged to do the work himself. 
 Such a class may be *' the missing link " between 
 church and school which Spurgeon sought. Re- 
 ferring to scholars in Sunday-schools who have 
 come to that age when opportunity is brightest and 
 decision means the most, he once said: "A link 
 must be found between these and the public means 
 of grace or else Sunday-school work will be pour- 
 ing water into a leaky bucket." In many cases in 
 such a Bible class the minister will find his last 
 chance to hold fast those who are in danger of slip- 
 ping away not only from the church, but from the 
 deep moorings of religion itself. It is now or never ! 
 Such a class, whatever it costs in the way of prep- 
 aration and nervous force, is worth it all. The 
 boys from fifteen to twenty will, if brought into 
 the church, be its life-blood in ten years to come. 
 The minister will often find that his best work 
 for the church was done in the little classroom rather 
 than in the great public assembly. 
 
 (4) The minister should be ever heedful to meet 
 with the scholars and urge them to decision in times 
 of special religious interest. Nothing knits people 
 together so strongly as the bond of religion, and 
 every young person regards with peculiar affection 
 the pastor whose hand first touched him with the 
 blessings of Christ. By this tie the minister will 
 come closest of all to the scholars of his school, and 
 
36o 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 for this purpose the ordinary session of the school 
 is best adapted. But an after-meeting may some- 
 times be found preferable. Revivals frequently 
 commence in the Sunday-school, and we urge the 
 minister to give greater attention to the young 
 than to the old, to the age when character is 
 forming rather than to the age when character has 
 become congealed. It is popularly supposed that 
 the conversion of children was not much believed 
 in by our forefathers, but even among them there 
 were stout champions for this cause. We are 
 told that Jonathan Edwards, whose theology 
 after all could not have been so grim, ** in 
 theory and in practice, extended the revival 
 to the case of children. . . He thought that 
 God really descended from heaven to be amongst 
 them. Indeed, God in this work has shown a re- 
 markable regard to little children. Let men take 
 care that they do not despise the religion of little 
 children, as did the scribes and high priests." ^ 
 
 Before we turn from the Sunday-school to con- 
 sider the young people in other departments of the 
 church's life, we would strongly urge that the min- 
 ister use every endeavor to make the tone of the 
 school high, earnest, and spiritual. The Sunday- 
 school should be jealously guarded as a distinctly 
 religious institution. Shows and exhibitions should 
 be discountenanced in every possible way. They 
 are a chief cause of the deterioration of the spiritual 
 life in many of our schools. Not a few instances 
 
 * Allen's "Jonathan Edwards," p. 191. 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 361 
 
 are on record where they have been the open door 
 through which those engaged in them have entered 
 stage Hfe. The impressionable age of childhood 
 should be surrounded by all that is wholesome and 
 joyous, but it needs to be well defended from 
 everything whose tendency is not the best. 
 
 The school library also needs to be looked after 
 carefully. Many books that are supposed to in- 
 culcate piety, but which are really parodies on true 
 religion, should be weeded out. Those volumes 
 which describe the incredibly good little boy, or 
 heaven as a place of improbable harps and impos- 
 sible plans, occupy valuable shelf-room better 
 filled by volumes which teach real Christian 
 manhood and womanhood. Such books are always 
 in demand, and can be had of almost every reputable 
 publisher; books with literary excellence, which il- 
 lustrate wholesome moral standards without always 
 announcing the moral itself, and books withal, of 
 strong human interest which present the likenesses 
 of men and women who actually might have lived. 
 The committee to select such books should be com- 
 posed of those who not only have ability to make 
 the selection, but who will give the time which is 
 demanded if the work is to be carefully and properly 
 done. Volumes for the Sunday-school library 
 should be bought one by one, and not in lots such 
 as are sometimes advertised for this purpose. The 
 complaint of a correspondent in one of our news- 
 papers, that " many books are bought as we buy 
 turnips, and are worth as much, about two cents 
 
362 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 per pound," is well founded. The greatest care 
 should be taken in the selection of books which are 
 sure to have a deep influence upon the scholars 
 of our school. 
 
 No more important department of the church 
 exists than the Sunday-school. It is worthy of all 
 the minister can do for it, and every effort put 
 forth for the winning of child-life to Christ brings 
 results far greater in every way than those efforts 
 for grown men and women which often claim so 
 great a part of the minister's time. While the min- 
 ister must in no wise be neglectful of those of older 
 years, yet we again advise that he give his first 
 attention to the children rather than to their parents. 
 " He who instructs a child is as if he had created 
 it," is only one of many maxims by which the Jew 
 is reminded in the Talmud of the importance of the 
 instruction of the young. What was true for a Jew 
 is true for a Christian, only more so, for though 
 human nature remains the same, the revelation of 
 God to us has been vastly enriched. Every minister, 
 every teacher, every officer of the school, has the 
 wondrous privilege of imprinting on the soft clay 
 of childhood the very image of the Christ. 
 
 II. But the Sunday-school by no means exhausts 
 the possibilities of the minister's relation to his 
 young people. We therefore turn now to those 
 spheres of influence which lie outside of the school. 
 
 The ministers of churches which do not practise 
 infant baptism have a special need to cultivate close 
 relations with the children and young people of 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 363 
 
 their congregations. We can see no good reason 
 why in all such churches a dedication service of 
 infants may not be held. We commend most 
 heartily either a private service in the home, or a 
 public service in the church, in which the little ones 
 are brought in the arms of their parents and dedi- 
 cated with fitting prayer and simple and appropriate 
 words of consecration. Such a service in these days 
 is in no particular danger of being misunderstood, 
 and its value is everywhere acknowledged by those 
 who are accustomed to hold it. There lingers still in 
 one of our Baptist churches a tender memory of 
 its greatest pastor,^ whose custom it was as he came 
 into homes where infants were, to go to the cradle 
 and to consecrate the sleeping child to Almighty 
 God. That tender memory which remains after 
 so many years is but an evidence of the tremendous 
 power which may be wielded by the pastor through 
 the unconscious lives of infants. It is a power that 
 no minister can afford to ignore, and in some way 
 he should see to it that even the children in the 
 arms of their mothers are not kept away from 
 the welcoming Christ. We read in the regular 
 weekly announcement of what is perhaps the most 
 active Baptist church in England, " The next bap- 
 tism will take place on Wednesday evening, Janu- 
 ary , and the next dedication service of chil- 
 dren to God our Father will be held on Sunday 
 
 morning, January ." ^ Such announcements are 
 
 becoming increasingly frequent in the Baptist 
 
 1 Robert Turnbull, d. d. 2 pr. John Clifford, the pastor. 
 
364 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 churches of our own country, and we believe it to be 
 a sign of the greatest promise.^ However much 
 we disagree with the Roman CathoHc Church, we 
 are in hearty accord with that priest who said, 
 " Give me a child until he is seven years old, and 
 you can do what you like with him afterwards." 
 It is too frequently the case among us that any one 
 is supposed to be competent to take charge of the 
 work for the youngest children. But those wise 
 Roman Catholics act on a very different principle, 
 for among them it is regarded as the highest honor 
 to teach the little ones, the inferior and less mature 
 teachers being relegated to the instruction of the 
 older classes. '* Children are the to-morrow of 
 society." ^ 
 
 I. With special reference to children we now 
 consider the minister in his pastoral visiting. Learn 
 the names of the children in the homes to which 
 you go. Nothing draws a child more quickly to you 
 — and the parents also — than your ability to call the 
 little ones by their own names. The name recog- 
 nizes a distinct individuality of which the smallest 
 child is unconsciously proud, and it gratifies the 
 parents to think of the interest in their children to 
 which this ability bears evidence. Further, be care- 
 ful to study the characters and tastes of the 
 
 * We are well aware of the prejudice that, because of its supposed 
 tendencies, exists against this service in the minds of some of our 
 people. At the same time it is felt that the importance of the theme 
 and the seeming demand for it justifies and even calls for the 
 discussion. — [Ed. ] 
 
 « Whately, " Selections," p. 36. 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 365 
 
 children. It is more important that you know them 
 than that you know their names! In the history 
 of a young person there are three distinct stages 
 which the minister should bear in mind — the little 
 child, in whom imagination is prominent; the older 
 child, in whom memory asserts its power ; the 
 " young person," in whom reflection and reasoning 
 begin to make themselves felt. In your pastoral 
 work appeal to and enlist that faculty which is just 
 then prominent, and have ready the story, the remi- 
 niscence, or the thought, for the three stages of 
 early childhood, older childhood, and dawning 
 manhood. 
 
 2. What can be done for our children in the 
 public service? Never forget to pray for the home 
 and the family in the prayer of Sunday morning. 
 Accustom the children to come to this service at a 
 very early age, and let both parents and children 
 know that you welcome their presence and miss 
 them if they are absent. Never mind if occasionally 
 you are disturbed in the service and sermon. Re- 
 member there are here two points of view, as was 
 discovered by a minister who, seeing a woman leav- 
 ing the church with a crying child, exclaimed: 
 " Your baby doesn't disturb me, madam ! " " That 
 isn't it, sir," replied the mother ; " you disturb the 
 baby." Be particular to say something in each 
 service which will fasten itself on the mind of the 
 young. Always have something in your sermon 
 for the children. They will discover it even if you 
 make no special announcement of the fact. To do 
 
366 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 this the minister must keep his mind young and 
 vigorous. Young people are only interested as 
 they are spoken to by one of themselves, and even 
 in many of our older ministers gray hairs by no 
 means indicate old hearts. 
 
 Some of our ministers now give a five to ten- 
 minute sermon to the children before the ordinary 
 Sunday morning sermon. To do this regularly each 
 week requires a peculiar aptness for such work, and 
 an amount of gathered material which fnay be be- 
 yond the capacity of many of us. But we advise that 
 every young minister begin at once to collect ma- 
 terial, and to note suggestions, which should bear 
 fruit within a few years after entering the ministry 
 in regular Sunday morning talks with the boys and 
 girls of his congregation. 
 
 An occasional service for children should be held 
 by every minister, and the more frequent the oc- 
 casion the better. We advise that the service at 
 least once in three months be specially directed to 
 them. Never fear that your sermon at such times 
 will not interest the older members of the congre- 
 gation. It is a common experience for the minister 
 to learn that his sermons to children did more good 
 to their elders than the sermons directly addressed 
 to those elders on other occasions. In this connec- 
 tion the minister will do well to study models of suc- 
 cessful addresses to the young. He should learn 
 to use language which is clear and picturesque, so 
 that every word can be easily grasped, and many of 
 the words tell a story or suggest a picture. By all 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 367 
 
 means let the minister employ illustrations; but let 
 him avoid impossible anecdotes, for no one is 
 quicker than a child to note the mawkish and un- 
 real. As he speaks the minister should be cheer- 
 ful and bright, but never frivolous, and should be 
 especially careful to guard himself against the griev- 
 ous error of " talking down " to children. The fol- 
 lowing outline of one of the so-called " spiritual- 
 izers," of a time now happily gone, was not designed 
 especially for the young, but we have sometimes 
 seen sermons to children which come dangerously 
 near this awful model. The text of this worthy 
 man was " Salvation is of the Lord." To him every 
 letter of the word salvation had its own mystical 
 meaning, and he thus proceeded to evolve its mys- 
 teries: '* S, saving salvation; A, almighty salvation; 
 L, lasting salvation ; V, vast salvation ; A, this A, my 
 brethren, signifies the same as the other A; T, 
 eternal salvation [the good man begins to twist a 
 bit] ; I, incomprehensible salvation ; ON — we will 
 take both these letters together — honorable salva- 
 tion." ^ (The worthy brother positively writhes at 
 the last, and we writhe with him.) 
 
 Model addresses to children were those given by 
 Dean Stanley, who, childless himself, still retained 
 in later life the best qualities of childhood. He 
 spoke to them of the " Children's Psalms," or the 
 " Children's Creed," or about the " Legend of St. 
 Christopher," or concerning some deed of heroism 
 which he had read in the pages of his newspaper. 
 
 * William E. Hatcher's " Life of J. B. Jeter, d. d.," p. 28. 
 
368 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 In the sermons which made Innocents' Day an event 
 long looked forward to by the worshipers in West- 
 minster Abbey, you could hear louder than the 
 words which were spoken, the love for the children 
 which beat so strongly in the heart of " the chil- 
 dren's preacher." " The darkening December 
 afternoon, the chandeliers simply wreathed with 
 masses of ivy, the dim religious light of the choir, 
 the beautiful shining faces of hundreds of little 
 children, boys and girls from the schoolboy home 
 for his holiday to the child in the nursery, the 
 simple and appropriate music, the brevity of the 
 service and sermon, the gentle voice and loving 
 manner and homely words of the preacher, made 
 up a scene never to be forgotten, never to be re- 
 produced." ^ But while such a scene may not be 
 reproduced with all the literalness of a photograph 
 in another's experience, it may be repeated by every 
 minister, the picture tinted with all the varying 
 colors of his own distinct personality and the vary- 
 ing circumstances under which his message to 
 children is delivered.' 
 
 * Canon Farrar on Dean Stanley, " Contemporary Review," 1882. 
 
 * The following volumes, which contain good models of addresses 
 to children, will be found useful: "Outlines of Sermons to Chil- 
 dren," Clerical Library; " Sermons to Children," by Mark Guy 
 Pearse; " Sermons to Children," by Rev. Samuel Cox; " Sermons to 
 Children," by Dean Stanley; " Familiar Talks to Boys," by John 
 Hall; "The Child Jesus and Other Talks to the Children," by 
 Alexander McLeod; " Sunday Morning Talks," by Frederick Hall 
 Roberts (Glasgow) ; " Children's Meetings and How to Conduct 
 them," by Rider and Carmen; "Christian Ministry to the Young," 
 by L. G. Green; " In Time With the Stars," by Thomas K. Beecher; 
 " The Golden Windows," by Laura E. Richards; " How to Tell 
 Stories to Children," by Sara Cone Bryant. 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 369 
 
 3. The minister who has borne the children in 
 mind in his pastoral visiting as well as in his public 
 servies, will before very long be called on to con- 
 sider the advisability of bringing them into church 
 fellowship. We most thoroughly believe that chil- 
 dren should enter early the church of Christ. In 
 fact, we are almost prepared to say that no child 
 in a Christian congregation should reach the age 
 of twelve years without being found enrolled as a 
 member of the church. By far the greater number 
 of the best workers in all our churches came into the 
 fellowship when very young. " At a convention of 
 ministers at Syracuse it was ascertained that a ma- 
 jority of them had been converted under fifteen 
 years of age. Robert Hall became a Christian at 
 twelve, Matthew Henry at eleven, Doctor Watts at 
 nine, and President Edwards at seven. Charles H. 
 Spurgeon stated that in one year he had baptized 
 forty children, and that they ' held out ' better than 
 an average equal number of adults." ^ The ex- 
 perience of the child should never be the experience 
 of the man, and the very simplicity and ease with 
 which the little ones turn to Jesus is a sign, not 
 of any superficiality, but of the naturalness and 
 whole-heartedness of the act. It is as natural for the 
 average child to turn in love and obedience toward 
 the uplifted Christ as for the plants in our window- 
 boxes to turn to the light of the sun. They will 
 come of their own accord. The emphatic word 
 spoken by Jesus when he reproved the disciples 
 
 ^ Baldwin, " Forty-one Years' Pastorate," p. 54. 
 
 y 
 
370 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 for not admitting the children to his presence is 
 the word '' suffer "—just "suffer" the children; 
 do not place obstacles in their way. 
 
 Inquirers' meetings at suitable hours for children, 
 such as Saturday afternoons and holiday times, will 
 be found of the greatest help. In such a meeting 
 the wise pastor will discern the children who are 
 ready to come at once, and those who had better be 
 advised to wait a little before taking the further 
 step into the church through baptism. When chil- 
 dren are brought before the church as candidates 
 the minister should be especially careful to disarm 
 all fear on their part and abandon all formality. 
 Let him make it plain that those listening to their 
 testimony are in fullest sympathy with the little 
 ones, and rejoice at nothing so much as seeing them 
 thus confessing the Lord and Master whom they 
 love. The pastor can do much by his manner of 
 dealing with the children to create an atmosphere 
 in which their childish lips shall confess Christ with- 
 out fear, and in which their childish voices shall 
 speak loud indeed to the hearts and consciences of 
 those who are present. 
 
 4. When the little child has come into the church, 
 the minister's effort will then be in the direction 
 of religious education. This subsequent training 
 in the religious life will be greatly aided by the 
 young people's society of the church. Whatever 
 the particular name this society bears, or what- 
 ever its peculiar form of organization, it should be 
 kept under the control of the minister himself. In 
 
' THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 37I 
 
 no formal way need this be done, but he should 
 see to it that his hand holds the rudder ropes while 
 others ply the oars. In the young people's so- 
 ciety, as well as in the Sunday-school, great wisdom 
 is needed lest that be taught which must later be 
 unlearned. In a certain hotel of our acquaintance 
 there is an elevator which has always to be pulled 
 down to the first floor before it can be raised higher. 
 If you are upon the fourth story and the elevator 
 happens to be upon the fifth, it must descend to 
 the first before it can stop at the fourth. So as a re- 
 sult of the immature teaching of his childhood, many 
 a man, through painful experiences, is forced to 
 descend to the very first story of Christian thought 
 before he can begin again to ascend toward the top. 
 In religious things the minister must see to it that 
 nothing is taught in the young people's society or in 
 the school that the grown man will not confirm. 
 
 From the young people's meetings older persons 
 should not be excluded, and while the young should 
 be encouraged to speak and pray, occasional words 
 from those who are older should be gladly wel- 
 comed. But beware of a young people's meeting 
 in which the older persons do most of the speak- 
 ing and praying. 
 
 Occasionally meet the young people in your home 
 for preparatory instruction in such subjects as are 
 referred to in their meetings, and by such study 
 seek to train boys and girls who are intelligent in 
 their faith, and who have the faculty of making 
 clear that faith in public testimony. 
 
372 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 We caution the minister that the various young 
 people's societies of his church need very careful 
 handHng. They must not degenerate into clubs or 
 societies for amusement merely. We protest against 
 the notion that young people need to be amused in 
 order to be retained in the church. Such an idea 
 dishonors them. They need rather to be kept use- 
 ful. In solid Christian service young people are 
 welded to the church, and not by literary, dramatic, 
 and culinary attractions. These things " attract 
 no one to Christ, and they permanently attach no 
 one to the church, and therefore we want to see 
 them displaced." ^ 
 
 We do not mean to be understood as discourag- 
 ing social evenings for our young people. Such 
 times are necessary, and under the direction of the 
 minister, may be both interesting and profitable. 
 The minister should always be a member of the 
 social committee of his young people's associa- 
 tion. On social occasions by all means let there 
 be music, reading, speaking, and games, but al- 
 ways close in a serious and devout key. This is 
 not a difficult matter to accomplish, for there is 
 nothing more natural, nothing which the young 
 people themselves regard as more eminently fitting, 
 than that the minister after an evening's enjoyment 
 should say, " Now, having had such a good time, 
 I am sure we all desire before we go to thank God 
 for the happiness that has been ours." We have 
 seen this done again and again, and have yet to 
 
 *A. J. Gordon, d. d, 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND YOUNG PEOPLE 373 
 
 record a single instance in which the young people 
 have ever dissented or failed to welcome such a 
 course on the part of their minister. 
 
 All young people's organizations have a tendency 
 to grow stale and tame with time. They must be 
 altered and advanced constantly. One year have 
 a literary circle, a course of lectures the next, a 
 succession of social evenings the third, a Bible-study 
 class the fourth. No line of work should ever be 
 repeated so often that it becomes unprofitable. 
 Press all the church talent into this service, and 
 with the best at your command minister to the 
 young people of your church through their vari- 
 ous organizations. Above all, give the young people 
 something to do, for the first great law of young 
 life is occupation. Thus among his young people 
 the minister will keep young, and in this depart- 
 ment of his work he will reap his richest harvest 
 and receive his most lasting and precious memories. 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 
 
 ADVANTAGES 
 
 AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Introduction. Pastoral visiting not an end in itself. 
 
 I. The Advantages of Pastoral Intercourse. 
 
 1. A spiritual power, (i) It influences the members of 
 
 the church. (2) It profits the minister himself. 
 Note, — The error which holds that some men are pastors 
 and some men are preachers. 
 
 2. A social power. — Two Counsels, (i) Be trained to a 
 
 quick recognition of faces, etc. (2) Interest yourself 
 in the pursuits and tastes of your people. 
 
 3. A prudential power. To retain our hearers by every 
 
 legitimate method a laudable ambition. 
 
 II. The Characteristics of Pastoral Intercourse. 
 
 1. Natural, easy, and genial. 
 
 2. Dignified. 
 
 3. Religious, (i) More than "the common round, the 
 
 trivial task." (2) Prayer and the reading of Scrip- 
 ture. (3) Distinction between a pastoral call and a 
 call from the pastor. 
 
 4. Independent, (i) Be unhampered by traditions of the 
 
 past. (2) Be free from any fear of your people. 
 
XVII 
 
 PASTORAL intercourse: ADVANTAGES AND 
 CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Pastoral visiting is neither a thing entirely by 
 itself nor an end in itself. It is only one among 
 many ways of gaining pastoral intercourse, and 
 pastoral intercourse is only one among many ways 
 of exercising pastoral influence. Visiting is often 
 distasteful and wearisome work. Often the noble- 
 ness of the result which is sought will glorify for 
 him the means by which it is attained. The min- 
 ister needs to be constantly asking himself, " Am I 
 succeeding in my efforts to have close pastoral inter- 
 course with my congregation, and to exercise influ- 
 ence over them ? " In partial answer to such ques- 
 tions we desire in the next two chapters to set forth 
 some of the advantages of pastoral intercourse, to 
 note some of its characteristics, and to show how 
 best it may be promoted. 
 
 I. The Advantages of Pastoral Intercourse are 
 spelled in one word, and that word is Influence. 
 
 I. Pastoral intercourse is a spiritual power. 
 
 (i) It influences the members of the church. 
 Pastoral intercourse is a practical " manifestation of 
 the truth," through which at close quarters the 
 minister commends himself " to every man's con- 
 
 377 
 
378 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 science in the sight of God." ^ Without it our min- 
 istry must be one-sided, and our influence never 
 attain its full strength and power. The special 
 message sent to Archippus by the Apostle Paul 
 may well be made to apply to the subject we arc 
 now considering : " Take heed to the ministry which 
 thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it." ^ 
 The commission to Peter that he should feed the 
 sheep and lambs, reappears in his words to the 
 elders of the infant church, " Feed the flock of 
 God which is among you, taking the oversight 
 thereof." ^ Verily this spiritual power in our hands 
 is one not to be regarded lightly, as deepening 
 pastoral experience reads added meaning into the 
 injunctions of Scripture.* The Christian pastor as 
 overseer appointed by the Holy Ghost will take 
 heed to feed the blood-purchased church of God. 
 
 We emphasize the value of pastoral intercourse 
 because it is not wholesome that a church be trained 
 to listen to preaching as though that were the prin- 
 cipal thing. A church which is mainly a preaching 
 station becomes indolent, critical, and niggardly, 
 thinking chiefly of its rights and too little of its 
 obligations. 
 
 Pastoral intercourse in certain denominations, 
 notably the Episcopal, is probably a greater power 
 than in churches of congregational and presby- 
 terian polity. The reason for this may be because 
 Episcopalians make less of the sermon and more 
 
 *2 Cor. 4 : 2. 2 Col. 4 : 17. 
 
 3 I Peter 5:2. * Acts 20 : 28. 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 379 
 
 of the pastoral office. There is no need that we 
 lower the standard of the preacher, but there is 
 need that we raise the standard of the pastor ; and 
 of the two we believe that greater spiritual power 
 will be exercised over the members of his church 
 by the pastor than by the preacher. 
 
 (2) Pastoral intercourse has great compensations 
 for the minister himself. " The experiences which 
 he meets from house to house will fill him to run- 
 ning over with material for counsel and instruc- 
 tion from the Scriptures. Every text will have a 
 new force and give him a new inspiration." ^ The 
 pitiable depression into which a preacher falls at 
 times when he fancies that all his labor is in vain, 
 will be largely counteracted if he learns to keep his 
 heart tender and his mind alert by the throb of 
 other men's sorrows. There is a real and tranquil 
 joy that comes to one who is welcome guest at the 
 social board, receiver of sacred confidences, and 
 sharer in the ambitions of his people. That is a 
 fine saying of Albert Bengel, " The best fruit this 
 earth brings forth to God is holy affections," and 
 as the Christian pastor ministers by bench or bed- 
 side to his people, in himself as well as in them 
 this fruit will be borne. Sermon preparation becomes 
 easier as pastoral visiting becomes more frequent. 
 " I long to visit my congregation," said Andrew 
 Fuller, " that I may know more of their spiritual 
 concern and be able to preach to their cases." A 
 sage remark was often quoted by Doctor Wayland 
 
 1 Crosby, " The Christian Preacher," p. 48. 
 
380 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 in his later life: "Tell the people just what they 
 tell you and you will find that nothing will interest 
 them so much." Themes of interest come to us not 
 only in the inspirations of rare moments in the 
 study, but more often as we listen to the talk of 
 our people in their homes. 
 
 We pause here to correct the error which holds 
 that some men are pastors and some men are preach- 
 ers. The secret of a preacher's power lies largely 
 in his ability so to individualize his hearers that he 
 is able to address each one separately. The only 
 way that he can do this is by actually knowing each 
 hearer separately. When F. D. Maurice was placed 
 in " St. Peter's Vere Street," which is " a chapel 
 of ease " in the parish of St. Marylebone, he found 
 himself freed from parish work. To many men 
 burdened as was Maurice, this freedom would have 
 seemed an advantage to be rejoiced in, but to him it 
 was a constant grief. He used to say that a preacher 
 who was not brought into contact with the suf- 
 ferings and sorrows of his people missed one great 
 means of learning how to speak to them with ef- 
 fect. It is only as these two parts of the Chris- 
 tian ministry combine and co-operate with one 
 another that the richest harvests are reaped by the 
 minister. 
 
 We must remember, however, that while the 
 preacher needs to be a pastor in order to preach, it 
 is no less true that the pastor needs to be a preacher. 
 The secret of a pastor's power lies largely in his abil- 
 ity to maintain his position as a good preacher of the 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 38 1 
 
 gospel. This gives him the respect of the people 
 and endues him with a certain dignity in popular 
 esteem which he cannot long afford to be without. 
 " The preacher needs to be pastor that he may 
 preach to real men. The pastor must be preacher 
 that he may keep the dignity of his work alive." ^ 
 It is true that a minister very rarely possesses in 
 equal proportions both preaching power and pas- 
 toral skill, but the preeminence of one of these 
 qualities in no wise atones for the noticeable ab- 
 sence of the other. Thomas Binney, finding him- 
 self criticised for lack of pastoral visitation, once 
 devoted an entire week to calling, and appeared 
 before his congregation on Sunday morning with- 
 out a sermon. This effectually silenced their com- 
 plaints in the future.^ But not all of us are per- 
 mitted to apply such radical treatment, and it is 
 well that we cannot, for in the offices of preacher 
 and pastor the one is essential to the other. Neither 
 can reach its highest point of efficiency without 
 the aid of the other. The true minister is both 
 pastor and preacher. Old President McCosh, 
 thirty-five years after he gave up pastoral work, 
 said : " A minister will not be able to reach the 
 hearts of his people unless he visits among them. 
 When I began to preach, I had about twenty care- 
 fully prepared sermons; but some fifteen of them 
 I would not preach. They were not fitted to move 
 men and women, and I burned them. I never 
 
 1 Phillips Brooks, " Lectures on Preaching," p. tj. 
 8 " Life of R. W. Dale," by A. W. W. Dale, p. 744- 
 
382 FOR THE WORK OF TPIE MINISTRY 
 
 learned to preach until I visited among my people. 
 . . . The working man spoke of his difficulties in 
 making the ends meet, and the dying man com- 
 mitted his children to me, and the grandmother 
 thanked me for my kindness in teaching her grand- 
 son in my Bible class. No part of a minister's life 
 is so rich in memories as these pastoral visitations." 
 
 2. Pastoral intercourse is a social as well as a 
 spiritual power. It is this because the individual 
 church is a social body, a family over which the 
 minister is placed as spiritual father. Therefore 
 " be thou the pastor always, less than the pastor 
 never." ^ 
 
 Two extremely practical counsels are here in 
 place : 
 
 (i) Train yourself to a quick recollection of 
 faces, to a ready remembrance of names, and to 
 associate certain places, incidents, and characteristics 
 with certain persons. It is by no means easy, even 
 for a minister with a good memory for faces, to 
 recognize on the Monday those whom he has seen 
 the day before. Clothes do not make the man, 
 but they certainly disguise him. Often too, it will 
 seem to the perplexed pastor that a woman has 
 as many heads as she has bonnets. Some ministers 
 have a special faculty for names, and without effort 
 are able to spell the name aright and to remember 
 correctly the initials. This is a great advantage. 
 However modest and good natured men with 
 awkward names may be, they are nevertheless very 
 
 * Edward Irving. 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 383 
 
 sure to be annoyed if their names are misspelled 
 or mispronounced, and if a name is forgotten en- 
 tirely, many think an insult has been received for 
 which no attention in the future has power com- 
 pletely to atone. The fact is almost every man, 
 whether he confess it or not, is proud of his name. 
 Even if that name happens to be Smith, he dislikes 
 exceedingly to be called Brown. There is of course 
 excuse for a minister if at times he forget a name, 
 but he must remember persons and be able to recall 
 things concerning them. You may be forgiven a few 
 times if you forget the address on the envelope, but 
 to forget the contents within will be considered un- 
 pardonable. In some forms of pastoral blunders 
 once is once too often. If the minister has not this 
 faculty, let him cultivate it assiduously. More de- 
 pends upon it than appears at first glance. It may 
 seem a mere detail when written on the pages of 
 a pastoral theology, but he will find it written in 
 very large letters indeed when he begins to turn 
 the pages of human nature. 
 
 (2) Interest yourself also in the pursuits and 
 tastes of your people. Generally the most inter- 
 esting thing in the world to your parishioner is 
 the thing which he does for a livelihood. Get, 
 therefore, his point of view and share with him, so 
 far as possible, his interest. When Bishop Whipple 
 took up mission work near the railway yards in 
 Chicago he inquired of the chief engineer how he 
 could best reach railway operatives. He was in- 
 structed to read " Lardners' Railway Economy " 
 
384 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 until he could ask a question of an engineer with- 
 out being thought a fool. Priming himself on the 
 subject, the bishop one day joined a group of 
 men who were cleaning an engine, and hazarded 
 the question, " Which do you like the better, 
 inside or outside connections ? " All the mys- 
 teries of steam heaters and exhausts and connec- 
 tions may not have been for all time settled in the 
 torrent of discussion which followed the question, 
 but it brought a crowd of the men to church the 
 following Sunday. 
 
 Certain members of your congregation may 
 be especially concerned in the pursuit of sci- 
 ence or art, while others may be versed in 
 some branch of literature. You will win such 
 people if you can teach them anything of such mat- 
 ters, and you will win them still easier if you sit at 
 their feet as a learner. The mother is most inter- 
 ested in her home and children, in the boy at col- 
 lege, the girl at school, and the child in the home. 
 Be interested in them with her, and as your pas- 
 torate lengthens you will see no sight better worth 
 your interest than the various threads woven into 
 the pattern by which grown men and women are 
 distinguished from one another. In a word, '' Take 
 a personal interest in everybody. To each human 
 being on this globe, nobody is quite as important 
 as himself. This is not vanity or egotism or self- 
 conceit; it is instinct. The poor man who blacks 
 my boots or saws my wood is a more important 
 person to himself than Bismarck or Gladstone." 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 385 
 
 Pastoral intercourse then is a social power which 
 no wise pastor will neglect. 
 
 3. But pastoral intercourse is a prudential power 
 as well. We would clear this phrase at once of 
 any ignoble meaning it may suggest. It is not 
 mercenary or mean to desire to retain your hearers 
 by every legitimate method. Professional men look 
 after their clients and patients, and the merchant 
 does all in his power to retain his customers ; and 
 we recognize that this is proper and right. Pru- 
 dence has its proper place in ministerial work. 
 A congregation must be had and held, and this can 
 best be accomplished through pastoral intercourse, 
 for '' a house-going parson makes church-going 
 people." ^ A prominent minister of whom we know 
 had long been used to insist that his one business 
 was in the pulpit. But several years ago he re- 
 solved to make the experiment of visiting his people, 
 and publicly announced on what streets he would 
 call during the week. Within six months he had 
 made nearly a thousand calls with so great ad- 
 vantage to both himself and his people that he has 
 ever since continued the practice. In his rounds 
 of visits he discovered that the people had an 
 affection for him greater than he had known. From 
 the new knowledge gained of their feelings, tempta- 
 tions, and needs came to him a new power in 
 preaching, and a new sense of the greatness of his 
 work. From it all there sprang on his part an 
 :!!icreased love for his people. The result has been 
 
 ^ Matthew Henry. 
 2 
 
386 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 that large additions have been made to that church, 
 and his work is prospering as it never prospered 
 when his labors were confined to the work of the 
 pulpit. The words which Charles II. uttered con- 
 cerning his chaplain were by no means compli- 
 mentary, but they furnish an excellent illustration 
 of the prudential power of pastoral intercourse: 
 " I had a very honest chaplain," said the king, " to 
 whom I gave a living in Suffolk, but he is a very 
 great blockhead, and yet he has brought all his 
 parish to church. I cannot imagine what he could 
 say to them, for he is a very silly fellow; but he 
 has ^been about from house to house, and I suppose 
 his nonsense has suited their nonsense, and in re- 
 ward of his diligence I have given him a bishoprick 
 in Ireland." ^ 
 
 Pastoral intercourse, then, is a power second only 
 to that of the pulpit itself — a prudential power by 
 which the pastor gains and retains the affection of 
 his people ; a social power through which he shares 
 with them the mutual woes and joys of life; a 
 spiritual power which is the lever by which he lifts 
 them nearer to God and heaven. 
 
