THE CHOICE OF A LIFE-WORK 
 
 THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 
 EARL MORSE WILBUR 
 
 >i:^Cii- 
 
\J . U K.P 
 
 i^ 
 
 
 % 
 
 */5 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 ^ 
 
 BV 664 .W54 1906 
 
 Wilbur, Earl Morse, 1866- 
 
 1956. 
 The choice of a life-worK 
 
THE CHOICE OF A LIFE-WORK 
 
 THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 EARL MORSE WILBUR 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 THE MURDOCK PRESS 
 1906 
 
"The greatest problem is that of making one's power and 
 influence felt as much as possible for good in the great world's 
 movements. ' ' — Professor E. E. Thurston, Cornell University. 
 
 ' * The communication of moral and religious truth is the most 
 important office committed to men. ' ' — Clianning. 
 
 ' ' Never was there a greater call in all parts of this country 
 for thoroughly equipped clergymen than now, and never was 
 the position given to such clergymen more honorable and in 
 fluential. '' — Ex-President White, Cornell University. 
 
 ' ' Despite all the modifications which this office has under 
 gone, it is still a most influential one, and is certain to con- 
 tinue so. . . . A. man who does well in it will never lack occu- 
 j)ation and influence. . . . Modern society is better worth 
 preaching to than any earlier society. . . . Never had the 
 true priest so high a station or so great an influence «s he has 
 to-day." — President Eliot, Harvard University. 
 
Cije Choice of a %ift'WSSiovk 
 
 The choice of a life-work deserves to .be consid- The importance 
 
 , T . . , , . . , of the choice 
 
 ered, after the decision as to the moral principles of a life-work. 
 by which life itself is to be governed, as the most 
 important and far-reaching question that a young 
 man is called upon to decide. With but one life to 
 live upon earth, and with no chance to make fresh 
 starts except at great sacrifice, a mistake in this 
 choice, involving as it does all one's future career, 
 is no less than tragic. By force of energy and per- 
 sistence, it is true, one that has missed his true 
 vocation may still make his life a fair success; but 
 when one is to invest his whole life, talents, and 
 opportunities, he should take no risks, but should 
 insure from this supreme investment the surest and 
 highest returns obtainable. In other words, one 
 should aim to make such a choice as to secure his 
 living his life to the most effective purpose possible. 
 If this is true to some degree for all young men 
 standing at the threshold, it is especially so for 
 those whose natural talents and advantages of edu- 
 cation make their investment of more than the 
 average value ; for with these mistake or failure means 
 the greater loss. 
 
 In making this important choice one should, of Preliminary 
 course, be somewhat guided by the judgment of 
 
The several 
 ends at which 
 one may aim in 
 life. 
 
 Opportunities 
 afforded by the 
 different ends. 
 
 wise friends, who in certain respects may be able to 
 judge of one's capabilities and of the opportunities 
 of life better than he can judge of them himself; yet 
 in the end the decision must be one's own. It may 
 be rendered easier than at first sight it might ap- 
 pear, if certain principles controlling the choice be 
 first clearly settled. 
 
 AVhat, for example, do you mean to make your 
 supreme end and aim in your life-work, to which all 
 other ends, within the limits of honor, are to be 
 made to contribute? Is it the accumulation of 
 wealth? Then the range of choice is narrowed at 
 once to a few especially lucrative fields of activity. 
 Or is it power over men, so that you may make them 
 bend to your will or execute your purposes, and 
 perhaps reward you with position or honor? Then 
 it is comparatively easy to say through what callings 
 you may most readily reach your goal. Or do you 
 incline to consult your native tastes, following along 
 lines of least resistance to a career that shall be con- 
 genial, and possibly not too strenuous? Again the 
 choice may seem almost to make itself. Or, finally, 
 is it your high ambition to spend your life and 
 talents distinctly for the good of others, so that the 
 direct result of your life-work shall be a world left 
 better than you found it, and your fellow-men hap- 
 pier? In this case also certain callings will naturally 
 appeal to you above all others. 
 
