UC-NRLF 
 
 Miiw<ni»i'Mii-iiii<»TiniiinnitmmTmTnTTiT»iriiTmr-ifriT-f-f"— ■'"•— -* J 
 
 CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING 
 
THE MINISTRY: 
 AN APPEAL TO COLLEGE MEN 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 AN APPEAL TO 
 COLLEGE MEN 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING 
 D.D., LL.D. 
 
 President of Western Reserve 
 University 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 BOSTON CHICAGO 
 
TJr 
 
 Copyright 1916 
 By CHARLES F. THWING 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 BOSTON 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introductory Note vii 
 
 I. Attractions of the Ministry as a 
 
 Calling 3 
 
 II. Objections to the Ministry as a 
 
 Calling . .33 
 
 III. Qualities Necessary in the Man 
 
 Choosing the Ministry . . .57 
 
 IV. Testimonies Regarding the Satis- 
 
 factions and the Opportunities 
 of the Ministry 71 
 
 530M26 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 This little volume is addressed to 
 men in college who are soon to make a 
 choice of life's calling. It seeks to be 
 an interpretation of the conditions, an 
 appreciation of the forces and difficul- 
 ties, and a presentation of some of the 
 opportunities, of the ministry. It is 
 also an appeal simple and plain. It is 
 not concerned with any special theory 
 of the church or of the ministry. I 
 fear that much of what I have writ- 
 ten, though I hope not all, will seem 
 unwarranted by my friends of ) the 
 Roman Catholic Communion. I write 
 as a Protestant and for Protestants, 
 and also as a college president for 
 those best men — college students. 
 
 C. F. T. 
 
 Western Reserve University, Cleveland 
 1st December, 1916 
 
I 
 
 ATTRACTIONS OF THE 
 MINISTRY AS A CALLING 
 
The Ministry 
 
 An Appeal to College Men 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ATTRACTIONS OF THE MINISTRY AS A 
 CALLING 
 
 MANY, weighty, and diverse are the 
 elements of the ministry, mak- 
 ing its work attractive to col- 
 lege men. These elements easily fall 
 into two classes: the personal, or self- 
 ward, and the altruistic. 
 
 Several of the self-ward reasons are 
 summed up in the opportunities and 
 advantages which the ministry offers 
 for self-culture. This enrichment is 
 both of the intellect and of the heart. 
 The ministry invites to intellectual 
 breadth. It urges one to a large 
 knowledge. "Omniscience" is quite 
 as much the foible of the minister as 
 it was of Whewell of Cambridge a half 
 
 [3] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 century ago! No other profession so 
 worthily draws its strength and in- 
 spiration from every part. The world 
 is its creditor. Whether it is indebted 
 more to literature or to nature may be 
 a question, but it is certainly indebted 
 much to each. It may be said of the 
 minister that "Nothing is foreign to 
 him which relates to man." Some of 
 the greatest preachers of recent times, 
 as Richard Salter Storrs, Finney, and 
 Dwight, have in their early years 
 been students of the law. They have 
 said that their legal studies contributed 
 to their service in preaching and per- 
 sonal relations. The early ministers 
 in America were largely the physicians 
 of the colonial communities. The cler- 
 ical calling aided in the performance of 
 the duties of the medical. The ministry 
 is and represents the study of man as 
 man, in body, mind and soul. 
 
 The culture of the ministry tends 
 also to intellectual depth. The themes 
 of the minister are the profoundest; 
 
 [4] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 they arouse the deepest thoughts. The 
 minister touches upon the character 
 and nature of God, upon the revelation 
 of God to man, and upon the possibility 
 and the degree of man's knowledge of 
 God. The minister is concerned with 
 the qualities of the human mind, the 
 relation of the intellectual to the 
 emotional faculty, of the emotional to 
 the volitional, of the volitional in 
 turn to the intellectual. The con- 
 science, the imagination, the affections, 
 every faculty of the human constitu- 
 tion are the field of his study. His 
 theme is the entire moral and spiritual 
 constitution. He should be the ablest 
 psychologist. 
 
 "If then," writes Professor Edwards 
 A. Park in his essay, "Dignity and 
 Importance of the Preacher's Work," 
 "the acme of the Creator's glories is 
 to be the most familiar of the preacher's 
 themes; if all human sciences are but 
 ancillary to that revealed system which 
 the preacher is to explain and enforce, 
 [5] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 if eternity and the resurrection, and 
 God, and Christ, the Sovereign, the 
 Judge, the Saviour, are to be the great 
 objects upon which his mind is to 
 dilate, then it is well to require of 
 him that he be not a novice, but a man 
 of greatness of spirit, of high aims and 
 large compass of thought. If a vigor- 
 ous intellect be needed for the study 
 of human jurisprudence, it is doubly 
 requisite for the examination of that 
 law according to which all our wise 
 codes of legislation are framed; which 
 is illustrated by precedents more nu- 
 merous and complicated than are con- 
 tained in all our juridical reports; 
 which has such relations to man as to 
 call for a close scrutiny into his nature 
 and character; and such relations to 
 God as demand a comprehensive view of 
 his rectitude on the one hand, and his 
 grace on the other, and of that signal 
 invention by which he can even honor 
 the law by remitting its penalties. " * 
 
 1 Preacher and Pastor. Introductory Essay by Professor Edwards 
 A Park D.D., p. IS. 
 
 6] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 The means, too, which the ministry 
 offers for growth in self-culture are 
 nobly indicated in an address given by 
 President Eliot to the Divinity Club 
 of Harvard University in April, 1907, 
 on The Ministry. President Eliot says : 
 
 "A devoted and active minister may 
 grow in wisdom and power all his days. 
 An enlarging conception of truth, a 
 wider sympathy, and an ampler hope 
 are the influences which make men 
 grow as years advance. In no pro- 
 fession can a man arrive at the whole 
 truth; but in all professions the way 
 to win more truth is one and the same. 
 The modern world has not arrived at 
 ultimate truth; but it has learned the 
 way to discover, little by little, step 
 by step, more truth. It is the way of 
 the inductive philosophy. A young 
 university graduate in these days who 
 has mastered this way to new truth, — 
 new to him, or perhaps new to the 
 world, — and believes in this way, has 
 in him one great element of perpetual 
 
 [7] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 growth, and the kind of growth will 
 be the same, whatever his profession, 
 — the church, the law, medicine, en- 
 gineering, architecture, business, or 
 whatever other calling. In any pro- 
 fession we now know the way to per- 
 sonal mental and moral enlargement. 
 The cooperative spirit is also in every 
 profession a way to enlargement, and 
 this spirit belongs to no profession 
 in higher degree than to the ministry; 
 and the hopeful, optimistic spirit is 
 enlarging, and no profession ought 
 more perfectly and constantly to foster 
 this spirit than the ministry, because 
 the ministry is always dealing with the 
 best sides of human nature and the best 
 aspects of human society, and is always 
 holding up and promulgating the high- 
 est spiritual ideals. A minister who 
 is not an optimist must have been 
 looking back and not forward, down 
 and not up." * 
 The ministry is indeed a calling 
 
 » Harvard Bulletin, 22 May, 1907. 
 
 [8] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 which broadens and deepens the in- 
 tellect. It develops also every part of 
 a man's character. The heart becomes 
 tenderer and more responsive without 
 softness, the conscience more keen 
 without hypercriticalness, the will 
 stronger and firmer without stubborn- 
 ness, and the aesthetic faculty more 
 appreciative without eccentricity. 
 
 A second element in the ministry 
 rendering it attractive to college men 
 relates to its practical character. This 
 reason has special force not only in 
 itself, but also when united with its in- 
 tellectual character. The ministry is 
 a most fitting union of the practical 
 and the theoretical. A certain part of 
 the minister's work disciplines the 
 intellectual, and another the adminis- 
 trative or executive talent. In the 
 morning of each day he is a student at 
 his desk. In the afternoon of each day, 
 he is a man of affairs, on the street, in 
 the shop, in the home. If in the morn- 
 ing he is an interpreter of wisdom, in 
 [9] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 the afternoon he is a reader of living 
 epistles. He associates with men under 
 the most diverse and characteristic 
 conditions. He stands by the side of 
 the criminal in the jail and at the bar, 
 and also by the side of the dying saint. 
 The minister offers the consolations of 
 the Bible and of Christian truth to 
 those who mourn. He is a participant 
 in the joy of the wedding. He is the 
 intimate associate of the young, and 
 also, though he may himself be young, 
 he is the pastor and guide of those who 
 are many years his senior. He is called 
 upon to speak a word of cheer to the 
 despairing heart, a word of caution to 
 the ambitious, to give a suggestion of 
 guidance to the erring, and a word of 
 command to those who ought to obey 
 him. He is called upon to deal with 
 men as individuals, and also in masses. 
 The financial, benevolent, social and 
 spiritual work of the Church is his. 
 He visits from house to house, speaking 
 to one person; he stands in the pulpit 
 
 [10] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 speaking to hundreds or thousands. 
 He is called upon literally to do every- 
 thing. He closes the eyes of the dead, 
 administers upon estates, serves as 
 legal guardian for children, officiates 
 as a member of the school committee of 
 the town, and inaugurates philan- 
 thropic measures for the improvement 
 of the town, the municipality or of 
 the commonwealth. No work to him 
 is remote. Scholarly employments 
 tend to draw their followers away 
 from the practical concerns of life. 
 This is the influence of the law and of 
 teaching. The tendency of business 
 is, on the contrary, antagonistic to 
 scholarly pursuits. The ministry unites 
 all these diverse elements. It at once 
 tends to develop the intellectual and 
 the practical in human character. 
 