 II. Some of the Characteristics of Pastoral Inter- 
 course. 
 
 I. It should first of all be natural, easy, and 
 genial. Paul bade Timothy charge them that are 
 rich in this world that they be " willing to com- 
 municate," which may be more closely rendered 
 by the word " sociable." While riches may not be 
 
 * " R. Robinson's Works," Vol. I., p. 187. 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 387 
 
 vouchsafed to the average minister, sociableness 
 should characterize all his actions with regard to 
 his people. The pastor is not a priest, and all 
 assumption of such authority is to be avoided. 
 
 In order to be sociable the minister should culti- 
 vate conversation. There are few of us so great 
 that we can follow the example of Chalmers, who 
 is described by one of his friends as visiting the 
 cottages of the poor of his parish, entering with 
 smiling countenance, and then sitting down and re- 
 maining in silence. This was all that he could do, 
 for, like the Duke of Wellington, the great Scotch 
 preacher had no small talk. There he sat smiling 
 and saying nothing, for the time was not right to 
 utter the great ideas with which his mind was al- 
 ways charged, and he himself had nothing else 
 which he could utter. So after some time he would 
 go away, pleased to have been with his people, and 
 they proud to have had the great doctor with them. 
 A great priest was St. Philip Neri, but he was 
 great as a priest because of the divine power of 
 sociableness with which he was gifted. He was all 
 things to all men, suiting himself to noble and 
 ignoble, young and old, subject and prelate, learned 
 and ignorant. The stranger as well as the old 
 friend received from him the same welcome, until 
 his humble room received the nickname of the 
 " Home of Christian Mirth." Not only from Italy 
 did people come to him, but also from all Christen- 
 dom, and his influence was gratefully acknowl- 
 edged by infidel and Jew as well as Christian. This 
 
388 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 noble man achieved at last the title of " Apostle of 
 Rome," and all because he knew how to be sociable. 
 This quality has been well described as " the faculty 
 of spiritual adjustment," and happy the minister 
 who knows how to apply this faculty to the usual 
 and unusual situations of his calling. It is not 
 always easy habitually to practise it in dealing with 
 the many different people to whom it is our duty 
 to minister; but we must do our best to follow 
 the advice, " Do not make yourself troublesome. . . 
 Bear their faults in silence, and appear always 
 cheerful." ^ 
 
 2. In his intercourse with his people the pastor 
 should be dignified as well as sociable. There is 
 a possibility of becoming unduly familiar. Any- 
 thing approaching slang in conversation should be 
 avoided, as should also any eccentricity of manner 
 or defiance of custom in dress. 
 
 It is not wise to be too much among your people 
 in a social way. No doubt Mr. Newton's friends 
 were right when they thought " not without rea- 
 son that his real influence at Olney had suffered 
 by over-much familiarity on his part." ^ Human 
 nature in this respect is like thin ice which bends 
 without breaking only if you do not stay too long 
 on any one spot. The minister should not strain 
 human nature unduly. William Jay shrewdly 
 says that " if familiarity does not breed contempt, 
 it reduces reverence; and too much intimacy has 
 
 1 Nehemiah Boynton, " Real Preaching," p. 99. 
 ' IJuir§ " Life of N§wton," p. 241. 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 389 
 
 often lowered the impression and influence of many 
 a minister; for there are but few who have the 
 same presence and address in the parlor as in the 
 pulpit." 
 
 No minister has a right to expect that every one 
 in his parish will like him. We must learn to re- 
 spect the personal choice of our people. Some may 
 have a prejudice against you; recognize their 
 right to such a possession. Others may not be of 
 a social nature, and therefore prefer not to see you. 
 These may be among your truest friends and most 
 appreciative hearers. But in all cases where your 
 absence may be more welcome than your presence, 
 wait. Bide your time ! Opportunity will open their 
 hearts to you sooner or later, but the entrance can- 
 not and ought not to be forced. To win such people 
 requires tact, but the winning is a triumph which 
 is certain though sometimes long delayed. Just sit 
 down and watch for opportunities. In some cases 
 the husband may be won through the wife, and 
 more frequently the father through the children. 
 Be with such people instantly when trouble befalls 
 them or death hovers like a dark cloud over their 
 homes. In those hours the door is open and these 
 are the fit times in which entrance may be gained 
 to their hearts, and they may be won to fuller 
 service and co-operation with you for Christ and 
 his church. 
 
 3. Pastoral intercourse should always be religious 
 in its character. This does not mean that we should 
 wear the long face and assume the holy tone pro- 
 
390 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 verbial in ministers of other days. In fact, we be- 
 lieve that this characteristic of a former generation 
 is largely apocryphal as well as proverbial, and that 
 somehow the true tradition has been spoiled by some 
 error of addition or subtraction in this legacy from 
 the past. 
 
 Social intercourse may be religious, though it 
 never speak in the terms of religion. We may 
 talk of spiritual experiences in the words of com- 
 mon speech, and the very tone of our voice in 
 sympathy may lead to higher things than " the 
 common round, the trivial task." The minister of 
 to-day has need so to conduct himself in his pas- 
 toral relations that his people will say to one another 
 what the woman of Shunem said to her husband, 
 " Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man 
 of God, which passeth by us continually." ^ 
 
 In pastoral visits prayer and the reading of 
 Scripture are not always obligatory, but they are 
 generally welcome. The minister must not mind 
 a little ridicule on this subject from people who do 
 not always mean what they say, and who to hide 
 their better feelings often say what they do not 
 mean. Even those to whom such a practice might 
 be obnoxious, more often than not are glad in their 
 heart of hearts when the minister prays in private 
 with them, and they never forget the few verses 
 from Scripture read when some turn in the con- 
 versation makes its reading natural and right. We 
 believe emphatically that the minister will gain more 
 
 * 2 Kings 4 : 9- 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 39 1 
 
 in the respect and trust of his people by invariably 
 making this practice of prayer and Scripture read- 
 ing a rule than by invariably making it an excep- 
 tion. He should exercise this right when and where 
 his best judgment indicates. 
 
 But in every case a pastoral visit should be a call 
 paid by the pastor for religious purposes. Whether 
 he pray and read the Scripture or not, he should 
 always at such times preserve the distinction be- 
 tween a pastoral call and a call from the pastor. 
 Edward Payson gave his people to understand when 
 he was settled, that he would make none but pas- 
 toral visits, and further instructed them that " they 
 must never invite me to dine or sup when they did 
 not wish to have the conversation turn wholly on 
 religious subjects. This has saved me much time 
 and trouble." ^ While " much time and trouble " 
 may have been saved this eminent minister by 
 such a course, still it must have kept him from 
 dining or supping with many who needed him most. 
 While as Christian pastors we must not be wolves 
 in sheep's clothing, we may sometimes to advantage 
 assume the pelt of the wolf to cover the wool of 
 the sheep, where a sight of that wool would too 
 effectually lessen our opportunities of saving men. 
 The pastor is no less true to his office when from 
 high motives he keeps out of sight the garb or 
 phrases of the office itself. Whenever the minister 
 is present, men should know that a religious in- 
 fluence is about them which gives their pleasures 
 
 1 " Memoir of Edward Payson, d. d.," by Asa Cummings, p. 265. 
 
392 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 a keener joy and softens their griefs, by the very 
 touch and tone of Christian manhood. May the 
 prayer of the old Puritan be ours, " O Lord, when 
 we visit . . . hinder us from carrying sterilizing 
 gossip and help us to take fructifying gospel." 
 
 4. Pastoral intercourse must also be independent. 
 There is a limit to your duty as a minister. 
 
 Your duty is first to Christ, " For we preach not 
 ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves 
 your servants for Jesus' sake." ^ But secondly your 
 duty is to yourself. Do not fritter away your man- 
 hood and lower your own personal power under a 
 false conception of what pastoral fidelity means: 
 " Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine, con- 
 tinue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save 
 thyself and them that hear thee." ^ Your duty is, 
 thirdly, to your people, " by manifestation of the 
 truth commending ourselves to every man's 
 conscience in the sight of God." ^ 
 
 There is a right and wrong way, however, of 
 showing independence. Shown rightly it enhances 
 power, shown wrongly it destroys it. Hence we 
 counsel : 
 
 (i) Take your own way in promoting pastoral 
 intercourse. Do not be hampered by traditions of 
 ministers in the old times. Be yourself, and es- 
 pecially be conscientious in all pastoral work. If you 
 abstain from calling much at certain places, have a 
 good reason for it. In nearly all parishes there are 
 some upon whom it is wise to call but seldom, and 
 
 *2 Cor. 4:5. 2 I Tim, 4 : 16. '^ 2 Cor. 4 : 2. 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 393 
 
 in very large parishes there are generally those on 
 whom a pastor may not feel it safe to call at all, 
 unless he be accompanied by his wife or a discreet 
 deacon. 
 
 (2) Be free from any fear of your people — " one is 
 your master — even Christ." Never let that thought 
 be forgotten. Not a few pastors have had their 
 usefulness seriously crippled, and have even been 
 forced to resign their parishes, because they were 
 afraid of their church and the church found it out. 
 You will learn how to treat wisely the grumblers, 
 whose bump of appreciation is diminutive, but 
 whose faculty for criticism is unbounded; the ab- 
 sorbers, who like the Great Salt Lake, take in 
 everything and give out nothing and are useless 
 as a consequence ; the imaginary invalids, who dose 
 themselves with nostrums and their pastor with 
 vivid descriptions of their woes; the morbid cases, 
 whom nothing unhealthful seems to escape, but 
 who are blind and deaf to the noble and true; and 
 the many others who are sometimes regarded as 
 snags in the otherwise smooth stream of a min- 
 ister's existence. Remember that snags can be 
 blown out of the way by dynamite, but that the 
 better course, unless they seriously obstruct the 
 main channel, is simply to steer around them. As 
 a rule it will be found that it is not the healthy 
 and active members of the church who complain 
 of neglect on the part of the minister, but those 
 who are doing little and giving less. Such complaints 
 and complainers are not peculiar to church life alone. 
 
394 ^OR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Every business man knows the type. We have 
 often met them when sojourning at summer hotels, 
 the loudness of their complaints of the food on the 
 table proclaiming in unmistakable terms that it is 
 far better than that to which they are accustomed 
 at home. Do not, then, take such people too seri- 
 ously. Be courteous to them always, but do not 
 allow them to influence too largely your conduct as 
 a Christian minister. 
 
PASTORAL INTERCOURSE 
 
 (CONTINUED): 
 
 HOW BEST PROMOTED 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. Regular Pastoral Visiting. 
 
 1. Method. (i) Thorough. (2) Continuous. (3) 
 
 Systematic. 
 
 2. Time, (i) Time of the year. (2) Time of day. (3) 
 
 Time of the week. (4) Length of the call. 
 Note. — The most thorough system, however, fails to 
 reach all. 
 
 3. Character. 
 
 II. Special Pastoral Visiting. 
 
 1. The aged. 
 
 2. The sick. 
 
 3. The bereaved. 
 
 4. The backslider. 
 
 5. The poor. 
 
 6. The unconverted. 
 
 7. Strangers and occasional visitors. 
 
 III. Other Means. 
 
 1. The pastor's letter-box. 
 
 2. The prayer-meeting. 
 
 3. The communion service. 
 
 4. Office hours. 
 
 5. Sectional meetings. 
 
 6. Use of the mail. 
 
XVIII 
 
 PASTORAL intercourse: HOW BEST PROMOTED 
 
 Having considered the advantages and character- 
 istics of pastoral intercourse, we turn now to inquire 
 how Pastoral Intercourse may best be Promoted. 
 
 I. Regular Pastoral Visiting. This is first be- 
 cause it exceeds all others in importance, and with- 
 out it no other method can attain its proper place 
 of usefulness. 
 
 We shall here take into account methods of pas- 
 toral visitation, the time for paying a pastoral call, 
 and the character of such a call. 
 
 I. As to method, the visitation of the church 
 should be thorough, continuous, and systematic. 
 
 (i) It should be thorough. On settling over a 
 church, call your deacons and the clerk together 
 and go over the church list carefully. Learn from 
 them prominent lines in the membership of the 
 church, such as how families are related to one 
 another. Keep careful record of your pastoral 
 work, for it is never wise to trust to memory alone. 
 Slipshod methods are the source of much mis- 
 understanding and offense which might be easily 
 avoided. We have referred elsewhere to hand- 
 books and pastor's diaries, which are as much in 
 place in a pastor's study as similar records in a 
 
 397 
 
398 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 physician's office. Visit alone, at least the first time 
 that you make the rounds of your parish except, 
 of course, in such cases as make it necessary for 
 the pastor to guard his usefulness and reputation. 
 It is the custom of some ministers to take their 
 wives with them on all pastoral visits. We strongly 
 advise against this. She is the wife of the pastor, 
 not the assistant of the church. Her place is in her 
 own home, not the homes of the people. While 
 she may be the " better half," yet there ought to be 
 enough left of the whole, as represented in the pas- 
 tor himself, to enable him to take care of himself 
 and maintain a proper conversation with his 
 parishioners without her assistance. 
 
 (2) The minister's visits to the people of his 
 church should be continuous as well as thorough. 
 Keep them up year after year. Keep on as does 
 the water-wheel or the windmill; nay, better than 
 they, continue revolving even when the water fails 
 and the wind falls. Call until you are tired and 
 then rest yourself by calling again. Do not go at it 
 by jerks and spasms, for these jar a pastor and his 
 people as well. It is wonderful what continuous 
 calling will do. Keep at it regularly — a little every 
 day will do more than entire weeks devoted to this 
 object alone. 
 
 (3) Let the calling be systematic. It is quite 
 practicable to visit in the course of a year every 
 member even of a large city church. In a church 
 of a thousand members it is not impossible for the 
 pastor to visit every one in every twelve months. 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 399 
 
 Such pastors as Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, Dr. John 
 Hall, and Dr. W. M. Taylor, whose churches were 
 of the largest, made this their common practice. 
 But it cannot be done without system. Make a 
 small sketch map of the district and a list of the 
 members living there, or have prepared a calling- 
 book, in which the names of the members are placed 
 under the names of the streets on which they re- 
 side. These names of streets should of course be 
 written in such a book alphabetically. This will 
 enable you to tell at a glance all of your parish- 
 ioners living on any one street, and you will thus 
 be enabled by calling on them all at the same time, 
 to save an immense amount of shoe-leather and vex- 
 ation of spirit. If this street directory can be made 
 on cards, so much the better, for the card system 
 adapts itself admirably to the frequent changes of 
 residence. Announce from the pulpit each Sunday 
 the time and place for visitation in the ensuing 
 week. In making such announcement it is well, 
 however, to say that you hope to visit such streets, 
 rather than you zvill do so, for in every year there 
 will inevitably be a certain number of sudden re- 
 quests for funerals or other invitations which no pas- 
 tor should ever refuse, that will prevent your follow- 
 ing out the afternoon's calling as planned. When- 
 ever such a break occurs, announce the same streets 
 for the next week's visitation and explain either in 
 public or private the cause of your postponed visit. 
 In some such systematic way learn to know every- 
 body in your church and congregation, and while 
 
400 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 such a process will take time and often try the 
 nerves, it will pay for all that it costs. A past mas- 
 ter of this noble art declares truly that " the people 
 will stand any amount of plain talk on Sunday if 
 you do not neglect them during the week." ^ 
 
 2. As to the time of such regular pastoral visita- 
 tion, every pastor must choose that which is best 
 for himself, in his own peculiar field; but in our 
 own experiences we have found the following 
 counsels true: 
 
 (i) The time of the year best suited for such 
 work in a city church is often the autumn; in a 
 country church that time should be chosen when 
 the men are most at leisure. In a large church, 
 however, with the exception of the hot days of July 
 and August, the pastor will have need to keep 
 pretty steadily on the march throughout the entire 
 year. 
 
 (2) The time of day chosen for calling should 
 never be the morning, and the hours between two 
 and six in the afternoon will generally be found 
 most convenient for those visited. But give at least 
 one evening a week from seven to nine o'clock to 
 pastoral calls on those only then at home. Mark 
 this evening on your calendar as " engaged," and 
 keep it for this purpose, even if you must decline 
 important outside engagements. 
 
 (3) The middle of the week is usually preferable 
 for calling. Tuesday is a very good day for this 
 purpose, and one day in every week will be found 
 
 1 Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler. 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 4OI 
 
 sufficient, if the hours specified above are rigidly 
 adhered to. If any pastor seriously doubts his 
 abihty to compass his church in a round of visita- 
 tion in a single year by giving only one afternoon 
 a week, we have only to bid him try it, for the task 
 is not so difficult as it seems. In such pastoral 
 visitation one is calling not only on individuals, 
 but on families, and a church of a thousand mem- 
 bers will scarcely contain more than six hundred 
 distinct families. 
 
 (4) A word as to the proper length of a pastoral 
 call. We know parishes in the country where the 
 minister is hardly considered to have called at all 
 unless he stays to supper and spends the night. On 
 the other hand, we have been acquainted with pas- 
 tors whose call took scarcely more time than that 
 required to put their hat under a chair and draw it 
 out again, with a few minutes' fidget in between. 
 These instances are the long and the short of the 
 matter, and the golden mean will be found, as a 
 rule, in a period of time not exceeding fifteen min- 
 utes. A pastoral call need not generally extend 
 beyond the quarter of an hour if it is made with no 
 appearance of haste, and if the pastor has the 
 faculty of coming at once without abruptness to the 
 point. 
 
 We note here the fact that the most thor- 
 ough system of visiting fails to reach all. Often it 
 misses those whom you most need to influence, the 
 men at work and in business for example. As a 
 rule do not go to such during their hours of labor, 
 2A 
 
402 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 If they are employers, go only if you are invited. 
 Some business men regard a brief visit from the 
 pastor even in their busy hours as a welcome relief 
 and an excuse for drawing their breath again; but 
 others resent such a visit as an intrusion. If the 
 call is on men who are employed, to divert them is 
 dishonest. It deprives the employer of their serv- 
 ices, and thus is apt to alienate him. Contrive in 
 some way to meet those whom your regular visita- 
 tion fails to touch. It is a reproach to our office 
 that ministers are not wont to find out and make 
 themselves influential over the men of their con- 
 gregations. There is still chance for a wide ap- 
 plication of that saying of. the country clergyman 
 who, being asked whether he studied the Fathers, 
 replied : " No, the fathers are generally at work in 
 the field ; but I always study the mothers." 
 
 3. Having considered the method and time best 
 suited to regular pastoral visitation, we shall leave 
 the pastor to judge concerning the character which 
 the call had best assume. If the pastor will turn 
 back to the characteristics of pastoral intercourse 
 mentioned in the previous chapter, and will also 
 read the pages in this chapter in which we specify 
 certain classes whom the pastor meets in his visits, 
 we think that his own common sense will teach him 
 the character of the call suitable to each home that 
 he visits. 
 
 II. The regular visiting of a parish of course 
 never takes the place of Special Pastoral Calling. 
 Some pastors make no pretense at regular and 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 4O3 
 
 systematic pastoral visiting, but confine themselves 
 to special calls. Dr. W. L. Alexander announced 
 to his Edinburgh charge that while he would be 
 always glad to visit the sick or any who desired 
 specially to see him, he should not be able to go 
 regular rounds in visitation, *' which often are of 
 such a character as really to be visitations in more 
 ways than one." Jonathan Edwards' custom was 
 to visit the sick and afflicted himself, and to assemble 
 together small parties of his people for social de- 
 votion and instruction ; in this way his general call- 
 ing was done by his people coming to him. We know 
 of a busy pastor, upon whose shoulders lies the 
 heavy work of a London church, who maintains 
 the heartiest relations with his people by inviting 
 them in groups of thirty or fifty to meet him and 
 his wife in a social way on specified evenings ; cases 
 of sickness and trouble absorb nearly all the time 
 which he himself has available for visiting. A re- 
 cent writer, in one of a series of papers on " The 
 Clerical Life," humorously describes pastoral call- 
 ing. We agree with him that congregations think 
 all the more of a pastor who can distinguish be- 
 tween the duties of a shepherd and a sheep-dog, but 
 we still hold to the importance of the general 
 visiting of a parish as well as the answer to special 
 needs. 
 
 Where personal visitation of the whole church is 
 difficult, or even impossible, the pastor should al- 
 ways visit special cases himself, and arrange for a 
 systematic visitation of the parish by an assistant. 
 
404 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 or by the Board of deacons, or by a committee 
 chosen from the church-membership. In any case 
 it is well to train the members to visit strangers, 
 the sick, and one another, in conjunction with the 
 minister's own calling. For this purpose many pas- 
 tors keep on hand a store of cards on which is 
 printed a form of request for a call, with blank 
 spaces left for the names of those whom he desires 
 the particular member to visit. Such a plan is most 
 commendable, but will be found of practical use 
 only as the pastor keeps record of such calls and 
 has reports of them returned to him before a date 
 specified upon the card. 
 
 There are many of our members whom the pas- 
 tor will arrange to visit far oftener than once a 
 year. 
 
 I . Among these we mention the aged. Gather from 
 them reminiscences and experiences, for old age 
 grows young again as it lives once more the years 
 of its youth. Be patient, sympathetic, and willing 
 to listen, for the words spoken by the aged are 
 of great weight, at any rate to themselves, and are 
 therefore entitled to respect and consideration. You 
 cannot do more good to old persons than by being 
 a first-rate listener, and though you scarce speak a 
 word yourself, they will gather from your silence 
 the sympathy which it is your mission in a pastoral 
 call to supply. Choose appropriate verses of Scrip- 
 ture to read to them; and a few words of prayer 
 are generally especially welcome. Get your young 
 people to visit them, and if you are young yourself. 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 405 
 
 SO much the better, for no one is so welcome in the 
 homes of the aged as the young. 
 
 2. The sick form another class to be mentioned 
 under the head of special calls. Be very prompt in 
 responding to all requests to visit those who are ill. 
 Train the deacons and others to acquaint you at 
 once when they hear of sick members in the church. 
 In cases of very sick persons call every day, for 
 even if you cannot be admitted to their room your 
 inquiry for them at the door will do good to the 
 whole household. Where the case is not one of 
 critical illness, once a week will generally be often 
 enough to visit them. 
 
 In your intercourse with the physician be es- 
 pecially courteous, and take care never to assume 
 his part or come into conflict with his directions. 
 It is against the code of the average physician to 
 give any opinion as to the possible death or recovery 
 of the patient, therefore do not ask him concerning 
 the issue of the case. In this way you will make 
 friends with the doctors of your city or town, and 
 there is no better class among professional men 
 with which to be in cordial sympathy and harmony. 
 The following points from an address to a Min- 
 isters' Union, by a noted physician, on *' The Medi- 
 cal Relations of a Clergyman," may be noted here 
 as giving what a doctor expects and desires on the 
 part of the clergyman : " In the sick room your 
 step, your voice, your face, should be light and 
 cheerful. I never allow a patient to die without 
 warning unless it is forbidden by those nearest to 
 
406 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 the patient, and I have never seen it do any harm. 
 Clergymen can remove the prejudice against a 
 post-mortem examination. As to your own physi- 
 cal condition, you are exposed often to contagion. 
 You must not shrink from it. But you can use 
 precautions. Always go with a full stomach; stay 
 but a short time. On coming out, open your coat 
 and let the wind circulate through your clothes. 
 You must lead a hygienic life; take out-door ex- 
 ercise. There is a great temptation to get up steam 
 after nine or ten at night. It is all wrong and bad. 
 Be careful as to your voice and throat. Protect 
 your throat when coming out of a hot room on a 
 winter night." ^ 
 
 It is generally best to pray with the sick unless 
 so doing will unduly alarm them as to their con- 
 dition. As the sick are for a time prevented from 
 the attendance of public worship, it is In place for 
 the minister to lead the conversation into specially 
 religious channels, and this entirely independent of 
 the nature of their illness. The taking of the com- 
 munion to the sick and aged is not yet customary 
 outside of the Episcopal, Lutheran, and Roman 
 Catholic Churches. When you enter the sick-cham- 
 ber, cultivate the gentleness of your Master. Do not 
 " strive, nor cry, nor lift up your voice." Go with 
 muffled footsteps, speak softly and tenderly, and let 
 all the exercises by which you seek to lead the suf- 
 ferer to Christ be characterized by a holy cheer- 
 fulness. Never be somber or gloomy, but let the 
 
 iDr. W. W. Ke^T^T PhHadeTphiT 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 407 
 
 patient and the nurse feel as if a ray of sunlight 
 had come in to gladden them.^ Do not emulate 
 the example of Mr. Hubble and Mr. Pumblechook, 
 whom Dickens thus describes in " Great Expecta- 
 tions " at the funeral of Pipp's sister : " And the two 
 talked (which I have since observed to be custom- 
 ary in such cases) as if they were of quite another 
 race from the deceased, and were notoriously 
 immortal." Be natural and gentle and with the 
 desire to aid you will be led aright. 
 As to death-beds Spurgeon's advice is excellent: 
 
 Once more, he much at death-beds; they are illuminated 
 books. There shall you read the very poetry of our re- 
 ligion and learn the secrets thereof. What splendid gems 
 are washed up by the waves of Jordan ! What fair flowers 
 grow on its banks ! The everlasting fountains in the glory- 
 land throw their spray aloft and the dewdrops fall on 
 this side the narrow stream! I have heard humble men 
 and women in their departing hours talk as though they 
 were inspired, uttering strange words, aglow with supernal 
 glory. These they learned from no lips beneath the moon; 
 they must have heard them while sitting in the suburbs of 
 the New Jerusalem. God whispers them in their ears amid 
 their pain and weakness; and then they tell us a Httle of 
 what the Spirit has revealed, I will part with all my books, 
 if I may see the Lord's Elijahs mount their chariots of fire. 
 
 When the eyes of earth are lifted to look into 
 the eternal, as they often are when dimmed with 
 the mists of death, then the pastor will receive 
 counsels of the dying, as well as himself give the 
 
 » W. M. Taylor, " Yale Lectures," p. 269. 
 
408 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 consolations of our faith. Then do the words of 
 John of Gaunt come true: 
 
 Oh, but they say, the tongues of dying men, 
 Inforce attention Hke deep harmony. 
 
 You will do good to the sick, but they will do 
 more good to you and those who visit them, for 
 those who think themselves laid aside and of little 
 use in the world perform a mission in their patient 
 suffering such as perhaps in their days of activity 
 they never exercised. McCheyne used to visit his 
 sick and dying hearers on Saturday afternoons, for 
 as he once said to Dr. James Hamilton, " Before 
 preaching, I like to look over the verge." 
 
 3. The bereaved are another class who will often 
 call for the pastor's sympathy and fellowship. Go 
 to the house of mourning at once. See the mourners 
 alone if possible and rather encourage than other- 
 wise a full account from them of the bereavement. 
 In administering consolation be real, sincere, and 
 true. How easy it is, for those who have not suf- 
 fered such a loss themselves, to be glib and dog- 
 matic as to the purposes of bereavement! Better 
 a few words brokenly uttered than a whole volume 
 of pretty and well-arranged mottoes and maxims 
 of consolation. It is best of all to speak at such 
 times in the language of the Bible. Have, there- 
 fore, suitable passages of Scripture in your mind 
 to read. " Consolation will be best imparted by you 
 in the words of Scripture. . . Search the Bible for 
 appropriate passages. . . lay them up in the memory 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 4O9 
 
 of the heart. . . Sometimes you may be fain to take 
 refuge in silence. . . 
 
 With silence only as their benediction 
 
 God's angels come; 
 When, in the shadow of a great affliction, 
 
 The soul sits dumb."^ 
 
 —Whittier. 
 
 Phillips Brooks took lessons from Boethius in 
 the tender art of consolation ; an art which he mas- 
 tered and to which he owed no little of the benefi- 
 cent influence which he wielded in his time and 
 place.^ The ministrations which are a pastor's 
 privilege to offer to those who have suffered loss 
 are among the most precious and profitable of his 
 experiences. They open to him the hearts of all 
 the household, awaken a new love for him and his 
 work, and give him an influence which may enable 
 him to lead them into the way of Christ. Thus will 
 the pastor find that every loss has its compensations, 
 and that even in death there is life. 
 
 4. Another class to whom especial attention 
 should be paid is the backslider. Watch for the 
 first symptoms of carelessness in members of your 
 church and attend to it at once. A coal can be best 
 fanned to a glow while it is yet warm ; if it becomes 
 cold, its kindling is a difficult task. Let your tone 
 in dealing with backsliders be humane, tender, and 
 earnest. Believe in them and they will often 
 believe more truly in themselves. Never allow any 
 
 ^ Taylor, " The Ministry of the Word," p. 268. 
 2 "Life," Vol. I., p. 641. 
 
410 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 note of despondency to be heard in your conversa- 
 tion with such persons. You know that they can 
 regain the place from which they have slipped ; 
 tell them so, and they will answer your confidence 
 by an endeavor that warrants it. While you should 
 speak plainly as to the source of their trouble, never 
 scold or show ill temper, but let the love of a deep 
 pity and solicitude open the doors of their hearts 
 for the entrance of their Master and yours. 
 
 5, We speak now of a class we have always with 
 us, and without which any church is poor indeed, 
 namely, the poor. Never be too busy to give these 
 your constant personal attention. Although Wes- 
 ley traveled every year nearly five thousand miles 
 by carriage, and spent much time in retirement and 
 study alone, yet he always found time, as he tells us, 
 '' to visit the sick and poor — a matter of absolute 
 duty." The poor should be your most loyal friends, 
 for their approbation is a testimonial to a minister's 
 worth. Among them you will find probably the 
 greatest number of your saints and those least 
 spoiled or spotted by the world. Cardinal Gibbons 
 thus pertinently quotes that great Christian, Sir 
 Walter Scott, " I have read books enough," he says, 
 " and conversed with splendidly educated men in 
 my time, but I assure you I have heard higher 
 sentiments from the lips of the poor, uneducated 
 men and women than I have ever met with out of 
 the pages of the Bible." * The poor, together with 
 
 * " The Preacher and His Province," by Cardinal Gibbons, " North 
 American Review," May, 1895, p. 522. 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 4I I 
 
 the sick and the bereaved, will be the minister's 
 minister. Arnold of Rugby said most truly that 
 " personal contact with the poor was one of the 
 great safeguards against religious coldness and in- 
 difference." ^ Perhaps from no other class will the 
 pastor gain greater satisfaction in his ministry. 
 As he ministers to the poor he will see coming to 
 pass that which he dreamed in the days of his 
 preparation for his sacred tasks. The poor were 
 the friends of Jesus and they are his friends still. 
 " I expect little good will be done here," are the 
 words recorded in the heart of John Wesley's Jour- 
 nal, after he had preached to a very elegant 
 congregation : " For we begin at the wrong end ; 
 religion must not go from the greatest to the least 
 or the power would appear to be of men." ^ 
 
 6. Among those for whom the pastor's greatest 
 solicitude will be felt will be the unconverted mem- 
 bers of Christian families. Keep a list of all such 
 persons in your congregation, for your own inspec- 
 tion only. Every possible effort should be made to 
 disarm the suspicion with which they will regard you 
 as a minister. To do this, be interested in what 
 interests them, but take proper care, however, never 
 in condescending to allow yourself to descend. Fol- 
 low the example of Paul, who was made " all things 
 to all men, that I might by all means save some." ^ 
 Your success in spiritual ways will very largely 
 depend upon your willingness and ability to do 
 
 1 " W. G. Ward and the Oxford Movement," p. 133. 
 
 2 P. 306. 3 I Cor. 9 : 19. 
 
412 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 this individual work. " Wc must try to get at in- 
 dividuals. I am quite convinced we shall not suc- 
 ceed unless we work in this way. . . An Archbishop 
 of Canterbury contrasted public preaching with per- 
 sonal dealing in this way : ' When we preach it is 
 like dashing water from a bucket upon so many 
 vessels which are arranged before us — some drops 
 fall into one and some into another, while others 
 remain empty; but when we speak to individuals, 
 it is like pouring water into the neck of a vessel/ " ^ 
 
 It is generally true that the unconverted dread 
 nothing so much as your speaking to them on the 
 subject of religion, and yet if it is rightly done, noth- 
 ing will win their regard and respect more quickly. 
 The failure to speak to them on this subject will 
 be a matter of wonder to any who, knowing the 
 light and peace which we ourselves profess, note 
 our neglect to urge faithfully their acceptance of 
 that which means so much to us. Better far a 
 few mistakes on our part in dealing with this class 
 than to allow fear or dread of blundering to keep 
 us from speaking at all. 
 