 If I have placed last that end which seems to me 
 to be the most worthy, it is not that I would under- 
 
estimate the others. All may be not only honorably 
 but worthily followed. While wealth is too often 
 ignobly and sordidly pursued, it is in itself a per- 
 fectly legitimate object of human endeavor; and it 
 may be so used as to become a means of high human 
 service. Indeed, there has perhaps never been a 
 time when men in command of large material re- 
 sources could employ them to better purpose than 
 now, in the way of enlightened philanthropy, to the 
 end of human betterment, nor when men were more 
 needed to do that very thing. Nor is the ambition 
 of being able to control the actions and destinies of 
 men, Avhether through political or other organiza- 
 tions, a mean ambition, often as it is used for base 
 and wholly selfish ends. To direct the affairs of 
 men or of a nation is to use one of the most enviable 
 of opportunities for accomplishing wide good. And 
 the world has reason enough to be grateful to those 
 that have followed the lead of inborn tastes or 
 genius and given their powers of fancy or of inven 
 tion free play in the work of art or of applied 
 science; while the opportunities of serving it in 
 this way seem only to multiply with advancing 
 civilization. 
 
 The final criterion by which these and other ob- 
 jects of life are to be brought into comparison and wSTo jJIdge 
 judged is that of their solid satisfactions and their possibVen^ds"!^ 
 permanent results, in the mind of the actor and in 
 the judgment of the world. Take, then, the man 
 whose whole object in life has been to gain as much 
 
 The final 
 criterion by 
 
wealth as he could, whether for mere wealth's sake 
 or for what he could procure with it; the man that 
 has spent his whole life striving to gain as much 
 power and as high station as possible ; and the man 
 that has consulted his personal tastes and inclina- 
 tions in the aim to live as easily and agreeably as he 
 could. Isolate these from any consideration of hu- 
 man service incidentally rendered; compare them 
 with the man that has unselfishly and wisely devoted 
 himself to increasing the public or private w^elfare 
 as the main purpose of his life, to which its gains 
 and pleasures have been but incidental; and then 
 ask Avhich of them all will during active life have 
 enjoyed the purest satisfactions, least tinged by bit- 
 terness or regret, which will look back over his life 
 with the deepest happiness, which will have won the 
 most and warmest friends, which will be most deeply 
 missed and mourned at his departure, and will b( 
 longest held in grateful memory by generations after 
 him. No one can be in doubt as to the answer^ 
 which is humanity's verdict upon the comparative 
 worthfulness of the ends of life. Other rewards will 
 often enough seem great and tempting for the 
 present; but the final judgment will be that the 
 purest, strongest, and most enduring rewards are 
 those that follow the life of service. It is the only 
 life that the world long or deeply honors; and it 
 deserves to be noted that each of the objects of effort 
 in life considered above is really valued, when judged 
 from the highest point of view, only in proportion as. 
 it can be translated into terms of service. 
 
If all that has been said be admitted, and if it be rhe life 
 agreed that the Black Prince's motto, "Icli dien/' the most 
 
 common 
 
 is the finest that a young man can choose to express avenues to it. 
 his purpose in life, even vet it does not follow that 
 one's choice of a life-work is restricted to but one 
 or only a few callings. The avenues of service are 
 many enough; and anything that the great world 
 really needs to have done, from the digging of its 
 ditches to the ruling of its nations, offers an honor- 
 able opportunity of helping it in some measure to a 
 more abundant and happy life. Whether you shall 
 choose this or that is to no small degree a question 
 of personal fitness, of which I shall speak later. 
 There are, however, a few callings that men are 
 accustomed to regard as particularly rich in oppor- 
 tunity for those that would serve their generation 
 in the highest way. I refer to Journalism, Litera- 
 ture, Medicine, Teaching, Social Service, and the 
 Ministry ; all, when rightly followed, most noble call- 
 ings, with vast opportunities for raising the level of 
 humanity and increasing its virtue and its happiness. 
 It is remembered what power the journalist through 
 his editorials and the author through his books 
 have to influence or direct the thinking of those 
 that read; that the physician comes at times closer 
 than almost any other to the inmost lives of those 
 whom he treats ; that the teacher has it in his power 
 to mold the plastic minds of youth and to give their 
 characters direction for life ; and that he that gives 
 himself to Social Service aims to alleviate or cure the 
 
Conditions 
 
 of the modern 
 
 Christian 
 
 ministry. 
 
 The opportuni- 
 ties of service 
 especially open 
 to the minister. 
 
 worst ills of society by dealing with them at first hand. 
 Happy is the man that feels called to enter upon the. 
 privileges of any of these lines of life-Avork. I wish 
 here, however, to call especial attention to the su- 
 preme attractions and opportunities of the Christian 
 Ministry. 
 