 The public influence of the minister 
 constitutes a further reason or element 
 of attractiveness. Beyond the limits 
 of his own church and pulpit, in the 
 city or town of his residence, he is an 
 
 [11] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 outstanding citizen. The state is in- 
 debted to the clergy for their influence 
 in promoting the welfare of the people. 
 The minister supplies, it has well been 
 said, a want too profound to be reached 
 by mere civil enactment, too radical 
 to be left to the care of philanthropists 
 specially devoted to philanthropy. The 
 state is indebted to the clergyman for 
 his influence in the education of 
 the people. Through their preaching 
 clergymen are the educators of the 
 people. The colleges of the higher, 
 as well as the schools of primary, 
 education, if not established and gov- 
 erned by clergymen, have at least 
 received a large share of their power 
 from them. From the clergy have, 
 till recent years, been drawn college 
 presidents. Ordination vows have usu- 
 ally preceded the oath of the academic 
 office. The list includes those who 
 have been the noblest of ministers and 
 the most efficient of presidents. Lord 
 and Smith of Dartmouth, Walker of 
 [12] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 Harvard, Wayland of Brown, Seelye 
 of Amherst, the elder Dwight and 
 Porter of Yale, McCosh of Princeton, 
 — to go no farther than the last 
 century, — represent great leaders in 
 church and in education. In service 
 obscure and local as well as conspicu- 
 ous, the clergy have helped to estab- 
 lish State school systems, to found and 
 to endow colleges and academies, and 
 to administer educational trusts with 
 discretion, progressiveness and effec- 
 tiveness. 
 
 The opportunities which education 
 offers to the minister are typical of other 
 opportunities. Charities, and all re- 
 form movements, represent a proper 
 field of his influence and service. As 
 the ex-President of Harvard University 
 has said, speaking to men who were 
 soon to become clergymen: 
 
 "The minister can be highly service- 
 able. He has the great function of 
 preaching, the weekly opportunity of 
 setting before a group of well-disposed 
 [13] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 men and women the best ethical views / 
 on all human experiences, common or 
 exceptional, and the highest motives 
 for right action in all the emergencies 
 of life. The good preacher enlightens, 
 cheers, and guides. He may some- 
 times denounce or condemn; but, in 
 general, he shows men and women how 
 to walk through this world lovingly and 
 nobly. He may sometimes be a warn- 
 ing prophet, but he is chiefly an in- 
 spirer of high motives and of good 
 ruling sentiments. In those denomi- 
 nations which permit extemporaneous 
 public prayer the minister possesses 
 that tremendous means of influence. 
 ' Leading in prayer ' worthily is the most 
 exalted effort of the human mind. The 
 power of such prayer is pervasive and 
 enduring beyond all imagination. It 
 may at any moment give to the listener 
 a thrill which runs through all his being, 
 and determines the quality, not only 
 of his own life, but of many of those 
 lives which will be touched by his. The 
 
 [14] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 minister may be infinitely serviceable 
 through the advice he gives in private 
 to persons anxious, bereaved, tempted, 
 or gone astray. This function of ad- 
 vising requires sympathy, insight, and, 
 above all, wisdom; and these qualities 
 are gained or perfected only through 
 experience, so that the young minister 
 may hope to gain more and more of 
 this influence as his years increase. 
 The minister may also be greatly 
 serviceable by attending to the social 
 functions of a modern church. A well- 
 organized, large city church has a 
 wide-spread effect for social improve- 
 ment through its various schools, clubs, 
 leagues, entertainments, and hospitali- 
 ties. Every active church is a centre 
 of good works for the improvement 
 of society, and offers to young people 
 and new-comers many safe-guards 
 against evil, as well as incitements to 
 good. When we consider that ethical 
 progress is the only real progress in 
 human society, — material gains being 
 
 [15] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 chiefly good as they contribute to, or 
 supply the necessary conditions of, 
 moral gains, — we realize how direct and 
 immediate is the work of the church, 
 and of the minister at the head of the 
 church, not only for the uplifting of 
 individual men and women, but for 
 the progress of mankind towards nobler 
 living." 
 
 A further element in the attractive- 
 ness of the ministry is its opportunities 
 for the cultivation of literature. The 
 literary fertility of the clerical far 
 exceeds that of any other profession. 
 The number of volumes written by 
 ministers is much larger than those 
 composed by both lawyers and doctors. 
 This is true not only in respect to 
 technical works but also in respect to 
 works which belong to literature proper. 
 The clergymen sketched in Doctor 
 Sprague's volumes, "Annals of the 
 American Pulpit," wrote nearly six 
 thousand separate volumes (ex- 
 actly five thousand nine hundred and 
 [161 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 thirty-eight). Many of these were 
 single sermons, and the large pro- 
 portion was of a religious character. 
 The average number, therefore, be- 
 longing to each clergyman is five 
 publications. The one hundred and 
 eighty-one Methodist divines produced 
 sixty-nine works, about one-third of a 
 publication each. The one hundred 
 and seventy-one Baptists are credited 
 with four hundred and seven, or some- 
 what more than two publications each. 
 The two hundred and fifty-five Presby- 
 terians wrote nine hundred and seventy- 
 six works, or nearly four apiece. The 
 one hundred and fifty-two Episcopa- 
 lians furnish six hundred and seventy- 
 three publications, or slightly more than 
 four each. The three hundred and 
 forty-nine Congregationalists are the 
 authors of twenty-eight hundred and 
 twenty-nine publications, averaging 
 somewhat more than eight for each 
 minister. And the eighty-one Uni- 
 tarian divines claim nine hundred and 
 
 [17] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 eighty-four works, a proportion which 
 places twelve to the credit of each. 1 
 
 In reference to the greater literary- 
 activity of the members of the clerical 
 than of any other profession, it is to be 
 said that sermons possess deeper public 
 interest than the discussion of cases in 
 either law or medicine. Therefore a 
 larger number of sermons are published 
 
 1 Of the Baptist clergymen, sixteen wrote one book each; 
 twelve, two books each; seven, three books each; nine, four books 
 each; six, five books each; nine, six books each; three, seven books 
 each; two, eight books each; one, nine books; and one, ten; two, 
 fifteen books each; one, eighteen books; one, twenty-three; one, 
 twenty-nine; one, thirty-one; one, thirty-five; and one, thirty- 
 six. Of the Episcopalians, eight wrote one book each; eight, two 
 books each; nine, three books each; four, four books each; nine, 
 five books each; five, six books each; seven, seven books each; 
 three, eight books each; three, nine books each; five, ten books 
 each; two, eleven books each; five, twelve books each; one, 
 fourteen; one, fifteen; and one, sixteen books; two, eighteen each; 
 and one, twenty; one, twenty-six; one, twenty-eight; one, thirty; 
 one, thirty-two; one, forty-one; and one, forty-five books. Among 
 the Presbyterian ministers, eighty-eight have written from one to 
 five books each; twenty-two from six to ten books each; thirteen, 
 from eleven to fifteen books each; six, from sixteen to twenty 
 books each; two, from twenty-one to thirty books each; and 
 five, from thirty-one to eighty books each. Of the Congregational 
 ministers, eighty-eight have produced from one to five books each; 
 thirty-five, from six to ten books each; seventeen, from eleven to 
 fifteen books each; twenty, from sixteen to twenty; thirteen, from 
 twenty-one to thirty; and ten, from thirty-one to one hundred 
 books each. Of this denomination, as well as of all, Increase 
 Mather seems to be the most voluminous author. His name is 
 attached to no less than three hundred and eighty-two publications. 
 Of the Unitarian clergymen, twelve have written from one to five 
 books each; four, six books each; seven, seven books each; three, 
 eight books each; seven, nine books each; five, ten books each; 
 one, eleven; one, twelve; one, thirteen; two, fourteen; two, 
 fifteen; two, sixteen; one, seventeen; three, eighteen; two, 
 nineteen; one, twenty-one books; and one each, twenty-two, 
 twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-nine, thirty-two, 
 thirty-three, fifty-one, fifty-three, fifty-six, and ninety-one books. 
 
 f 181 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 than of medical or legal addresses. 
 But further, as a rule, clergymen are 
 better educated than either physicians 
 or lawyers. All the older colleges — 
 Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale, 
 — and not a few of those of recent 
 establishment, were founded with the 
 special design of training ministers. 
 More than one-half of the early gradu- 
 ates of the two principal colleges of 
 New England entered the ministry. 
 Today, in the cities and in the rural 
 districts, a larger proportion of the 
 clergy than of the members of other 
 vocations are found to be college-bred. 
 It is evident that the more liberal the 
 education possessed by those pursuing 
 any calling, the greater will be their 
 literary activity. As clergymen, there- 
 fore, are better educated, the volumes 
 they write and publish outnumber the 
 volumes issued by those of other pro- 
 fessions. 
 
 And yet, perhaps, the most im- 
 portant reason of this productiveness 
 [19] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 lies in the consideration that the work 
 of the clergyman naturally trains him 
 for a literary life. His duties oblige 
 him to reflect upon the fundamental 
 problems of society. He is compelled 
 to consider the great questions of 
 philosophy, of theology, of ethics, of 
 science, and of education. His labors 
 for the pulpit and in the parish cause 
 him to ponder upon matters of the 
 gravest importance, which invite elabo- 
 rate treatment. As Park, in writing of 
 the "Dignity and Importance of the 
 Preacher's Work," has said: "As a man, 
 as a scholar, he must be able to draw 
 analogies to moral truth from the 
 mineral, vegetable and animal king- 
 doms; but as a Christian orator he 
 should be at home in the philosophy of 
 the human intellect. His appropriate 
 work begins with those studies, which 
 were the end of many of the labors 
 of such men as Descartes, Stewart 
 and Brown. He is to answer some 
 of the fundamental questions in 
 [20] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 theology by a reference to the analy- 
 ses of intellectual operations. He 
 must search out the laws of mind as 
 they are developed in the structure of 
 language, and must learn to interpret 
 the Bible from the principles of mental 
 suggestion. He must investigate the 
 nature of the intellectual powers as he is 
 to use them, and the susceptibilities as 
 he is to address them in the pulpit. 
 He must learn how to instruct, to con- 
 vince, to enchain attention, to keep 
 fast hold upon the memory. Not 
 satisfied with the bare rules of rhetoric, 
 he must seek for the reason of these 
 rules in the nature of man. Nor is he 
 to linger too long upon our intellectual 
 faculties. His higher theme is our 
 moral constitution. He must learn 
 how to touch the secret springs of the 
 heart; how to evoke that volition which 
 will be followed by an eternity of 
 regard; how to check the indulgence of 
 that feeling which brings in its train 
 an eternity of punishment. The ex- 
 [21] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 alted and impressive designation of his 
 office 'is the care of souls' Immor- 
 tality, free agency, interminable joy 
 and pain, such are the themes of his 
 prolonged attention." 1 The training, 
 therefore, of the clergyman fits him for 
 a literary life. Hence, his activity in 
 the creation of literature is great. 
 
 The reasons for the literary pro- 
 ductiveness of the Presbyterian, Con- 
 gregational, and Unitarian ministers in 
 comparison with the ministers of other 
 denominations, are to a degree similar 
 to the reasons suggested for the greater 
 literary productiveness of the whole 
 clerical profession. A large propor- 
 tion of them have received a college 
 training. This education directly tends 
 to foster activity in literature. Edu- 
 cation broadens the field of knowledge, 
 as well as quickens the intellectual 
 forces, making the creation of literature 
 possible. Education also influences one 
 to maintain a high literary standard 
 
 1 Preacher and Pastor. Introductory Essay by Professor Ed- 
 wards A. Park, D.D., p. 14. 
 
 [22] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 in all his writing. Therefore, the su- 
 perior education of the Congrega- 
 tional, Presbyterian, and Unita- 
 rian clergyman promotes their literary 
 activity. In reference to the clergy- 
 men of the Unitarian Church, it is to be 
 observed that the period of their labor 
 falls within the last hundred years. 
 This is a period in which the general 
 literary influences have been far more 
 potent than in any previous time. 
 The mechanical means for the pro- 
 duction of books have greatly increased. 
 Every denomination, in common with 
 the Unitarian, has been affected by 
 these literary influences, but the Uni- 
 tarian has by reason of its recent origin 
 been specially moulded by them. Har- 
 vard College, moreover, which near 
 the beginning of the century was the 
 centre of Unitarianism, has specially 
 emphasized the study and production 
 of literature. Her professors have in- 
 spired students to lead a literary life. 
 Her graduates include the ablest and 
 [23] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 most distinguished men of American 
 letters. The clergymen of that church, 
 therefore, to which she has till recent 
 years specially adhered, have to a large 
 extent devoted themselves in the midst 
 of their formal vocation to literary 
 pursuits. 
 
 I wish also to say that the ministry 
 offers rich rewards in the love which 
 the church gives to him who serves it 
 well. Such love approaches to the 
 intimacy of the relationships of the 
 home. Let me cite a single example. 
 At the conclusion of a score of years in 
 his Hartford pastorate, the great Bush- 
 nell said to his church: 
 
 "To sum up all, then, brethren, I 
 thank my God upon every remembrance 
 of you, always in every prayer of mine 
 for you all, making request with joy 
 for your fellowship in the Gospel from 
 the first day until now. You have 
 been immovable and true in your fidelity 
 to me. Assailed by powerful com- 
 binations, you have never lost your 
 [24] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 balance, but have given an example of 
 patience, moderation, and firmness, in 
 which I must do violence to my Chris- 
 tian feeling as a pastor not to offer 
 you my hearty congratulations. You 
 have never been a captious people. . . . 
 You have never been inattentive to 
 my wants, but have always kept me on 
 the sunny side of comfort. Three times 
 have you raised my salary without any 
 suggestion from me — from twelve hun- 
 dred dollars to two thousand dollars. 
 A few months after you had liquidated 
 your debt by a heavy subscription, 
 when my health was failing from pro- 
 tracted labor, you advanced me the 
 money necessary to defray my ex- 
 penses for a year in Europe, continued 
 my salary, and supplied the pulpit 
 yourselves. Again you did the same the 
 last year during my absence of months 
 in a journey to the West, not to speak 
 of the innumerable tokens of interest in 
 me and my family shown by methods 
 more private. And, what is more 
 [251 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 grateful to me than all besides, I think 
 you have endeavored to extract some 
 spiritual benefit from my unworthy 
 and very defective ministry." x 
 
 The love which the church at Hart- 
 ford gave Bushnell is the love which 
 in kind thousands of churches are 
 waiting to give to their ministers. 
 Such love is among the mightiest 
 consolations and contentments of any 
 man. 
 
 A sixth reason or element of attrac- 
 tiveness in the ministry, to which I shall 
 briefly allude, relates to the ministry 
 as an essential element in the progress 
 of Christianity in the world. It is 
 not to be denied that Christianity 
 would progress if the ministry were 
 abolished; but it is certainly true that 
 if officers are essential to a victorious 
 army and leaders important in any 
 undertaking, ministers are important 
 and essential for the advance of the 
 Christian religion. In his speech in 
 
 »Lifc and Letters of Horace Bushnell, p. 286. 
 
 [26] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 the Girard College case, Mr. Webster 
 asks: 
 
 "And where was Christianity ever 
 received, where were its truths ever 
 poured into the human heart, where did 
 its waters, springing up into everlasting 
 life, ever burst forth, except in the 
 track of a Christian ministry? Did we 
 ever hear of an instance, does history 
 record an instance, of any part of the 
 globe Christianized by lay preachers, 
 or 'lay teachers'? And, descending 
 from kingdoms and empires to cities 
 and countries, to parishes and villages, 
 do we not all know, that wherever 
 Christianity has been carried and where- 
 ever it has been taught, by human 
 agency, that agency was the agency of 
 ministers of the Gospel? It is all idle, 
 and a mockery, to pretend that any man 
 has respect for the Christian religion 
 who yet derides, reproaches, and stig- 
 matizes all its ministers and teachers." 
 The ministry may be thus called divine, 
 for it is a power ordained of God for the 
 [27] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 perpetuation of His cause in the earth. 
 It is also human, because the field of its 
 service is humanity. The alternative 
 is on the one side a progressive Chris- 
 tianity and a well-equipped clergy, 
 and on the other side no progressive 
 Christianity and no ministry. 
 
 But, in addition, the minister, serving 
 as missionary, has added languages to 
 the world's tongues, has made archaeo- 
 logical, geological, and other scien- 
 tific investigations, has enlarged the 
 world's commerce, has established 
 schools and colleges, has mapped out 
 continents and islands, has served as 
 counsellor to kings and emperors. The 
 minister bears the blessings of a Chris- 
 tian civilization to dark continents. 
 
 I fear that these elements of attrac- 
 tiveness to which I have referred are 
 placed upon a key-note altogether too 
 low. They seem not only self-ward, 
 but also sdi-ish, and several of them, 
 which might be called altruistic, may 
 be easily interpreted as pretty personal. 
 [28] 
 
ATTRACTIONS 
 
 But I do wish to say that the ministry 
 is a mighty challenge to the man of 
 great strength. For it may represent 
 the noblest self-sacrifice. The min- 
 ister gives life, because he has lost it. 
 But he is not to give it in order to find 
 it. Any such purpose vitiates the 
 self-surrender. All the noblest sacri- 
 fices of noble souls for high ideals of 
 human betterment are a part of the 
 heritage of the minister. The place 
 of work may be in India or Alaska or 
 New York. The kind of work may be 
 medical, evangelistic, or educational. 
 The associations of the work may be 
 historic as in Cairo or Calcutta, or local 
 and obscure as in the South Sea Is- 
 lands; but whatever and wherever and 
 however the work is, the service is a 
 challenge for a man to live largely, 
 to give and to do his best. Such a 
 challenge quickens, ennobles, purifies, 
 exalts. 
 