 7. What is our duty in regard to strangers and 
 occasional visitors in our congregation? In this 
 matter be very careful to be strictly honorable. 
 While you should be on the alert to bring into the 
 Christian fold those who now and again corne 
 within the sphere of your influence, never go un- 
 invited to visit members of other churches. If, 
 however, members of another communion desire 
 
 * Haslam, " From Death into Life," pp. 144, 145. 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 4I3 
 
 of their own volition to enter your church, see the 
 minister of that church and have with him a com- 
 plete understanding before allowing those who seek 
 fellowship with you to come before the prudential 
 committee or the church. Courtesy and wisdom 
 both dictate such a course, and in so doing we but 
 follow the rule which is golden because it works 
 both ways. 
 
 If your parish is in some watering-place or town 
 of summer resort, much will often be lost for want 
 of a little courtesy to visitors, and attention to such 
 people at such places is generally greatly appreci- 
 ated by the recipients. Courtesy costs nothing, but 
 reveals much, and earns dividends out of all 
 proportion to the investment. 
 
 III. There are other means besides regular and 
 special pastoral visiting by which pastoral inter- 
 course may be promoted. Among such we mention 
 
 1. A pastor's letter-box in the vestibule of the 
 church, in which communications may be dropped 
 and which should be regarded with all the confidence 
 and attention of a personal interview. Keep the 
 congregation constantly in mind of the presence 
 of this box, and let it be placed in a position of 
 prominence and be of such goodly proportions that 
 it may readily catch the eye. The key to this box 
 should never be allowed out of the possession of 
 the pastor, and it should be clearly understood by 
 all that no one has access to it but himself. 
 
 2. At the prayer-meeting the pastor will find 
 special opportunities for social intercourse. He 
 
4^4 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 should come to this service early and should encour- 
 age the people to remain afterward for social greet- 
 ing, taking care to be quite impartial himself in 
 speaking to those present. 
 
 3. At the communion service the pastor will find 
 the hearts of those in attendance especially open to 
 meet his advances. Be at the door as the people 
 disperse, even if this is not your usual custom on 
 other Sundays, and speak to as many as possible. 
 
 4. In another place we have advised the holding 
 of regular office hours. Remember that a printed 
 announcement becomes dead unless it occasionally 
 has life put into it by the living voice. Therefore 
 announce now and again these hours and empha- 
 size the fact of your desire to see at that time, any 
 members of the church or congregation who desire 
 to see you. 
 
 5. The holding of sectional or cottage meetings 
 of a social or religious character, or better both 
 combined, is strongly advised. Make a *' church in 
 the house " of many of your members ; thus you 
 will draw near to them yourself and get hold of 
 their neighbors as well. 
 
 6. While the pastor should never depend upon the 
 mail to do too much of his pastoral work, yet he 
 should find here one of his strongest allies. Letters 
 will be retained and re-read and do service again and 
 again. Some pastors keep a book in which are 
 noted the dates of the birthdays of the children of 
 the parish, and the anniversaries of critical periods 
 in th^ history of the members, such as the death of 
 
HOW BEST PROMOTED 4^5 
 
 loved ones, or their own baptism or marriage, and 
 as such days occur, write personal notes of re- 
 membrance and affection. In this way they bind 
 their people with cords of love not only to them- 
 selves, but to Christ, who is shown in such tender 
 thoughtfulness and individual solicitude. Because 
 he was a model pastor, we have often quoted the 
 example of Doctor Goodell, and in regard to letter- 
 writing one of his New Britain people says : " He 
 was very felicitous in occasional letters addressed 
 to individual members of his flock; letters full of 
 suggestions for strengthening faith and encourag- 
 ing Christian activity." ^ This is a felicity which 
 every pastor should attempt to emulate. Letter- 
 writing as an important feature in methods of pas- 
 toral work will be found more and more useful the 
 longer the minister continues in one place. 
 
 Many ways and means will be found by every 
 pastor to promote that intercourse through which 
 he does his work as an ambassador of Christ. Plac- 
 ing in the foreground regular pastoral visiting, and 
 the answering immediately of special requests for 
 his presence, we have not been able to do more than 
 merely note some of those other means which every 
 pastor must find and apply for himself. The suc- 
 cess which he has in coming close to his people 
 will be shown by the lessened formality with which 
 they regard him, as little by little with the passing 
 years the pastor of the church becomes the friei'd 
 of the people. While in the pastoral call mu< h 
 
 *A. H. Currier's "Life of Constance L. Goodell, d. d.," p. 177. 
 
4l6 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 use will be made of the parlor, woe unto that pastor 
 who remains there always, ** and that drawing- 
 room — dear me! What a fine room it is! But 
 how often have you used it? About twice a year, 
 and the rest of the year it is yours for killing the 
 minister. When he calls he is shown into that cold, 
 horrid room, and he does not know what to do 
 with himself. He wishes they would let him go 
 down into the kitchen and sit by the fire. But no — 
 the drawing room — that is the room for killing 
 people; it is the murder-room, and it gives people 
 rheumatism and all sorts of things." ^ Therefore 
 our closing counsel to the pastor who would avoid 
 " all sorts of things " is that he get '' down into the 
 kitchen " as soon as possible, and may the genial 
 glow of the fire warm him and his people as they 
 come together in familiar pastoral intercourse. 
 
 ^ C. H. Spurgeon, " Speeches at Home and Abroad," p. 121. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 
 
 2B 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. What is Meant by the Minister as Leader. Doctor 
 
 Chalmers' definition. 
 
 II. Essential Elements in Ministerial Leadership, 
 
 1. Purity of purpose. 
 
 2. Decision of character. 
 
 3. The ability and readiness to work. 
 
 4. Common sense. How this will show itself. 
 
 5. A knowledge of human nature, (i) Natural. (2) 
 
 Acquired. 
 
 III. How Pastoral Leadership Will be Proved. 
 
 1. Carefully study the congregation. 
 
 2. Do not undertake too much yourself, (i) This is 
 
 false to the congregational theory. (2) This is para- 
 lyzing to congregational activity. (3) This is 
 injurious to the minister. 
 CoNCXUSiON. Ministerial leadership begins but does not 
 end with the local church. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE MINISTER AS LEADER 
 
 I. By successful leadership we mean, in Doctor 
 Chalmers' happy phrase, *' The Prosperous Manage- 
 ment of Human Nature." The minister on settUng 
 over a church finds himself called upon to take the 
 lead of a body of Christian people. To do this 
 properly he must be a competent man of affairs, 
 which is somewhat different from being a man of 
 business. The latter term refers chiefly, though 
 not exclusively, to the mastery of details. The 
 " man of affairs " suggests one with capacity for 
 intelligent and vigorous guidance, whose eyes 
 range to a far-distant horizon. Such a man will 
 possess the ability to appreciate difficulties, and a 
 strong will that adheres resolutely to the purpose 
 which it has formed deliberately. The minister will 
 need to guide his people, for the church must be 
 progressive and, what is by no means always the 
 same thing, aggressive as well. He must also de- 
 velop his people; for the church is full of latent 
 ability that needs to be called out from the dim re- 
 cesses in which it is hidden. Hence, in addition to 
 his power as a preacher and his faithfulness as a 
 pastor, the minister will require ability as a leader. 
 He needs to unite in his person the qualities which 
 
 419 
 
420 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 make a successful statesman and a victorious gen- 
 eral. " He must have heart, humor, and human- 
 ity," ^ repHed a noted preacher and wise leader, 
 when asked for the conditions of ministerial suc- 
 cess in London. This combination of qualities is 
 of prime importance. The lack of it breaks up 
 many a promising ministry, while its possession 
 holds many a minister in his place, although he may 
 not be conspicuous as a preacher or pastor. The 
 quality which in this chapter we shall seek to de- 
 scribe and commend is preeminent in all ministers 
 who have been great movers of men, and no one 
 who has made a mark, however slight, on his gen- 
 eration has been entirely without it. Greater even 
 than his preaching or than his self-sacrificing pas- 
 toral labor, this quality stands forth preeminent in 
 the life of Phillips Brooks; he is described by his 
 biographer as being to his church, " what a good 
 housekeeper is in a family. He had his eye on 
 everything, knew all that was going on, and seemed 
 to be everywhere. He was very positive, but the 
 people liked it. When anybody wanted to do any- 
 thing, he would make himself master of the situa- 
 tion in five minutes. Any one could get hold of him, 
 if only there was earnestness and he saw that he 
 was really wanted and needed." ^ 
 
 H. It must be confessed at the outset that Min- 
 isterial Leadership calls for a rare combination of 
 qualities, a combination of the prophetic and com- 
 mercial temperaments that is rarely found in one 
 
 I Th^ Rev. H, Price Hughes. » " Life," Vol. II., p. 775. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 42I 
 
 man. But the call for such men is loud everywhere. 
 Unfortunately, we have not yet come to the point 
 where the church may be furnished with these vari- 
 ous traits each embodied in a separate man. Speak- 
 ing more particularly of the institutional church, the 
 Rev. R. J. Campbell, of London, declares that the 
 church of to-day *' needs one minister to be a 
 prophet in the pulpit, and another to be a business 
 manager." As this does not now seem practicable, 
 we must go on seeking those men who unite to the 
 instinct of the born prophet the practical abilities 
 of a consecrated business man. We mention some 
 of the essential elements in ministerial leadership: 
 
 1. Purity of purpose is the prime requisite in such 
 leadership. Statesmanship has too often been de- 
 graded by its alliance with mere policy. The lead- 
 ership of the minister, however, seeks first of all, 
 not for personal aggrandizement, not for the increase 
 of his own church, not for the spread of his own de- 
 nomination, but for the advancement of the king- 
 dom of Christ. A minister's influence is in propor- 
 tion to his disinterestedness, and it is only as he is 
 mainly actuated by this highest of motives that 
 people will either long listen to, or follow him. This 
 aim kept steadily in view will purify and ennoble the 
 leadership of any minister. 
 
 2. Next to purity of purpose we mention decision 
 of character as essential in ministerial leadership. 
 Individuality is of great value. Personality is 
 power. A man who was a colorless reflection of 
 what others said and thought never yet wielded a 
 
422 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 scepter or drew a sword that powerfully influenced 
 human action. The words of John Foster should 
 be laid to heart by every pastor who dares do all that 
 may become a man : " I trust I shall firmly confront 
 everything that threatens me while prosecuting my 
 purpose, and I am prepared to meet the conse- 
 quences of it when it is accomplished. I should de- 
 spise a being, though it were myself, whose agency 
 could be held enslaved by the gloomy shapes of 
 imagination, or the shrieks of owls, or by the threats 
 or frowns of man; and I disdain to compromise 
 the interests that rouse me to action for the privi- 
 leges of an ignoble security." There are frequent 
 emergencies and crises in the history of a church 
 when immediate and decisive action is needed, and 
 which need a decided man to deal with them. There 
 are times when a quick turn of the wheel saves the 
 ship, and when a moment's hesitation sends her 
 crashing against the iceberg. The minister is the 
 man at the wheel. Remember that, as a rule, in 
 matters of principle first thoughts are best; in mat- 
 ters of policy, second thoughts. When there is any 
 conflict between policy and principle, decision of 
 character demands that the minister of Christ shall 
 act on those first thoughts to the exclusion of all 
 others. There is nothing which the world admires 
 more than action impelled by principle. It is the 
 very reason for self-sacrifice; it is the rightful de- 
 mand of this age, especially upon all who find 
 themselves commissioned as Christian ministers. 
 3. A third essential element in ministerial leader- 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 423 
 
 ship is found in the ability and the readiness of the 
 minister to do work himself. There can be no suc- 
 cess " unless he who has the office of leader per- 
 forms in fact the hardest work. If I have had suc- 
 cess in any undertaking, it has been simply from 
 hard labor." ^ Therefore lead, but never drive. 
 Cattle are driven to market, but sheep are led be- 
 side the still waters and into the green pastures. 
 Never forget the difference between the words '^ go " 
 and '' come." The minister should know how to 
 distinguish between a command and an invitation. 
 Nay more, his invitations should be commands, and 
 his commands invitations. To say to our people 
 " go " implies an advance in which we do not ac- 
 company them, but to say " come," signifies our 
 willingness to stand by them and to suffer with 
 them until the end of the adventure. It was this 
 very willingness on the part of Christ, and the fact 
 that he never asked others to do what he himself 
 would not do, that made his first disciples ready to 
 take up their crosses and follow him. And only as 
 his ministers manifest the same quality will the 
 church of to-day be found in the line of advance. 
 
 4. In a previous chapter we have referred to the 
 quality we next mention as among the essential ele- 
 ments in pastoral leadership, namely, common sense. 
 We would mention this again and again, for it is 
 in such constant demand in all a minister's work 
 that it can hardly be noted too often. "An ounce 
 of mother-wit is worth a pound of clergy," is an 
 
 1 " Doctor Wayland's Life," Vol. II., p. 230. 
 
424 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 old saying, of whose justice we are the more con- 
 vinced the longer we live. Freely interpreted this 
 saying means *' that discretion, gentle manners, com- 
 mon sense, and good nature are, in men of high 
 ecclesiastical station (and we may add of any eccle- 
 siastical station), of far greater importance than 
 the greatest skill in discriminating between Sub- 
 lapsarian and Supralapsarian doctrines." ^ The two 
 qualifications which Timothy Dwight was wont to 
 consider indispensable to entering upon the gospel 
 ministry — first, grace; second, common sense — were 
 in his later years reversed in their order : " I now 
 put common sense first, for without it even grace 
 cannot fit a man to be useful in the sacred calling." 
 Common sense is a power which, in the words of 
 Wordsworth, " has great allies." It will prove its 
 value in many ways in a minister's work. By it 
 opponents are conciliated. In a church of congre- 
 gational polity there will be parties, cliques, and 
 groups of persons who, like birds of a feather flock 
 together. Under such conditions the minister will 
 at times keep his seat in the saddle only with ex- 
 treme difficulty, and he is certain to be thrown un- 
 less common sense comes to his rescue. It will en- 
 able him to become proficient in that most difficult of 
 the arts, learning by experience. One mistake should 
 teach us all that it is necessary to know along a 
 particular line of action. Some one has said, " He 
 is the greatest general who makes the fewest blun- 
 ders." This is the mission of experience. She 
 
 ^ Sydney Smith. 
 
HE MINISTER AS LEADER 425 
 
 writes her copy in indelible ink. An American hu- 
 morist has set this forth in a metaphor, whose ex- 
 pressiveness atones for its lack of elegance : " The 
 man who gets bit twice by the same dog is fitter 
 for that kind of business than for any other." ^ 
 To this we would add nothing save to remark that 
 the minister who " gets bit twice " in the same place 
 by the same dog has need seriously to question the 
 genuineness of his call to the gospel ministry. 
 
 Common sense also acts as a brake, which pre- 
 vents the minister from premature action. The 
 young minister cannot have too strongly impressed 
 upon him the fact that many things cannot be 
 mended at once, and so must be let alone for the 
 present. He should be above all men, 
 
 Prompt to move, but firm to wait, 
 
 Knowing things rashly sought are rarely found." 
 
 Common sense in the minister will show itself 
 also in a prudent reticence which will teach his lips 
 to be silent; insight will enable him to see with- 
 out seeing, and in action will cause him to 
 move so slowly, that like a glacier, his advance will 
 at times be imperceptible. With common sense as 
 a teacher, the minister will learn the value of con- 
 ceding points which are not essential. There must be 
 concession and compromise in the congregational 
 form of church government.^ That which is vital 
 must of course ever be preserved, but he who would 
 
 *Josh Billings. 
 
 * Wordsworth. ' Hook's " Life," Vol, II,, p. 476. 
 
426 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 be a ruler of men must possess the secret of carrying 
 his point by conceding whatever does not involve a 
 vital principle. Nothing but common sense can 
 teach a man a cheerful acceptance of the situation 
 as he finds it. The minister may often find himself 
 outvoted on some question, and then to remember 
 Cromwell's words will prove useful : " I beseech 
 you in the bowels of Jesus Christ think it possible 
 that you may be mistaken." What a comfort also 
 is this saying from George Macdonald : ** When you 
 cannot do as you like, the best thing is to like what 
 you do." We all know that " except the Lord build 
 the house, the builders build in vain," but the very 
 mortar which holds in place the stones of the Lord's 
 laying is the common sense of his followers. On 
 the eve of the disruption of the Church of Scotland, 
 Chalmers wrote, after he had read the eleventh 
 chapter of Genesis : " I too have been set on the 
 erection of my Babel. . . Though I cannot resign 
 my convictions, I must now — and surely it is good 
 to be so taught — I must now, under the experi- 
 mental sense of my own helplessness, acknowledge 
 with all humility . . . the hope in the efficacy of a 
 blessing from on high still in reserve." ^ These 
 words breathe the essential quality of common sense, 
 and enforce the statement of Emerson that " with- 
 out accommodation, society is impracticable." This 
 advice was given to students for the ministry by 
 one who knew the value of the experimental sense of 
 one's own helplessness : " Keep still. When trouble 
 
 i"Life," Vol. I., p. is8. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 427 
 
 is brewing, keep still. When slander is getting on 
 his legs, keep still. When your feelings are hurt, 
 keep still. . . Time works wonders. Wait till you can 
 speak calmly and then you will not need to speak, 
 maybe. Silence is the most massive thing conceiv- 
 able, sometimes. It is strength in very grandeur. 
 It is like a regiment ordered to stand still in the 
 mad fury of battle. To plunge in were twice as 
 easy. The tongue has unsettled more ministers than 
 small salaries ever did, or lack of ability ever did." ^ 
 We have given a large place to common sense as one 
 of the essential elements in ministerial leadership, 
 but no larger place than, we believe, it deserves. 
 Without it all the minister's best endeavors are neg- 
 atived, while its possession " covers a multitude of 
 sins." All that we have said is thus summed up 
 by Cardinal Manning in a sermon preached while 
 archdeacon of Chichester : " It is precisely those 
 characters which the world counts weakest, that 
 gain most absolute mastery. It is by gentleness and 
 a yielding temper, by conceding all indifferent 
 points, by endurance of undeserved contempt, by 
 refusing to be offended, by asking reconciliation 
 when others would exact apology, that the sternest 
 spirits of the world are absolutely broken into a 
 willing and glad obedience to the lowliest servants 
 of Christ." 2 
 
 5. Closely akin to common sense is a knowledge 
 
 * " Yale Lectures on Preaching and Other Writings," by Nathaniel 
 J. Burton, d. d. 
 
 8 E. D. Purcell's " Life of Cardinal Manning," Vol. I., p. 197. 
 
428 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 of human nature, which we mention as a further 
 essential of the minister who would be a leader. 
 Success in a pastorate is largely determined by this, 
 and upon such knowledge common sense itself de- 
 pends. It helps the minister to attain what Doctor 
 Chalmers often spoke of as " one of the noblest and 
 most delightful exercises of human power." His bi- 
 ographer adds, " most pleasantly and most prosper- 
 ously was such management carried on by himself; 
 with admirable skill, which never, however, bor- 
 dered upon artifice ; the singleness and simplicity of 
 the aim being always as conspicuous as the wise 
 adjustment of the means." ^ 
 
 (i) This knowledge of human nature may be 
 natural. Some men are born with an instinctive 
 acquaintance with the springs of motives, the salient 
 points in various characters, the best and wisest 
 ways of handling circumstances. We have only to 
 mention the names of such men as Luther, Wesley, 
 Spurgeon, Beecher, Brooks, and Moody to know 
 how excellent a gift nature sometimes bestows in 
 this inborn knowledge. And yet it is not so much 
 the knowledge which is inborn as the quality of 
 sympathy from which it springs.^ The ability to 
 read character at a glance, once saved Rowland Hill 
 from a beating at the hands of a pugilist who had 
 been engaged to molest him in a town where he ex- 
 pected to preach : " Having ascended the pulpit and 
 satisfied himself by the appearance of the pugilist, 
 that he was not inaccessible to flattery, he beckoned 
 
 1 " Life," Vol. II„ p. 29. 2 " Life of James McCosh," p. 139. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 429 
 
 him to the pulpit stairs, and told him that he was 
 come to preach to those people, in the hope of doing 
 them good; that some opposition had been threat- 
 ened ; that he had been told of his strength and skill 
 in self-defense, and had full confidence in his pow- 
 ers ; therefore he should place himself in his hands, 
 rely on his protection, and beg the favor of his com- 
 pany to ride with him in his carriage after the serv- 
 ice to dinner ! " ^ Thus at the cost of a dinner, 
 Rowland Hill saved himself a pummeling, and was 
 enabled to carry out his will to preach even to those 
 who, unwilling to hear him speak, were only too 
 ready to hear him groan. 
 
 A modern illustration of this same trait of 
 constitutional generalship is found in the life 
 of Phillips Brooks. He called one evening upon 
 two young men whom he had noticed in his 
 congregation, and found them in the attic of 
 a crowded boarding-house. The evening was 
 warm, and sitting with their coats off, they 
 were greatly embarrassed by the entrance of the 
 famous preacher. But Phillips Brooks was more 
 than a preacher. With a remark about the ex- 
 cessive heat he took off his own coat, and thus put 
 them at once at their ease and opened the doors of 
 their hearts. An application of this same knowledge 
 on the part of Dr. Joseph Parker once enabled him to 
 prove himself more than a match for that common 
 enough cause of disturbance — a baby. At the Good 
 Friday service of the City Temple in London, of 
 
 1 Charlesworth's "Life," p. 104. 
 
430 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 which for so many years he was the minister, 
 mothers had brought their children, and one of the 
 babies kept up a running commentary throughout 
 the entire service. Before dismissing the people. 
 Doctor Parker, after thanking the choir for its serv- 
 ices, referred to " that little singer in the corner,'* 
 and amid general smiles continued : " I never turn 
 a baby out of church. What would the church be 
 without its babies? I don't know what the baby 
 was saying, but I know it was all true.'* ^ 
 
 (2) But a knowledge of human nature may in 
 considerable measure be acquired as well as in- 
 herited. There are a few prominent types of char- 
 acter which can easily be learned, and under which 
 most men will range themselves. Learn these by all 
 means. Let these types be the pegs on which you 
 hang, metaphorically speaking, the greater part of 
 your church and congregation. Men are sanguine, 
 melancholic, nervous, lymphatic, aggressive, con- 
 servative. And under some one of these classes 
 most men whom you meet may be classified. Phre- 
 nology, however much quackery there may be mixed 
 with it as a profession, has at any rate given us a 
 classification of heads which is substantially fair. 
 These heads will be the points of a sermon which 
 ministerial experience will be constantly preaching 
 to you, and whose text will ever be " the proper 
 study of mankind is man." ^ Referring to the ab- 
 stract sciences, Pascal writes : " When I began to 
 study man, I saw that these abstract studies are not 
 
 11907. 2 Pope. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 43 1 
 
 suited to him, and that in diving into them I wan- 
 dered farther from my real object than those who 
 were ignorant of them; and I forgave men for not 
 having attended to these things. But I thought at 
 least I should find many companions in the study 
 of mankind, which is the true and proper study of 
 men. I was mistaken. There are yet fewer stu- 
 dents of man than of geometry." ^ That eccentric 
 genius. Father Taylor, of Boston, knew men better 
 than books, and hence his power over them. He 
 showed his keen sense when he once dared to say 
 of Doctor Channing: " If he only had had an edu- 
 cation ! " And Channing showed himself far more 
 than a scholar in the humility of his reply, " Yes, 
 he is right. What I have needed is an education 
 for my work." 
 
 A minister's life ought to be especially favorable 
 for the study of human nature. He comes as close 
 to its best phases as does the physician, and far 
 closer than the lawyer. As to men of these two 
 professions, its seamy side is revealed to him as 
 well. He hears the true tone of the human voice, 
 and sees the true look of the human face when un- 
 masked by some overwhelming sin or trouble or 
 grief. While the minister's active life is propitious 
 for the revelation of human nature in its various 
 phases, his training, however, is not so. Mr. Moody 
 puts this strongly, but not without reason : " You 
 take a man who has gone to a fitting school for 
 several years, then four years to college, and then 
 
 ^Tulloch's "Pascal," pp. 172, 173. 
 
432 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 three years to a theological seminary, and he comes 
 out with as little knowledge of human nature as if 
 he had dropped out of the moon." ^ John Bright's 
 well-known dislike for Scotch theology, because 
 " it's too full of the gridiron," was once forcibly 
 shown at a dinner when he turned from a Highland 
 minister of assertive tongue with the remark, ** It's 
 odd that a man who knows so little about this world 
 can tell us so much about the next." Yet while all 
 this is true, as a matter of fact ministers are found 
 to be capable in the management of rehgious or- 
 ganizations. As members of executive boards, sec- 
 retaries of societies, managers of conventions, and 
 members of important committees, they are, as a 
 rule, more able than laymen. 
 
 In mentioning some of the essential elements in 
 pastoral leadership, the order in which we have 
 considered them is that of intrinsic excellence rather 
 than that of practical worth — purity of purpose, de- 
 cision of character, readiness to work, common 
 sense, knowledge of human nature. With these 
 qualities firmly in place, the minister should be able 
 to weather many a storm and to arrive in due time 
 at the desired haven. Every leader must be him- 
 self led. As he does his work as the servant of 
 Jesus Christ, the minister will have abundant oppor- 
 tunity to manifest the metal of which he is made. 
 
 III. This leads us to consider how Ministerial 
 Leadership will be Displayed. It will show itself 
 in organizing the church for Christian work. 
 
 » 1889. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 433 
 
 I. The minister should make a careful study of 
 the membership of his church, for it is full of un- 
 developed talent. It is said that eighty-five per 
 cent, of our church-members are not working for 
 Christ to anything like the full limit of their pow- 
 ers. The church in this particular does not show 
 well in comparison with other enterprises. The 
 army has a larger percentage of soldiers, the factory 
 of employed power, and commercial speculations 
 yield a larger return of profit. Under the leader- 
 ship of Andrew Fuller the church at Kettering, at 
 work for the conversion of the world, forgot to 
 quarrel and became united and happy. So only as 
 the minister manages to make workers out of the 
 drones will he reduce the number of his own critics 
 as well as increase the number of workers in the 
 kingdom of Christ. This is no easy task, and will 
 require all that a minister has of patient persever- 
 ance and loving tact. Even the great religious lead- 
 ers of the world have found here almost insurmount- 
 able difficulty. In one of his last sermons to his 
 own people, Henry Ward Beecher speaks of this 
 very thing, and in unmistakable terms thus ad- 
 dresses his congregation : " We are brought nearly 
 to a standstill in many respects because we cannot 
 have people who are willing to take their knowledge 
 and life and use them in behalf of those that are 
 deficient. . . There is in this congregation a vast 
 amount of educated ability that is rotting in senti- 
 mental selfishness." Yet by wise leadership, work- 
 ers enough for every post in the many-sided 
 
 2C 
 
434 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 activities of the church may be secured and trained. 
 Begin with the young, for from their number will 
 be developed your best workers. Hunt for laborers 
 in unsuspected quarters, for latent ability has a way 
 of lurking beneath layers of diffidence and indolence 
 and must be dug out. Never tease any one to work, 
 but give all an opportunity to do something. Make 
 the request not so much because of pressing need, 
 nor because of the unwillingness of others to do the 
 task, but because it is work for Christ and for his 
 kingdom. 
 
 2. The minister should be careful not to under- 
 take too much himself. This is a special failing of 
 young ministers, whose enthusiasm often leads them 
 to do themselves what had far better be done by 
 others. 
 
 ( I ) While there will be many things which must 
 go through the minister's own hands and must be 
 accomplished by him alone, yet it is unwise for him 
 to do anything which he can get another to do. 
 The minister has no business to be stroke oar 
 all the time. To do too much himself in the work 
 of the church is false to the congregational theory, 
 according to which the minister is one of the people. 
 As he has no special priestly virtue, he must find 
 the limits of his mission in being an example to the 
 flock in word and work. In biblical phrase the 
 ideal is thus set forth : " All these men of war that 
 could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to 
 Hebron to make David king over all Israel: and 
 all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 435 
 
 make David king." ^ We must be aware of 
 the abuse of Congregationalism where the sense of 
 individual and personal responsibility is in danger 
 of being weakened in church fellowship. William 
 Jay shrewdly says concerning this danger : " Where 
 a number of persons are engaged, mutual depend- 
 ence on the other weakens a sense of individual 
 responsibility and often little or nothing is done. 
 Had the ark been appointed to be built by a com- 
 mittee, it would never have been finished." ^ How- 
 ever unfair Mill may be in his exaltation of the 
 individual when he describes the masses as " collect- 
 ive mediocrity," we probably all agree with him 
 when he says, '' the honor and glory of the average 
 man is that he is capable of following that imita- 
 tion; that he can respond internally to wise and 
 noble things, and be led to them with his eyes 
 open." ^ In this capacity for imitation the minister 
 will find his greatest hope ; and doing wise and noble 
 things himself, will before long find that many 
 others will want to do them also. Then a large part 
 of his mission will be, in the words of Spurgeon's 
 helpers, " to sit in the center, like Wellington on 
 his horse, and direct the battle." 
 
 (2) But not only is excessive w(5rk on the part 
 of the minister false to the congregational theory, 
 it also paralyzes congregational activity. " The 
 great difficulty is, the churches do nothing — only 
 willing to be boosted. . . I spent sixteen of the best 
 years of my life at a dead lift in boosting. . . I 
 
 1 1 Chron. 12 : 38. » " Life," p. 132, '"Mill on Liljerty." 
 
43^ FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 cannot revert to the scene without shuddering. . . 
 My soul hath it in remembrance afid is humbled 
 within me." ^ The only result of " boosting " is 
 generally to break the minister's own back. It is 
 his part rather to stimulate the energies of his 
 people and out of his own abounding vitality make 
 all about him grow and thrive. While the wise 
 minister will give the greatest freedom to his help- 
 ers in seeking and finding opportunities for their 
 talents, he will so direct and suggest and assist that 
 the right channel will be found for each particular 
 current on its way to the sea. The words of Mr. 
 Moody should be the motto which declares the aim 
 of every Christian minister : " I would rather set 
 ten men to work than do ten men's work myself." 
 
 The test of a well-managed church comes when 
 the minister leaves. If it has been taught independ- 
 ence and self -development, it will run smoothly and 
 well for some time. But if, on the other hand, the 
 minister, so far as Christian activity is co'ticerned, 
 has been the greater part of the church, all that is 
 best goes with him, and the church limps visibly 
 until another minister is found and her truly 
 crippled condition is again concealed. 
 
 The danger in our churches now seems to lie in 
 the multiplication of societies. The fear of many 
 of our best ministers lest organization may tyrannize 
 over spirituality is not entirely without warrant.- 
 In the wide range of work which now rightly 
 
 * " Life of Lyman Beecher." V'ol. II., p. 250. 
 8 Phillips Brooks, " Life," Vol. II., p. 775. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 437 
 
 occupies the Christian church we must beware lest 
 we fail to maintain spiritual vitality enough to keep 
 the body alive to its extremities. It is only as ma- 
 chinery is without power that it cumbers the ground 
 and is a thing unsightly and useless ; but when every 
 wheel is a thing of life, the amount of machinery 
 is an indication of the prosperity and producing 
 power of the factory where it is employed. So 
 while it is quite possible that machinery will injure 
 the spirituaHty of the church, it is also possible that 
 machinery will increase it. While we must never 
 have more wheels than power, we must remember, 
 as a glance at any electrical plant will illustrate, 
 that wheels also generate power. 
 
 The multiplication of societies is apt also to 
 cripple the church. The complaint of the old colored 
 pastor that his church was prospering poorly because 
 of " de 'cieties " is not unreasonable : 
 
 We can't do nuffin widout de 'ciety. Dar is de Lincum 
 'Ciety wid' Sister Jones an' Brudder Brown to run it; 
 Sister Williams must march in front ob de Daughters of 
 Rebecca. Den dar is de Dorcases, de Marthas, de Daugh- 
 ters of Ham, and de Liberian Ladies; dar am de Masons, 
 de Odd Fellers, de Sons of Ham, and de Oklahoma 
 Promise Land Pilgrims. Why, brudder, by de time de 
 brudders and sisters pays all de dues, an' 'tends all de 
 meetin's, dar is nuffin left for Mount Pisgah Church but 
 jist de cob; de corn has all been shelled off an' f rowed 
 to dese speckled chickens. 
 
 The needless multiplication of societies may be 
 prevented if the minister sees to it that no new 
 
43^ FOR The work of the ministry 
 
 organization is formed without the sanction of the 
 church, on the recommendation of the prudential 
 committee, of which he is the head. In a church 
 there can be but one responsible head, and that is 
 the minister. Do not surrender the control of any 
 branch of church work. You must be the leader. 
 
 (3) Too much work on the part of the minister 
 is injurious to himself as well as to congregational 
 activity and the theory of church polity which we 
 hold. The question which Moses' father-in-law 
 asked when he saw " all that he did to the people " 
 may well be asked of certain pastors : '' Why sittest 
 thou thyself alone and all the people stand by thee 
 from morning unto evening?" This good advice 
 is still needed : ** The thing that thou doest is not 
 good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and 
 this people that is with thee; for this thing is too 
 heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it 
 thyself alone." And the cure for this condition of 
 things is ready at hand : " Be thou for the people to 
 Godward . . . and thou shalt teach them . . . and 
 shalt show them the way wherein they must walk, 
 and the work that they must do. Moreover, thou 
 shalt provide out of all the people able men, such 
 as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness ; 
 and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, 
 rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of 
 tens." ^ As in one of our great dry goods stores 
 everything is done by some one other than the pro- 
 prietor, who finds his time fully occupied by the 
 
 »Exod. 18 : 13-22. 
 
THE MINISTER AS LEADER 439 
 
 duties of general oversight ; so the minister, beyond 
 directing and advising, should have as little hand 
 as possible in the actual work. He should be will- 
 ing to do anything if necessary, and determined to 
 do nothing which others can do. If he attempts to 
 do too much he will be crushed by the weight of 
 his own work, and the people, left in idleness, will 
 become apt critics instead of loyal helpers. There- 
 fore " attempt not to do everything yourself. Train 
 others for work. Study the brethren by whom you 
 are surrounded, and seek to put each to that for 
 which he is best adapted. It will not do for the 
 commander-in-chief in the day of battle to be mend- 
 ing a broken wagon wheel. He has other and more 
 important work on hand; but such details as that 
 may be left to those who are skilled in setting them 
 to rights. It is your privilege as a minister to plan 
 and superintend the campaign; but you cannot be 
 in every place and do everything." ^ These words 
 from an old campaigner should be heeded by every 
 minister who measures up to the full opportunities 
 of his office, and attempts to be leader as well as 
 preacher and pastor. 
 
 Nor does the influence of the power of leadership 
 end in the local church over which the minister is 
 placed. The church, while independent, is related 
 to the Association, to the State Convention, to the 
 denomination as a whole. Good leadership then, 
 will be felt in all these directions: in the treasury 
 of missionary societies, in the enterprises of the 
 
 * W. M. Taylor, " The Ministry of the Word," p. 264. 
 
440 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 associated churches, in the jreneral good name and 
 prosperity of the denomination, and far better than 
 all these, in the increased aggressive power of the 
 kingdom of God upon earth. 
 
 We cannot close this chapter better than with the 
 advice given by Benjamin Jowett to his tutors at 
 Oxford to guide them in dealing with undergradu- 
 ates : " Do not assert your authority too soon ; let it 
 come naturally and by degrees. . . Never speak of 
 their faults to any but themselves; you are sure to 
 lose influence if you do." ^ Such silences will prove 
 the minister indeed a leader of men. 
 
 * Abbott and Campbell's " Life of Benjamin Jowett," Vol. I., 
 p. 271. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL 
 RELATIONS 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 I. The Minister as a Gentleman. 
 
 1. Personal habits, (i) Appearance. (2) Dress. (3) 
 
 Manners. 
 
 2. Deportment, (i) Gravity. (2) Watchfulness. (3) 
 
 Self-forgetfulness. (4) Affability. 
 
 II. The Minister and His Home. 
 
 1. Necessity for having a home, (i) The home a dis- 
 
 tinct result of Christianity. (2) Honored by Christ 
 with special marks of his favor. (3) One source of 
 influence to the pastor. (4) Characterized by 
 economy and hospitality. 
 
 2. The family, (i) The wife. (2) The children. 
 
 III. The Minister in Society. 
 
 1. As to visiting. 
 
 2. As to making acquaintances. 
 
 3. As to social occasions. 
 
 4. As to correspondence. 
 
XX 
 
 THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 By the Minister in his Social Relations we mean 
 the part he should play as a gentleman; his duty, 
 as husband and father, to his own home and family ; 
 and his conduct in society. 
 
 I. There is a world of truth in the line, " A 
 Christian is God Almighty's gentleman." The very 
 fact that a man is a minister of Christ should make 
 him a gentleman. A very little study of the sub- 
 ject is sufficient to make the discovery that the 
 habits of good society are very largely rooted in 
 Christian principles. " The servant of the Lord 
 must be gentle," said Paul, and he further com- 
 mends himself by writing, '' We were gentle among 
 you." Christianity has everywhere been a civilizing 
 influence. Where Christianity has gone there hand 
 in hand with her are found also culture, courtesy, 
 and considerateness. 
 
 The minister then should be, in the true sense of 
 the term, a gentleman, and he will miss the mark 
 if he aim at anything less than this. Doctor John- 
 son's counsel in another connection is good here: 
 " Now that you have a name, you must be careful 
 to avoid many things, not bad in themselves, but 
 which will lessen your character." It is necessary not 
 
 443 
 
444 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 only to be a gentleman at heart, but to show forth 
 the instincts that are within, in outward appearance, 
 in dress, and manners. " The next best thing to 
 being a Christian," wrote William Carey to his son, 
 ** is to be a gentleman." Our Lord is referred to 
 by old Thomas Dekker as " the first true gentleman 
 that ever breathed." 
 
 We have perhaps (I am speaking now as a Bap- 
 tist) not paid sufficient attention to this subject. 
 Accessions to other denominations from our ranks 
 have often been due to our lack of attention to de- 
 portment and behavior. It will hardly do to sneer 
 at these things as being trivial and unimportant, for 
 they have always played a large part in influencing 
 and elevating the world, and are themselves an in- 
 dication of motives and interests that lie far be- 
 neath the surface. " Good manners are a part of 
 good morals." ^ Therefore without apology, we turn 
 now to consider — 
 
 I. The personal habits of the minister who is a 
 gentleman. 
 
 (i) Personal appearance will be the medium 
 through which you will make your first impressions 
 on others. The life of the student is not conducive 
 to care about such matters, but the minister must 
 pay much attention to these things. In the words 
 of another, " a preacher who is slovenly in his at- 
 tire, allowing his hair to be unkempt, his nails un- 
 clean, his boots unblacked, and his clothes un- 
 brushed, will prove a very poor conductor of divine 
 
 » Whately. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 445 
 
 truth. He will find very small fields of labor, 
 and under his tillage they will become * beautifully 
 less/ * Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the 
 Lord ' has a literal as well as spiritual application." ^ 
 The minister should be well-brushed, carefully 
 shaved, scrupulously clean, and well-kept : " The 
 purity of the mind breaking out, and dilating itself 
 even to his body, clothes, and habitation." ^ 
 
 (2) In regard to the dress of a minister, it need 
 not be black on ordinary occasions. Black is ex- 
 pensive and soon shows wear. While the minister's 
 clothes should not be exclusively clerical, he should 
 avoid also the other extreme, which is just as bad, 
 of being defiantly unclerical. We can imagine the 
 horror of Dr. John Angell James, himself a pat- 
 tern of propriety, as one Sunday morning in 
 the vestry he surveyed young Dale, his colleague, 
 clad in a pair of light-colored trousers. " But," said 
 Mr. James, " surely you are not going up into the 
 pulpit in those things ! " " Well," was the reply, " if 
 you greatly desire it, I can go up without them." 
 While in this case the dress was a part of Dale's 
 protest against a religion of ecclesiasticism and for- 
 mulas, still it is better that the average minister 
 record his protests by some other means than the 
 patterns of his garb. We counsel that the dress of 
 the minister, like the dress of all true gentlemen, 
 should not be such as to attract attention. While 
 we certainly would be far from declaring that he 
 
 1 Howard Crosby, "The Preacher," p. 105. 
 » George Herbert. 
 
44^ FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 should never wear a red necktie on a week-day, we 
 would go equally far in declaring that the white 
 necktie, especially on Sundays, may have something 
 in its favor. 
 
 (3) "Manners maketh the man," and we there- 
 fore speak emphatically concerning them. It is true 
 that " there are only two rules for good manners. 
 One is, always think of others; the other is, never 
 think of yourself " ; ^ but these two rules need fur- 
 ther explanation to make their application easy and 
 their meaning plain. An unmannered minister is 
 not only crippled in his efforts to do good, but he 
 is a severe reflection upon any theological seminary 
 which has graduated him with the manners and 
 personal habits of a boor. The best manners are 
 not to be learned from any book of etiquette, but 
 from noticing what are the customs of the best 
 people. 
 
 In regard to table manners, especial care is 
 needed. A possible lack of previous training, ac- 
 centuated by years of boarding-house life, will often 
 so entrench the lack of proper behavior at meals 
 that years of care will scarce suffice to erase the 
 marks which have been left. Notice what are 
 the habits of good society as to the knife and 
 fork; the knife never being used as a shovel, 
 nor to be lifted nearer the mouth than the food upon 
 the plate, which it is its sole business to cut. When 
 the use of these two articles is no longer required, 
 they are to be placed side by side upon the plate 
 
 * Doctor Jowett. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 447 
 
 before its removal. They should never in the course 
 of the meal be placed with their handles upon the 
 table and the blade or prongs upon the edge of 
 the dish, as though furtively endeavoring to scram- 
 ble into the place v^^hich is their proper sphere of 
 activity. The spoon should not be left in the cup, 
 and having been used, should be at once placed in 
 the saucer and left there. The toothpick is most 
 commendable by its absence, and should only be 
 used in the retirement of our ov^^n rooms. As to 
 the pocket handkerchief, we have only to say that 
 it should be used and then kept out of sight. It is 
 not a polisher, but is meant to perform the main duty 
 which its presence suggests. Never spit ! We wish 
 we could emphasize as we would this short sen- 
 tence. Nothing excuses the habit of expectoration. 
 We used to hear much of the necessity of this 
 national habit of ours because of the climatic con- 
 ditions. But a notice in our trolley cars and upon 
 our street corners, prohibiting the practice and en- 
 forcing the law in a few instances, has been suf- 
 ficient to make a most decided improvement in this 
 matter. If the cause of this tendency in any of us 
 is not climatic, but narcotic, we cannot too strongly 
 urge that the use of tobacco should never be made 
 offensive. In regard to the whole disagreeable 
 subject of expectoration we are reminded by Luther 
 in his " Table Talk " that it is no new evil, but 
 that it is always inexcusable, and in no man more 
 so than in the Christian minister : " The defects 
 in a preacher are soon spied; let a preacher be 
 
448 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 endued with ten virtues and but one fault, yet 
 this one fault will eclipse and darken all his virtues 
 and gifts; so evil is the world in these times. Dr. 
 Justus Jonas has all the good virtues and qualities 
 a man may have; yet merely because he hums and 
 spits, the people cannot bear that good and honest 
 man." And we cannot bear him either, and will rid 
 ourselves of him if possible. 
 
 Never attract attention by eccentricities and tricks 
 of manner. Do what others do when you are with 
 refined people, and never endeavor to go your own 
 pace when that pace puts you out of step with your 
 companions. You are never so much yourself as 
 when you are unnoticed. The lack of manners is 
 a serious obstacle to success in the Christian 
 ministry, and every young man choosing the 
 ministry as his vocation and determined to do the 
 most with himself in his high calling, should write 
 this down in indelible ink. It may seem a small 
 matter; it is really a great one. Of the Rev. 
 Samuel Ogden, d. d., fellow and president of St. 
 John's College, Cambridge, we read : " His uncivil- 
 ized appearance and bluntness of demeanor were 
 the greatest obstacles to his elevation in the church. 
 . . . The Duke [of New Castle, Chancellor of the 
 University] was willing to have brought our divine 
 up to court to prefer him, but found, as he ex- 
 pressed it, that the doctor was not a producible 
 man." ^ Let us then be " producible " men, for a 
 deficiency in the matter of manners is a fault which 
 
 * Dr. Adam Sedgwick, " Life," Vol. I., p. 193. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 449 
 
 it has been well said, " is as ruinous as a vice/' ^ 
 and men of very great ability have often failed in 
 life because in this respect they were unfitted for 
 the situation which they otherwise merited. 
 
 2. We pass now to deportment, which should be 
 distinguished by the following characteristics: 
 
 ( I ) Using the word in its best sense, we say, first 
 of all, that the minister's deportment should be 
 noted for its gravity. At all times the minister 
 does well to remember that he represents not only 
 himself, but the ministry of Christ, and further, 
 that he is a representative of Christ himself. Have 
 no fast ways. It is not entirely unjust that the 
 world demands a higher standard of the Christian 
 minister than it requires of itself. In his office his 
 humanity is exalted and assumes a new dignity. 
 The minister " is to enjoy life, but he finds sources 
 of joy in all the duties of his sublime vocation, and 
 is not compelled to drink at the world's crowded 
 fountains. Identification with the world's gaiety 
 and fashion must always defile a minister's gar- 
 ments. The fast horse, the pleasure yacht, the dash- 
 ing dog-cart, conspicuous jewelry, attendance at 
 ball, opera, or theater — these are unfailing marks of 
 a minister low-toned in his piety, or eccentric unto 
 uselessness in the service of that God, the love of 
 whom is put by the Scriptures in excluding con- 
 trast with the love of the world." ^ There must 
 
 1 Abbott and Campbell's " Life of Benjamin Jowett," Vol. II., 
 P- 347- 
 
 2 Howard Crosby, "The Christian Preacher," p. 113. 
 
 2D 
 
450 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 ^ways be a wide margin between preaching and 
 practice, as the ideal which we uphold and toward 
 which we persevere is not yet attained by the min- 
 ister any more than by his fellows. But the min- 
 ister can and should see to it that Lucian's picture 
 of Thrasycles is in no wise true of him : " This is 
 the man who in the morning dresses himself simply, 
 and walks sedately and wears a sober gown, and 
 preaches long sermons about virtues, and inveighs 
 against the votaries of pleasure; then he has his 
 bath and goes to dinner, and the butler offers him 
 a large goblet of wine, and he drinks it down with 
 as much gusto as if it were the water of Lethe ; 
 and he behaves exactly in the opposite way to his 
 sermons in the morning, for he snatches all the tid- 
 bits like a hawk, and elbows his neighbor out of the 
 way, and he peers into the dishes with as keen an 
 eye as if he were likely to find Virtue herself in 
 them." ^ " Keep up the habit of being respected " 
 is the good advice of one who sometimes himself 
 failed in this regard,^ and to do so, cultivate that 
 gravity of deportment which robs the minister of 
 no true pleasure in life and safeguards him from 
 those by whom he is so closely watched. 
 
 (2) The second characteristic by which a min- 
 ister's deportment should be distinguished is watch- 
 fulness. The minister is a shining mark for temp- 
 tation. The fall of ministers, scandals about them, 
 even the breath of suspicion, will always be ex- 
 
 » Edwin Hatch's " Hibbard Lectures," 1888, p. 42. 
 * Sydney Smith. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 45 1 
 
 aggerated in order to depreciate religion. As sharp- 
 shooters endeavor to pick off the officers first, that 
 they may thus do the greatest damage, so do men 
 of the world endeavor often to destroy the minister, 
 and thus deal a crushing blow at Christ and his 
 church. We have need of the words of sage old 
 Baxter, " Take heed to yourselves, because the 
 tempter will make his first and sharpest onset upon 
 you." We might expect Rasselas to give us such a 
 sentence as this, " The teachers of morality discourse 
 like angels, but they live like men " ; but we find 
 even kindly spirited Hartley Coleridge, writing of 
 Frederick Faber whom he has just heard preach, 
 " Of his sincerity there can be no doubt ; of his 
 Christian sanity, I have my suspicions." The tend- 
 ency to depreciate the Christian ministry has its roots 
 so deep down in man's nature, and they are so in- 
 extricably intertwined, that we have no tool delicate 
 enough to separate them. Nearly every one seems 
 to feel a certain satisfaction in detailing inconsist- 
 encies discovered in a minister, which they would 
 regard more charitably in another. This tendency 
 shows itself in the sneer of the man of the world 
 that the minister is a hypocrite, in discounting his 
 motives, and in questioning his sanity. But the same 
 tendency is seen in members of Christian congrega- 
 tions by the close watch which they keep over their 
 minister, and the conversations concerning him in 
 the social circle, in the gatherings of the church, 
 and about the dining-room table. The minister lives 
 jn the " fierce light " which beats on all positions 
 
452 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 above the common level, blackening " every blot," 
 and making even the white places look at times 
 dingy and soiled. Therefore the minister must be 
 on his guard to avoid even the appearance of evil, 
 and must refrain from doing many things which 
 for him are unlawful because inexpedient. " He 
 must have a good report of them which are without, 
 lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the 
 devil." 1 
 
 (3) With an inconsistency which is only under- 
 stood through the hard experiences of life, we com- 
 mend now what may seem at first the opposite 
 characteristic of watchfulness, namely, self-forget- 
 fulness. Our watchfulness should never lead to self- 
 consciousness, for that is its morbid excrescence. 
 Perhaps no harder task lies before the minister who 
 would be a gentleman than forgetfulness of self. 
 Foolish and thoughtless members of the church and 
 congregation will tempt him to talk much about 
 himself, and to many a minister the most interest- 
 ing topic of conversation seems to be this same 
 theme. So interested may he become in this subject 
 that nothing which pertains to him is too insignifi- 
 cant or too sacred to be exempted — his sermons, 
 and his experiences, and his people, and alas, 
 even his wife and his children. The natural 
 beginning for the " few remarks " which the min- 
 ister is called on to offer in the Sunday-school or 
 on some special occasion is too often the narration 
 of what his wife said as he parted from her to come 
 
 1 » Tim. 3:7. 
 
THE MINISTER 1^ HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 453 
 
 to the meeting, or the saying of one of his children, 
 which is bright for the nursery, but generally dull 
 to other fathers and mothers listening in the public 
 assembly. Beware lest this become a habit. Fur- 
 ther, it is questionable whether it is wise to adver- 
 tise much in the papers, for such public mention 
 always rouses the suspicion that in some roundabout 
 way the notice is inserted from personal motives. 
 We have in another place warned our brethren 
 against the practice of preaching an annual sermon, 
 full of statistics, and of the unwisdom of allowing 
 to become public property the number of sermons 
 we have preached, the prayer-meetings attended, the 
 addresses made, the pastoral calls paid, the bap- 
 tisms administered, the weddings which we have 
 celebrated, the funerals at which we have officiated. 
 Better far never keep such a record, even for our 
 own private inspection, if we find it a fruitful source 
 of temptation to the unforgetfulness of self. 
 
 (4) Affability is the last characteristic which we 
 shall mention as peculiarly a part of the minister's 
 deportment. By this is meant approachableness. 
 In salutations do as society does. Be careful of 
 small courtesies and remember that it is almost a 
 perfect description of a gentleman to say, " He is 
 one who lifts his hat to his washerwoman." Be 
 careful not to be so absorbed in the contemplation 
 of next Sunday's sermon, or other plans for the 
 advancement of the kingdom, that you fail quickly 
 to recognize acquaintances whom you pass in the 
 street. Be awake as you walk along the pavement, 
 
454 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 for there your instant and cordial greeting will do 
 as much good, and perhaps more, for the kingdom 
 than your sermons. Character is shown by the man- 
 ner in which men shake hands with one another. 
 The minister who knows how to do this has a point 
 in his favor which is a valuable asset. Shake hands 
 like a gentleman and not like a boor. There is 
 no need to grip another's hand and crush it as 
 though in a vise, and even worse is the mincing 
 manner which barely touches two fingers. Shake 
 hands in a hearty, friendly manner, and by that 
 clasp you will bind many to yourself and to the 
 work which you love, who would not be touched 
 by your ministrations from the pulpit. A hand- 
 shake is a proclamation of the gospel without words 
 and at close quarters. 
 
 In voice and manner be always the affable gen- 
 tleman. Court, do not repel, the kindly confidence 
 of your neighbors. Be suave, gracious, and bland, 
 and be these in the right way. There is nothing 
 much more disagreeable than a minister with a pro- 
 fessional smile, and words ever ready upon his lips 
 which are not honeyed only because they smack 
 rather of glucose. Be genuine; the only way to be 
 genuine is to have the material within correspond 
 with the label without. May we not say without ir- 
 reverence that it was this affability shown in word 
 and manner that made our Lord a welcome guest 
 at the wedding of Cana, and at the home of Simon 
 the rich Pharisee? Nay, was it not because of this 
 that the little children gathered about him, and 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 455 
 
 their mothers sought that he might bless them? 
 Any one might say, " Suffer the httle children to 
 come unto me," but would they have come save to 
 one who was gracious and kind and whom they 
 instinctively recognized as such? We often think 
 that it was this quality that at first caused even the 
 publicans and sinners to' desert the murmuring 
 Pharisees and scribes and draw near unto him.^ 
 How beautiful is Goldsmith's portrait of the good 
 minister in his '' Deserted Village " ; and this por- 
 trait is to-day reproduced in many another pastor 
 in the quiet of some countryside or amid the glare 
 and bustle of a city's streets. 
 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year; . . 
 
 Unskilful he to fawn or seek for power, 
 
 By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; 
 
 Far other aims his heart had learnt to prize, 
 
 More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. . . 
 
 Thus to reUeve the wretched was his pride, 
 
 And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; 
 
 But in his duty, prompt at every call. 
 
 He watched and wept, he pray'd and felt for all ; 
 
 And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
 
 To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies. 
 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 
 Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 
 
 Affability is personal magnetism in its best garb. 
 
 II. V/e turn now to the Pastor and his Home, 
 and surely no social relation into which he enters 
 will be so dear as this. 
 
 * Luke 15 : i. 
 
45^ FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 I. The Christian minister needs a home more 
 than almost any other man. He should rejoice in 
 it as one who knows how to appreciate that home 
 which is a distinct result of Christianity. " In the 
 blessing of the Christian home we have one of the 
 worked-out results, one of the thoroughly taught 
 lessons of a progressive revelation. . . Revelation 
 lays hold first of a great natural instinct and hal- 
 lows it. The God of the Bible singles out the 
 family line as the means of conveyance of his prom- 
 ised blessing." ^ About the hearth of a Christian 
 home should be grouped the tenderest and holiest 
 associations of this world. The hearthstone should 
 be the altar where God speaks as nowhere else. 
 As Christ honored the home in the days when 
 his feet trod the roads of Palestine, so he honors it 
 still, and the home where Christ is an honored guest 
 is for most of us the dearest spot on earth. This 
 is Christ's gift and glory to us as well as to " the 
 wedding guest at Cana, the Pharisee at Levi's table, 
 the sisters with their restored brother, the brothers 
 of the Lord in the house of the carpenter — [who] 
 all just as soon as Jesus sanctified and blessed the 
 society in which they lived, saw coming to them, 
 as it were, out of the heart of that society a self- 
 hood which no solitary contemplation could have 
 gained. Each of them found his Father among 
 his brethren — reached God through the revelation 
 of other human lives." ^ 
 
 1 Newman Smyth, " Old Faiths in New Light," pp. 93, 94. 
 ' Phillips Brooks, " The Influence of Jesus," p. 97. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 457 
 
 Without turning it into a hostelry, the min- 
 ister will nevertheless find that his home is one of 
 the greatest sources of his influence. Avoid the 
 boarding-house or the hotel. Have a home of your 
 own at once on settling in a parish. If this should 
 not be possible, we warn you not to board with 
 a member of the church over which you are settled, 
 for this is dangerous in more senses than one. Too 
 close contact with members of the church dulls the 
 perception of such virtues as we may possess, while 
 it sharpens the edge of our failings. Have some 
 place, and for this " there is no place like home," 
 where you do not need to be on your guard, and 
 where you can, through entire relaxation, gather 
 fresh courage for your public work. 
 
 A minister's house in the neighborhood of the 
 church is often very desirable, as it makes him ac- 
 cessible to his people ; but in this case he should be 
 careful lest it make him too accessible. When the 
 ladies of the sewing society form the habit of bor- 
 rowing the minister's china, or of sending to the 
 parsonage for an extra supply of bread, made nec- 
 essary by the forgetfulness of some sister to bring 
 her portion for their regular church tea, then it is 
 probably time to move one's residence a little farther 
 away. 
 
 A minister will do well, when the house is not 
 provided by the church to pay, if necessary, a rent 
 which is too much rather than too little for his 
 purse. Like the doctor, the minister must make 
 an appearance in the woxld, and he had better, for 
 
458 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 the sake of his influence, economize in some other 
 direction rather than in house rent. 
 
 The minister's home should be characterized by 
 economy and hospitaHty. The minister on the aver- 
 age salary may think it almost sarcastic when we 
 say that economy be practised in his home. Yet 
 there can be extravagance on five hundred dollars 
 a year as well as on five thousand, and we urge 
 again that the minister under no circumstances run 
 into debt. Bread and milk paid for in ready money 
 is a far better diet than cake and cream which are 
 charged. Tradespeople soon get to estimate a min- 
 ister by the promptness with which he settles his 
 bills rather than by the eloquence with which he 
 preaches his sermons. The minister who pays 
 promptly, and refuses all special favors in the way 
 of discounts and the like, will rise high in the es- 
 teem of those with whom he does business. These 
 people will be his best advertisers, for they meet 
 many in a single business day, and sooner or later 
 they will speak a good word for such a minister 
 to those whom they serve with yardstick or 
 meat-axe. 
 
 We strongly advise that you insure your life as 
 soon as possible after settlement. There is nothing 
 like life insurance to force a minister to save such 
 an amount as will provide for his wife and children 
 in case of his death, and protect his own old age 
 if he should be fortunate enough to reach it. Most 
 ministers cannot save in any other way. We re- 
 gard endowment insurance as especially valuable in 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 459 
 
 the case of the minister. The demands upon him 
 are so great that the minister can, and generally 
 will, spend every penny of his income. But if the 
 premium for insurance has to be paid several times 
 a year, those payments must be met, and in that 
 necessity lies the minister's safety. A good en- 
 dowment policy in some thoroughly reliable com- 
 pany should be in the possession of every minister 
 before he reaches the age of thirty. This policy 
 should be for as large an amount as can be carried 
 without curtailing too much his wife's allowance 
 for housekeeping, or the fund which is set aside as 
 sacred for beneficence. The earlier the minister in- 
 sures of course the better, and if he can see his 
 way to it, we urge that the student in the seminary 
 take out at least one policy before he is graduated. 
 
 Just because the minister is what he is he must 
 be careful of appearances, and must avoid every- 
 thing that looks like extravagance in dress and fur- 
 niture. Good taste as well as expediency will lead 
 him to take this course ; for good things are always 
 in the long run the cheapest, and are never showy 
 and loud. Avoid the horsehair sofa, on the one 
 hand, and the plush-covered parlor set on the other, 
 and we have little fear but that you will sail safely 
 between Scylla and Charybdis. 
 
 While we urge economy upon a minister, we urge 
 hospitality as well, and the one by no means makes 
 impossible the other. Hospitality is a necessity of 
 life, and should be reckoned by the minister in his 
 estimate of expenses along with his coal and flour. 
 
460 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Have your doors wide open to brother ministers, for 
 those of the right stamp leave a blessing behind 
 them. Beware, however, of the religious tramp, 
 who calls to see you entirely by accident five minutes 
 before your dinner hour. Never allow yourself to 
 be imposed upon by the professional who knocks 
 upon your back door and requests what in his par- 
 lance is termed a " hand-out," or by that personage, 
 equally professional, who seeks to force himself to 
 a place at your table for the sake of the loaves and 
 fishes which he scents as he rings your front-door 
 bell. 
 
 By showing true hospitality yourself you will en- 
 courage your people in this grace also, and the min- 
 ister who is hearty and eager to entertain will have 
 few parishioners who grumble and make excuse 
 when bed and board is sought from them for the 
 vacation preacher or the visiting missionary. Some 
 ministers invite publicly strangers in the congrega- 
 tion, or any of their own people who may be living 
 away from their own homes, to drop in at the par- 
 sonage at some stated hour in the afternoon or 
 evening of Sunday. This is admirable where it 
 does not impose too great labor upon the minister's 
 wife, and where the hospitality offered is extremely 
 simple and in no wise suggests a Sunday reception. 
 It lets people know that you desire to come into 
 close touch with them, and the kindly spirit of such 
 an invitation pervades the whole church and does 
 good even where it is not accepted. 
 
 2. From the minister's home it is but a short step 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 46I 
 
 to the family who should be there to make it home 
 indeed. 
 
 ( I ) We speak first of all of the wife. Marriage 
 is most desirable for a minister. If some young 
 man "contemplating" (alack the word!) matri- 
 mony desires reasons for this, he will find them 
 abundantly in the very nature of his work. As a 
 preacher he will need to deal with domestic life, 
 and nothing is more amusing to fathers and mothers 
 than to listen to a discourse on the training of 
 children, which is admirable in all points but one, 
 and that one the singleness of the minister. You 
 cannot preach on certain topics until you are mar- 
 ried, and matrimony literally increases the min- 
 ister's range of themes. As a pastor too, you will 
 be ill-fitted for many of your duties until you are 
 married. You will be barred from many a confi- 
 dence which it is your mission to receive, for people 
 rightly regard the unmarried minister as one limited 
 in experience, and hence in sympathy. 
 
 His own constitution demands also that the min- 
 ister be married. He is human, and is constantly 
 dealing with life in its emotional aspects, and there- 
 fore nature and necessity alike tell him eloquently 
 that " it is not good that the man should be alone, 
 I will make him an help meet for him." ^ If the 
 question is asked, "' What is the right time for a 
 minister to marry?" we reply in the words of 
 Doctor McLaren : " Don't get married too soon ! 
 It is a woful interruption to study." We advise 
 
 > Gen. 2 : 18. 
 
462 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 that the young minister should remain unmarried 
 for at least a year or two after his ordination, in 
 order that he may give himself up wholly to his 
 great work, and prove himself the right man in 
 the right place, before taking upon his shoulders 
 added responsibilities and burdens. Besides, only 
 after such an interval can the minister generally af- 
 ford to marry. As a rule we fear that ministers 
 practise less common sense than other men in this 
 matter. Their marriage frequently follows a few 
 days after their graduation, and sometimes even be- 
 fore the young man has freed himself from debts 
 incurred in gaining his education. One of the rea- 
 sons for many a ministerial failure is to be found in 
 this precipitation. The following advice is sound, 
 and if any advice will ever be needed by the aver- 
 age young man in this particular direction, these 
 words should be pondered well : " Neither marry 
 nor trammel yourself with an engagement until 
 after four or five years' experience in the ministry. 
 Indeed, until after such an interval as will enable 
 you reasonably to judge as to the character of work 
 which God's providence intends for you." ^ 
 
 Emboldened by having said so much concerning 
 this matter, we venture, though with becoming tim- 
 idity, to offer a few counsels concerning the choice 
 of a wife. By all means make this choice yourself ! 
 Beware of match-making mammas and equally 
 match-making papas, especially in your own congre- 
 gation. Do not flatter yourself that it is entirely 
 
 1 BedcU, " The Pastor," p. 59 »• 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 463 
 
 the charm of your conversation that leads you to 
 receive in the unmarried years of your ministry so 
 many invitations to dinner. Your conversation will 
 be equally charming later ; but there will be a notable 
 diminishing of the invitations received for such 
 festivities after you have become a benedict. Be 
 equally on your guard against thinking that every 
 father and mother desires you for a son-in-law, or 
 that every courteous young woman desires to marry 
 you. Go your own way, eat your dinners thank- 
 fully, and impute motives to no one. When the 
 right one appears on the horizon, then do your best 
 to gain the prize ; but be sure that the hand which 
 raises the mainsail and presses on every yard of 
 canvas is your own, and not another's. 
 
 Not only make this choice yourself, but make it 
 prudently, because you are your own counselor. 
 As a rule it is not well to marry into the congre- 
 gation of which you are a minister. In case you 
 become engaged to a member of your congregation, 
 it is generally better to move and make a home for 
 your wife among strangers. Speaking of the com- 
 parative failure of many of our ministers, and at- 
 tributing such failures to unsuitable marriages, John 
 Angell James asks and answers this question: 
 " What is the preventive of all this ? Celibacy ? 
 By no means; but great care, deliberation, caution, 
 and patience in the selection of a wife, united with 
 much and earnest prayer to be guided aright." ^ 
 
 Though it seem somewhat cold-blooded to pursue 
 
 ^ R. W. Dale's " Life and Letters of J. A. James," p. 162. 
 
464 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 SO romantic a subject in so prosaic a spirit, we 
 further counsel that the minister be judicious in the 
 selection of the woman who, next to himself, will 
 make or mar his work. The minister should seek 
 in a wife such qualities as will peculiarly adapt her 
 for residence in a parsonage. Of course, she should 
 be pious, but piety in women is no difficult virtue 
 to find, and she should further be noted for adapta- 
 bility. Not every good woman is suitable for a 
 minister's wife. A wife should be of the same de- 
 nomination as her husband, and if she is not, she 
 should soon after marriage enter that fellowship. 
 She should be interested in the work in which he 
 is engaged. This does not mean that she should 
 engage with him in his work. It is certainly pref- 
 erable for the minister to do his work himself, and 
 his wife can do more good by properly ordering 
 her household, and incidentally the minister, than 
 by aiding him in the composition of his sermons 
 or accompanying him in his pastoral visitations. 
 The minister's wife should never be the minister's 
 unpaid assistant. Her home duties should have the 
 first place, and to them her most urgent attention 
 should be given. If beyond this she has time as a 
 member of the church to engage in church work, 
 well and good; but she belongs first of all to the 
 minister. Dean Stanley on one occasion was din- 
 ing with Cardinal Manning, to whom the dean was 
 deploring the depleted condition of the Abbey reve- 
 nues, and the difficulties in the way of raising funds 
 for its extension and restoration. " Ah ! " said the 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 465 
 
 cardinal quietly, " you see what you have lost by 
 the Reformation." " But, cardinal," replied the 
 dean, bowing to his wife, the Lady Augusta, who 
 presided at the head of the table, " this is my suf- 
 ficient consolation." This too has been the con- 
 solation of many a minister who has refused to al- 
 low his wife to be the slave of his congregation, 
 and has gladly and chivalrously recognized her as 
 queen of his household. 
 
 The minister's wife should be endowed with that 
 by no means common quality, common sense. How 
 often she will have need of it to supply his own 
 lack in this respect, ministerial experience can alone 
 demonstrate. She should be the minister's best 
 friend, and from her lips he should hear the exact 
 truth in regard to himself so far as she sees that he 
 has grace to bear it. By her alone can needed words 
 be spoken which will not wound. She alone who 
 loves us most can say those things which it is right 
 and wholesome for us to hear. Her presence too, 
 will often stimulate us to do our best, and in times 
 when our soul is cast down within us, her cheer- 
 fulness like a medicine will restore and heal us. 
 Blessed is the wife who bears such a part toward 
 her husband. She is the life and light of his home, 
 and as such does infinitely more for the church, as 
 well as for the minister, than by being president 
 of a host of societies or by presiding with dignity 
 at oft-recurring missionary or other meetings. 
 
 If the minister's wife has humor, so much the 
 better, and if he has it not, we should almost be 
 
 2E 
 
466 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 inclined to place humor as her first requirement. 
 Nothing else so rubs the points from the rocks over 
 which the minister is bound to scrape, and nothing 
 so quickly pours oil upon troubled waters. 
 
 The wife of the minister should be endowed with 
 good health. He will have quite enough to do in 
 the ordinary course of his work without having a 
 woman of feeble body, and hence too often of 
 querulous spirit, to be his life companion and the 
 mother of his children. By all that is holy in the 
 laws of environment and heredity let the minister's 
 choice of a wife fall on broad shoulders and abound- 
 ing health. The advice of a certain bachelor, writ- 
 ing not long ago to the " Pall Mall Gazette," is 
 excellent on this point. He declares that the morn- 
 ing is the best time for making a character synopsis 
 of a woman, and goes on to say : " Beware of the 
 young woman who complains of being cold in the 
 morning, who looks sickly, who comes down late, 
 who appears to have dressed hastily, who languishes 
 a whole forenoon over a couple of letters to a sis- 
 ter or a schoolfellow. No matter how bright and 
 animated she may appear further on, avoid her." 
 
 If the minister's wife possesses even the majority 
 of the qualities here mentioned, she will also by 
 the very fact of that possession know the great 
 virtue of silence. No minister's wife ever did harm 
 by saying too little. Whatever she says goes like 
 wildfire through the congregation, and often dis- 
 figures the landscape and singes the minister him- 
 self. Wesley seems to have had a wife who was 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 46/ 
 
 of this kind, and we can hardly condemn him for 
 writing after her departure for reasons which he 
 could not fathom, " Non earn reliqui; non demisi; 
 non revocabo " — " I did not desert her ; I did not 
 send her away ; I will not recall her." ^ 
 
 This seems the fitting place to speak a word of 
 caution, to those whom it concerns, as to forming 
 an engagement. Be careful not to excite expecta- 
 tions unless you desire honorably to fulfil the in- 
 tention which special attention to a young woman 
 suggests. The young minister must not become en- 
 tangled in complications in his plans for matrimony. 
 A peculiar interest is attached to the minister (as 
 to the officer in the army), which gives him a po- 
 sition only too easily abused. We are reminded 
 here that Spurgeon was accustomed to give sage 
 and sound advice to his students on this subject. 
 It was not always acted upon, however, as the fol- 
 lowing instance demonstrates: A student was re- 
 ported as being engaged to three young ladies at 
 the same time. This news reached Mr. Spurgeon, 
 and the young man was called into his private room, 
 where to his consternation he found the three young 
 women. After a warm five minutes, Mr. Spurgeon 
 bade him then and there make his choice, and thus 
 the matter was settled, for the time being, at least.^ 
 Philip Henry, the father of the famous com- 
 mentator, sought the hand of the daughter of a 
 somewhat prominent family, and was met by the 
 
 1 " Heart of John Wesley's Journal," p. 363. 
 
 2 " Personal Reminiscences," by W. Williams, p. 149. 
 
468 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 objection on her father's part that though he seemed 
 an excellent preacher, the family were ignorant 
 whence the young man came : " True," replied the 
 daughter, " but I know where he is going, and I 
 want to go along with him." " Please God and 
 please yourselves," he was accustomed to say in 
 after years when his own children asked his con- 
 sent to their marriage. After the wedding cere- 
 mony he saluted them with a fatherly kiss, and the 
 words, " Other people wish you much happiness, but 
 I wish you much holiness. If you have that you 
 are certain to be happy." A happy marriage is 
 likely to result from an engagement that is entered 
 into in a manly and honorable spirit and as the 
 result of much circumspection. 
 
 An engagement to marry should be held as sacred 
 in its way as the marriage tie itself. Let it be 
 known in your congregation when you are engaged 
 and have no foolish secrets. Marriage and all that 
 pertains to it should be lifted out of a frivolous 
 atmosphere, and especially the marriage of a 
 minister. 
 
 Avoid, if possible, a protracted engagement. Too 
 frequently theological students are engaged before 
 they enter the seminary, and during their entire 
 course the distractions of an engagement and the 
 duties it involves, interfere more or less with their 
 studies. It is to be remembered that generally the 
 girl a man would marry at twenty is not the 
 girl he would choose a few years later. When 
 the young minister has reached the point where 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 469 
 
 marriage is proper and right, it is well that the pre- 
 liminary period be as brief as possible. A long en- 
 gagement is apt to distract his mind, divert his 
 affections, and often break up the continuity of his 
 work. 
 
 The subject of the minister's wife is an attractive 
 one, which we leave with regret. The peace and 
 prosperity of our congregation depend as much 
 upon the mistress of the manse as upon the master 
 of it, and we believe that of all the good influences 
 that are abroad in the world about us, no second 
 place should be given to the minister's wife. After 
 speaking of a love experience of the " solemn and 
 learned " Cotton Mather, one of his biographers 
 adds: 
 
 Many another Puritan parson has left record of his 
 wooings that are warm to read. And well did the par- 
 sons' wives deserve their ardent wooings and their tender 
 love letters. Hard as was the minister's life, over-filled 
 as was his time, highly taxed as were his resources, all 
 these hardships were felt in double proportion by the min- 
 ister's wife. The old Hebrew standard of praise quoted 
 by Cotton Mather, " A woman worthy to be the wife of 
 a priest," was keenly epigrammatic; and ample proof of 
 the wise insight of the standard of comparison may be 
 found in the lives of " the pious, prudent, and prayerful " 
 wives of New England ministers. What wonder that their 
 praises were sung in many loving though halting threno- 
 dies, in long-winded but tender eulogies, in labored ana- 
 grams, in quaintly-spelled epitaphs? For the ministers' 
 wives were the saints of the Puritan calendar.^ 
 
 * " The Sabbath in Puritan New England," by Alice Moss Elarl, 
 p. 291. 
 
470 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 We think the more of those old Puritans because 
 they, and their people with them, thought so much 
 of their wives, and we turn away from the thren- 
 odies, eulogies, anagrams, and epitaphs in which 
 they sung her praises, exclaiming, ** So say we all 
 of us ! " Though the subject is as worthy to-day as 
 ever, we fear we do not always say it so well. 
 
 (2) Having spoken somewhat at length of the 
 minister's wife, we mention now more briefly some 
 observations concerning his children. Only a few 
 words are needed, because if the wife and mother 
 is the right kind of woman, the children will gen- 
 erally require little attention from any one else. 
 The minister's children should be an example to 
 the flock, and this, we believe, as a rule they are. 
 We cannot too emphatically deny the popular notion 
 that the children of ministers, especially the sons, 
 are worse than other children. History and experi- 
 ence strongly assert the contrary. The children of 
 ministers, in far greater proportion than the children 
 of men of other professions, become famous men 
 and women. 
 
 The names of only a few of the more famous 
 ministers' sons can be given here: Joseph Addison, 
 S. T. Coleridge, William Cowper, Ben Johnson, 
 Oliver Goldsmith, Alfred Tennyson, James Russell 
 Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, Christopher Wren, Matthew Arnold, William 
 Hazlitt, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, George Ban- 
 croft, J. A. Froude, Francis Parkman, Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, Henry Clay, Edward Everett, Charles 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 47 1 
 
 Kingsley, Mark Pattison, Donald G. Mitchell, Wil- 
 liam Stead, F. B. Morse, Cyrus W. Field, Chester 
 A. Arthur, Levi P. Morton, Grover Cleveland. 
 
 It needs no formal census to make evident the 
 fact that a large proportion of the men in the ranks 
 of the ministry had ministers for their fathers, and 
 received from them the impulse which decided their 
 life-work. At once there occur to us such hon- 
 ored names as Henry Ward Beecher, Jonathan Ed- 
 wards, F. W. Farrar, A. P. Stanley, Robert Hall, 
 Norman Macleod, Adolphe Monod, C. H. Spurgeon, 
 R. S. Storrs, Lyman Abbott, H. J. Van Dyke, 
 Marcus Dods. 
 
 " Live with your children " is the motto of Froe- 
 bel, which needs to be deeply written in the heart 
 of the busy minister. Because he is a father, he 
 must find time for his family. 
 
 HL The Minister in Society. This much-abused 
 word needs to be cleared of any odium which may 
 be attached to it. The contempt for fashionable 
 people, which is often well deserved, does not apply 
 to high-bred people, who may be a very different 
 class. 
 
 I. A word as to calls. Let such visits be brief; 
 they need not last more than fifteen minutes. It is 
 best to make calls in the afternoon, and then always 
 between the hours of four and six. If, however, 
 the call is planned for the evening, never arrive at 
 the house before eight o'clock. Beware of over- 
 visiting, for it is better that the minister should 
 cut aloof from society altogether than be overmuch 
 
472 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 in it. The visiting card should be neat and plain, 
 and your title is far better omitted. Cards on 
 which the minister's name is engraved in facsimile 
 of his handwriting should, of course, never be used ; 
 neither is it best to use for this purpose the usual 
 business card which contains the name of the 
 church, and which is suitable for a pastoral call. 
 A card with the name upon it, and if desired, the 
 place of residence in one corner, is all that is nec- 
 essary. The card had better be engraved, and the 
 initial expense of a plate is but little when it is 
 remembered that it should last a lifetime. 
 
 At many homes which the minister enters as a 
 guest he will be invited to play cards or billiards. 
 While there is no harm in such games in and of 
 themselves, yet their associations are such that we 
 advise him to abstain from them ; though he had bet- 
 ter equally avoid any condemnation of such prac- 
 tices, for he would only earn for himself the 
 disfavor of the company, and do good to no one. 
 
 V^isit your brother ministers and be careful to call 
 on all new-comers among them, no matter what their 
 denomination. Gentlemanlike feeling is at no time 
 more strongly shown, or more graciously appre- 
 ciated, than in the call of welcome made soon after 
 some minister comes to another church in your 
 town or city. Here is an opportunity for the ap- 
 plication of the Golden Rule, a rule which is indeed 
 all that a minister or any other man really needs, 
 to enable him properly to conduct himself in social 
 relationships. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 473 
 
 2. It is not entirely true that a man makes no 
 friends, only acquaintances, after thirty. While not 
 neglecting those of your own denomination, it is 
 pleasant to have intimate friends among those who 
 are not enrolled in the ranks of your own particular 
 regiment. Among them the minister can be more 
 free and unguarded than among his own people. 
 It is wise too, that he should choose as broad a 
 pasture as possible to browse in, for narrow limits 
 make poor milk and scanty butter. 
 
 Be very careful in your relations with women. 
 We wish no return of the spirit which led at one 
 time to the women being separated from the men 
 in our churches; and neither do we commend that 
 abstract feeling with which priests of the Roman 
 Catholic Church are taught to regard them.^ The 
 Protestant minister of to-day needs to beware of 
 any approach to familiarity in tone or sentiment. 
 Speak always of women in the respectful tone of 
 the New Testament. Remember the warnings of so 
 many ministers who have fallen, and be very care- 
 ful. In a case of many years ago, where a minister 
 had been guilty of grave indiscretion, a council was 
 called to abate the scandal. The practical wisdom 
 of its moderator was shown, after the council had 
 retired and the prayer for divine guidance had been 
 offered, when he said : " Brethren, before we enter 
 upon a discussion of this case, I desire to make one 
 remark. In this world there are two kinds of fools. 
 One kind are devilish fools; the other natural 
 
 ^ Renan's " Recollections of My Youth," p. 95. 
 
474 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 fools. My judgment clearly is that this brother 
 belongs to the latter class." ^ It is quite true that 
 a man does not need to be wicked in order to be 
 indiscreet, yet to be any kind of fool whatsoever 
 hinders the progress of the Christian church and 
 sometimes creates odors which all the perfumes of 
 Araby will scarce sweeten. We are at first at a loss 
 to understand why John Bunyan, in his " Pilgrim's 
 Progress," describes his hero as leaving behind him 
 his wife, when he started on his journey to the 
 Celestial City. But later the mystery is cleared 
 when we read concerning the hero of the Bedford 
 jail, that he '' admired the wisdom of God in mak- 
 ing him shy of the sisterhood," and openly boasted 
 that " it was a rare thing for him to carry it pleas- 
 ant toward a woman." " The common salutation 
 of women," said he, " I abhor. Their company 
 alone I cannot away with." ^ While the minister 
 must not be a misogynist, yet ^' forced by his po- 
 sition into constant association of a confidential sort 
 with both sexes, he needs to exercise an unceasing 
 vigilance against indiscretion. . . He is to parry 
 a foolish admiration, that offers some delicate at- 
 tention, with a polite indifference, that his own in- 
 tegrity be not compromised. He is to refuse pri^ 
 vate interviews except in such accessible places as 
 parlors and drawing-rooms, and in visiting the sick 
 he is not to lay aside his circumspection. Gallantry 
 or playing the beau at once exposes the preacher to 
 
 ^ Baldwin's " Forty-one Years* Pastorate," p. 233. 
 2 Charles Stanford's "Doddridge," pp. ,31. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 475 
 
 the rude but righteous shafts of pubHc criticism, 
 while it may lead his own heart and life into 
 lamentable snares." ^ 
 
 3. As to social occasions, let the minister be 
 neither the recluse nor the man of the world. " An 
 artist ought to be fit for society and to keep out 
 of it," ^ has in it much good counsel. We believe 
 that the fit place for a man is the place for which 
 he is fitted, yet " there is as much vulgarity in think- 
 ing too much of social advantages as in affecting 
 to despise them." ^ Do not be seen much at parties, 
 and receptions and teas, and when you do attend 
 them, it is generally better to remain but a short time. 
 While you must beware of acquiring the reputation 
 of a man of the world, a diner-out, and a brilliant 
 conversationalist, yet cultivate most carefully the 
 art of conversation. A large part of this art is 
 acquired when one learns to talk of things rather 
 than persons. Through conversation, most that is 
 profitable in society will be attained, and acquiring 
 the wheat, you can well afford to let the chaff go. 
 At all social functions be constantly on your guard 
 as to what you say. This quotation from the Tal- 
 mud is pat here : " Thy friend has a friend, and 
 thy friend's friend has a friend; be discreet." 
 
 In all your social relations, however much you 
 may forget that you are a minister, never forget 
 that you are a Christian. Let it be said of you as 
 was said of another, that religion was " the climate 
 
 1 Crosby, "The Christian Preacher," p. 114. 
 
 2 Ruskin. » Jowett. 
 
476 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 of all his mind." ^ Although religion may not be 
 formally introduced, let it be ever kept in view in 
 your intercourse with your fellows in the various 
 social circles which from time to time you may 
 enter. 
 
 4. So much of a minister's time will be taken up 
 with correspondence that a few words are in order 
 concerning it. Learn how to write a letter, and 
 learn this not from " The Complete Letter Writer," 
 or similar publications, but from the letters which 
 you yourself receive from people of culture and 
 refinement. Never write on ruled paper, and never 
 use office stationery in your social correspondence. 
 One of the chief indications of a good letter-writer 
 is to be found in the way he begins and concludes. 
 You do not need to be on terms of intimacy in 
 order to allow you to address them as " My dear 
 Mr. Jones," or "My dear Miss Smith." It 
 is never proper to write " sir " or " madam " 
 except in business communications. We advise also 
 that, save in instances where you are writing to 
 some fellow-minister or intimate friend in your 
 own church, the word " brother " be never used. 
 It is too good a word to spoil. In signing your 
 letter, of course you will always use your Christian 
 and surname only, together with such initial be- 
 tween as you may be encumbered with. Do not 
 
 suffer your wife either to sign herself Mrs. 
 
 unless in public notices or the like which require it. 
 " I want you to be an elegant letter-writer," that 
 
 ^ Goodell's "Life," p. 180. 
 
THE MINISTER IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS 477 
 
 pntrcc of good English, Austin Phelps, once wrote : 
 " It is one of the accomplishments which mark a 
 gentleman. Another gentlemanly rule in writing 
 letters is never to use contractions. Write every 
 word in full. Contractions belong to ignorant or 
 half-educated people." ^ Be careful as to what you 
 write in a letter, for while spoken words are often 
 erased by the air in which they are uttered, there 
 is a lasting quality in black and white which car- 
 ries what we say for a long time and sometimes 
 to long distances. It would be a good thing if 
 every one who ever puts pen to paper could say 
 what John Ruskin said, in writing to his friend 
 James Smetham : " I never wrote a private letter to 
 any human being which I would not let a bill-sticker 
 chalk up six feet high on Hyde Park wall, and stand 
 myself in Piccadilly and say, ' I said it.' " 
 
 Reply to all letters by return of mail when it is 
 possible, and be as businesslike in your habits of cor- 
 respondence as you seek to be in other branches of 
 pastoral work. Always enclose a stamp when a 
 request is made and an answer expected. But it 
 is not always your duty to reply when a stamp is 
 sent in a letter where silence is best. It is absurd 
 to think that a two-cent stamp or a one-cent postal 
 card demands the answer to some question or the 
 volunteering of some information, which the letter 
 containing it desires. Sometimes two cents is 
 entirely too cheap. What to do with such unused 
 stamps and cards is a problem we shall not attempt 
 
 J " Life," by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, p. 244, 
 
478 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 to solve. The waste-basket is always ready, and it 
 does not cost anything to deposit them there, or if 
 some scruple prevents this waste, they may perhaps 
 be used without any great strain on any vital eth- 
 ical principle. With these cautions, by no means 
 unimportant concerning the stamp, we close this 
 chapter on the minister in his social relations. We 
 have endeavored to speak of the minister as a 
 gentleman, the minister and his home, and the min- 
 ister in society. The things here set forth cannot 
 well be taught, but we hope some hints may have 
 been given which will aid the minister in these 
 varied relationships, to be true to his calling and 
 an example to the flock. 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Questions Difficult of Solution Which the Minister 
 IN His Ordinary Work Will be Called on to 
 Answer. 
 I. Questions of Casuistry. 
 II. Questions of Expediency. 
 
 III. Questions of Doctrine. 
 
 IV. Questions as to the Church. 
 V. Questions of Relative Duties. 
 
 VI. Questions as to Personal Matters. 
 Conclusion : 
 
 1. The spirit which the minister should show. 
 
 2. The principles by which he should be guided. 
 
XXI 
 
 THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 
 
 The minister in his ordinary work will encounter 
 many questions difficult of solution. In some cases 
 he will do wisely to leave them unsolved, while in 
 other cases it may seem best to meet them. In the 
 following chapter such questions are classified and 
 considered. The list is of course by no means 
 exhaustive, our purpose being only to indicate the 
 line of action which may often best be pursued. 
 
 I. We mention first Questions of Casuistry. 
 These are cases of conscience, delicate questions in 
 religion and ethics, in which two courses may be 
 taken, neither of them clearly the better. " Ques- 
 tions of casuistry often arise as to right and wrong. 
 It can never, of course, be right to do wrong; 
 but the question is, and it is sometimes a hard one 
 to answer — what is right ? Strategy in war is often 
 untruthful. It may be your only means of self- 
 defense. Is it right? Robbers assail your house; 
 you hide your wife and daughters from them ; they 
 demand from you where they are; you mislead the 
 robbers, and your people escape. Did you sin? 
 Had the robbers a right to the truth from you? 
 
 Or take an actual case : " Doctor A took his 
 
 Bible with him into Rome. When the baggage was 
 2F 481 
 
482 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 examined the Bible was detected. * Oh, it's a dic- 
 tionary ! ' said the courier. Doctor A did not 
 
 speak. He thereby connived. He kept his Bible; 
 but did he sin ? " ^ Such questions are more than 
 interesting puzzles, for, like the rent collector, they 
 have a way of appearing and demanding satisfaction 
 at times when it is most inconvenient to comply 
 with their requests. As we read the history of 
 the Old Testament we find many instances in 
 which such questions are involved. Was it right 
 for Rahab to tell the lies she did concerning the 
 men whom she had hidden, or would the better 
 course have been to deliver the spies into 
 the hands of the king of Jericho? We all of us 
 have probably recognized a discordant note in the 
 otherwise beautiful story of Naaman in his re- 
 quest of Elisha that he should be allowed to bow 
 down in the house of Rimmon. Yet not to do so 
 meant disgrace or death at the hands of his royal 
 master; but joining thus in worship with the king 
 was mockery or, even worse, hypocrisy. 
 
 In the seventeenth century there prevailed a strain 
 of preaching of what was called casuistical doctrine. 
 The divines of that day delighted to display their 
 acuteness and ingenuity in the solution of peculiar 
 cases of conscience. While we hope for no return 
 of such a custom, yet it had its virtues as well as 
 its defects. Casuistry may well be studied by the 
 minister of to-day as an aid in disentangling the 
 various snarls into which human nature has a way of 
 
 * " Princetoniana," p. 216. 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 4^3 
 
 twisting, and out of which it is part of the minister's 
 task to help human nature to come. The Roman 
 CathoHc Church is a past master in the art of 
 casuistry. Books on the subject by her writers are 
 most voluminous, and her priests are taught casu- 
 istry as well as theology and church history in her 
 seminaries Too often an evil odor has adhered, 
 and with reason, to this word casuistry. But rightly 
 considered, casuistry is no juggling with truth, but 
 rather an earnest endeavor to settle on the merits 
 of each separate question, which of two courses is 
 the less evil. 
 
 We take as an illustration a case common prob- 
 ably in the experience of every minister. A person 
 already baptized comes under the conviction that 
 he was not really converted at the time of his first 
 baptism. In case it is quite clear that he was not 
 converted then, and that he is converted now, and 
 further, that he does not attach any saving virtue 
 to baptism, it may be allowable to baptize him ; but 
 it is very doubtful if it is necessary 
 
 Or take another case, which in some phase or 
 other is likely to come sooner or later to the min- 
 ister for settlement. A defaulter becomes a Chris- 
 tian. There can be no doubt as to his duty to 
 make complete restitution. He must certainly repay 
 the money that he took; but is it his duty to do so, 
 with interest? If interest should be paid in ad- 
 dition, shall it be compound interest? Is it his 
 duty to tell the party wronged of the injury done 
 to him, if he has not discovered it? We advis^ 
 
484 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 that the best way is to make a clean breast of the 
 whole matter; if he cannot pay, to bear the conse- 
 quences; if he can, to pay, with interest; but the 
 uncertainty of investments would justify him in giv- 
 ing simple interest alone. There seems to be no 
 need for him to tell the injured person more than 
 is necessary for ends of restitution and of justice 
 to others. 
 
 Take still another instance, still more frequent in 
 a minister's experience. A person seems to be 
 mortally sick. Is it the duty of the minister to tell 
 him so? The physician must, of course, be con- 
 sulted first. If there is a chance of recovery, which 
 will be injured by telling him that his condition is 
 very serious, wait for further developments. The 
 condition of mind of the patient must be considered. 
 If he is a Christian, there is often little need to ap- 
 prise him of his danger, at least at once. But if the 
 sick one is unprepared, he certainly should be 
 warned faithfully. 
 
 II. Questions of Expediency cannot always be 
 distinguished from Questions of Casuistry, so close 
 is the relation. This is a sphere where the minister 
 will find many a problem with which to grapple, 
 many a source of vexation of spirit, and at the same 
 time many an opportunity to be true to principle 
 and to the teachings of his Master. These ques- 
 tions begin to appear in the Christian church as soon 
 as Christian ethics begin to be applied to the con- 
 duct of life. The illustration which at once occurs 
 to us all as we take up questions of expediency 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 485 
 
 is that SO fully discussed by Paul in the fourteenth 
 chapter of Romans. In the market-places was ex- 
 posed for sale the flesh of animals which had pre- 
 viously been offered in sacrifice. Might a Christian 
 buy and eat? Paul's answer to all who were 
 troubled concerning this matter and who regarded 
 it in different lights was, be true to principle. He 
 confronts in this chapter four classes of persons. 
 First, he who is persuaded that there is nothing 
 unclean in itself (verse 14), with this class Paul 
 numbers himself; second, he who esteemeth such 
 meat to be unclean (verse 14) ; third, he who is 
 not sure (verse 23) ; fourth, he who is scandalized 
 at the brother who regards the eating of such meat 
 as not sinful (verse 15). 
 
 To aid in the settlement of this question we 
 gather together the four principles in the light of 
 which Paul cautions his brethren to walk.^ First, 
 there are things which are lawful, but not expedi- 
 ent; secondly, no man liveth unto himself, we are 
 members one of another ; thirdly, yet we must not be 
 in servile bondage to the weaker brother; fourthly, 
 there must be mutual respect and honor — " Let not 
 him that eateth despise him that eateth not, and let 
 not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth." 
 These principles hold as true to-day as when they 
 were first laid down. While the question of meats 
 has vanished with the smoke of the sacrifices, these 
 principles will be found applicable in many another 
 question of expediency. 
 
 * I Cor. 6 : 12; Rom. 15 : i, 2; Rom. 14 : 5; Rom. 14 : 3. 
 
486 rOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Among such questions we mention those which 
 relate to temperance. A converted man should be 
 temperate, for if he is not, it is not his habit of 
 temperance which is chiefly in danger, but his 
 spiritual condition. While total abstinence is no- 
 where taught in the New Testament, he may judge 
 it expedient to abstain altogether from intoxicants 
 for the following reasons: he cannot say that he 
 is safe himself; by not abstaining he may influence 
 others injuriously; his non-abstinence encourages 
 the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. Professor 
 Drummond in the last years of his life said : " I have 
 to banish wine from my table — I hate to do it, but I 
 hear the clanking of the chains of those who have 
 been led captive by it. I try to help them in this 
 poor, rough way. You call the total abstainer a 
 miserable fellow, but it is the men of the world 
 who have made him the miserable fellow, not re- 
 ligion." To this position, so far as the liquor ques- 
 tion is concerned, many another noble man besides 
 Professor Drummond has found himself forced. It 
 is well that the Christian minister, in considering 
 questions similar to this, be careful to observe the 
 law of proportion. To be out of proportion is to 
 be ill balanced. Remember that some matters are 
 relatively of secondary importance, and be not like 
 that tribe in India that regards murder and adultery 
 as more pardonable offenses than the smoking of 
 tobacco. 
 
 Another vexed question relates to Sunday travel- 
 ing. There is danger that the European Sunday 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 487 
 
 will be transplanted to American soil. The Sab- 
 bath question is now under discussion as perhaps 
 never before, as the tides of immigration begin to 
 make themselves felt in every quarter of our land. 
 Militant commercialism and the crowded life of our 
 big cities have also been large factors in breaking 
 down Sunday observance. The ethics of Sunday 
 seems to demand a day of cessation from work once 
 in seven ; but in order that most men shall rest, some 
 men must labor. The trolley lines are largely sup- 
 ported by Christian people on their way to and 
 from church, and such transportation has solved in 
 a measure the problem of the downtown parish. 
 In some cases riding upon the street cars seems to 
 be a necessity. Sunday traveling in the trains has 
 far less to be said in its favor, and yet it is a sim- 
 ilar question. Each man must answer this ques- 
 tion for himself, but the answer for the Christian 
 minister as he applies the principles of Paul is this : 
 Sunday traveling may be lawful, but it is never ex- 
 pedient. While a miinister may be in favor of 
 opening museums, picture galleries, and libraries 
 on Sunday, he had better not be prominent in such 
 movements. He needs to beware of all tendencies 
 which make for the secularization of Sunday, as 
 he cannot tell to what they will lead. His main 
 duty is to preach religion, and if he does that faith- 
 fully, he will generally render a better service than 
 by being the prime mover in matters which are at 
 least open to a wide difference of opinion. 
 
 Dodge them as he may, the minister sooner or 
 
488 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 later will have to consider the many questions of 
 expediency which range themselves under the gen- 
 eral question regarding amusements. So-called 
 amusements may be divided into : first, those which 
 are objectionable and about which there can be no 
 question at all; and second, those which are de- 
 scribed by the word indifferent, such as dancing, 
 card-playing and theater-going. These last all be- 
 long to the same class and may be considered to- 
 gether. They are none of them intrinsically wrong, 
 and are undoubtedly sources of recreation and re- 
 laxation ; but on the other hand, they are often in- 
 dulged in to excess, and far more people engage in 
 them too much than engage in them too little. Fur- 
 ther, they are not on the whole ennobling in their 
 associations. Take, for instance, the matter of the 
 theater. One of the leading dramatic critics of the 
 English press, in a remarkable interview, declares 
 that he has received no good from his thirty-seven 
 years of playgoing; that it is nearly impossible for 
 an actress to retain her purity; and that the whole 
 tendency of the stage is to disorder the finer sensi- 
 bilities and to substitute hollowness for sincerity.^ 
 No doubt the stage might be as great an influence 
 for good as literature, or might stand for righteous- 
 ness close beside the church itself, from which in 
 a measure it sprang. But it is not such an influence, 
 and neither has it been, for in common with the 
 other amusements here mentioned its history in the 
 past is not such as to commend it, 
 
 1 Mr. Clement Scott. 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 489 
 
 Moreover, these indifferent amusements lead 
 to things actually bad, and such stepping-stones 
 are to be avoided rather than to be ascended. 
 There are undoubtedly a few people in our 
 churches who do all these things and yet re- 
 tain an active and self-sacrificing interest in the 
 church. But on the whole such pursuits are not 
 largely followed by those who are filled with the 
 spirit of Christ. Pastoral experience everywhere 
 proves that people who are fond of card-playing are 
 not generally greatly concerned for the conversion 
 of the world. Ministers learn to expect that when 
 these things are engaged in by the young convert 
 it will not be long before his seat in the prayer- 
 meeting is infrequently occupied, and in time is va- 
 cant altogether. A craving for amusement on the 
 part of a professed follower of Christ often argues 
 a low state of spirituality. There is force, as min- 
 isters of all denominations will sorrowfully confess, 
 in the answer given by the venerable Daniel Witt, 
 of Virginia, to a young person who had asked him 
 if there was any harm in dancing. The gentle and 
 tender old man replied thoughtfully : " Just how 
 much harm there may be in dancing I cannot say, 
 but of this much I am sure, I have been a Baptist 
 preacher for over forty years, and I have never 
 yet seen a dancing Baptist that was of any account 
 as a church-member." 
 
 To ask the question, " Is there any harm in it ? " 
 is a sign of feeble and wavering faith. The 
 piety which is true and strong asks rather, " Is 
 
490 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 there any good in it ? " The minister should never 
 scold concerning these matters, although he will 
 have need to refer to them plainly and face them 
 squarely. Do what you can to raise the level of 
 spirituality, which is low enough in any case. " The 
 expulsive power of a new affection " is most bene- 
 ficial in dealing with all questions of indifferent 
 amusements. Such matters will not greatly trouble 
 the church-member who is busy in obeying the high- 
 est ideals and in seizing the grandest opportunities. 
 " It is a travesty of religion to say that it is wrong 
 to go to the theater, wrong to go to the dance. 
 The Bible does not say it is wrong; the Bible says 
 it is a loss. It's a loss for you, a man who might 
 be living in the eternal, to be spending your life 
 down there in the gutter." ^ These words answer 
 many of the difficulties which this whole subject 
 suggests. 
 
 We have already referred to church fairs and 
 similar entertainments; but they need at least a 
 passing mention as we consider the more prominent 
 questions of expediency. These are lawful if law- 
 fully carried on without gambling or objectionable 
 features; but — and we emphasize the but — they are 
 not expedient. They are apt to lower the spiritual 
 tone of the church, give the world occasion to 
 sneer, prove a stumbling-block to many an earnest 
 Christian life, and establish the low principle that 
 for all money paid for benevolence there must be 
 an equivalent. 
 