 It has often been remarked that the power of the 
 minister to-day is no longer what it once was. For- 
 merly he was the unchallenged leader, having b}' 
 his very office almost a monopoly of public influence 
 in the community, not only in matters of religion 
 and morals, but also in education, and to no small 
 degree in politics. To-day the pulpit shares leader- 
 ship in all these matters with the press, the school, 
 the library, and the public-spirited layman. ''The 
 authority of the minister is now derived," says one 
 of the leaders of American thought,* "from the 
 purity and strength of his character, from the vigor 
 of his intelligence and the depth of his learning, and 
 from the power of his speech. Candor, knowledge, 
 wisdom and love can alone give him authority." 
 Under these conditions it is safe to say that there 
 has never been a time when a weak, incompetent, and 
 poorly-educated minister would count for so little 
 in a given community as now, nor when a strong, 
 competent, and well-trained one could exert upon it 
 a more powerful personal influence. 
 
 What character of public service is it, then, that 
 the modern minister can render? It is his distinctive 
 *President Eliot, Educational Eeform. 
 8 
 
privilege to be a public teacher of religious and 
 moral truth, a trusted counselor and disinterested 
 friend in whatever concerns men's inmost life, their 
 higher strivings, their failures, hopes, fears, and per- 
 plexities. It is for him more distinctly and con- 
 stantly than for any one else in the community to 
 hold up before men and inspire in them the highest 
 ideals of life, and to speak to them from week to 
 week to such purpose that they shall go away with 
 the resolution newly formed or freshly confirmed to 
 live true, clean, just lives as Christian men and chil- 
 dren of God. and to try to make the Kingdom of 
 Heaven a reality on earth. It is given to him (if 
 he be capable of it) to be recognized and looked up 
 to as ex officio a leader in movements for philan- 
 thropy, reform, and social betterment, and in what- 
 ever else concerns the higher life of the community 
 or of individuals in it. His work is thus not merely 
 to discourse upon theological abstractions to those 
 that are interested in them, but to bring religion in 
 its broadest sense to bear upon all individual and 
 social life, aiding the progress of the higher life of men 
 by the most powerful of all the influences known to the 
 histor}^ of civilization — the motives and sanctions of 
 religion, and the inspirations of religious thought 
 and feeling. His calling is no narrow one, then, but 
 is as broad as human need and man's endeavor. 
 
 Compare the possibilities of this calling with those Opportunities 
 of the vocations above mentioned. Much as we may ?omparS*wfth^ 
 recognize the power and influence of the press at camngl ^^'^^^ 
 
its best, yet religion and morals are but a small part 
 of the field with which it has to do, whereas these 
 are the matters to which the minister, as a specialist, 
 can devote practically his whole attention. The 
 physician sometimes comes into closer relations with 
 his patients than the Protestant minister ever does; 
 bnt such relations are sporadic, confined to times of 
 illness, and may not recur for months or years, while 
 the minister's are constant, and are deepened from 
 year to year. Moreover, the office of the physician 
 is primarily one for the body alone ; the moral in- 
 fluence that he may exercise is only occasional and 
 incidental. A true teacher certainly may have great 
 power over the forming characters of his pupils ; 
 yet he exercises it for but a brief period upon each 
 one in the moving procession that passes before his 
 desk ; and his main w^ork, after all, is also not to 
 develop their moral and spiritual natures, but to 
 store and train their minds. Those that engage in 
 Social Service often seem to be doing directly what 
 others accomplish, if at all, only by indirection, and to 
 be working where the greatest need is. Yet it is fair 
 to ask whether social failure and social wrong are 
 to be permanently cured in the slums; whether the 
 remed}^ (except for individual cases) musf not be 
 applied nearer the source of the evil, and whether 
 the fundamental work is not to be done through 
 the broad teaching of morals and religion, and by 
 inspiring men with those ideals of which Social Ser- 
 vice is a conspicuous practical application. 
 
 10 
 
character. 
 
 The supreme attraction of the ministry as a voca- a work 
 tion, then, lies in the fact that its work is primarily of human 
 in the realm of human character as influenced by 
 moral teachings enforced by religious motives and 
 inspirations; that these interests are not merely in- 
 cidental to the ministry, but essential to it, and are 
 interwoven closely with all that is good in civiliza- 
 tion; and that the minister's influence upon a given 
 company of men is not casual and temporary, but 
 constant, and often enduring through many years. 
 For this reason it can be asserted without reserve 
 that if a minister possessing such qualifications as 
 have been mentioned above w^ill go into any com- 
 munity and work single-heartedly in his calling for 
 five, ten, or twenty years, he will at the end of that 
 time have done more to impress his personality upon 
 that community, and more to shape its higher life 
 several times over, than any equal man in any other 
 calling. 
 
 By way of minor considerations, it may be added 
 that, while the ministry offers no pecuniary tempta- 
 tions to the man seeking for money, it assures a 
 comfortable living to the competent, and offers a 
 certain presumption of social position and public 
 esteem ; and that no other calling gives more elastic 
 freedom in the performance of its demands, a wider 
 opportunity for culture of mind and heart, more 
 inspirations and encouragements, or more sincere ap- 
 preciation and love from the worthiest men and 
 women. 
 
 11 
 
 Minor 
 considerations. 
 
The great 
 
 demand 
 
 for the influence 
 
 of the ministry 
 
 to-day. 
 
 The ministry 
 to be chosen 
 only by those 
 exceptionally _ 
 qualified for it. 
 
 No thoughtful person needs to have it urged how 
 deeply the conditions of our time and country stand 
 in need of such service as I have indicated above. 
 When it is being pointed out from all quarters how 
 materialistic our age has grown, how everything 
 tends to be measured by the standard of money, 
 how public and private ideals are sacrificed to the 
 prevailing passion, how the standards of the business 
 world are charged with being generally corrupt, as 
 in conspicuous instances they certainly are, and how 
 often in official life the public weal is betrayed for 
 private ends, it must be clear that there has never 
 been a time in our history when the call was louder 
 for men to give their lives to recalling the present 
 generation to higher ideals and truer practices, by 
 emphasizing those eternal and universal truths that 
 are taught by religion. 
 
 It should not be concluded from what has been 
 said, however, that every well-meaning young man 
 that sincerely desires to leave the world better off 
 for his having lived in it, or even every one that feels 
 the impulse to preach, should therefore enter the 
 ministry. Far too many such mistakes have been 
 made. The world is full of posts of service of dif- 
 ferent kinds and varying requirements; and which 
 of them all one shall choose is a question to be 
 decided upon grounds of one's character, tempera- 
 ment, talents, and preparation. If, as I have said, 
 there has never been a time when a fit man could 
 accomplish more in the ministry, there has perhaps 
 
 12 
 
never been a time when an unfit man was so sure 
 to fail in it. 
 
 Certain qualities, which may or may not be im- Qualifications 
 portant in various other callings, are well-nigh in- to success 
 
 - „ . , . . in the ministry. 
 
 dispensable to a successiul career m the mniistry. 
 A man must have first of all an unblemished moral 
 character. I do not mean that he should be a moral 
 prig; but his principles must be of the highest, and 
 they must in all circumstances be adhered to without 
 qualification. Again, he must have force and inde- 
 pendence of character and strong steadiness of pur- 
 pose. Often enough he will have to stand ^Wth the 
 minority; and if he waver in his course, or look 
 to others for guidance, or lack the power of lead- 
 ership, his ministry will have little influence over 
 men. He must also have that divine gift of tact 
 and of social sympathy which, without the least 
 trace of insincerity, will enable him to deal with 
 men according to their individual natures, with due 
 allowance for their peculiarities, foibles, or weak- 
 nesses, with true appreciation of their excellencies 
 however obscured, and with a deep insight which 
 can find in every man something divine, and there- 
 fore something of interest. The minister must have 
 a real passion for service, a large-hearted love foi 
 humanity, an enthusiastic interest in doing good, 
 and such a desire to be unselfishly helpful, as shall 
 inspire all his labors and overcome all his discourage- 
 ments. Above all, he who would become a minister 
 must possess profound religious convictions. He 
 
 13 
 
need not as yet have arranged them in an organized 
 system, nor need he have thought all the great prob- 
 lems through to their end — his professional studies 
 will help him to do this — but he must deeply believe 
 that this is God's world, that man has infinite 
 capabilities as God's child, and the human soul price- 
 less worth and dignity, and that man's sorest need 
 is to be brought into harmony with God's will; if 
 he lack these convictions, the tap-root of his power 
 as a minister Avill be cut. 
 Must 9ne feel Thcsc are the indispensable qualifications which 
 
 to^p?eS:h"f ^^ the young man deciding upon a life-work must find 
 in himself, at least in germ, before he can choose the 
 ministry with any reasonable hope of success in it: 
 the lack of any single one of them will handicap 
 his whole career. Feeling some assurance that he 
 has these qualities in fair measure, however, may he 
 still choose this calling unless there is borne in upon 
 him that mysterious feeling that used to be known 
 as "a call to preach"? It is to be answered that the 
 ministr}^ should be chosen with the same enlightened 
 sense and sober deliberation that would be used in 
 the case of any other calling; and that anything 
 tending to disturb such a choice is liable to be the 
 source of grave mistake. The most trustworthy 
 ''call" that one need look for is the feeling of rea- 
 sonable certainty that one can do more good in the 
 ministry than in any other work in the world. One 
 may refuse such a call only for the gravest reasons; 
 and if to it be added the persuasion that in this voca- 
 
 14 
 
tion one can also best realize his native capacities 
 and best develop and employ his talents, the call 
 should be irresistible. 
 
 While all that has been said thus far is broadly The especial 
 true of the ministry of any religious body, there are o"\h"Tiblrai 
 also certain especial attractions and opportunities in '"^"^^*''^- 
 the ministry of that liberal form of Christianity rep- 
 resented by the Unitarian churches. There is an 
 opinion widely prevalent, and not altogether without 
 foundation, that a minister cannot be intellectually 
 a perfectly free and sincere man. More than a gen- 
 eration ago Dean Stanley called attention to ''the 
 increasing reluctance of young men to entangle 
 themselves in obligations with which they cannot 
 heartily sympathize, and which may hereafter be 
 brought against them to the ruin of their peace and 
 professional usefulness." And President Harper of 
 Chicago, in the year before his death, had occasion 
 to comment upon the large number of men who 
 would naturally be attracted to the work of the 
 ministry, but were "refusing to enter upon a pro- 
 fession in which the great majority of those who 
 have undertaken it are forbidden to think except 
 within the narowest limits." How widely or deeply 
 this opinion may be true it is not necessary here to 
 discuss. Enough to say that it is not justified by 
 conditions in Unitarian churches; for these do not JJia'J^afiow 
 recognize tlie right of any man or body of men to pe^-VecT'"'^*^" 
 prescribe a creed for their ministers at ordination or o"/thoughf.*^^ 
 afterwards, nor to limit their belief or change of 
 
 15 
 
belief in any way whatsoever. Here is a body of 
 churches that not only allow but expect their minis- 
 ters to keep abreast of newly discovered truth, 
 whether in the Biblical criticism of either Testament, 
 in science, in philosophy, or in sociology; and that 
 expect their ministers to preach from their pulpits 
 the same convictions that they entertain in their 
 studies. Here are pulpits whose tradition is for the 
 same broad freedom in the teaching of religion as is 
 granted at the best universities in the teaching of 
 science, and in which inquisitions or trials for heresy 
 not only are unknown, but would be impossible. 
 Tfie free Thcsc couditious of freedom greatly enhance the 
 
 minister • Ji i • • « o ^ 
 
 in the modern scrvicc that the minister of to-day can render to men 
 
 interpretation -n i i 
 
 of religion. i^ or whcu the traditional foundations of religious 
 
 faith have been so tested as they have been during the 
 past fifty years, when the critical study of the Bible 
 and the progress of the sciences have discredited so 
 many of the older forms of belief, there is no need 
 more pressing than that of free, fearless, and reverent 
 men to help this generation to reconstruct its religious 
 thought in terms suited to the present day, and to 
 present to it a pure, reasonable, and practical' form of 
 Christianity, fit to be the inspiration and guide of 
 twentieth-century America; and there is scarcely any 
 spiritual service greater than this that man can render 
 to man. Any one that has endured the agony of relig- 
 ious doubts, or has witnessed the painful struggles of 
 others, must recognize how great a helper he can be 
 who will make God and the soul still vital realities to 
 
 16 
 
questioning men, and who, in the full light of modern 
 thought, can secure to them the comfort, the strength, 
 and the inspirations that spring from enlightened 
 religious faith. For the reasons suggested above, I 
 believe that the ministers of the free churches are 
 better able than any others to render this high ser- 
 vice. Theirs is a ministry dignified by a high propor- 
 tion of illustrious names, which in themselves bear 
 witness to the work to be performed and the honorable 
 place to be won by those that will devote themselves 
 to it: Channing, Parker, Martineau, Bellows, Starr 
 King, Stebbins, Eliot, Freeman Clarke, Collyer, Chad- 
 wick, Hale, and Savage, not to mention those still in 
 active service. The demand for men well qualified 
 for the ministry of these churches was never greater 
 than now, and assures abundant opportunity for every 
 competent and promising man. This ministry has 
 high and exacting ideals, it makes strenuous demands, 
 and it offers no glittering rewards; but it affords 
 infinite opportunities for molding individual char- 
 acters and for lifting human civilization. Can young 
 men of large talents to-day employ them to better 
 purpose than to consecrate them to such service in 
 such an apostolic succession? 
 
 17 
 
GAYLORO BHUS. 
 
 MAKERS