 Such are some of the rich compen- 
 sations belonging to the minister as the 
 [291 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 leader of the church that seeks, through 
 its work, to bless the world. They are 
 the blessings which, whether broad or 
 narrow, thin or deep — and they are 
 more broad than narrow, and rather 
 profound than superficial — every min- 
 ister, through the grace of God, may 
 claim as the reward of his headship 
 under Christ in the working church. 
 
 30 
 
II 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE 
 MINISTRY AS A CALLING 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE MINISTRY AS A 
 CALLING 
 
 YET, despite these things which 
 make the work of the ministry 
 attractive to college men, there 
 are causes repelling college men from 
 this great calling. 
 
 Among these causes, I name, first, 
 the belief that success depends upon 
 meretricious qualities. Success does 
 not, of course, depend upon meretri- 
 cious qualities, but young men are in- 
 clined to believe that success does so 
 depend. When one, a score of years 
 ago, saw the immense congregations of 
 DeWitt Talmage in Brooklyn, and the 
 relatively small congregations of Rich- 
 ard Salter Storrs, and compared the 
 quality of the sermons of the one 
 preacher with the quality of the ser- 
 mons of the other preacher, the young 
 man of brain was inclined to think 
 [33] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 that he could succeed in securing a 
 large following only by having and 
 using those qualities that do not com- 
 mand the highest respect. For the 
 success of meretriciousness does show 
 itself in what is known as sensational 
 preaching. Sensational preaching, as 
 Brooks has said, is " simply the effort of 
 a man who has no faith in his office or 
 in the essential power of truth to keep 
 himself before people's eyes by some 
 kind of intellectual fantasticalness. It 
 is a pursuit of brightness and vivacity 
 of thought for its own sake, which 
 seems to come from a certain almost 
 desperate determination of the sen- 
 sational minister that he will not be 
 forgotten. I think there is a great deal 
 of nervous uneasiness of mind which 
 shows a shaken confidence in one's 
 position. It struggles for cleverness. 
 It lives by making points. It is fatal 
 to that justice of thought which alone 
 in the long run commands confidence 
 and carries weight. The man who is 
 [341 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 always trying to attract attention and 
 be brilliant counts the mere sober 
 effort after absolute truth and justice 
 dull. It is more tempting to be clever 
 and unjust than to be serious and just. 
 Every preacher has constantly to make 
 his choice which he will be. It does 
 not belong to men, like angels, to be 
 'ever bright and fair,' together. And 
 the anxious desire for glitter is one of 
 the signs of the dislodgment of the 
 clerical position in our time." ' 
 
 Such interpretations every thought- 
 ful college man is making, and, as 
 Brooks says, they influence him to 
 turn his back upon the calling. 
 
 Second, the young man in college is 
 inclined to be repelled from the minis- 
 try because of what he regards as a 
 strife for the first places. Such strife 
 does exist. Ministers are human, and 
 humanity is ambitious. Such ambi- 
 tions for the highest pulpits and the 
 greatest synagogues are unworthy and 
 
 1 Lectures on Preaching delivered before the Divinity School of 
 Yale College. Phillips Brooks, pp. 248-9. 
 
 35] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 unmanly. The young man of heart 
 and brain and love for noblest service, 
 beholding this strife, is repelled from 
 association in work with those who 
 are thus striving. 
 
 A third reason is that the student 
 sees that the period of usefulness in 
 the ministry is short. He hears much 
 about the "dead line of fifty." In the 
 profession of the law and of medicine, 
 he knows that the best work of most 
 men is done after they have rounded 
 their half century; he also knows that 
 in the ministry the call is for young 
 men. He hesitates to enter a vocation, 
 in which the older he grows after a 
 certain age, the less acceptable he will 
 probably prove to be. The reason for 
 the church calling for young men is 
 possibly not far to seek. Bishop Simp- 
 son has spoken of the causes which he 
 believes contribute to the popularity 
 of young men as compared with the 
 popularity of old men. He believes 
 that one cause is the neglect of study 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 on the part of some of the older minis- 
 ters. This neglect of study is due to a 
 lack of that stimulus which other pro- 
 fessions offer. Society likes to be 
 stirred and excited, and youth has a 
 great power of exciting. Youth is more 
 in earnest. The young minister is 
 popular, it may also be said, because a 
 congregation likes to see in their min- 
 ister development and growth. The 
 young man they expect to grow, and 
 usually he meets the expectation. The 
 old man they do not expect to grow, and 
 usually he more than meets the ex- 
 pectation. The young man is a con- 
 stant appeal to the sense of gratified 
 hopefulness. 
 
 A fourth reason that deters young 
 men from entering the ministry may 
 lie in the impression that only men of 
 weak brains enter this calling. Pro- 
 fessor J. P. Mahaffey, in his little book 
 "Modern Preaching," writes of the 
 want of ability in our preachers. He 
 says: 
 
 [37] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 "No doubt the majority of mankind 
 is wanting in this quality; the average 
 of intellect is low, and most people are 
 very dull; but when we find so many 
 men professing to teach from the pulpit 
 who are totally unable to frame a sus- 
 tained argument, — nay, more, unable 
 to understand it when put before them, 
 — we cannot but conclude that the 
 abler young men of our day do not 
 adopt this profession, and that our 
 preachers, as a body, are below even 
 the average intellect. I remember very 
 well — indeed painfully well — a class 
 of divinity students which I instructed 
 in the Epistle to the Romans, and after 
 laboring a whole term with all possible 
 care, and making them go over the 
 argument, and write it out, and re- 
 hearse it, they confessed to me in a body 
 at the end of the term that they had 
 made no advance in it whatever, for 
 that none of them was able to follow an 
 argument. They were not many, — 
 eight, I think, — and such a case only 
 [38] 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 occurred to me once in many years' 
 teaching; but in every year there were 
 some men of this kind, men who de- 
 liberately adopted the profession of 
 religious teaching, with the conscious- 
 ness that they could not possibly 
 understand what they had to teach. 
 They were, in fact, adopting this pro- 
 fession because too dull for any other." l 
 The impression of Professor Mahaffey 
 is the common impression; but I be- 
 lieve it is false. In proof of the false- 
 ness of this impression, let me say 
 several years ago I made an examina- 
 tion of the college rank and scholarship 
 of the students in the Theological 
 Seminary at Andover. The result 
 proved that a very high standard of 
 undergraduate scholarship was main- 
 tained by the large majority. Of the 
 fifty-two Andover students who had 
 received their first degree (excluding 
 two, one of whom never knew and 
 the other of whom had forgotten, his 
 
 1 Modern Preaching. J. P. Mahaffey, pp. 51, 52. 
 
 [39] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 college rank), only six ranked in the 
 lower half of their college class. Of the 
 forty-six who stood in the first half, 
 thirty-four ranked in the first third, 
 twenty-eight in the first fourth, twenty- 
 three in the first fifth, twenty in the 
 first sixth, fifteen in the first seventh, 
 thirteen in the first eighth and ninth, 
 eleven in the first tenth, ten in the first 
 eleventh, nine in the first twelfth, and 
 eight in the first twentieth. Of these 
 eight scholars of the highest relative 
 standing, one ranked fourth in a class 
 of seventy-six, one fourth in a class 
 of eighty-one, one third in a class of 
 seventy-four, one fourth in a class of 
 ninety-four, one first in a class of six- 
 teen, one first in a class of thirty-four, 
 one second in a class of eighty, and one 
 third in a class of one hundred and 
 fifty. 
 
 The most potent cause of this error 
 
 of public opinion is, in my judgment, 
 
 the division which the public mind 
 
 believes necessarily exists between 
 
 [40] 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 piety and noble intellectual attain- 
 ments. A distinguished professor of 
 homiletics has said that the idea pre- 
 vails that a sermon of great piety can- 
 not be a sermon of eminent intellectual 
 excellence. The same idea obtains 
 in regard to college men. Piety and 
 scholarship are regarded as contra- 
 dictories. Piety is looked upon as 
 first cousin to effeminacy, and effemi- 
 nacy and intellectual greatness are 
 antipodes. Those students who enter 
 the ministry are, of course, as a body, 
 distinguished for their piety above 
 many of their classmates, and hence it 
 is inferred that their scholarship is 
 low and their ability small. 
 
 A second cause of the misconception 
 is the comparative poverty of students 
 of theology. As a class, they are less 
 wealthy, or more poor, than other 
 professional students. About five- 
 sixths of the members of the Con- 
 gregational seminaries are aided by 
 the Education Society. From the pos- 
 [41] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 session of wealth by an educated young 
 man of pure life flow those graces of 
 manner which go to make up what is, 
 superficially called, a gentleman. In 
 judging of the intellectual worth of 
 students, the common mind lays more 
 emphasis upon these exterior accom- 
 plishments than upon the mental at- 
 tainments which are not so apparent. 
 Theological students, possessing these 
 accomplishments in a less degree than 
 other professional students, are, there- 
 fore, ranked by the public sentiment as 
 correspondingly inferior in respect to 
 intellectual worth. 
 
 Another fact dissuading men from 
 the ministry lies in the hard field of an 
 insufficient livelihood. The salary is 
 usually small, and may be so small as 
 to make living difficult. Salaries in 
 the ministry have always been small, 
 and, as in teaching, will probably 
 remain small; but present conditions 
 render their purchasing power slight. 
 
 A small stipend rests with especial 
 [421 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 weight upon the minister's wife. The 
 wife of a minister of the present time is 
 usually or frequently a college gradu- 
 ate. She is somewhat less fitted to 
 undertake all the duties of house- 
 keeping and home-making than was 
 her mother or grandmother, who was 
 herself also the help-mate of a clergy- 
 man. The college man in reflecting 
 upon his future calling is inclined to 
 give, and ought to give, a large place 
 to the happiness of his wife. When he 
 finds that the clerical income will be 
 small and the work hard, he comes to 
 the conclusion that he ought not to 
 ask her to share the hardship with him. 
 He keeps his wife and declines the 
 calling. 
 
 There is much of truth in this inter- 
 pretation. But be it also said, that most 
 churches do pay a salary which allows 
 the minister to live in the way in which 
 the better part of the church lives. If 
 the well-to-do families of the parish 
 exist on an income of only five hundred 
 [43] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 dollars, the parish asks the minister 
 to accept of its lot. If the abler fami- 
 lies use five thousand dollars a year, 
 it is probable that his own salary would 
 be of this sum. A parish seldom allows 
 a minister or his family to starve! 
 
 I am also led to believe that a cause 
 having larger influence than it is charged 
 with is that college men believe the 
 church has lost its leadership in the 
 higher affairs of the community. 
 Whether the leadership be lost or not, 
 the fact is that college men are inclined 
 to believe that the leadership is lost 
 and that it has passed over to edu- 
 cational and other forces. This con- 
 ception, false or true, diverts men from 
 the ministry quite as completely as if 
 the leadership had been lost. 
 
 One of many students who have 
 written me on the subject says, "The 
 ministry has not the allurements or 
 inducements for young men at the 
 present time that it has hitherto pos- 
 sessed. The minister is no longer 
 [44 1 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 the leader of the community or of his 
 congregation, in thought, in culture, 
 or even in spirituality. He is no longer 
 the pattern for his flock in the realistic 
 sense of previous generations. A young 
 man who enters the ministry today, 
 therefore, can scarcely attain to the 
 eminence or wield the influence he 
 might have done fifty years ago; nor 
 can he expect to reach that degree of 
 eminence or even influence to which 
 he might attain in other lines of 
 activity. The personal incentive to 
 high achievement is consequently lack- 
 ing. The ministry, in its ideal state, 
 is quite altruistic. The minister must 
 work for his congregation with only 
 secondary regard for his own wants 
 and likes. The degree of religion and 
 morality which he must exercise, many 
 men believe, is too high for a man's 
 greatest degree of efficiency. By de- 
 voting more attention to practical, 
 workable problems, instead of special- 
 izing, as it were, upon religion, greater 
 [45] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 results might be secured. Then, from 
 a financial or mercenary standpoint — 
 a standpoint which must always be 
 considered to some extent — the min- 
 istry has few allurements. The salary 
 is, and must continue to be, a secondary 
 consideration. Perhaps I might sum 
 up the objections to entering the min- 
 istry by saying that, in the opinions 
 of many men, the end does not 
 justify the means, that the extra good 
 they might do mankind, including 
 themselves, by entering the ministry, 
 is not sufficient to justify the sacrifice 
 to themselves in money and pleasure." 
 A seventh preventing cause is that 
 the young man in college fears the 
 ministry means the surrender of his 
 intellectual independence. The stu- 
 dent boasts of such independence. 
 Scholarship is monarchical and he is 
 the monarch. Scholarship has all the 
 monarchy of a democracy and all 
 the democracy of a monarchy. But the 
 student looks upon the ministry as a 
 [461 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 condition into which he enters by sign- 
 ing a creed, and in which he stays only 
 by continued adherence to that stand- 
 ard. In the denominational papers he 
 reads of a student whom he knew ten 
 years ago, who has just retired from 
 the ministry by reason of his failure in 
 an examination before an ecclesiastical 
 council. He feels that to enter certain 
 branches of the work of the Church he 
 has to submit to rather severe intellec- 
 tual trials and to arbitrary moral tests. 
 Thus he reasons, and though his pre- 
 mises may be false, he regards his logic 
 as true and the conclusion as necessary. 
 An eighth reason is similar. It is the 
 fear of the student that he may be 
 obliged to surrender his practical in- 
 dependence. The student knows that 
 the minister is the servant of the con- 
 gregation, and he knows also that the 
 congregation is composed of hundreds 
 or even of thousands of individuals. 
 He knows that it will be his duty as 
 far as possible to please each one of the 
 [47] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 individuals of his future congregations. 
 He knows that if anyone becomes angry 
 with or grieved at him, the result may 
 be of extreme pain or suffering to 
 himself. He knows that he lacks the 
 right to command. He knows that if 
 he attempts to be independent, unless 
 his positions are taken with great 
 care, he necessarily gives offense. Seen 
 from the college period, such depend- 
 ence becomes extremely irksome. He 
 desires to be his own master. Seen 
 through the lenses of college rules and 
 tutors, the period when life and life's 
 freedom shall be his, appears extremely 
 attractive. To bring into this future 
 period of liberty the subserviency of 
 the ministry is extremely irksome. 
 
 But the ground of the fear of the loss 
 of intellectual and practical independ- 
 ence is fast passing. The college man 
 having become minister can now stand 
 fearless, as Luther, in each of the lead- 
 ing churches. To quote again from 
 an address of President Eliot: 
 [481 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 "Freedom of thought and speech for 
 a minister is a somewhat recent acqui- 
 sition. In former times a young man 
 enlisted in the services of a given 
 church or denomination, and after that 
 enlistment was subject for life to the 
 peculiar discipline and dogmas of that 
 church or denomination. He joined 
 the Roman Church, or the Anglican 
 Church, or the Lutheran Church for life, 
 and had no expectation of changing his 
 opinions or ever questioning the au- 
 thority of the church with which he 
 had united. There is now a much 
 greater freedom of choice among de- 
 nominations for the young man who 
 wants to be a minister. The young 
 Harvard graduate who thinks he would 
 like to be a minister may make his 
 choice among the denominations in 
 accordance with his own temperament, 
 capacities, and intellectual needs, se- 
 curing that degree of freedom in the 
 future which he personally desires, or 
 needs, for his best mental and spiritual 
 [49] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 development. -He must make this first 
 choice with wisdom and well-grounded 
 confidence in himself, also he may sow 
 the seed of grave afflictions in his 
 subsequent career. In many Protes- 
 tant denominations the bonds of creed 
 and canon, and even of ritual, have 
 been much relaxed of late years ; while 
 in several denominations the minister, 
 once admitted to full standing, enjoys 
 an almost perfect freedom within the 
 limits of gentle manners and of just 
 consideration for the freedom of others. 
 The great progress made within a 
 generation in Biblical criticism, in the 
 comparative study of religions, and in 
 the history of Christianity, has naturally 
 led to a great increase in freedom of 
 thought and speech, not only in the 
 various religious denominations them- 
 selves but in society at large, and has 
 furnished new grounds for that uni- 
 versal toleration which mankind first 
 arrived at through centuries-long ex- 
 perience of the physical and mental 
 [501 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 horrors of religious intolerance. For 
 more than a century past all history, 
 philosophy, science, and poetry have 
 been reinforcing and amplifying the 
 policy of toleration and the demand 
 of civilized mankind for freedom in 
 religious, as well as political, thought 
 and action. The profession of the 
 ministry has fully shared this general 
 progress of mankind towards freedom. 
 If, then, the young Harvard graduate 
 determines wisely at the start what 
 amount of freedom of thought he 
 really needs, and is likely to need, for 
 the satisfaction of his religious nature, 
 he need not fear that he will not enjoy 
 as a minister an adequate freedom of 
 thought and speech." 
 
 A further reason turning college men 
 away from the ministry is the attrac- 
 tiveness of business and of the results 
 of success in business. The age is a 
 material age, with a large element of 
 idealism. The world is in process 
 of development. Vast commercial and 
 [51] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 industrial concerns are organized and 
 are dominant. Such undertakings de- 
 mand and attract able college graduates. 
 Another class of causes — the fourth 
 — preventing men from entering the 
 profession of the ministry is found 
 in the attractiveness of other social 
 professions. For, in our times, two 
 callings which have direct human and 
 humane relationships, have emerged. 
 They are found in the Young Men's 
 Christian Association and the Social 
 Settlement. These forms of service are 
 commanding the college men who thirty 
 or twenty, or possibly ten years ago, 
 would have entered the ministry. These 
 works require, in preparation for them, 
 a mind well trained and a heart devoted 
 to the moral welfare of man. The appeal 
 they make is based on a broader human 
 foundation than is found in the ordinary 
 ministry. Their field of work more 
 usually lies in the city. Urban prob- 
 lems and conditions are more attractive 
 to the mind of the young graduate than 
 [52] 
 
OBJECTIONS 
 
 the rural. Be it also said that no 
 small part of the endeavor of these two 
 associations does embody Christ's com- 
 mand of loving one's neighbor as one's 
 self. A copy of the magazine called 
 "Human Engineering" lies before me. 
 It represents service for men more 
 wise, supported by appropriations more 
 liberal, and gives promise of a service 
 more effective than a single ordinary 
 church, or perhaps a federation of 
 churches, could offer or accomplish. 
 
 The ample opportunities for work in 
 other callings than the clerical, in 
 the old traditional professions, and in 
 the new, like engineering, architecture, 
 journalism, must in any comparative 
 survey be, included. About one-half 
 of the graduates of American colleges 
 are entering business. Industrialism 
 and commerce are becoming more com- 
 prehensive in their field, more complex 
 in their methods, more forceful in their 
 workings. Such conditions demand 
 men of minds well disciplined and of 
 [53] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 character of high resolve. Business 
 requires the educated man. In this 
 large proportion of graduates, there- 
 fore, entering business, are found many 
 who, a generation ago, would have be- 
 come clergymen. 
 
 Such, as it seems to me, are some of 
 the reasons constraining able men, who 
 are becoming graduates of historic 
 colleges, to turn to other professions 
 than the clerical as a career. They are 
 reasons diverse, comprehensive, force- 
 ful. They embody conditions, finan- 
 cial, social, religious, which deserve 
 most serious consideration. No one 
 should select the great calling without 
 weighing them. 
 
 54] 
 
Ill 
 
 QUALITIES NECESSARY IN THE 
 
 MAN CHOOSING THE 
 
 MINISTRY 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 QUALITIES NECESSARY IN THE MAN 
 CHOOSING THE MINISTRY 
 
 WHAT are the qualities and ele- 
 ments which the college man 
 should demand of himself as 
 necessary for his entering the ministry? 
 I wish to name five. 
 
 First, the student should find in 
 himself a sense of good fellowship. His 
 life as a minister will be spent with, as 
 well as for, men. With them he lives 
 in order to make their life richer and 
 finer. To secure this result, he is to be 
 with them not simply in exterior re- 
 lations; he is to be with them in 
 sympathetic thinking and feeling. He 
 is to be able to appreciate their point 
 of view, to take account of their 
 prejudices, to have a tear for their 
 suffering and a smile for their joys. 
 Of course this is only saying that the 
 college man who proposes to become a 
 [57] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 minister should demand of himself a 
 high type of the gentleman. I do not 
 mean the conventional gentleman, al- 
 though it is well for the clergyman to 
 be the conventional gentleman, but I 
 mean that noblest quality of substi- 
 tution by which the college man can 
 enter into the minds and hearts of those 
 whom he serves. The saint's raptures 
 should not be remote from him; the 
 temptations of the fallen he should be 
 able to appreciate; the downward gravi- 
 tation of sensualism and of materialism 
 he should be able to interpret. The 
 college man, who, as he thinks of his 
 fitness for the work of the minister, 
 finds a mighty sense of good fellowship 
 in himself, should, content with this 
 discovery, pass on to further self- 
 examination. 
 
 One who finds he has a liking for 
 bringing things to pass may fittingly 
 think of the ministry as his calling. 
 For the minister is to do things. He 
 is an executive. His church is a field 
 [58] 
 
QUALITIES NECESSARY 
 
 to be cultivated. His church is a force 
 to be worked. His church is a con- 
 stituency to be formed, informed and 
 enriched. His church is a community; 
 it is also a part of a community: — the 
 relation of the smaller community and 
 the larger is to be made nobly and 
 mutually beneficent. The minister may 
 be insistent upon his own attention 
 to details; he may be concerned only 
 with policies, movements, tendencies. 
 But, in either case, results are to be had. 
 The church is to bring forth works 
 meet not only for repentance, but for 
 edification also. The college man who 
 contemplates the ministry should be 
 an executive, an administrator. If he 
 find in himself a liking to do things in 
 his college class, in his clubs, in his 
 societies, which make for the efficiency 
 of the organization, he can assure 
 himself that he has ability for bringing 
 things to pass. Football captains make 
 first-rate pastors. 
 
 In his inventory, too, of his fitnesses 
 [59] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 for the clerical life, the college man will 
 not forget the place which public 
 speaking fills in this life. That place 
 is large, and that place represents a 
 constant and inevitable duty. The 
 pulpit becomes with each passing dec- 
 ade more unique; it now represents 
 the only place in which a man regularly 
 and constantly addresses the com- 
 munity. The sermon takes on all the 
 forms of literary and rhetorical art. 
 Its conditions are now interpreted in a 
 large freedom. Almost every subject 
 which is germane to the welfare of man 
 is believed to be appropriate for presen- 
 tation in a sermon. But, under all 
 these diversities remains the one con- 
 trolling fact that the minister is a speaker 
 to the people. The college man, there- 
 fore, in his voyage of self-discovery, 
 is to feel sure of his adaptiveness 
 to public address. The one essential 
 element which he has to consider is his 
 ability and liking to talk sense to several 
 or many men in an interesting way. 
 [60] 
 
QUALITIES NECESSARY 
 
 The talk which he gives to his fellow 
 students may be superficial or pro- 
 found, simple or ornate, illustrated 
 with stories and made bright with 
 witticisms, or plain and straightfor- 
 ward, teeming with suggestions or 
 narrow in its application — whatever 
 may be its character or content, if the 
 college man likes to talk and is able to 
 talk to the interest of the group which 
 gathers about him, he can feel reason- 
 ably convinced that he possesses a 
 faculty most important in the ministry. 
 Furthermore, this man is to embody 
 a high type of the gentleman. And 
 who and what is the gentleman? The 
 gentleman is the man who appreciates 
 the best which life offers. Apprecia- 
 tion is both intellectual, emotional, 
 volitional. It is discrimination plus 
 sympathy. It contains a dash of ad- 
 miration. It recognizes and adopts 
 the best in every achievement, — the 
 arts of literature, poetry, sculpture, 
 painting, architecture. The cultivated 
 
 [611 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 person seeks out the least unworthy in 
 the unworthy, and the most worthy in 
 that which is at all worthy. The 
 person of cultivation knows, compares, 
 relates, judges. He has standards, and 
 he applies them to things, measures, 
 methods. He is able to discriminate 
 and to feel the difference between the 
 Parthenon and the Pantheon, between 
 a poem of Tennyson and one of William 
 Watson. His moral nature is fine, as 
 his intellectual is honest. He is filled 
 with reverence for truth, duty, right- 
 eousness. He is humble, for he knows 
 how great is truth, how imperative 
 duty. He is modest, for he respects 
 others. He is patient with others and 
 with himself, for he knows how trans- 
 cendent is the right. He can be 
 silent when in doubt. He can speak 
 alone when truth is unpopular. He is 
 willing to lose his voice in the "Choir 
 Invisible" when it chants either the 
 Miserere or the Gloria in Excelsis. He 
 is a man of proportion, of reality, 
 [621 
 
QUALITIES NECESSARY 
 
 sincerity, honesty, justice, temperance, 
 — intellectual and ethical. 
 
 The college man should find a still 
 more fundamental element in himself: 
 the desire to use his sense of good 
 fellowship, his executive power, his 
 ability for speaking, his large gracious- 
 ness, for ethical and religious ends. 
 This condition is absolute. One may 
 say that this condition is not, however, 
 unique. For the man proposing to 
 become the lawyer or the doctor or the 
 merchant should also use every force 
 of his character for ethical and re- 
 ligious ends. But be it further said 
 that, though there are good lawyers 
 and doctors and merchants who do 
 not use their powers primarily for 
 ethical and religious ends, yet every 
 minister is absolutely and fully to 
 use his powers for ethical and religious 
 ends. The failure to make such a use 
 of them is treason. Therefore, be it 
 affirmed that the college man who 
 finds the elements and qualities of his 
 [63 1 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 manhood directed toward the highest 
 moral and Christian purposes may- 
 believe he is fulfilling a primary con- 
 dition of becoming a minister. 
 
 These five items — good fellowship, 
 executive skill, public speech, qualities 
 of the gentleman, and ethical and 
 religious ends — of course coexist in 
 different proportions in the case of 
 different college men. The divine 
 author of a man's being never allows 
 each of these gifts to be bestowed upon 
 the same recipient in their fullness. 
 What a genius for friendship may go 
 along with a lack of executive power! 
 What skill as an administrator may 
 accompany a low degree of acceptance 
 as a preacher! Ah! the contrasts are 
 great and common. But the student, 
 assessing each of these items at its 
 just value, finally adds up the positive 
 and subtracts the negative quantities. 
 If the result indicates that he has such 
 power in himself as I have tried to 
 interpret, he should consider the 
 [641 
 
QUALITIES NECESSARY 
 
 ministry as a choice among life's 
 callings. 
 
 These elements constitute a "call." 
 They represent forces found in oneself 
 which allow one to think with favorable 
 presumption of becoming a minister. 
 It is the testimony of some men that 
 they have heard, as it were, the voice 
 of God speaking to them, as clearly as 
 if he spoke to them audibly, command- 
 ing them to become ministers. Such 
 commands are extraordinary, and pos- 
 sibly are less usual now than formerly. 
 I hold that no such categorical 
 imperatives or conspicuous facts are 
 necessary to constitute a " call." I be- 
 lieve that a young man who desires to 
 make his life of the most worth, who 
 wishes to use the years that God gives 
 him most directly and powerfully in 
 the service of God, who has a clear 
 brain and warm heart and fitting 
 presence, may rightly consider himself 
 as one thus called. Any Christian man 
 who believes that he can do more good 
 [65] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 in the ministry than in any other 
 calling, should become a minister. Any 
 young man who believes that he can 
 do more good in any other calling 
 should not become a minister. This 
 is the call of divine common sense. 
 It is the call made by and to Christian 
 character. It may be said, and some 
 have said, that no man should enter 
 the ministry if he can avoid it. That 
 is, he should enter it only with a sense 
 of shrinking. So tremendous are its 
 responsibilities, so delicate its functions, 
 he should not consider himself as at 
 all qualified for it except as he feels the 
 imperative call of duty. But some 
 men do not thus feel. Some men are 
 not gifted with this delicate and far- 
 reaching sentiment which inspires and 
 guides others. I believe, if a young 
 man, studying himself, studying the 
 conditions of his time, thinks that the 
 conditions existing in himself may be 
 employed in the greatest worth to his 
 age and place in the ministry, he 
 [66] 
 
QUALITIES NECESSARY 
 
 should become a candidate for the 
 ministry. 
 
 But this little volume is not an 
 argument; it is only an appeal of man 
 to man, and appeals should be made 
 brief. I conclude it by presenting 
 testimonies of ablest witnesses regard- 
 ing the worth, the satisfactions, and 
 the opportunities of the great vocation. 
 
 [67] 
 
IV 
 
 TESTIMONIES REGARDING THE 
 
 SATISFACTIONS AND THE 
 
 OPPORTUNITIES OF THE 
 
 MINISTRY 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TESTIMONIES REGARDING THE SATIS- 
 FACTIONS AND THE OPPORTUNITIES 
 OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS is passing into 
 history as "the ideal minister of 
 the American gospel," as Doctor 
 Holmes, in writing to Bishop Clark, 
 once called him. In the year 1877, 
 speaking to the students of the Divin- 
 ity School of Yale University, Brooks 
 said: 
 
 " I cannot help bearing witness to the 
 joy of the life which you anticipate. 
 There is no career that can compare 
 with it for a moment in the rich and 
 satisfying relations into which it brings 
 a man with his fellow-men, in the deep 
 and interesting insight which it gives 
 him into human nature, and in the 
 chance of the best culture for his own 
 character. Its delight never grows 
 [71] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 old, its interest never wanes, its stimu- 
 lus is never exhausted. It is different 
 to a man at each period of his life; 
 but if he is the minister he ought to be, 
 there is no age, from the earliest year 
 when he is his people's brother to the 
 late days when he is like a father to the 
 children on whom he looks down from 
 the pulpit, in which the ministry has 
 not some fresh charm and chance of 
 usefulness to offer to the man whose 
 heart is in it. Let us never think of it 
 in any other way than this. Let us 
 rejoice with one another that in a 
 world where there are a great many 
 good and happy things for men to do, 
 God has given us the best and hap- 
 piest, and made us preachers of His 
 Truth." 1 
 
 Nine years after the giving of this 
 address, in a course of lectures offered 
 to the men of Harvard College on the 
 different professions, Phillips Brooks 
 was called upon to speak on the 
 
 1 Lectures on Preaching delivered before the Divinity School of 
 Yale College. Phillips Brooks, p. 4. 
 
 [72 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 Ministry. One who was present thus 
 describes the scene. 
 
 "I was there in Sever 11, and it was 
 an occasion in the life of Brooks — a 
 great opportunity, and he realized it. 
 The hall was never more crowded. 
 Students stood and sat on the window 
 seats; they seemed to be on each other's 
 shoulders. He tried to be cool and 
 philosophical, and tell them what the 
 ministry was like, as previous speakers 
 had told of the other professions, — he 
 started in that way, but the mass of 
 young men and the upturned faces and 
 the subject got the better of him, till, 
 throwing philosophy and cool state- 
 ment to the winds, he broke out, 'I 
 can't come here and talk to you of the 
 ministry as one of the professions. I 
 must tell you that it is the noblest and 
 most glorious calling to which a man can 
 give himself.' The torrent once loose, 
 it did not cease till it reached the deep 
 calm of his closing words. One was 
 almost afraid that the whole body of 
 [73 1 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 young men would rise on the impulse 
 and cry, 'Here am I, send me!'" 1 
 
 Speaking to young men on the satis- 
 factions of the ministry, Henry Ward 
 Beecher said: 
 
 "I want to tell you true preaching 
 is yet to come. Of all professions for 
 young men to look forward to, I do 
 not know another one that seems to me 
 to have such scope before it, in the 
 future, as preaching. 
 
 "And as my years increase I want 
 to bear testimony. I suppose I have 
 had as many opportunities as any man 
 here, or any living man, of what are 
 called honors and influences and wealth. 
 The doors have been opened, the golden 
 doors, for years. I want to bear wit- 
 ness that the humblest labor which a 
 minister of God can do for a soul for 
 Christ's sake is grander and nobler 
 than all learning, than all influence and 
 power, than all riches. And, knowing 
 so much as I do of society, I have this 
 
 » Allen's Life of Phillips Brooks, Vol. II, pp. 802-3. 
 
 [74] 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 declaration to make: that if I were 
 called to live my life over again, and 
 I were to have a chance of the voca- 
 tions which men seek, I would again 
 choose, and with an impetus arising 
 from the experience of this long life, 
 the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, for honor, for cleanliness, for 
 work that never ends, having the 
 promise of the life that now is as well 
 as of that which is to come — I would 
 choose the preaching of the Gospel: to 
 them that perish, foolishness; to them 
 that believe and accept it, life ever- 
 lasting. . . . 
 
 There is a deep enjoyment in hav- 
 ing devoted yourself, soul and body, 
 to the welfare of your fellowmen, so 
 that you have no thought and no care 
 but for them. There is a pleasure in 
 that which is never touched by any 
 ordinary experience in human life. It 
 is the highest. I look back to my mis- 
 sionary days as being transcendently 
 the happiest period of my life. The 
 [75] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 sweetest pleasures I have ever known 
 are not those I have now, but those 
 that I remember, when I was unknown, 
 in an unknown land, among a scattered 
 people, mostly poor, and to whom I 
 had to go and preach the Gospel, man 
 by man, house by house, gathering 
 them on Sundays, a few — twenty, 
 fifty, or a hundred, as the case might 
 be — and preaching the Gospel more 
 formally to them as they were able to 
 bear it." 1 
 
 Yet, however deep the satisfactions 
 of the ministry may be, the college 
 man does not select it having the en- 
 joyment of these satisfactions as his 
 motive and goal. To him rather the 
 primary concern is: are the opportuni- 
 ties for usefulness in this calling as 
 great as in any other, and are they as 
 great now as they ever were. My 
 own answers to the burning question 
 I have already given. These answers 
 — however inconclusive — I want to 
 
 } Beecher & Scoville'g Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, pp. 
 592-3. 
 
 76 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 supplement by the testimonies made to 
 me of those whose words do weigh. 
 
 It is the judgment of Dr. Charles 
 H. Parkhurst, of New York, that the 
 opportunities are not only as great 
 as they ever were, but "greater." 
 "Any young man," he says, "entering 
 the ministry today, provided he is a 
 person of solid convictions and has 
 the love of God and man in his heart 
 and appreciates the conditions which 
 as a preacher and pastor he will be 
 obliged to confront, will find himself at 
 a point of immense opportunity and 
 incalculable influence." 
 
 The Bishop of the Diocese of New 
 York, Dr. Greer, gives further con- 
 firmation. The opportunities are " not 
 only as great but greater; that is for 
 strong, capable, well-furnished and de- 
 voted men. They must also be men 
 who possess definite and positive con- 
 victions, or rather whose convictions 
 possess them. Such men will obtain a 
 hearing today and their message will be 
 [77] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 eagerly welcomed and received. There 
 is also a great opportunity before the 
 minister today for leadership in social 
 uplift; but this must not bulk too 
 largely in the pulpit, and should always 
 be subordinated to its spiritual teach- 
 ing and preaching." 
 
 Washington Gladden regards a min- 
 istry of the present day as "the chance 
 of a lifetime." The minister becomes 
 not only an interpreter of the present, 
 but also a prophet of the future, con- 
 ditions. He writes: 
 
 "I wish that I might draw the atten- 
 tion of some of the young men who will 
 live through this period of fifty years, 
 and who are cherishing the purpose of 
 service, to the work of the Christian 
 ministry. I am far enough from think- 
 ing that the church is perfect, or from 
 imagining that all the work of the 
 Kingdom is done by the church. But 
 the church has been, and in increasing 
 measures will be, the vitalizing and 
 inspiring agency in the social move- 
 [78] 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 ment. Unless the ideas and forces 
 which the church stands for are at the 
 heart of that movement, it will come 
 to naught. 
 
 There is no place in which a man can 
 get nearer to the heart of that move- 
 ment than in the Christian pulpit. It 
 is sometimes supposed to be a narrow 
 place, but, as a rule, it is as wide as the 
 man who stands in it chooses to make 
 it. And I know no other position in 
 which a man has so many chances to 
 serve the community; in which he is 
 brought into such close and helpful 
 relations with so many kinds of people. 
 The field of the church, under the right 
 kind of leadership, is as wide as the 
 world, and the force of the church is 
 more responsive today than ever before 
 to the right kind of leadership." 
 
 Dr. George A. Gordon, of the Old 
 South Church, Boston, gives further 
 and impressive testimony. 
 
 "I believe with all my heart that the 
 opportunities for the preacher of today 
 1791 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 are greater than they were when I 
 entered the ministry. But the preacher 
 must be a man of vision. He can no 
 longer learn a system of theology 
 in a theological seminary and go 
 out to retail what he has got whole- 
 sale upon large and long-suffering 
 congregations, who will accept any- 
 thing provided the proper traditional 
 label is on it. The voice of the 
 preacher has become the voice of the 
 prophet. The task is a far more ex- 
 acting one, and on that very account, 
 an infinitely richer one. There is room 
 in the ministry today for the activity 
 of the highest intellectual and spiritual 
 gifts, and never, I believe, were there 
 such opportunities, since the Apostolic 
 Age, for such service as first-class 
 young men can render in this vocation. 
 For myself, I should have been content, 
 and more than content, I should have 
 been delighted to have spent my days 
 in a town like Temple, Maine, where I 
 had opportunity to think, to study, and 
 [801 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 serve the people in the Spirit; and in 
 return, live in their respect, gratitude, 
 and affectionate confidence." 
 
 The pastor of the Clinton Avenue 
 Congregational Church, of Brooklyn, 
 Dr. Nehemiah Boynton, writing out 
 of a long ministry in Boston, Detroit, 
 as well as Brooklyn, makes careful 
 discrimination. He writes: 
 
 "A minister's influence runs along 
 two lines. It is direct, and it is in- 
 direct. His direct influence pertains 
 predominately to his public utterance, 
 and his indirect, to those quiet un- 
 remembered services which he can 
 either initiate or speed along their 
 already projected way. 
 
 A minister must share today more 
 generously than a quarter of a century 
 ago his privilege of public utterance. 
 He has no monopoly of it, and no 
 patent on it. The Americans are de- 
 veloping a great ability for public 
 speech, and everybody is addressing 
 the sovereign people. The man who is 
 [811 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 a member of the white-winged force, 
 and engaged with street sweepings 
 during the day dressed in white duck, 
 is found in a swallow tail coat in the 
 evening, addressing an interested com- 
 pany upon the perils, the privileges, 
 and the prerogatives, not to say politics 
 of his calling, and incidentally illumi- 
 nating his remarks with interesting de- 
 scriptions of the different revelations 
 which an examination of a day's street 
 sweepings may disclose. He is but a 
 type. Almost every other man in 
 every other calling does his work 
 by day, privately, and talks about it 
 publicly by night. 
 
 Now the man who can talk on any 
 subject attractively, enthusiastically, 
 and with at least a show of conviction, 
 gets an audience. People still love to 
 hear vital men speak. No newspaper 
 or magazine can successfully compete 
 with the vital, vibrant, human voice. 
 
 A minister in this situation has the 
 same advantage which comes to trade 
 [82 1 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 when it centers on a given street. He 
 takes his chances with the rest. He 
 has a fair field. The best man wins. 
 If a minister's gospel is for him 'a 
 consuming fire'; if he is aflame with it, 
 audiences will be drawn to his light. 
 He will have his chance, not only in 
 his pulpit, but on public platforms, 
 post-prandial exercises, and every sort 
 of a public occasion. He will have his 
 chance, not because he is a minister, a 
 Reverend by grace of ordination, and 
 a Doctor of Divinity by grace of an 
 academic institution, but because he 
 is a man who believes things, and 
 who says what he believes in a crisp, 
 comprehensive, and commanding man- 
 ner, with a merciful leaning toward 
 reasonable brevity. The minister's 
 chance for influence through public 
 utterance is greater today, I believe, 
 than ever before, if he will interpret 
 his ministry in terms of the highest 
 needs, and the noblest opportunities 
 of the present age. People still love 
 [83] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 to hear a white, high-souled spirit 
 deliver itself upon the commanding 
 themes. My personal opinion is that 
 on the whole, people go to church to 
 hear such utterance, about as well as 
 ever, but I am confident that they give 
 a minister more chances outside the 
 pulpit to proclaim, man-fashion, his 
 mighty theme, than ever before, only 
 he must proclaim it under the new 
 conditions. 
 
 Now regarding the indirect influence 
 of a minister as revealed in his quiet 
 touch of personal influence or his social 
 services to the community at large, I 
 believe the chance for usefulness to be 
 distinctly in advance of any yesterday 
 the ministry has known. Religious 
 conversations today are broad and 
 inclusive. They have regard to the 
 entire life. There is a freedom and 
 lack of reserve about them which gives 
 a greater chance for influence than 
 when they were concerned quite tech- 
 nically about the symptoms of an 
 [84] 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 individual soul. The widening con- 
 ception of the great inclusions of re- 
 ligion gives the soul, if one may so 
 speak, an offing, and it wants to see 
 itself in its appropriate relationships 
 to its life-surrounding and task, rather 
 than merely in its other-world-challenge 
 or aspiration. Religious conversation 
 today is not infrequently a quiet, earn- 
 est, delightful, Christian talk in cir- 
 cumambient relations. The question 
 'What must I do to be saved?' has 
 been transferred from the mourner's 
 bench to the minister's study; from 
 the public to the private relation, and 
 the chance for helpfulness, as I believe, 
 very greatly enhanced. 
 
 Beyond this, a level-headed minister 
 with aspirations for the ethical, aes- 
 thetic, and social weal of his commun- 
 ity, has an unparalleled chance today. 
 There are so many things in the making, 
 in America. We are reaching out after 
 higher standards and more command- 
 ing impulsions, convictions, realiza- 
 [851 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 tions, in every department of life, so 
 that the question for a minister today- 
 is not that of chances to get in his 
 work in these relationships which mean 
 the bettering of humanity, but it is the 
 question of the wise selections from the 
 multifarious chances which are his, in 
 view of his particular aptitudes and 
 abilities, and of his physical strength. 
 You will find in the midst of all the 
 really strong social movements in a 
 great city today, ministers who are 
 lending most efficient aid in 'chipping 
 the bad meat from the municipal 
 heart,' and in 'keeping the good from 
 spoiling,' to paraphrase Will Carleton. 
 The significance of very much of this 
 work is that it is new, untried, founda- 
 tion work and a man has the chance to 
 build himself into the beginning of 
 what is bound to be in coming years, 
 influences of significant social weal 
 and betterment. Doubtless, this work 
 is hard, perplexing, baffling, tedious, 
 but it is a man's chance and nothing is 
 [861 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 ever realized anywhere, until the moun- 
 tains of difficulty have been successfully 
 scaled." 
 
 The President of the American Uni- 
 tarian Association offers a similar judg- 
 ment, held with discernment and in 
 enthusiasm. Dr. Samuel A. Eliot 
 writes : 
 
 " I am well assured that for men who 
 love the risks of faith, and the divine 
 adventure, who can live hard and like 
 it, the ministry presents the noblest 
 and most rewarding of careers. The 
 task of the Christian minister today 
 is more difficult than ever before, and 
 it is a good thing for the ministry and 
 for the Christian church that the task 
 is so challenging, and that it taxes 
 every power of manhood. Nothing is 
 to be gained by making the entrance 
 into the ministry easy. The ministry 
 is not a place for slack or selfish persons. 
 Good honesty and sincerity of purpose 
 are not enough. Courage, however 
 heroic, will not completely suffice. These 
 [87] 
 
THE MINISTRY 
 
 qualities are needed, but also the power 
 to teach, to persuade, to console, and 
 the possession, to some extent, of the 
 gift of judicious leadership. For young 
 men with these qualities and gifts the 
 ministry should offer not only the most 
 attractive but positively the most re- 
 warding of all opportunities of service." 
 
 The pastor of the Broadway Taber- 
 nacle, Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, says, 
 "Never has the ministry of Jesus 
 Christ had such a good chance as now"; 
 and Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus declares, 
 "There never were such opportunities 
 for ministerial success as in the im- 
 mediate future." 
 
 Similar testimony from other minis- 
 ters also of great place and power could 
 be offered; but enough has been given 
 to prove that the opportunities open to 
 the minister in the present and the 
 near future are as broad as humanity's 
 needs, as divine as the character of the 
 individual man, and as high as human 
 destiny. 
 
 [88] 
 
TESTIMONIES REGARDING 
 
 The choice of his entrance through 
 these waiting doors unto the largest 
 and richest usefulness rests, under the 
 grace of God, with the student himself. 
 
 THE END 
 
 [89 
 
<SP 
 
 THIS book IS DD1! 0N 
 
 STAMPEDB E ^ W L AST DATE 
 
 — . '^■>MHHnMaM MaaaMaiiW( . «-»Ar 
 
 SER 
 
 — APfi-ie*9fr 
 
 
 ^m-^sss . 
 
 mi*mz$m^ 
 
 &4arfa7CB)L_ 
 
 2SMiM6eB*»— i 
 
 L D2 1 - 1 oo m . 7 ,. 40(6936s) 
 
YB 29535 
 
 530U26 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY