EMORY UNIVERSITY
PULPIT
PEW
AND
PASTORATE
BY
H. T. JOHNSON,
Author of "The Divine Logos," "Lux Gentis Nigrae,"
"The Preacher," "The Problem Solved."
CONTENTS.
Page
Preface 5
Foreword 6
Sermon Building 9
Delivery of Sermon 16
Sources of Power 21
Emotional Preaching 28
Ministerial Proprieties 33
Organic Demands 39
Altruism 46
Pessimism 52
Optimism 56
Some Elements of Pastoral Success 59
Office and Reward of Christian Workers 63
The Preacher's Duties to the Home Life 71
Danger Signals 79
Self and Service 86
New Wine and Old Bottles gi
The Ministry of Little Things 97
The Ministry of Magnitudes 104
The Industrious Preacher 108
The Preacher a Race Man 113
The Minister and Morals 117
Manhood Making 124
Adversity in Pastoral Service 129
Moses !33
PREFACE.
The author's justification, in adding another to
the many volumes on the Christian ministry, is the
importance of the subject. Although, in each gen¬
eration, much is said and written on it, the subject
is far from exhausted.
That there is a place for such a work no one will
doubt. That there is a crying need for more and
better Christian ministers, the increased avenues of
wickedness and the indifference of the masses con¬
cerning religious matters, plainly show.
The substance of the following pages was pre¬
pared as lectures to the students of Phelps Hall
Bible Training School, an institution connected
with the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute,
Tuskegee, Alabama.
The author's personal presence added much to
the force of his lectures. It was an inspiration to
listen to him.
But the printed page speaks for itself; no one will
regret the time given to the perusal of the chapters
of the present volume. Dr. Johnson is a man of
wide experience and culture; a preacher, author and
editor. He has prepared his lectures to meet the
wants of the times. They are not only readable,
but are based on sound philosophical principles.
EDGAR J. PENNEY,
Dean, Bible Training School.
Tuskegee, Alabama.
FOREWORD.
The ministry of the A. M. E. Church, indeed the
race that constitutes its membership, needs books
on all the subjects whose consideration and study
shape and direct life to its greatest good and best
end, written especially with features of adjustment
to that ministry. The theories of those whose
heritages and advantages are far in advance of the
stage occupied by us, fail often to serve us as they
do those of higher attainments and greater ad¬
vantages. The books with those theories were all
written without the least thought of, or reference
to ministers in our case. The exclusive study of
such books is responsible for much of the overshot
pulpit work and the undershot pastoral work of our
"educated" ministers, which serves as a ground for
the longing for the "old-time" preaching. In real¬
ity, it is not that the pulpit is'too learned for the
people, nor th^t the people want ignorance in the
pulpit; it is their way of asking for an accommo¬
dating adjustment, which many educated preach¬
ers fail to make.
The work of our bookmakers has been largely
the style of biography, story and history; the
pictorial greatness of the Negro is the most win¬
ning and most read subject. Quite a dozen large
books of this class may be found, while for the
Negro's ideas and directions regarding ethics,
theology and pastoral practice, there have been few
books only, produced for us or by us. A score of
points of state, conduct, style of utterance and
mode of pastoring, never treated by those who
write, not for the freedmen, but for the freemen,
must be treated and observed in respect to our
ministry. The present work includes some of these
points, and treats them as they have not been
treated by others, and as we require.
Originality and character is to be found in this
little work, and that is all that makes a book worth
buying or reading, but then only, if in its trend it is
right and in its constitution strong. Such is this in
piany respects.
B. F. LEE,
Bishop,
Wilberforce, Ohio.
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Pulpit Section
9
I
SERMON BUILDING.
Sermons are not creations of chance, nor spon¬
taneous self-productions. Like well-appearing,
well-appointed houses, they must be built and con¬
structed according to design and scientific require¬
ments. The day for pulpit effusions which are more
topsy-turvey than Topsy-like in character and com¬
position is to be numbered among dispensations out¬
lived, in which the preacher was supposed to know
next to everything and was privileged as a sort of
law to himself and in his own way permitted to
open wide his homiletical mouth with the assump¬
tion that the Lord would assuredly fill it.
There was a time when men were contented to
live in caves,, huts and mud cabins, but the world
has grown in wisdom and men have improved in
taste since then. It is difficult to travel a day's jour¬
ney nowadays even in less favored communities
without beholding impressive object lessons in ar-
Pulpit Section
chitecture. The city or village that has no Corin¬
thian, nor Doric, nor Queen Anne's cottage style of
building to give it a boom, is not likely to attract
immigration or escape degeneracy, but not more so
than those pulpits whose sermonic standards are
neither fixed by law nor sanctioned by intelligent
usage.
In sermon as in housebuilding your highest suc¬
cess depends upon a proper regard for three fun¬
damental facts, to wit: Its plan, material and con¬
struction. A passing thought with reference to
each of these essentials, as time nor propriety will
permit more than a casual survey of the topic.
To ignore or underestimate the plan in sermon
making is to ignore both scaffold and tools in the
effort to build a house. Or, think of the mariner
who would attempt an ocean voyage without chart
or compass or of a general who would pitch a bat¬
tle without a forecast, and you have the most strik¬
ing illustration of the preacher who would attempt
a sermon without a sermonic plan. To make such
an experiment is like attempting the play of Ham¬
let with Hamlet left out. We seldom fail to ad¬
mire a well-dressed person, and instinctively pay
tribute to the tailor who succeeds in giving us the
proper outfit. Biit no tailor or seamstress could
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hold their customers or become paragons in the
needle art without a fashion plate or pattern sheet
to guide them.
The first thing that a wise builder does is to con¬
sult an architect. Before doing so, he may have,
and usually has, some general but vague ideas of
what he wants, and these ideas may all do well
enough as far as they go, but it is no difficult mat¬
ter for the master of such work to improve upon his
suggestions. Why do men study law, why not be¬
gin to practice as soon as they can use the lang¬
uage or secure a diploma? They study in law
schools or read law under able jurists in order to
become acquainted with important forms of law as
much as to possess its substance. The physician's
formula is as much a covetable part of his profes¬
sional outfit as his medicine case or his cabinet of in¬
struments. In consulting nature, one becomes
readily impressed with the universality and sover¬
eignty of design and regard for form, and the pros¬
pective sermonizer will do well to take lessons from
Nature and Art as well.
The plan of the sermon may be said to embrace
its principal parts. These parts are, briefly, the In¬
troduction, Body and Conclusion of the sermon.
The point and value of the introduction in sermon-
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making again find striking illustrations in the ob¬
ject lessons of house-building. Every habitable
structure, from a" millionaire's mansion to a peas¬
ant's hut, requires an entrance way. What the step
or porch is to the tenement, that the opening words
of the discourse should be to every well-organized
sermon. To have no introduction a discourse would
be as bald and uninviting as any dwelling devoid
of step or doorway. For the preacher to thus
address his hearers would be just as polite or toler¬
able as to waive the formality of an introduction
or bow on meeting strangers or those with whom
business or social intercourse is to be had. To show
deference to the congregation in the shape of the
sermon introduction is to invite its . sympathies,
which gives right-of-way to the hearts of the listen¬
ers during the progress of the discourse. The step
and doorway symbolize, as it were, the key-note to
every house and a similar office to the sermon is
sustained by every well-articulated introduction.
Long introductions are never in order. Who
could be favorably impressed with the architectural
botch-work which gives undue prominence to doors
and windows and leaves the main building without
suggestions of importance. Aside from the weak¬
ness of covering too much space, many introduc-
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tions betray the short-coming of having no vital
connection with either the text or sermon. As well
build the steps several yards from the dwelling, or
attach the porch to the roof and call it up-to-date
architecture, as to harness an irrelevant introduc¬
tion to a pulpit discourse in the name of modern
homiletics. The introduction should be a natural
evolution of the text, and should not fail to strike
fire during the first few minutes of the discourse.
If properly prepared the introduction will not fail
to pave the way for the message in the shape of
the sermon.
The most important part of the sermon is its
body, in contradistinction to its introductory or
final part. In considering its most important de¬
tails, we pass from the steps and doorway into the
building itself. Thus also in constructing sermons,
the body or main building claims prime and para¬
mount consideration. Yet, still, as in architecture,
an especial eye is directed to the appointments and
divisions of the edifice, so must differentiation and
diversity be observed in sermon building. To
divide the sermon will be seen to be advantageous
in several particulars. As already suggested, such
divisions are in keeping with the order of nature,
whose object lessons universally indicate variety
u
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coupled with uniformity. If it be a truism that
nature abhors a vacuum, it is equally true that hu¬
man nature is averse to monotony. Most truths,
to be palatable, must be administered in broken
doses, and all truths, to prove interesting- and bene¬
ficial, must be shorn of repulsive parts and features.
The lines marking the sermonic boundaries should
be both striking and strong, not unlike those grand
divisions in nature, so impressive and memorable
for their significance and suggestiveness. Long-
drawn and ephemeral divisions should be avoided,
as they are painfully cumbersome to the hearers or
positively expressive of the speaker's lack of ptety
or wisdom. Whatever else the sermon builder
lacks or neglects in the way of homiletic dutiful-
ness, he should not fail to rigidly divide the word
of truth. Divisions should not be manifold; in gen¬
eral, they might be limited to four or five parts.
The application or conclusion of the sermon is
like the roof of a dwelling, its crowning point and
defensive armor, as it were.
Question—Can all possess a good moral character without
believing in God? p. Howard.
Answer—The very idea of God precludes the possibility of
morality in any estimable man without a belief in his Being.
The term expressive of God is but another or abbreviated
word for goodness, which is the basis and culmination of all
Pulpit Section
15
morality. r
Question—How can a man best know himself?
R. C. Crawford.
Answer—By making himself a subjective and objective
study. There are three standards by which man in general
may be studied. He applies a certain standard to himself
which is generally a flattering one. He is estimated by others,
which is generally undervaluing or misleading. He is seen in
his true light and taken for what he is only when judged by
the impartial verdict of an all-knowing God. By a careful
and prayerful study of one's self, it is possible for one to
know much of his strength and weaknesses, his wisdom and
folly.
i6
Pulpit Section
II
DELIVERY OF SERMON.
There are several things requisite to an effective
and sermonic delivery. Among- these requisites I
would accord the leading place to a consecrated pur¬
pose and persistent will on the part of the preacher.
It would be as easy for a ship to make port across
perilous seas without a rudder or compass as for the
sacred speaker to reach and hold his hearers with¬
out a sense of the weightiness of his message and a
dogged determination to convey or enforce the
same. No matter how richly gifted or otherwise
endowed, no preacher can be an effective speaker
who feels lightly his mission or is out of key with
the high service he assumes. There is no class of
public speaker who should think less of failing than
the preacher. It is said that actors are more suc¬
cessful as speakers than preachers, which greatly
discredits the sacred calling and should cause every
preacher of conscious unconquered defects to hang
Pulpit Section
17
his head in shame. Between the preacher and
stage-trained speaker it is obvious who deserves to
succeed and who to fail. The latter deals with ar¬
tificial things and truths second-hand, while the
former has eternal realities as his basis and is the
direct mouthpiece of the Almighty.
The actor who when asked why he was able to
move his hearers when the preacher could not and
who replied that the secret lay in the fact that he
Kpoke lies as if they were the truth, while the
preacher spoke the truth as if they were lies, has
given us a volume of philosophy in his facetious
reply.
Next to the invaluable weapons of a clear head
and warm heart the preacher will find a good voice
an essential associate and valuable antecedent in
delivering the message of truth. This may seem a
discouragement to those not endowed with this
facility, but a moment's reflection may suggest the
hollowness of such discouragement. Those who
have only poor voices to begin with should not fail
to bear in mind that the most inadequate voice can
be improved upon and that some of the world's
most celebrated speakers were handicapped with
feeble and unpromising voices in the infancy of
their career. By patient persistent study and prac-
18
Pulpit Sec'.ioh
tice the poorest voice can be developed and trans¬
formed into an instrument of extraordinary power
and efficiency. The practice of loud and sustained
tones is an excellent means of improving the voice.
A most important element of expression is the
proper modulation of the voice after it has become
what nature or art has made it. In pitch and qual¬
ity of tone it should be thoroughly susceptible to the
different shades of thought and emotion. Without
such variation there can be no expressive delivery.
Unless the sermon is distinctly heard its main
purpose is largely defeated. Hence the necessity
of a clear articulation and deliberate enunciation on
the part of the preacher. As a public speaker his
most useful form of ability is audibility. Indis¬
tinctness is fatal, while distinctness is vital to him.
The former is a physical defect and quite as natural
as it is common and injurious. It is a part of that
natural elocution which comes to the average
speaker when he gets upon his legs before an audi¬
ence. It is a great endowment to be exempt from
this adversity of speech, but it is a great fortune
that falls to the lot of exceptionally gifted charac¬
ters and not the common lot of speakers. The late
John B. Gough, Frederick Douglass, Mr. Spurgeon,
with Bishop Turner, Bishop Hamilton, Bishop
Pulpit Section
19
Arnett and Booker T. Washington belong to that
favorite class of orators not handicapped by the
defect mentioned. Chatham was noted for his dis¬
tinct articulation, which attainment was cultivated
with assiduous pains. His full voice was over¬
whelming and his whisper penetrated everywhere.
The celebrated Whitefield also towered as a
model of oratorical excellence. So masterful was
his command of voice and enunciation that he could
make his hearers weep by the mere pronunciation
of certain words.
Like every other habit, that of a sloven delivery
will grow with the growth and strengthen with the
strength. Earnestness is a salient virtue in the
sacred speaker, but it does not guarantee distinct¬
ness. A more appropriate name for this widespread
disease of public speakers is inarticulate earnest¬
ness. Frequently is it the case that those who are
most in earnest, most intense, most absorbed in their
subject, are the most inarticulate, indistinct, precipi¬
tate and slovenly in expression.
The profoundly earnest preacher will sometimes
burst into tears in the process of uttering inarticu¬
late sentiments which have affected him so deeply.
To make others weep the speaker must weep him¬
self to be sure, but for the hearers to know what he
2° Pulpit Sectioii
is weeping about the speaker must tell them. The
preacher's emotion should be as intelligible as his
thoughts and will be, provided he is not so dread¬
fully lost in his subject as to secrete its substance
by an overworked lachrimal gland.
The ability to compel the lips to form the words
and the throat to make the tones is indispensable to
good articulation. By self-discipline and self-cul¬
ture rather than by dramatic elocutionary practice,
will the defect of inarticulate utterances be re¬
medied. The disorder is a fatal one and, if you
believe me, it will not be cured by any dramatic or
elocutionary quack remedy.
Its only panacea is by directing the will against
it, by turning the ear upon the voice, by watchful¬
ness, by carefulness, drill and discipline to obtain
unquestioned conquest over the pernicious and
dogged disorder.
Question—How can the self-called preacher be disposed of?
William Miles.
Answer—If a Methodist, ask the presiding elder not to
license and the Bishop not to appoint him. If a Baptist, op¬
pose his call, both with your vote and influence. If a Presby¬
terian, Congregational or Episcopalian, the committee on
studies and orders will take care of him.
Pulpit Section
21
III
SOURCES OF POWER.
Your most natural disposition on entering the
ministry should be to become strong and success¬
ful ministers. How otherwise can you hope to have
power with God or prevail with men? Through
what other channel may you aspire to large and
flourishing pastorates or become renowned as build¬
ers of churches or saver of souls? To desire or
anticipate such ends is laudable enough, yet I need
not remind you that it were worse than folly to do
so unless your minds are bent upon meeting the
conditions of their realization. Before the great
Tuskegee institution reached its present magnitude
and ramifications many were the stages through
which it passed, yet underlying all there slumbered
in the soul of its founder, Mr. Washington, certain
tap-root principles inseparable from its growth and
prosperity. Tuskegee is not the result of a vision
nor the work of a visionary. Neither are Harvard
22
Pulpit Section
or Yale Universities creations of blind chance but
rather products of that herculean faith which draw¬
ing its venturesome bow aimed high depending
upon Providence to direct its arrow. The tower¬
ing superstructure of our American government is
a splendid illustration of what men can accomplish
in the way of political undertakings but America
as she is destined to be, even in barest panoramic
outline was not unfolded to the fertile genius of a
Jefferson or Adams or Webster. All stable success
and prosperity whether represented in individual
lives or institutions are traceable through their out-
flowings to certain fountain heads of life and power.
It is the object of this special talk to have you con¬
sider a few of these in connection with your work
of preparation or service as ministers. And the
first thing I would lay stress upon as the basis
of your success and source of power, is the Bible
or word of God. The Pilgrim Fathers made it the
foundation on which they laid their New England
civilization which to my mind is second to none in
Christendom anywhere. If our country is the
boast of its grandeur and greatness, it is to be re¬
membered its title to these was first made sure by
this chart from the Almighty. The constitution
recognizes its sovereignty and its authority is up^
Pulpit Section
23
held by every court of equity.
The leading nations of the world are such be¬
cause their civilizations are founded upon the prin¬
ciples contained in this chart from Heaven. That
which is the basis of the nation and the foundation
of all that is grand and good in civilization, the
world over should be the bed rock or tap-root from
which the messenger of truth may draw his great¬
est strength and inspiration. Hence the urgency
of the command of the great Teacher, "Search the
scriptures" and the timeliness of the injunction of
Paul to the modern preacher as well as to Timothy,
"Study to show thyself a workman approved unto
God, a laborer that needeth not to be ashamed
rightly dividing the word of truth."
The Bible is the word of God which we are
taught is living and energetic or like dynamite, and
sharper than a two-edged sword. -Make the Bible
the armour of your warfare and no weapon formed
against you shall prosper. Take it as the fortress
of your faith and you will become mighty to the
pulling down of every stronghold of the adversary.
Luther fought for the liberation of this wonderful
book and made it the battle-axe of the Reformation.
The German armies were nerved to victory as they
marched and chanted the 45th Psalm beginning
24
Pulpit Section
with the words "God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble."
The preacher who is mighty in Scriptures, who
is skilled in the knowledge and use of the Word is a
mightier man before the people than the most as¬
tute philosopher or hair-splitting theologian the
world has ever seen.
Another source of power, incalculable and un¬
limited is prayer. You will do well to consult the
history of the church as well as the Word of God
for examples of the power of prayer, but I would
not have you stop there. You will do better to
consult the examples and teachings of the world's
Redeemer on this heavenly appointed source of
power, but I would not have you stop there. If
Jacob-like, you would prevail with God as well as
men, I would advise you to wrestle in prayer regu¬
larly and fervently and until an answer comes in
conscious peace or power. Have altars in your pri¬
vate chambers and libraries or in some secret place
where you can connect with the Divine power house
and obtain strength and support adequate to your
every need.
That knowledge is not only a source of power but
power itself is a self-evident verity which, as pros¬
pective ministers, you cannot too thoroughly em-
Pulpit Section
25
brace. Scientia est potentia is a saying of the Latin
fathers and a latter-day truth, as well demonstrated
by experience and observation on every hand. In
the material realm this truth is emphasized by
countless illustrations in the harnessing of the
wildest forces of nature, such as the maddened
Niagara, the violent waves of ocean and the terrific
forces of electricity. Through its benign minis¬
trations men have constructed whispering galleries
out of the seas and the skies so that they hold con¬
verse with their fellows across fathomless depth
with as much freedom as do their neighbors in ad¬
joining rooms or across the street. But for this all-
powerful agency, the telegraph and 'phone, the
mutoscope and biograph, the Roentgen ray and
Marconi airgraph had never mastered the regions
where the fates and furies reveled in unchallenged
triumph for untold ages. It is necessary to cast but
half a glance toward the physical domains to be
convinced of the sovereign sway of this attribute of
deity in the lease of man. •
But the sovereign source of power is mentioned
last. It overcomes the world and is the mightiest
principle in the soul of man. I refer to faith.
Said the great Teacher, All things are possible to
him that believeth, while a less divine authority de-
26
Pulpit Section
dares, "Without faith it is impossible to please
Him."
But this'patron saint of the Almighty, as mag¬
nificent as are its reflections indicated, is not and
cannot be the instrument of helpfulness designed of
Heaven until sanctified by divine grace and wis¬
dom. A knowledge of the facts- of nature, history,
human nature and philosophy is therefore well
enough as far as it goes, but as you need a lever¬
age and elevator to lift you and those you will
lead to higher planes, I can only commend you to
the inexhaustible fountain source of spiritualized
knowledge. Upon the authority of Him who is the
infinite source, personification and culmination of
truth, I would exhort you to a thoroughgoing
knowledge of the truth, for by that and that alone is
perfect freedom attainable.
Question—Speaking of spiritual power for success, I have
sought this and believe I have been blessed, but still want moie
light. Mrs. A. H. Young.
Answer—The surest way of increasing one's power of
usefulness along any line is to exercise that power in an unsel¬
fish way. I know of no better direction for an increase of
light than contained in the advice of the Great Teacher. Let
thine eye be single and thy whole body shall be full of light.
Question—Will you explain how are we to reach justifica¬
tion by faith? Jas. A. Whitfield.
Answer—In a receptive rather than meritorious way of
course. A definition of justification according to the formula
of the catechism J was taught in childhood, perhaps, covers
Pulpit Section
27
your question. It is that justification is that act of God's free
grace, whereby he pardons our sins and accepts us as righteous
for the sake of Christ.
•Question—Do men of the present day have as much power
as the early apostles? W. H. Middlebrooks.
Answer—If they have not I am sure it is their misfortune
and not the Almighty's fault. Should they fulfill the required
conditions of power getting I see no reason why they should
be behind the early pioneers of Christianity in the gift of
power.
28
Pulpit Section
IV.
EMOTIONAL PREACHING.
There is a sense in which all preaching should
be of an emotional value, that is, it should have an
object unattained and after that it should be the aim
of preaching and the preacher to effect re¬
sults. Between emotional preaching as an end
and emotional preaching as a means to an end there
is all the difference imaginable. As we are identified
with a people peculiarly given to the exercise of
feeling in religion as in most things besides, as you
yourselves will be addicted to this tendency in pro-
f portion as the intellectual does not dominate over
your animal propensities, and inasmuch as the feel¬
ing factor has its place and value in the religious
problem, it is highly in point to consider to what
extent, you may indulge this element in preaching
and how much of its hallucinations you are to re¬
sist.
This style of preaching has the misfortune of 3
Pulpit Section
29
Counterfeit ring, in the first place, in that it would
palm off sound for substance and deceive the hearer
in the belief that he has gold instead of dross. Of
all pulpit rot, this is the cheapest and it is remark¬
ably strange that the masses and many besides
should have been contented to be humbugged so
long and to such a wide spread extent.
I do not wish to be understood as discounting
the value and excellence of the feeling endowment
of our make-up. The emotional faculty in man is
one of the three primary parts of his constitution
as he came forth the handiwork and inspiration of
his Maker. This element of his being has in it the
spark of divinity and is intended to stimulate others
to nobler deeds and loftier lives. It is something
that the Almighty has designed as an echo and
reflex as He appeals to us through revelations in
the outer and inner realms of creation. In the
beauty and grandeur of the heavens, in the teem¬
ing riches of earth, in the unmeasured bounties of
the field and waters, we see ravishing panoramas
of His loving kindness and are stirred to emotions
of gratitude and praise. He has never ordained
that His reason-gifted creatures should sit or roam
amid the teeming fields of the universe in the ex¬
ercise of sense or thought perceptions without a
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Pulpit Section
response from their sensational natures. He ap¬
peals to our fear in the lurid lightning and crash¬
ing thunder. He excites our admiration in the
gorgeous landscape of floating clouds and spangled
sunset. He stirs our reverence in the luminous
stars and suns and systems that declare His glory
beneath the canopy of night. He enlists our wor¬
ship and excites our love by unfolding to our spirit¬
ual vision the scenery of Gethsemane, the spectacle
of Calvary and the transcendent revelations of
Patmos. The preacher whose soul fountain is not
broken up by sublime appeals like these and who
in turn does not move others by touching respon¬
sive cords in their deeper beings may be a well-
appearing engine without the springs of action or
fire of life.
But it is needless to remind you of the danger
of giving too great play to the batteries of emo¬
tion with which Providence has so richly en¬
dowed you and those you are to edify. The less
informed of our people are excitable by nature and
it requires a little more than a spark of enthusiasm
to set them all ablaze. There are preachers much
given to- the pulpit trick of dispensing sound when
the substance or subject matter of their preaching
has become exhausted. Not long ago I heard Eli
Pulpit Section , . 31
Perkins, the great American humorist relate an
incident which serves to illustrate the point I wish
to make. In company with others he attended ser¬
vices at an humble meeting-house on a Sunday
evening as his party was too late to fill an engage¬
ment elsewhere. The preacher had selected
''Death" as his theme and succeeded capitally in
working his hearers to a pitch of frenzy by simply
"toning" and playing upon the emotional cords of
his listeners. The visitor remembered the catch
phrase of the powerful preacher and on returning
home concluded to experiment on the same. Call¬
ing his intelligent dog into his parlor in the pres¬
ence of his wife he proceeded to recite a classic
passage from one of the masters. For this the ani¬
mal exhibited contempt by dropping his tail and
walking out of the parlor. By and by he returned
and his master changed the program. This time
he selected "Death" as his subject and appropriated
the tones of the mournful country preacher. That
the effect was magical and true to life was quite
manifest in the responsive howl of the animal
whose sensitive nature was touched.
The preacher whose aim and delight is to get up
a shout in the camp because he can do so, is quite
as weak and a deal more wicked than his unlettered
32
Pulpit Sectioli
followers who place so much stress upon their
imagination and feelings. With the head clear and
the heart right toward God and one's fellow crea¬
tures, the feelings will take care of themselves and
will need no set of rules to govern them.
Pulpit Section
33
V
MINISTERIAL PROPRIETIES.
Every calling has its implied if not stated code of
conduct. Each profession distinguishes itself from
all others by certain regulations of speech, duties or
actions known as the proprieties governing its mem¬
bers. In military circles, in the legal profession,
in ranks of statesmanship, in the healing art, in
marine, agricultural or commercial service these
regulations carry with them the sanction of im¬
memorial usage and are disregarded with impun¬
ity by no related subject possessing self-respect and
of mental saneness.
That the utterances, bearing and actions of the
minister should* be subject to regulations no less
lofty and uncompromising than those of other mor¬
tals is a fact too obvious for discussion. That the
proprieties associated with ministerial life and ser¬
vice are either unknown or are indifferently re¬
garded by multitudes of amateur and experienced
34
Pulpit Section
clergymen is an alarming truism and its faithful
discussion is among the prime and vital duties of
our preacher's training schools. The dress and ad¬
dress of the preacher, his pulpit and public con¬
duct, his speech and manners toward the masses are
fields which offer pertinent and promising helpful¬
ness on the subject of ministerial proprieties.
The preacher's wardrobe or the clothes he wears
is entitled to more than casual attention. If the
tree is known by its fruits and the man by the ap¬
parel he wears, to command prestige or indicate
fruitfulness, the minister's raiment should, like
Caesar's wife, be above suspicion. While they may
suggest poverty they should never betray a foppish
or slovenly person in the wearer. Preachers whose
ambition is to attract by their shining attire on
Sundays or outstrip their brethren on annual church
gatherings in costly or stylish suit outfit, very sel¬
dom take premiums for character, excellence, fruit¬
ful service or mental endowment. On the other
hand, indifference to the requirements of taste or
righteousness is to be deplored in any instructor in
public morals. Inappropriate neckgear or head¬
gear, maltreated foorwear or soiled garments have
caused more vacant pulpits than poverty or precar¬
ious tenure to their careless lessees.
Pulpit Section
35
Why it is so difficult for some preachers to secure
or maintain a hold upon a community or win the
respect of the parishioners they serve is due no
more to their defective or superfluous dress than to
their slovenly carriage and thoughtless address.
Let the people once get it into their heads that they
are to look down upon, rather than up to their called
or appointed standard-bearer, and it will be but the
question of a short time before they will seek some
sturdier or more exalted guide. When the bearing
of the new minister is such as to raise the question
whether he is in touch with his engagement or in
love with the world, he need not long halt between
opinions as to his calling. Whether he has tarried
long enough to have outlived his usefulness and
should face about in his bearings, is a matter which
requires neither ability nor hesitancy to decide.
By address, no reference is made to physical or
constitutional shortcomings which the subject can¬
not possibly remedy or improve upon. Because a
man does not embody the grandeur of a Saul or
Apollo Belvidere, is no reason why his stand or car¬
riage should be ungraceful. By having a careless
or undignified poise, he loses an element of power,
though perhaps unconsciously. A man of imposing
physique or striking graceful mien is an irresistible
36 Pulpit Section
subject for proper admiration. People regard him
with apish interest which materially retards his
usefulness. From the danger line of this tempta¬
tion most of us have happily been delivered by
nature. Howbeit, what is termed proprieties, good
taste, address, etc., are graces to be sought by cul¬
tivation. Those who enter our homes we like to
have recommended by good manners and some
sense of the properties, and what we require in our
parlors we certainly have a right to expect at
church. The ecclesiastical bulwarks, popularly
known as pulpits, are open to censure in that they
tempt indifference to posture and other sly habits
in the preacher, under the apprehension that the
people will not see them.
The art of gesticulation claims attention to the
category of ministerial deportment. Preachers
there are who make but few gestures and yet these
are frequently made without reference to grace or
the fitness of things. Impulsive gestures or those re¬
sulting from a superabundance of emotion are us¬
ually awkward and inappropriate. Those who are
oratorically or dramatically inclined by nature are
naturally in sympathy with the things they describe
and should for that reason drill themselves and
practically well-nigh incessantly, lest they offend
Pulpit Section
37
good taste by making wild and inappropriate ges¬
tures. It is sheer folly to go to the elocutionist for
gestures or rules by which they are to be created or
regulated. The learning of attitudes, gesticulation
and the like, from the professional elocutionist is
belittling and should make the preacher feel
ashamed of himself. When it is known that such
instructors or teachers of emphasis and gesture
have become public speakers it will be time to risk
their tutelage and not until then. Some of them
are excellent public readers, few have ever excelled
as actors, nevertheless, they are of greater service to
those who wish to read or become actors.
Aside from the preacher's dress and address and
among the proprieties which help or impair his use¬
fulness, the preacher's words and actions should be
characterized by a lofty, benevolent disposition.
This is at variance with a sensorious, belligerent
spirit which makes the pulpit a breastwork, and
those who are so unfortunate as to have displeased
him, targets for the preacher's censure. Justly
merited, admissible reproofs fail to come under the
heading referred to. It is when the criticism is
purely personal or is untimely or is unlikely to re¬
sult in greater harm than good, that ministerial
etiquette would require its repression for the time.
38
Pulpit Section
Nothing is more natural than that snubs or insults
should at times be the lot of the minister. In
such cases nothing but magnanimity and forbear¬
ance should be exercised. His eye may observe,
and his ears may report intended affronts, but see¬
ing, he should not see, and hearing, he sfiould not
hear such affronts. He should bite his lips or grunt,
and bear a thousand and one real and imaginary
ills. By being well seasoned with grace and
charged with the benevolent spirit of the Master,
there will be little danger of stumbling or violating
the code of ministerial amenities.
Pulpit Section
39
VI.
ORGANIC DEMANDS.
In all the vast range of subjects bearing upon
your success as pastors in a practical way none is
more vital than that of health. It is necessary to
enlist your interest in this tremendous subject be¬
cause of its two-fold bearing and importance.
First, as regards yourselves, and, secondly, as re¬
lates to those among whom you are to minister.
Let it not be thought that the subject is to be
lightly regarded because it appeals so largely to
common sense or because considerations of person¬
al welfare will meet its demands. It should be
borne in mind that among rare things nothing is
more uncommon than common-sense and that
though self-preservation is a universal instinct, mul¬
titudes die daily from suicide, and the most usual
form of that suicide is that bewailed by the pro¬
phet of old in reference to the Jewish people.
If Israel was destroyed by lack of knowledge in
40
Pulpit Section
a general sense, the people of our time and variety
are victims of a specific mortality due to their ig¬
norance of or disregard concerning certain prime
and fundamental laws of health.
Of the pastoral laborer it should never be said,
"Physician heal thyself," and so it is highly proper
that the health of the shepherd be guarded as well
as that of the flock over which the Holy Spirit has
made you superintendents.
What a well-built locomotive or complete engine
is to the most effective train service in point of
speed or endurance, that the physical mechanism
is to man's capacity for valid work or length of ser¬
vice. Neglect the machinery in any way and it
soon becomes incapacitated for service. You have
seen an engine side-tracked or untracked, weather-
beaten and rust-eaten, and you needed no one to
tell you that its days of running service were at an
end. Were such material servants expected to con¬
tinue their wonted tasks, the first invasion of decay
or negligence would have been arrested by avoiding
the first appearance of the threatened evil. It is
not reasonable to believe that men would exercise
such care over a piece of human mechanism when
the Almighty's incarnate shrine, personified in the
human body, is so sadly neglected. "If any man
Pulpit Section
41
defiles the temple of the Holy Ghost, him will God
destroy," was no idle assertion of the inspired
writer of old. Its potential force is as much meant
for the priest who is ignorant of or mute concern¬
ing the laws of his own or the people's health as
for the latter who know little and care less about
the laws which condition their lives and hygienic
well-being.
If health of soul or whole-heartedness is every¬
thing, health of body is next to everything. You
cannot over-estimate the- virtue of the "Sound
mind in a sound body" adage. I would best define
this elixir of life, the thing we call health, by us¬
ing the familiar object lessons furnished by pure
water and a faultless looking glass. A true mirror
is so perfect that it hides itself in the reflection it
gives of the object presented before it. In looking
into such a glass the beholder is conscious only of
his other self, whom he meets in open gaze, face to
"face. As nothing intervenes between the objective
beholder, the subjective image and the ideal mirror,
so with regard to the physical organism of man and
the medium whereby it best serves itself and minis¬
ters to others. An infallible test of perfect water is
said to be that which, when applied, prevents the dis¬
covery of its identity by the sense of sight, taste
42
Pulpit Section
or smell. Whenever it has color, odor or taste,
something else it may be, but pure water it is not.
In like manner that health whose determinating at¬
tribute is the consciousness of any appreciable de¬
fect of sense or feeling, may be depended upoft as
being at fault to a greater or less degree.
The general health of the religious worker is of
prime importance, and its care depends upon the at¬
tention bestowed upon a variety of little things.
Eating, sleeping, work and exercise, universally re¬
garded as commonplace elements in the problem of
life, require more than passing attention, as they
condition health, success and happiness. The law
of diet will be found to be subject to the greatest
tension in your experience as pastors. In your
rounds of visitations, table temptations will entice
you, and that, in proportion to your established ip-
pelite for good things on the one hand, and your
obliging, social disposition on the other. Eating
should be enjoyed as a means rather than an end of
human existence, and the preacher should train
himself and teach others to combine temperance
with appetite.
Food is intended to be to the body what fuel is
to an engine—the source of animation. Well as¬
similated food produces blood, which furnishes
Pulpit Section
43
motive power to the human locomotive. An over¬
fed body not only interferes with its own momen¬
tum and capacity for work, but clogs the mind and
so fetters the intellect that mental effort becomes a
drudgery and burden. The brain-worker is alto¬
gether different from the brawn-worker. He who
labors manually may feed to the extent of gorging
himself, without fatal consequence perhaps, for he
may soon work off the surplus outfit in sweat and
toil. With the brain-worker the outcome is other¬
wise. Distressed with its abnormal burden, his
stomach demands all the blood available to do its
work, so that the brain is deprived of its requisite
supply.
When profound and lofty thought-productions
are desired great care should be exercised in the
selection of the mental worker's bill of fare. The
food that builds muscle and adipose tissue will
naturally minister to animal vigor, while the in¬
tellect will be left to dwindle as an impoverished
dwarf. When heroic mental or spiritual results are
to be attained, discrimination should be coupled
with abstinence and self-denial. Daniel in royal
captivity, our Saviour in the wilderness, and John
the Baptist in the desert, offer valuable suggestions
in the directions noted.
44 Pulpit Section
That class of workers, whose brain is their in¬
strument of toil—I refer to preachers and evangeli¬
cal workers particularly—will find sleep an invalu¬
able aid to their staff of service and longevity.
Various constitutions and divers ages do not re¬
quire the same amount of this restorative balm of
nature. While some natures demand much sleep
and others require a less supply, every person
should have the quantity his nature calls for. Es¬
pecially is this true of those who employ their
thinking powers most actively. Persons who work
their brain over book and paper through the live¬
long day, who push their labors into the midnight
hours, cannot be too forcibly reminded that their
candle is liable to early extinction, for it is being
burnt at both ends.
Question—Is not the weaknesses which cause such tre¬
mendous death rate among the colored race inherited to a
large extent? W. C. Cleland.
Answer—Not more so than to prevailing unsanitary condi¬
tions and ignorance of the laws of health.
Pastoral Section
46
Pastoral Section
VII.
ALTRUISM.
The sound of this big word 'should not frighten
us for it means nothing more than the theory and
practice of serving others. With every nine hun¬
dred and ninety-nine men, the great problem of
existence is to promote individual welfare; it is
only one man in the thousand who is wise enough
not to engage in the scuffle for things which perish
with the using and who scorns them if they are to
be purchased at the cost of the blood of his fellows.
Whether you can commit yourself to the principle
of serving others chiefly will depend upon several
considerations. It'will depend upon whether and
to what extent you are swayed by motives of pride
or success or ambition or fame or reward. If any
of these like an ignis fatuus lure you on in your
work of preparation as evangelical toilsmen, you
are gazing through the wrong end of the telescope
and you will do well to reverse the instrument at
Pastoral Section
47
once. He who answers to the divine call may claim
the reward of mammon service if he chooses. Let
him set his heart on riches and perchance he may
have them as the price of his soul. It may be that
he prefers to> substitute the call of God with enlist¬
ment in the service of self whose chief delight is to
be adorned with purple and fine linen and fare
sumptuously every day. I have known of many
cases where men have taken the livery of heaven
to secure ill-gotten treasures. If the dishonored
career or wrecked legacies of all such could speak,
they would entreat all who are tempted to strain
their limbs to grasp forbidden prizes overhanging
the celestial pathway to beware lest they lose their
balance and become hopelessly lost.
The life of service for others: is sustained by
numberless illustrations from history, both relig¬
ious and secular. Of the former class that of
Israel's great leader, Moses, should appeal to you
with commanding force. Did the deliverer of the
Isrealites consult his personal ease and welfare in
the choice of a pursuit? If so, he would have con¬
tinued in the court of Pharaoh amid regal luxuries
and royal bounties. But to have done so would
have been to cross the Divine purposes with his
personal self-seeking; it would have been to put his
48
Pastoral Sectioii
people and their distressing condition in one side
of the scale and his individual ease in the other.
No one forced him to the alternative against him¬
self nor was his choice against his highest welfare.
Had Moses been swayed by selfish motives, had he
said, "All of self and none of my people," his name
would have amounted to 'scarce more than a bubble
in history. In preferring to suffer affliction with
the people of God; in giving credence to Almighty
God rather than to the mighty Pharaoh, the self-
forgetful leader, built a monument for himself that
will survive ages and is become a heaven approved
spectacle for men and angels. Instances of con¬
secrated lives for others might be multiplied from
the Old Testament, but the one given must suffice.
The New Testament is a live arena for the dis¬
play of the 'sublime virtue now considered, but
there are two characters here that we must take a
moment to embrace as they personify more than
others this prime essential of the God life and
Christian spirit both in quality and quantity of ex¬
pression. Paul was pre-eminently the apostle of
service while John was distinctively the disciple of
love. The influence of either upon the life of the
church through the ages, it will be difficult to sur¬
mise while that of Paul both as an example and
fcastorai Section
49
stimulus to Christian heroes is past calculation if
not conception. It was love to Christ which im¬
pelled him to such stupendous deeds and daring to
be sure. It was the altruistic spirit none the less
which induced him to say, "Brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved," and to refer to the seals to his
ministry at Philippi as his joy and his crown.
Examples of the shining splendors of self-for-
getfulness in behalf of others are quite familiar to
most of you I know. Skipping the list of such il¬
lustrious; figures in modern history as Howard,
Florence Nightingale, Sojourner Truth, John
Brown, Love joy and Garrison, are we not each of us
more or less familiar with men and women here and
there whose lives betray a golden vein of unselfish¬
ness and whose spirit touches ours with a benedic¬
tion even in thought.
To this all-pervasive spirit of altruism are we in¬
debted, is the world indebted vastly more than we
are disposed to give it credit. Christianity has en¬
dowed humanity with countless treasures, but this
is its crowning legacy; the spirit of serving others,
I mean. Men are doing it by their possessions and
resources as never before. They are building hos¬
pitals, endowing schools, erecting and sustaining
56 Pastoral Sec'idti
\
churches and supporting the Gospel and mission¬
aries at a rate not before reached in the history of
,the world.
But this spirit has a silent yet equally potent ex¬
pression in circles ungilded by wealth and un¬
marked by attractiveness to the eye. It has led ten¬
der woman to break home ties and brave the hard¬
ships and dangers of the battle field, so that she
might administer to fevered brows or ease a dying
soldier's pains. It makes heroes of young men and
iron-souled heroines of young women who con¬
secrate themselves to the dangers of foreign fields,
some of them treating epidemics and pestilences
with lightness; others coveting the privilege of
sharing the woes of the lepers' fate in order to help
them.
To what extent do I share or am willing to pro¬
mote this spirit? is an interrogation which ever}'
divinity student should see staring him or her in
the face. , Picture to yourselves if you please
future pastures of inviting fatness and verdure,
but there are moors and hedges and bayous into
which God's sheep have strayed. Impelled by the
Master Shepherd's spirit you will hear the bleating
of these imperilled vagrants and you'll risk your
lives to rescue them. It is: all well enough other
Pastoral Section
things being equal, to indulge anticipations of a
call to some flourishing and well-salaried charge,
but to such calls I would invoke you to turn a deaf
ear until you have been arrested by a call to self-
sacrifice and cross-bearing service.
Pastoral Sec'ion
VIII.
PESSIMISM.
This world is far from being the worst one pos¬
sible, it lacks a great deal from being a Dante's In¬
ferno, and in either case it would be poor grace in¬
deed for a prophet of the Lord to assert the fact.
A dark side there is to the picture of life to be sure,
but its sable aspect will be greatly relieved, by the
exercise of patience, faith, gratitude and hope on
the part of him who has been brought to realize
more of the cloudy than shining side of life's pic¬
ture.
Man begins life not with a laughter nor does he
end it with a shout of joy. He makes his debut
upon the stage of action with a cry of prophetic
note and leaves it ordinarily with a painful groan
or sigh of longed-for relief. Between the cradle
and the grave nevertheless there is stretched no un¬
broken desert of suffering and no heart rending vale
of tears. Smiles, good humor and merriment and
Pastoral Section
53
not frowns, ill nature and melancholy, are the pre¬
vailing moods of childhood and this wholesome
secret of well-being and longevity should be shared
by their adult fellow beings.
Times and seasons there are and will be when
the order of things will appear reversed and life it¬
self will wear' a dismal and foreboding aspect to
the most heroic hearts. The lives of the good and
great of Bible times and later periods are in strik¬
ing evidence of the fact that life's picture has a
sombre as well as shining side. Moses, J»ob, Daniel,
Jeremiah and Elijah are conspicuous no less for the
gloom which curtained, than for the moral grandeur
which crowned their eventful careers.
On behalf of these darker aspects of human ex¬
perience it might be said that on the part of their
godly exponents they are but reflections of the plan
of Providence in its working toward a beneficent
end. Again the logical significance of the dreary
phase of life considered may be read in the consti¬
tution and course of nature as furnished by the
lowlands which lead to towering hills and sun-
crowned highlands. Because there are lives draped
with clouds or accentuated with parrallel lines of
light and shadowy streaks throughout, let it not
then be said that the Divine hand is not in evidence.
54
Pastoral Section
For in most lives of this cast the two-fold forces of
divine economy and Almighty Providence are at
work ceaselessly operating to the praise of the
Creator and toward the creature's greatest good.
But, to the shame of the pessimistic eye, it is so
constructed that if there is any good beneath the
stars in the existing order of things, its sense of
sight is incapable of discovering the same. To all
such natures the world with the things that dwell
therein are evil and that continually. Happily this
class of mortals constitute but a fraction of the
human family and scarcely a respectable minority
among those who lay claim to the rank of sober
minded thinkers. The grounds for fear that you or
those you represent may become victims of the
skeptic ailment now discussed are remote I grant,
and yet I warn you beware of certain symptoms
and ills which lead as gateways to the ever-to-be
dreaded shores of pessimism.
As most of the evils which lead to pessimism
are more acquired than hereditary or constitutional,
I would warn you of a few. And first you are to
fight shy of dyspepsia if you would avoid the first
step to pessimism. Since the first step to dyspepsia
is indigestion, one should be on such familiar terms
\vith his stomach as to know how piuch it will
Pastoral Section
55
stand in the shape of the quantity and quality of
the burden it is given to bear. The human stomach
is not like the digestive apparatus of the goat or
ostrich that can attack and get away with anything.
It is a good servant it is said, but a very poor and
unruly slave. The quality of diet should be deter¬
mined by the kind of labor performed. Muscular
work justifies the consumption of such food as
gives strength and vigor of the body. Food that
builds the nerves, and supplies, rich blood for the
brain is required by the mental worker.
The Scriptural injunction to keep the heart with
all diligence may be extended with all fitness and
force to the kidneys and liver, for out of their
healthy offices proceed the issues of life.
Gloating over misfortunes and past failures
should never be indulged. A pessimistic spirit is
like a smoke stained eye glass that casts its gloomy
shadow on all its views. What care such instru¬
ments of vision for rainbow tints and sparkling
jewels and variegated flowers and gorgeous sun¬
sets ? What cares the sour-souled mortal for all the
sunshine scattered and reflected above his head;
the world to him is little more than a vale of sighs
and tears,
56
Pastoral Section
IX.
OPTIMISM.
If optimism is a doctrine of a supernatural origin
and ordering of human affairs and things divine,
no representative of the Almighty , can be less than
an optimist and every minister of Christ shotild
be an evangelist of hope. The nature of pessimism
is to make miserable its devotees and its spokes¬
man as well. This is the work of the Evil One and
his emissaries of darkness and the success of its
prosecution can well be surmised by a glance at the
disordered and enfeebled side of life. That this dis¬
order, well nigh universal, is traceable to the Prince
of Darkness is a prime plank in the platform of our
orthodox creed, while no less prominent is the
teaching of the defeat of the Satanic plot.
For our Scriptural warrant the mastery is well
assured, since God's word asserts that, for this
cause was the Son of God manifested that he might
destroy the works of the Devil. Among the mul-
Pastoral Section
57
tipliecl reasons for possessing and exercising the
frame and spirit of optimism it might be noticed,
First, that the term God and the facts of Divine
Creator and Providence imply a beneficent order of
Providence.
In the second place the optimistic creed is estab¬
lished in the course and contents of nature. There
is more sunshine than clouds, more bright days than
days; of darkness.
Again and finally, nothing is gained by looking
on the dark side of things, while by maintaining a
cheerful spirit and hopeful frame the individual is
improved and better prepared to benefit his fellows.
If God be the author of all, it stands to reason that
He is the end of all and that as God, that is, the
Good One, He works all things together for goocfc
As in the beginning after the works of creation
ended everything was pronounced good and man
himself was clothed with the image of the heavenly
so it can not be otherwise than that whatever hap¬
pens is for the best. It is by divorcing the Al¬
mighty and ever-gracious ruler from His works
that things take on a dreary aspect, and the machin¬
ery of life seems to be in the hands of blind chance.
To maintain a cheerful spirit and give vent to songs
instead of sighs in the night of adversity requires
58
Pastoral Section
more than stoic courage. To do so it is necessary
to exercise supreme faith in the office and character
of the Almighty and crown the dispensation of His
dealings with His creatures with the sovereign at¬
tributes of Omniscience', Love and Justice. We
should rest assured that 'however conditions may
suggest to the contrary at times, God has planned
and operates the affairs of this world after the best
possible standard and schedule.
Pastoral Section
59
X
SOME ELEMENTS OF PASTORAL SUC¬
CESS.
That but few enter upon a course of preparation
for Gospel service without the desire or expectation
of success is a fact not open to challenge. There
may be those who join conferences or who obtain
licenses from church conventions without weighing
the seriousness of the step they take, but no such
vein of sacrilege marks the character who has
matriculated in the school of the prophets, or that
individual whom God calls to labor for the welfare
of souls but who feels his inadequacy to the tre¬
mendous trust committed. The fact of one's en¬
trance upon a course of systematic Bible study and
seminary training is a sufficient hint that the candi¬
date for pastoral service means business and that
he intends to be satisfied with nothing short of suc¬
cess.
Such being the spirit and aim of the group of
6o
Pastoral Section
Bible students now assembled, some words of coun¬
sel and helpfulness touching certain elements and
principles of success will not be thought untimely
in this, the opening chapter of our renewed series
of ministerial talks. Your course has been outlined
by faithful conductors who will see that your safety
and comfort are insured, through tunnels, across
ravines, around curves, up grades and down valleys
alike, until the train which bears you is brought to
a halt in the grand station of finished ministerial
preparation.
During the protracted seminary pilgrimage indi¬
cated, the value of helpful companionship at times
will not be questioned and it is this role which it
is the desire of the speaker to supply in an humble
way.
The disposition to be formal and stilted is too
prevalent among school-trained preachers and those
who make them. Happily for this seminary its
work is not stunted nor fettered by any such short¬
comings. Your dean is not eminent for anything
if not for an elastic nature and that most uncom¬
mon thing called common sense. While you are
warned to beware of imitations, I would advise you
to imitate your dean and other tutors in these shin¬
ing- qualities. It is doubtless well to look to well
Pastoral Section
6t
authenticated text books, and seek inspiration from
good speakers and lecturers from time to time, but
it is better far to be able to derive help and uplift
from those with whom we are in daily touch. He
who teaches by precept may be a good director, but
he alone is the best guide who teaches by the ob¬
ject lessons of practice. That student who sees
more in his tutor's gait and mannerisms to emu¬
late than in the more covetable inner excellencies
of his character and conduct, can hope but for little
beyond failure and pity by reason of the grovelling
standard he has raised.
It has been suggested in an alliterative sense by
some one that it takes three things to constitute a
successful pastor or conduct a church. These are
Grace, Grit and Greenbacks, and to these I would
add a fourth essential, to wit, Gumption. Consid¬
ering the relative pre-eminence of this last-named
element as a condition of universal success, a mo¬
ment's reflection relative to its claims is of prime
importance.
Some elements of highest ministerial success:
4. Loftiness of aim. To attain the highest
standard the poet has advised ,
Pitfch thy behavior low, thy project high,
So that thou humble and magnanimous be.
62
Pastoral Section
Whoso aimeth at the sky-
Hits higher far than he who means a tree.
Seek to become eagles rather than sparrows, and
aspire to the proportions of the elephant rather than
that of a mouse.
5. Be considerate of the boundaries of nature and
observe the advice of that other poet who enjoins :
"To thine own self be true."
There is always danger in trying to fill the meas¬
ure of another's gifts or greatness. The frog in the
fable who exploded in the attempt to expand into
the magnitude of the bovine visitor to his pond
might point a moral under this head.
6. Past failures nor present self-sufficiency
should checkmate your sternest energies and strong¬
est purposes as ministers. The Apostle Paul is
a worthy exemplar of any Christian worker, and
what does he say:
"Brethren, I count not myself to have appre¬
hended."
Question—What is meant by religious men being endowed
with different gifts, but the same spirit? Will you give us
illustrations of what you mean? Philip L. Nash.
Answer—Paul is my authority for the truth of the state¬
ment although the truth of a differentiation of spiritual en¬
dowments is as old as the household of faith . By way of illus¬
tration, some men are endowed by the Spirit with the gift of
song, like Sankey and our own Watson and Beckett. Others
have gifts as evangelists, such as Moody and Amanda Smith.
Bishop Grant is a striking illustration of a combination of
spiritual gifts. Whatever the character or variety of these
endowments of the Spirit, their author and finisher is the end.
Pastoral Section
63
XI
OFFICE AND REWARD OF CHRISTIAN
WORKERS.
The transcendent attribute which commands this
opening century above its predecessors, is its utili¬
tarian spirit and tendency. If other ages have
chiefly concerned themselves in the pursuit of the
true and beautiful and the good as intellectual di¬
versions, the one on which we are just now enter¬
ing would add, as its distinguishing impulse, con¬
cernment in things practical and useful, as a means
of conveying the greatest good to the greatest
number. The popular and pressing challenge,
"What do you know?" or "What do you own?" is
being drowned by the ever-thundering demand on
every side: "What do you wish?" or "What can
you do ?" These vital interrogations address them¬
selves to the candidates for success along every line
of human activity, but to no one do they appeal
with such tremendous emphasis as to the man who
64
Pastoral Sectioti
deems it his mission to labor for the moral and
religious uplift and betterment of his fellow beings.
He who has heard the summons from the divine
husbandman, "Son, go work in my vineyard." need
not once doubt his ability to succeed, if he but see
that his scythe is well whetted in the matter of
preparation for service, and that he himself is well
tempered for the task assumed.
The scope and urgency of this preparation will
be found to depend largely upon the period of one's
enlistment into service, as well as upon thje condi¬
tion and character of the field to be occupied. In
Moses and David under the prophetic, and in Peter
and Paul under the apostolic dispensations, we have
types and-standards of God's workmen whose char-
acters and competency attest the fact of their divine
call and commission.
To emphasize the divine at the expense of the
human element in the call of the lay or ministerial
laborer, is to pay a tribute to superstition endorsed
neither by reason or revelation. If love to God be
demanded as an essential outfit of His human am¬
bassador, love to man is the passport by which his
authority is to be made known. In the sense of gen¬
eral fitness for this peculiar service, a twofold de-
Pastoral Section
65
inand must be met. There is a divine side to this
demand, which theology, it is thought, can supply.
But since theology is more speculative than practi¬
cal, dealing less with things at hand than with mat¬
ters more distant, not much is promised in the way
of practical results to those whose visions fail to
project beyond its indefinite borders. The spirit
wihch protnises greatest yield to the Christian
worker, along with the Bible student or man of
lofty ideal in this realm, is that fellow-feeling
which enables any such to behold in fallen or un¬
fortunate mortals, brother beings whose welfare it
is his Good Samaritan mission to seek. The Al¬
mighty is mirrored forth far less in theology ana
the things above us, than in anthropology and the
things about us. Therefore, it is with ethnic as well
as with ethical duties and questions that the prac¬
tical Christian worker should concern himself. Be¬
fore every one who would climb up some other way
to the golden steps of success is the appalling Scrip¬
tural challenge, "How can a man love God whom
he hath not seen, if he love not his brother whom
he hath seen?" Of the Petrine, Pauline and Johan-
ine types of Christianity you are special represen¬
tative of the latter.
66
Pastoral Section
The office and work of the minister is not simpty
a high calling, but the highest calling. All other
vocations are earthly and involve only temporal
issues. He who is called of God may well turn a
deaf ear to the most flattering notes of earthly
promises. The grass withereth, the flowers fade
and die, crowns and sceptres with those who possess
them must turn to dust, but the word of the Lord
endureth forever. Whether prophet of old or as
apostle of the present, whether evangelist at home
or missionary on distant shores, the preacher be¬
longs to that excellent and heavenly-commissioned
fellowship of whom it may be said, "How beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace
and bring glad tidings of good things."
By scanning the busy ranks of successful human¬
ity or by observing that elect number who have
achieved most for their fellows or posterity, it will
be discovered that their lives or courses were regu¬
lated by the plumb-lines of adaptation and fitness.
On the other hand where short-coming has been no¬
torious, and failure the outcome of otherwise prom¬
ising individuals, it will be seen that this prime con¬
sideration was undervalued; that the square pegs
had wandered into round holes, and that the latter
Pastoral Section
67
had become usurped by square pegs. To make sure
proof of one's ministry, it is of prime importance to
know that the ministry is one's place. In this high
calling the alien-subject may perchance hope tc as¬
sume the aspect of the lion only to betray the pro¬
clivities and short-comings of his real asinine
nature in the end. He may don the professional
ermine and incase himself in the regulation collar
and coat, but these will be no symbols of inward
correspondence or adaptation. Like Saul's armour
on David, the ministry to the unchosen incumbent
will prove an unwieldy, bungling instrument of
fatal hindrance rather than material aid.
The work of the Gospel toiler for the sake of
practical suggestiveness may be considered under a
two-fold division, having the ministerial activity of
our Lord as its standard. For convenience and help¬
fulness we may regard his earthly labors as embrac¬
ing specific and general types. His ministry of
public teaching and doctrine includes the one, while
informal engagements, such as his labors of love,
also his miraculous and merciful deeds, include the
other. As a great teacher and exemplary preacher
he challenges universal interest not only in his tem¬
ple discourse and sermons on sea-shore and moun-
68
Pastoral Sectioii
tain side, thereby demonstrating his ability to hold
vast assemblages of men with unflagging attention,
but in his midnight audience with Nicodemus and
the noonday discourse with the Samaritan woman.
The inaugural of the Master's public life as a
preacher takes us back to the synagogues of Galilee
while His valedictory preaching labors ended in the
porch of the temple at Jerusalem. As a preacher He
eliminated, when He did not subordinate, those
functions usually associated with the office He sus¬
tained. Unlike His forerunner the great preacher
John, He did not baptize, nor, though priest in the
highest sense, did He officiate with offerings or sac¬
rifices save in an exclusively spiritual way. The
sum and culmination of His pre-Calvary mission
was "preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God
and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of
God is at hand; repent ye and believe the Gospel."
Conformable to the more specific and more gen¬
eral character of His Ministry our Lord associated
with Him two groups or classes of disciples. He
first called the twelve apostles and afterwards sent
forth the seventy. For special work the perform¬
ance of which depended upon personal contact and
the experience of discipline, He organized a college
of apostles or disciple training school.
Pastoral Section
69
Beyond the Divinity of Christ's mission and a
basal knowledge of His kingdom, the progress of
the twelve was little more than nominal and strik¬
ingly inadequate to the demands of the farther and
loftier service which awaited them as His immed¬
iate successors and messengers. Gross and mis¬
leading were their conceptions of duty and the re¬
ward involved despite His constant teachings and
the most sublime object lessons of unselfish devo¬
tion. Ambition, temper, cowardice, incapacity and
sundry carnal shortcomings marked their Christian
ministry, until transformed by the ordeals of Cal¬
vary and the resurrection and endued with power
by the Holy Ghost as the direct representative of
the Master. The impetuous Peter swings the
sword and draws blood,while the loving John would
command lightning from heaven to execute ven¬
geance upon men unyielding to the sceptre of Gos¬
pel truth. Others among this supposedly model
group, betray petty jealousy and inordinate ambi¬
tion, applying carnal standards to spiritual con¬
cerns. Strong and deep-seated susceptibilities to
considerations of personal interest are ingrained in
most natures and grace-gifted human nature is
often no exception to the general rule. But as
7°
Pastoral Section
there can be no self-conquest without self-knowl¬
edge, how important it is that this first principle of
victory be understood. The importance of this law
and mode of procedure, the Great Teacher em¬
phasized in the parable of the tower builder. Said
He to those contemplating discipleship in His ser¬
vice : "Which of you intending to build a tower,
sitteth not down and counteth the cost, whether
he have sufficient to finish it? lest haply after he
hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it
all, those that behold it begin to mock him saying
'This man began to build and was not able to fin¬
ish.' " The superstructure you would rear is a
spiritual edifice. It is loftier by far than the towers
of Siloam or Babel or Eifel. Its base is the Lord
Christ Jesus and its summit towers beyond the
clouds.
Question—Why are Christian ministers and workers not
endowed with the gift of performing miracles, as the men in
the Apostolic Age? Pinkston Howard.
Answer—One of the strongest, if not the strongest, grounds
on which any course or movement in its infancy can estab¬
lish a claim in the confidence of men is the divine backing to
which it can appeal. In its infancy, Christianity needed such
credentials, and they were amply supplied in the miracles per¬
formed by Peter, Paul and others. Now that the infant has
become a giant it is able of itself to maintain its own ground
and go on from conquering to conquest.
Pastoral Section
7i
XII
THE PREACHER'S DUTIES TO THE HOME
LIFE.
Far-fetched and misleading is the notion that the
minister's chief sphere of activity is the pulpit. The
home realm must claim his interest and labors to a
no less important degree than the church sphere if
he hopes his work to be most lasting or wishes to do
the most good. The pulpit should concern itself
with spiritual truths applied to practical affairs, but
his mission is incomplete should the preacher fail
to articulate these truths in himself and in the home-
life of his parishioners. The pulpit-saint and street-
devil type of preachers is no more a "homiletical
misfit than the say-all and do-nothing preacher
whose ambition is to preach striking sermons on
Sundays and leave his hearers to shift for them¬
selves the rest of the time. What wbuld be thought
of the shepherd who took the best care of his sheep
for a single day, but left them exposed to danger
72
Pastoral Section
and, neglect the other six days of the week?
Whether such an ill-cared-for flock would soon
perish from the foes without or adversaries within,
its hireling shepherd would soon be without a trust
in the shape of a fold.
The tendency on the part of many preachers is to
subordinate if not entirely neglect the home realm of
his parish, hence the timeliness of hints and instruc¬
tions on this all-important subject. Those who ex¬
cuse themselves from giving attention and service
in this direction usually justify their remissness
on the ground that their popularity or success is
assured without such service. They are great
preachers and can draw and hold the multitudes or
are successful money-getters and are in general de¬
mand, if not in one place then certainly elsewhere.
Not infrequently these unpastoral ministers can be
heard inveighing against pastoral visitation on the
ground that they tend to render the preacher cheap
and common and thus reduce his prestige. Hold
the pulpit with a strong hand, say they, and the
people will come so that you will not have to go
where they are.
The pre-eminent example set by our Lord and
the instructive one furnished in the life and labors
Pastoral Section
73
of Paul leave no room for doubt on the part of the
true Gospel preacher as to his duty and relation to
the home. It is to the home-circle that the minis¬
ter must look for foundation in the pastoral success
for building material in his chosen field of labor
and for those divinely approved ideals which serve
as guiding stars in his service of Faith and Love.
No sane-minded, right-hearted preacher will shirk
his duty to the home under any but the most un¬
toward conditions. He who under any circum¬
stance ignores his duty to the children of his charge
attaches but slight value to the Master's charge to
Peter concerning the lambs and no greater estimate
upon his forceful warning words, "Whoso re-
ceiveth not the kingdom of God as a little child
shall in no case enter therein."
Besides yielding obedience to the requirements
of righteousness and eligibility to the rewards at¬
tending such obedience that attention bestowed
upon children in the home-life or elsewhere seldom
fails to add to the preacher's immediate usefulness
and success. ' The preacher whose influence is diffi¬
cult to kindle can win the sympathy and support
of his parishioners in no surer nor more speedy way
than in following the suggestion noted. Just as it
is comparatively easy to take the cow to market
74
Pastoral Section
or slaughter-house whose calf is gently borne along,
so will the bringing of parents into the fold be
easily accomplished if the children are made to first
lead the way.
Among the preacher's first organized plans for
work or success that which looks for activity among
the young in the home-circle should be given prime
place and importance. No graver blunder is made
by new pastors in the beginning of their labors than
that which aims to capture the big men or influen¬
tial persons of a charge. It is like the folly of an
overpitched hymn as a key-note to congregational
singing or the effort to strike the bull's eye of a tar¬
get by firing above a horizontal line of accurate
aim. To hit far-off objects a good marksman will
aim with a declination according to the ratio of his
marked distance. The opposite illustration can not
fail to suggest the utility and necessity of aiming
low in order to win the hearts of the children as
strategic points to the interest and affections of their
adult guardians and kinsfolks.
The subject of pastor's attention to the home-
realm presents itself with increased seriousness in
proportion as its child-aspect is enlarged upon and
considered in the light of its bearings upon the
adult life symbolized in said realm, but especially
Pastoral Section
75
upon the character and welfare of the millions un¬
born whose destiny is to be effected by the gravity
of this attention or its reverse.
The unflattering character of the average home-
life here represented renders the discussion of the
subject under consideration not only timely, but
imperative.. That our homes are not what Ihey
should be is a truism applicable to the domestic roof
of more favored millions in this and other lands.
That they can and will be improved upon is as true
as the fact that it has undergone marvellous evolu¬
tions in the past. The log-cabin of dirt-floor and
clay-chimney identity is largely a domestic institu¬
tion representing bygone conditions. In the wake
of this architectural makeshift has followed the
one-roomed step-and-porch block-house in rural dis¬
tricts, while-the two-room cottage, often prefaced
by sitting-room and supplemented by kitchen quar¬
ters, mark the evolution of the masses from objec¬
tive slave life to present prevailing home conditions.
As the shell is a generally reliable index of the
kernel enclosed, so the house one inhabits or the
clothes one wears seldom fail to indicate the type
of the clad or sheltered occupants within. The
home whose enclosure is infested with weeds or
7 6
Pastoral Section
whose gate is unhinged, whose fences are broken
down, whose grounds admit vagrant cattle to graze
or gallop, whose windows are chinked with rags,
whose roof is conducive to celestial inspection be¬
cause of unpatched openings, needs no philosopher
or prophet, I say, to surmise the general ethical
aesthetic or mental cast of the inmates of such an
outlined home.
It is claimed that exceptions only prove the rule,
hence it relieves the situation but little to point to
numerous instances within the race where culture,
taste and character ornament its home life. It is
gratifying to note such exceptions and be able to
refer to communities in rural and city localities
where the homes of Afro-American residents are
marked by external attractiveness and where the
olive-branch of peace, the jewel of industry, the
gem of temperance and crown of honor adorn the
domestic altar within.
Improvement of domestic condition with refer¬
ence to the masses especially is the imperative duty
of the hour. It should be keenly appreciated by
those intrusted with the mental and moral welfare
of the race as by no others. Peculiar customs, tra¬
ditions and environments forbid the unrestricted
Pastoral Section
7 i
flow of certain vital privileges which should be en¬
joyed on common Gospel or humanitarian grounds.
While a favored class are encouraged to appropriate
the best elements of growth and manhood offered
by church or state, the less favored class must de¬
pend upon their own resources to a large and pain¬
ful extent. While others receive constant uplift
from diversities of operations and administrations
through endless channels of secular and religious
trend, their less fortunate neighbors are left to
work out their own salvation through avenues few
and meagre. Aside from those of his kind who
minister to his wants in the church or school-room,
there are none who care for the welfare of the more
needy brother. Among the ranks of the dominant
millions are to be found endless agencies for civic
and social betterment, while the same generous
hand of philanthropy reaches out toward the in¬
habitants of lowlier planes. The solitary places of
rural life, the dens and highways of cities, the lanes
and deserts of vice, ignorance and degradation are
made to shed their garments of death and shame at
the touch of gracious ministrants not in touch with
subjects of other climes or colors. With Salvation
Armies to plant their standards upon the ramparts
78
Pastoral Section
of vice which fetter and curse our youth in every
community, with rescue missions to take in and
shelter our juvenile horde of downward tendencies,
with Y. M. C. A. resources and workers to say to
Satanic work-shops typified by idle thousands of
our youth: "Enlist for the Master;" with the si¬
lent forces forged by the press and organized to do
fearful executions in tract and song forms, the
deserts and waste places among us could be soon
made to bloom and blossom as the rose.
But because these facilities are lacking are we to
allow the hedges to flourish and the tides of in¬
iquity to abound? If others will not become our
guides, shall we not lift up a standard for the peo¬
ple? The religious teacher personifies the true
standard bearer for our people and will continue
so to be for a great while to come. He should be
so freighted with knowledge and the spirit of
Christ that young and old alike will look to him
as a trustworthy guide and counsellor in all matters
touching their welfare along all spiritual or secular
lines.
Pastoral Section
79
XIII
DANGER SIGNALS.
The criticism is not infrequentl^heard that there
are more preachers than their ratio to the masses
justify. The claim is said to have special force md
truthfulness when applied to the colored population
in some sections <of this country, in the South more
particularly. Whatever truth is contained in the
charge on a surface view of the case, the conclusion
cannot be sustained from a survey of the under¬
lying- facts in the case. No less is it true to-day
than when our Lord uttered the words, "The har¬
vest truly is great, but the laborers are few."
Rather than exceeding, the supply falls far below
the demand for laborers of the requisite type. Im-
posters, hirelings, wolves in sheep's clothing,
Scribes and Pharisees occupying Moses' seat there
may be too many, but of honest Christ-commis¬
sioned toilers there is nothing like a sufficient quota.
This outrage upon the church, and travesty upon
8o
jpastoral Sectioii
the ministry so rife in the wholesale licensing of
those who not only misrepresent both, but degrade
the race and retard the progress of the Gospel, is
among the most grievous and alarming evils of the
times. Unless this evil be dammed at its fountain-
head as soon as possible, it will be impossible to
describe the flood of judgments that may issue in
its wake. The churches and prophetic schools set for
the defense of thfc Gospel have it in their power to
curtail and checkmate the danger as no other
agency can. When the schools and ministerial
councils shall exercise the courage to say to the
giant intruder: "Thus far shalt thou come and no
further," there will be a speedy shrinkage in the
market value of its stock in trade.
There are sundry considerations, which need
never claim the serious attention of the candidate
for religious service. Still it is to be regretted that
with too many these negative considerations are
granted prime importance. With not a few, the
actuating motive for engag-ement in ministerial ser¬
vice is to acquire eminence, with others emolument,
with others still, the desire to obtain a livelihood.
It is needless to say that all such motives are of the
earth, earthy, and will win success for their pos¬
sessor under no possible circumstances. In rare
Pastoral Section
81
cases any or all of the results mentioned may crown
the labors of the evangelical worker, whose aptitude
and eyesingleness to this service bespeak him a
chosen vessel.
"Are honors, riches and distinction not to be
cared for by the man who devotes his life to the
good of others?" asks one. "By ignoring the tem¬
poral rewards which follow in the wake of the faith¬
ful discharge of conscientious duty, you would
muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, a pro¬
cedure quite contrary to the injunction of the Scrip-
tpre," replies another. As hard as the saying may
seem to the zealous aspirant for the laurels indi¬
cated, they are neither to be sought nor despised.
When tempted to covet gold or silver in order to
avert the fate of Achan or Ananias, or possibly
Judas, it would be well to recall our Lord's declara¬
tion, "How hardly shall they that have riches en¬
ter the Kingdom of Heaven," or the fate of Simon
Magus, or the saying of St. Paul, "For the love of
money is the root of all evil."
To avoid the Scylla of ensnaring riches is not to
founder one's vocational craft upon the Charybdis of
grinding poverty. The laborer's worthiness of his
hire being a generally accepted principle in relig-
82
Pastoral Section
ious economics, the faithful toiler in the Lord's
vineyard, other things being equal, need never fear
distressing howls from the wolf of hunger or pov¬
erty. The spirit that best fortifies God's servant
against the fatal extremes of affluence and depriva¬
tion is best expressed in the prayer of Agur, "Give
me neither poverty nor riches." Nevertheless,
when its possessor is sensible of his trust as a stew¬
ard of the Lord, the snare of riches reaches the van¬
ishing point, and its possession is a blessing in dis¬
guise.
A common snare into which the amateur minis¬
ter is liable to fall is the delusion of popular favor.
By such it is usually thought that in order to suc¬
ceed, it is necessary to be favored with the com¬
mendation of all men. He who starts upon his
career as a worker for God, seeking the praise of
men, will more than likely cherish this as his ulti¬
mate joy. If there is one failing which marks the
ministry above another it is that time-serving, man-
pleasing spirit, which prompts the average preacher
to pursue a bee-line of policy, rather than the plumb-
line of duty. The man or minister who sets out to
be popular may easily succeed in the venture, but
not until after reckoning with two gigantic ques¬
tion points which hail him from the wayside. It is
Pastoral Section
83
a question whether the popularity-coveting candi¬
date can please God and whether he can do the good
he might. To become lionized it is only necessary
to. trim one's sail and catch the shifting winds, ob¬
serve the drift of public sentiment, note the move¬
ment of the procession, quicken the gait, get to the
front, and run up one's standard with the blazing
motto of "Leader!" unfurled to the breeze. Is
wrong trampled under foot, or is truth wounded or
lies it bleeding by the wayside ? Don't see it or sim¬
ply heave a sigh and pass on with the triumphal
procession. Let error muster her angry forces, let
her darken the skies, let her mutter her thunders,
let the elements war with each other, the man with
an eye to personal renown looks not at such unbid¬
den ordeals, it Is his to cater to the freaks of the
populace, and pursue the even tenor of his way.
To him the life of the Nazarene has but little
charm, save in its lessons of self-surrender some¬
times, but in self-assertiveness, never. He thinks
of his possible mission as a reformer, but shudders
as he meets Luther at Worms in fancy, or hails
John the Baptist in Herod's prison, or later on sees
his headless trunk. His ideal is mirrored in Tal-
mage rather than Moody, or in characters of the
Sam Jones type, perhaps, rather than in such royal
84
Pastoral Section
historic landmarks as Socrates, who drank the hem¬
lock toast to immortality, or Latimer, who wel¬
comed the martyr's torch.
Question—Was Paul fully converted before he went to
Ananias ? William Miles.
Answer—Ananias recognized his conversion in addressing
him as "Brother Saul." Paul's praying prior to this is a
striking evidence of his conversion; also his address to Jesus
as his Lord, and his asking what would he have him to do.
Personal and
Miscellaneous Section
86
Personal Section
XLV
SELF AND SERVICE.
Of the numerous obstructions which impede the
average preacher in his movements toward suc¬
cess or the highest usefulness, none is so subtle and
formidable as the love of self. That it is not only
allowable but one's duty to think well of himself,
is granted readily, but that the danger of loving
one's self unduly and to the extent of interfering
with one's duty to his Creator and fellow beings,
is seldom considered with the seriousness and vigil¬
ance it deserves. This impulse toward self, and
selfishness is among the first outcroppings of child¬
hood and ofttimes betrays a clue to future tenden¬
cies when other symptoms fail. The father anxious
to discover certain indications of his son's in¬
clination toward one of the three callings of the
ministry, the law and farming, and who left him in
the nursery with a Bible, a dollar and an apple, and
who returning found him seated on the Bible and
playing with the dollar after having eaten the apple,
Personal Section
87
is a suggestive illustration in point.
That no man liveth to himself is plainly the
teaching of revelation and reason alike. The ex¬
periment failed in the case of Adam whose lone-
someness Heaven pitied and supplemented with a
companionship of a mutually dependent bond. But
for a wanton disregard of the claims of unselfish
fellowship, Cain, the prodigal firstborn of Adam,
had never ventured the audacious question, "Am
I my brother's keeper?" For rather than stain his
hands with his brother's blood, his own life would
have been freely offered instead. The displeasure
of the Almighty in the curse fastened upon Cain
rests upon every man who makes pride and pleasure
his standard rather than the welfare of others.
Before service to others can be successful it is
important that the individual should begin with
himself in an unselfish way. Hence as ministers
to humanity your highest success depends upon
your disposition and ability to conquer yourselves
and rule your own spirits. Of all verbs difficult of
conjugation you will find the Me (Mi) verbs the
hardest, while your utmost ingenuity will be
called forth to cope with the tempting variations
of the pronoun Me. However great the tempta¬
tion for others, as ministers you will find the temp-
88
Personal Section
tation to be selfish well nigh irresistably strong,
since unlike others you are by office and calling to
be subjected to the triple temptations of pride,
power and poverty. If successful, prosperous or
popular, you are likely to be deluged with praise
by admirers, which, unless seasoned with good
sense and restrained by piety on your part, will
minister to your pride and bring you speedily under
condemnation of the Evil One.
Perhaps there is no period in the life of the
preacher when he needs to be more guarded than
when he has conducted a successful campaign in
rescuing souls from the adversary or when he
descends from the pulpit after a baptism of the
Spirit in the delivery of the Word. A certain
spiritual-minded preacher who when complimented
by one of his parishioners for preaching a good
sermon, set an admirable example for more of us
by replying,, "The Devil told me that before you
did." How unlike this modest man of God was the
vainglorious, theological cockscomb, who after
preaching from the text, "Thou shalt see greater
things than these," fished for a compliment from
his pulpit host and was told that the discourse was
more remarkable for length than for any of the
other three dimensions.
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89
It is a distinguishing mark of the self-seeking,
time-serving shepherd when he is querulous and
needlessly alarmed about his livelihood or the
salary stipulated by his church. While it is right
and proper to have arrangements made for your
support as pastors when such is possible, it should
always be done with the utmost latitude and pru¬
dence. I pity the preacher who makes his pulpit
a battery from which to bombard his delinquent or
perhaps recreant congregation on salary dues or
who on leaving the charge puts his claims in the
hands of a lawyer and begins suit for back dues.
The last thing in the world the minister should re¬
sort to is the civil or criminal court, and to1 that
never where the parties involved are of the house¬
hold of faith and the subject is the hired pastor
whose wages have not been paid on account of the
meanness or misfortune of his parishioners.
Like a cancer, the spirit of selfishness is eating
the life of humanity, and the man of God is the only
physician that can arrest its devouring inroads.
But how can he check the fatal distemper unless he
himself is immune from its destructive grasp?
Wherever the self-centered egotistic disposition
dwarfs the preacher's stature a reconstruction is in
prder and possible only on the broad planes of cer^
9°
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tain vital conditions. It is essential in the first
place that we obtain a proper conception of the re¬
lation of the individual to the universal in the scale
of humanity. The truth must be revealed volun¬
tarily or burst into his inner consciousness that no
man liveth unto himself. In the next place it is
indispensable that he comprehend the nature and
demands of his mission.
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9'
XV
NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES.
The force of the Saviour's observation concern¬
ing new wine and old bottles is lost in the march
of arts and the transmutations of speech. What is
suggested as impracticable and unwise in a literal
sense, is most feasible and prudent, the age of the
bottle now used not unfavorably affecting the wine,
and vice versa. When, however, the Oriental ves¬
sel of to-day as well as the article used in the
Saviour's day for the holding and preserving of
wine is recalled, we see the wisdom and necessity
of selecting the one with an eye single to the other.
The wine skin, a vessel of leather, rather than
glass, had to be new in order to suit the working
quality and capacity of the new and fresh output
from the vintage, for if otherwise, explosion would
result and the contents of the skins become lost.
Old ideas and institutions for old forms and the
reverse, but for new ideas and institutions there
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must be new forms and a tough and elastic organ¬
ism suitable to the expansive life within.
To none is the injunction of adjustment to con¬
ditions so much in order as to the laborer for spirit¬
ual results. As religious workmen you are to be
constantly on the guard for the dead line of out¬
grown forms and usages and when you find a
corpse take it to be your duty to give it a decent
burial. There is no surer short cut to the potter's
field than to load the shoulders of a vigorous sub¬
ject with the deadly form of a lifeless body as the
Romans would treat a class of their condemned
criminals who amid such fatal torture would cry,
"O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me
from the body of this death."
The moral health and spiritual vitality of the
church to-day are jeopardized beyond description
on account of the failure of her ministers to realize
the difference between ever-shifting forms and ever
changeless contents. The young theologian who
dreams that he will on completing his studies don
the ready-to-wear ecclesiastical outfit of the fathers,
should rid himself of the fallacy at once. This is
true of those who lay stress upon the exercise and
application of the mental powers in the working out
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of religious problem and of those who do no think¬
ing- equally as well. As this latter class is more
numerous than the other, it is well that you be ad¬
vised of the fatal consequences attendant upon in¬
tellectual stagnation on the one hand and adhesion
to weather-beaten processes on the other. Nothing
will surprise and probably shock some of you who
may be slow to improve by these suggestions more
than to find many of the methods of the past utterly
worthless as working materials in your 'day. Re¬
adjustment of methods along various lines you will
find imperative and in order that you be guarded
for such emergencies as will test your wisdom, I
shall aim to be practical and present a few special
suggestions. And first with regard to your labors
among the young.
Time there was when the children of the church
and community could be captured without any par¬
ticular effort on the part of the preacher. That is,
they would flock to the Sunday-schools and fill the
pews of the churches because of the example and
teachings of their parents and perhaps equally as
plausible, because there was no other place of re¬
sort offering appreciable inducements to the young.
Now the situation is different and the spirit of the
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times has changed. The arguments of threats and
warning will come nearer emptying than filling
Sunday-schools and Christian Endeavor gather¬
ings. The spirit of fear did its work among the
older generations but it has been succeeded by the
spirit of love and moral suasion which is destined
to do greater wonders in succeeding times. The
age is exceedingly practical and incredulous. Chil¬
dren who think or are led by likes or repulses may
be reached by persuasive rather than by drastic
method's. A stick of candy will extend much far¬
ther in enlisting juvenile interest or devotion than
forests of switches or tons of hickory oil. The day
of allegiance to iron collars and imperious bossism
is a thing of the past and no one knows it better
than the fledgling of the present day whose pen-
feathers give promise of activity in freedom's
realm.
The moral of our topic also demands conformity
to the spirit of reciprocity and diplomacy on the
part of the preacher. He who would control a fol¬
lowing of adults or juveniles must know that he
must coax and induce rather than drive. It makes
little difference how much of right or reason or
law or official authority may be on your side, you
Personal Section-
95
will be worse tnau c. blunderbuss not to exercise
tact or stoop to conquer when necessary to succeed
or score a point of victory. It is ridiculously pain¬
ful to see a minister bucking against the tide of his
people's disfavor over some trivial issue not having
the gumption to resign, compromise or sue for
peace when his honor or interests are not to be haz¬
arded by the trial.
In your disposition to win laurels as disciplin¬
arians, take heed lest you forfeit 0£ strain your
credit a's Gospel messengers. It is impossible to es¬
timate the havoc played by the preacher, who with
his church law in one hand grits his teeth and
shakes the other fist in the face of his members who
entertain conflicting opinions or who may be remiss
in matters of duty. Ministers of this combative
class often meet the fate of the famous goat whose
butting proclivities were 'satisfied in his being al¬
lowed to have full headway at a swinging iron
pestle.
In your experience as pastors, you will find the
fire of life aglow in young and old. Yo-u will be
unwise to attempt either to extinguish or suppress
its flames. If you are wise, you will seek to secure
this energy in proper safety valves or direct its ac-
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Personal Section
tivity for more wholesome service. All pleasures
are not to be denounced as forbidden or fatal and
you will do well to draw the discriminating line
with pious intelligence. It would be far better to
create the capacity for spiritual service and enjoy¬
ment when the tendency toward inferior diversions
will wane. At any rate, the right-minded shep¬
herd will exercise great caution in picturing all
pleasures as damning or all diversions as wrong
on the part of the members of his fold. There are
numerous games and plays which, while the
preacher may be disinclined to license himself to
patronize, nevertheless he need not be half so ex¬
acting toward his members. A splendid ever-
workable rule for the guidance of your course and
the regulation of your conduct is the exercise of
good common sense controlled by that charity which
suffereth long and is kind and throws its gracious
mantle around everything it touches.
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97
XVI
THE MINISTRY OF LITTLE THINGS.
If there is one point which it will pay to remem¬
ber during one's preparation for, as well as after
one's entrance upon the work of the ministry, it is
the place and importance of little things. The
thing with which the student in school as well as
the student in life concerns himself most and un-
warrantedly is results. For the artist to keep his
gaze rivetted upon the picture he would copy would
render the wings of his genius difficult of flight, but
no more so than the man who constantly directs his
eye toward the end for which, rather than to the
means by which, he hopes to attain success.
Laudable indeed is the aspiration which ever and
anon beholds and even reaches after the prize, but
sure, swift and steady must be the footsteps before
the first condition of triumph heaves in sight. It is
the natural tendency of the mind to deal with
wholes rather than component parts, to overlook
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the trifles of fractions in the hurried rush for re¬
sults. In like manner the eye is more synthetical
than analytical, focussing- its vision less upon mo¬
notonous vales than projecting- hills, and more upon
resplendent suns and planets than upon minor stars
or less luminous satellites. F.or poets and dream¬
ers, rather than for philosophers and practical
minds, this disposition to overlook the small for the
great may be indulged.
The philosophy and rule of life for you and all of
us who would work for God and build ourselves and
others for eternity is to heed the ministry and
despise not the day of small things. This tendency
to ignore the ministry of little things should be
checked in the trifling estimate generally placed
upon the value of time. By a methodical use of
time what wonders have been accomplished in the
various undertakings by patient persistent plodding.
The generally low estimate placed upon the golden
hours and silver moments of life is well reflected in
the current phrase of "killing time."
It is a sight sad enough to behold aimless multi¬
tudes wasting the precious oil of life in idleness,
but a sadder spectacle still is that of the preacher
at a loss to know what disposition to make of his
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99
time from Monday morning- to Saturday night.
Heaven pity the man in its professed employ who
appears not to know what to do with himself. For
want of a better term I would dub the preacher a
ministerial "sponge" whose resources of usefulness
and energies are all absorbed on Sunday, and who
goes aimlessly about the rest of the week. If you
have nothing to do, better a thousand times lounge
around the parsonage, play with the children, or
catch flies for diversion as a certain forgotten king,
than wantonly waste your time as many are wont to
do. I take it that the preacher who makes it a point
to drop around at certain parishioners' homes in
time to enjoy the table comforts or who prefers
to visit certain other homes when the head is else¬
where is a ministerial tramp who has sadly missed
his calling. No man of God having a proper re¬
gard for the honor of his calling, the credit of his
church and family or his own reputation as a moral
guide in a community, will be found frittering away
his time in public or in private quarters among
parishioners.
As an antidote for time-killing, let me 1 wuttl"
mend the adoption of a schedule or routine which
will rigidly exclude such dissipations and tempta-
too
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tions as those hinted at and more serious ones. A
generally commendable plan is that which has an
allotment for each day in the week whether little or
much is accomplished by way of fidelity at first or
not. The hours of mornings may with propriety,
be devoted to study and domestic interests. It
might be given out that a certain hour in the early
afternoons is sacred to the call of visitors. An af¬
ternoon might be set apart for general visitation
among your parishioners or in search of the sheep
of nobody's folds. Another afternoon should be
devoted to calls among the sick. Some other day
in part, the school, prison, orphanage or old folks'
home may be visited and an uplifting word or ray
of sunshine in the Master's name be left at each
place visited.
In the category of little things with which as
ministers you are to concern yourselves, I would
next consider the importance of cultivating a devo¬
tional spirit. From an extensive and varied per¬
sonal experience, I regret to state that only a small
fraction of those who preach possess more than a
theoretical knowledge of the Gospel. A thousand
unconscious acts and words from a large percent¬
age of those who misrepresent the Master, plainly
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demonstrate that they lack his life and spirit. What
thoughtful or pious observer could witness the sight
of a preacher beginning his meal without some sign
of gratitude, or enter his pulpit without a token of
reverence, or fall upon his couch at night without
an ejaculation to the Almighty? Who could behold
such spectacles of inconsistency and sacrilege as
these without concluding that such characters sadly
impede the cause of religion?
At best, the little things in a minister's conduct
and character, are magnified and twisted into, all
shapes by an unsympathetic and censorious world.
It stands usi in hand, therefore, to be careful and
not allow the little things we say or do to become
the occasion of others stumbling. A proper devo¬
tional spirit, my brethren, will render us secure
against the fatal attacks of assailants of every kind
and at the same time so exalt and enlarge the
preacher's nature that he will delight to magnify
the little good and overlook the petty bad in those
about him.
The ministry of little things should have a mean¬
ing in the numerous trifles which constitute and
condition the life of the preacher and people alike,
materially speaking. Your most stubborn barrier
I 02
Personal Section
will be the lack of means for yourselves and fami¬
lies most likely, while want and poverty for a long
while will be the common lot of those to whom you
minister. If there is one lesson that you are en¬
joined to enforce both by practice and precept, it is
that of a rigid self-denying economy. Your pay
will be small and the wages of your parishioners
may be meager, but out of a little save a little.
Every preacher should have a nest egg for a rainy
day and see to it that the nest is not disturbed, ex¬
cept to make room for additional eggs. A tithe
saved from the fortunes thrown away in super-
flous food, dress and dissipation, would soon place
the race on as firm financial basis as the Jews and
transform the scornful frowns of those who now
despise or maltreat us into smiles and cordial fel¬
lowship. Aside from its church buildings and
modest homes the race has little to challenge the
attention of the business world. We must have
more mills, factories, banks and business houses,
and a few railroads and steamboats to bind us to
the commercial world. But we must part company
with much of the frivolity and extravagance which
press us down before we can hope to obtain them.
Let us despise not the day of small things, my
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brethren. Their ministry and majesty are out¬
stretched in the shining heavens and proclaimed
o'er the earth and the seas." The ocean will tell
us of the drops which compose its greatness and
the continents remind us of the sand and dust par¬
ticles which comprise their bulk if we doubt or dis¬
own the ministry of little things. All history and
biography teem with the truth of the divinity of
little things in the lives of individuals, in the ca¬
reer of nations and the drama' of life. What is life
after all but a school for the development of char¬
acter for eternity. And what is Character but the
sum of little things we think and say and do and
are. And what is Eternity but endless time. And
what unending time but the precious moments,
the silver hours, the golden days, the jeweled years,
the diamond centuries, the incalculable cycles tha{;
flow ceaselessly on forever.
Personal Section
XVII
THE MINISTRY OF MAGNITUDES.
I have spoken in another connection of the value
and place of little things in your work as ministers.
It will add gravity to your calling and give weight
to your endeavors if however you cultivate im¬
pressions or seek inspiration from the great themes
and things inseparably connected with your mission
and ministry as men. In the insects, animalcules,
dust particles and light rays are doubtless to be
seen reflections of the Creator's regard for little
things. But as there is a side of majesty as well
as mercy to the divine nature, our thoughts like a
pendulum should swing no less to the one than to
the other. The eye whose vision is keen enough to
behold the Almighty mirrored in a dew-drop should
at a glance discern his infinite reflections in the
fathomless deeps of sea or skies. Such magni¬
tudes as nature furnishes in her mountains, oceans,
planets, suns and systems, will be found uplifting
Personal Section
°5
energies to the soul who should feel no less at home
at one point amid the endless empire of his
Maker than another.
If it be true that as a man thinks so he is, I
would suggest that great themes and things be up¬
permost in your thoughts as preachers. In the ob¬
jective world therefore you will do well to select
as subjects of reflection the august creations of
nature. With a disposition to discover the foot¬
prints of the Almighty through His works, you
will find volumes of inspiration in the pages of Job.
Make living pictures of the frolicking behemoth
and leviathan of the deep and the roaring forest
king and war-horse whose neck is clothed with
thunder. From the wild beasts' lairs and forest
jungles it might be well to lose ones self in the soli¬
tude of the desert and take in the Almighty land¬
marks, whose cloud-peircing brows are bathed in
eternal snows. How many of us can recall the sen¬
sations awakened at our first sight of the ocean or
mountains? Well do I remember my impressions
as I gazed upon the canons of Colorado and Pike's
Peak and Mt. Shasta and Mt. Renier for the first
time. If certain devotional Psalms have hitherto
been meaningless and lifeless as dry bones, they
106 Personal Section
take on new life and majesty in the presence of the
towering witnesses piled up in awe-inspiring heaps
by nature's wayside. "As the mountains are round
about Jersualem;" "Who hath weighed the moun¬
tains'in balances;" "Marvellous are thy works," are
samples of Scriptural truths which find striking
point and emphasis in the mighty works of God
whether seen in the mountains of holy writ or in
the mighty systems which tower and expand like
the Allegheny and Rockies of our own era and con¬
tinent.
But if the mountains are exponents of divine
power and majesty, how much more so the contin¬
ents of which they are but trifling links. And after
all, are the continents any more than single notes in
the great scale of creation.
These huge bulks of territory are vast mines
wherein are stored supplies for the successive de-
scendents of the human family for unborn cycles.
Who can estimate the pent-up treasures stored
away in their unexplored bosoms, what tape line
has ever compassed the metes and bounds of their
wealth of hidden secrets and provisional bounties
for bird and beast, and man, their earthly lord ?
Since, however, the body is of vastly greater
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moment than its parts, so is mother earth a factor
of greater consequence than her children, the var¬
ious continents. Yet what a field does the terres¬
trial globe afford for the play of man's liveliest
fancy! Is not its bulk too vast for the brain of the
poet or geologist to span? Its trackless circuit
around the sun or its own elliptic orbit what brain
can follow without fatigue and disheartening
failure. But the earth though vast and brain-
racking in immensity is but a speck in the illimitable
expanse of creation, a minute spot in the mighty
system to which it belongs. And then we are told
that eighty millions of such 'systems roll in the
world of space to which our own system is again
as nothing.
But if man's imagination is made to stagger and
reel in the presence of stupendous matter, what
must his conception be of his Maker when He re¬
flects Himself through the overmastering concepts
of space and time? As the Almighty is mirrored in
the illimitable fields of the universe and eternity, the
creature beholder becomes overwhelmed more and
more in the consciousness of his own littleness and
the majesty of Him who is All in All and over all
eternally.
io8
Personal Section
XVIII
THE INDUSTRIOUS PREACHER.
There is a widespread and pernicious fallacy
which has ever stamped labor with the hoof-mark
of the fall. Of all manual service is this deroga¬
tory estimate ventured, and in proof of its validity
is frequently quoted the Adamic reproof, "In the
sweat of thy face shall thou eat thy bread." Had
man not sinned and forfeited the pristine favor of
nature, according to this conjecture, not only would
mortality have been forever barred from the earth,
but peace, rest and plenty had reigned as copiously
in the terrestrial realms as in the realms supernal.
Strange anomaly that which in one breath would
trace all the ills humanity is heir to, to the tragic
act in Eden, and in the next would from that self¬
same act unfold the highway to ten thousand joys.
As to the issue of man's original misdeed there
need be speculative sword-crossings. By meeting on
the half-way grounds there may be no room for
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challenge or conflict. Through the microscope of
revelation let nature be seen quivering beneath the
death-blow of the fall. Through the telescope of
faith and reason she may be seen brought back to
life with man the unsceptred monarch on the
throne. Faith in the restorative virtues of his
stricken parent was the sovereign arm that lifted
him to power once more and gave him strength to
become the architect of his own fortune on water,
land or in mid air.
The dignity and nobility of labor is a moral
truism whose transparency becomes more obvious
as the veil of superstition is lifted from the surface
and the operation of things take form and hue from
the uncolored glass of reason or spiritual analysis.
This organic law of nature is inherent through¬
out the domains of creation and its unyielding fiat
at once arrests the attention of each traveller at the
threshold of life's gateway. It was not the Pauline
injunction exclusively nor primarily which said "If
a man work not, neither shall he eat." Over na¬
ture's entrance, "No idlers here," swings out in
bold relief, catching the eyes of humanity from
Adam's day and onwards, and Paul but translated
the classic, world-worn order into the vernacular
of his day and ours as well.
I Id
Personal Section
If the fact, impulse and necessity of labor be in
keeping with the constitution of nature, no one
should escape its claims, while its servile and for¬
bidding aspect should be allowed to prey no longer
upon the credulity of men. The wide-spread pre¬
judice and ignorance which impute drudgery to this
noblest among creative functions must, by-and-by,
yield right-of-way to the eternal truth, that work is
essential and glorious among men on earth as
among celestial kings.
Among the countless accusations which have
been laid at the door of the Evil One, indolence or
disbelief is without a footing and is not as much
as mentioned. Beelzebub nor his emissaries can be
credited with the bread of idleness, however much
others may be persuaded through their influence to
deny the claims of labor. By incessant toil the
Prince of Darkness has achieved conquests of as¬
tonishing magnitude and it is only necessary for
those who resist his inroads and aspire to scale the
heights of ultimate victory to buckle on the harness
of bravery and march to the music whose invincible
spell is the labor omnia vincit refrain of the ages.
That idleness is the vantage ground of the Evil
One is strongly intimated in the familiar adage,
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111
"An idle brain is the Devil's workshop." How¬
ever, not to associate evil consequences with an in¬
active body as well as indolent mind is to deny the
relationship between cause and effect or between the
stream and its fountain-head. In the contention
that the mind and muscles should both be engaged
in wholesome service, it is not meant that each is
to be equally exercised, or that the one or the other
may not be devoted to the employment best suited
to its capacity or organization. In the physical and
moral economy of nature the stamp of eternal dis¬
approbation has been placed upon inertness, and
there is no surer pathway to death in either realm
than the existence whose chief expression is sloth or
aimlessness.
In obedience to the command to subdue the
earth, God's children have tunneled mountains and
converted wild and worthless planes into royal
highways. They have wooed such deadly forces of
nature as electricity, wind, water, fire and various
gases, and made them obedient agents of human
needs. At the sound of the voice of industry the
sea has yielded up its hidden treasures, and the
mines and fields and forests have poured unspeak¬
able bounties at the feet of man. In the crude out-
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lines of a marble boulder Michael Angelo saw the
sleeping- visage of an angel and called it to life by
persistent will and work. But for putting forth
these same energies upon the plastic form of
nature, the- savage eye of man might forever stare
without seeing aught but the crude outlines of
water, air and earth.
As the apostles of truth and the advance couriers
of progress, it is the minister's duty both by pre¬
cept and example to teach the nobility, yea, the
divinity of labor. This should be done not only
upon the authority of reason and arguments drawn
from earthly and human sources, but upon the su¬
preme sanctity of Divine example as well. The
first syllable uttered by Revelation represents the
Almighty as operating within the circle of His
Sovereign Infinitude of Will and Omnipotence,,
leaving the heavens and the earth as a result of this
Deific activity. That there has been no cessation
of this activity, except in a creational sense and
with reference to the sphere involved, is likely to
be denied only by the assumptions of an overcredul-
ous fancy. He who created all things has not
yielded the reins of Omnipotence, but displays the
same infinite energy by upholding it perpetually by
the Sovereign word of His power .
Personal Section
XIX
THE PREACHER A RACE MAN.
It is not the preacher's mission or business to con¬
cern himself with sin or wrong-doing in the ab¬
stract, but rather in the concrete and in a practical
way. In a general way he will more than likely
admit its reality and magnitude, but in order to
checkmate its ravages he must appreciate its exceed¬
ing sinfulness and undermine the foundations
which give it power and play. Not only is the evil
and deadliness of sin to be recognized in the 'world
at large, but "especially in the career of nations and
people as affecting their weal or woe, their fate or
fortune. More and more is stress and emphasis to
be placed upon the inspired declaration that right¬
eousness exalteth a nation while sin is a reproach
to any people.
Your attention was previously called to the triple
forces of wealth, education and numbers as poten¬
tial factors in working out the material welfare of
U4
Personal Section
any people. There are the evils of ignorance, crime
and irreligion; three other tremendous powers of a
destructive nature, which should be considered if
the fearful death rate of the race is to be arrested,
and our vigor and longevity as a particular people
is to be insured. Not only is it enough that the
preacher have at heart the salvation of the human
race, but it is essential that he have at heart the sal¬
vation of his own particular race. The examples
of Moses, Jeremiah, Our Lord and Paul, abundantly
justify the assertion made.
Religious and secular history are replete with
instances in proof of the truth that nations and
races are saved by their own leaders rather than by
those of other peoples. When Israel needed a
deliverer, God might have raised up some giant-
hearted champion of another race, but he preferred
to select Moses for this work, who was skilled in
Egyptian sciences, but thoroughly in touch and
sympathy with his people. He exhibited such an
ardent affection for his brethren that on one oc¬
casion he slew an Egyptian who oppressed them,
and at another time jeopardized his own welfare
with the Almighty by proposing that his own name
be blotted out rather than Israel should be de-
Personal Section
ii5
stroyed for its murmurings and transgressions.
The type of the kind of race man needed for the
times is strikingly represented in Jeremiah, who,
on account of his large sympathy for the Jews, his
brethren, and his consciousness of their sin-endan¬
gered condition made him mournfully exclaim, "O
that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain
of tears that I might weep day and night for the
slain of the daughters of my people."
You will be justified in the hope to succeed, my
brethren, to the extent that you believe in being
called to preach to men in general but to your
race-variety in particular. In the Gospel service
race preference is commendable, while race pre¬
judice is damnable. Peter had so much of the latter
that he was only cured by a direct revelation from
the Lord which taught him that in every race
those who feared God and wrought righteousness
were the chosen vessels of heaven.
That Paul is to be regarded as a man of rare race
devotion is established in his boasted claim as a
Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, nor
was this inherent characteristic eradicated as a re-
suit of subsequent spiritual development, for he
ever and anon betrayed the same deep-seated race
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concernment. At one time this profound race de¬
votion led him to exclaim: "Brethren, my prayer
to God night and day is that Israel might be saved."
At another time it led him to declare with em¬
phasis : "I could wish that myself were accursed
from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen accord¬
ing to the flesh, who are Israelites." Rom. 9: 3.
Yet, despite Paul's unquestioned race devotion, the
breath of his sympathies and catholicity of his faith
are well reflected in his writings and in his appro¬
priate designation as the apostle to the Gentiles.
In the example of our Saviour are we to find the
proper standard of race bearings and sympathies,
my brethren. In the truest and highest sense was
He the Son of Man, so that no race could claim
Him in an exclusive or selfish sense. It is emphati¬
cally true that he has drawn all men to Him as He
declared that He would do in the event of His eleva¬
tion by the cross. This is the spiritual mission of
the Gospel and this should be the glorious end to¬
ward which the faithful servant of Christ will direct
all his zeal and labors.
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XX
THE MINISTER AND MORALS.
It is your business as moral leaders, my brethren,
to acquaint yourselves with wrongdoers and note
the cause, course and consequence of their mis¬
deeds. Sympathy perhaps, but custom certainly
will lead you to visit jails and perhaps conduct your
footsteps to the culprits' scaffold and witness the
destruction of their bodies because of crime. Your
duty, however, does not end when you have held
religious service with the living prisoner or over his
dishonored remains.
Above your solemn prayers and entreaties for
the conversion, reformation or pardon of all such
unfortunate souls, you will find that you have done
a higher and more lasting service when you have
restrained the footsteps of others or prevented the
first flagrant act that ends in dishonor or an un¬
timely grave.
Your interest in wrongdoers and unfortunates
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will expose you to uncomplimentary criticisms and
sometimes great annoyance. But what should they
taunt you with the adage that, "Birds of a feather
flock together?" What should they impute to your
acts of benevolence, motives ulterior or sinister.
Comments equally hostile have been attached to the
actions of the best and most worthy in all ages, and
even the guileless Nazarene did not seek or wish
to escape such bombardments. By reason of His
overflowing benevolence and compassion the Sav¬
iour of sinners was constantly assailed by shallow
and selfish soreheads. The boldest truth of His
earthly life and labors was that the Son of man
came to minister rather than to be ministered to.
Though Himself lacking, he gave bread to the hun¬
gry and drink to the thirsty, nevertheless they
charged Him as gluttonous and a wine bibber.
While you are to be careful lest your good be evil
spoken of, you are to bear in mind the Master's
warning, "Woe unto you when all men speak well
of you." Your leverage as moral factors in the
people's uplift will be best secured by obtaining
more than a surface knowledge of men's sinfulness
in general and by being actuated by a desire to
rescue the unfortunate subjects of wrongdoing. Of
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sin in the abstract and aggregate it is not enough
to speak and know, but with stubbborn object les¬
sons in the shape of its most striking instances must
knowledge be possessed should the best results be
hoped for in the way of doing good and saving
souls.
The field for activity in a sympathetic way as
relates to those among whom you will be called to
labor, is teeming in abundance and is white unto the
harvest. You will find in prison cells many who
should claim your sympathy and help, because of
misfortune rather than any fault of theirs. On hu¬
manitarian rather than on sectarian grounds you
should seek to effect their liberation. While the
misfortune of all men should claim the interest of
God's workmen, that of his own race-variety should
enlist his sympathies most. To you, therefore, the
grievous moral condition of the millions of the Dark
Continent in America and elsewhere should ap¬
peal with tremendous emphasis.
Among the special aspects of this grave moral
problem which you are called upon to consider, the
temperance aspect is of commanding importance.
That this particular race-variety should be signal¬
ized by the virtues of temperance above other peo^
I 20
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pies is a fact of obvious prominence. If of those
who make and traffic in the death dealing beverage
more than others an apology for their iniquitous
enterprise be demanded, a measure of excuse might
be indulged, in the conceded advantage such peo¬
ple enjoy in their towering sources of mental and
material greatness. Frenchmen may be notorious
for their tippling habits. Germans may be famed
for their familiarity with the beer glass. The Hol¬
lander may revel in his gin and the Chinaman in
his opium den, for each has had his day of growth
and may precipitate his era of decline. But with
an amateur people those things which invite adver¬
sity and insure decay should be rigidly set aside
and alcoholic drinks rank prime among such evils.
This giant evil may wrestle with a giant race with¬
out danger of doing fatal and irreparable harm
compared with the penalties which will ensue from
an encounter between said giant and an infantile
people such as we are forced to acknowledge our¬
selves. Young gentlemen, as invincible knights in
the mortal combat against king alcohol, I forewarn
you of the motley and seductive forms in which
the monster will engage your resources. You may
not suspect him in the social throng, yet his shadow
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lurks in the sparkling glass and his echoes ring out
with the merry laughter. His daggered hand in¬
cased in the glove of friendship may take advantage
of domestic or nuptial license and press the cup of
woe to the lips of innocence. If you are able to es¬
cape the snares and outwit the wily arguments of
the bacchanalian siren, you have won first honors
in the conflict and can buckle on the harness of a
knight against a foe worthy of your keenest steel.
But it is against the more unblushing adversary
of popular immorality superinduced by the demon
of alcoholism that I warn you arm yourselves.
This shape of the adversary will confront you in
public entertainments beyond your own jurisdic¬
tion, and in church picnics and excursions within
your pastoral management. How often are these
agencies of religion not transformed into liveries of
hell! What a travesty upon the Church, what an
outrage upon Christianity that rum and riot should
be allowed to reign where reason, if not righteous¬
ness, is entitled to sway! The feasts of temperance,
plays of innocence and songs of good cheer which
marked the average Sunday-school picnic of the
past,alas,have given place to such scenes and dissipa¬
tion nowadays as might put the Bowery to the blush
122
Personal Section
or renew the curse of Sodom. The insidious,
brazen-faced usurper, I am sorry to say, is known,
alas, too frequently to encroach upon the sacred
precincts set apart for religious services and show
scorn and contempt for those who personify the
priesthood. So stigmatized have certain time-
honored services known as tent, camp, or grove
meetings become in current phraseology that such
terms as "scamp meetings" and "religious menag¬
eries" are best used to designate them. So demor¬
alizing and notorious have such travesties upon holy
worship become that it is to the credit of many
churches and a multitude of ministers that they are
growing in general disfavor.
This appalling chapter on popular immorality
and intemperance is not complete until the curtain
is drawn and you as sentinels and saviors of the
masses are induced to take in the situation as it
really is. A turning on the search light, not upon
the exceptional few, but upon the multitudinous
many cannot fail to bring to view a picture whose
moral coloring is enough to make angels weep. To
behold such heart-rending spectacles, you will not
find it necessary to frequent court rooms and rail¬
road stations where the curious and idle flock like
Personal Section
123
vultures. The haunts of vice such as houses of
shame, crap dens and other resorts of darkness are
infested with deadly palls of degradation, but you
will also find them draping the public walks and
blackening the thoroughfares of everyday life with
the darkness of despair, if you will but pause
long enough to realize the situation about you.
124
Personal Section
XXI
MANHOOD MAKING.
If there is one virtue and product whose claim it
would be well for the moral or religious artisan to
emphasize as pre-eminent it is the virtue'of man¬
hood and its correlative man. Sad it is that the
disposition to overlook the one or underestimate the
other is so general even on the part of those whose
prime duty it is to impersonate the one and produce
the other. If man is the most royal work of the
Creator as some one has said and if the proper
study of mankind is man as another has said, no
aim can be.higher than the perfecting of this mas¬
terpiece of creation.
As ministers your highest success will be found
to depend upon the extent to which the manhood
conception dominate your thoughts and the ele¬
ments of manliness enter into your beings. The
ringing injunction of Jehovah to Jeremiah in days
long past to go about Jerusalem in search of a man,
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is by no means foreign to the situation of our own
clay and times. At all public outposts and in the
private walks of life at every turn, the crying call
is for men, but from no ranks or quarters is the cry
for such so piercing or far reaching as from the
Almighty-commissioner to those He has called to
the best service in time and the most enduring
offices and rewards of eternity.
In your future fields of service some of you will
doubtless excel as church builders; others will
make your marks as money gatherers and debt pay¬
ers. There can be objections to none of these dis¬
tinctions provided you do not allow yourselves to
fall short of your supreme mission as moulders of
character and makers of men.
In order to best serve humanity it is necessary to
be men and fully cognizant of the needs of the race.
This is the surest and most promising. Not mas¬
culine bipeds as to sex and animal classification, but
robust, heroic beings as to moral and rational con¬
stitutions. Men of the general and superficial type,
there are multitudes ; men of the specific and es¬
sential type are few and far between. As the su¬
preme end of your service to humanity, the pro¬
duction of the manhood type, it is essential that you
personify that type yourselves.
The speaker would not have himself misunder-
126
Jfersonal section
stood on this vital point and so repeats the asser¬
tion that the man -\yho would train others to meas¬
ure up to the manhood standard must be a man
himself. Were I addressing a mixed audience of
Biblical students and Christian workers represent¬
ing the different race varieties, I could be no less
emphatic in insisting upon this point. Whatever
may be the drawbacks or advantages attaching to
race identity or affiliations, it is your prime obli¬
gation and prerogative to be men. But as I am ad¬
dressing those who are to labor among the dusky
multitudes of a recently enfranchised but proscribed
people, perhaps it is suggested, that I exhort you to
be colored or Negro men, first of all. Far from
heeding the suggestion that you circumscribe your
manhood by reducing and subordinating it within
the metes and bounds indicated by race environ¬
ments and forbidding past and present conditions.
I would a thousand fold adjure you to make th5
best of these and yourselves as well and stop not one
whit short of the fullest manhood measure. This
counsel is the more imperative because of the pre¬
valence of false standards and doctrines, designed
to invalidate your manhood and prophetic of no
less result than the most fatal miscarriage of the
Personal Section
127
plans and purpose of Providence in the creation and
mission he gave you. You may have been or may
be advised in menacing or covert counsel that your
race and color will forever preclude you from the
possibility of ever becoming more than a fraction
of the manhood unit.
You are to be told or have been told that your,
manhood is represented by the segment rather than
by the entire circle and that you are the whole of a
part rather than a part of the whole. A true esti¬
mate of yourselves and proper conception of your
mission will impel you to combat and rout such in¬
roads upon your sovereign rights and endowments
no matter when or where encountered.
It is perhaps needless to remind you that you
can best offset the anti-Negro manhood standard,
first, by placing a higher estimate upon yourselves,
thereby convincing those who would deny you
equality of manhood, that you are to be credited for
integrity at least. He who does not think of him¬
self the highest is in no shape to do the best ser¬
vice for others and can not uplift himself or others.
Couldst thou in vision see
Thyself the man God meant,
Henceforth thou wouldst be
The man thou art content.
Question—With helpful opportunities granted and the man
128
Personal Section
fails to succeed, do you consider that he was as strongly en¬
dowed as the man who succeeds. I refer to such cases as
Judas and Peter. W. M. TiMMS.
Answer—1 take it that Judas was not altogether a failure,
but rather the type of a successful failure, that is with regard
to his special genius for money-getting. And after all every¬
thing may depend upon what is meant by success. In the eyes
of men many are adjudged as failures though they have done
their best. In their day and generation no- fruits are visible
from their labors, they simply sowed the seed or laid the foun¬
dation for God-favored enterprises which have blessed un¬
told generations. I see no difference in the endowments of
Peter and Judas, both appear to have embodied extraordi¬
nary will, power and strong natures with the only difference
that each took a different fork of the road and kept to the
end of it.
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129
XXII
ADVERSITY IN PASTORAL SERVICE.
There are dark days inseparable from the life of
every man. Such days may be multiplied and in¬
tensified in proportion to the loftiness of one's mis¬
sion and the consecration of his time and talents to
the glory of God and the welfare of His fellow be¬
ings. The minister is pre-eminently a character of
the type specified and must therefore be a "man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief" at intervals to
say the least. The lives of all towering characters,
whether figuring as patriarch, prophets or poten¬
tates of the old dispensation, or preacher, reformer
or leader of later times, afford endless and varie¬
gated chapters in the history of experimental vicis¬
situdes. Note the lives of righteous Noah, of faith¬
ful Abraham, of the patriarchs Jacob and Joseph,
of the meek man Moses, of a daring Daniel, of a
God-acknowledged Job, a heaven-honored Elijah, a
glorified Paul, a Christ-commissioned Peter and
13°
Personal Sectioii
Christ-exalted John of the Old and New Testa¬
ments and you have transcendent object lessons in
the law of sadness and suffering as the lot of those
chosen of the Lord.
In the ranks of God's employees there are no
privileged classes, no exceptional few whose rare
lot it is to climb up some other way. All of God's
laborers must pass through the vale of tears, must
at some time feel the pressure of the yoke and stroke
of the rod. During the season of drill preparatory
to his entrance upon the stern experiences of mili¬
tary life, the soldier in camp or training can but
feebly realize more than the poetic side of the ser¬
vice he is soon to espouse. So, too, it is not unlikely
that to most young men undergoing the camp life
and manoeuvres of seminary drill, the future is
painted in roseate colors. Should I be addressing
such I warn you take in the sombre clouds along
with the silver lining. Would you anticipate flow¬
ery pathways across which you are to press your
pilgrimage, I would not have you look for them
without reckoning for thorns and serpents in am¬
bush. The checkered career of most students' lives
are abbreviated types of a bold-faced adverse future
and in the case of the Biblical student especially
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it were well to adjust himself to the divine eco¬
nomy involved in such adversities.
The value of adverse experiences is therefore
best reflected in the light of Scriptural revelation
in the premises and in the rays of a. Spiritual an¬
alysis no less. From lid to lid the Bible is replete
with instructions concerning the ministry of ad¬
versities and much will depend upon the use you
make of the same.
There are two1 reflections, the consciousness of
which will lessen and neutralize the asperities of
adversities and transform them into angels of help¬
fulness instead of opponents of your welfare. The
first is that they have not been invited nor did they
come as a result of individual perversity of char¬
acter or conduct. This was charged upon Job, you
remember, but he was able to vanquish the allega¬
tion by his appeal to a record of innocence and
righteousness. So live therefore that when the
shadows of sorrow cast their sable folds about you,
you can look up and say, "I will wait till these
calamities be overpast."
There is still greater comfort, however, in the
reflection that underlying and overruling all our ad¬
verse experiences is that omniscient wisdom that is
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too wise to err and that infinite goodness that doeth
all things well.
He if is that worketh in all and through all ac¬
cording to the good pleasure of His Sovereign will.
He is the Sovereign Potter who has absolute power
over the plastic clay, even to make vessels into
honor and dishonor as seemeth Him best.
Personal Section
XXIII
MOSES
I shall present some free-hand drawings of a few
pre-eminent Bible models with the hope that the
Bible student may be helped by their enobling out¬
lines and stimulated by their sterling contents. Like
the heavens above, the Scriptures are studded with
resplendent luminaries, flying meteors, twinkling
satellites and endless systems of burning suns. While
all these declare their great Original, there is a maj¬
esty of office and power of influence exerted by the
major orbs that the smaller planets were never de¬
signed to embody. In like manner in the Scriptural
gallaxy there are constellations of the first magni¬
tude, all powerful suns who directly reflect the life
and lustre of the Almighty, and whose influence for
good is transmitted to untold generations. We
might sketch the lives of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob as
introductory to this class of transcendent Old Testa^
ment characters, but there are diverse reasons why
'34
Personal Section
a first place should be accorded the great Israelitish
leader and law giver. This unique place belongs to
Moses primarily, because of his divine selection and
preparation for the grave and stupendous mission
of a deliverer of God's chosen people. His was a
service more hazardous, trying and far-reaching
than fell to the Father of the Faithful, as Abraham
is regarded, or to the world's first preacher of right¬
eousness, as Lot is termed, or the Patriarchal Head,
as Jacob is known. While each of the master char¬
acters named occupied a leading place and sustained
a vital relationship in the development of this pecu¬
liar people along religious lines and with reference
to some specific object, the scheme and moral pur¬
pose indicated by the life of Moses, embraces not
only their highest social, national, moral and relig¬
ious discipline, but their temporal welfare and des¬
tiny as well.
If, as is quite often suggested, the history of our
people is largely a counterpart of the history of the
Israelites of old; if their Egyptian bondage has a
parallel in the two and half centuries of American
slavery; if our emancipation answers to their deliv¬
erance; if leadership was necessary to conduct them
put of Egypt, across the Red Sea, through the wil-
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derness toward the promised inheritance, the life
and character of the noble hero and instrument
through whom it pleased the Almighty to effect such
ancient and undying wonders cannot be recalled
without benefit to those of us who to a greater or
less extent are entrusted to the service of guides to
the modern millions of our kind now groping in the
wilderness, in quest of the Canaan not yet in sight,
but visible to the eye of faith.
>
The life of the gallant leader of Israel must prove
instructive, refreshing and stimulating to God's
moral and religious leaders of all times, but there
are certain phases of his life, character and mission
that I invite you to particularly note.
It is of prime importance to note* the providential
factor with its lessons associated with the great lead¬
er's upraising and commission. To be called as
God's messenger is one thing and to be called of and
by God is another thing. The fact that Moses was
called to the work undertaken is quite evident in his
remarkable preservation, as his name (Moses, i. e.,
drawn from the water) implies, and in the striking
instances of divine interposition in his behalf. His
flight into Midian after slaying the Egyptian who
oppressed his brother Ishmael; his escape after in-
i36
Personal Section
curring the displeasure of Pharaoh; his preservation
from the hands of the revolting Israelites whom he
essayed to guide and defend during their perilous
wilderness pilgrimage; his merciful deliverance
from the Almighty's anger incurred by his individ¬
ual misdemeanor as well as from the rebellion of
those he led, are striking cases of the display of the
gracious and providential factors in his call and
career.
To encounter difficulties or face stubborn opposi¬
tion is no evidence of the absence of God's call to
His chosen messengers. To pass through the fires
of adversity is God's way of approving those wham
he calls and rendering them effective as His servants.
As He drew Moses from the water, and rescued the
Hebrew children from Nebuchadnezzar's furnace
and delivered the infant Saviour from the sword of
Herod, it is ever certain that He will never allow
any weapon forged to prosper against those He has
called and chosen to- His service.
No sane individual will launch upon any import¬
ant undertaking without making preparation for it,
and this is especially the method of Providence.
Those whom God would have do His work He
would qualify and often by a two-fold process.
Personal Section
137
They must undergo a preparatory course in experi¬
mental training and mental discipline. The case of
Moses stamps as worse than silly all attempts to be¬
little the value and potency of intellectual training on
the part of those who would succeed as leaders. As
Moses was trained and versed in all the lore of the
Egyptians, so the most thorough scholastic or men¬
tal equipment will augment rather than diminish the
capacity for and prospects of success on the part of
God's chosen instrument, The day is passed when
ministers may win favor by the ignorant boast that
their coat-tails never brushed a college wall. While
God's messengers may read flaming truths from the
burning bush, equally important revelations will be
gleaned from a careful and prayerful contemplation
of His inspired word or a consecrated use of the
midnight oil.
In the make-up of this matchless Israelitish leader
the virtue of true moral stamina holds a leading
place. It is questionable whether the Almighty has
a place for men of limber or spongy spinal column
where heroic deeds are to be accomplished. The
fancy that God needs or makes use of this class of
creatures as chief agents in great moral contests or
all eventful issues is without the slightest counten-
138 Personal Section
ance in the history of the church or the history of
world. What distinguishing" element of manhood
advertises those individuals around whose standards
men delight to rally? Is it not the conviction that
danger is least to be considered where the path of
duty marks one's course of action. This sterling
virtue has nerved the arm of warriors on the battle¬
field and stimulated the pulse of statesmen. It has
strengthened the sinews of social, religious and po¬
litical reformers. Without it the pages of secular
history would not have been adorned with such
names as John Brown, Lincoln, Love joy, Garrison
and Douglass, nor would church history have been
ornamented with such names as the immortal Wes¬
ley, the intrepid Luther, the courageous Allen and
undaunted Payne. In this shining galaxy of heroic
souls Old and New Testament heroes jut out in
eclipsing magnitude and grandeur. Here we are
attracted by the sublime courage of a Paul and now
the leonical intrepidity of a Peter captivates us as
with a spell. Now the dauntlessness of a Daniel,
the valor of a Gideon, and the daring of a David
win our loudest eclat, while we stand lost in admira¬
tion for the all-conquering heroism of an Elijah, a
Joshua or a Moses. In the sterling virtue of a rock-
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i39
ribbed courage we are called upon to distinguish
ourselves no less than the illustrious Bible heroes
mentioned. In successful heaven-approved service,
the quality more than the quantity of this virtue
counts.
But Moses towers in unrivaled pre-eminence as
a man of meekness and it is by the possession of this
sovereign spiritual virtue that you as leaders can
hope to have matchless power with God and man.