 ^ Professor Drummond. 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 49I 
 
 III. Questions of Doctrine are still another class 
 of questions which the minister as counselor will 
 often find himself called on to answer. There are 
 many questions in theology which need not be 
 settled; they are interesting as matters of specula- 
 tion, but not as essentials to salvation. The min- 
 ister will refuse to be drawn into them except in 
 such cases as he finds some truly earnest Christian 
 in real danger of being quagmired. We should be 
 v/arned by the teaching of the past and remember 
 that the controversies of the Jews, the fathers, and 
 the schoolmen, are now generally accounted vain, 
 and even trivial. They seemed of much import at 
 the time, but after the hot blood had cooled, they 
 were found not to be mountains, and often not even 
 mole-hills. Tempests in teapots are interesting to 
 the spectator only, and even to him the vision may 
 scarcely be pleasant, for often the teapot boils over. 
 Remembering, therefore, what history has to teach 
 us concerning such questions, we should acknowl- 
 edge also that " now we know in part." The min- 
 ister has advanced a long way who is not afraid 
 of saying, " I do not know." We should distin- 
 guish also between what Scripture says and what 
 we say that it says. It is difficult, even for the best 
 of men, to interpret the ideas of Paul, and the 
 other New Testament writers, into their modern 
 equivalents. Scripture sometimes speaks in words 
 and tones that sound different to different ears, and 
 it is well not to be too hasty in taking unto our- 
 selves the papal perquisite of infallibility. We 
 
492 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 should respect too the silence of Scripture. If we 
 proclaim the few things which the Bible says, and 
 says so often, we shall have little time or interest 
 in those things concerning which it says nothing. 
 " I do not care if there are sixteen Isaiahs or sixty- 
 four Isaiahs; I do not care about the date of St. 
 John, but I do know that sin is the great fact of 
 life, and that Christ, the Son of God, came to put 
 away sin." ^ There are many insoluble puzzles 
 which it is popularly thought the Bible alone refuses 
 to admit. In this delusion the minister will have 
 no part. Though at times he may wonder at the 
 mystery, we are quite sure that he will never be 
 able to speak other than great words of silence con- 
 cerning such questions as. The Mode of Creation, 
 The Method of the Fall, The Origin of Evil, The 
 Unrevealed Antecedents to Redemption, The Pre- 
 cise Action of the Holy Spirit in Regeneration, The 
 Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, The Unpar- 
 donable Sin, and The Exact Nature of Future 
 Punishment. Concerning all these questions the 
 Bible tells us but little, and we must draw the con- 
 clusion that it is well that we should not know 
 more. In regard to the last question mentioned, 
 we trust that every minister who reads these pages 
 will never know. 
 
 IV. There are Some Questions as to the Church, 
 on which the minister may need to give his coun- 
 sel. It is not uncommon for the minister to find 
 an applicant for church-fellowship who is in doubt 
 
 ^ Canon Knox Little. 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 493 
 
 as to such matters as The Communion Question, 
 The Doctrine of Future Punishment, The Amuse- 
 ments in Which he May Indulge. Before he admits 
 such a person to the membership, the minister should 
 assure himself that he will not disturb the peace 
 of the church by unprofitable discussion. We be- 
 lieve thoroughly in salvation outside of the visible 
 church so far as cranks are concerned. If the per- 
 son who applies for membership takes the word of 
 God as his supreme authority, and if he is spiritually 
 minded, the minister will make little mistake in 
 admitting him, however much he has yet to learn, 
 or unlearn, in the tabulated articles of faith of the 
 particular church he seeks to enter. 
 
 The wine question at the communion service is 
 still in some quarters an important one. Be care- 
 ful never to divide a church on this question. On 
 the whole, those who do not hold that a non-intoxi- 
 cant is necessary had better yield. Their doing so 
 will be more Christian than compelling the other 
 party to adopt their method. Let the question be 
 answered by all asking themselves. What would 
 Christ probably have done if here to-day? 
 
 Here is another case which, because of its sad fre- 
 quency, will appeal strongly to the Christian minister 
 for a right answer. A member of the church has 
 a predisposition to intemperance. Against this he 
 struggles valiantly ; he generally conquers, but some- 
 times falls. Shall he be excluded ? To exclude him 
 would probably be to hand him over to ruin. The 
 church is a hospital for the sick as well as a home 
 
494 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 for the healed. Retain such a one as long as 
 possible; follow him, strengthen him, and deal with 
 him very faithfully and tenderly. But be assured 
 that he is a humble, penitent, sincere Christian man. 
 There are cases where the victim is no more re- 
 sponsible for drunkenness than for epilepsy, and to 
 turn a man out of the church because of the periodic 
 appearance of what in him is really a disease would 
 be cruel as well as absurd. Remember that our 
 Lord never dealt hardly with any one who was a 
 sinner through the passions of the flesh. His whip 
 of cords was applied to the backs of the outwardly 
 religious but inwardly covetous. 
 
 V. Questions of Relative Duties will come to the 
 minister for solution. The Christian is in the world ; 
 he is not to be of it, but neither is he to be out 
 of it. Experiments in retiring from the world's life 
 have all been failures. It is the manifest duty of the 
 Christian to remain in the world, to live and to 
 work, though in so doing he will be exposed to 
 difficulty. He will often not know just what to do 
 in his daily Hfe. With the questions which arise 
 from such perplexity he will come at times to the 
 minister. 
 
 What are my duties to society? This question 
 may come from some one fitted to influence and to 
 shine in society. The answer is: stay where you 
 are. Do what you can to purify and lift up social 
 life. Generally speaking, such a one can do more 
 good by remaining in society than by living in the 
 slums or by sailing across the seas for service. To 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 495 
 
 Stay where you are is often the most unromantic, 
 difficult task that a Christian of social position is 
 called on to perform. But because it is unro- 
 mantic and difficult, there are to be found the 
 greatest rewards for the one who will there live 
 and love. Be warned of the power of society to 
 draw you in and down, and stand firm by Christ's 
 help, and lift it out and up. 
 
 Some people are greatly troubled as to whether 
 it is right to be a member of the Free Masons, the 
 Odd Fellows, or of any secret society. Why not? 
 Certainly we should not unite with any organiza- 
 tion whose transactions are immoral, nor should 
 we join any society if the tendency is to put the 
 society in the place of the church, and to make a 
 religion of membership in it. But if such is not the 
 tendency, we do not believe that the secrecy that 
 surrounds any such organization will be found too 
 weighty for the ordinary man to bear, or two awe- 
 inspiring for the ordinary constitution to endure. 
 
 A question which often applies more directly to 
 the minister than to any other member of his church 
 IS, What is my duty as to trades unions ? The min- 
 ister will do well to study the subject, for if capital 
 has a right to organize, labor has an equal right. 
 He must also bear in mind that as there are good 
 and bad individuals, and good and bad trusts, so 
 there are good and bad trades unions. The union 
 of almost every trade has a distinct character of 
 its own, and the minister must know something 
 of the separate trades unions to know anything 
 
496 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 concerning trades unions as a whole. The labor 
 question to-day is akin to the slavery question of the 
 past century, so far as need of careful study and 
 discrimination is concerned. Precipitate action only 
 hinders reform. There is a necessity to work — 
 to work on the best terms fairly obtainable is right ; 
 combination to procure these terms is plainly nec- 
 essary ; but intimidation is not right, and " if seventy 
 men in any community say they won't work in a 
 certain way, and the seventy-first man sha'n't work 
 at all if not with them, the public will stand by 
 the seventy-first man every time." ^ Anything 
 which threatens the rights of others, which tends 
 to lower the quality of the work which is done, and 
 which takes away a man's personal liberty, is an 
 enemy against which Christian manhood must ever 
 oppose itself. But combination which seeks to se- 
 cure the rights due a working man as well as a mer- 
 chant prince, and which seeks to raise the quality 
 of labor and preserve personal independence, is a 
 force with which the Christian minister should be 
 in sympathy, and of which he should himself form 
 a part. 
 
 VI. Of questions which relate to Personal Mat- 
 ters, the wise minister needs no special caution to 
 the eflFect that he is not a confessor. He should 
 discourage all confidences which would be personal 
 between himself and the person making them. Such 
 matters had better be left to God and the individual 
 conscience unless advice seems essential. Such 
 
 ^ Dr. Newman Smyth. 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 497 
 
 times may, however, come; and while he should 
 never court them, he should be prepared for such 
 confidences. An eminent physician once said: 
 " There are no diseases ; there are only patients " ; 
 by which he meant that each case must be dealt 
 with separately, in accordance with the constitution 
 of the individual, and that the application of the 
 remedy largely depends upon the previous habits 
 of the patient. So it is also spiritually. Cases of 
 conscience or perplexity which come up for decision 
 in the complex duties of life must be referred, so 
 far as possible, to the individual alone. The differ- 
 ences of taste and temperament make the danger 
 line for one the safety line for another, and the par- 
 ticular line of action to be pursued in each given 
 case must be left largely to the wise judgment of 
 the minister whose counsel is sought. 
 
 Among such cases we mention only two, which, 
 however, are extremely common. The first class 
 relates to morbid conditions of mind. The power- 
 ful influence of the body over the mind is patent to 
 all who have ever slept in a badly ventilated room or 
 eaten a hurried meal. Often the chief trouble with 
 morbid cases is really physical rather than mental. 
 We recall the case of a young man who, according 
 to his own account, had suffered shipwreck in his 
 faith. Filled with doubts which he could not an- 
 swer, he brought his load of sorrows to his min- 
 ister. A little questioning brought forth the fact 
 that he was retiring late and rising at four o'clock 
 in the morning, and to add to this, was taking only 
 
 2G 
 
498 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 a hurried luncheon, snatching the necessary five 
 minutes from his work at noon. The advice given 
 was that he should get at least eight hours' sleep 
 and take an hour off in the middle of the day. 
 This prescription being faithfully followed for two 
 weeks resulted in the dissolving of all his doubts 
 and his reestablishment in a firm and happy faith. 
 Be prepared, therefore, to treat gently and wisely 
 cases where physical ailments have affected the 
 mind. Humor rather than irritate, never dispute or 
 contradict, and seek in every possible way to turn 
 the mind away from itself. 
 
 The minister who has the confidence of his people 
 and is known to be wise in counsel, and who never 
 reveals confidences even to his wife, will often be 
 appealed to in the settlement of family differences. 
 The quarrels between husband and wife are un- 
 fortunately by no means unknown even among 
 members of a Christian congregation. Refuse to 
 have anything to do with ex-parte statements. Let 
 them settle their own disputes, if possible ; but if this 
 has been tried many times with no good result, 
 then let them meet the pastor and let him hear both 
 sides of the question from the principals involved. 
 We advise that generally some friendly deacon be 
 present at such a conference. Prayer will do more 
 than anything else at such times to smooth the 
 troubled waters, and to make possible a continua- 
 tion of the voyage of life with tolerable prosperity. 
 
 In this connection we need to refer to the 
 question of divorce. This evil has to-day reached 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 499 
 
 such a point that it is necessary for ministers to take 
 a position concerning it, which might be unnecessary 
 in other times. Of course he must not remarry 
 persons who have been divorced for any other rea- 
 son than that mentioned in Scripture. This is a 
 rule to which we advise no exceptions. The min- 
 ister should insist on seeing the divorce papers be- 
 fore performing the marriage ceremony. Thus he 
 makes sure that the cause is that sanctioned by 
 Christ and that the person applying to him is the 
 innocent party. But in some of our States con- 
 ditions are so bad that many ministers have been 
 forced to take the extreme position that they will 
 not marry persons divorced for any cause what- 
 ever. This has been made necessary, for one rea- 
 son, by the fact that people who seek divorce gen- 
 erally do not hesitate at falsehood, and as it is im- 
 possible for a busy minister to take the time 
 necessary to verify their statements, he washes his 
 hands of the whole matter. Moreover, extreme po- 
 sitions are sometimes necessary as a protest that 
 may become a check of the evil. By such a course 
 let the innocent suffer with the guilty; but a great 
 evil can be rebuked only by some such radical 
 measure in which a certain amount of injustice is 
 inevitable. The fact that divorced persons prefer 
 a minister of the gospel to a justice of the peace, 
 gives the minister a power which he should exer- 
 cise too severely rather than too leniently in this 
 day when the looseness of the marriage relation 
 threatens so seriously the foundations of the home. 
 
500 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 We have in this chapter endeavored to mention 
 characteristic cases which will serve to illustrate 
 the various questions of Casuistry, Expediency, 
 Doctrine, Church Relation, Relative Duties, and 
 Personal Matters, which are sure to be met by the 
 minister in his capacity as counselor. In conclu- 
 sion, we give two notes for the minister's further 
 guidance : 
 
 I. As to the spirit which the minister should 
 show. This should be ( i ) Humane. Be more anx- 
 ious for the questioner than for his question. Read 
 the Bible and Shakespeare for a knowledge of hu- 
 man nature, to supplement that which comes to you 
 by daily contact with it. Remember too, that you 
 yourself are human and considering " thyself lest 
 thou also be tempted," you will be better able to 
 bear " another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of 
 Christ."^ (2) Be modest. We recommend the 
 maxim which Fontenelle in his old age gave as his 
 secret for having many friends and no enemies: 
 " Everything is possible ; everybody may be right." 
 (3) Be conciliatory. Human nature is imperfect at 
 its best. The world (and the church too) has in it 
 many unreasonable ("unworkable") men. There- 
 fore be frank and hopeful in dealing with all diffi- 
 cult cases and be careful not to exaggerate differ- 
 ences or difficulties. (4) Be frank above all things. 
 To give the impression that any point must not 
 be examined is to arouse suspicion as to its truth. 
 Doctor Arnold, of Rugby, had no fear in facing and 
 
 I, 2. 
 
THE MINISTER AS COUNSELOR 50I 
 
 considering any question which came before him. 
 His perfect frankness and fairness gave him a power 
 which, through his boys, he came in time to wield 
 over the men of England. That same power of 
 frankness is needed as much as ever to-day, and by 
 no man can it be wielded with greater effect and 
 success than by the minister of Christ, 
 
 2. We close by setting forth certain principles 
 by which the minister must be guided in answering 
 all difficult questions. 
 
 (i) Seek rather to furnish a principle than lay 
 down a rule. The Sermon on the Mount is a di- 
 vine illustration and commendation of the worth 
 of this counsel. What Doctor Bartol said of Hor- 
 ace Bushnell is to be remembered here : " The 
 preacher seemed a real divine and diviner, applying 
 great principles to actual things with matchless sa- 
 gacity." ^ (2) Respect the right of private judg- 
 ment. Be careful not to oppose your own opinion 
 too strenuously to the opinion of those seeking your 
 advice. Remember that the right road may not be 
 your road, as it may also not be the road sought by 
 those who counsel with you. Try together to find 
 the footpath of peace. (3) Never assume responsi- 
 bility for more than counseling. Let the questioner 
 have conscience quickened, not stifled, and the sense 
 of personal responsibility increased rather than di- 
 minished. It is far easier to lay down such prin- 
 ciples as these than to have the wisdom rightly to 
 apply them to each individual case. We can give 
 
 1 " Life," p. 185. 
 
502 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 to another only those counsels which have proved 
 their worth in the varied experiences that have been 
 ours. As we think of the minister who will bravely 
 attempt to breast the waves which must be sur- 
 mounted in crossing the difficult water which this 
 phase of his life suggests, we recognize his need 
 of that higher wisdom ever heard by God's prophets 
 in the still, small voice. We close this chapter with 
 a silent prayer to God for the minister as counselor. 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 1. Take an interest in the community. 
 
 2. Make yourself necessary to its life 
 
 3. Be respected in the community. 
 
 I. The Religious Life of the Community. 
 
 1. Fellowship with other Christians. 
 
 2. The ministers' meeting. 
 
 3. Friendly relations with other churches. 
 
 4. Influence other agencies for good. 
 
 II. The Moral Life of the Community. Various move- 
 
 ments for reformation and morality. 
 
 III. The Intellectual Life of the Community. How 
 
 the minister can foster this. 
 
 IV. The Commercial Life of the Community. Counsels. 
 
 V. The Political Life of the Community. The true 
 
 part of the minister in politics. Counsels. 
 
XXII 
 
 THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 
 
 I. Every minister should take a lively interest in 
 the community in which he lives. There is truth 
 and force in the remark attributed to Doctor Storrs, 
 that " a man who preaches only in a pulpit ought 
 never to enter a pulpit." In order to do this rec- 
 ognize the obligations of citizenship, which rest as 
 heavily upon you as upon any other man ; by reason 
 of the position which you occupy an exceptional op- 
 portunity is yours for discharging such obligations 
 manfully and effectively. The fact that you are a 
 minister of religion only adds fresh emphasis to 
 these obligations. The neglect of such citizen duties 
 has weakened ministerial influence. Remember that 
 your concern is with the now and the here as well 
 as with heaven and the hereafter. James Russell 
 Lowell puts the case none too strongly when he 
 says: 
 
 The clergyman chooses to walk oflf to the extreme edge 
 of the world, and to throw such seed as he has clear over 
 into that darkness which he calls the next life. As if 
 next did not mean nearest, and as if any life were nearer 
 than that immediately present one, which boils and eddies 
 all around him, at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and 
 the polls! Who taught him to prepare men for eternity 
 
 505 
 
5o6 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 as for some future era of which the present forms no 
 part? The furrow which Time is even now turning runs 
 through the everlasting, and in that must he plant or 
 nowhere.^ 
 
 2. In no way can you better prove your interest 
 in the community than by making yourself necessary 
 to its life. Every philanthropic and patriotic move- 
 ment should, and often does, have a minister at or 
 near its head. Try to be that minister, so far as 
 you are able. For this purpose study to acquire 
 ease and readiness in platform speaking. First 
 know what you are talking about and then talk 
 it with might and main, no matter how short the 
 notice. Never be afraid to show your interest in 
 the welfare of the community outside your own 
 church. Believe in it and love it and maintain your 
 right to speak as a man and a citizen at all timer 
 and in such places as such speech is proper anc 
 fitting.2 
 
 The personality of a really good and earnest man 
 needs a wider field than that of any individual 
 church for its play and power. The special message 
 of any minister may be delivered perhaps to the 
 average church inside of ten years; but not so to 
 the larger community which surrounds that church. 
 Often as a minister's power wanes in the church it 
 increases in the community, and there he will find 
 a large part of his satisfaction as a Christian min- 
 ister. As he becomes more and more necessary as 
 
 ^ Biglow papers. 
 
 2 See " Platform Aids " (Clerical Library). 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 507 
 
 a Citizen, he needs constantly to be on his guard 
 against any action that would imperil the respect 
 with which the community must regard him. The 
 minister needs not to fear lest he make enemies, 
 for if he is a true man he is bound to do that; but 
 he does need to fear lest any action of his cause 
 him to fall in the regard of the truest men among 
 whom he dwells. 
 
 3. The minister has a traditional and very valu- 
 able reputation to uphold. He belongs to an hon- 
 ored vocation. He is associated, in the minds of 
 the people, with the sense of God with which he 
 strives to impress them from Sunday to Sunday. 
 His very office rightly claims a reverence which his 
 character as a man should only enhance. Because 
 he is a minister he is expected to show a loftier 
 standard of life than other men, and this expecta- 
 tion he must not disappoint. How nobly the thou- 
 sands of ministers rise to their opportunity can be 
 estimated only by considering the sum of beneficence 
 which their hortative and philanthropic work 
 accompHshes. 
 
 In assuming the advocacy of any cause, great care 
 should be taken that you be noted for balance, 
 weight, and impartiality. Beware of fathering every 
 new idea. The pulpit is a great conservative in- 
 fluence, and you do well to remember that to con- 
 serve that which is good is quite as excellent as to 
 attack that which is evil. 
 
 We utter a special note of warning here that you 
 be guarded in any confidence which you give to 
 
SoB 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 newspaper reporters. While as a class they are 
 entitled to our regard, yet their instinct for news is 
 such that it is well never to tell in their presence 
 more than you are willing to have appear in print. 
 Never angle for newspaper notices. At the same 
 time recognize the tremendous power wielded 
 by the press, and use this power so far as you 
 can in obtaining a wider hearing than your own 
 pulpit would afford for all questions which apply 
 to a larger audience. Thomas Binney used to say 
 that if the Apostle Paul were alive to-day he would 
 edit a daily paper. Though doubtless you cannot do 
 this as well as those who are professional journalists, 
 yet you can assist in so doing by being on terms of 
 friendship with the reporters and proprietors of the 
 various papers. By all means use the power of the 
 press for righteousness and truth. On his eightieth 
 birthday Edward Everett Hale was spoken of as 
 a " civic saint." Verily that is a title of which 
 every minister might rightly be proud. Such re- 
 spect as belongs to this veteran of righteousness 
 may in due measure be yours also if you keep your 
 balance, and if you estimate at its full value your 
 unconscious as well as your conscious influence in 
 the community to which you may minister. Be a 
 man among men as well as a minister among his 
 books, and everywhere because of your fairness and 
 single-heartedness command the respect even of 
 those who differ from you. Christianity is a great 
 enterprise, and in it you as a chosen participant 
 should ever be an active and aggressive force. 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 509 
 
 With these preliminary counsels we pass now to 
 consider the duty of the minister as a citizen to the 
 religious, the moral, the intellectual, the commercial, 
 and the political life of the community. 
 
 I. The Religious Life of the Community without, 
 as well as within, your own church rightly demands 
 your co-operation. 
 
 1. Join, therefore, in any plan that seems practi- 
 cable for promoting fellowship with other Chris- 
 tians. Welcome any suggestion that looks to the 
 tightening of the ties that bind those who are fel- 
 low-workers in the one great cause together, such 
 as union services at Thanksgiving time, or a New 
 Year's union prayer-meeting. Such a coveted op- 
 portunity may sometimes be found in a preparation 
 class for the study of the Sunday-school lesson, to 
 which all interested are invited, and of which 
 mention has been made in a previous chapter.^ 
 
 2. When rightly conducted the ministers' meet- 
 ing is most desirable, and to maintain there intimate 
 relations with your ministerial brethren is well-nigh 
 indispensable. Such a meeting will be found the 
 most convenient base of operations when united re- 
 ligious action has to be taken in correcting abuses 
 or in sending memorials concerning public matters 
 to the city officials or the local political managers. 
 
 3. To preserve friendly relations with other 
 churches is one of your first duties. Whatever they 
 do to you, always act up to your half of the Golden 
 Rule. Never encourage members of other churches 
 
 * See p. 352, seq. 
 
510 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 to attend your ministry or to join your fellowship. 
 Not only manifest, but feel, a real reluctance to ad- 
 mit to your church any one of another flock. If 
 they come to you because conscience leads them, you 
 must, of course, heed their petition. But if they 
 come, as is more frequently the case, because they 
 like your preaching or covet your friendship, advise 
 them to remain where they are. 
 
 At the same time watch the interests of your own 
 church. Never be so widely interested in the things 
 of the kingdom as to forget the particular ministry 
 which has the first claim upon your time and serv- 
 ice. In this connection we desire seriously to ques- 
 tion whether much good comes from union revival 
 services. This is the only exception which we would 
 make to the rule of promoting fellowship with 
 other churches. Experience has taught that unless 
 each minister be as active as if all the responsibility 
 rested upon him, such services are apt to produce 
 unsatisfactory results. While church union is for 
 many reasons to be prayed for, and we truly trust 
 the time may come when one wide roof may cover 
 all those who worship the one Master, yet in this 
 human world of ours it is not so much church 
 union as Christian union which is desirable. That 
 there may be Christian union without church union 
 the religious interests of many a community bear 
 abundant evidence. 
 
 4. Influence, so far as you can do so, the agencies 
 outside the church which are doing Christian work. 
 These are dependent for support largely on the 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 5II 
 
 money of church people, and are doing work which 
 the churches ought to do. These facts should enlist 
 your friendship, not awaken your enmity. So long 
 as the church is not doing the work, thank God 
 that others are, and endeavor to acquire in all such 
 societies what business men would call a " control- 
 ling interest." Such societies as the Young Men's 
 Christian Association, the Young Women's Chris- 
 tian Association, the Women's Christian Temper- 
 ance Union, and the like, which seek to guard the 
 young and to help the tempted, are doing a divinely 
 appointed work. You should gladly hail every pos- 
 sible opportunity to strengthen their stakes, and to 
 share their responsibilities as well as their blessings. 
 II. Next to the religious life of the community, 
 its Moral Life, which is only another side of the 
 same thing, will rightly claim your interest and 
 sympathy. The minister should acquaint himself 
 with the every-day life of the community, which, as 
 a rule, he is apt to know too little about. His own 
 life is largely in the study and in the actual cares of 
 the pastorate ; but it must be in a wider arena as well. 
 " I might live in Schenectady," wrote Dr. Eliphalet 
 Nott, " and discharge all my appropriate duties 
 from year to year and never hear an oath nor see 
 a man drunk. . . But I can put on my old great 
 coat, and a slouched hat, and in five minutes place 
 myself amid scenes of blasphemy and vice and mis- 
 ery, which I never could have believed to have ex- 
 isted if I had not seen them." ^ All sorts and con- 
 
 ^ " Memoir," p. 251. 
 
512 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 ditions of men should be to the minister as open 
 books. We should hardly dare apply the term to 
 the average theological student, which Dr. How- 
 ard Crosby uses concerning this matter in his lec- 
 tures, but we feel that he utters words of truth and 
 soberness : *' Now a preacher has conspicuously to 
 deal with men. His daily work is with men, and 
 with men of all sorts. . . It should be a second 
 nature for him to adapt himself to every one in a 
 fitting way. . . The ordinary minister comes out of 
 the seminary an imbecile. He may be a good 
 scholar, an able reasoner, a devoted servant of God ; 
 but his place is still in the seminary, not in the 
 seething caldron of the world. He is utterly dazed 
 by the great realities around him." ^ 
 
 The minister is bound to keep in touch with the 
 life of the world about him, for these men and 
 women of the world are God's children too, and 
 however much appearances may sometimes seem 
 to deny it, in every one will be found yearnings 
 for infinite good. " They spend lonely hours in 
 sick chambers. They watch by the bed of the dying. 
 They mourn for their dead. The deeper sorrows, 
 the deeper joys of the human life, do not vary much 
 from age to age. . . The old story is translated 
 into new languages, but the plot remains the 
 same." 2 It is wonderful how alike all men are, 
 and in this likeness you will find a way to their 
 sympathy, and so may draw them out of darkness 
 
 1 " The Christian Preacher," p. so. 
 
 2 Dale, '• Nine Lectures on Preaching," pp. 183, 184. 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 513 
 
 into light. Never be afraid of a man because the 
 badness of his life seems to show an utter uncon- 
 cern for spiritual matters. Somewhere in that man's 
 nature you will discover the gateway through which 
 your influence may pass unchallenged. Often the 
 men who seem the least concerned are really those 
 who ponder most on the mysteries of life and 
 their own individual responsibility to God. Come 
 therefore into touch with this '* seething caldron 
 of the world." It will not burn you if you be 
 Christ's servant, but will only stimulate you, and 
 reveal a wider and more blessed ministry than you 
 had before dreamed of. 
 
 To mold and lift up this life about you is part 
 of your work as a Christian philanthropist. Christ 
 did it before you, and those who have followed in his 
 footsteps have ever done it also. The indignant pro- 
 test of Tertullian stands for all time, when he says 
 of the Christians : " We are not those who live naked 
 and self-exiled in the world. We are one people 
 with you. We do not shrink from your life. We 
 are found in your forum, in your market-places, in 
 your baths, in your shops, your bridges, your inns, 
 your fairs; we served as soldiers with you and as 
 sailors with you. We were merchants with you; 
 we practised the same arts and contributed to the 
 same public works." ^ 
 
 A working man from the East End of London 
 was once asked why the working classes received 
 the names of ministers and churches with such scant 
 
 ^ Quoted by Boyd Carpenter, *' Bampton Lectures," pp. 106, 107. 
 2H 
 
514 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 respect. He replied, ** Because they are not up to 
 sample." If there are Christian ministers who are 
 not up to sample, be not one of them. Better far 
 have men to say of you that you eat " with publi- 
 cans and sinners," so long as your own conscience 
 proclaims that you go about " doing good." Though 
 it may seem that what you can do is but a drop in 
 the bucket or a grain of sand on the seashore, yet 
 see to that drop and that grain as you value your 
 commission as a Christian minister. 
 
 *Tis worth a thousand years of strife, 
 Tis worth a wise man's best of life, 
 To lessen, be it but by one, 
 The countless evils 'neath the sun. 
 
 Take your part then, and may it be a large and 
 valiant part, in the temperance movement, organiza- 
 tions for the better administration of charity, the 
 social purity movement, the promotion of Sunday 
 rest, the pure literature movement, the humane so- 
 ciety, and all other similar organizations, which as 
 levers are placed under the world of sin to lift it 
 to the standard of Christ. 
 
 We are thankful to believe that the moral life of 
 the community has no truer friend than the Chris- 
 tian minister. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once 
 said : " The ministers are far more curious and in- 
 terested outside of their own calling than either of 
 the other professions. I like to talk with 'em. They 
 are interesting men, full of good feeling, hard work- 
 ers, always foremost in good deeds, and on the 
 
 • 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 51$ 
 
 whole the most efficient civilizing class . . . that 
 we have." 
 
 III. In the Intellectual Life of the community, no 
 less than in its religious and moral life, the minister 
 will find use for his time and talents. We must 
 educate the minds of our congregations and of our 
 community, as well as their hearts and souls. This 
 intellectual life may be fostered by the minister in 
 many ways. 
 
 You may make the young people's society of 
 your church a means for mental improvement. Even 
 the young people's social need not be frivolous in 
 its character. See to it that on such occasions there 
 is good music and that the recitations are carefully 
 selected. Now and then have a talk by a specialist 
 whose theme is of such importance as to demand at- 
 tention and to command interest. Occasionally in- 
 vite some one to give an account of his travels, or 
 give an exhibition of pictures or photographs. 
 These last, however, will need clear explanation 
 and interesting description to make them palatable 
 and profitable. 
 
 By all means have occasional lectures, in your 
 chapel or Sunday-school room, by lecturers who 
 have something to say and know how to say it. 
 The day for popular lectures has not quite passed. 
 Be able to give lectures yourself and do good work 
 in this direction, although you probably may have 
 to be content with a more select audience than a 
 former generation furnished when the lecture plat- 
 form was such a power. Accept invitations tp 
 
Si6 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 address guilds and societies whose aim is mainly 
 intellectual. Encourage the reading circles which 
 you may find in existence in your community, and 
 if there are none, be active in forming and guiding 
 them. It is astonishing how little the best literature 
 is read, and how often inferior books have a chief 
 place even in Christian homes. Do all in your 
 power to encourage more liberal and more thor- 
 ough reading, and in this work of supplanting the 
 worst and supplying the best, from an intellectual 
 point of view you will be in the direct line of en- 
 deavor proper to a Christian minister. In this 
 branch of your work you will find a stereopticon 
 most useful, and a minister in these days is hardly 
 equipped for his work unless he possesses such an 
 instrument. 
 
 You may aid the intellectual life of your com- 
 munity also by taking an active interest in educa- 
 tion. Visit the public schools. Be present at 
 graduating exercises and other occasions, influence 
 legitimately the character of the Board of Education, 
 and when you are invited to address the public 
 school teachers or scholars accept, for in so doing 
 you are performing work no less Christian because 
 it is done from a platform instead of a pulpit, in 
 a schoolhouse instead of a church. 
 
 The intellectual life of the community may be 
 further influenced by promoting the public library. 
 If there is a library, do all that you can to make it 
 better, and if there is not one, see what can be done 
 to establish one. It is not difficult to arouse public 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 517 
 
 interest in such a plan, or to obtain subscriptions 
 which will make it a thing of brick and mortar as 
 well as of plan and paper. Surely no one is a more 
 appropriate advocate of such an institution than the 
 minister of Him who spoke of the mind, as well as 
 of the heart and the soul. 
 
 IV. The Commercial Life of the community 
 needs also the influence of the minister. Often he 
 will here find difficulties that seem insurmountable, 
 and misunderstandings which threaten his position, 
 yet he is not on this account in any way excused 
 from giving due attention to the questions which 
 this phase of life suggests. 
 
 The questions rising out of commercial relations, 
 such as capital and labor, work and wage, trades- 
 unions, arbitration, free trade and protection, ought 
 to be considered by the minister. Interest in such 
 matters does not lay him open to the charge of 
 meddling in things beyond his province, for these 
 questions touch the social and religious condition of 
 the people. The words of Prof. Thorold Rogers are 
 applicable here : " It may well be the case, and there 
 is every reason to fear it is the case, that there 
 is collected a population in our great towns which 
 equals in amount the whole of those who lived in 
 England and Wales six centuries ago, but whose 
 condition is more destitute, whose homes are more 
 squalid, whose means are more uncertain, whose 
 prospects are more hopeless than those of the peas- 
 ant serfs of the Middle Ages or the meanest drudges 
 of the medieval cities." 
 
i8 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Questions of this nature are questions for the 
 community at large, and religion has to do with 
 everything that concerns mankind. To champion 
 the right, defend the weak, stand for principles 
 rather than parties, will often cause the minister 
 to range himself side by side with those who cham- 
 pion a cause for very different reasons than his 
 own; but a man is not always known by the com- 
 pany he keeps. Though a minister at times may 
 find himself shoulder to shoulder with the Socialists, 
 for example, the ground on which he stands will be 
 specifically different from theirs. He is the fol- 
 lower of Him who said, " Come unto me all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 As his follower he will often then be led to company 
 with those whose end may be the same as his, but 
 whose motives are vastly different. 
 
 The crying evil of our day, and we add of our 
 country, seems to be eagerness for wealth and in- 
 difference about the means by which it is acquired. 
 An ethical revival is certainly needed among us; 
 nay, its beginnings are already here. The minister 
 who is truest to the revelation as it is in Christ 
 will be most earnest in preaching ethics which is 
 vitally related to that revelation. There is no 
 such thing as an unethical gospel. The advertise- 
 ments which appear in our daily press, and un- 
 fortunately even in some of our religious papers 
 as well, which offer large returns for small in- 
 vestments, and make their appeal to persons of 
 moderate income, whose business experience is apt 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 519 
 
 to be limited, are but an outward and visible sign 
 of that of which we speak. Warn the inexperienced 
 against all such enterprises, for nothing that has 
 genuine worth behind it has to advertise extensively 
 for capital. It is generally safe to say that any 
 business proposition offering over six per cent, de- 
 serves suspicion and will not bear close inspection. 
 These newspaper philanthropists who make public 
 their eagerness to gain riches for others are a dis- 
 tinct menace to society, and neither the churcK nor 
 her ministers should protect them in any way. They 
 should be opposed as was the slaveholder of a day 
 that is passed, or the rumseller of every day. 
 
 We offer three counsels here which may guard 
 the minister against making mistakes as he seeks 
 to bear his part in bringing order out of chaos 
 in commercial life. 
 
 First, make an intelligent study of these subjects. 
 Know of what you speak. The literature is im- 
 portant and increasing. Any good public library 
 will give you access to the books you want. We 
 mention, among others : 
 
 Carroll D. Wright, " Political Economy and the 
 Labor Question.'' (A. Williams, 1882.) 
 
 Fawcett, " Manual of Political Economy." 
 
 Thorold Rogers, " Six Centuries of Work and 
 Wages." 
 
 Jevons, " The State in Relation to Labor." (Eng- 
 lish Citizen Series, Macmillan, 1882.) 
 
 W. G. Sumner, " What Social Classes Owe to 
 Each Other." (Harper, 1884.) 
 
520 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Washington Gladden, " Working People and 
 Their Employers." (Funk & Wagnalls, 1885.) 
 
 R. T. Ely, " French and German Socialism/' 
 (Harper, 1883.) 
 
 Henry George, " Progress and Poverty." 
 
 List of Books on Social Questions ^ 
 
 Adams and Sumner, " Labor Problems." 
 
 Alden, " The Unemployed." 
 
 Barker, " Saloon Problem and Social Reform." 
 
 Bemis, " Municipal Monopolies." 
 
 Brooks, " Social Unrest." 
 
 Charity Organization Society of New York, 
 " Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis." 
 
 Clark, *' Leavening the Nation." 
 
 Coman, " Industrial History of the United 
 States." 
 
 Committee of Fifteen, '' Social Evil, with Special 
 Reference to New York City." 
 
 DeForest and Veiller, " Tenement House Prob- 
 lem." Two volumes. 
 
 George, Henry, Jr., " Menace of Privilege." 
 
 Ghent, " Our Benevolent Feudalism." 
 
 Gilman, " Methods of Industrial Peace." 
 
 Henderson, " Modern Methods of Charity." 
 
 Henderson, " Social Spirit in America." 
 
 Hunter, " Poverty." 
 
 * I am indebted to the library department of the American Insti- 
 tute of Social Service, of New York City, for the following list 
 of books and magazines, which complete and bring up to date the 
 list given by my father. H. r. 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 521 
 
 Jenks, " Trust Problem." 
 
 Kellor, " Out of Work." 
 
 Kelley, " Some Ethical Gains Through Legisla- 
 tion." 
 
 " Labor and Capital," edited by John P. Peters. 
 
 Lee, " Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy." 
 
 Mead, " Modern Methods in Church Work." 
 
 Meakin, " Model Factories and Villages." 
 
 Mitchell, " Organized Labor." 
 
 Peabody, " Jesus Christ and the Social Question." 
 
 Spargo, " Bitter Cry of the Children." 
 
 Steffens, " Shame of the Cities." 
 
 Stetzle, " Working Men and Social Problems." 
 
 Strong, " Next Great Awakening." 
 
 Strong, " Our Country." 
 
 Strong, *' Religious Movements for Social Bet- 
 terment." 
 
 Strong, " Social Progress," a statistical year-book. 
 
 Strong, " The Times and Young Men." 
 
 Strong, " The Twentieth Century City." 
 
 Tolman, " Industrial Betterment." 
 
 Magazines 
 
 " Arena." 
 
 " Charities." 
 
 " Independent." 
 
 " Outlook." 
 
 " World of To-day." 
 
 Secondly, be careful to maintain an impartial atti- 
 tude yourself. The minister is not to be judge and 
 
522 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 ruler, nor is he to take sides violently. He is to be 
 SO far as possible the medium of intercommuni- 
 cation. In this respect his position is unique. He 
 belongs to neither class exclusively, and this position 
 properly maintained gives him a peculiar influence 
 over the whole community. 
 
 Thirdly, deal with questions of the hour in the 
 light of Christ's teaching. The minister will find the 
 Bible rich in sociological as well as in theological 
 instruction. There he will read not only of the 
 fatherhood of God, but also of the brotherhood of 
 man, and will learn that the denial of this brother- 
 hood is equally infidel with disbelief in that father- 
 hood. The materialism which threatens us to-day, 
 and which so chokes the best before it rises to the 
 surface, is the materialism that considers man of 
 less worth than railroads and factories and shops, 
 and which forgets that men were not made for 
 these things so much as these things were made 
 for men. While it is the minister's duty to be im- 
 partial, and never to set himself up as a judge, it is 
 no less his duty to be outspoken in proclaiming the 
 teachings of Christ and in upholding the high 
 standard which brought him to his cross. 
 
 We add here a note which this whole subject 
 suggests, that the minister keep himself clear from 
 commercial pursuits. He should never go into 
 trade, nor be a director, secretary, chairman, or 
 prominent stockholder, in any speculation. He must 
 avoid these things, not because they are wrong, 
 but because if he is too closely associated with them 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 523 
 
 he will inevitably impair his influence. Rowland 
 Hill, in addressing a number of candidates for the 
 ministry, once referred to this matter, which with 
 him was a favorite theme, and by way of illustra- 
 tion told the following story: A barber, having 
 amassed a competence, retired to his native place, 
 where he became a preacher in a small chapel. 
 Another person from the same village, being sim- 
 ilarly fortunate, settled there also and attended the 
 ministry of the barber. Wanting a new wig, he said 
 to his minister, " You might as well make it for me," 
 and to this the minister assented. In due time the 
 wig was sent home, badly made and charged at 
 nearly double the usual price! The good man said 
 nothing, but ever after when anything particularly 
 profitable escaped the lips of the preacher, he ob- 
 served to himself, " Excellent — but oh, the wig." 
 We add without further comment Rowland Hill's 
 closing words in this address : " Now, my dear 
 young brethren, wherever you are placed, remember 
 the wig." 
 
 The minister, like other men, can only do one 
 thing and do it well. However great the tempta- 
 tion, however exceptional the opportunity, he must 
 refrain from gathering the wealth he sees other men 
 acquiring about him, and must himself preach the 
 unsearchable riches of Christ, even though he die 
 a poor man in the estimate of the world. The 
 counsel of Henry Ward Beecher needs to be con- 
 stantly remembered by the Christian minister: 
 " Stick to your legitimate business. Do not go 
 
524 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 into outside operations. Few men have brains 
 enough for more than one business. To dabble 
 in stocks, to put a few thousand dollars into 
 a mine, and a few more into a manufactory, and 
 a few more into an invention, is enough to ruin 
 any man." Let the minister, then, ** stick to his 
 last," and with the best vocation in the world to 
 engage his time and talents, let him find there 
 occupation for all his life and a compensation 
 incomparable to all others. 
 
 V. Having considered the minister's interest in 
 the religious, moral, intellectual, and commercial 
 life of the community, we conclude with the part he 
 should bear in its Political Life. 
 
 Opinion has always been divided as to the duty 
 of the minister in political matters. Some have held 
 with Luther that he should have nothing to do with 
 politics. So Edmund Burke said that " politics and 
 the pulpit are terms that have little agreement." 
 Only a decade ago Kaiser William, offended at the 
 conduct of the former court chaplain. Doctor 
 Stoecker, declared, " The clergy must not meddle 
 with politics, because it is no concern of theirs." 
 But surely those who make such assertions forget 
 the part the Hebrew prophets played in the politi- 
 cal economies of the Old Testament, and the ar- 
 raignment by John the Baptist of the evils of his 
 time in high places. Others have held with Zwingli, 
 Knox, and Calvin, that a minister should be a good 
 citizen as well as a good pastor, and with this view 
 Scripture and experience concur. If " politics is 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 525 
 
 applied religion," ^ then here is a subject in which 
 the minister must be vitally interested. Doc- 
 tor Dale points out that the great defect of the re- 
 ligious movement of the last century was its lack 
 of a broad application of the principles of the 
 evangelical revival to the conduct of public life, 
 and his own preaching illustrated his belief that 
 Christianity and citizenship should stand related as 
 cause and effect. 
 
 We fail to understand how any one can under- 
 value the necessity for men of religion concerning 
 themselves actively in those things which belong to 
 municipal and social life. Doctor Dale's words to 
 ministerial students will bear repeating again and 
 again : " For men to claim the right to neglect their 
 duties to the State on the ground of their piety, 
 while they insist on the State protecting their homes, 
 protecting their property, and protecting from dis- 
 turbance even their religious meetings in which 
 this exquisitely delicate and valetudinarian spirit- 
 uality is developed, is gross unrighteousness." ^ 
 
 With these words of a valiant champion of Prot- 
 estantism we couple those of one of Rome's most 
 noted priests, and in the agreement of these two 
 men, whose sympathies in many other respects were 
 so widely divergent, we have a forceful defense for 
 the minister's interest in politics : " Nor can it be 
 affirmed," says Cardinal Gibbons, "that the tem- 
 perate and seasonable discussion of these problems 
 
 1 Dr. John Clifford. 
 
 '"Nine Lectures on Preaching," pp. 256-258. 
 
526 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 or at least of those phases of them that present a 
 moral or religious aspect, involves any departure 
 from evangelical and apostolic precedent. There 
 is hardly a subject of public interest that has not 
 been alluded to, if not discussed, by Christ or his 
 apostles." ^ 
 
 In our own country the beneficent influence of the 
 ministers of religion previous to and during the 
 War of Independence can never be truly estimated 
 or too warmly praised. And American history in 
 this respect is only one leaf in the great volume of 
 the world's history, on every page of which we read 
 of freedom, of justice, and of victory that came 
 through the efforts of ministers who dared enforce 
 the true relation of the gospel to municipal and 
 national life. 
 
 We forget, for instance, that Savonarola, besides reviv- 
 ing a pure gospel, was a great preacher of civic righteous- 
 ness; he became so by his lectures upon Amos and other 
 prophetical books. . . It is enough for us to remember 
 . . . the earlier Puritans like Henry Smith, with his 
 " Scripture for Magistrates " ; . . the later Puritans like 
 Goodwin, whose sermons to the House of Commons and 
 on public occasions, were nearly always upon Old Testa- 
 ment texts; and the revival of this kind of preaching 
 adapted to modern life by Kingsley and Maurice." 
 
 Between the two positions indicated above, into 
 which opinion has ever divided itself regarding the 
 
 ^ " North American Review," May, 1895, p. 523. 
 2 George Adam Smith, " The Preaching of the Old Testament to 
 the Age," pp. 19, 20. 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 527 
 
 minister's relation to the political life of the com- 
 munity, the minister may well hesitate, for strong ar- 
 guments can be adduced for both. What we believe 
 to be the true position may be thus stated : " The 
 Christian minister should never surrender his rights 
 as a man, and to say that he should is to pass the 
 severest censure on Christianity. The rights and 
 privileges to which he is born are never renounced 
 by any form of ordination through which he as- 
 sumes the office of a minister of Christ.^ The Chris- 
 tian by his very profession positively brings himself 
 under increased obligation. These obligations are 
 emphatically binding on the ministry which in this, 
 as in all other respects, must be " an ensample to 
 the flock." If we understand politics to mean de- 
 liberations and transactions for the public good, the 
 question may well be asked why the minister is not 
 to interfere with them, and where in the Scriptures 
 such prohibition is found? 
 
 If by standing aloof from politics a man sells his patriot- 
 ism to his piety, he thereby becomes less pious; he elim- 
 inates the domain of patriotism from the kingdom of piety. 
 The church is not a shelter for cowards; it is a camp for 
 soldiers, in which consecrated men may train themselves 
 for the holy war. It is to fill family life with model 
 parents and children, masters and servants; commercial 
 life with righteous buyers and sellers; the State with holy 
 citizens; and the legislature with God-fearing rulers. 
 Unfaithfulness to either is unfaithfulness to Christ,^ 
 
 1 W. R. W. Stevenson, " Life and Letters of Walter F. Hook," 
 Vol. I., p. 418. 
 2 The Rev. Henry Allen. 
 
528 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Between politics and religion there can be no di- 
 vorce if we believe that the kingdoms of the world 
 belong to God and to his Christ. While we must 
 refrain from party politics in the pulpit, in political 
 life in its noblest and broadest aspect, we should 
 never cease to feel the keenest interest and to 
 exercise the greatest possible influence. 
 
 On the whole subject of the minister and politics 
 we oflfer the following counsels : 
 
 First, interest yourself in the pulpit with prin- 
 ciples rather than with their application to particular 
 cases. " The minister's duty is not to introduce 
 politics in the common sense of the word, meaning 
 thereby the views of some particular party. The 
 pulpit is not to be degraded into the engine of a 
 faction. Far, far above such questions it ought to 
 preserve the dignity of a voice which speaks for 
 eternity and not for time. If possible, not one word 
 should drop by which a minister's political leanings 
 can be discovered. Yet there must be broad prin- 
 ciples of right and wrong in such a transaction as 
 in any other." ^ 
 
 Secondly, be active in public rather than in party 
 politics. Certain subjects belong to all citizens and 
 must not be made exclusively party questions. Such 
 issues as those relating to the Mormons, the Indians, 
 the Chinese, civil service reform, temperance leg- 
 islation, divorce laws, education acts, are questions 
 of patriotism first and of party afterwards. As 
 
 1 " Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson," edited by Stopford A. 
 Brooke, d. d.. Vol. II., p. 109. 
 
THE MINISTER AS CITIZEN 529 
 
 our greatest poets have sung their love of country 
 as if it were a religion so to love, so must our 
 ministers preach those themes which speak no less 
 eloquently of devotion to our country's welfare as 
 part and parcel of our faith. 
 
 Thirdly, concern yourself chiefly with the relig- 
 ious aspect of national and municipal questions. 
 Crime, for example, is a wrong to the community, to 
 the offender, and to the offended; but it is preemi- 
 nently a sin against God. " National crime is a 
 thing that God will reckon with." ^ The cry of 
 Joseph must often be upon the lips of the Christian 
 preacher as he refers to all questions relating to 
 municipal and national life : " How can I do this 
 great wickedness, and sin against God?"^ 
 
 Fourthly, do not trust too much to political action 
 in promoting reforms. The first duty is to exercise 
 personal influence and to do personal work. To 
 petition Congress and the like is often to evade this 
 first duty. It is to be noted that the best reforms 
 have been carried forward by private individuals, 
 and that great causes are probably weakened rather 
 than strengthened by incorporating themselves into 
 political organization. 
 
 Fifthly, we counsel that you be jealous of your 
 reputation as a minister of Christ. Partisan politics 
 have often given a minister a bad reputation. Ask 
 yourself, therefore, " Is it wise for me to take an 
 active part in this or that movement ? " Remember 
 we " are separated unto the gospel of God." 
 
 * Oliver Cromweli. 2 Gen. 39 : o. 
 
 21 
 
530 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 And this last counsel holds good not only in the 
 interest which the minister takes in the political 
 life of the community, but in such interest and action 
 as from time to time he will find himself called 
 upon to take and perform in the commercial, in- 
 tellectual, moral, and religious life of the community 
 as well. By all means be interested in these things, 
 and by all means strike valiant blows for the com- 
 munity of which you are a part as well as for the 
 church of which you are minister. Above all 
 else, " give diligence to make your calling and elec- 
 tion sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall never 
 fall ; for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you 
 abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." ^ 
 
 ^2 Peter i : lo, ii. 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Introduction. The ministry of to-day one of increasing 
 difficulty. 
 
 I. The Authority of the Minister's Commission. 
 
 1. The authority from without. 
 
 2. The authority from experience. 
 
 3. The union of the two the sure foundation. 
 
 II. The Difficulty of the Minister's Employment. 
 
 1. The Hmitations under which work must be done. 
 
 2. The requirements for ministerial success. 
 
 3. The law of the survival of the fittest. 
 
 III. The Character of the Minister's Compensation. 
 
 1. The consciousness of doing a thing worth while. 
 
 2. The certainty of receiving an abundant recompense. 
 Conclusion. Optimism the spirit of Christianity. 
 
XXIII ^ 
 
 IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 
 
 In these last years the well-nigh universal testi- 
 mony of ministers of all denominations seems to be 
 that their work is one of ever-increasing difficulty. 
 In the light of such testimony we may well turn 
 in this closing chapter to the consideration of the 
 question, Is the ministry worth while? In the an- 
 swer which we propose to give to this query we 
 trust some counsels will be found of value to our 
 brethren in the ministry. In view of the discour- 
 agements which at times beset his pathway this 
 question is often suggested to the mind of the min- 
 ister, if not consciously uttered. Is the ministry 
 worth while? All depends on the point of view. 
 It certainly is not worth while to the man who is 
 after money, or who seeks a sinecure. But is it 
 worth while to the man who wishes so to spend his 
 years that his fellows shall bless him for having 
 lived? Can such a man choose the ministry to-day 
 with the assurance that the conditions under which 
 he must do his work are not like 
 
 the little rift within the lute, 
 That by and by will make the music mute? 
 
 ^ I alone am responsible for this chapter. I believe, however, 
 that its statements are in entire accord with my father's view of 
 present conditions. H. p. 
 
 533 
 
534 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Not doubtfully, but triumphantly, we shall answer 
 this question as we consider the authority of the 
 minister's commission, the difficulty of the minister's 
 employment, and the character of the minister's 
 compensation. 
 
 I. No minister can do his Work without Author- 
 ity behind him. He may claim the authority of a 
 church or the authority of a book, but with all 
 reverence we say it, these alone are insufficient. 
 The minister must claim the authority of an ex- 
 perience — the authority of the things " we have seen 
 and heard." Such authority sounds its note in radi- 
 cal and conservative alike, in liberal as well as in 
 orthodox. " Whether it has been Savonarola or 
 Bossuet or Massillon or Luther or Wesley or Spur- 
 geon or Beecher or Moody or Brooks, they have 
 been men who have had the power to evoke spiritual 
 visions and spiritual motives in other men, and this 
 has been the secret of their authority."^ 
 
 We hear much of " The Making of a Min- 
 ister," but ministers are unmade as well as 
 made. Most men go into the ministry from the 
 purest motives. But these motives are in danger 
 of becoming spotted by the world. It is all too 
 easy in this commercial age to lose our first im- 
 pulse, to weaken the force of our appeal, and to 
 lose sight of the heavenly vision to which we must 
 be obedient. 
 
 It must ever be in this union of external au- 
 thority with that which is within that the minister 
 
 1 Dr. Lyman Abbott 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 535 
 
 will find the foundation on which to stand. There 
 is really no contradiction or antagonism between the 
 two. The outside is possible only because the in- 
 side exists, and the interior owes its permanence to 
 the exterior. It is because something is without a 
 man that something is also within him. Ordination 
 is but the outward recognition of an inward gift, 
 a gift because of which the minister cries, " Woe 
 is me if I preach not the gospel ! " This is the 
 authority of the minister's commission. 
 
 II. But again the ministry is worth while when 
 we face the Difficulties of the Minister's Employ- 
 ment. Nothing can be worth while that does not 
 present difficulties; they are the spice of life. To 
 a true man the ministry is fascinating, among other 
 reasons, for the very obstacles with which the 
 minister of to-day must contend. 
 
 I. The minister must recognize the limitations 
 under which his work is to be done. A restless, 
 nervous spirit characterizes many of our ministers, 
 and our churches as well. We fear there is much 
 truth in the opinion of one of our leading clergy- 
 men, that he nearly always finds one of two con- 
 ditions to exist — either the minister desires to leave 
 his parish or the parish is desirous to change its 
 minister. The same condition is acknowledged in 
 the following sentences in a letter from one of our 
 college presidents : " It is sad indeed to see how 
 many strong men chafe under the limitations of the 
 pastorate to-day. Many of my students are hesi- 
 tating to enter the ministry for this reason." Lim- 
 
536 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 itations exist and have always existed in the work 
 of the ministry, as in all other work. They are ever 
 with us and must be recognized, and the wise man 
 learns that even muscular Christianity cannot widen 
 at will these boundaries of his time. As ex- 
 perience replaces enthusiasm, by faithful tillage of 
 the field as he finds it, he reaps his harvest and 
 becomes content. Oliver Wendell Holmes re- 
 marks about clergymen : " The trouble is that so 
 many of 'em work in harness, and it is pretty sure 
 to chafe somewhere." Or in the words of the 
 Spanish curate of Beaumont and Fletcher : 
 
 To have a thin stipend, and an everlasting parish, 
 Lord, what a torment 'tis ! 
 
 Is the blame for this chafing to be found in the 
 minister himself? It may be that the preparation 
 for the ministry of even a few years ago is hardly 
 adequate to meet the conditions of to-day. If this 
 be true, then we see signs of hope in the 
 more thorough modern training in our theological 
 seminaries. 
 
 Is the fault in the churches ? Some of these may 
 be drowsy or dropsical, but on the whole we be- 
 lieve them to be vastly better than the church at 
 Corinth. But who could stand against that criterion 
 of excellence so common in our churches, that asks 
 as the all-important question concerning a pros- 
 pective minister, Is he liked? rather than. Is he 
 true? There is no worthy character in all the Bible 
 that could answer to such a test. Were the prophets 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WOfeTH WHILE? 537 
 
 liked? Was David liked, or John, or Paul? Was 
 even Christ liked? His words need to be sounded 
 loud, " Woe unto you when all men shall speak well 
 of you." These were the words spoken by the 
 Master to the first twelve men whom he called to be 
 his ministers. 
 
 Is the fault to which we have referred in " the 
 spirit of the day " ? If so, there in the air let us leave 
 it suspended like the coffin of Mohammed between 
 heaven and earth. 
 
 When we turn to some of the qualities whose 
 possession is needful to meet the requirements of 
 the modern ministry, we note that the man who 
 chooses the vocation of a minister for his life-work 
 must be a prophet, a priest, and a politician. 
 
 He must be a prophet, striking straight from the 
 shoulder and straight from the heart as well. The 
 one is a misfortune without the other. Many there 
 are who declare that it is impossible for the minister 
 of to-day to speak freely the truth that possesses him 
 unless he has a private income. We do not believe 
 it. Even Paul was forced at times to feed his con- 
 gregation with milk and not with meat, and we 
 must show the same tact and judgment. 
 
 The minister must be a priest. We use that word 
 in no narrow sense, and mean one who stands as 
 an interpreter of God to man, and this not so often 
 in the pulpit as in his pastoral intercourse with his 
 people. As Henry Ward Beecher has said, " The 
 grip of the pastor is harder to break than that of 
 the preacher." 
 
538 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Furthermore, the minister must be a politician, 
 or he will never be able for long to stand against 
 " the contradiction of sinners." The word poli- 
 tician is a good one, and not to be associated with 
 those practices which in our day have polluted it. 
 The minister will by no means always find his voy- 
 age plain sailing, and on his skill to shape his course 
 will depend not only his own safety, but the suc- 
 cess of the cause he has at heart. He must know the 
 history of his own times, and be able to be politic 
 without being unprincipled; he must Hkewise be 
 adaptable and tactful, preaching sometimes his even- 
 ing sermons in the morning, for that is where sin- 
 ners also are found, and keeping friends with his 
 sexton, beside whom the deacons often pale into 
 insignificance. 
 
 If the minister is these three things he will in 
 his small way, like the disciples of old, " turn the 
 world upside down," which is only another way of 
 saying that he will help to turn it right side up. 
 
 As the minister lives his life he will discover that 
 while he is under grace, he is under law as well — 
 the law of the survival of the fittest. Unconsciously 
 in the first twenty years of his ministry he is bound 
 to prove himself one of the three hundred who lap 
 or one of the crowd that turn back because they 
 have not in them the stuff of which real soldiers 
 are made.^ 
 
 How many men get side-tracked and leave the 
 ministry for business or some profession? This 
 
 ^ Judg. 7 : 5-7. 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 539 
 
 subject has been carefully investigated. In two of 
 our leading seminaries, it has been found that about 
 thirty per cent, of their students leave the ministry 
 within the first twenty years. We do not believe, 
 however, that this showing is worse than would 
 be disclosed by a similar investigation in the realms 
 of medicine or law. But let us remember that the 
 ministry is a vocation and not a profession, and the 
 minister who leaves the ministry for any other pur- 
 suit, even though that pursuit may be somewhat 
 related to the ministry, feels like one who joins 
 an orchestra to play the first violin and finds himself 
 engaged in tinkling the triangle. 
 
 Again, how many men in the ministry in the 
 course of time become shelved and find it impos- 
 sible to do their work after they have reached an 
 age when they are really best able to do it ? Alas for 
 the minister who with the support of a wife and 
 children upon him, reaches the " dead-line." It is 
 easier then for a ministerial Dick Whittington to 
 hear the bells of promise and prophecy if he stand 
 listening with only a stick and bundle on his shoul- 
 der. But is there any need for this dead-line to be 
 reached ? Many men reach it because they are worn 
 out with the exactions of modern parish work, some 
 from sheer misfortune, and some from too much 
 conscience. At the same time many a man makes 
 his own dead-line. As the sermons and other ma- 
 terial accumulate there is a constantly increasing 
 temptation to cease from original work. The " bar- 
 rel " is a convenience that may become a calamity. 
 
540 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 Many a minister has gone over his Niagara in a 
 " barrel." As Doctor Behrends once said : 
 
 The dead-line in the ministry, as in any other calling, 
 is the line of laziness. The lawyer cannot use last year's 
 briefs; the physician cannot depend on last year's diag- 
 nosis; the merchant cannot assume that a customer of 
 ten years' standing will not be enticed elsewhere. And the 
 preacher must be a live, wide-awake, growing man. Let 
 him dye his brains, not his hair. Let his thoughts be 
 fresh and his speech be glowing. Sermons, it has been well 
 said, are like bread, which is delicious when it is fresh, 
 but which, when a month old, is hard to cut, hard to eat, 
 and hardest of all to digest. 
 
 Short pastorates too ar€ a feature of our day 
 in which we read a menace not so much to our min- 
 isters as to our churches. It is scarcely worth while 
 for a minister to lay his carpets and hang his pic- 
 tures and learn the names of the streets of a new 
 city for two or three years' work. Even in New 
 England the time-test is no longer a true measure 
 of a man's worth, and the days of the life pastorates 
 are largely gone, when in the words of an old 
 rhyme about one of her ministers — 
 
 Young to the pulpit he did get. 
 And seventy-two years in't did sweat. 
 
 There seems to be an increasing tendency among 
 our ministers to seek for changes in their fields of 
 labor, very often because the chafing of the harness 
 to which Holmes referred has made raw spots 
 which are exceedingly painful. But a change is 
 
IS THE MIxNISTRY WORTH WHILE? 54I 
 
 apt .to alleviate matters only for a time, and often 
 the chafing becomes more severe in the new field of 
 labor than in the old. To change is to lose much 
 and often to gain little. Character and influence re- 
 quire time to make themselves felt and cannot be 
 transplanted. The secret of a long pastorate is on 
 the one hand a patient people, and on the other a 
 minister who works hard and does his best. And 
 it is the long run that shows the mettle of both 
 people and pastor. We are convinced that the 
 most useful men are those who stay longest in one 
 church. 
 
 Yet much can be said for the shorter pastorate. 
 The power to stick is not always an advantage, 
 either to the church or to the minister. Sometimes 
 it is the man with most conscience who finds him- 
 self without a charge, and our churches will often 
 find the most worthy men tramping wearily the 
 track that leads from their last parish to they know 
 not where. To change is not to escape difficulties; 
 but such a change does sometimes allow a minister 
 to catch his breath, and to utilize experience im- 
 possible to apply in the parish in which it is gained. 
 But how to change is often the problem ! It is not 
 always possible for the minister to say truthfully 
 that the health of his wife makes advisable a change 
 to another field of labor, and if he be blessed with 
 a thoroughly healthy wife, his case may indeed be 
 desperate. 
 
 In some respects several changes in a minister's 
 life, after a residence of some years, may prove of 
 
542 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 great advantage; but a step of such importance, in 
 which many interests besides his own may be in- 
 volved, needs to be weighed carefully and taken only 
 when the call of God sounds unmistakably in his 
 ears. In regard to this matter we recommend above 
 all else deliberation. In most cases the minister 
 should wait a year or so before he decides to change 
 his sphere of labor. Let him examine himself, and 
 if the cause for removal is really there, let him re- 
 move it rather than himself. If the cause be within 
 the church, he had better hold on then too, for 
 squalls do not last forever, and often are followed 
 by a period of fair weather, in which grand gains 
 may be made. If, however, it is best for the min- 
 ister to move, he should be perfectly frank con- 
 cerning the matter, and let the church of which he 
 is minister know, through its officers, that he is 
 taking such a step. It is a very difficult thing 
 for a conscientious man to know when the pre- 
 cise time has come when he should sever his 
 relations with his people. We should not be 
 in too much of a hurry to think that the time 
 has arrived. Doctor Neal, of Boston, was once 
 asked why he stayed so long, and he answered that 
 when he wanted to leave his people were not will- 
 ing for him to go, and when his people wanted him 
 to leave he was not willing to go. The story is 
 told of the same good brother that a committee 
 was once appointed by his office-bearers to wait on 
 him and to suggest that he resign. He heard them 
 patiently and promised to return them an answer. 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 543 
 
 Months passed without his doing so. At length 
 the two gentlemen appointed met him on the street 
 and asked him if he would not reply to their sug- 
 gestion. " Brethren," said Doctor Neal, " I have 
 given the matter very careful consideration, and I 
 have decided to stay on. I believe 'tis better to 
 
 bear those ills we have 
 Than fly to others that we know not of." 
 
 The life of the ministry is not a paradise, and the 
 Master does not mean that it shall be. No need to 
 run when a storm threatens ; it is far better to stand 
 bravely and endure patiently. Times of difficulty 
 as we look back at them by no means seem the least 
 profitable of the years of work. But the minister 
 should be perfectly willing to see when the time 
 comes to leave his church. Then let him quietly 
 watch for another field which the Lord somewhere 
 has for him, and which he opens when the time 
 comes for him to enter. The Lord does make pro- 
 vision for his ministers, whatever examples to the 
 contrary sometimes seem to occur. 
 
 While it is quite right that a minister should 
 preach before a church which may be considering 
 his name, yet he should never enter into a race with 
 other ministers for some vacant church. This sys- 
 tem of obtaining a new pastor makes confusion 
 worse confounded, degrades the self-respect of the 
 minister, and demoralizes the harmony of our 
 churches. 
 
 We have spoken frankly concerning some of the 
 
544 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 difficulties of the modern pastorate. The preaching 
 of the simple gospel has never been for true men 
 an easy task; but in spite of all difficulties, even 
 because of them, it is well worth the while. It is a 
 poor servant who is not willing to suffer as his 
 master, and a poor soldier who complains because 
 the bullet that hits him is hard. 
 
 III. We pass now to consider how well worth 
 while the ministry is because of the Character of 
 the Minister's Compensation. 
 
 I. There is always the consciousness of trying to 
 do a thing which is in itself worthy of our best ef- 
 fort. Though the career of the minister is a series 
 of disillusions, still the new is often better than the 
 old, and to " put away childish things " may make 
 possible the possession of a thought, an outlook, 
 and a spirit that is far better. The supreme work 
 of the minister of Christ is to give life, to impart 
 power, to create an atmosphere in which faith can 
 see, and hope can shine, and love can deepen. This 
 will require all a man has of the spirit of heroism. 
 It means to him as to his Master before him sacri- 
 fice and disappointment and misunderstanding. But 
 what a gracious work it is, and how full is the 
 ministry of joy! How close does God come to us 
 as he uses our poor powers, as Christ took the frag- 
 ments of bread and the few fishes and fed a multi- 
 tude. " If there be one thing on earth which is 
 truly admirable," said Doctor Arnold, " it is to see 
 God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural 
 powers when they have been honestly, truly, and 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 545 
 
 zealously cultivated." Then let us never complain. 
 Above all, never whine. We may see others pre- 
 ferred before us, we may suffer injustice at the 
 hands of false brethren as well as wounds from 
 the enemies who are without, but as we answer au- 
 thority with obedience we find ourselves more and 
 more in possession of that joy which no man taketh 
 from us. To preach unpopular truth, to give not 
 what the world wants, but what the world needs, to 
 speak out at times when with Paul our spirit is 
 " stirred " within us as we see Athens " wholly 
 given to idolatry," will not always be an agreeable 
 thing to do. Nevertheless when this note of hero- 
 ism is struck and repeated again and again then men 
 will come to church, and the church as well as Christ 
 will be honored, and young men will flock to the 
 ministry as the choicest sphere in which to do their 
 life's work. It is this note of heroism for which 
 the world waits and which it is the mission of the 
 ministers of Christ to sound. If they do not sound 
 it, others to our shame and confusion will. For 
 history shows that God means that note to be heard. 
 
 2. But besides the consciousness of doing well with 
 his life the minister has the certainty of receiving 
 in due time a recompense worthy of his hire. If 
 he survives the dangers and tribulations of a series 
 of pastorates he has the prospect of passing a calm 
 old age in some " ministers' home " ! 
 
 Perhaps it may be this very prospect that has 
 something to do with the fact published recently, in 
 an article by a professor in one of our foremost 
 
 2K 
 
546 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 seminaries, that the sons of ministers are not to-day 
 entering the ministry to the same extent as formerly. 
 All the ministers of one of our leading denomina- 
 tions in New England have furnished that denom- 
 ination's principal seminary there only two sons in 
 three years. 
 
 But not in these things lie the minister's com- 
 pensation, nor on their account need he fear the 
 future. In the nobility of purpose and character 
 that will " esteem the reproach of Christ greater 
 riches than the treasure in Egypt " must ever lie 
 the minister's chief recompense. As Whittier has 
 written of such a one ; 
 
 Unnoted as the setting of the star 
 He passed, and sect and party scarcely knew 
 When from their midst a sage and seer withdrew 
 To fitter audience, where the great dead are. 
 To God's republic of the heart and mind, 
 Leaving no purer soul behind. 
 
 Do we get the reward we went into the ministry 
 for? That after all is the great question. Hearken 
 for the answer which every true minister gives, not 
 in certain moods and humors, but when the per- 
 spective is clearest, when the eye is most single, 
 when first things are first. Is the ministry worth 
 while? What say we when we hear some man 
 confess his sin, and behold his heart become mellow 
 as that of a child, and his face shining with a light 
 he knows not of? What say we when, after days of 
 prayer and labor, joy is brought into some home 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 547 
 
 where estrangement threatened to choke the seeds 
 of love? What say we when the consciousness of 
 Hfting a congregation of our fellows through the 
 wondrous ministry of speech nearer to God and 
 duty is upon us ? What say we as our hands smooth 
 some dying pillow, and a soul fearing death goes 
 forth at last in trust and peace to take the first steps 
 in that city whose walls are of jasper and whose 
 streets are pure gold ? Is the ministry worth while ? 
 To the man who knows what ministry is it seems 
 almost sacrilege to ask a question th^ needs no 
 answer. 
 
 Times are changing, the pendulum is swinging, 
 the tide is turning. In this restless age of ours, 
 which is all movement, it is hard for men, whether 
 in or out of the ministry, to keep their balance. As 
 with lengthening life and widening experience a 
 minister lets much go, but retains a clear conviction 
 of his message, a firm belief in his mission, a true 
 fellowship with his Master, there is a glow in his 
 heart that forges it into true steel : 
 
 Just to scorn the consequence, 
 And just to do the thing. 
 
 The words are still with us that were spoken in the 
 classroom years ago by him from whose notes this 
 book has been written : " In unimportant or 
 merely personal matters always give way to your 
 advisers in the church; but in all matters where 
 principle is involved, stand fast by all that took you 
 into the ministry." Many of the students who sat 
 
548 FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 in that classroom have tried in the years that are 
 past to do just that thing. Will not such a policy 
 split a church ? Some of our churches, in fact some 
 of us ministers, may need splitting along just those 
 lines! Will such a policy split a church? No; it 
 will only make the chips fly — be it remembered, 
 however, that sometimes the chip that flies the far- 
 thest will be the minister himself. The minister 
 should never be afraid of making enemies ; it is im- 
 possible for any true minister long to be without 
 them. " E^^ery real thought on every real subject 
 knocks the wind out of somebody or other. As soon 
 as his breath comes back he very probably begins 
 to expend it in hard words." ^ But let our enemies 
 ever be those who are made because we stand where 
 Christ has put us for truth and faith and love. Then 
 our very enemies will be a sign of hope that real 
 benefits are being conferred, that real principles are 
 being upheld. 
 
 If like Christ we " go about doing good," we shall 
 find ourselves often cheered by our visits to our 
 people, and as we come into close knowledge of 
 their trials we shall often go away ashamed of our 
 own discontent. It is a religious duty to cultivate 
 a hopeful spirit. The minister of to-day needs to 
 take large doses of Sydney Smith's prescription: 
 " Take short views, hope for the best, and trust in 
 God." Of all spirits that of cheerfulness and hope- 
 fulness is most valuable to the minister. A friend 
 writes of Doctor Raleigh, of London : " The hopeful 
 
 1 Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
 
IS THE MINISTRY WORTH WHILE? 549 
 
 and encouraging strain of his preaching contributed 
 largely to his success. This, while it never im- 
 paired his fidelity in declaring the whole counsel of 
 God, and apart from the literary beauties of his 
 style, gave him a hold on his hearers such as few 
 preachers have ever acquired." ^ No matter where 
 our work lies, or who our parishioners are, as we 
 labor with them in the best of all causes we shall 
 learn to love as well as respect them. Pessimism 
 has no place in a minister's life. A pessimist is one 
 with a selected yesterday, a soiled to-day, and a 
 sacrificed to-morrow. Pessimism has nothing to do 
 with Christianity, and will be far from the minister's 
 soul as he considers the authority of his commis- 
 sion, the difficulty of his employment, and the 
 character of his compensation. 
 
 " And the hand of the Lord was upon me," cried 
 Ezekiel. " And he said . . . Arise, go forth into 
 the plain and I will there talk with thee. . . And I 
 fell on my face. . . Then the Spirit entered into me 
 and set me upon my feet and spake with me." ^ 
 With God's hand to place us on our feet and with 
 God's voice to ring in our ears, then, but only then, 
 is the ministry worth while. In that spirit by God's 
 good grace let us do our work in the glorious 
 vocation of the Christian ministry until we hear that 
 final plaudit, "Well done!" 
 
 1 " Memoir," p. 213. * Ezek. 3 : 22-24. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acceptance of call : letter of, 80, 92 ; 
 salary should be arranged at time 
 of, 80 ; should be sincere, 80. 
 
 Acoustics of church, 149 
 
 Acts of Apostles, as furnishing ex- 
 amples of manliness, 25. 
 
 After-meetings, 286, 295, 319, 
 
 A Kempis, his *' Imitation," 133 
 
 Ambrose, Saint, on silence, 132. 
 
 Amherst, wise guidance of revival 
 at, 311. 
 
 Architecture, church : importance of 
 studying, 141 ; general ignorance 
 of, 141 ; exemplified in Trinity 
 Church, Boston, 142; in Middle 
 Ages, 143, 155 ; of Baptist churches, 
 143, should consider utility, 144; 
 should consider others, 144; ex- 
 emplified in Providence, 144 ; 
 should consider worshipfulness, 
 146 ; should consider choir, 148 ; 
 influenced by demands of sermon, 
 148 ; influenced by demands of 
 ordinances, 151 ; should consider 
 beauty, 152 ; influences of, 157. 
 
 Assistant-pastor, wisdom of young 
 minister becoming an, 63. 
 
 Augustine, his " Confessions," 133. 
 
 Babcock, Doctor, his rededication. 
 
 Bacon, on health, 10. 
 
 Baptist church architecture. 141. 
 
 Baptistery : its influence on architec- 
 ture, 143, 151 ; decoration of, 156. 
 
 Baxter : his " Reformed Pastor " and 
 "Saint's Rest," 133: on Christian 
 narrowness, 330. 
 
 Beecher : on health, 5, 13 ; on collec- 
 tions in prayer meeting and church, 
 218. 
 
 Beneficence, Christian : principles of, 
 227 ; must be measured by stand- 
 ard of Christ, 227 ; should be sys- 
 tematic, 229, 246 ; should be at 
 least one-tenth of income, 229; 
 should be religious, 230 ; is often 
 niggardly, 231, 237 ; should be de- 
 veloped in young, 232 ; should be 
 developed in poor, 232 ; should be 
 general, 233 ; is a subject for ser- 
 mons, 234 ; is shown better by 
 donations than by bequests, 234; 
 is a privilege, 236 ; is not con- 
 nected with begging, 237: is a 
 duty, 238; should be intelligent, 
 239, 246; should include denom- 
 inational societies, 240 ; should in- 
 clude missions, 241 ; should in- 
 clude church poor, 243: should not 
 be exclusivelydenominational, 245: 
 should include charitable organ- 
 izations, 245 : should not hurt 
 recipient, 247. 
 
 Benson, on value of moments, 128, 
 
 Bible : revivals cause interest in, 269; 
 its use during revivals, 297 
 
 Biography, books of, 135. 
 
 Bonar : his hours of devotion, 123 ; 
 his motives, 128. 
 
 Books : to inspire manliness, 36 ; 
 for minister's library, 98 ; for hours 
 of devotion, 132 ; of devotional 
 prose, 133; of biography, 135; of 
 devotional poetry, 137; of the 
 church, X72 ; on parliamentary 
 law, 181; concerning revivals, 273, 
 292. 
 
 Booth, General, his working prin- 
 ciples, 333. 
 
 Brooks, Phillips : on pampering the- 
 ological students, 28 ; on treating 
 
552 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ministers as men, 31, 32; his call, 
 52 ; his development, 128 ; his ideas 
 embodied in Trinity Church, 142; 
 bis ideal of church architecture, 
 149; his defense of beauty, 152; 
 his condemnation of cheap noto- 
 riety, 212; on consecration of 
 modern church, 331. 
 
 Browning, quoted, 21. 
 
 Bruce, Professor, on health, 9. 
 
 Bunyan : on guarding the flock, 55; 
 quoted, 126 ; bis " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress," 133. 
 
 Burdette, Robert J , on talking of 
 one's health, 20. 
 
 Bushnell : on Christianizing the 
 money power, 236, 248 ; on re- 
 vivals, 254. 
 
 Call to a church ; because of reputa- 
 tion, 64 ; through committee, 65; 
 when church knows minister, 65; 
 after candidacy, 65 ; considering a, 
 70; unanimous, 76; accepting a, 
 80; seeming to seek a, 81. 
 
 Call to ministry : comes from God, 
 45 ; is sometimes sudden, 47 ; is 
 sometimes gradual, 48; signs of 
 genuine, 49; is shown by Holy 
 Spirit, 49, 52 ; is shown by provi- 
 dential guidance, 49 ; is shown by 
 self-examination, 50 ; is recognized 
 by one's friends, 50; is shown by 
 success, 51. 
 
 Calls, pastoral (see Visiting). 
 
 Candidates for a church : objections 
 to system of, 65 ; best sermon for, 
 67; conduct of, 68; rival, 68; 
 should consider but one church, 
 68 ; their conversation, 68 ; advice 
 to churches concerning, 69 ; con- 
 siderations aflfecting their decision, 
 70, 163; their acceptance, 80; their 
 ordination, 82. 
 
 Carlyle, on energy, 39. 
 
 Chalmers, stimulated by apprehen- 
 sion of presence of Christ, 33. 
 
 Character, necessary for ministry, 
 55 (see Call to a church. Candi- 
 dates, Manliness). 
 
 Charity (see Beneficence). 
 
 Chaucer, his good parson, 58. 
 
 Cheerfulness, necessary in pastoral 
 work, 8. 
 
 Choir ; place for, 148 ; quartette, 148 ; 
 chorus, 148. 
 
 Christ : his manliness, 25, 33 ; his 
 self-denial, 36 ; his humility, 41 ; 
 his work, 52 ; his hours of devo- 
 tion, 118; his standard of benefi- 
 cence, 227 ; as an evangelist, 327. 
 
 Church : may influence members to 
 be ministers, 50; its size, 70 in 
 your own State, 71 ; country, 72 ; 
 city, 74 ; suburban, 75 ; village, 75; 
 character of, 76; claims of, 100; 
 should look after new converts, 
 314; institutional, 327; should be 
 studied by minister, 334; should 
 be center of activity, 335. 
 
 Church building : its architecture, 
 141; its interior, 142, 145: its ex- 
 terior, 144 ; its vestibule, 145 ; 
 should encourage worshipfulness, 
 146 ; its main room, 146 ; should 
 be beautiful, 152; its form, 157. 
 (See Architecture.) 
 
 Clerk, his duties, 172. 
 
 Classes, for new converts, 312, 319. 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley, on sacredness of 
 ministry, 46. 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, on other 
 worldliness, 31. 
 
 Committee : to select minister, 65 ; 
 prudential, 184. (Sec Prudential 
 Committee.) 
 
 Converts : should not be counted, 
 309 ; should be trained, 310 ; their 
 common errors, 311 ; classes for, 
 312, 319 ; should be taught by min- 
 ister, 312 ; themes for their study, 
 3x2; church should take interest 
 in, 314 : should be kept in prayer 
 meeting, 315 ; their associations, 
 322. 
 
 Co-pastor, wisdom of young min- 
 ister becoming, 63. 
 
 Covenant meeting, 182. 
 i Cowper, on ministerial manliness, 27. 
 1 Crosby, on minister's salary, 220. 
 
INDEX 
 
 553 
 
 Cuyler, T. L., his diet, 18. 
 
 Dale, R. W., on church architecture, 
 
 154- 
 
 Damroscb, on location of choir, 148. 
 
 Dangers to ministerial manliness, 26. 
 
 Darwin : on meditation, 125 ; on 
 ornamentation in nature, 153. 
 
 Deaconesses, value of, 176. 
 
 Deacons: qualifications of, 164; 
 their duties, 166 ; how to choose, 
 166 ; their term of office, 170 ; their 
 election, 170; recognition of, 170; 
 relations of minister with, 171 ; 
 their relation to church business, 
 181. 
 
 Devotion, hours of : defined, 117 ; 
 time for, 117 ; of J. A. James, 117 ; 
 of David, 118; of Christ, n8 ; of 
 apostles, 119; of Paul, 119; of 
 Epaphras, 119; of John, 120; of 
 Joseph Alleine, 120 ; of Edwards, 
 j2o; of Brainerd, 120; of Fletcher. 
 121 ; of Payson, 121 ; of Martyn, 
 122; of Maurice, 122; of Judson, 
 123 ; of Bonar, 123 ; of McLaren, 
 123 ; influence spirituality, 124 ; 
 prepare for work, 125; prevent 
 spiritual hardening, 126; prevent 
 narrow views of ministry, 127; 
 offset strain of overwork, 127 ; off- 
 set personal infirmities. 128 ; should 
 be prayerful, 129; should include 
 confession, 131 ; should be contem- 
 plative, 131 ; should include devo- 
 tional reading, 132. 
 
 Dickens, on drudgery, 31. 
 
 Diet: its value, 17; after preaching, 
 18 ; before preaching, 18, 19. 
 
 Discipline, church : its necessity, 
 189 ; calls for caution, 189 ; should 
 be last resort, 190 ; calls for coun- 
 sel, 190, 193 ; grounds for, 190, 205 ; 
 examples of, 190 ; investigation 
 preceding, 193 ; action of church 
 in cases of, 194 ; calls for solemnity 
 and tenderness, 194 ; should not be 
 made public, 195; minister should 
 follow up subject of, 195. 
 Dismissal of members, 185. 
 
 Dress of minister, 29. 
 Drudgery, necessity of, 30. 
 Drummond, quoted, 26. 
 Dykes, on theology of future, 339. 
 
 Edwards : on health, 8 ; revivals 
 under, 262. 
 
 Emerson : on health, 5, 11 ; on min- 
 isters' salaries, 29 ; on job-work, 
 103. 
 
 Energy, as aid to manliness, 39. 
 
 Environment, its effect on manliness, 
 
 25- 
 
 Epictetus, on talking of one's health, 
 
 20. 
 Epistles of New Testament, their 
 
 manliness, 25. 
 Erasmus : on being taught of God, 
 
 45 ; on feeding the flock, 54. 
 Erskine, his divine mission, 45. 
 Evangelist : professional, 293, 295 ; 
 
 Christ as an, 327. (See Minister 
 
 as Evangelist. ) 
 Exercise, value and forms of, x6. 
 
 Fasting, before a revival, 283. 
 
 Finney, how he followed up the 
 Rochester revival, 307. 
 
 Finance, church : relation of minister 
 to, 203 ; calls for consecrated as 
 well as capable service, 204 ; is not 
 beneficence, 204 ; its relation to 
 beneficence, 205; its relation to 
 pew-rents, 207 ; model of, 208 ; 
 should be index of church pros- 
 perity, 208 ; should be spontaneous, 
 209 ; may necessitate special con- 
 tributions, 210 ; should be dignified, 
 210; should not usually counte- 
 nance debt, 213; should provide 
 adequate income, 214 ; should se- 
 cure general and proportionate giv- 
 ing, 214 ; principles governing, 216 ; 
 itsrelation to offertory, 217; should 
 be wise in expenditures, 218; its 
 relation to minister's salary, 219. 
 
 Gladstone, on systematic giving, 236. 
 Goldsmith : his good parson, 58 ; on 
 I true art, 144. 
 
554 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gordon, A. J. : stimulated by appre- 
 hension of Christ's power, 34 ; on 
 serving God and mammon, 331. 
 
 Greeley, on necessity of study, 97. 
 
 Guthrie, on church architecture, 142, 
 153- 
 
 Habits, value of regular, 11. 
 Hall, Bishop, on worry, 15. 
 Hall, John, on relation between re- 
 ligion and business, 128. 
 Health : of minister, 3 ; of Jewish 
 priests, 3 ; of Jews, 3 ; of Bible 
 characters, 4 ; Christian philosophy 
 of, 5; witness of history to its 
 value, 5; necessary for preaching, 
 7; necessary in pastoral work, 7; 
 necessary for study, 9; of min- 
 isters averages very high, 9; of 
 missionaries, 9; work of minister 
 is conducive to, 10; counsels for 
 promoting, 11 ; aided by regular 
 habits, 11; hurt by overwork, 12; 
 necessitates rest, 12 ; necessitates 
 sleep, 13 ; necessitates Sabbath ob- 
 servance, 14 ; value of annual va- 
 cation to, 14 ; is dependent on ex- 
 ercise, 16 ; its relation to diet, 17 , 
 necessitates care of voice, 19 ; 
 talking about, 20 ; especial need to 
 care for, 113. 
 Herbert, George, on guarding the 
 
 flock, 55. 
 Heredity, its effect on manliness, 25 
 Heresy trials, their value, 193 
 Holmes, on unhealthy ministers, 8 
 Home, as influencing men toward 
 
 ministry, 51 
 Hook, on hereditary clergymen, 127 
 Humility, its effect on manliness, 41. 
 
 James, J. A.: on health, 6; his 
 
 hours of devotion, 117. 
 Janitor (see Sexton). 
 Jews, their health, 3. 
 Johnson : on doing one's utmost, 
 
 91 ; on being one's own master, 94 
 Journal, keeping a, 95. 
 
 Kingsley, his courage, 37. 
 
 Landells, Doctor, on need of charac- 
 ter in ministers, 35. 
 
 Laymen, are sometimes more power- 
 ful than ministers, 35. 
 
 Library (see Books). 
 
 Longfellow, on health, 5, 10. 
 
 Lowell : on sacredness of ministry, 
 46 ; on regeneration of church, 
 330- 
 
 Luther, on giving, 239. 
 
 Manliness, ministerial : sources of, 
 25 ; exemplified in jesus and early 
 disciples, 25 ; defined, 26 ; its 
 sphere, 26 ; endangered by popular 
 conception of minister, 27, en- 
 dangered by aiding theological 
 students, 28 ; endangered by social 
 separation, 28 ; endangered by 
 charity, 29 ; endangered by char- 
 acter of work, 30 ; endangered by 
 congregation, 31 ; aided by exam- 
 ple of Christ, 33 ; aided by true 
 conception of vocation, 34 , aided 
 by examples, 36 ; aided by cultiva- 
 tion, 36 ; aided by self-denial. 36 ; 
 aided by courage, 37 ; aided by 
 energy, 39 ; its simplicity, 40 ; 
 aided by humility, 41. 
 
 Martin, S., his prayerfulness, 130. 
 
 Martineau, on slow culture, 129 
 
 McLaren : on his call, 46 ; his hours 
 of devotion, 123; on hours of 
 devotion. 137 
 
 Membership, church : receiving into, 
 183 : dismissing from 185. 
 
 Meyer, F. B , as co-pastor, 64. 
 
 Milton, on feeding the flock, 54 
 
 Minister: his health, 3; his power 
 to influence men toward ministry, 
 51: his office. 52; his titles, 56; 
 respect paid him in America, 58 , 
 " hiring " the, 79 ; at work, 91 ; his 
 independence, 91 ; his self-sacri- 
 fice, 93 ; his need of forethought, 
 95; his disposal of his time, 96, 
 103, 106; should be primarily a 
 preacher, 96 ; his library, 98 ; his 
 pastoral work. 100 ; revival fea- 
 tures u.sed by new, loi , should be 
 
INDEX 
 
 555 
 
 accessible, 102 ; outside claims on, 
 102; should husband his resources, 
 103 ; his study hours, 104 ; his 
 treatment of visitors, 105 ; is sel- 
 dom overworked, 108 ; his need of 
 will, 109; may expect intellectual 
 famines, iii ; should not worry, 
 112 ; his methods of rest, 112 ; 
 should study architecture, 141, 
 150; and his trustees, 163; and his 
 treasurer, 163; and his deacons, 
 171 ; and his clerk, 172 ; and his 
 prudential committee, 172 ; and 
 his sexton, 174 ; and his women 
 workers, 175 ; should know parlia- 
 mentary law, 181 ; should keep 
 business out of devotional meet- 
 ings, 181 ; should not vote at 
 church meetings, 182 ; should usu- 
 ally preside at church meetings, 
 182 ; his relation to covenant meet- 
 ings, 182 ; his relation to examina- 
 tion and reception of new members, 
 183 ; his relation to dismissal of 
 members, 185 ; his relation to 
 meetings for miscellaneous busi- 
 ness, 188 , his relation to cases of 
 discipline, 189 ; should aid in mak- 
 ing spiritual all church meetings, 
 196 ; his relation to church finances, 
 203 ; should develop church be- 
 neficence, 232; should give liber- 
 ally, 236 ; should at times expect 
 niggardly giving, 237; should 
 make beneficence intelligent, 239 ; 
 should aid in getting subscriptions, 
 241 ; should teach about mis- 
 sions, 241 ; his attitude toward re- 
 vivals, 264 ; aided by revivals, 271 ; 
 his preparation for revival, 279; 
 should watch for signs of revival, 
 284 ; should preach during revivals, 
 287 ; should visit during revivals, 
 291 ; should conduct his own re- 
 vivals, 293 ; may seek aid of an- 
 other minister during revivals, 
 295 ; should sometimes call in 
 evangelists, 295 ; should be aided 
 by church-members during re- 
 vivals, 296; should classify in- 
 
 quirers during revivals, 296 ; 
 should teach new converts, 312 ; 
 his relation to Sunday-school, 318 ; 
 should meet inquirers, 519 (See 
 Acceptance of Call, Call to Church, 
 Call to Ministry, Health, Manli- 
 ness, Ordination, Settlement.) 
 
 Minister, as evangelist : a scriptural 
 office, 327; exemplified in Christ 
 and early disciples, 327 ; is ham- 
 pered by his regular work, 328; 
 meaning of his work, 332 ; should 
 study his church. 334 ; should sur- 
 vey his field, 335; should make 
 church center of activity, 335 ; 
 should study models, 336. 
 
 Ministry : two conceptions of, 34 ; 
 call to, 45 ; true conception of, 52 ; 
 exemplified in Christ's life and 
 teaching, 52 ; apostolic idea of, 53 ; 
 scriptural idea of, 53 ; is harvesting, 
 54 ; is feeding, 54 ; is guiding, 54 ; is 
 guarding, 54 ; calls for character, 
 55 ; calls for tact, 55 (See Call 
 to Ministry.) 
 
 Missions : as field for young minis- 
 ter, .64 ; collections for, 241 ; inter- 
 est in, 241 ; information concern- 
 ing, 242 
 
 Mission school, its value in training 
 new converts, 317. 
 
 Moody : his health. 6 ; quoted, 19 ; 
 his revival methods, 285 ; his use 
 of Bible during revivals, 297 ; his 
 theory of evangelization, 333. 
 
 Music, its influence on church 
 architecture, 148, 
 
 Newton, on sacredness of ministry, 
 
 45. 
 Numbers, fallacy of, 309. 
 
 Officers of church (see Clerk, 
 Deaconesses, Deacons, Minister, 
 Sexton). 
 
 Ordination : place of, 82 ; order of 
 services of, 82 ; counsels to candi- 
 date for, 84. (See Services of 
 Ordination.) 
 
 Organization for revivals, 285. 
 
556 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Palmerston, on exercise, i6. 
 
 Parker: habits of, 17; his letter of 
 acceptance, 92. 
 
 Paul : his health, 4 ; his precepts re- 
 garding maQliness, 26; his portrait 
 of good minister, 53. 
 
 Peter, his call, 53. 
 
 Petrarch, on character, 34. 
 
 Pew rents : objections to, 207 ; modi- 
 iicatioa of, 207. 
 
 Poetry, devotional, 137, 
 
 Poor : should give to church, 332 ; 
 should be looked after by their 
 church, 243. 
 
 Prayer : kneeling during, 147 ; at- 
 tendant on revivals, 259, 269 ; as a 
 sign of approaching revivals, 279, 
 282. 
 
 Prayer, week of, 320. 
 
 Prayer meeting : missionary, 242 ; 
 before a revival, 283 ; new converts 
 should be kept in, 315 ; should 
 encourage inquirers, 320 
 
 Preaching, demands health, 7. 
 
 Profession, the ministry not a, 47. 
 
 Prose, devotional, 133. 
 
 Prudential committee : its impor- 
 tance, 172, 173 ; qualifications for, 
 172 ; its term of office, 172 ; may in- 
 clude women, 173 ; should include 
 minister, 173 ; may include dea- 
 cons, 173 
 
 Pulpit, its necessity, 147. 
 
 Quartette, evil of, 148. 
 
 Reputation : being called because of, 
 64; care of, 291. 
 
 Rest (see Health). 
 
 Retreats, 132 
 
 Revivals : conducted by new minis- 
 ter, 101 ; in history, 255 ; have 
 proved necessary, 253, 263 ; are not 
 modern American product, 253; 
 ignorance causes objections to, 
 253; may arouse opposition, 254; 
 Bushnell on, 254 ; their super- 
 human origin, 255 ; injured by 
 rationalism, 258 ; have been con- 
 tinuous, 259 ; characteristics of. 
 
 259 ; in America, 262 ; necessitate 
 preparation, 265, 279 ; their causes, 
 266 ; result from scriptural faith and 
 teaching, 266 ; are known by their 
 fruits, 267 ; employ different 
 means, 268 ; differ in results, 269 : 
 mainspring of, 270; their connec- 
 tion with colleges, missions, etc., 
 270 ; aid minister, 271 ; qualifica- 
 tions for conducting, 272 ; books 
 concerning, 273, 292 ; signs of 
 their approach, 279 ; church should 
 be prepared for, 282 ; necessitate 
 personal work, 284 ; necessitate 
 preaching, 287 ; necessitate knowl- 
 edge of congregation, 288 ; themes 
 for, 288 ; homiletics of sermons for, 
 290 ; necessitate unction, 290 ; pas- 
 toral work during, 291 ; special 
 services during, 292 ; professional 
 conductors of, 293, 295 ; conducted 
 by minister, 293 ; aid during, 295, 
 296 ; after-meetings during, 295 ; 
 necessity of classifying inquirers 
 during, 296; use of Bible during, 
 297 ; purpose of, 298 ; should not 
 encourage careless conversions, 
 298 ; necessitate moderation, 
 298 ; should often cause im- 
 mediate conversion, 299 ; should 
 be thorough, 300; should increase 
 church-membership, 300; necessi- 
 tate self-repression, 300; should 
 honor God, 301 ; excitement dur- 
 ing, 301 ; their moral character- 
 istics, 303 ; their spiritual charac- 
 teristics, 303 ; use of press during, 
 304 ; reaction after, 307, 309 ; cause 
 of their shallowness, 308 ; should 
 look to future, 309 ; training of 
 converts after, 310, 319 ; aggressive 
 work after, 315 ; regular work after, 
 317 ; sermons after, 318. (See 
 Minister, Minister as Evangelist.) 
 
 Robertson : his courage, 38 , his call, 
 49; on minister's losing his soul, 
 126 ; his devotional reading, 135. 
 
 Rochester, revival of Finney at, 307. 
 
 Ruskin : on morality of architecture, 
 153; on church debts, 213. 
 
INDEX 
 
 557 
 
 Salary : its effect on manliness, 29 ; 
 should be arranged before accept- 
 ance of call, 80; should not be 
 reduced when church economizes, 
 218. 
 
 Seclusion, its value exemplified, 125. 
 
 Self-denial : aids manliness, 36 ; call 
 to, 48. 
 
 Self-sacrifice : necessary to minister, 
 93 ; in giving, 228. 
 
 Sermon The : on Mount, 25 ; for 
 candidate, 67; its influence, 96; 
 material for, 100 ; on giving, 234 ; 
 during revival, 259, 266, 287 ; be- 
 fore revivals, 280; should be 
 aimed, 288 ; themes for revival, 
 288; homiletics of revival, 290; 
 spirit of revival, 290 ; after re- 
 vivals, 318. 
 
 Service : of recognition, 87 ; popular 
 Sunday, 335 ; for revival, see 
 Revivals. 
 
 Services of ordination : place of, 82 ; 
 order of, 82 ; programme of public, 
 85; character of public, 86; par- 
 ticipants in public, 86. 
 
 Settlement : finding a, 63 ; how to 
 find a, 64; considering a, 70; ac- 
 cepting a, 80. (See Call, Candi- 
 dates, Church.) 
 
 Sexton : his importance, 173 ; model, 
 174; should be friend of minister, 
 174; his duties, 174. 
 
 Simplicity : its aid to manliness, 40. 
 
 Singing, should be congregational, 
 148. (See Choir, Quartette.) 
 
 Sleep, value of, 13. 
 
 Smith, S., on diet, 19, 
 
 Social meetings, 336. 
 
 South, on health, 3. 
 
 Southey, on health, 10. 
 
 Spring, best time for week of prayer, 
 321. 
 
 Spurgeon : habits of, 12 ; on manli- 
 ness, 32 ; on courage, 37 ; his 
 hatred of titles, 57; his annual 
 resignation, 79 ; his wise industry, 
 X03 ; on prayer, 130 ; on Augus- 
 tine's " Confessions," 133 ; revival 
 sermon of, 281. 
 
 Stanley, Dean, his courage, 38. 
 Storrs, K. S., on day-time studying, 
 
 II. 
 Study : time for, 11 ; necessity of, 
 
 97 ; of church architecture, 141. 
 Study, place for minister's, 145. 
 Sunday-school : election of officers 
 
 of, 175- 
 Supper, The Lord's, its influence on 
 
 church architecture, 151. 
 Sympathy, in pastoral work, 8. 
 
 Tact, necessary in ministry, 55. 
 
 Talmage, on health, 4. 
 
 Taylor, his " Holy Living and Dy- 
 ing," 133- 
 
 Temptation of Christ, as aid to man- 
 liness, 33. 
 
 Tennyson, on beauty in nature, 153. 
 
 Time: for work, 11 ; for sleep, 13; 
 for recreation, 14. 
 
 Tractarians, their influence, 135. 
 
 Treasurer : his duties, 163 ; should 
 not overdraw, 213 ; should tell 
 church of deficit, 214. (See Fi- 
 nance.) 
 
 Trinity Church, Boston, as model of 
 church architecture, 142. 
 
 Trustees : their relation to minister, 
 163 ; their duties, 163. 
 
 Tyng, his Andrew and Philip So- 
 ciety, 316. 
 
 Vacation : annual, 14 ; minister 
 should not preach during, 14. 
 
 Vanity, danger of, 32. 
 
 Vestibule, church, 145. 
 
 Visiting : demands health, 7 ; during 
 revivals, 291, 
 
 Visitors : should be treated with 
 tact, 105; during revivals, 291. 
 
 Voice, care of, 19. 
 
 Vocation, ministry a true, 46. 
 
 Wayland, on church architecture, 
 
 ISO- 
 Wesley, on exercise, 16. 
 Weston, on being ruled by others, 
 
 91. 
 Wjlberforce, his prayerfulness, 130. 
 
558 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Will, need of, 25. 
 
 Women : on prudential committee, 
 173; should be organized, 175. 
 
 Wordsworth, his picture of candi- 
 date pre?ching, 66. 
 
 Work : hours of, 11 ; effect on per- 
 sonality of ministers, 30. 
 
 Young people's society, election of 
 its officers, 175. 
 


 
 rt :3SV33 
 
 46S306 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY