I ^' \J . "O 1^ "I w/ 
 
 Goodell, Charles L. 1854 
 
 1937. 
 Pastor and evangelist 
 
PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 CHARLES L. GOODELL 
 
\V 
 
 PASTOR 
 
 .*-N^ .- 
 
 AND EVANGELIS 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 CHARLES L. GOODELL 
 
 SECRETARY, COMMISSION ON EVANGELISM AND LIFE SERVICE OF 
 
 THE FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST 
 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 Author of ^'-Heralds of a Passion" etc. 
 
 NEW XBjr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST. II 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
TO MY FRIEND 
 
 ROBERT SCOTT 
 
 A LOVER OF THE TRUTH 
 
PREFACE 
 
 To Timotliy Paul said, *^Stir up the gift of 
 God that is in thee/' I would like to sound as 
 best I may the same ringing challenge to the min- 
 istry of to-day. There are so many things that 
 claim the pastor's time and thought that unless 
 he is very careful the fine edge of his spiritual 
 life will be dulled. Then, too, he is quite likely to 
 become a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, a 
 server of tables, a promoter and an agent instead 
 of a prophet of God. ^* Fulfill thy ministry," said 
 the apostle to his son in the Gospel. Many things 
 enter into the pastor's ministry. He must be a 
 student, he must be a preacher, he must be a 
 teacher and a citizen, but everything that he does 
 is of value only as it makes possible the one thing 
 for which he is in the ministry. Even preach- 
 ing, which is doubtless the highest function of the 
 ministry, is only a means to an end. If the great 
 end is not accomplished, how futile becomes the 
 means ! 
 
 In these chapters I have tried to put first things 
 first. What is the call of the hour? What is the 
 demand which the Church is facing? How can 
 pastors best fulfill their function as leaders in thd 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 spiritual life of the age? What is it which the 
 spirit would say unto the churches? Much of 
 our contention about formal religious truth is 
 meaningless and void. It eventuates in nothing. 
 ^^The words that I speak unto you," said Jesus, 
 ^^are spirit and life." 
 
 I have much to say here on the subject of Chris- 
 tian nurture in the home. I am jfirmly convinced 
 that there has been incalculable loss in religious 
 life because there has been so little inculcation of 
 prayer and Bible study at home. I wish some 
 word of mine might help to stimulate a sane, in- 
 telligent Christian life in the home which is the 
 center of everything that is worth while in moral- 
 ity and religion. I wish I might have given other 
 chapters on the training of the Sunday School. 
 Next to the home, this is the field of greatest use- 
 fulness in the development of Christian life, and 
 full of unrealized possibilities. In other books of 
 mine, notably in Pastoral and Personal Evan- 
 gelism^ I have spoken at length and with deep 
 conviction concerning the spiritual work of the 
 Sunday School. There I have set forth prin- 
 ciples which I wish here to reaffirm. With im- 
 proved methods of teaching, I urge that the evan- 
 gelistic note which is sounded throughout this 
 book should be especially enforced by pastors and 
 Sunday School teachers. 
 
 Some of these chapters have been given in sub- 
 stance before great denominational gatherings of 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 the churches and before conferences and associa- 
 tions of ministers throughout the country. I 
 wish to thank the Homiletic Review and the Bibli- 
 cal Review for permission to use articles of mine 
 which they have published. Messages from many 
 gatherings of pastors where some of these ad- 
 dresses have been given encourage me to hope 
 that they may help to quicken the evangelistic 
 impulse of some who have not heard the spoken 
 word ; and many have asked that they might have 
 the message in the permanent form in which I 
 now give it. In all this I am speaking out of a 
 long and happy ministry spent in an honest pur- 
 pose to do the things which I here set forth. 
 
 '^ And now, brethren, I commend you to God and 
 to the word of His Grace which is able to build 
 you up and give you an inheritance among all 
 those who are sanctified." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PIv£iFAC£i • • • • 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I THE PASTOR-EVANGELIST 
 
 II EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 
 
 III THE JESUS WE FORGET 
 
 IV THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 
 V THE HOME-GOING PASTOR . 
 
 VI THE HOUSE OF OBED-EDOM . 
 
 VII ACCIDENTAL EVANGELISM . 
 
 VIII THE PASTOlf^AT EPHESUS . 
 
 IX THE PASTOR AT SARDIS 
 
 X THE PASTOR AT LAODICEA . 
 
 XI THE PASTOR AT PHILADELPHIA 
 
 / — 
 
 XII THE pastor-evangelist's OUTLOOK 
 
 XIII THE pastor-evangelist's MESSAGE 
 
 XIV THE pastor-evangelist's REWARD 
 
 PAQB 
 
 vii 
 
 13 
 
 21 
 
 36 
 
 48 
 
 61 
 
 64 
 
 71 
 
 77 
 
 87 
 
 95 
 
 102 
 
 109 
 
 116 
 
 122 
 
 XI 
 
PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
PASTOR 
 AND EVANGELIST 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE PASTOR-EVANGELIST 
 
 The swing of the pendulum to-day is toward 
 pastoral evangelism. The church is glad to recall 
 those great days when men with special evangel- 
 istic call went forth to do a peculiar work. She 
 is glad to give her assent to the declaration of 
 Paul to the Ephesians that there are men whom 
 God has crowned with special gifts, some apostles, 
 some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors 
 and teachers, for the common end of perfecting 
 the saints for the work of the ministry, for the 
 edifying of the hody of Christ. But there is a 
 growing feeling that the average pastor may be 
 at the same time prophet, evangelist and teacher, 
 that for every man signally set apart of God to 
 some peculiar task, there are scores to whom 
 God has given such capacity of spiritual service 
 as to fit them to perform the full orbed task of a 
 pastor. The principle here involved is the same 
 
 13 
 
14 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 as that of the father and mother in the up-bring- 
 ing of the child. Special teachers may be called 
 in, but after all in the development of life and 
 character no factor is so important as that of 
 the father and mother who by turns perform the 
 function of guide, physician and teacher. 
 
 To Timothy Paul said, do the work of an evan- 
 gelist, but he also said, make full proof of thy 
 ministry. The most fruitful field of evangelistic 
 work is that which opens to the pastor and those 
 whom he is to lead in life and service. If it is true 
 that people will not go now as formerly to the 
 great evangelistic gatherings in tent and taber- 
 nacle, then there is all the more need that the pas- 
 tor into whose hands has been laid the spiritual 
 welfare of the community, should go to his people 
 with the blessed evangel in his soul. The truth 
 for which the world is crying is a truth that is 
 translated into action. It is a truth which must 
 fall from eager lips and be prompted by a yearn- 
 ing heart. Here lies the success of every man's 
 ministry and the true progress of the Church 
 of God. The Church can live in the world only 
 by individual transference from the natural to the 
 spiritual kingdom. It is by the personal evangel- 
 istic appeal that the Church is to make its real 
 advance. When things seem becalmed, when the 
 sky is low and gray, it is then that we cry for 
 the evangel of prophets and pastors and not for 
 the vaporings of philosophers and liberalists. 
 
THE PASTOR-EVANGELIST 15 
 
 When that spirit takes possession of the pastor, 
 a new era dawns in his own soul and in the life 
 of his Church. I cannot do better than to call 
 your attention to a notable example in the 
 life of one of the most successful pastors in 
 America. Perhaps no man in the Congregational 
 Church more influenced his own denomination 
 than Constance L. Goodell. In his early ministry 
 at New Britain, Conn., his heart was greatly 
 burdened because he saw almost no evidences of 
 spiritual success in his ministry. With a splendid 
 Church behind him in the four years from '61 to 
 '65 none were received into his Church by pro- 
 fession of faith. 
 
 Utterly discouraged, he seriously considered 
 taking up some other work, but in 1865, he in- 
 vited four young people, leaders in the community 
 but not professed Christians, to come to his home. 
 One of these now living, who served for years in 
 the ministry, has told me what happened. The 
 pastor was greatly burdened for these young 
 people. When seated at the dinner table, with 
 every evidence of deep concern and with actual 
 emotion, he told them of his heart longing for 
 them. It was a revelation to these young people 
 to see the deep concern of their pastor and it re- 
 sulted in the four giving themselves to Christ 
 upon the spot, and one of the two young men took 
 a college course and entered the ministry. But the 
 matter did not end there. That proved to be the 
 
16 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 first experience opening the way for a marvelous 
 ministry. 
 
 The pastor saw that the secret of success was 
 to be found in the personal touch and he was so 
 enamored of the work that his heart flamed up 
 with a zeal which was never quenched until the 
 day of his death. As an illustration of his method, 
 he said, I had a row of bottles that I wanted to 
 fill from my hose. First I fired into the air, hop- 
 ing that some water would fall into the bottles, 
 but I found that every variation of the wind car- 
 ried the spray away so that only a few drops 
 entered, and I despaired of filling the bottles, but 
 when I turned the spray directly upon the bottles 
 one after another, they were soon filled. Sitting 
 one day at the window of his study, he looked 
 across the street to the beautiful home of one of 
 the prominent citizens who was at that time Mayor 
 of the city. He was an irregular attendant upon 
 the services of the Church, but otherwise had 
 manifested no interest in religious matters. As 
 the pastor sat there wondering if there was not 
 something he could do to reach this man, he saw a 
 servant come out and turn the faucet by the foun- 
 tain in front of the house. He watched the spray 
 as it rose with copious stream and reflected on the 
 fact that it was connected with the mountain res- 
 ervoir and that the supply of water was inex- 
 haustible. As he sat still meditating darkness 
 began to fall and he saw the lamp-lighter passing 
 
THE PASTOR-EVANGELIST 17 
 
 along to light the city lamps. He reflected that 
 they were connected with the great gas supply 
 and that as long as that continued the light would 
 not fail. 
 
 These little instances enforced upon his thought 
 the fact that if these things which seemed so small 
 could receive a never-failing supply because of 
 their connection, he too by being united with God 
 might expect to have power and strength, not 
 according to his own natural limits but according 
 to the fullness of God. He resolved immediately 
 that he would go across the street and talk with 
 the Mayor and his wife about their souls' inter- 
 ests. The Mayor gave him a very kindly recep- 
 tion, and when he had unbosomed himself, told 
 him that he was very glad to have a chance to 
 talk with him about what he felt should be the 
 greatest concern in his life. Before the evening 
 was over, the Mayor and his wife had made the 
 great decision and in a few days they were both 
 received into the Church. 
 
 That was the beginning of an ingathering of 150 
 into the Church during the next two years. Sev- 
 enty persons came in at one service, many among 
 the most prominent in the town, including a Con- 
 gressman. The young people were greatly moved 
 and organized themselves for personal work. 
 This marked an entire change in Dr. Goodell's 
 ministry, a change which made him to the day 
 of his death possibly the most efficient pastor 
 
18 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 which the Congregational Church has ever known. 
 Professor Currie has a thrilling book on his life's 
 story and many of the theological schools are 
 using him to-day as one of the greatest examples 
 of pastoral efficiency. 
 
 There will always be a place for the vocational 
 evangelist, but in the last analysis of his work, 
 he must depend upon the evangelistic spirit in 
 the hearts of the pastors to whom the training of 
 these converts is conomitted. Much good was 
 accomplished by those prophets whom God sent 
 out with the great evangel, Finney and Moody 
 and their ilk, and there are still with us men of 
 the same fine spirit to whom the Church is 
 greatly indebted and who ought to be encouraged 
 in their work. The need is too great and the 
 forces which are at work for righteousness are 
 too few for the Church to minimize or set aside 
 any of them. The results which have followed the 
 work of evangelists are full of challenge. It was 
 the message of Finney which led to the conversion 
 of George Williams and so to the founding of 
 the Young Men's Christian Association. It was 
 the message of Moody which led Drummond and 
 Grenfeld to give themselves to a service which 
 changed university thought in England and lifted 
 Labrador to light and life. 
 
 Still it is true, for the most part, that the in- 
 gatherings into the Church, which keep the Church 
 of God at the front, are not those which come in 
 
THE PASTOE-EVANGELIST 19 
 
 a few places through the winning of thousands 
 but through the faithful devotion of humble pas- 
 tors in a hundred thousand fields, whose record 
 is not put down in glowing head lines in the daily 
 press, but is registered in the deepened soul life 
 of thousands of people and is recorded only in 
 the Lamb's Book of Life. We hear frequently 
 that there are not many real additions to the 
 churches from great evangelistic meetings. The 
 same thing with few exceptions has been told 
 through all the years. I have before me now the 
 Independent of March 31st, 1881. On the first 
 page is an article on revivals by the Rev. Newman 
 Hall of London. In it he says, **The mission of 
 our brothers. Moody and Sankey was followed in 
 some places by large admissions, but this was not 
 the case in London. I hailed that visit and took 
 part in it, assisted in the inquiry room and occa- 
 sionally preached in connection with it. Some 
 of the services were held in our Surrey Chapel. 
 Yet out of a membership of 1,300 we have not 
 three who are the fruit of that mission. It did 
 great good in many ways. I should hail another 
 visit, but it did not in our experience show that 
 occasional revivals are more useful as regards 
 conversion than the steady work of the Church.'' 
 The call of the hour is for the Pastor-Evangel- 
 ist, a man of the flaming heart, who will be all 
 things to all men if he may win some for his Lord, 
 and will never be quite content until his personal 
 
20 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 friends in his parish are also personally devoted 
 to the Christ whom he loves and seeks to serve. 
 Little children will rise up to call him blessed and 
 the dividends which come to him in later life 
 will give him unbounded cheer as the years come 
 and go. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 
 
 I heard Ralph Waldo Emerson give his last 
 public lecture. The subject was "Eloquence/* 
 He said that one of the chief elements in elo- 
 quence was timeliness. I am sure we are all 
 agreed that this element is always a factor, even 
 in religion. Since so much is being said about 
 that element in religion, it is necessary to dis- 
 criminate. If "new occasions teach new duties" 
 and make "ancient good uncouth," what if the 
 old things we have treasured in religion are really 
 evanescent habits and customs which have become 
 obsolete! Styles of manner and dress are rele- 
 gated to the limbo or the attic. To what extent will 
 this apply in matters of religion? Must the soul 
 be as anxious to be up to the minute in its dress 
 as is the body? Do the angels also change fash- 
 ion in their robes and will the Lamb's Bride, 
 "clad in linen pure and white which is the right- 
 eousness of saints," be also troubled lest her 
 garments be out of style? Let us see about that. 
 
 The evangel of the Son of God has long been 
 in the world. The good news is both old news 
 and new news. What part of it has been out- 
 grown, and what part is as ageless and eternal as 
 
 21 
 
22 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 gravitation? Because a thing is old is no reason 
 wliy it should be laid aside. The sun is old, but 
 the world is ceaselessly renewed by it and if it 
 has grown less in its life-giving power, we are 
 not sensible of it. The sea is old and the moun- 
 tains, and yet they are always new. 
 
 "Helen's lips are sifted dust, 
 niion is consumed with rust. 
 All the galleons of Greece 
 Drink the ocean's dreamless peace." 
 
 But love is always new. Time cuts no furrows 
 in its brow and floods cannot destroy it. It is 
 stronger than death. We are quite prepared to 
 believe that this must also be supremely true of 
 the love of God, and since the evangel is only 
 the proclamation of that love something of the 
 evangel must remain forever unchanged. 
 
 It is an unspeakable comfort to realize that 
 over against the religion that is only *^ up-to-date" 
 there is another that is dateless, like its author, 
 ''the same yesterday, to-day and forever," one 
 which had its place in the heart of God before 
 the morning stars sang together and will be cher- 
 ished there when the planets are borne out to 
 their sepulcher along the dusty road where once 
 blazed the milky way. The terrible things that 
 destroy the soul have not changed, no new sin 
 has been discovered and, alas, no old ones have 
 gone out of fashion. Death is the same now as 
 
EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 23 
 
 when Cain looked into the face of his murdered 
 brother. Sin is the same awful thing which broke 
 the heart of Adam, of Edipus, and of Esau, and 
 its shame is no other than that which Samson 
 felt when, blind and in prison, he ground the grists 
 of the Philistines. Are we not also comforted 
 to sing: 
 
 "0 God, our help in ages past, 
 Our hope for years to come, 
 Our shelter from the stormy blast. 
 And our eternal home." 
 
 We call Him the God of our fathers and we love 
 to think that He also will be the God of our chil- 
 dren and insist that He is also our God. 
 
 When John Robinson, before the Mayflower 
 sailed, said that new light would break out of the 
 Scriptures, was he not thinking of the same old 
 light which had been in the Scriptures from the 
 beginning and which lighted every man that came 
 into the worlds We may make new adaptations 
 of steam and electricity, but with all our study 
 we have added no new quality to either. If reli- 
 gion is after all a matter of style and the robe 
 of righteousness liable any day to go out of fash- 
 ion in what shall I dress my soul? If I have to 
 wait at the door of the professor who is most up- 
 to-date to find what gospel I can preach, or what 
 gospel I can live, how sad is my estate, for alas, 
 styles differ as much in theology as in the Bon 
 
24 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 Marche! Who can tell me what will fit me and 
 who is final authority on what is antiquated? 
 May I still long to have my name written in that 
 book whose pages turn not yellow with the passing 
 years, the golden book wherein are written in all 
 ages the names of those who have feared God and 
 kept their trysts with Him? 
 
 While it is true that there may be a general 
 Zeitgeist or spirit of the age, it is also true that 
 we have to face different mental attitudes on the 
 part of men. There are some who are still in the 
 dark ages, and some are entering the Eenaissance. 
 Dr. Gilkey has called attention to the fact that 
 some among us still personify the attitude of the 
 days of alchemy and the black arts and perpetuate 
 the superstitions of the age of witchcraft and 
 the attitude of the scientific opponents of Galileo. 
 Whom then shall we take as the representative 
 of the age? If we have those who too literally 
 interpret the Bible, we have also those who 
 deny it and put up arguments which were 
 silenced a millennium ago. We have college 
 men who turn from religion as a thing they 
 in their wisdom have outgrown, and who do 
 not seem to realize that in that they are at 
 least a century and a quarter behind the times. 
 To find those who believed as they do, all that 
 is necessary is to go back to the Yale of 1790, 
 when the entire student body, with two or three 
 notable exceptions, scouted religion as effete and 
 
EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 25 
 
 unworthy of the thought of trained men, and 
 named themselves after the French deists of their 
 time ; but President Dwight of Yale so completely 
 answered them as to strike them dumb. If those 
 who share their feelings now would only study 
 history a little, they would be spared much future 
 mortification. 
 
 It is well for flippant criticism to listen at the 
 study door of Prof. Borden P. Bowne. He says, 
 ''We are promised now and then a new religion. 
 We have had several of these in the last genera- 
 tion. Compte gave us the 'religion of humanity,' 
 a thing about which it is impossible to speak with 
 gravity. Mr. Spencer gave us the 'Religion of 
 the Unknowable' which had no altars and where 
 the worship was mainly of the silent sort — no in- 
 spiration, no rebuke, no stimulus to right living. 
 We have come to see that if we will not listen 
 to Jesus Christ in His revelation of the Father, 
 it is not worth while to listen to anybody else. 
 We do not need higher criticism every day, but 
 we need the living faith in God all the time and 
 I think that students need to bear that in mind." 
 
 With these thoughts in mind, let us analyze a 
 little the question of what kind of evangelism will 
 be really up-to-date and applicable to present day 
 needs. That will send us back to Pentecost. That 
 was where the Church received its first prepara- 
 tion for a world revival which will not be ended 
 until the last rebel breaks his sword at the feet of 
 
26 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 his Lord. Somethmg happened then the like of 
 which had never happened before. They were all 
 with one accord in one place. The something which 
 happened was born of prayer and of perfect sur- 
 render; that something was so mighty that it 
 changed a poltroon and a liar and a blasphemer 
 and made him a very lion in courage and touched 
 his lips with, such power as to cleanse them of 
 their falsehood and their blasphemy and make 
 them so mighty as the vehicle of truth, that thou- 
 sands were turned to God by the preaching of a 
 single sermon. 
 
 Let us hope that so great a power as that, so 
 wonderfully displayed, was not to be confined to 
 that age, but that if the same conditions are met 
 to-day, the same victory, the same unspeakable 
 miracle, will take place. The false will become 
 true, polluted lips will speak the truth, and those 
 who took God's name in vain will now take it to 
 such purpose that brazen-hearted sin will flee and 
 stout iniquity will quail before it. In some way 
 or other we must have that old-time power. Of 
 such a sword as that, we must say as David said 
 concerning the sword which he had once wrested 
 from the hand of Goliath, * * There is none like it ; 
 give it to me." 
 
 "We must go a step farther and say that the 
 purpose which is to be accomplished by the evangel 
 is not an evanescent purpose; it lays hold of the 
 springs of life. Jesus never made much of tradi- 
 
EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 27 
 
 tions. He scattered them as no man ever did be- 
 fore or since. To the cry, **It was said by men of 
 old," He answered, '* Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you." He had no sympathy with ecclesiastical 
 millinery. Religion was not a garment to be put 
 on; it was a life to be lived. So He said, ^^I am 
 come that ye might have life and that ye might 
 have it more abundantly." It is quite evident 
 then that so far as the evangelism of the present 
 day seems to make itself a thing not of form but 
 of life, the methods of the Master are in no ways 
 antiquated or outgrown. ^*Ye must be born 
 again," is a statement that fits the twentieth cen- 
 tury as admirably as it did the first century. 
 
 Some persons have been inclined to think that 
 this command has been abrogated. They have 
 tried the application of externals. They have 
 treated, not the root of the disease, but its out- 
 breaking form. They have tried palliatives, not 
 to say sedatives and bromides, but in some places, 
 at least, in the awful arbitrament of the pragmatic 
 test, these nostrums have gone into the discard 
 and men are swinging back to the first century to 
 take up once more that great eternal proclama- 
 tion which the Lord of life has never abrogated. 
 Men have come to find out that man by wisdom 
 knows not God, but the things which have been 
 concealed from the wise are revealed unto the 
 simple-hearted, and that now, as of old, the truth 
 is announced, *^ Except ye repent and become as 
 
28 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 little children ye shall in no wise enter the king- 
 dom of God.'' 
 To the old cry, the cry of Shakespeare, 
 
 "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
 And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
 Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff 
 Which weights upon the heart?" 
 
 the old answer, Shakespeare's answer, comes back 
 from lodge and club with infinite reiteration : 
 
 "Therein the patient 
 Must minister to himself." 
 
 But the answer of the first century was the 
 answer of the cross and of Him who hung upon it : 
 **Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden and I will give you rest." **And I, if I 
 be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." And 
 as a prophylactic against despair the church con- 
 tinues to sing : 
 
 "There is a fountain filled with blood 
 Drawn from ImmanuePs veins; 
 And sinners plunged beneath that flood 
 Lose all their guilty stains." 
 
 Here I am quite aware there is ground for dis- 
 pute. There are some who are saying, ^'You make 
 this a sanguinary religion." To that we plead 
 
EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 29 
 
 guilty. We even make bold to say that without 
 the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. 
 We affirm there is no other name given under 
 heaven whereby we must be saved but the name of 
 Jesus, whose name was given to Him because He 
 should be the Saviour of the world, not by His 
 life only, but by His death. 
 
 There is a mistaken notion that there is a social 
 gospel which is not at all dependent on a spiritual 
 basis and is to take the place of the old-time evan- 
 gel. Those who affirm this do not read aright the 
 signs of the times, and are not sufficiently in- 
 formed as to the arbitrament of fact. As if any 
 social gospel would be of real use which did 
 not have a throbbing spiritual power behind it! 
 And, on the other hand, we must not lose sight 
 of the fact that no life of the spirit can be long 
 maintained that does not express itself in terms 
 of daily life and helpfulness. We are members 
 one of another ; life takes on importance from our 
 surroundings and responsibilities. We are sons 
 or daughters, brothers or sisters, neighbors and 
 friends, and every one of these relationships con- 
 fers obligations. None of these can be truly met 
 unless the incentive is higher than a mere matter 
 of propinquity or human relationship. We do not 
 come to love God through love of men, but we love 
 and serve our fellows because we love Him who 
 came into the world not to be ministered unto but 
 to minister. 
 
30 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 There is also a mistaken notion that the climax 
 of Jesus' teaching was the sermon on the mount. 
 The world has paid its tribute to that wonderful 
 message, though His detractors are accustomed 
 to say that there was nothing in that message 
 which was new. Jewish critics have said that it 
 was in substance to be found in the Talmud and 
 other sacred writings. Oriental critics have said 
 that Confucius taught the same truths. The 
 answer to all this is that whoever may have said 
 the same things, no one had ever lived them before 
 Jesus came. He was the first to exemplify them 
 in His own life. But the golden rule was only 
 preliminary to something that has greater power 
 and outreach. 
 
 Then, too, we are asked why we do not have the 
 same physical healing as in His time. Jesus' 
 answer is enough. He never set great store by 
 physical healing anyway. He used it to empha- 
 size His wonder-working power. He told them 
 that it was immaterial to Him in what direction 
 that power was turned, ** Whether is easier to say, 
 Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee, or rise 
 up and walk? ' ' If He had been inclined to declare 
 His mission by His physical power. He would 
 have made that as all-inclusive as His spiritual 
 power but there were thousands of sick within His 
 reach whom He did not heal. To His disciples. 
 He said, ^^ Greater things than these shall ye do," 
 and that promise is being fulfilled. It was blessed 
 
EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 31 
 
 to Ileal the blind and the lame and the leper, but 
 to open the spiritual eyes of men born blind is a 
 greater miracle ; to heal a leprous body is not half 
 the marvel that is wrought in the cleansing of the 
 leprous soul. 
 
 The golden rule would do for His inaugural 
 but the message which grew with the unfolding 
 of His life was of quite another kind in its power. 
 It was the message of the cross. His whole life 
 was condensed into this great thought — He had a 
 passion for saving the lost. He had come to bring 
 life and immortality to light through the gospel. 
 His was a message of conquest over the dread 
 thing that peoples men's lives with ghosts con- 
 stantly shrieking in their ears, *^Thou didst it! 
 Thou didst it!'' — that terrible thing that digs 
 graves and breaks hearts and ruins love and honor 
 and undermines the proudest fabric which the 
 architect called Life has ever built. With far- 
 reaching emphasis the record declares, *^When the 
 time that He should be received up was fully 
 come He steadfastly set His face to go to Jeru- 
 salem." The shadow of His cross lay athwart 
 His path, and it deepened with every passing day. 
 
 Now a man is likely to weigh his words when 
 words can be but few. It is the last time that He 
 will speak to His friends before He goes to the 
 garden and the flagellation and the cross. Now, 
 if ever. He will put first things first. Because 
 they are slow to understand and believe, much 
 
32 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 that He wanted to say to them He could not say. 
 **Ye were not able to bear it; neither now are ye 
 able," are His own words. Nevertheless He will 
 tell them, in words which they will understand 
 better, as they look back upon them, the great 
 secret of His mission. There is no attempt to re- 
 hearse the sermon on the mount. Listen at the 
 door of the upper room. No one can halt at the 
 prison door in far off Athens in an earlier age 
 without being moved by the words of him who 
 holds the poison cup in his hand and of whom his 
 jailer said, ^^He was the gentlest and the best 
 that ever came here." It was high discourse 
 which the son of Sophroniscus voiced that day, 
 but throbbing as his message was with love and 
 immortality, Socrates himself could not approach 
 the surpassing love and yearning and certainty 
 voiced by Him who was the Son of Mary and the 
 Son of God. 
 
 The note He raised is higher than^anv other 
 that ever fell from human lips; He omy speaks 
 with certainty. He left a throne for a manger 
 that He might fill the mansions of heaven with citi- 
 zens redeemed. The three short years of His 
 prophetic life are condensed into this volcanic 
 point and His message in the upper room has 
 done more to fill the human heart with peace and 
 hope than all the disquisitions of all the philoso- 
 phers of all the ages. He is bidding His chosen 
 friends good-by ; here are the supreme values that 
 
EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 33 
 
 time and death do not change. Why should we 
 seek to set up lasting standards who know nothing 
 about eternities? The only One who knows told 
 them and us what are the supreme values in life 
 and to what they and we should address ourselves. 
 Here we find what He wishes us to do. Here we 
 find what is true enough and good enough and 
 eternal enough to make us thrill with the call. 
 It is the climax of all His messages to men, and 
 we shall do well if we hush every lesser voice 
 and listen to Him, minded to do His will. 
 
 There are some very practical things that have 
 come to us in the aftermath of the war. They 
 were apostles of a new set of things who said, 
 ' * The old order giveth place to new. ' ' Galsworthy 
 had said, **When the war is over mystical Chris- 
 tianity will be dead. It was dying before the 
 war began. It will utterly pass away when the 
 war is over." But the men who were looking for 
 a corpse were disappointed. Vital religion has 
 had always a strange capacity for coming back, 
 and when there were added a few hundred thou- 
 sand wooden crosses in Picardy and a million wid- 
 ows in France and England and America, mystical 
 Christianity received a new life and from every 
 martyr's grave and every hearthstone there arose 
 a cry deeper than the heart of men had known 
 before, "O come, let us worship and bow down; 
 let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker." They 
 told us that when the boys came back from the 
 
34 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 trenches we should have to change the work of 
 our churches, and so in some places they tried to 
 make the parish houses a combination of a dough- 
 nut kitchen and a dance hall; but if those accom- 
 plished the thing whereunto they set themselves, 
 we have not heard of it. That was the worst 
 year the Church in America has had in a hundred 
 years, and the recollection of it is still a night- 
 mare to us. 
 
 No, the kind of truth the world must have to- 
 day is felt truth, the truth of experience, the truth 
 that has so much of life that if you cut it it would 
 bleed. Christianity is a throbbing life. It brings 
 news that fits the hour, for the soul is the same 
 in all ages. Of course, we do not want stale news. 
 We light our fires with yesterday's newspapers. 
 We want such news as Jesus gave to the disheart- 
 ened on their way to Emmaus. We want sight, 
 for God is filling all the air with light. It is 
 sometimes asked, what has Jesus to offer to people 
 who observe the proprieties, pay their debts, are 
 cultivated, and belong to good society, who do 
 not gamble very much, nor drink very much and 
 are not in slavery to their passions? The answer 
 is, **I am come that they might have life.'' In 
 Jesus' time the Pharisees said they had it, and 
 the Pharisees in our time repeat that affirmation, 
 but He made short shift of their claims when He 
 said, ''He that hath the Son hath life, and he 
 that hath not the Son hath not life." 
 
EVANGELISM FOR THE TIMES 35 
 
 Tlie age is not an age of theory-; it is an age that 
 exalts practice and experience. We may not 
 understand all mystery and all knowledge, but 
 we must have had an experience if we are to be 
 of service. We must have some convictions about 
 God and duty, about sin and salvation. The 
 world will not worship and serve a God who is 
 simply under investigation. 
 
 Since the evangel for to-day is one of personal 
 experience, it can only be wrought out by personal 
 work. Men do not want to read theories. They 
 cry, *^Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did 
 another tell it theeT' What do you know about 
 God? It is a time when our pastors must throttle 
 ease in the study and go out into the streets and 
 into the homes, with a zeal that flames in their 
 cheeks and moistens their eyes, to solicit men to 
 accept the salvation of Christ, without which they 
 are undone. It is a time when laymen must cease 
 to call religion an experience for ministers, and 
 must go out, like the laymen who laid the founda- 
 tions of the Church in the first century, to bring 
 their brothers and their friends to Him who is 
 the Light of the World. Vocational evangelists 
 will always have their place, but they themselves 
 understand that the ideal condition is that where 
 each pastor, with his own officials and member- 
 ship about him, undertakes to be what Jesus has 
 called him, the light of the world and the salt of 
 the earth. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE JESUS WE FORGET 
 
 Probably the poem of Richard Watson Gilder 
 which is most quoted is the one entitled *^The 
 Song of a Heathen." It represents the attitude 
 of a stranger sojourning in Galilee when Jesus 
 was preaching there, who had heard strange 
 things about Him, possibly had seen Him perform 
 some of His miracles. He sensed the atmosphere 
 which was around him and this is what he says 
 of Him: 
 
 '^If Jesus Christ is a man — 
 And only a man — I say 
 That of all mankind, I cleave to him 
 And to Him will I cleave alway. 
 
 If Jesus Christ is a God — 
 
 And the only God — I swear 
 
 I will follow Him through Heaven and hell, 
 
 The earth, the sea and the air." 
 
 This is what we need to remember about Jesus. 
 One of our great thinkers affirms: *^The Bible 
 really has very little to say as to what Jesus 
 taught, but an immense amount to say and to 
 imply as to what He was.'^ It is His personality 
 which counts. It is the glorious fact that He was 
 
 36 
 
THE JESUS WE FORGET 37 
 
 God manifest in the flesli. We are to follow Him 
 and to cleave to Him, and if we are to be His 
 followers we must catch His spirit. We must seek 
 according to our capacity and opportunity to do 
 the things which He did. 
 
 In another book, Heralds of a Passion, I have 
 set forth as best I could the yearning of His 
 soul after men. I have said that His whole life 
 might be condensed into one phrase — ^^He had a 
 passion for saving the lost." I still affirm that 
 no man has any right to call himself a follower 
 of Jesus who does not share that passion. It is 
 not enough to know academic truth. The worst 
 man you ever met knows more truth than the 
 best man you know ever practiced, and it is the 
 living truth that Jesus affirms is the only proper 
 test of it. So the Jesus we need to remember is 
 the Jesus of life and not of some doctrine. When 
 He was here, and knowing how weak and wicked 
 men were, He yet entrusted Himself and His mes- 
 sage to the memory of those who loved Him 
 through death, and in His own teachings He paid 
 no attention whatever to critical matters, even 
 when He quoted the Old Testament. He quoted 
 without explanation incidents and miracles which 
 the higher critics rule out. He quoted the story 
 of Jonah without any glosses as to whether he was 
 a real or a fictitious character. He quoted the mir- 
 acles of the Old Testament without any fear that 
 He should lose His reputation for scholarship. No 
 
38 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 man can meditate on this without realizing that 
 there was something vastly bigger than such ques- 
 tions in His mind. 
 
 St. Paul tells us that the great mystery of the 
 Gospel was **God manifest in the flesh,'' and 
 Matthew does not hesitate to point out all the 
 blemishes on the human side of His family tree. 
 So He became a man among men. He bore the 
 sweat and travail of life. Workmen loved Him 
 because they saw the marks of their nails in His 
 hands both living and dead. *'The plagues of 
 Egypt," as some one has said, **are as a rule the 
 plagues of plenty, ' ' and in that one discovers why 
 Jesus as He went among the people was constantly 
 telling them that they must keep their soul alive 
 whatever happened to the body. So far as the 
 record is concerned, Jesus only wrote once, and 
 then He wrote on the ground, but His writing must 
 have been so plain that the Jews who watched 
 His finger saw their own condemnation and left 
 one by one in shame. 
 
 His last will and testament — listen as it falls 
 from His lips ! With His disciples standing about 
 Him — *^My peace I give unto you, not as the world 
 giveth, give I unto you." My peace is my legacy. 
 That is my last bequest," and with that He went 
 home. 
 
 Recently after addressing Randolph-Macon Col- 
 lege at Ashland, Virginia, the President, Dr. 
 Blackwell, took me to the old Hanover Court 
 
THE JESUS WE FORGET 39 
 
 House. That Court House was built before 
 Washington was born, of bricks which were 
 brought from England. It is the building in which 
 Patrick Henry made his celebrated speech in the 
 Parson's cause. Not far from there Henry Clay 
 was born. My friend obtained permission from 
 the clerk to show me a strange will which was 
 made in 1866. You can see how far human hate 
 can go. This is the will: 
 
 **I have made several wills before, when I had 
 considerable property to give my wife and chil- 
 dren, but since the Yankees have stolen all my 
 negroes and robbed me of a great deal of my 
 other personal property, pillaging my house, 
 breaking open all the doors, and stealing all the 
 clothing they wanted, I have very little left to 
 will. They stole a gold watch from me worth 
 about three hundred dollars, which was a bridal 
 present from me to my wife, when we were mar- 
 ried half a century ago. They threatened to shoot 
 me if I did not deliver the watch to them, and 
 burn down my dwelling house, presenting their 
 pistols at me frequently, and I, an old man of sev- 
 enty-six that was too old and feeble to defend 
 myself. 
 
 *'I now therefore make this my last will and 
 testament, in the manner and form following ; viz : 
 
 * * First, I give and bequeath to my children and 
 grandchildren, and their descendants throughout 
 all generations, the bitter hatred and everlasting 
 malignity of my heart and soul against the Yan- 
 kees, including all the people north of Mason's 
 and Dixon's line: and I do hereby exhort and en- 
 
40 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 treat my children and grandchildren, if they have 
 any love or veneration for me, to instill in the 
 hearts of their children and grandchildren, and 
 all their future descendants, from their childhood, 
 this bitter hatred and those malignant feelings, 
 against the aforesaid people and their descendants 
 throughout all future time and generations." 
 
 What an infinite distance between the legacy 
 of peace and the legacy of hate ! But hate cannot 
 last. It is against the laws of God. It has in 
 its bosom the seed of its own undoing. 
 
 With a smile President Blackwell said, '^ After 
 the war this man died, his sons moved west and 
 married Yankee girls." My friend himself was 
 an eye witness of the horror of the war, and his 
 own family has suffered unspeakable losses. For 
 myself, only a few miles away at Cold Harbor, my 
 own brother had been shot. But through Christ's 
 legacy of peace my friend and I were one in heart 
 under the stars and stripes. A few days later I 
 passed, with the sons of those who had faced my 
 brother in battle, over the grass-grown trenches 
 of Cold Harbor, and in a cornfield I picked up a 
 Southern rifle ball shot there fifty-eight years ago. 
 There was no bitterness in our hearts and for 
 Jesus' sake we were brothers beloved. Let us 
 bury all our hatred and take our part of His leg- 
 acy — **My peace I give unto you." 
 
 We must not fail to remember that Jesus was 
 the superlative individualist of the ages. We 
 
THE JESUS WE FORGET 41 
 
 would like to do things by wholesale in manufac- 
 ture and in efforts of every kind. We used to talk 
 in units, but now we talk in hundreds and thous- 
 ands. We have gone on with leaps and bounds. 
 We have not failed in our organizations, our sys- 
 tems are admirable ; but where we have failed is in 
 our contact, and really the actual contact is the 
 only thing that counts. You find that in your tele- 
 phone, or your telegraph or your wireless. Now 
 the actual contact of individual heart with individ- 
 ual heart is the place where life begins. We have 
 only to recall the method of Jesus. It was Nico- 
 demus and the woman at the well and Zacchaeus 
 and Andrew and Peter. It was the message to, 
 and the contact with, the individual heart which 
 laid the foundations of the Church. To spend 
 an afternoon picking up Andrew or Philip or 
 Peter, when one might have written an article on 
 a new park, or a fresh article on psychology or 
 pedagogy or theology ; or to waste a whole evening 
 with Nicodemus when one might have lectured for 
 a hundred dollars or more on the beauties of the 
 Yosemite or the devastation of France, would 
 seem to be a waste of energy, but measured by His 
 standard who sat at the wall of Samaria, dis- 
 coursing to an audience of one on the water of life, 
 such an audience and such a subject are thrilling 
 beyond words. 
 
 Personal power can only be transmitted by per- 
 sonal contact, and so it was that Jesus came to 
 
42 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 reveal God to men and He Himself picked His dis- 
 ciples one by one and sent them out with His 
 blessed evangel. He wrote no book, He outlined 
 no ritual, He Himself organized no Church. He 
 staked the future of His cause on the going out 
 of twelve men, whose only preparation was that 
 they had been with Him until they had caught 
 His spirit and after the touch of Pentecost they 
 were able to reproduce the quality of His life in 
 the service which they should render one by one 
 for their people. This is how our own hearts 
 catch the fire and this is how it is distributed 
 throughout the world. One torch lights another, 
 nor grows less in the lighting and behold how great 
 a matter a single torch may kindle! 
 
 Above all, let us never forget that He is not 
 the son of Mary with influence, but the Son of 
 God with power. Mr. H. G. Wells has much to 
 say about His human personality. He reminds us 
 that the old Roman historians ignored Jesus en- 
 tirely. He says, ** Jesus left no impress on the 
 historical records of His time. Yet, more than 
 nineteen hundred years later, a historian like 
 myself . . . finds the picture centering irresistibly 
 around the life and character of this simple lov- 
 able man. . . . The world began to be a different 
 world from the day His doctrine was preached, 
 and every step toward wider understanding and 
 tolerance and good will is a step in the direction 
 of universal brotherhood, which He proclaimed.'' 
 
THE JESUS WE FORGET 43 
 
 So this Mstorian, disregarding the theological 
 significance of His life, writes the name of Jesus 
 of Nazareth at the top of the list of the world's 
 greatest characters. For the historian's test of 
 greatness is not, ^^What did he accumnlate for 
 himself?" or, *^What did he build up to tumble 
 down at his death!" Not that at all, but this, 
 *^Was the world different because he lived I" To 
 this I cannot do better than to add those thrilling 
 words of John Oxenham : 
 
 ^TsFot What, but Whom, I do believe; 
 That, in my darkest hour of need, 
 Hath comfort that no mortal creed 
 To mortal man may give. 
 
 "Not What but Whom. 
 For Christ is more than all the creeds, 
 And His full life of gentle deeds 
 Shall all the creeds outlive. 
 
 "Not What I do believe, but Whom. 
 Who walks beside me in the gloom? 
 Who shares the burden wearisome? 
 Who all the dim way doth illume, 
 And bids me look beyond the tomb 
 The larger life to live? 
 
 "Not what I do believe 
 But Whom! 
 Not What, 
 But Whomr 
 
 This is the thing which we must treasure above 
 all else. It has become quite the fashion in criti- 
 
44 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 cal circles to disparage the deity of Jesus Christ 
 and with it His resurrection from the dead. Crit- 
 ics are freely saying that it is much more difficult 
 now, on account of new scientific facts and critical 
 results generally, to believe in spiritual things. In 
 answer to that I would like to quote the words 
 of the greatest philosopher of the present genera- 
 tion. Hear what Prof. Borden P. Bowne, of Bos- 
 ton University, w^ho, more than any man in Amer- 
 ica, has represented clear, philosophical thought 
 in the last generation, — hear what he says. *'It 
 is only the half educated who fancy that science 
 has made our faith more difficult. Some persons 
 who have dwelt too long in the cave of dogmatic 
 naturalism and who are somewhat in the hearsay 
 and uncritical stage of intellect, have been told that 
 belief is unusually difficult to-day. It seems to be 
 sufficient to tell such persons in reply that they 
 have been misinformed.'' 
 
 The critics are saying that the men of Christ's 
 time realized and affirmed His divinity. It was 
 therefore very natural for them to believe in His 
 physical resurrection, but in our time we are im- 
 pressed not with His divinity but with His hu- 
 manity, and therefore the scholars of to-day find 
 it very difficult to believe in His resurrection. 
 
 The answer of Professor Bowne to all such 
 would seem to be conclusive: ** Something must 
 have happened to change the band of fleeing dis- 
 ciples into the world-defiers and world-conquerors 
 
THE JESUS WE FORGET 45 
 
 which they soon became. If there was no fact be- 
 hind it all, whence did this new conviction and 
 mighty courage come ? If nothing had resulted, if 
 there had been only a momentary flicker of enthu- 
 siasm, we might well believe that it was all a mis- 
 take, but when the Christian Church sprang out 
 of it and still endures through faith in it we cer- 
 tainly need not be ashamed of our faith in the 
 face of anything that science or historical criti- 
 cism may say. Some will call it Christian super- 
 stition; we call it Christian faith. To some it is 
 still a stumbling block and foolishness; to some 
 it is the faith of God and the wisdom of God. As 
 between these views decision must be made of the 
 survival of the fittest, and the court has been in 
 session for nearly two thousand years. All the 
 religious views that for one reason or another 
 have failed to believe in Jesus and the resurrec- 
 tion have likewise been with us for many centuries 
 and they maintain only a precarious existence. 
 These have not been great enough to command 
 the faith or stir the hearts of men." 
 
 The destructive critics, and any others who 
 cannot accept the physical resurrection of Jesus, 
 are welcome to get what comfort they can out of 
 these facts. Of course, there will always be differ- 
 ence of opinion among men who weigh the same 
 evidence. Witness the Supreme Court of the 
 United States which divides on many of the great- 
 est questions of law and fact and by a majority 
 
46 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 of one declares their enactment to be the law of 
 the land. We have no desire to set up a Procrus- 
 tean bed on which to stretch those who disagree 
 with us, but we would like to make it clear that in 
 matters of this kind no scholar has a right to 
 fitssume that the scholarship of the age will not 
 allow us to affirm that the supernatural is still the 
 backbone of Christianity. So far as science is 
 concerned, there have been quite as many great 
 scientists who have believed in Christianity as 
 have repudiated it, so that their opposition to 
 Christianity had nothing whatever to do with the 
 science or the philosophy which are involved in the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 There are some who feel themselves constrained, 
 they say, by inexorable logic and the appeal to 
 fact to deny Bible miracles in general and the mir- 
 acle of the Resurrection of Jesus in particular. 
 This would be amusing if it were not for its effect 
 upon those who are led thereby to lose faith in 
 the great spiritual verities. May we be allowed 
 to say to all such that logic and fact have nothing 
 whatever to do with their disbelief in the mir- 
 acles? The disbelief is not at all a matter to 
 which they are forced by laws of thought or argu- 
 ment. I am led to say this because men of far 
 greater intellectual power than themselves have 
 unhesitatingly affirmed their belief in these very 
 things. I suppose there is no theological professor 
 in any chair of Christian evidence in America who 
 
THE JESUS WE FORGET 47 
 
 would not be modest enough to admit that in the 
 matter of pure philosophy he would feel that he 
 was not worthy to lose the latchet of the intellec- 
 tual sandals of Borden P. Bowne, our greatest 
 philosopher, to whom I have referred. Hear what 
 he says: ! 
 
 *^Let us then as we go about our task recall the 
 triumphs that have been following the cross from 
 the days of His crucifixion until now. Let us 
 strive to get something of His passion which 
 stopped at no self-denial that He might accom- 
 plish the thing whereunto He was sent. Let us 
 hear Him saying *A11 power is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth. Lo, I am with you always. ' ' ' 
 Let us remember the promise which He gives to 
 all those who are sharers with Him of His passion. 
 Let us catch the spirit of the Apostle who, remem- 
 bering all these things, reminds us that night and 
 day with tears he warned men to accept this 
 blessed Christ, and assures his fellow-workers 
 that if we suffer and toil with Him here we shall 
 be glorified together. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 
 
 No man becomes a scholar or a saint in his 
 sleep. There is an exacting price to be paid for 
 everything that is worth while. If one wishes 
 spiritual power it is well for him to know at the 
 outset that this supreme gift cannot be had unless 
 one is willing to pay the full price. Is there a sad- 
 der chapter in the history of the apostles than 
 that one which was enacted at the foot of the 
 Mount of Transfiguration? An agonizing father 
 had brought a suffering son to the disciples and 
 asked that they relieve the suffering, but their 
 well-meant endeavors were useless and they were 
 impotent. On the morrow the father, with a faith 
 that had not failed, approaches the Master and 
 tells the sad story of a need the disciples were 
 unable to satisfy. To him, Jesus said *^If thou 
 canst believe, all things are possible to him that 
 believeth.'' With tears running down his face, 
 the father cried, **Lord, I believe. Help thou 
 mine unbelief." 
 
 It would be well for us to pause a moment to 
 catch the spirit of the agonizing father and to 
 enter into his passion for a suffering child. The 
 
 48 
 
THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 49 
 
 answer of it all is not far to seek. The Master 
 rebukes the spirit, heals the child and delivers him 
 to his father. What do you suppose were the feel- 
 ings which stirred in that father ^s heart? Would 
 you blame him if he drops upon his knees and 
 covers the Master's hand with grateful kisses? 
 
 We are very anxious that there should be no 
 emotion about religion. Who taught us that it 
 was a crime for a father's eyes to know the briny 
 wash of tears, or his heart the shout of laughter 
 when a son was plucked from the agonizing touch 
 of pain or the bony fingers of impending death? 
 But note what follows : The disciples, discomforted 
 and ashamed, say to the Master, **Why could not 
 we cast him out?" Let the Church never forget 
 the answer : ' * This kind can come forth by nothing 
 but by prayer and fasting." 
 
 It is months later. The cross has done its work. 
 Roman soldiers, who before had never known fear, 
 have fallen as dead men before a power w^hich they 
 could not understand. The door of the sepulcher 
 has rolled away and the Master has spent those 
 never-to-be-forgotten days with His own, and His 
 feet are touching earth for the last time before 
 His ascension. As He is parted from them a ring- 
 ing challenge is sounded in their ears: ^*Go quick 
 everywhere proclaiming this gospel. Lo, I am 
 with you unto the end." 
 
 One can imagine impetuous Peter saying to 
 John, **Let us hurry with this gospel. Let us 
 
50 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 start this very moment." But John would have 
 answered, *'Said He not unto us, * Tarry ye in 
 Jerusalem until ye be endued with power'? Said 
 He not, ^Ye shall receive power after that the 
 Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be 
 witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all 
 Samaria and unto the utmost part of the earth'?" 
 So the record is that they went to an upper room 
 and they continued in one accord in prayer and 
 supplication, and being so circumstanced, there 
 came at last the divine enduement. How it came 
 and what it was we may not understand — enough 
 for us to know that they were all filled with the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 And then what happened? Of that I have al- 
 ready spoken. I have sometimes wondered how 
 Peter dared, after all his failures, to preach at all. 
 One would think that ordinary modesty and the 
 self-abasement which a contrite soul would feel 
 would have stopped his lips, but in his own humili- 
 ation, he realized the mercy of God for sinners 
 like himself and so he preached that matchless 
 sermon which, in some respects, at least, has not 
 been surpassed from that day to this. 
 
 Let us meditate on the difference between Peter 
 in the palace of the high priest with a cock crow- 
 ing in his face and Peter on the Day of Pentecost, 
 the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit ; and that is the 
 difference in the life of any man when he goes to 
 his task at his own charges with no power but his 
 
THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 51 
 
 own and no wisdom but his own little ken and 
 when he goes surcharged with the wisdom and 
 power of God. 
 
 One of our magazine writers has taken Jona- 
 than Edwards to task because he said **I make 
 it my first business to look after the salvation of 
 my own soul." '^That shows," the writer says, 
 '^how little Jonathan Edwards appreciated the 
 real spirit of the Gospel. It shows how narrow a 
 conception he had of what Christianity really is." 
 The answer to all that is that the failure to under- 
 stand is not with Jonathan Edwards but with his 
 critic. These things are spiritually discerned and 
 only those who understand spiritual things can 
 properly understand them. We often quote the 
 words of Turner, the painter, in answer to the 
 critic who said, **I do not see any sunsets like 
 yours," and Turner answered, *^ Don't you wish 
 you could." 
 
 It is related that the poet Blake was one day 
 walking on the beach at Brighton and saw the 
 sun rise out of the vast deep. An old English 
 miser, standing near, rubbed his hands and said, 
 **Ah, what a sight! When I see the sun come up 
 like that I seem to see a golden guinea. What do 
 you see ? ' ' The poet answered, * ^ I see an innumer- 
 able company of the heavenly host and they 
 cry, *Holy, holy. Lord God Almighty. Heaven 
 and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee 
 God Most High!' " Don't you wish you could 
 
52 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 see such a vision and hear such a chorus every 
 time the sun comes up! 
 
 Southey wrote a life of John Wesley and took 
 the printed book to an old Wesleyan woman and 
 asked her to read it and tell him what she thought 
 of it. When she handed the book back, she said, 
 ^^Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with and the 
 well is deep." How could Southey understand 
 the mind and work of Wesley! You would not ex- 
 pect Benedict Arnold to write the life of George 
 Washington, nor Robert Ing«rsoll to write the life 
 of Dwight L. Moody. 
 
 Jonathan Edwards was right when he said, **I 
 make it my first business to look after the salva- 
 tion of my own soul. " It is the same thing which 
 Paul and John and Luther and Knox and Bunyan 
 and Wesley had to do before they could help any 
 other souls. How can you give if you do not 
 possess? How can you tell others of that which 
 you do not know yourself? The first question the 
 inquirer propounds is, **Sayest thou this of thy- 
 self or did another tell it thee ? ' ' Are you repeat- 
 ing with flippant lips a twice told tale or has this 
 been wrought by deep experience in your own 
 soul? Here lies the secret of any Christian's 
 power and especially that of the pastor. 
 
 Let us look further into the life of Jonathan Ed- 
 wards and see what happened after he was assured 
 of his own salvation. Wasn't Jonathan Edwards 
 the man who preached at the little church in En- 
 
THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 53 
 
 field, Mass., on *^ Sinners in the hands of an angry 
 God," from the text, ** Their feet shall slide in 
 due time," and as he preached his auditors 
 grasped the back of the seats ahead of them lest 
 they should fall into the bottomless pit on the 
 spot? I may remark in passing that that sermon 
 was a written one and read. What do you sup- 
 pose would have happened if it had been given 
 extemporaneously 1 ^ * But, ' ^ you say, * * what utter 
 misapprehension of the scheme of the Gospel; 
 what ignorance concerning the truth as it is in 
 Jesus. Of course, we know a great deal more in 
 our time and we can state the gospel in truer 
 terms." That we will not deny, but will content 
 ourselves with suggesting — wouldn't it be glorious 
 if with our greater knowledge we had Jonathan 
 Edwards' power? Watch the unfolding of that 
 life. No man was so responsible for the religious 
 life of America as Jonathan Edwards. It was he 
 who was the center of the Great Awakening which 
 saved America in its early days. It was Jonathan 
 Edwards who heartened Whitefield and who stood 
 four-square against the godless spirit which 
 would have made America a Merrymount and de- 
 bauched a nascent nation at its very cradle. As 
 it was, the enemies of righteousness had a brief 
 triumph over that prophet of God. 
 
 Because he insisted on Durity in the home and 
 righteousness in public places, they turned him 
 out of his pulpit in Northampton and would not 
 
54 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 allow him to return to fill his old pulpit even on 
 a summer's day. He goes to preach to the Stock- 
 bridge Indians, but while there he writes that trea- 
 tise on the human will which the leading critics 
 of England have said was the greatest intellec- 
 tual production of the first century of American 
 thou^t. Jonathan Edwards, dying President of 
 Princeton University, — ^he is the man who said, 
 **I make it my first business to look after the sal- 
 vation of my own soul." Let America answer, 
 what world-wide influences still pervade the earth 
 which had their rise in the holy commitment of 
 one faithful soul! 
 
 On my last visit to the churches in New Haven, 
 I took some of the denominational Secretaries of 
 Evangelism with me, and we went to the Regis- 
 trar's office at Yale after office hours and asked 
 permission to enter that little, low-studded room 
 in Connecticut Hall. To me it is a holy place, and 
 I wanted my brethren to share the inspiration 
 of it. Opposite the door as you enter, there is 
 a little low fireplace ; a small frame hangs over it, 
 within which this message is printed — ** Horace 
 Bushnell of the class of 1827 occupied this room 
 in 1823-24." That would seem to be a matter of 
 little historical interest and I have no doubt that 
 hundreds of students and scores of professors 
 have passed it by with a careless glance, but I 
 knew what Horace Bushnell himself had said 
 concerning that very room. These are his words : 
 
THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 55 
 
 ** There is a little room in one of the dormitories 
 of Yale and what happened there I hope the Rec- 
 ording Angel may never allow to be blotted out. ' ' 
 It was there that the divine chrism rested 
 upon the great man's soul. It was there in 
 his youth at that low fireplace that he made the 
 great surrender. It was from under the lintel 
 of that low door that he went out into the world 
 to carry a gospel, the blessedness of which has 
 not faded and never will fade from the hearts 
 of men. 
 
 It was that same Horace Bushnell who had 
 the grace to say, ^*The soul of reform is the re- 
 form of the soul.'* When he was traveling with 
 a friend in the White Mountains, as the shadows 
 began to fall, they halted on the mountain side 
 and watching the far-stretching valley and the 
 shadows growing deeper as the sun sank behind 
 the hills, the great preacher turned to his friend 
 and said, **One of us ought to pray here." His 
 friend said that they dropped upon their knees 
 and Bushnell prayed until '*I did not dare to 
 reach out my hand in the gathering darkness lest 
 I should touch the skirts of the Almighty." 
 
 The glory of that light never faded from Bush- 
 nelPs soul. When he went up to his chamber 
 for the last time it became the ante-chamber of 
 heaven. Joseph H. Twitchell, coming away from 
 Horace Bushnell 's home when the seer and 
 prophet of everlasting things was passing into 
 
56 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 eternity, sat down and wrote in his journal : ^^Felt 
 as I left the house a mighty conviction of spiritual 
 realities and a desire to live in them." 
 
 May I also call your attention to the vindication 
 of this great principle, which we are setting forth, 
 in the life of John Wesley? We often speak of 
 social service, of ministering to the sick and the 
 unfortunate as if that were something new and 
 modern in the history of religion. No community 
 church or social service center has advanced one 
 iota upon the principles which were practiced by 
 John Wesley. In scholarly accomplishments, in 
 sacrifice and in service, we are but belated travel- 
 ers in the path where John Wesley blazed the 
 way and still walks in the van. But all this did 
 not bring Wesley to the place which his soul knew 
 he must occupy in order to have the power of 
 God. He tells us that he came over to Georgia to 
 preach to the Indians, hoping that he might gain 
 in such service what he was conscious he lacked, 
 but all to no avail. *^I have learned," he said, 
 *Svhat I least suspected, that I who went to Amer- 
 ica to convert the Indians was never myself con- 
 verted to God." 
 
 When he saw the happy Moravians, Wesley 
 asked: **What is it which they possess which I 
 do not? Are they read in philosophy? So am I. 
 In ancient or modern arts? So am I. Are they 
 versed in the science of divinity? I too have 
 studied it many years. Can they talk fluently upon 
 
THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 57 
 
 spiritual things! I can do the same. Are they 
 plenteous in alms! Behold I give all my goods 
 to feed the poor. I have labored more abun- 
 dantly than they all. Are they willing to suffer 
 for their brethren ! I have thrown up my friends, 
 reputation, ease, country. I have taken my life 
 in my hands, wandered into strange lands. I 
 have given my body to be devoured by the deep, 
 parched up with the heat, consumed by toil and 
 weariness. But does all this make me acceptable 
 to God! Does all this make me a Christian! By 
 no means. I have sinned and come short of the 
 glory of God. I am alienated from the life of 
 God. I have no hope." 
 
 It was in this condition of things that he came 
 to the morning of that never-to-be-forgotten day. 
 May 24th, 1738. Some of his Moravian friends 
 had told him of a faith that brings joy and peace 
 through believing. He said: ^*I resolved to seek 
 it unto the end. ' ' It was on that day that he found 
 it. Lecky, in his History of Morals, records 
 that on that morning before he went out to his 
 day's task he turned to the Bible to get some 
 word that might cheer him. He opened at these 
 words: ** There are given unto us exceeding great 
 and precious promises, even that ye shall be par- 
 takers of the divine nature." And once more, 
 these were the words that hit him in the face, 
 **Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." 
 How far! Just twelve hours. It was that very 
 
58 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 evening that he records : *^I went very unwillingly 
 to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was 
 reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the 
 Eomans. About a quarter before nine, while he 
 was describing the change which God works in the 
 heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart 
 strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, 
 Christ alone, for salvation, and the assurance was 
 given me that He had taken away my sins, even 
 mine, and saved me from the laws of sin and 
 death.'' 
 
 And now Lecky takes up the pen again. He 
 says, '^What happened in that little room in Al- 
 dersgate Street on that night in May was of more 
 importance to England than all the victories of 
 Pitt by land or sea." Our own Woodrow Wilson 
 declares as a historian, *^The eighteenth century 
 cried out for deliverance and light, and God pre- 
 pared John Wesley to show the world the light and 
 blessing of His salvation." 
 
 Boreham calls our attention to the fact that 
 John Wesley was thirty-five years of age when 
 he entered the Kingdom, and asks why Wesley's 
 great day was so long in coming. Wesley always 
 felt that the fault was not altogether his own. 
 Any minister might well pray God to dig his grave 
 before any man should face him as John Wesley 
 faced William Law, who had been one of his min- 
 isters. *'How will you answer to our common 
 Lord," he says, ^*that you, sir, never led me unto 
 
THE PASTOR AND HIS OWN SOUL 59 
 
 the light? Why did I scarcely ever hear you 
 nanie the name of Christ? Why did you never 
 urge me to faith in His blood? Is not Christ the 
 first and the last? I beseech you, sir, by the 
 mercy of God whether the true reason of you 
 never pressing this salvation upon me was not this 
 — that you never had it yourself ?'' 
 
 It is sometimes said that Methodism was born 
 in a university, but that is not true. If nothing 
 had happened to John Wesley but what happened 
 to hiTn at Oxford, Methodism would never have 
 seen the light. Well says Lecky, *'It is hardly an 
 exaggeration to say that what took place at that 
 humble meeting in Aldersgate Street forms an 
 epoch in English history. The conviction which 
 then flashed upon one of the most powerful and 
 most active intellects in England is the true source 
 of English Methodism." It was from that hour 
 that Wesley went forth to pay more turnpike toUs, 
 to preach more sermons, and to win more souls 
 than any man who ever bestrode a beast. Be- 
 cause of what happened at Aldersgate Street, he 
 became ^^out of breath pursuing souls,'' and so 
 builded himself into the life of England that he 
 influenced her for good more than any man of his 
 generation. 
 
 I leave off this chapter as I began it : Any man 
 who wishes power with God and men must pay 
 the price. He must himself be in vital connection 
 with Jesus Christ through a personal experi- 
 
60 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 ence. Of all creeds, the blind man's creed is the 
 simplest and most far-reaching. ^^This I know, 
 that whereas I was once blind, I now see/' 
 
 ^'If thou hast squandered years to grave a gem 
 Commissioned by thine absent Lord . 
 And while 'tis incomplete, others would bribe 
 
 thy needy skill to them, 
 Dismiss them to the street." 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 THE HOME-GOING PASTOR 
 
 It was Thomas Chalmers who said a home- 
 going pastor makes a church-going people. 
 Among the most delightful fellowships of my 
 early ministry was my association with Theodore 
 L. Cuyler, who perhaps more than any man in 
 America at that time was given to systematic 
 pastoral work. Our parishes joined and we often 
 discussed the blessedness of pastoral work. His 
 example greatly strengthened me in my deter- 
 mination to know my people personally. 
 
 At the end of his long pastorate he said to his 
 people, ^* Pastoral work has always been my pas- 
 sion. It has been my rule to know everbody in this 
 congregation if possible, and seldom have I al- 
 lowed a day to pass without a visit to some of 
 your homes." Dr. Cuyler said to me in his eager, 
 breezy fashion, **My motto has been, study God's 
 word in the morning and door plates in the after- 
 noon. The physical exercise was a benefit and 
 the spiritual benefits were ten times greater. ' ' A 
 celebrated preacher once said to him, ^*I envy you 
 your love for pastoral work. I would not do it if 
 I could, and I could not do it if I would, for a 
 single hour with a family in trouble uses up more 
 
 61 
 
62 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 of my vitality than to prepare a sermon.'' Cuy- 
 ler answered, *'Tlie business of a minister is to 
 endure this strain upon his nervous system if he 
 would be a comforter as well as a teacher of his 
 people.'' It is a connnent on the effectiveness of 
 Dr. Cuyler's method that his church has had all 
 these years a spirit of fellowship that was most 
 marked, and of all the great churches that Brook- 
 lyn has delighted in, no one of them has to-day 
 so strong a personality and so vital a family life. 
 Your pulpit is only a part of your ministry. 
 One word in private may do more to win a soul 
 to Christ than a sermon in the pulpit. There is 
 a good deal of cheap talk and unseemly joking 
 about pastoral work. With a sneer it is said, 
 *'The pastor spends his time in listening to the 
 complaints of the saints about neuralgia and 
 rheumatism, and the gossip of the to^vn about the 
 foibles of their neighbors, and he inquires with 
 great solicitude if little Willie has cut his last 
 tooth." Now if a pastor really does prostitute 
 his opportunity and make a gossip of himself, 
 verily he has his reward. But I wish to testify 
 that whatever success may have come to me in a 
 long ministry it has come more through pastoral 
 work than by any other method. In the homes of 
 my people, I was able to present Jesus as I 
 could not do it in the pulpit. I was able to insist 
 upon a personal choice of Christ and to rejoice 
 with men and women whom God had helped me to 
 
THE HOME-GOING PASTOR 63 
 
 lead into the kingdom. I realize the difficulties 
 that attend pastoral work in city life, but for 
 more than twenty years I was able to do it in 
 New York City and was greatly cheered in my soul 
 by the doing of it. 
 
 I do not hesitate to say that the best prepara- 
 tion for pulpit work was obtained through pastoral 
 work. I went to talk to my people not about the 
 foolish things of daily gossip but about the great 
 things of the Kingdom. I was indeed solicitous 
 about all their interests, for the true pastor is 
 concerned to weep with those who weep, as well 
 as to rejoice with those who rejoice, but in that 
 flow of heart pastor and people become so knitted 
 together that no relationship outside the family 
 itself is quite so tender nor so long remembered. 
 To see the children's children of those you have 
 led to Christ and to behold that for three genera- 
 tions the grace of God has signally manifested 
 itself through devotion on your part is to set the 
 joy bells ringing with such melody that the dis- 
 cords of life are unable to quench them. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HOUSE OF OBED-EDOM 
 
 ''The House of Obed-Edom." It comes to me 
 across the years. In my childhood a dear old 
 deacon somewhere in every prayer would offer the 
 petition that our homes might be ''like the house 
 of Obed-Edom, where the ark rested." The house 
 of Obed-Edom! I knew it well. There the day 
 was bounded on the east by supplication and on 
 the west by thanksgiving. There the family wel- 
 comed the voice of prayer as a dear and a sacred 
 thing. There was no cant about it. The saint 
 and father remembered each child by name in 
 every morning prayer. If a boy has not gone ut- 
 terly over, to stand in the way of sinners and sit 
 in the seat of the scornful, there will be a tug at 
 his heart when the noblest man he knows is talk- 
 ing to God about him as friend talketh with friend. 
 
 And the Sabbath in the House of Obed-Edom! 
 May the memory of that never be blotted out. A 
 day when a clean body and a clean soul had fel- 
 lowship. Morning prayers a little more spiritual 
 than on other days, and then the singing of the 
 great hymns of the church with the family 
 grouped around the melodeon or the piano. Then 
 the ringing of the bell high up in the country 
 
 64 
 
THE HOUSE OP OBED-EDOM 65 
 
 steeple. The fun was of a mild order, of course, 
 but fun is a relative term, after all. After 
 Church and Sunday School were over, it was not 
 so bad, of a summer afternoon, to lie amid the 
 clover with the fragrance in your nostrils and 
 watch the fleecy clouds as God drove them like 
 spotless flocks in azure pastures; or to count the 
 swallows as they circled to their homes in the 
 chimneys or their nests under the eaves ; and then, 
 if you had been good all the week, there was the 
 promised trip to the graveyard. The mold is 
 on the lips which smiled as they made the promise 
 and the hands you clasped were folded long ago, 
 and the gray head laid to rest in that same 
 churchyard. But my children to this day think 
 it is fun to have me tell the simple annals of the 
 poor and how yonder man and woman, whose dust 
 is sleeping there, fought the gOod fight of faith. 
 They dressed in homespun but gained a victory 
 greater than that which was ever plucked from 
 the cannon's mouth. 
 
 *^The House of Obed-Edom where the ark 
 rested." It makes all the difference in the world 
 whether the ark comes to the house as a sacra- 
 ment or as a ceremony, whether love or necessity 
 throws open the door. The ark had rested in the 
 house of Abinadab for twenty years and nothing 
 worth mentioning had happened. One member of 
 the family looked after it, and the others went 
 about their ordinary concerns unmindful of it. It 
 
66 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 may be so in our time. The wife or mother may 
 be forced to take the responsibility for the reli- 
 gion of the family. The motto on the wall may 
 declare that *^ Christ is the head of this house- 
 hold," but outsiders would be inclined to think 
 by the things that happen there that He was 
 only a silent partner. Abinadab and Obed-Edom 
 were evidently not the same kind of men and so 
 the ark had a different reception in each house. 
 
 The Sabbath may be observed by law or by love. 
 The children may be forced to go to church and 
 hate the day and the service. On the other hand, 
 a loving devotion in the home may sanctify the 
 day so that until the last pulse beat of the chil- 
 dren it will be to them 
 
 "Day of all the week the best, 
 Emblem of eternal rest." 
 
 In one home the Bible may be read as an ancient 
 document to be criticized or ridiculed. It might 
 better never be opened. In another, it is opened 
 with reverence, read with delight and treasured 
 in an honest heart. If one is not minded to know 
 and love the truth, he will never find it. IngersoU 
 read the same Bible that Lincoln read prostrate 
 on his face before God in the White House. One 
 scoffed, the other prayed. 
 
 "The owlet atheism 
 Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon 
 
THE HOUSE OF OBED-EDOM 67 
 
 Drops his blue fringed lids and holds them close 
 And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven 
 Cries out 'Where is it?'" 
 
 Obed-Edom signifies obedience. To obey is 
 better than sacrifice. He wbo does most for God, 
 receives most from God. This is sensible. 
 *'Know ye not to whom ye yield yourselves ser- 
 vants to obey; bis servants ye are?" 
 
 David did not understand tbe fate that befell 
 Uzziah, wbo with impious, or faithless, or care- 
 less bands undertook to steady tbe ark at tbe cost 
 of bis life. So tbe king went back to bis palace 
 dismayed and unbappy. 
 
 Tbe record does not tell us wbat blessed things 
 happened to tbe House of Obed-Edom after he 
 gave asylum to tbe ark. We wish we knew in 
 what way tbe blessing took form. It was so pro- 
 nounced that it left no room for question and word 
 of it came to tbe ears of David, tbe king. It was 
 only there for three months, but in that time won- 
 ders bad happened and it was told King David 
 saying, *^The Lord bath blessed tbe House of 
 Obed-Edom and all that pertaineth to him because 
 of tbe Ark of God." That was a language which 
 David could understand. He knew what it meant. 
 He bad received some blessings from the band of 
 Jehovah himself, so David brought the ark from 
 tbe House of Obed-Edom into the city with glad- 
 ness. If you want to know how glad he was read 
 the twenty-fourth Psalm. 
 
68 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 The record says: ** David danced before the 
 Lord with all his might.'' There have always 
 been people who have taken offense when any- 
 body has done anything for the Lord with all his 
 might. It is written, *^Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy might and mind and 
 strength," but in all ages men have got into 
 trouble by doing it. David had a wife, she was 
 SauPs daughter, and a chip of the old block. She 
 was one of a trinity, the other two members of 
 which were the wife of Socrates and the wife of 
 John Wesley. When she saw the king dancing 
 before God, **she despised him," but for once 
 David did not budge. He got his Caudle lecture 
 when the dancing was over, but he plucked up his 
 spirit and said unto Michal, **It was before the 
 Lord which chose me before thy father and before 
 all his house to appoint me ruler over the people 
 of the Lord." Long rued Michal the jesting of 
 that day ! 
 
 In the days of Obed-Edom only one house could 
 have the ark. Now every home may have what 
 the ark stood for — ^worship and devotion. I make 
 my plea for a family altar in every Christian 
 home. How can God's cause prosper when His al- 
 tars are broken do^vn? How can Christianity tri- 
 ■umph in the nation if it fails in the home? You 
 ask people to give one-tenth of their income to the 
 Lord, but the Church wants praying members as 
 well as paying members, and it will appear that 
 
THE HOUSE OF OBED-EDOM 69 
 
 prayer will open the purse strings as nothing else 
 can do. Prayers and alms go together. The evan- 
 gelistic spirit of the pastor can find no better place 
 for expression than in the family life. How many 
 of your families have family prayer daily? How 
 many bow reverently at every meal and return 
 thanks to Him who is the giver of every good? 
 Set up a family altar by the nursery door; that 
 may keep Christ there, for the children are being 
 snatched away by the enemy of their souls. It is 
 far easier to save a child than to rescue a prodigal 
 — and then the bitter memories of the husks and 
 the swine, and ruined hopes and broken hearts. 
 
 You say it is impossible to have prayers in a 
 city home amid the pressure of social and business 
 life. I answer, we can do anything that ought to 
 be done. Daniel in Babylon, prime minister of 
 the realm, found time to pray, and so did Glad- 
 stone, prime minister of England. The man who 
 represents more money than any man in the world 
 finds time for family prayers, and even on a jour- 
 ney calls his family and his associates together 
 and humbly seeks the blessing and enlightenment 
 of God. I know a merchant prince in New York 
 whose house has been like the House of Obed- 
 Edom for the Ark of God has rested there and 
 God's blessings have been multiplied thereby. 
 Three of his sons have gone into the ministry and 
 all his children are vital forces in the world's no- 
 blest work. He has given a half hour every morn- 
 
70 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 ing for a quarter of a century to the study of 
 God's word, and every morning, with his children 
 about him, has committed them one by one to the 
 gracious watch care of the Father. If Burns 
 could say that old Scotia's grandeur came from 
 the humble house where the cotter commended his 
 family to God, so in our time such a home as I 
 have spoken of will leave its influence for good for 
 untold generations and in many lands. 
 
 Set up the family altar ! See that your people 
 honor God and He will honor them. The fame of 
 one home has come out of the long ago. After 
 almost three millenniums, we are repeating a name 
 which had otherwise been buried and forgotten. 
 Nobody cares about the plan or the size of the 
 house of Obed-Edom, whether the painter had 
 done his finest work, or the rooms had only the 
 fresco of the smoke of years. Nobody cares how 
 much the house cost, or who built it. One fact 
 rises out of the dust of its timbers and will be 
 remembered as long as stars shine and rivers run. 
 It held the Ark of Jehovah and for that reason 
 God blessed the house of Obed-Edom. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ACCIDENTAL EVANGELISM 
 
 We are constantly passing through experiences 
 which give new valuation to spiritual things. 
 Our own people are doing the same and here is 
 a great field of opportunity which you ought not to 
 neglect. A layman recently in giving an address 
 to preachers said, ^^I suggest that in your consid- 
 eration of next Sunday's sermon you be guided 
 by this: Suppose you knew that you had but a 
 few days to live and next Sunday was to be your 
 last chance to preach, what would be your mes- 
 sage! This may seem an unfair test but I offer 
 it for its stimulating effect." 
 
 A lady once asked Wesley, ** Suppose that you 
 knew you were to die at twelve o'clock to-morrow 
 night, how would you spend the intervening 
 time r ' ^' How, madam !' ' he replied. * ' Why, just 
 as I intend to spend it now. I should preach this 
 night at Gloucester, and again at five to-morrow 
 morning; after that I should ride to Tewkesbury, 
 preach in the afternoon, and meet the societies in 
 the evening. I should then repair to friend Mar- 
 tin's house, who expects to entertain me, converse 
 and pray with the family as usual, retire to my 
 room at ten o'clock, commend myself to my heav- 
 
 71 
 
72 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 enly Father, lie down to rest, and wake up in 
 glory.'' 
 
 Is it not worth while for ns to ask ourselves 
 the question now and then — ought we not to be 
 getting the utmost possible out of life so that as 
 we go along there would be fewest regrets and 
 most of effectiveness? 
 
 The late Professor Bowne of Boston University 
 has left behind him a thrilling word, addressed 
 primarily to his students: *'You are not here to 
 be happy. If you set out with that purpose you 
 will have a tough time of it. There is not happi- 
 ness enough to go around and the kind of which 
 there is enough is not worth having. No one can 
 ever be built up into a crowned soul by being 
 favored with happiness. But when you go in for 
 the best things, the fundamental things, and keep 
 on doing so, somehow or other you will be likely 
 to have a good deal of trouble and pain, but it 
 will be pain that will have something divine in it 
 and something that you would not exchange for 
 any so-called * happiness' under the sun. The 
 gates of time will spring to behind you before 
 long — they will spring to behind some of us soon 
 and behind all of us before long. The question 
 then would be not — what place had we — what did 
 men think of us— but what did God think of us 
 and were we built into His kingdom." 
 
 The temptations in the ministry are just as 
 great as they are in business. As ministers we 
 
ACCIDENTAL EVANGELISM 73 
 
 need now and then to be brought up with a round 
 turn, to find out under some stress of circumstance 
 just where we ought to be putting our emphasis, 
 what kind of men we ought to be, what we ought 
 to be doing in our own family, in our church, and 
 in the community to make our lives most worth 
 while. May I show you the effect of this in a 
 typical story recorded in one of our magazines? 
 The Editor of the Atlantic gives me permission 
 to quote from an article which appeared in its 
 columns some years ago under the title *^ Acci- 
 dental Salvation." It is out of the ruts and it is 
 of thrilling interest. It will be worth his time for 
 every minister as well as every layman to read, 
 mark, learn and inwardly digest the deep mes- 
 sage which hides in these words of wit : 
 
 ** Parker was a sorehead, sullen at breakfast, 
 surly at dinner, quarrelsome in the office, crusty 
 on the street, a bear at the party, a hog on the 
 road, a fly in the ointment. His wife was afraid 
 of him, the children were afraid of him, his clerks 
 were afraid of him, the very porter on the Pull- 
 man was afraid of him. Parker was a grouch. 
 
 **One night Parker rose at 2 a.m. to fasten a 
 flapping shutter. Going to the window he emitted 
 a yelp of distress which brought all hands on deck. 
 They turned on the light. Parker was discovered 
 sitting on the floor digging at something imbedded 
 in the sole of his left foot. Presently it let go and 
 Parker held up a half a needle. It was a pretty 
 clear case that the other half had remained in his 
 
74 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 system. Parker slept but little during the re- 
 mainder of the night, fearing blood poison. Im- 
 mediately after breakfast, he sought the family 
 physician, who after patient investigation, told 
 him he must have stepped on an already broken 
 needle for there was no fragment of the steel to 
 be found. But Parker knew that he was carrying 
 in his body a deadly thing which had already 
 started on its final mission. 
 
 ^ ^ He left the office early that afternoon and went 
 home, surprising Mrs. Parker with a display of 
 more tenderness than she had observed in him 
 since their honeymoon, which had long passed into 
 total eclipse. At dinner he appeared greatly in- 
 terested in the conversation of Bill and Susy 
 about the High School party. He patted the dog, 
 who looked at him with undisguised incredulity. 
 All that night Parker lay awake preparing for the 
 speedy winding up of his terrestrial affairs. He 
 remembered the stories he had heard of similar 
 cases, how the needle traveled through the whole 
 body of the victim until the heart was reached 
 and then — pouff ! just like that. He saw himself 
 sitting around in the house in dressing gown and 
 slippers, holding his head in his hands, waiting 
 for the fatal moment. Before dawn, however, he 
 had resolved to face the uncertainty of the future 
 like a gentleman, a decision which brought a warm 
 glow of pride. 
 
 ^*He began to find a new interest in the plans 
 of other people. When he went out for lunch, 
 Parker gave a blind man a quarter, and bought 
 a War Cry of a Salvation Army lassie. He called 
 up the Trustees of the Children's Hospital, in- 
 quired how they were getting along. It appeared 
 
ACCIDENTAL EVANGELISM 75 
 
 that he had decided to add a cipher to his previ- 
 ous subscription. 
 
 * ' Within six months all the people who knew the 
 old chap had recovered from their bewilderment 
 about him — that is, they ceased to make their curi- 
 osity articulate. 
 
 '^Parker had found himself. His business was 
 doubled, his home was a temple of devotion and 
 contentment, the local papers were speaking of 
 him as one of our heading citizens.' The shadow 
 never lifted, but it was not an unpleasant shadow. 
 Every night he went to sleep and bade himself 
 good-by. In the morning he rose, saying to him- 
 self, 'Perhaps this is the last day. I must pack it 
 brimful of the things that are most worth doing.' 
 Parker accidently achieved salvation. Sometimes 
 his eye grew moist and his throat ached when he 
 reflected upon the sympathetic understanding of 
 his wife, who studiously avoided any reference to 
 the impending tragedy and who in spite of her 
 secret sorrow acted up to the situation in manner 
 heroic. Whenever she pressed his hand, or patted 
 him on the cheek, it was her way of saying, *It is 
 better we should not talk about it, dear. ' She was 
 a good sport, mused Parker. 
 
 ''The fact that Mrs. Parker, while moving the 
 rug in her husband's room the Friday morning 
 following the accident discovered half of a needle 
 the point driven into the floor may have also 
 vouchsafed her courage to see the terrible thing 
 through with resignation." 
 
 That seems like a facetious story, but how ter- 
 ribly true to life it is. What utter reversion of 
 interests would take place if we knew our days 
 
76 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 were numbered ! When we say, * * Sonl, thou hast 
 much goods laid up for many years," we are 
 ready to eat, drink and be merry, but if He in 
 whose hands our life is should say to us '^To- 
 night!" how we would wish we had been wise in 
 time. **A million of dollars for a moment of 
 time!" But the bid is not taken. Can you bring 
 the truth of it all to the careless who come within 
 your reach before it is too latel If you do not 
 win them they mil continue to be the bond slaves 
 of selfish, base desires and utterly lost to God, to 
 themselves and to the world. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 THE PASTOR AT EPHESUS 
 
 Every true pastor longs for a message from his 
 Lord. If he has done anything worth while, he 
 would be glad to know of it that he might comfort 
 his heart with the message when the fire of his 
 zeal burns low and he is like to fail. If there is 
 any serious fault in his ministry, he would like 
 to know that while there is time to remedy it. 
 He does not want to be aroused too late. It is 
 sad to learn of a loss too late to avoid it. It is a 
 bitter thing to know of the nature of your malady 
 when there is no chance for a recovery. 
 
 We are interested in those pastors and churches 
 of Asia and the long ago. We know that human 
 nature is pretty much the same in all ages and 
 that the sins of Asia are the same sins that flourish 
 now in Europe and in America. If I can find out 
 what the Spirit said to pastors two thousand years 
 ago, I shall know what He would say to me now 
 under the same conditions. 
 
 When I read those ancient messages the years 
 slip away and in the place of cities far distant 
 in time and place, I hear the names of cities I 
 know so well, and pastors too whose hearts are 
 athrill to know just how they stand before God 
 
 77 
 
78 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 and who would give everything to know just what 
 the Spirit would say to them and to their church. 
 
 I would not venture to bring a message of my 
 own. It would be an impertinence for me to un- 
 dertake to act as mentor to my brethren, but I 
 may in modesty and self-abasement and efface- 
 ment remind myself and my brethren of the mes- 
 sages which came with irresistible power from 
 Him who holds the seven stars in His hands ; the 
 first and the last, who openeth and no man shut- 
 teth who shutteth and no man openeth, who was 
 dead and is alive again, and behold He is alive 
 forevermore. If such an one is to speak the 
 greatest and wisest of us all might well halt his 
 breath to listen. **He that hath an ear, let him 
 hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." 
 
 ^*Unto the Pastor of the Church at Ephesus 
 write:" I do not know your name but I know 
 the names of some of your parishioners. It must 
 be a thrilling thing to be the pastor of the Church 
 at Ephesus. When you go down the aisles and 
 enter the pulpit there are the marks of the men 
 in whose footsteps you walk. Men whose ability 
 and devotion were such that their names will shine 
 as stars in the firmament. Bishops and secre- 
 taries and pastors who have mounted to the high 
 places of opportunity and power. 
 
 If you are not weary of the repetition and do 
 not wish at times that you had been yourself an 
 .ancestor and a forerunner instead of a descendant 
 
THE PASTOR AT EPHESUS 79 
 
 and successor, let me call the roll of some of your 
 great predecessors. The Apostle Paul himself 
 founded your Church at Ephesus and was pastor 
 there for three years. He turned over his work 
 to Timothy, his son in the Gospel and in his letter 
 to the Ephesians, which is preserved, he urged 
 Timothy to stay there and look after his people. 
 Aquila, Priscilla, Apollos and Tychicus, most 
 famous among the saints of the early Church, all 
 laborers here. To crown its ancient list of wor- 
 thies, St. John was for years its pastor, and your 
 pulpit was his throne in the last years of his life. 
 Standing where you stand he remembered that 
 epitome of the Gospel: ^* Little children, love one 
 another," and when his parishioners wondered 
 why he so often repeated it, he answered, *^When 
 that is done, all is done." Before we have done 
 perhaps we will see the reason why the present 
 Church needs the same repetition. 
 
 Do you realize what a legacy you have and what 
 a marvelous thing it is to stand in such a pulpit? 
 Perhaps it may comfort you to know that even 
 such men as I have named needed as we do to 
 listen to the message which the Spirit gives to the 
 churches. It is quite probable that this message 
 which came to the Church at Ephesus was sent 
 when Timothy was its pastor. 
 
 But you are now the *^ angel of the Church at 
 Ephesus," and it is to you that this most vital 
 and grateful message comes : 
 
80 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 **I know thy works and thy toil and patience 
 and that thou canst not bear evil men and didst 
 try them which call themselves apostles and are 
 not, and didst find them false; and thou hast pa- 
 tience and didst bear for my name's sake and 
 hast not grown weary.'' 
 
 It ought to make you very happy to know that 
 all you are doing for the community is appreci- 
 ated. Nobody can call yours the church of the 
 holy loafers. You are on the job. That's a fine 
 parish house, and the Dorcas Society and the La- 
 dies' Guild and the Men's Club and the Boy 
 Scouts and the Civic Club keep its doors aswing 
 from morning till night. The message gives spe- 
 cial emphasis to your patience. You do not begin 
 a thing and drop it. You do not stop your agita- 
 tion for better laws and cleaner streets and finer 
 parks because some of the city fathers are soon 
 tired and let go. You bear with the frailties and 
 foibles of the mayor and aldermen as well as the 
 vacillating of the saints. You are patient with 
 those who want position and you get what good 
 you can even from those who want to see their 
 names in the papers as the price of their sub- 
 scriptions and their toil. 
 
 I was once pastor of the Church at Ephesus 
 myself and I know just what you are up against. 
 I knew Demas, the quitter, and Diotrephes, who 
 loved to be noticed, and Alexander, the copper- 
 smith. I congratulate you on your patience and 
 
THE PASTOR AT EPHESUS 81 
 
 especially because your patience was shown for 
 Christ's sake. That is the only kind of patience 
 that will last till seventy times seven, till the go- 
 ing down of the sun. 
 
 And with it all you are ready to show up wicked 
 and designing men. It takes courage to do that, 
 and it often brings good results. **The wicked 
 flee when no man pursueth," but they make better 
 time when you can get an indictment by the 
 grand jury. 
 
 I have always thought well of Martin Luther 
 for throwing an ink bottle at the devil. That re- 
 quires backbone, whether you throw it all at 
 once or drop by drop from a fountain pen. I 
 am glad you stand against all iniquities, whether 
 the men who transgressed wore ermine or home- 
 spun. 
 
 And then you are commended for your ortho- 
 doxy. **Thou hatest the work of the Nicolaitans 
 which I also hate.'' I do not know anything about 
 the Nicolaitans, and all the commentators seem 
 to be as ignorant as I am. They may have been 
 transcendentalists or holy-rollers or plain deists, 
 but whatever they were, the spirit says, **I hate 
 them, ' ' and so strong a word must have indicated 
 a pernicious doctrine and a harmful life. Thank 
 God you stand firm against all erroneous doctrines 
 to banish them from the earth. What a list of 
 virtues you possess! What a record of faithful 
 service ! All this stands to your credit. 
 
82 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 But here is a debit sheet with one entry only. 
 **I have this against thee.'' Well, with a dozen 
 entries on the credit sheet and only one on the 
 debit side, you surely will make a great showing. 
 What is that one fault? **I have this against 
 thee, that thou hast left thy first love.'' 
 
 AYill a little thing like that make any serious 
 trouble! *^Eemember therefore whence thou hast 
 fallen and repent and do the first works, or else 
 I will come upon thee quickly and remove the can- 
 dlestick out of its place." Is it so serious as that? 
 A ruined pastorate, a church overthrown, and 
 Ichabod written on its walls. No light and so the 
 candlestick throwTi away! Is that true? 
 
 Yes, alas it is true. When love has gone noth- 
 ing worth while is left. Brotherhood, fatherhood, 
 motherhood mean nothing when love is gone. 
 Here stands a woman with graying hair and pale 
 face, her eyes have lost their luster through scald- 
 ing tears. Her husband, portly and prosperous, 
 enters the room. With deep emotion she steps 
 toward him and says, ** John I must talk to you. 
 I cannot stand it any longer. Once I was the ap- 
 ple of your eye. I was more to you than all the 
 world beside. Your kisses were on my lips. You 
 were happy to be with me and nothing could take 
 you from me. All that is changed now. You do 
 not care for my company. You go your own way 
 without regard to me. You are cold and distant ; 
 you do not kiss me and they tell me you love an- 
 
THE PASTOR AT EPHESUS 83 
 
 other. I shall die if that is true, ' ' and she reaches 
 her hands to his shoulders. 
 
 The strong man throws off the clinging hands. 
 *'What are you complaining about I Didn't I find 
 you a poor girl, working in a factory and living 
 in a humble house I Didn 't I give myself to work 
 for you ? Look at your home now ! I have clothed 
 you in silk and given you a mansion to live in. 
 There are diamonds on your fingers and furs on 
 your back, there is silver and china in the closet 
 and carpets and rugs on your floors, and a chauf- 
 feur and automobile at your call. What are you 
 complaining about f 
 
 How the eyes of the suffering woman blaze as 
 she says, ^*What do I care about your silks or 
 your diamonds, your silver or your china or your 
 mansion! I would go back to the cottage where 
 you found me and put on the calico I used to wear, 
 I would walk the bare floors like a queen, if I 
 could only have back the love you gave me and 
 which made earth a heaven to my soul. ' ' 
 
 It is only a few months since London was en 
 fete. Why were Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square 
 crowded? Why were all the streets packed with 
 the populace! Why did the titled and the great 
 unite with the common people in glad acclaim? 
 It was love which broke down all barriers. It was 
 love which set the bells ringing in church and 
 cathedral and set the people in holiday attire to 
 vie with one another till the very heavens were 
 
84 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 filled with shout and colors. A princess had re- 
 ' V nounced her royal title and for the love she bore 
 the man of her choice she turned her back forever 
 upon one of the world's greatest thrones. All 
 England and the world hailed with glad acclaim a 
 love which made such a surrender with bounding 
 joy. It was the holy day of a mighty love. Sup- 
 pose that when Princess Mary had left the arm of 
 her father, the King, and had faced the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, standing by the side of the 
 bridegroom, when the priest had asked the fateful 
 question, *'Wilt thou have this man to be thy 
 wedded husband,'' the Princess had answered, *'I 
 do not love him." What would have happened? 
 London would have been hung with shadows, the 
 ringing bells would have been hushed. The service 
 would have stopped, the Archbishop would have 
 closed his book. Mary would have walked with 
 blanched face across the nave of that great temple 
 of silence and reconciliation leaning on the arm of 
 the King as she entered it and the bridegroom 
 would have gone his way alone. Only love can 
 bind two hearts together and only love can unite 
 the soul with the heavenly Bridegroom. He will 
 take nothing less. 
 
 It is the same answer which the Holy Spirit 
 makes to the pastor and the church at Ephesus 
 and New York and Chicago. What do I care 
 about your tall steeples and your vested choirs, 
 your high altars and your Gothic windows ? What 
 
THE PASTOR AT EPHESUS 85 
 
 are your cathedrals and your stately buildings 
 to me? I do not need your money. The gold 
 and silver of the earth are mine. With one fulmi- 
 nating stroke I could split the Andes or the 
 Himalayas and throw gold enough into the sun- 
 light to make cathedrals for the world. What 
 I ask is your love. If you do not give me that 
 I do not care what else you give, it is nothing 
 to me." 
 
 Have you forgotten, pastor at Ephesus, 
 when the light of God's face shone upon you, 
 when you could say: 
 
 "Jesus, T love thee. Thou art to me 
 Dearer than ever mortal can be." 
 
 Have you forgotten how when you went into the 
 pulpit in the old happy days your eyes kindled, 
 your hands were cold and your head hot and 
 your heart was ablaze with the passion of a great 
 overwhelming love? If the fire is out upon the 
 altar and you stand shivering where once you 
 stood in power; if you only go through a form 
 from which the power has gone, may God pity 
 you and help you, for your candlestick is already 
 empty. Services are nothing. It is service that 
 God wants. No institution can take the place of 
 a divine inspiration. 
 
 In some way we must get back the old love. 
 *' Remember from whence thou art fallen and re- 
 pent and do thy first works." How did you get 
 
86 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 that first love and how did you lose it? Did it 
 not grow warm in fellowship and prayer? Are 
 the hinges rusted on the closet door where once 
 you kept your tryst with God ? So many have no 
 appetite for the things of God. Food all about 
 but no appetite. The doctor comes to the home 
 and goes away shaking his head. What is the 
 matter? Heart failure — and the end. 
 
 The only question Jesus cared to ask of Peter 
 before his ordination was '^Lovest thou me?" 
 That is the one question that the Spirit asks of 
 the minister at Ephesus. No service is worth 
 while without love. What avails your orthodoxy 
 if you do not love? The devils are orthodox; 
 they believe and tremble. What avails all your 
 plans and schemes, your clubs and guilds? All is 
 hollow mockery without love. It is love which 
 makes the pulpit a flaming light. It is love which 
 brings the wayward home, the careless from their 
 wanderings, the prodigal from his husks. Love 
 never faileth. Pastor of Ephesus, come back 
 to thy first love ! 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PASTOR AT SARDIS 
 
 I know you will be glad to meet the pastor of 
 the First Church in Sardis. His fame is in all 
 the churches. Good old Alexander White of Edin- 
 burgh says of him, ^^Themistocles, Plutarch tells 
 us, could not get to sleep at night so loud were all 
 others in the praise of Miltiades, and the ministers 
 of the other churches in Asia were like Themis- 
 tocles in the matter of their sleep, so full were all 
 their people's mouths of the name and renown 
 of the minister of Sardis. When he went to the 
 communion season at Ephesus and Smyrna and 
 Pergamos and Thyatira, for years after the capti- 
 vated people could tell you his text and at the 
 very mention of his name they would break out 
 about his preaching. His earnestness, and im- 
 pressiveness and his memorable sayings all con- 
 tributed to make the name of the minister at 
 Sardis absolutely a household word up and down 
 the whole presbytery." 
 
 This is what the people say, but what says 
 the spirit? **I know thy works, that thou hast 
 a name, that thou livest and thou art dead/' I 
 hear the pastor stammering, *'How can you say 
 that? I have the finest church and the tallest 
 
 87 
 
88 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 spire in town, and onr congregations are the larg- 
 est. There are more cultivated people, more 
 millionaires and near-millionaires in our church 
 than in any other church in the city. We have 
 the best music and the most dignified service, 
 and the most popular church in town." 
 
 ^^Thou art dead!'^ is the awful answer of the 
 spirit. *^I know thy works/' Men look at the 
 form. They are pleased with externals. Their 
 estimate is of no account with Him whose servant 
 you are and before whom you stand. You are 
 proud of your services. They are only painted 
 pictures. Your Master said, * ' The words I speak 
 unto you they are spirit and they are life." 
 Measure yourself by that standard. They say 
 you preach great sermons, but what is a great 
 sermon f By what rule is it measured? Do homi- 
 letics and rhetoric and logic and scholarship de- 
 cide the worth of a sermon? Is the sermon an 
 end, or the means to an end? Of what use is an 
 engine if there is no power in it? The object of 
 your sermon is a bigger thing than its subject, 
 and the effect of it is the test of its worth. A 
 dead man has no conviction, not even that he is 
 dead. How can a dead man preach a living ser- 
 mon? He may go through the motions, galvan- 
 ized by some passing thrill, but at best he is only 
 one who plays upon a pleasing instrument. Your 
 sermons are like cypress trees ; they bear no fruit. 
 
 **I know thy works!" Love of praise has con- 
 
THE PASTOR AT SARDIS 89 
 
 sumed you as it did Cicero. Stern old Phocion 
 cried, **"Wliat foolish or wicked thing have I said 
 that the people so applaud me." But you are of 
 another kind. You are a glutton for praise. You 
 have to be fed upon it daily. Your soul grows 
 faint without it. Others have walked the same 
 path before you. That is one of the reasons why 
 Bunyan marks a path from the pulpit steps to 
 the city of destruction, and a sturdy old Scots- 
 man says, '*Dose a minister sufficiently with 
 praise and you will drown his soul in perdition, 
 if God does not interfere to save him." 
 
 **I know thy works." The inner light has 
 failed. While you were busy here and there about 
 things that seemed to be necessary, you forgot 
 to nourish the holy flame. Once you knew the 
 glory of it. If any one had told you that you 
 would lose it, you would have said, **That can 
 never be. I have had too deep an experience." 
 If any one had told you you would ever be indif- 
 ferent about it, you would have said, ^*Is thy 
 servant a dog that he should do this thing." But 
 you are now in Samson's place. When you would 
 arouse yourself to execute the old-time power, 
 you are surprised to find it has departed and 
 now you seek to accomplish by art what once 
 you did by inspiration. You have ' * a great future 
 behind you." It is of no use to remind yourself 
 of the heights where you once stood. The mill 
 will never turn again with old flood. 
 
90 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 My heart goes out to the minister at Sardis. I 
 know him well. He is preaching on all sorts of 
 topics and questions that are in public thought. 
 He has never had any diplomatic training, but 
 he is seeking to solve the intricate questions of 
 national diplomacy. He wants to be up-to-date. 
 He has spent three weeks in Europe and now he 
 is able to tell his admiring people all about how 
 to settle the questions which the war has raised. 
 He never worked a day in his life in a cotton 
 factory or a steel mill, but he really wants to 
 settle the great questions w^hich trouble our social 
 life, and so with the best of intentions, he rushes 
 unafraid where wise men fear to tread. He never 
 majored in philosophy or higher or lower criti- 
 cism, but he feels he ought to bring some assertion 
 to the settlement of Biblical criticism and what 
 he lacks in critical scholarship, he can make up 
 in rhetoric, so that his congregation, who are 
 mostly uninformed, will be greatly impressed. Of 
 course the great scholar walks softly, but the 
 temptation to the newly-rich intellectually is al- 
 most irresistible, especially when he occupies a 
 pulpit and no one is at liberty to talk back. When 
 Prof. Borden P. Bowne was on trial for heresy, 
 he was asked by the prosecutor to state his posi- 
 tion on certain matters of Biblical criticisms. The 
 philosopher bowed his massive head and said, 
 *'That is a matter outside of my department. I 
 would not feel qualified to express an opinion on 
 
THE PASTOR AT SARDIS 91 
 
 a matter that only scholars after years of study 
 are qualified to discuss." 
 
 In all these things, the pastor at Sardis is actu- 
 ated by the highest motives, but in view of the 
 message which the Spirit gives, he is making first 
 what is only secondary at the best. He is not a 
 diplomat, he is not a politician, nor is he pri- 
 marily a professor of philosophy or social science. 
 When his Master was on the earth he had a fine 
 chance to preach on politics and social questions 
 and to organize a propaganda against Rome and 
 against the injustice of wealth and power, but 
 He did not improve that opportunity. When 
 John, languishing in prison and, disturbed by 
 distempered imaginings, sent word to Him, say- 
 ing, **Art thou he that should come, or look we 
 for another," He said to this messenger, **Wait 
 here for a little." He then applied a little indi- 
 vidualistic gospel on a blind man and a leper and 
 a seeker for truth and said, ^^You go back and 
 tell John what you have seen. The blind see, 
 the leper is cleansed, the poor have the gospel 
 preached unto them. That will be answer enough. 
 John will know." 
 
 What the people in Sardis need to know is this 
 — Have you any message from headquarters? 
 What has God spoken! Is there any message 
 from the Lord? You profess to be His ambassa- 
 dor. An ambassador cannot represent his King 
 unless he bears some message from Him. Has 
 
92 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 He talked with you! If so, tell us what He has 
 said. All other voices fade in His presence. 
 
 I hope the pastor at Sardis will be mindful of 
 the fact that he is also his brother's keeper and 
 that he must answer both for his acts and his 
 influence. All unknown to him, other ministers in 
 lesser pulpits are looking to see what posi- 
 tion the great pastor at Sardis takes that they 
 may know what to do themselves. As there w£re 
 a generation of lesser Beechers, and Talmages and 
 Moodys and Brooks, so the pastor at Sardis is 
 reproducing himself — others following in his 
 steps. If he fails to lead aright, how great will 
 be his condemnation. A young preacher, like a 
 young lawyer or a young physician, or a young 
 professor, is likely to regard surface conditions, 
 the form and the technique. He will imitate the 
 minister at Sardis in the things which are least 
 worthy of imitation. This leader must realize 
 that and hold himself accountable as God will 
 also hold him. 
 
 The terrible thing about all this is that outside 
 ministers and churches were really deceived. 
 Sardis had a fine reputation, a reputation for be- 
 ing alive and successful, a model for aU churches 
 to follow. Let us thank God that the word of 
 the Spirit to the minister at Sardis is not a 
 judicial sentence but a warning of love. '*Be 
 thou watchful and stablish the things that re- 
 
THE PASTOR AT SARDIS 93 
 
 main which were ready to die for I have found no 
 work of thine fulfilled before my God." 
 
 *^ Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the 
 bed and Christ shall give thee light.'' No work 
 of thine fulfilled! What then is the work of the 
 Church? Let us be clear at that point. All 
 things which interest humanity are of concern to 
 the Church, but nothing of her work is completed 
 unless it eventuates in a changed life and a Chris- 
 tian character. What has been your fault, 
 pastor of Sardis! Remember your commission. 
 Keep it and repent. Why did I call you into 
 the ministry? What was that high calling which 
 you received? Said a great pastor to me, **I had 
 worked for a crowd and a sensation and a place 
 in the sun. I see now that I must turn to the 
 cross of Jesus. I must carry on until my work 
 eventuates in the great surrender of the soul to 
 Jesus Christ." That is why you are in the min- 
 istry and you are to make full proof of that min- 
 istry in this regard. 
 
 Hold, or I will come in an hour unexpected. 
 Carry him out! Room for the corpse! He is 
 dead. Speak the words of love for God. There 
 is no response. No, it must not be! Some day 
 the tired hands of the minister of Sardis will be 
 folded over his breast. Like the old doctor of the 
 Bonnie Brier Bush he will be ** tired to death.'* 
 No greater tribute can be paid him than to say 
 
94 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 *^He is worn out preaching.'' He did not rust 
 out. He did not trifle. He wore himself out, but 
 he did not die. He is to live forever and those 
 whom he led to Christ will call him blessed here 
 and hereafter. 
 
 There is good cheer at the last. **Thou hast a 
 few names in Sardis which did not defile their 
 garments. They shall walk with me in white.'' 
 Think of it! *^I will confess His name before my 
 Father." There is your name in the Lamb's 
 Book of Life. How small everything else looks 
 now ! Only one thing counts. O pastor of Sardis, 
 mount your pulpit steps ! It is a great hour. The 
 eternities are bending low! 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PASTOR AT LAODICEA 
 
 There is one challenge and asseveration made 
 to the pastor of each of the seven churches. It is 
 the only statement which is seven times repeated. 
 It is enough to drive the blood back upon the 
 heart and blanch the cheek of every careless 
 pastor both then and now. '^I hnow thy works.'' 
 There is no chance for subterfuge, excuse or alibi. 
 It is not a question of reputation, of orthodoxy 
 or heterodoxy. I pierce all camouflage and tear 
 aside all cloaks and coverings. Every one stands 
 naked and alone before me. No refuge of lies 
 can avail. / know, 
 
 A judge may be deceived, a jury may be sub- 
 orned, a crowd may be stampeded, the people 
 may be cajoled, a minister may be one thing in a 
 pulpit and quite another outside of it. He may be 
 one thing to his family and another thing to his 
 parishioners. His speech may be of gold, his acts 
 of clay. On the street he may be full of zeal, but 
 sloth may lie in wait at his study door. He may 
 talk of high ideals but he may be the slave of the 
 rich and powerful. Let no man forget that it is 
 the ** faithful and true witness" which says to each 
 one of us *^I know thy works." 
 
 95 
 
96 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 To no pastor is this declaration more heart- 
 searching than to the pastor at Laodicea. What 
 saith the spirit? Thou sayest *^I am rich and 
 increased with goods and have need of nothing. 
 I have a fine church, a big audience, a beautiful 
 parsonage, wealthy friends, a good salary and a 
 Pierce- Arrow car, why should I worry ! ' ' 
 
 Listen! ^*I know that thou are wretched and 
 miserable and poor and blind and naked." If 
 that sentence smites your ears as you cross the 
 threshold of the country club, I had as soon be 
 David before Nathan as to be in your place. Tra- 
 dition has it that the angel of the Church at Lao- 
 dicea was no other than that same Archippus to 
 whom Paul sends a message in his letter to the 
 Colossians, **Say to Archippus, take heed to the 
 ministry which thou hast received in the Lord 
 that thou fulfil it." Would it not be unspeakably 
 sad if after these words of the Apostle Paul ad- 
 dressed to Archippus as a young man, he had 
 heeded them so little that he grew old in his indif- 
 ferent ministry and when his hair was turning 
 gray, he should receive this stinging rebuke from 
 Him who knows the hearts of men and makes no 
 mistake? Is there a sadder sight on earth than 
 a gray-haired minister who has laid up no rich 
 treasure of uncalculating, unstinted, unselfish 
 service? If the gray-haired Archippus does not 
 want to beg in the harvest and have nothing, if 
 he does not wish to go into the grave of the 
 
THE PASTOR AT LAODICEA 97 
 
 broken-hearted, let him listen before it is too late 
 to the words which the youthful Archippus heard 
 from one who loved him, ^*Take heed to the min- 
 istry which thou hast received in the Lord that 
 thou fulfil it." Pilloried forever in a place of 
 shame, Archippus and his Church have coined a. 
 word which all men shrink from and detest. To 
 be called a Laodicean is to be cast out alike 
 by saint and sinner, to be branded in such fashion 
 that no man can bear it without unspeakable 
 shame. 
 
 And what is his condemnation! '^Thou art 
 neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or 
 hot. So then because thou art lukewarm and 
 neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my 
 mouth.'' The spirit of the age is the spirit of 
 Laodicea. The ordinances of the Church are all 
 right, if you do not make too much fuss over them. 
 It is well to be a little religious, but do not be in- 
 sistent about it. Religion is not a thing to be 
 talked about. It is not a thing to which a man 
 should give his energy; it is an incidental thing; 
 don't fret about it. Don't let your piety get the 
 best of you, so that wicked men will not be happy 
 when you are about. You can have some good 
 ideas without bringing them forward. You do 
 not need to carry anything to excess. You can be 
 friendly without being intimate. You can be 
 scholarly without being pedantic, and by the same 
 token you can be religious without being enthu- 
 
98 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 siastic. It is bad form to appear to be interested 
 in anything religious. Interest is reserved for 
 athletics and amusements and business and poli- 
 tics. It is out of place in religion. 
 
 So the men of Laodicea said to Archippus and 
 Archippus came at last to echo the same sentences 
 and in so doing he reversed every true method of 
 judgment both for himself and for his Church. 
 Here is what Archippus said of himself and of 
 his people: *^I am rich and increased with goods 
 and have need of nothing. ' ' This is what the just 
 judge said of him: *^Thou art wretched and mis- 
 erable and poor and blind and naked." You peo- 
 ple of Laodicea are on the high road of commerce. 
 Your gold is counted by the merchant princes and 
 is known, among the traders, but your gold is 
 only tinsel. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried 
 in the fire, the coin of good deeds, that thou may- 
 est be rich. Laodicea is an emporium of trade. 
 Fabrics fit for kings and queens are woven here. 
 Their rare texture is the admiration of the world. 
 You glory in that, but let me say to you that a 
 white robe is more regal than a purple one. To 
 be clad in righteousness is far better than to 
 build a big barn, and you had better beg for bread 
 in this world than to cry for water in the next. 
 *^So I exhort thee to buy of me white raiment 
 that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame 
 of thy nakedness do not appear." You walk the 
 streets with painted faces, with ointment and cos- 
 
THE PASTOR AT LAODICEA 99 
 
 metics you anoint yourselves. There is henna on 
 your finger nails and under your eyes. Let me 
 anoint your eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest 
 see. Archippus, what is going to happen with 
 you? Will it be ^'like people like priest/^ or will 
 you find your Pentecost and after that shall it 
 be *^like priest like people?^' 
 
 It is conviction, it is devotion, it is eager zeal 
 that alone can save you. I wish you were hot or 
 cold. It was Father Taylor, the sailor preacher, 
 who said **I would rather see the devil stand 
 straight up in a man. That is some sign that he 
 is coming out. ' ' The thing I cannot stand is indif- 
 ference. The cold realize their need and stretch 
 out their hands to Him who can furnish warmth 
 and light and life, but the lukewarm will do 
 nothing. 
 
 ^^What are your speculations f said his friends 
 to the dying Faraday, most devoted of Christian 
 scientists. The Christian scholar replied, ^ ^ Specu- 
 lations, I iiave no speculations. I am resting on 
 certainties. I know Whom I have believed and 
 am persuaded that He is able to keep that which 
 I have committed unto Him against that day. ' ' 
 
 In another book, Heralds of a Passion, I have 
 set forth the passion of Jesus and have declared 
 that Christianity being a life must be impres- 
 sioned and that I reaffirm. 
 
 But with all the terrible heart searching which 
 the spirit gives to Archippus, let the minister of 
 
V 
 
 100 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 Laodicea behold the tears in the eyes of Him who 
 speaks: *^As many as I love I rebuke and chas- 
 ten. ' ' These are not only the warnings of a friend, 
 they are admonition of a father and a mother. 
 It is because I love you that I cannot bear to 
 see you go on indifferent to the end. It is because 
 of what I see in you that might be mighty for God 
 and men if once aroused that I am seeking to stir 
 you out of your lethargy. My heart is yearning 
 for you, but that is not all. ' ' Behold I stand at the 
 door and knock." With gracious importunity, he 
 does not say to the husbandman of the fruitless 
 tree, *^Cut it down, why cumbereth you the 
 ground f That decree has not yet gone forth. 
 There is a story good enough to be true of how 
 Holman Hunt, the artist, when he had painted 
 that famous picture where Christ is waiting out- 
 side the door, was so moved by the thought of it 
 that he himself threw wide open the door of his 
 own heart saying, ^*Come in, thou heavenly 
 Guest." 
 
 This is His promise, **I will come in to him 
 and will sup with him and he with me. ' ' How can 
 two sup together except they be agreed! How 
 can the Jesus whose tears fell upon the shingly 
 beach at Galilee and in the fastness of the moun- 
 tains, how can He consort with those who are 
 lukewarm religiously? How can He bring the 
 pearls of His devotion to those who by their lives 
 will trample them under their feet ? He who arose 
 
THE PASTOR AT LAODICEA 101 
 
 to pray a great while before it was day; He who 
 was so zealous that they took Him to be John 
 the Baptist, or one of the prophets come back, 
 how could He fellowship with the indifferent and 
 the dilettante? No man can sup with Him who 
 does not share His passion. ^*If so be that we 
 suffer with Him that we may be also glorified to- 
 gether" is the ringing challenge to the Church at 
 Laodicea. 
 
 How his heart blazes as the spirit says to 
 Archippus, lift your eyes to the far horizon, ^ ^ To 
 him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me 
 in my Father's throne." You must pay the price 
 in sweat and toil, in consuming anxiety, and 
 bloody travail, but if you will do that you may 
 be an overcomer. All that is mine is thine. As 
 I paid the price and overcame and am sat down 
 with my Father in His throne, so will I grant to 
 you to share my glory. 
 
 Archippus, take heed to the ministry which 
 thou hast received from the Lord that thou ful- 
 fill it. *^He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
 the spirit saith unto the churches!" 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 
 THE PASTOR AT PHILADELPHIA 
 
 It is an interesting coincidence that the two 
 churches which received no rebuke — the suffering 
 church at Smyrna and the weak church at Phila- 
 delphia — are still extant, while the other five 
 churches long since passed away. Gibbon calls 
 attention to the fact that in his time the candle- 
 stick of Ephesus had been removed ; Laodicea was 
 peopled with wolves and foxes : Sardis was a mis- 
 erable village, the god of Mohammed was invoked 
 in the mosque, and the population of Smyrna was 
 supported by the foreign trade of Franks and 
 Armenians. Philadelphia alone, he said, had 
 been saved. 
 
 We do not affirm that the preservation of a Mos- 
 lem town where once a Christian pastor shep- 
 herded his flock, is the reward of his faith or the 
 result of his self-sacrifice, but it is interesting his- 
 torically to note what has happened to seven 
 cities where once the ministers of our faith pro- 
 claimed their message. We may at least medi- 
 tate with Macaulay's New Zealander on the ruins 
 of London Bridge that the luster and glory of 
 human pride last but a little while. 
 
 Hear the message to the pastor of Philadelphia! 
 
 102 
 
THE PASTOR AT PHILADELPHIA 103 
 
 The one who gives it says, **He that is holy and 
 true, who openeth the door of opportunity and 
 no man shutteth and shutteth and no man open- 
 eth.'' May each of us hear from the same lips 
 the greeting to the pastor of Philadelphia! ^*I 
 know thy works. Behold I have set before thee 
 an open door and no man can shut it.'' Let us 
 thank God and take courage. We will not be ex- 
 alted above measure by what follows, but it will 
 keep us from losing heart when our faith is tried. 
 **Thou hast a little strength and hast kept my 
 word and hast not denied my name." Measured 
 by the standards of ministers' meetings and con- 
 ferences, it is a far cry from the stately, famous 
 church at Sardis to the weak church at Philadel- 
 phia. There are plenty of ministers who are anx- 
 ious about the health of the pastor at Sardis, 
 or if he is still robust they wonder how long before 
 he will be called to a secretaryship or be elected 
 Bishop. They would gladly undertake to fill his 
 shoes at Sardis, but Philadelphia is a bird of an- 
 other feather. There is no competition for that 
 pulpit. 
 
 When I was a stripling and was sent to my first 
 charge a minister who had been a pastor there 
 years before said, **I congratulate you on your 
 appointment." **Is it then a fine field for a 
 pastor?" **I did not say that, but I congratulate 
 you that you have been sent to so poor a church 
 that you can never be sent to a poorer." Ah, no. 
 
104 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 the pastor at Philadelphia does not have to worry 
 for fear some one will steal his job, but if he only 
 knew it, it is infinitely better to have an open 
 door in Philadelphia than a closed door in Sardis. 
 That first appointment of mine furnished a field 
 for the best that was in me and I treasure to-day 
 the lessons I learned there, the faith I gained 
 there and the Christian fellowship I found there. 
 Any place where a soul can be near to God is a 
 great place, hard by the gates of heaven. 
 
 pastor at Philadelphia, the little church with 
 the little strength, you are yet to save the world. 
 The streams of influence like the springs of the 
 river rise in quiet places. The world's great men 
 were mostly born in humble places and cradled 
 in want and toil. Presidents, senators, million- 
 aires, laymen and ministers were born on the farm 
 and in the little village. Let the little Christian 
 chapel and schoolhouse look after them in their 
 youth, for some day they will be seated in the 
 seats of the mighty and they will be on the ofiicial 
 board at Sardis. 
 
 **Thou hast a little strength and hast kept my 
 word." You may have but a little strength but 
 God is omnipotent and His strength is yours for 
 the asking. Herein is your strength: **Thou hast 
 kept my word and hast not denied my name." An 
 old Scotch Covenantor quaintly says, **The min- 
 ister at Philadelphia had but little strength of 
 intellect and little learning, but what he lacked 
 
THE PASTOR AT PHILADELPHIA 105 
 
 on the mere mental side was more than made up 
 to him on the moral and spiritual side. And that 
 wisest by far of all the seven ministers of Asia 
 soon found out where his true strength lay and 
 threw himself with all his weakness upon his true 
 strength. In his preaching whatever his theme 
 was, he soon found his way to Jesus. That was 
 the name above every name and he was never tired 
 of proclaiming it. So it was that he received that 
 greatest encomium: *^Thou hast not denied my 
 name.'' 
 
 It was lamented by a puritan preacher that the 
 men of his time were so busy with the signs of 
 the times and the direction of the wind called 
 Euroclydon and the date when the Gospels were 
 written that they had no strength left to proclaim 
 the Gospel itself. Alexander White adds: **I 
 have myself, to my confusion of face, I confess, 
 wasted many a precious hour in this pulpit on 
 Euroclydon and on the time when the Prophets 
 and the Psalms and the Gospels were written, but 
 I am beginning now to number my days and I am, 
 as you will witness, turning my own attention and 
 vours far more to the name of Jesus Christ in 
 imitation of the minister at Philadelphia." 
 
 There are fine opportunities now and many 
 helps so that the minister of Philadelphia can 
 hope to develop the little strength of his mentality 
 and of his scholarship. He must needs apply 
 himself to these. It is God's way of increasing 
 
106 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 his power, but let him not forget that for every 
 hour he spends in critical study, he must spend 
 another in holy meditation and on his knees. If 
 you are the pastor you must feed your flock. 
 There is no food in criticism. Your people will 
 starve to death on it. Even were you able to 
 undertake it after some fashion, you had better 
 leave that to the men who spend their time at it. 
 You give your time to the ministry. Have carved 
 in the timber over the window in your study, 
 where you can see it every time you lift your eyes 
 and on the back of the pulpit where you will face 
 it before you rise to preach, the same words that 
 Bonar had carved in the little parsonage of his 
 first charge and in his great city church at Glas- 
 gow — ^*He that winneth souls is wise.'' And put 
 at the end of the church where you can see it all 
 through the sermon the same cry which is cut on 
 the faces of your people, **Sir, we would see 
 Jesus." 
 
 ** Because thou hast kept the word of my 
 patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of 
 thy temptation which shall come upon all the earth 
 to try them that dwell upon the earth." That 
 does not mean that a minister will have no tempta- 
 tions. His Master faced them in the wilderness 
 and he will have to face them in the study, on 
 the street, and in the pulpit. By so much as he 
 stands for attainments of any sort, by so much 
 his temptations will be multiplied. Is he a great 
 
THE PASTOR AT PHILADELPHIA 107 
 
 preacher 1 He will look over his congregation and 
 say, *' Behold this great Babylon which I myself 
 have builded. I do not need God's help. I can 
 go alone/' If his pews are empty, he will be 
 tempted to lose his faith and to surrender to 
 despair. If people speak him fair, he will be 
 putfed np, and when he has lost his simplicity and 
 his humility there is poverty for his soul. When 
 people are jealous of his power or repudiate his 
 zeal in their behalf, when old friends turn away 
 from him because he has spoken the truth — all this 
 will hurt unspeakably, and at times he may almost 
 be ready to curse God and die. But let him never 
 forget that God has put an open door before him, 
 an open door into the secret place of His own 
 presence, where his strength may be renewed, 
 where he may mount up on wings as eagles, run 
 and not be weary, walk and not faint. While we 
 are in the world we shall have temptations, but 
 hear the Master saying, *'Be of good cheer, I have 
 overcome the world." ** Behold I come quickly." 
 As to the final coming of our blessed Lord to 
 terminate the evil and diadem the right, there 
 may be a difference in the convictions of men. 
 That time may be nearer or farther away than 
 we think, but this is true for every one of us — 
 ** Behold I come quickly." It may be at mom, or 
 noon or eve ; any day may be the last and we do 
 well to ask ourselves each day, *^Are there any 
 last things I should like to have done, are there 
 
108 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 any little odds and ends of service that I would 
 be glad to accomplish before the shadows fall?" 
 There is no sorrow but only joy in that sense of 
 the immanence of Him whom our soul loveth. 
 Since He may come at any time, therefore, ^^hold 
 fast that which thou hast that no man take thy 
 crown.'' I do not think that there is a selfish 
 thought behind this exhortation to horde what 
 one has or to see to it that nobody else gets the 
 reputation and reward for work that we have 
 done. The only crowning that God knows any- 
 thing about is the crowning of the faithful. He 
 did not say, **Be thou successful and I will give 
 thee a crown of life." He only said, *^Be thou 
 faithful." Hold to thy task a little longer. The 
 end of it may be nearer than you think. Let no 
 one take the crown that belongs to you. See to 
 it that you are found in your place. *^He that 
 overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of 
 my God and he shall go no more out." Think 
 of it, little man, to be a part of the living temple 
 of God forever! 
 
 Philadelphia was overthrown by earthquakes 
 again and again. Any temple or shrine might be 
 overwhelmed in the night, but no such cataclysm 
 shall befall the temple of my God. Thy penny 
 rushlight may be a star to shine forever and 
 upon that noble column which God has called you 
 to set up there may be written a new name. May 
 I be there to see ! 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE PASTOK-EVANGELIST 'S OUTLOOK 
 
 What then is a pastor? The passage in the 
 New Testament which we translate, ^^I am the 
 good shepherd" stands in the Vulgate *^Ego sum 
 Pastor bonus." So the function of the pastor is 
 the function of a shepherd. But when Jesus said, 
 **I am the good shepherd," he also said, ^*The 
 good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." So 
 the business of the pastor is a business of life ; for 
 life and, if necessary, to the death ; of life because 
 the great Pastor said, **I am come that ye might 
 have life and that ye might have it more abun- 
 dantly ; ' '; unto death, for the good Pastor said, 
 **The good pastor giveth his life for the sheep. 
 An hireling will flee because he is an hireling and 
 careth not for the sheep." Just in proportion 
 as one is a good pastor he will, like his Master, 
 give his life for the sheep. Now the shepherd's 
 business is to look after those who are going 
 astray. Jesus said in substance, * * You cannot edu- 
 cate the world into a new life ; you have to suffer 
 for men, and if necessary die for them." Jesus 
 was indeed a teacher, and He had to educate and 
 instruct, but He says that what He came for was 
 ^*to seek and to save that which was being lost." 
 
 109 
 
no PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 The lost man, like the lost sheep does not come 
 home of himself. He has to be sought. It is not 
 enough to build your church and to stand in your 
 pulpit and say **Come." You have to go out and 
 seek, if you would save. When the passion for 
 souls dies out then all sense of the reality of reli- 
 gion perishes. It is when we see Him healing 
 men that we have faith in the great physician; 
 it is when we see the lost being saved that we 
 believe in Christianity, and when the passion for 
 the lost dies out in the pulpit, men will shiver 
 around its cold ashes instead of warming their 
 souls at the blaze of a light which was kindled in 
 the heavens. 
 
 Hoover said the other day that ** nothing could 
 save the soul of the nation and of the Armament 
 Conference except to evangelize them.'' 
 
 (Let us get then a clear conception of what the 
 pastor is. The pastoral function is nothing more 
 nor less than to watch over the sheep and to 
 bring those who are straying back into the folcj,^ 
 Is it not time to go back to the one business for 
 which the Church of God was organized and 
 inspired ? They are telling us that over ninety per 
 cent of our laws are for property and ten per 
 cent for life. How large is the proportion of our 
 endeavor that is directed to the form of things 
 and how much to the life which giveth form to 
 the Church! Are we not long on church archi- 
 tecture and church millinery and theological dis- 
 
PASTOE-EVANGELIST'S OUTLOOK 111 
 
 quisitions and critical subtleties, and short on 
 Christian love? Is it not certain that the only 
 truth which amounts to anything is felt truth! 
 Is it not sight that we need at present more than 
 light? The world is full of light if only we have 
 eyes to see it. What will our knowledge profit 
 us without love. **No more," said Wesley, ^4han 
 it profits the devil and his angels.'' Is it worth 
 while to spend our strength on purely intellectual 
 truths? In what church was a heresy trial ever 
 followed by penitents crowding to the altar? It 
 has been said that a heresy trial is like a dog 
 fight in a flower garden ; the only things that are 
 settled are the flowers. 
 
 The world wants Christ; the Christ of purity 
 and of sympathy, and of the passionate and yearn- 
 ing soul. There is a story of a mission worker 
 speaking at a socialist meeting when a woman, 
 with eyes aflame, cried: **Do we have to have this 
 blankety, blank religion rammed down our 
 throats? So far as I am concerned I wish every 
 sky pilot could be stood up against a wall and 
 shot." But the sky pilot, in the spirit of his Mas- 
 ter, sparred for time until the crowd permitted 
 him to go on, and when his address on the love of 
 his Lord was over, the black-eyed vixen said, ^*Is 
 that what the Church wants to tell us? Is that 
 the message of Christianity? Why haven't we 
 heard it before? Come again and tell us more 
 about it." 
 
112 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 Everything else has been preached from the 
 pulpit and every nostrum has been tried. Many 
 who thought they had some other message than 
 the old one have at last turned to the Master and 
 said, ''Why could not we cast him outf They 
 have heard from the Master, ''This kind cometh 
 not forth but by prayer and devotion and the lov- 
 ing soul." The evangel of the cross is old news 
 and new news and good news, and the only news 
 that a sinner needs in any age of the world and 
 in any condition of sin. Human nature now is 
 the same thing that it was when Pharaoh ruled 
 in Egypt and Attic poets sang and devotees 
 poured their libations at the shrine of Diana and 
 amid the mysteries of Isis. Sorrow and sin and 
 shame and death have not gone out of fashion. 
 In the midst of all materialism and all wander- 
 ings away from God, the great silent stars look 
 down and seem to say, "Whither so fast, little 
 men?" The mourners still go about the streets, 
 and the men, who by the grace of God are saving 
 the world, cry out — ' ' Oh, come let us worship and 
 bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our 
 Maker." No modem lights can put out the old 
 ones. You cannot cut away the azure arch with 
 a sword, nor with all your cannonading overwhelm 
 the stars. Why should we fool with the nostrums 
 lof little men while Jesus stands in His resur- 
 rected glory saying, "All power is given unto me 
 in heaven^and in earth. Go quickly everywhere. 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S OUTLOOK 113 
 
 Lo, I am with you even unto the end of the world. ' ' 
 If the pastor is really the shepherd of the sheep, 
 the one attribute which will stand out above all 
 others is love for the sheep. If he does not love 
 them and does not know them well enough to call 
 them by name, he will have no influence with them. 
 Long ago on the slope of Hermon, I said to an 
 Arab shepherd, **Is it true that you have a name 
 for each one of your sheep, and do they know it 
 and will they answer it when you call?" He said, 
 **It is true." *^Then," I said, **will you please 
 call some of them to you!" He hesitated a mo- 
 ment and said, * * This is their feeding time. It is 
 the worst time in the day to call them." ^*Ah," 
 thought I, *4s it not true with the great Shepherd 
 that many of His sheep are so busy in the 'feed- 
 ing time' that they do not hear the voice of the 
 good Shepherd!" **But," said the Arab to me, 
 '*I think I may still be able to make them hear 
 me." Then he called in a tone as sweet as might 
 have been sounded at the door of Jacob's tent 
 when he called for Rachel. On the second repe- 
 tition of the name a sheep, perhaps two thirds as 
 far away as any, lifted her head, waited a moment 
 as if to be sure, then when the call was repeated 
 she bounded at the top of her speed and came up 
 to the shepherd and laid her head lovingly against 
 him. No one but a loving shepherd could do that 
 in Arabia or anywhere else. 
 What would have happened if, when Mary 
 
114 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 came to Simon ^s feast with her alabaster box, 
 Jesus had not been there? And what would have 
 happened when the prodigal came back if there 
 had been nobody at home but the elder brother? 
 The pastor must care for his sheep, and care to 
 care. If he wears a mask, some day it will slip ; 
 if he simulates an interest which he does not really 
 feel, discovery is not far away; and in some 
 stormy night or in some busy day, his self -con- 
 sciousness will make itself so clear that all the 
 world will know that he is an hireling and the 
 sheep are not his. 
 
 With that love for the sheep there will go a 
 solicitude which will brook no denial. If the tro- 
 phies of Miltiades would not allow the younger 
 Greeks to sleep, the pastor will realize that a 
 battle is on greater than in the Valley of Elah; 
 that the World is battling for the life of the pas- 
 tor's flock, and is taking the Flesh and the Devil 
 to bear him awful company. If the pastor really 
 at heart feels there is not much difference between 
 him who serveth God and him who serveth Him 
 not, if he thinks that because a man lives in a 
 three-story house and keeps an automobile and 
 carries a cane and uses visiting cards he is, there- 
 fore, not far from the Kingdom of God, he will 
 not be likely to give up an afternoon on the golf 
 links to make sure that he has crossed the line 
 into that Kingdom. But if he realizes that there 
 is an infinite distance between those born of the 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S OUTLOOK 115 
 
 flesh and those born of the spirit, that the declara- 
 tion of the Master is as true for the rich as for 
 the poor, as true for the learned as the ignorant, 
 **Ye must be born again," he will give up any 
 engagement and pay any price to see that new 
 birth accomplished. All the thirty-nine articles 
 are condensed into three in the hour when life is 
 trembling in the balance. **Ye must be born 
 again, ' ' you can be born again, and now is the time. 
 
CHAPTER Xni 
 
 THE pastor-evangelist's MESSAGE 
 
 What the pastor is will always speak louder 
 than what he says ; so in any estimate of the pas- 
 tor's message, let us begin with himself. There 
 is a familiar story of an old monk who took with 
 him a novice from the monastery and said : * * Let 
 us go down into the town and preach." They 
 passed through the streets and the market place, 
 saw men at their work and little children at their 
 play, and at last took the winding road toward 
 the monastery. **When are we going to preach?'' 
 asked the novice. '*We have been preaching all 
 the time," was the quick response. 
 
 There is an automatic influence which goes 
 forth like an exhalation from a good life and of 
 that the pastor may be quite unaware. Moses 
 wist not that his face shone when he came down 
 from the mount. The Shulamite woman, watching 
 Elisha, said: ^*I perceive that this is a holy man 
 of God that passeth by us continually." It was 
 for that reason that she sought him when death 
 stalked in at the door. Racing with death she 
 crossed the great valley to Carmel. She would 
 not be satisfied with his staff or his servants; 
 her trust was in God's prophet. ^*As the Lord 
 
 116 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S MESSAGE 117 
 
 liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave 
 thee." Her faith was rewarded when the prophet 
 put his heart to the heart of the child, lip to lip 
 and body to body, and life came back. 
 
 Here stands Tennyson with his singing robes 
 about him and chants the story of the spotless 
 Sir Galahad: 
 
 ^' While Galahad thus spoke, his eye dwelling on 
 
 mine 
 Drew me with power upon me, till I grew one 
 with him to believe as he believed." 
 
 Dr. W. V. Kelley quotes the stately words of 
 Macaulay : 
 
 **It was before the deity embodied in a human 
 form, walking among men, partaking of their in- 
 firmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over 
 their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding 
 on the cross, that the prejudices of the synagogue, 
 and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of 
 the Portico and the fasces of the lictor and the 
 swords of thirty legions were humbled in the 
 dust." 
 
 We shall now pass to consider with some defi- 
 niteness the form of the evangelistic message 
 which the pastor's lips must proclaim. 
 
 One never-to-be-forgotten day in the life of a 
 king and of a prophet, Zedekiah took Jeremiah 
 out of prison and brought him to the palace and 
 
118 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 said to him secretly, *'Is there any word from 
 the Lord?'* and Jeremiah answered, *' There is.'' 
 Now whether they own it or not, that is the query 
 in the heart and on the lips of every thoughtful 
 person who goes to church. The preacher's one 
 business is to keep God before him. If I leave my 
 home to-day and forego my books, or my games, 
 or my friends, or my family, will it be worth 
 while? Shall I hear an essay, or a disquisition, 
 or a message which will be the word of a man with 
 no more of training or experience than I have — 
 a thing that I could evolve from my conscious or 
 sub-conscious mind, or will it be a message which 
 has been forged in spiritual heat and tempered 
 of the Holy Spirit to reach my soul, so that I shall 
 say, **It is the Lord. Let Him speak for His 
 servant heareth?" 
 
 When one comes to think of it, is there a sight 
 more impressive than the attitude of a hundred 
 or a thousand people waiting quiescent to hear 
 what another man will say about the life which is 
 eternal! If the man who listens hears only a hu- 
 man voice and a human message, will he not say, 
 **I asked for bread and have received a stone"? 
 Do you blame him if he does not come again? 
 
 And what is the effect on the man who has 
 spoken? He knows he had no message from the 
 Lord; he knows he is performing a useless func- 
 tion, like some old sibyl who prophesied in ambigu- 
 ous terms about matters concerning which she 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S MESSAGE 119 
 
 had no knowledge. Compare such a message with 
 Peter's on the day of Pentecost, or PauPs at Phil- 
 ippi, or on Mars Hill, or at Ephesus, or at the 
 chief captain's palace, or before Festus or Agrippa 
 at Caesarea. Would there be any question 
 whether there was any word from the Lord, if 
 we had listened to him ? Ought not every preacher 
 to say: 
 
 "Take me; who am not meet 
 One word of that gTeat story to repeat. 
 "Wash my lips clean that I may bring 
 To men the message which the angels sing." 
 
 We are sometimes told that the modern minister 
 must get a new vocabulary, that the old one is 
 inadequate and outgrown. Perhaps that is true, 
 but is it not also true that we shall have to get a 
 new vocabulary or a new experience! The one 
 we have been using is too big for our message. If 
 it is inadequate, is it not because we use words 
 whose meaning we do not know by experience? 
 If our message is only words, are we not like 
 birds on some telegraph wire who are all uncon- 
 scious of the great messages which throb under 
 their feet? 
 
 In ^^The Glass of Fashion" a ** Gentleman with 
 a Duster" quotes Goethe as saying that wha^ 
 saved him was '^ inner earnestness/* '^It was the 
 same thing," says the author, ''that saved Mrs. 
 Gladstone from becoming a Margot Asquith, and 
 
120 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 for lack of which society is now driven far out 
 of its course of right and wrong. Russia has a 
 thousand qualities which deserve the admiration 
 of mankind, but lacking the one quality of moral 
 earnestness it is stricken with death. 
 
 ** Philosophy sought to preserve the moral char- 
 acter by improving the ethics. Christianity re- 
 versed the order and by that revolutionized human 
 thought. Thus she swept away the rank vapor 
 which steamed up from the corrupt heart.'' 
 
 There are great thoughts to bear in mind when 
 we come to bring a message to men out of the 
 unseen holy. Until thought becomes a passion, 
 it seldom becomes a power. It was with this in 
 mind that Professor William James wrote : 
 
 *^^ I believe that feeling is the deepest source of 
 religion and that philosophical and theological 
 formulae are secondary products like translating 
 into another tongue." 
 
 The message that the world is dying for is the 
 message that has conviction in it, that must be 
 delivered, that has been wrought in the hot fires 
 of the preacher's own spiritual experience. It 
 must be as much up-to-date as the last pang of 
 the listener's conscience, and as dateless as the 
 eternal love which had its birth in the heart 
 of God. 
 
 "We talk about many things that do not count. 
 ,We raise men of straw for the sake of showing 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S MESSAGE 121 
 
 how we can demolish them. We face the doubts 
 of men with ponderous broadsides of logic and 
 rhetoric. Most of those doubts are pure subter- 
 fuges. The New Testament wisely puts heresy 
 among the evils of the flesh. Say ye to the right- 
 eous, ' ^ It shall be well with him. ' ' No man doubts 
 that in this or any other world. * * Say ye to the 
 wicked, It shall be ill with him." No man doubts 
 that in heaven or earth or hell. AVhy not preach 
 it then until the wills of men are moved to act in 
 harmony with it? No man doubts that he who 
 walks with God walks a way that is happier than 
 the path of dalliance, and brings the soul into de- 
 lectable experiences. Even the wicked know that 
 * * the path of the just is as the shining light which 
 shineth brighter and brighter until the perfect 
 day. ' ' Tell men to put their doubts in their pock- 
 ets and go to walking with God, and some day 
 when they feel for their doubts they will find they 
 have utterly vanished. Don't bother with little 
 matters, life is too short and too big. Eternal 
 destinies are in the balance. Doors of time and 
 opportunity are swinging, and the last door, open- 
 ing to the great Adventure which men call Death 
 and the angels call Life, is just ahead. Preach 
 the word t 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE pastor-evangelist's KEWAUD 
 
 The reward of the evangelistic pastor is three- 
 fold. First, the sense of fellowship with his Lord. 
 He knows that his Master came to seek and to 
 save the lost, and now at last he is certain that 
 he can see the footprints of his Lord in the path 
 which he treads as a seeker after those who have 
 gone astray. Whenever his heart is burdened 
 and his faith is like to fail, whenever his mind and 
 body are alike weary, he recalls for himself the 
 life-giving message, ** If so be that we suffer with 
 him that we may be glorified together." It is this 
 feeling that will vitalize his words. They will be 
 charged with a current that quickens and thrills. 
 There are many men who are zealous advocates of 
 the truth for the truth's sake. It is the truth 
 which they apostrophize and for which they would 
 be willing to go to the stake, but that is not the 
 kind of truth that Jesus talked about. 
 
 Dr. Dale, speaking at the last as he looked 
 back over his ministrv, said : **I fear that the truth 
 occupies too large a place in my thought and that 
 I have been too much occupied with the instrument 
 for effecting the ends of the ministry, too little 
 with the actual persons to be restored to Grod,*' 
 
 122 
 
PASTOE-EYAXGELIST'S EEWAED 123 
 
 and so he says: **If the hearers felt that the 
 preacher's earnestness was about themselves and 
 not merely about what he believed to be the truth 
 the impression would be altogether different/* 
 It is when we realize that we are giving hands 
 and feet to take the place of those that were nailed 
 upon the cross that we get a sense — a compelling 
 sense — of what it means to have a passionate 
 longing to see men brought to Christ. How glo- 
 rious it is to feel that, according to our measure 
 we are thinking the thoughts of Jesus after Him 
 and giving ourselves to the same absorbing task 
 which fairly consumed our Lord. TTell says Dr. 
 Jackson, ''This passion to win men is the foun- 
 tain of all preaching that is of the prophetic 
 order." He calls attention to the fact that there 
 were in Great Britain in the seventeenth century 
 four great preachers living and working side by 
 side — Samuel Rutherford, Joseph Alleinne, John 
 Bunyan and Richard Baxter. They were men of 
 widely varied gifts and attainments, but in the 
 ministry of each the same high note of spiritual 
 passion is heard. ''Many a time I thought," 
 writes a contemporary of Rutherford, "he would 
 have flown out of the pulpit when he came to 
 speak of Jesus Christ." Infinitely and insatiably 
 greedy for the conversion of souls, Alleinne 
 preached his gospel with shouting voice, flashing 
 eye and a soul on fire with love. "In my preach- 
 ing," says Bunyan, "I have reaUy been in pain 
 
124 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 and have, as it were, travailed to bring forth chil- 
 dren to God." Baxter questioned himself as he 
 stepped into his pulpit, and the ring of conscience 
 was in his ears, ^*Dost thou believe what thou 
 sayest? Shouldst thou not weep over such a 
 people and shouldst thou not with tears interpret 
 thy words ! * ' Long before, the same passion swept 
 the mighty soul of Paul — a desire to be like his 
 Lord — and so it is written that he was ** con- 
 strained by the word." The urgency of his mes- 
 sage was like fire shut up in his bones. For the 
 space of three years, he tells the Ephesian elders, 
 "I ceased not to admonish every one night and 
 day with tears." "When his friends, foreseeing 
 his danger, besought him not to go to Jerusalem, 
 he said, ''What mean ye to weep and break my 
 heart, for I am ready not to be bound only, but 
 also to die at Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord 
 Jesus." So utterly did his Lord's passion con- 
 trol him that he said, **For my brethren and com- 
 panions' sake I could wish that I myself were 
 anathema from Christ." It is glorious to feel the 
 thrill which these great souls have known: to be 
 sure that with unabating urgency the call which 
 has led others to service and sacrifice unspeakably 
 glorious is thrilling one's soul. 
 
 The second great feature in the reward of the 
 evangelistic pastor is the evidence of changed 
 lives — to see bad men becoming good, the blas- 
 phemer become a man of prayer, the drunkard 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S EEWARD 125 
 
 and libertine become a man of continence and 
 purity. Old things pass away and all things be- 
 come new. The life which once they loved they 
 hate ; the life which once they hated, they now love. 
 Ah, these glorious transformations — ^miracles of 
 grace ! No man need have any troubles about the 
 miracles of the first century, when every year 
 brings him fresh miracles that are as much more 
 transporting than the physical miracles of the 
 first century as are the things of the soul superior 
 to those of the body. 
 
 What are the things which give joy to the pas- 
 tor as the shadows of the evening begin to fall? 
 The triumphs of oratory, the ''well-done" of the 
 critics, the laudation of friends! How little and 
 far away all this seems. The voices which spoke 
 them have in many cases ceased and the laurels 
 of those years are dry and rusty now. A new 
 generation has arisen and the old triumplis are 
 forgotten of men ; but there is one thing the glory 
 of which never fades away — to feel that there are 
 some who are now on the way to heaven, who 
 would not have been in the fold but for your shep- 
 herding care; to realize that some have already 
 passed within the vale, who, so far as human wis- 
 dom can discern, would never have found the glori- 
 ous reward of ser\ace if you had not led them to 
 Jesus ; to feel the joy of their own testimony ring- 
 ing in your soul, and to know that for all eternity 
 they will be drawing dividends from your faithful 
 
126 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 service — that will make one 's old age liappy ; that 
 will put life under the ribs of death; that will 
 give a joy which is unspeakable and full of glory ! 
 
 The third reward, which comes to the faithful 
 evangelistic pastor is the reflex influence which 
 comes to him through such service in the building 
 up of his own spiritual life. Doing Grod's will, 
 he comes to know of the doctrine ; seeing miracles 
 of grace, he comes to have a faith that is utterly 
 without question — he lives in an atmosphere of 
 V reality. His preaching is not an art; it is an 
 incarnation. His message is not a human mes- 
 sage; it is a message from the heart of God; it 
 keeps his own soul alive. He never crosses the 
 dead line of ministerial inertness and despair. 
 
 ^^Are you not lonely T' said some one to a light- 
 house keeper, whose home was far from the shore. 
 • ' Not since I saved my first man, ' ' was the thrill- 
 ing answer of the watcher of the sea. Said a 
 great preacher to me years ago, *^I would go out 
 from this elegant home of mine without a dollar, 
 if I could only have the joy of knowing I had 
 saved a soul.'* 
 
 If the only dividends which the Christian minis- 
 ter gets are the dividends which are current coin 
 on the counters of the merchants, what a sad 
 estate is his, for it is a fact which is humiliating 
 to the saints and gives occasion to the enemies of 
 God to blaspheme that the poorest employer of 
 labor in America is not the Steel Trust, or the 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S EEWARD 127 
 
 Oil Trust, or the coal barons, but the Christian 
 Church. It is the scandal of the age that street 
 sweepers and ditch diggers are better paid in 
 the coin of the realm than the men whom the 
 Church puts into her pulpits and asks to minister 
 to her in the holiest experiences in life. 'Tis true, 
 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true!" ** There was a 
 little city and there came a great king against it 
 and besieged it. Now there was found in it a 
 poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the 
 city; yet no man remembered that same poor 
 man." 
 
 The greatest dividends are those which shine 
 with unabating brilliancy when suns and systems 
 are no more. Giving up his life, the pastor finds 
 it again in the changed lives of those twice-born. 
 He need not hold his hat in his hand, or be a 
 mendicant for any man's support. It is a shame 
 that men may forget him, but he has meat to eat 
 that the world knows not of. As Bunyan, in 
 prison, still walked the delectable mountains and 
 had white angels singing lauds for him, so the 
 faithful pastor has evidence of God's presence 
 and power in all the years, which gives him a faith 
 which will not strike its colors before any on- 
 slaught which doubt can make. He cries out with 
 the ring of eternal victory in his soul, *^I know 
 whom I have believed and am persuaded that he 
 is able to keep that which I have committed unto 
 him against that day." Hath he not always 
 
128 PASTOR AND EVANGELIST 
 
 friends, that faithful shepherd, — himself, his 
 Maker and the angel Life ! 
 
 To his converts at Macedonia, Paul exclaims, 
 *^For what is our hope or joy or cause of re- 
 joicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our 
 glory and joy.'' 
 
 Sixteen centuries after Paul, John Bunyan made 
 the same acclaim. *^I have counted as if I had 
 goodly buildings in the places where my spiritual 
 children were born. My heart has been so 
 wrapped up in this excellent work that I account 
 myself more honored of God than if He had made 
 me emperor of all the world or the lord of all the 
 glory of the earth without it." 
 
 When Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler came to the end 
 of forty-four years of Christian ministry he took 
 for the text of his valedictory sermon the words 
 of Paul which I have just quoted. In that ser- 
 mon, he said, *' Converted souls are jewels in the 
 caskets of faithful parents, teachers and pastors. 
 What Lord Elton from the bar, what Webster 
 from the Senate Chamber, what Sir Walter Scott 
 from the realm of romance, what Darwin from 
 the field of science, what monarch from Wall 
 Street or Lombard Street can carry his laurels or 
 his gold up to the judgment seat and say, 'These 
 are my joy and crown!' The laurels and the gold 
 will be dust — ashes. But if so humble a servant 
 of Jesus Christ as your pastor can ever point to 
 
PASTOR-EVANGELIST'S REWARD 129 
 
 the gathered flock arrayed in white before the 
 celestial throne, then he may say, *What is my 
 hope, or joy or cause of rejoicing? Are not even 
 ye in the presence of Christ at His coming!' '* 
 
 "It is not in vain that he has trod 
 This lonely and toilsome way. 
 It is not in vain that he has wrought 
 In the vineyard all the day, 
 For the soul that gives is the soul that lives ; 
 And bearing another's load 
 Doth lighten your own and shorten the way 
 And brighten the homeward road." 
 
 THE END 
 
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