JAN :n 1916 
 
 BV4010 .M333 
 
 McGlothlin, William Joseph, 
 
 1867-1933. 
 
 Vital ministry, the pastor 
 
 of 
 
 to-day in the service of 
 
 man. 
 
/ 
 
A Vital Ministry 
 
A Vital Ministry 
 
 Hhe Pastor of To-Day 
 In the Service of Man 
 
 <mi 
 
 y By 
 
 W. J. McGLOTHLIN, Ph. D., D. D. 
 
 Profeuor of Church History Southern Baptist 
 Theological Seminary 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1913, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
Preface 
 
 THROUGH some years of experience 
 and observation the author has care- 
 fully watched and studied the char- 
 acteristics of our present-day ministry. His 
 position as Professor of Church History has 
 compelled him to extend his observations 
 through the centuries to the beginnings of 
 Christian history. No other phenomenon of 
 these centuries has impressed him so deeply 
 as the baneful effects of ecclesiasticism. It 
 has invaded every nook and corner of Chris- 
 tian life, bearing paralysis and dry rot, where 
 there should be abundance of life. This fatal 
 failure has been due to just one thing : In- 
 stitutions have been placed in the room of 
 life, in the thought and efforts of the min- 
 istry. It is the purpose of this book to recall 
 God's ministers to the position and attitude 
 of their divine Master and the apostles, the 
 attitude of service to life. Man is central, 
 the institution must take the position of a 
 servant. The adoption of such an attitude 
 would affect the minister's methods, stand- 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 point and efficiency in every department of 
 his work. The effort has been made to point 
 out in the following pages how some features 
 of ministerial labour would be modified and 
 vitalized by the vital ideal in the ministry. 
 
 Once the ideal of a vital ministry is in 
 mind its application can be extended far be- 
 yond the subjects treated in this volume. 
 Above all things we need to-day a ministry 
 that can speak to the men of to-day, a min- 
 istry that will not be confused or turned from 
 the main matter by the persistent demands 
 of a beaten but resolute ecclesiasticism. It 
 is the hope of the author that this book may 
 help in some measure in this direction by 
 clarifying the proper ministerial ideal and 
 encouraging men to follow its gleam. 
 
 Wo J. M. 
 
 Louisville, Ky, 
 

 Contents 
 
 
 I. 
 
 The Vital Ideal in the Ministry 
 
 9 
 
 II. 
 
 The Minister in the Modern 
 World 
 
 26 
 
 III. 
 
 The Minister and Truth . 
 
 54 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Minister and Theology 
 
 73 
 
 V. 
 
 The Minister and the Sermon 
 
 lOI 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Minister and Worship . 
 
 120 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Minister and Christian Ar- 
 chitecture and Art . 
 
 140 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Minister and the Bible 
 
 158 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Minister and His Church . 
 
 171 
 
 X. 
 
 The Minister and Social Ques- 
 tions ... 
 
 182 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 " TT CAME that they may have life, and 
 I may have it abundantly." In these 
 
 -*- words the Master expressed His con- 
 ception of His task in contrast with the work 
 of the teachers who had gone before Him. 
 Later, after the agony of Calvary and the 
 victory over the grave were behind Him and 
 He was laying His visible work down on the 
 shoulders of the men who had companied 
 with Him, He summed up their task in these 
 memorable words, " As the Father hath sent 
 Me, even so send I you." He thus gave to 
 His disciples the task which His Father had 
 given Him, sending them forth on precisely 
 the same mission. His work was to be their 
 work, the ideal of their ministry the same as 
 His. 
 
 Few passages of Scripture are more im- 
 portant for the minister than this. The ideal 
 which one cherishes as the aim of life is the 
 most important single factor in the success 
 or failure of that life. The character and 
 9 
 
10 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 quantity of the work done is almost wholly 
 dependent upon this ideal. In no calling is 
 this more profoundly true than in the minis- 
 try. The minister moves in the realm of 
 ideas and ideals, he is the knight errant of 
 the spiritual. He deals with realities, the 
 most profound and vital realities of life in 
 fact, and yet with realities which are some- 
 what dim and elusive to the ordinary mind. 
 Moreover the central and main purpose of 
 the ministry has, through the process of the 
 centuries, become so heaped about with 
 masses of subsidiary but more or less im- 
 portant matters that there is danger that the 
 heart of the calling which affords reason for 
 its existence may be greatly obscured or even 
 entirely lost from sight. Not infrequently 
 the mind of the minister becomes confused 
 and he allows minor matters to usurp the 
 controlling place as the ideal or dominant 
 purpose of his life. In so far as this catas- 
 trophe falls upon him his ministry will 
 inevitably be weakened or blighted. 
 
 Every thoughtful Christian believes, and 
 must believe, that Christianity in its essence 
 is the salt of the earth and the light of the 
 world, sweetening and saving, enlightening 
 and liberating. And yet no man, possessed 
 of even a slight acquaintance with the history 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 11 
 
 and the present condition of Christianity 
 throughout the world, can fail to see that as a 
 whole it has fallen far short of its exalted 
 possibilities. In fact we are compelled to ad- 
 mit with shame of face that historic Chris- 
 tianity has often shackled and manacled men, 
 and sometimes administered poison for which 
 there was no antidote. Sometimes instead of 
 bread the Church has given a stone, instead 
 of freedom slavery, instead of purity and en- 
 lightenment darkness and superstition. Why 
 this great failure, the most tragic perhaps in 
 the annals of mankind ? It is chiefly because 
 the ministers of religion have missed the 
 main matter, turning aside to subordinate 
 things which they exalted into a central and 
 therefore false position. The leaders of the 
 blind have themselves become blind and 
 both together have fallen into the ditch. 
 
 What then is the proper ideal of the 
 ministry, the one great aim which should 
 subordinate all else to itself and direct all the 
 minister's energies ? In a word it is the 
 nurture and growth of life — the soundest, 
 fullest, completest life that is possible for each 
 individual. So far as we can learn from 
 both science and revelation this was and is 
 the task which God has set for Himself to 
 work upon through the centuries. When the 
 
12 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 vast processes of creation were in some 
 measure completed God said, ** Let us make 
 man." All else seems to be (and science can- 
 not contradict this statement) for the sake of 
 man. Through the centuries since that natal 
 day of man God has been slowly but steadily 
 working at the same great task. It has 
 been slow because God was making a 
 creature for eternity with Himself. By the 
 testimony of archaeology we are led to the 
 conclusion that through many centuries man 
 has gradually risen in the qualities that are 
 counted higher. From a position little above 
 the brute in his skill at the crafts and his 
 power over nature he has risen to the splen- 
 did position which he holds to-day when 
 earth and sea and air have been subdued to 
 his control. It is probable, but not demon- 
 strable, that he has risen in spiritual, intellec- 
 tual and moral qualities in the same way and 
 degree. Within historical times we have 
 seen him rising. Through king and prophet, 
 priest and seer and mighty layman, by sud- 
 den strides and by long, slow and painful 
 processes, God has been visibly working at 
 the great task of making man — lifting him 
 into a higher, richer, fuller life. Life, elusive 
 and evanescent as it seems, still appears to be 
 the most precious treasure in the universe, 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTEY 13 
 
 that for which all else came into being. 
 Jesus, in contrasting His mission with that of 
 the teachers who had come before Him, de- 
 clared that they had devoured the sheep, 
 destroyed the life to gratify themselves, while 
 He had come that the sheep might have 
 abundant life, even though the task of giving 
 it was to cost Him His own. His mission 
 was, therefore, by His own interpretation, to 
 give to men an abundant life. Paul declares 
 that men are God's husbandry, God's build- 
 ing ; at the same time he associates himself 
 and other Christian workers with God as fel- 
 low labourers with Him in His great task. It 
 seems clear therefore that the task which 
 God set for Himself, the task which He sent 
 His saints and His Son to set forward, the 
 task which He has set us as His co-workers, 
 is the task of producing a full, abounding life 
 in men. This is the Christian task ; all else is 
 secondary and auxiliary to that. 
 
 Life, then, is the primary output of Chris- 
 tian work, and the minister's efficiency is to 
 be estimated chiefly by the amount and qual- 
 ity of life his ministrations are producing. 
 What sort of men is his ministry, his church, 
 his denomination producing, and how many 
 of them ? This is the primary question, the 
 question which he as a minister will have to 
 
14 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 face when at last he stands before the Fa- 
 ther's throne. 
 
 The minister is, therefore, a spiritual biol- 
 ogist. His interest is in life. Life he studies, 
 follows it in all its manifold variations and 
 manifestations, seeks to know its origin, na- 
 ture and characteristics, the laws of its growth 
 and propagation. But he is more than a 
 biologist ; he is also a spiritual horticulturist. 
 His aim is practical. He desires not only to 
 know but also to grow life. It is usually his 
 august privilege to preside at the generation 
 of spiritual life ; upon him devolves chief re- 
 sponsibility for the nurture and the growth of 
 that life. He must provide a favourable en- 
 vironment, furnish suitable spiritual food, 
 protect the tender life from its numerous and 
 dangerous enemies. He must become con- 
 scious of the fact that he is growing men, 
 that Bible, church, ordinances, ministry, wor- 
 ship, all are for the sake of man. " All things 
 are yours." Jesus stated this principle with 
 great clearness in speaking of the Sabbath 
 which was at that time the most sacredly re- 
 garded of all the Jewish institutions. " Man 
 was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sab- 
 bath for man," said He. The Jews had re- 
 versed this view of the relative importance of 
 man and the institutions of religion. To 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 15 
 
 them the institutions were sacred and holy ; 
 to Him man was the object of solicitude. 
 According to Him the Sabbath is being prop- 
 erly observed when it is properly serving 
 man, best kept when it is best serving man. 
 And it is for man^ all men ; not for Jew alone 
 or Christian only, not for churchmen and 
 good men only, but for the good and service 
 of all men everywhere. The Sabbath was 
 made for man. The same relation doubtless 
 exists between man and all the other institu- 
 tions of religion. They do not exist for their 
 own sakes, nor does God care for them in 
 themselves. It is man that He loves and 
 cares for, seeks to save and serve ; and He has 
 established these institutions for the sake of 
 man. All that are of divine origin have 
 value for the life of man, and just so far as 
 they are serving this purpose they are pleas- 
 ing to God, and no further. It is impossible 
 to believe that God would wish the perpetua- 
 tion of a thing that had become useless, even 
 though He had Himself instituted it and it 
 had once served a useful purpose ; or that 
 He could have any interest in a ceremony or 
 institution in itself, apart from its useful rela- 
 tions to man. George Fox was right in con- 
 tending that the ordinances should be abol- 
 ished unless they have value for the life of 
 
16 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 man. He was wrong only in the contention 
 that they have no such value. 
 
 If Christian men had been possessed of 
 this conception of the place of man as central, 
 and we may say almost sole, in the divine 
 thought, the course of Christian history would 
 have been vastly different. We should have 
 been spared the shame that now consumes 
 us at every reading of church history. The 
 place of those dark and bloody chapters that 
 tell the story of the persecution of men in the 
 name of Him who died to save them, would 
 be filled by pages made luminous with deeds 
 of love and service. But it was not to be. 
 The institutions grew to be regarded as holy 
 and inviolate. The Church, the clergy, the 
 sacraments, theology, forms of worship, cer- 
 tain days and annual seasons, came to be 
 thought of as the objects of God's concern. 
 They took the centre of thought and rever- 
 ence. Men fought, burned, butchered men 
 for the sake of these things. It is a pitiful 
 story of a fatal misunderstanding. Christ 
 came to give life to His sheep, but the shep- 
 herds have sometimes killed and destroyed 
 the sheep in His name. The Church was 
 idealized into something holy, without spot 
 or wrinkle or any such thing, no matter how 
 debased and unworthy the lives of the men 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 17 
 
 who constituted its membership might be. 
 To rend the Church came to be considered 
 the supreme sin, while to rend a good man 
 might be a supreme duty. The clerical office 
 and acts were thought to be holy and effica- 
 cious no matter how foul the clergyman who 
 officiated might be. The sacraments were 
 believed to exert their redemptive and saving 
 efficacy whether the recipients of these insti- 
 tutions ever manifested a single spiritual trait 
 that should characterize the redeemed life. 
 Indeed the fundamental difference between 
 Catholicism and primitive Christianity lies 
 just here. The former exploited holy insti- 
 tutions, while the latter produced holy men ; 
 the former placed the institutions in the 
 centre of thought and effort making men 
 serve the institutions, while the latter put men 
 at the centre and sought to make the institu- 
 tions serve men. 
 
 Protestantism largely shook off the insti- 
 tutional Christianity of the Middle Ages; 
 the Catholics, both Roman and Greek, still 
 cling to it as tenaciously as ever. But the 
 Protestant emancipation was only partial. 
 Who will assert that all Protestant preachers 
 are even to-day consciously putting man 
 and his service at the centre and heart of 
 their thought and eflort? With some the 
 
18 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 maintenance of a certain type of theology is 
 still the supreme duty of the ministerial life. 
 ** Contend earnestly for the faith once for all 
 delivered to the saints," is often on their 
 lips ; and by " faith " they mean a system of 
 theology, a meaning which is hardly found 
 in the Scriptures. The spirit of martyrdom 
 (to the other man) is under these circum- 
 stances often present and manifest. Now, 
 sound, orthodox theology is in itself surely 
 not a bad or dangerous thing. But when 
 a minister comes to think of theology rather 
 than men, it has become to him a most per- 
 nicious thing, no matter how "sound" it 
 may be. On the other hand the blessed 
 results which follow the policy of giving 
 supreme attention to men is seen in the 
 success of many men of moderate ability 
 and defective education. They do not suc- 
 ceed because they are ignorant or have not 
 studied in the schools, for ignorance is al- 
 ways a serious weakness ; it is rather because 
 the lack of learning has compelled them to 
 appeal directly to men. An education may 
 be given and received in such a manner as 
 to shackle rather than to liberate the mind 
 and heart, and this is a fatal state for a 
 preacher. 
 
 As with theology so with the other institu- 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 19 
 
 tions of religion. Man may be forgotten in 
 the glorification of the ordinance. The spirit 
 of love and service is then likely to take its 
 flight and its place be filled by a spirit of 
 suspicion and fear. Persecution has arisen, 
 and the most cruel, inhuman and destructive 
 treatment of men has been deemed justifiable 
 if thereby recognized ecclesiastical order, 
 custom and belief could be the more securely 
 established. 
 
 This attitude as to the relative position and 
 importance of men and religious institutions, 
 it is hardly necessary to say, is the complete 
 negation, the exact contradiction, of the at- 
 titude of Jesus. Man held and filled the 
 whole field of His vision. His thought and 
 effort were directed towards man^s welfare on 
 earth and his full salvation in heaven. So 
 far as the record informs us He never per- 
 formed a single ceremonial act prescribed for 
 His people, nor charged one individual to do 
 so as a religious duty. He used the Sabbath 
 to attend the synagogue worship, but never 
 once indicated that there was any sacredness 
 or virtue in the Sabbath, apart from the use 
 that was made of the day. The annual fes- 
 tivals He attended as a boy with His parents 
 and later in His public ministry on His own 
 initiative ; but it is perfectly apparent that 
 
20 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 these visits were for purposes of learning 
 and instruction. He once bade a man who 
 had just been cleansed of leprosy go, show 
 himself to the priest and offer the gifts pre- 
 scribed by Moses for the newly cleansed 
 leper ; but it was " for a testimony unto 
 them,'* and obviously had no other signifi- 
 cance in the thought of Jesus than that it was 
 a legal requirement which must be met before 
 this man could again have access to his 
 friends and society. Holy places, holy days 
 and seasons, sacrifices, circumcision, dis- 
 tinctions in foods, all disappear in that one 
 great saying of His, " God is a spirit : and 
 they that worship Him must worship in 
 spirit and truth." If this be true, then a 
 religion acceptable, to the Lord God can be 
 universal ; and on no other terms could this 
 be possible. The Jewish institutions would 
 have nullified all missionary zeal, and con- 
 demned Christianity to the position of a 
 Jewish sect without power or outlook. In 
 the light of that statement of Jesus the insti- 
 tutions of religion may have value, but they 
 can no longer be considered essential. Spir- 
 itual worship holds that place. Jesus did 
 not attempt to abolish the Jewish institutions ; 
 but He did largely ignore them and did 
 Utter truths which under the providential 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 21 
 
 leading of the Holy Spirit necessarily had 
 the effect of abolishing them among His 
 followers. One who studies this question 
 closely will be deeply impressed with the 
 fact that throughout His life Jesus was think- 
 ing of men and cared nothing for institu- 
 tions except as they served men. It is un- 
 thinkable that He should ever have sanctioned 
 religious persecution, that is, the destruction 
 of a man for the sake of an institution. He 
 cared for the man more than the institution. 
 
 It was this turning away from ecclesiasti- 
 cism to man, from ceremonial to life, which 
 brought Him into hopeless conflict with the 
 Jewish authorities and at the same time gave 
 Him His popularity with the masses. Never 
 before had the people heard a teacher who 
 cared more for men than he did for things. 
 It was this element which gave His message 
 its note of universality, vitality and authority, 
 its applicability to every age and people. 
 Because of this quality it is heard still to-day 
 with as much avidity as in the hour of its 
 original delivery. 
 
 To-day the world is impressed with this 
 characteristic of Jesus perhaps as never be- 
 fore. The whole atmosphere of our modern 
 life is a-tingle with the ideal of human service. 
 Socialist meetings, labour unions, the daily 
 
22 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 press, the political spellbinder, all manner 
 of men, proclaim the service of man as the 
 supreme object of life. The pulpits resound 
 with the awakened sense of responsibility for 
 the moral and social condition of men. 
 There is heard less of theology, church gov- 
 ernment and such matters than ever before. 
 This is a distinct return towards the purposes 
 and the methods of the Master Himself. The 
 Protestant churches generally, and even the 
 Catholic Church, seem to have awakened to 
 the fact that they have wandered far from the 
 path of human service which their Master 
 trod, far from the spirit and purposes which 
 He manifested, having laid disproportionate 
 emphasis upon institutional matters. Things 
 have been exalted into the position given by 
 our Lord to man. The masses have left the 
 churches because the churches have left the 
 masses. The thrill and pulsation of life have 
 not been felt in their bosom. Vital interests 
 have been sacrificed for ecclesiastical This 
 failure has not been equally flagrant in all, 
 but no church has been guiltless. The self- 
 ish interests of ecclesiasticism have more or 
 less pushed into the background the vital 
 interests of men. 
 
 What we need to do to-day is to set man 
 where Jesus set him, in the very centre of 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 23 
 
 our thought and action as ministers. We 
 must come to realize that not the Sabbath 
 only but also all else that we call religious 
 ** was made for man." Sacred days, sacred 
 places, sacred ordinances, are sacred only 
 because they serve men ; the moment they 
 cease to serve man they cease to please God, 
 no matter how painfully exact may be the 
 ritual. Ecclesiastical actions must be Scrip- 
 tural in their purpose and relative position as 
 well as in their form, if they are to accom- 
 plish the Master's will in them. We can 
 serve God only as we serve men. To be- 
 lieve that the mere performance of a cere- 
 mony in a Scriptural form is to please God 
 is to descend to a pagan view of religious 
 ceremonial, where it is thought that the mere 
 performance of the act is the necessary thing. 
 But Christ's view of the basis on which His 
 ostensible followers will be judged at the last 
 day is summed up in the words, *' Inasmuch 
 as ye did it unto one of these My brethren, 
 even these least, ye did it unto Me," and, " In- 
 asmuch as ye did it not unto one of these 
 least, ye did it not unto Me." There is here 
 no hint of ecclesiasticism. Human service 
 fills the whole vision of the Judge upon His 
 throne. Men go to the right or the left 
 according as they have served their fellow 
 
24 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 men, in ministering to whom they at the 
 same time ministered unto Him. This is not 
 to say that the Quakers are right and all the 
 institutions of religion are useless and there- 
 fore to be abolished. Jesus definitely ap- 
 proved them and therefore they cannot be 
 useless. It means only that the essential 
 things are not ceremonial and ecclesiastical, 
 but human and vital. 
 
 Let us preachers, then, adopt the vital 
 ideal in the ministry. Not the preservation 
 and propagation of theological systems and 
 ecclesiastical customs and organizations, but 
 fellowship with God in the task of producing 
 a perfect humanity, is our work. We have 
 been called by our Father into that blessed 
 partnership of service whereby we toil to 
 help each individual to realize to the fullest 
 his possibilities, and the race to be more and 
 more. Let us labour to make great men, 
 good men, brotherly men — " till," in the lan- 
 guage of Paul, " we all attain . . . unto 
 a full-grown man, unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fullness of Christ." Let us 
 realize that we are not called of God prima- 
 rily to serve a denomination, a church, a 
 system or ourselves, but men. Let us stead- 
 ily remember that the Lord said, " I came 
 that they may have life," and that He sent 
 
THE VITAL IDEAL IN THE MINISTRY 25 
 
 us forth into the same task that His Father 
 had given Him, " As the Father hath sent 
 Me, even so send I you." 
 
 This does not mean that religion is to have 
 to do wholly with this world, and that the fu- 
 ture is no longer to be looked to as a motive. 
 It is only an effort to look at human life as a 
 whole, and to act upon the faith that the life 
 must get right here if it is to be right on the 
 other side of death. Having received a spirit- 
 ual birth the soul should go on growing towards 
 full manhood in this life, and who knows if it 
 will not continue to develop in the genial atmos- 
 phere of the redeemed in heaven throughout an 
 endless eternity ? There all ecclesiasticism will 
 disappear in the glory of God's presence, and 
 here it must be subordinate, being employed 
 to illuminate and not to obscure the face of the 
 Father, or the need of men. Only by adopt- 
 ing this vital ideal in the ministry can we prop- 
 erly glorify God and adequately serve man. 
 
 This ideal will bless the preacher and make 
 fruitful his work ; the details of method will 
 work themselves out in satisfactory ways. It 
 is the efficiency program. It means that 
 neither time nor thought will be expended on 
 hopeless or unimportant matters, but the 
 whole energy will be directed to the produc- 
 tion of complete life in the whole of humanity. 
 
II 
 
 THE MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 THERE is at present much discussion 
 of the special characteristics of the 
 age in which we live and the difficul- 
 ties which these conditions create for the 
 modern preacher. The age is thought to be 
 marked off sharply from all preceding ages in 
 many ways. Its knowledge of and power over 
 material nature ; the gradual disappearance of 
 the wonder and mystery of the world through 
 the explanation of natural phenomena ; its 
 materialism and secularism ; its passion for 
 testable knowledge and palpable reality ; its 
 historical and critical spirit ; its skepticism 
 and doubt — these and other characteristics 
 are thought to be markedly pronounced at 
 the present time and to generate an atmos- 
 phere that is particularly uncongenial to 
 Christianity. The peculiarities due to the 
 intellectual characteristics of the age are 
 thought to be emphasized and strengthened 
 by the social, industrial and commercial pe- 
 culiarities. Men live and toil under social 
 26 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 27 
 
 and industrial conditions different from any 
 that have heretofore obtained in the entire 
 history of the world. The tremendous and 
 increasing use of machinery, the massing of 
 capital and the combination of working men, 
 the swiftness of communication and trans- 
 portation, and many other things have created 
 a complexity of life and mental traits never 
 before known. So it is asserted. To meet 
 these conditions it is implied if not asserted 
 that we must have a new gospel and a new 
 preacher and a new preaching. 
 
 Beyond question there is something, possi- 
 bly much, in these contentions as to the 
 peculiarities of the present age. There has 
 been a material, intellectual, and to some extent 
 a spiritual, revolution in progress throughout 
 the last century. And yet it is doubtful if 
 there has been such a change as is often as- 
 sumed. Whatever superficial modifications 
 have been wrought in the characteristics of 
 men, fundamentally they remain the same. 
 Those common qualities that make them 
 human beings have continued and will per- 
 sist substantially unchangeable. 
 
 This fact is of the highest importance to 
 the preacher. In the midst of the hubbub 
 about ** the modern man," " the modern mind," 
 " the present age," he should never forget 
 
28 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 that the essential, fundamental qualities of 
 human nature are universal and practically 
 unchangeable. The avenues of approach to 
 the life will change, but the spiritual needs 
 and their remedies, while differing in degree 
 and application, must always remain sub- 
 stantially the same. The preacher, more 
 than other men, perhaps, needs to remember 
 that the things which divide age from age, 
 race from race, class from class, country from 
 country, sect from sect, are accidental, super- 
 ficial and ephemeral. They are the most ob- 
 vious marks of individual differences and 
 class distinctions, but they change. They 
 are to be considered only as helps or hin- 
 drances in reaching deeper to the essential 
 things. Catholic, Protestant, Jew and pagan, 
 rich and poor, working man and capitalist, 
 farmer and clerk, all are moved by essentially 
 the same passions, however much they may 
 differ in appearance and externals. They are 
 subject to the same temptations and sins, 
 conscience thunders its prohibitions and com- 
 mands in the ears of all even if with unequal 
 power, the same fears and hopes and loves 
 darken or irradiate all lives. Men love and 
 hate, hope and fear, sin and repent, fall, 
 struggle and rise again or go down to final 
 and irrevocable ruin as they did in the days 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODEEN WORLD 29 
 
 of Abraham and before ; and this they will 
 continue to do to the end of time just because 
 they are men. The great books of the most 
 remote antiquity are strangely modern when 
 they deal with the human heart and life. 
 Jewish psalm and Greek drama express alike 
 the passions of the human heart to-day as they 
 did centuries ago. They are in fact timeless 
 simply because man is in essentials changeless. 
 Traditions, culture, environment, religion, oc- 
 cupation, age — a thousand superficial things 
 change, but the essential elements of human- 
 ity are universal and permanent. Men are 
 first of all men, and afterwards mechanics or 
 millionaires, Jews or Anglo-Saxons, learned 
 or boorish. 
 
 Now the preacher^s business is to deal 
 with the very deepest things in human 
 nature, the essentials that are to abide all the 
 shocks that life and death itself may bring. 
 He needs, therefou -> remember above 
 everything else that his '•ers are first of all 
 human beings, men and nen, endowed 
 with all the common human t. ""s, and after 
 that members of this or that race, ^nfessing 
 this or that creed, engaged in thib r t^at 
 calling. The minister that speaks 
 popular heart is the one who knov .o\ 
 penetrate beyond superficial differ :^s a 
 
30 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 stir the universal human emotions. He does 
 not deal with men primarily as working men, 
 bankers, merchants, Italians, Jews or Ameri- 
 cans, but as men with common needs, hopes, 
 fears and sins. Whatever has been essential 
 to any age or race is essential to every age 
 and race ; what has never been essential will 
 never be essential. Only the approach to men 
 changes. 
 
 This fact, namely that the preacher needs 
 to consider men primarily and constantly as 
 men with common needs and possibilities, 
 can scarcely be overemphasized. And yet 
 it must also be remembered that age and 
 country have their own peculiarities, more or 
 less marked, which materially affect the man- 
 ner and readiness with which the Gospel is 
 accepted. Therefore the preacher must strive 
 to understand his own age and field, both 
 their essentials and their peculiarities — his 
 age as it agrees with and differs from preced- 
 ing ages. ThiF he must do so as to know 
 how to appro: loh the soul with least difficulty 
 and commend with greatest force his Gospel 
 — the e^^ential, eternal, unchangeable Gospel 
 — to the men of his own day. The non- 
 esf ^iitial but important accidents of life are 
 constantly changing and together they con- 
 stitute the field through which approach to 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 31 
 
 the soul must be made. Here there is need 
 for constant vigilance and ready adaptive- 
 ness. The greatest, most successful and in- 
 fluential of all Christian preachers said of his 
 message, "We preach Christ crucified." 
 This he continued to do when he knew that 
 it was "unto Jews a stumbling-block, and 
 unto Gentiles foolishness," because he also 
 knew that there is for the universal religious 
 need but one remedy, the crucified Christ. 
 To-day one shudders to think what the 
 history of the world might have been had 
 he given way before the popular demand for 
 something else. On another occasion, when 
 he was almost crushed by a tremendous 
 crisis, he cries with burning passion, " Though 
 we or an angel from heaven should preach 
 unto you any gospel other than that which 
 we preached unto you, let him be anathema." 
 Nothwithstanding this passionate grip on 
 unchanging essentials, he was the most adapt- 
 able of men with regard to ..nethods. Or it 
 would be truer, perhaps, to say that just be- 
 cause of his firm grasp of a few essentials he 
 could easily adapt himself in method. Of his 
 methods he said, " To the Jews I became as a 
 Jew, that I might gain the Jews ; to them that 
 are under the law, as under the law, not being 
 myself under the law, that I might gain them 
 
32 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 that are under the law ; to them that are without 
 law, as without law, not being without law to 
 God, but under law to Christ, that I might 
 gain them that are without law. To the 
 weak I became weak, that I might gain the 
 weak : I am become all things to all men, 
 that I may by all means save some. And I 
 do all things for the Gospel's sake." In 
 these terse sentences we have one of the most 
 striking statements of complete adaptiveness 
 in all literature. There is a great and holy 
 purpose, the salvation of men, to be attained 
 by one sole means, the preaching of the one 
 eternal Gospel, but this is to be done by an 
 endless adaptation of method. Smaller men, 
 who could not understand the unifying prin- 
 ciple of Paul's life, must have asked them- 
 selves whether he had any principles whatso- 
 ever. Acting now as a Jew and again as 
 a Gentile, now as weak and again as strong, 
 he must have been regarded as utterly in- 
 consistent, when in reality it was his single- 
 hearted devotion to the one essential thing 
 which gave him freedom of movement in 
 regard to methods. Most of us grasp too 
 many things, and, therefore, grasp none with 
 great firmness. We speedily find ourselves 
 in a straight jacket of rules which hamper 
 movement and render effective service im- 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 33 
 
 possible. Grip to the heart of things and 
 hold immovably there ; but be equally ready 
 to adapt in other matters. We do not suffi- 
 ciently distinguish between the goal and the 
 method of reaching it ; we are as anxious to 
 get it done in a certain way as to get it done. 
 Paul sought to understand each class, sharply 
 differentiated as they were in the Roman 
 world, and by means of that knowledge open 
 the way for the Gospel. To the Jew he be- 
 came as a Jew, to the Greek as a Greek, to 
 those under the law as under the law, to those 
 without law as without law, to the weak as 
 weak. 
 
 If we are to follow this exalted example 
 even distantly, we must seek to understand 
 not only our age as a whole, but also each 
 class to which we minister ; and not only 
 must we understand, we must have the will 
 and the ability to adapt our methods to the 
 changing conditions. 
 
 A brief study of some of the characteristics 
 of our age may, therefore, be of value to us. 
 The difficulty of understanding the period in 
 the midst of which one lives is well known, 
 and for this reason as well as because of its 
 great importance the life about him will be 
 the object of the preacher^s constant and most 
 searching observation and study. The fol- 
 
34 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 lowing short study can be and is intended to 
 be merely suggestive. 
 
 I. For its effect on preaching one of the 
 most striking and important characteristics 
 of the present as compared with the past is 
 the general diffusion of education and intelli- 
 gence and the consequent comparative inde- 
 pendence of the intellectual and spiritual life 
 of the people. The public state-supported 
 school has well-nigh banished illiteracy, and 
 the press, supported by the various means of 
 transportation, diffuses information every- 
 where. Soon, in all the leading nations of 
 the earth, every individual mentally capable 
 of learning to read will be enabled and even 
 compelled to do so. The daily newspaper, 
 the weekly and monthly magazine, the con- 
 tinuous deluge of books, spread some knowl- 
 edge of the day's doings and the world's 
 thought into every nook and corner of the 
 land. Both the good and the bad, the true 
 and the false, travel on the wings of the 
 wind. The feverish and poisoned breath of 
 the city blows far out upon the land, carrying 
 its load of smut and fouling the fair face of 
 mountain, valley and glen. Knowledge of 
 all the doings of all the world is fast becom- 
 ing the common property of mankind. The 
 preacher can and must everywhere, except 
 
MINISTEE IN THE MODEEN WOELD 35 
 
 in the most remote and inaccessible regions, 
 count upon a general acquaintance with the 
 news and movements of the day. Granted 
 that much of this information is superficial 
 and inadequate, still it is of immense impor- 
 tance to the preacher both as a help and a 
 hindrance. He cannot escape or ignore it. 
 It constandy stares him in the face and de- 
 mands consideration. And all indications 
 point to the continuance and accentuation of 
 these conditions. The preacher of to-day 
 and of to-morrow must expect to address a 
 more intelligent, a better informed and a 
 more self-opinionated congregation than the 
 preacher of yesterday was called to stand 
 before. This fact both simplifies and compli- 
 cates his problem. A certain degree of intel- 
 ligence is necessary to any adequate appre- 
 hension of the Gospel. Where Christianity 
 finds ignorant savages it must always educate 
 as well as convert, because the acceptance 
 of Christianity and the living of the Chris- 
 tian life is a rational process. In so far the 
 diffusion of intelligence is undoubtedly help- 
 ful. The situation demands more intelligent 
 and thoughtful preaching, but it also ensures 
 a more thoughtful and appreciative hearing 
 for really good preaching. It requires more 
 mental and spiritual power, more educational 
 
36 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 equipment and training and more general 
 information on the part of the preacher, but 
 it also assures a readier response to preach- 
 ing that has these quaUties. 
 
 On the other hand the mental alertness of 
 the present generation materially increases 
 the difficulties of the poorly equipped and 
 unsympathetic preacher. With all sense of 
 his authority as an ecclesiastic gone, with 
 the merest schoolboy in his congregation 
 better informed about the world we live in 
 and the day's doings than himself, with the 
 consciousness that he is being left stranded 
 by the rapidly receding waters of old concep- 
 tions, he is often a pitiable figure. He is 
 conscious of swift change in progress all 
 about him, conscious of increasing ineffi- 
 ciency, without being able to understand the 
 causes and probable outcome ; he is, as a 
 consequence, filled with anxiety, fear and 
 suspicion, and is liable to become unsympa- 
 thetic, morose and censorious, thus further 
 unfitting himself to cope with the problems 
 before him. 
 
 Again the press, together with rapid com- 
 munication by automobile, trolley-car and 
 rail disseminates far and wide among the peo- 
 ple the isms and perversions of Christianity 
 which used to be largely localized. The 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 37 
 
 poorly equipped preacher is thus frequently 
 brought face to face with situations and 
 views which are strange to him and difficult 
 to handle, and which would have remained 
 unknown to his people a few years ago. 
 Merrymakers from the city are poured into 
 the village streets to disturb the Sabbath 
 quiet and attract the worshippers, to distract 
 if not to debauch the quiet ways of the town. 
 
 2. Another marked characteristic of our 
 age is its scientific temper. Most of the 
 natural sciences originated in the last century 
 and a half and all of them experienced tre- 
 mendous development. They have estab- 
 lished for themselves a large and permanent 
 place in the curricula of all types of educa- 
 tional institutions, thus in smaller or larger 
 measure displacing studies that made up the 
 older courses of instruction. The modern 
 mind, in so far as it is educated, is largely 
 made by science, is a scientific mind. And 
 even outside the schools there is a pervasive 
 scientific atmosphere and attitude which 
 envelops our whole life, and deeply afFects 
 the uneducated mind as well as the educated. 
 
 Some of the striking traits of this state of 
 mind are its passion for fact, its sense of uni- 
 formity and law, its attention to the material 
 world, its overweening confidence in its own 
 
38 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 methods and conclusions, and its reduction 
 of the field of the unknown where wonder, 
 myth and religion were once supposed to 
 dwell. The scientifically trained man has 
 been taught above all else to seek, test and 
 value facts. The telescope, the microscope, 
 the spectrum, the test-tube, every known de- 
 vice for discovering and testing facts have 
 been put into his hands, carrying him from 
 the unfathomable depths of space to a search 
 for the invisible germ and the atom. He has 
 been taught to distrust the reliability of his 
 own senses, to test again and again, in this 
 way and that, everything which seems to be 
 a fact until there can be no possibility of 
 doubt. He has been taught to doubt in order 
 that he may reach certainty, and when a fact 
 is finally established beyond all possibility of 
 further question, he recognizes it as of ulti- 
 mate and final value. Explanations may be 
 wholly or partially true or wholly false ; they 
 may change or pass away ; but a fact is real, 
 eternal, so it is claimed. 
 
 A mind trained in this way in the class- 
 room will demand reality and fact in relig- 
 ion. It will probably care little for **the 
 pomp and circumstance " of religion, but the 
 pragmatic test of results will be firmly de- 
 manded and ruthlessly applied. Speculative 
 
MimSTEE IN THE MODEEN WOELD 39 
 
 theology will not greatly impress such minds, 
 since it is only the attempted and varying 
 explanation of alleged facts. The past will 
 not be profoundly reverenced, because these 
 minds have worked in fields of present real- 
 ity. They will demand that the preacher 
 speak to them with something of the assur- 
 ance and the attitude of the scientist. Can 
 he do it ? If he cannot do so, is there much 
 hope that he can influence this scientific 
 age ? There is one line of approach and de- 
 fense where the preacher stands on almost 
 the same basis as the scientific man. It is 
 by way of the vital, of the experimental, of 
 life. Can he speak on religious questions 
 from his own experience? Is there in his 
 own heart's consciousness the reality of re- 
 ligion ? Does he know God, not alone from 
 tradition, not alone through nature, history 
 or revelation, not as a demonstrated proposi- 
 tion, but vitally in his own inner personal ex- 
 perience ? Is the life of God consciously in 
 his life ? Where personal experience speaks 
 the human heart instinctively responds. Ex- 
 perience is a psychological fact with a rec- 
 ognizable scientific basis and value. The 
 preacher of to-day must have a vital experi- 
 ence and must speak a vital message to the 
 lives of men or he had as well remain silent. 
 
40 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 He must give to men facts in religion and 
 to these /ac^s they will respond. 
 
 Another effect of scientific study is the 
 development of a sense of law and order in 
 the universe until many men find great diffi- 
 culty in believing in the supernatural and the 
 miraculous. Indeed with them the miracu- 
 lous is itself on the defensive and in need of 
 an apologetic rather than itself capable of 
 serving as an apologetic for something else. 
 Recognizing that this is a fact what is to be 
 the preacher's attitude to the question ? In 
 view of the difficulties that beset the modern 
 preacher from this direction it would be well 
 for him to remember constantly the primary 
 purpose of his calling, that is ministration to 
 the life of his hearers. Let him remember 
 that his primary interest is not in the defense 
 of miracle or the propagation of any given 
 theory of the relation of God to the universe. 
 His evangelical doctrines necessarily involve 
 belief in a world-view that puts God in and 
 over the world, able to do in and with it what 
 He will ; but the preacher's task is not pri- 
 marily the proclamation and enforcement of 
 a world-view, but the production of the life 
 of God in the hearts of men. It is far more 
 important that he should be able to imitate 
 his Master in living and speaking in the con- 
 
MINISTEE m THE MODEEN WORLD 41 
 
 sciousness of the presence and fatherly care 
 of God than that he should be continually 
 thundering an apologetic for miracle in the 
 ears of his hearers. It is equally as impor- 
 tant that he should be able to see God in 
 the ordinary and the usual as in the extraor- 
 dinary, inexplicable and seemingly super- 
 natural. By far the most of life is cast 
 in the ordinary and the usual, and if God be 
 not here He is in our lives little indeed. The 
 preacher's task is not to prove that God is 
 in the extraordinary, but to produce men 
 whose daily lives shall be an experience of 
 God in the ordinary things of life — men 
 whose words, deeds and thoughts shall be 
 daily pleasing to God. Christianity presup- 
 poses miracle, is based in large measure on 
 miracle as popularly defined ; the Christian 
 minister believes in the possibility and the 
 fact of miracle of course. But he is not pri- 
 marily an apologist but a propagandist. 
 Only when apology is itself propaganda can 
 he undertake it ; that is seldom. 
 
 3. Still another characteristic of our age 
 is its practical bent. It demands to see the 
 practical value of your wares. Its philoso- 
 phy is pragmatism and it seeks to apply the 
 pragmatic method to everything else. Cut 
 bono is its ever recurring question. The 
 
42 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 preacher should welcome this test with joy. 
 ** By their fruits ye shall know them," was 
 recognized long ago by the Master Himself 
 as a fair test. If Christianity cannot bring 
 forth the fruits of normal, contented, happy, 
 useful and efficient living in the world, it 
 can have little claim upon the men of this 
 life and little promise of the life to come. 
 Christianity can stand the test of results. 
 Its history has many dark and blood-stained 
 pages, but the luminous predominates. The 
 Christian world was ever better than the 
 non-Christian world. It has given the world 
 its saints and martyrs, its discoverers and 
 inventors, its scholars and thinkers, its lead- 
 ers in all lines of endeavour. In the midst of 
 grossness, materialism, vice and despair it 
 has ever kept the lamp of faith, hope and 
 love burning. Christians have been the 
 knights of the spiritual, conserving, reviv- 
 ing, reforming, improving and propagating 
 civilization. Not all Christians have fol- 
 lowed the star, but those who followed the 
 star have been Christians. To-day the same 
 blessed fruits of holy and useful living con- 
 tinue to appear. The drunkard is made 
 sober, the thief becomes a benefactor, the 
 greedy capitalist is converted into a philan- 
 thropist. Read Begbie's ** Twice-born Men " 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 43 
 
 and '* Souls in Action." Here the power of 
 Christ to redeem the debased is seen, but 
 vastly more important than these abnormal 
 cases is the myriad army of men and women 
 who are daily sustained by this same Gospel 
 in a life adorned with Christian virtue. The 
 fruits of Christian work can be judged by 
 the standard of human perfection or by the 
 actual condition of men where the Gospel 
 has not gone or is rejected. The latter is 
 manifestly the more just and fruitful. Chris- 
 tians are not perfect and are usually very 
 conscious of their imperfection. Indeed one 
 of the most important services which Chris- 
 tianity renders men is the creation in them 
 of the consciousness of their unworthiness, 
 and the stimulation in them of the desire 
 and the ability to strive for and attain the 
 better. They are imperfect, but on the aver- 
 age they are vastly better than the average 
 of the men who are not Christians. The 
 leavening effect of Christianity can best be 
 seen, perhaps, on the mission fields. The 
 fruits of the Gospel there stand out in all 
 their luminous glory and beauty against the 
 dark background of the surrounding heath- 
 enism from which the Christians come. 
 
 The practical spirit of our age can be in a 
 measure satisfied by the fruits of Christianity, 
 
44 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 if we ourselves can only come to realize that 
 Christian fruits are to be produced in the 
 sphere of human life, and bend our energies 
 to the task of their production in this vital 
 field. The real Christian fruits are not in 
 theology, forms of worship, systems of church 
 polity, but in the lives of men. Show this 
 practical world beneficent results in the lives 
 of men, and it will think Christianity worth 
 while. 
 
 4. Again ours is an age when all questions 
 are approached from the historic standpoint. 
 Men are not content with knowing a certain 
 opinion or practice as it now is ; they insist 
 on asking how and when it came to be so — 
 what forces created it, what opposition was 
 made to it, what else has been related to it. 
 Many a hoary opinion and practice has felt 
 the seriousness of the strain put upon it by 
 this method of study. Dogma has been 
 compelled to justify itself not only to reason 
 but also to historical criticism — a test which 
 has in many cases been much more difficult 
 to stand. To the acid of historical criticism 
 hoary frauds like the Isadorian decretals 
 have been compelled to yield and admit 
 that they were frauds when nothing else 
 could have effected their dissolution. With 
 this rise of historical studies has come the 
 
MINISTEE IN THE MODERN WORLD 46 
 
 comparative and historical treatment of re- 
 ligion, enabling and even compelling us to 
 understand, to evaluate, and appreciate the 
 content, power and significance of our own 
 religion over against others more thoroughly 
 than we had before done. Apologetics are 
 being recast in the light of this knowledge 
 and in response to this method. We are 
 being forced back upon the spiritual realities 
 of primitive Christianity, the essentials of 
 our faith. The barnacles of centuries are 
 being cleared away from the keel of the old 
 ship of Zion that she may plow the main of 
 the world's life with more even keel and 
 swifter course. As the unessential is cleared 
 away we shall have more time and oppor- 
 tunity for the essential and vital. The 
 preacher should not fear but rather welcome 
 the historic method, and spirit. They are 
 his allies in escaping from and combatting 
 error, and clearing the way for vital thought 
 and vital effort. As long as his aim is vital 
 there is nothing to fear from these modern 
 tendencies. It is only when he is thinking 
 chiefly of the preservation of received and 
 established customs and thought simply be- 
 cause they have been handed down by tra- 
 dition that he need have any trepidation. 
 One thing the preacher should never forget 
 
46 A VITAL Ml^'ISTBY 
 
 is that the cure for wrong conclusions, mis- 
 leading and dangerous errors, is further and 
 more earnest investigation, and never the 
 discouragement or suppression of freedom of 
 thought and investigation. "Nothing is 
 finally setded undl it is setded right." Noth- 
 ing but truth can finally endure the fires of 
 investigation and criticism. 
 
 5. The final characteristic of our age to 
 be mentioned here is its moral, social and 
 philanthropic earnestness and striving. It is 
 sadly true that vice was perhaps never before 
 so organized and commercialized. Our great 
 cities show depths of infamy and degradation 
 that have hardly been surpassed in history. 
 Conditions are such as to give anxiety to every 
 patriot and lover of his kind, not to speak of 
 devoutly religious men who have additional 
 reasons for deep concern. But to be set over 
 against these deep dark shadows there is 
 much that is luminous. Never before, per- 
 haps, has there been so much willingness to 
 know the real condition of men and so much 
 effort to ameliorate that condition. All public 
 men have suddenly become preachers of 
 righteousness and social service. News- 
 papers, educators, statesmen, business and 
 professional men, labouring men, socialists, 
 all are unwearied in the ceaseless assertion of 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 47 
 
 the brotherhood of man and the necessity for 
 the application of the Golden Rule in all the 
 affairs of life. Along these lines the appeals 
 of the pulpit are powerfully reenforced by 
 nearly all the agencies of publicity now- 
 operating among men. Even the whiskey 
 trade sometimes feels compelled to attempt 
 the defense of itself on Christian principles, 
 and prates of the poor man's club and need 
 of recreation. In fact it is in some quarters 
 openly and vehemently charged that the pul- 
 pit is badly behind the age in its thought con- 
 cerning the welfare of men, that the Church 
 is either a hindrance or a negligible factor in 
 the fight for better living conditions. It is 
 said that Christians are so deeply interested 
 in the other world that they have no time for 
 thought about means for making this one 
 better. Leading reformers can write whole 
 books in advocacy of moral and social reforms 
 with scarcely a reference to the Church as a 
 force to be utilized. 
 
 And yet every one acquainted with Chris- 
 tian history knows that the moral, intellectual 
 and social conditions of mankind have not 
 been overlooked. Christian faith holds that 
 man's soul is immortal, that an eternity of 
 existence lies before him, and it has striven 
 to prepare him for that reality, which tran- 
 
48 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 scends all others if it be a reality. And yet 
 it never forgot man's present condition. It 
 is true that the Church has usually pursued 
 the policy of cure rather than that of preven- 
 tion. But in this mistaken attitude it has 
 been in accord with all similar institutions. 
 Not until very recent years has the prophy- 
 lactic treatment of the ills of society come 
 into vogue, and it is still the physician's chief 
 business to heal rather than prevent disease. 
 All through the centuries the Church has 
 built and conducted schools, hospitals and 
 other beneficent institutions when there would 
 have been none, so far as we can know, but 
 for the Church. Indeed till within the last 
 century and a half the Church continued to 
 be almost the sole benefactor of weak, igno- 
 rant and suffering humanity, and even now 
 these blessed institutions and social strivings 
 are not found beyond the influence of Chris- 
 tianity. In Christian lands society has be- 
 come so saturated with the spirit of Christ 
 that it now does chiefly through the state 
 and the municipality what the Church alone 
 once did for the uplift of humanity. This 
 revolution in the methods of doing benevolent 
 work has been made necessary by the relig- 
 ious changes which have been ushered in 
 with modern times. Religious toleration, 
 
MINISTEE IN THE MODERN WORLD 49 
 
 which is the policy of all modern Christian 
 states, has left a large part of the population 
 outside all church relations and obligations ; 
 denominationalism has divided the religious 
 forces and the state has sequestrated ecclesias- 
 tical property until there is no religious body 
 representative of the whole of society and able 
 to meet society's needs as the Church of the 
 Middle Ages could do. The Church is no 
 longer coterminous with society and yet all 
 society is vitally related to all benevolent 
 work. Consequently the state, which is 
 the only institution which represents the 
 whole of society, both in its needs and 
 resources, has taken over the major portion 
 of this benevolent work. And yet even 
 to-day nine-tenths of the world's benevolence 
 and benefactions are the work of Christians, 
 and hosts of men and women who repudiate 
 Christianity are the direct products and bene- 
 ficiaries of the religion they reject. The 
 benevolent atheist, in so far as he exists at all, 
 is distincdy a product of this age, and with 
 the death of the Christianity he hates would 
 lose all the goodness he boasts. Christianity 
 has generated the spiritual power and fra- 
 ternal spirit which non-Christian society is 
 using and boasting. 
 
 For the moral earnestness that pervades 
 
60 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 the atmosphere of the present time, for the 
 preaching statesmen like Bryan and Roose- 
 velt, for the press with its myriad eyes and 
 mighty power usually but, alas 1 not always on 
 the right side of moral questions, for the clubs 
 and leagues and reformers who are constantly 
 goading him and society to diligence in doing 
 good the preacher can devoutly thank God. 
 Jesus Himself said, " He that is not against 
 us is for us." In most moral efforts they are 
 usually not against us but powerfully reen- 
 force the message the preacher has been 
 delivering through the centuries. Thus far 
 they are allies in the task of the world's 
 regeneration. If the evils of the present time 
 are mighty and deeply entrenched in the 
 heart of society, they are nevertheless faced 
 by such an array of moral and religious forces 
 as never existed before. The preacher fights 
 to-day supported by an army of allies such 
 as his predecessors never knew. 
 
 There is a sense in which the minister is 
 not of the world. In His great intercessory 
 prayer Jesus says of the men to whose 
 special devotion He was committing the in- 
 terests of His kingdom for the future, '* They 
 are not of the world even as I am not of the 
 world." Neither He nor they rooted life in 
 the world, or lived according to its ideals. 
 
MINISTEE IN THE MODEEN WOELD 51 
 
 It was preeminently true of Jesus that He 
 was not of the world, and yet He was in a 
 very real sense more completely of the world 
 than any of His contemporaries. He lived 
 at the very heart of the world's striving and 
 suffering. In the market-place, in the temple 
 and the synagogue, in the home of the Phar- 
 isee and the publican, with the rich and with 
 the poor, among the doctors, at the marriage 
 and the feast, in the sick-room and weeping 
 beside the open grave ; surely there was no 
 point of life which He did not touch. He 
 was the most cosmopolitan of men in the 
 midst of one of the most provincial and 
 narrowest of the nations of the earth. No 
 ascetic He. His love of men and sympathy 
 with them made it possible for Him to speak 
 a vital message to all men. A Jew Himself, 
 His message has been the regeneration of the 
 Gentile world. His was the vital ideal and 
 this gave Him a universal message. 
 
 In lesser degree, of course, but in the same 
 manner the apostles were not of the world ; 
 and yet He sent them directly into the world, 
 to live and work at its heart. They were to 
 touch all that was human. The world's life 
 is to be their supreme concern. They are to 
 neglect no race nor colour nor condition. 
 The idea of separation from the world has 
 
62 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 been greatly abused in the course of the 
 centuries and not by the monks alone. Too 
 often the minister has from the safety of his 
 seclusion looked with complaisance or dis- 
 gust on the turbid and turbulent stream of 
 the world's life, and in either hopelessness or 
 contempt, has bidden it flow on while he 
 attended to his ecclesiastical duties. Not 
 so the Master. He wept over the self-right- 
 eous, hardened and impenitent city, but im- 
 mediately descended to preach in its streets 
 and its temple and its synagogues, and finally 
 to die at its hands. He groaned in spirit 
 over the bleeding hearts of His friends, but 
 immediately proceeded to the grave and 
 called forth the motionless and silent sleeper 
 whose death was the cause of the sorrow. 
 His neighbours of boyhood days sought to 
 cast Him headlong down a precipice to His 
 death, but He passed through their midst 
 only to go into another city and continue 
 His work. He had compassion on the mul- 
 titudes scattered abroad as sheep having no 
 shepherd, and immediately began Himself 
 to be their shepherd. 
 
 The minister's sphere is in the world's life. 
 He has been placed in the centre of things ; 
 he is " the middle man," as some one has 
 aptly phrased it. Men of other callings deal 
 
MINISTER IN THE MODERN WORLD 63 
 
 with a part of life, he with the whole. If he 
 cannot resist and overcome its temptations 
 and allurements both for himself and others, 
 he should lay down his commission as a 
 minister. Free from the fear of the world's 
 lure, without contempt for its sin and folly, 
 filled with compassion for its ignorance and 
 suffering, with profound sympathy for all its 
 noble strivings, he should walk in its midst 
 not as a man apart but with the life of God 
 in himself and the life-giving truth of God on 
 his lips. He is not simply preparing men 
 for a heaven that is to be, but is labouring 
 to make them fit to live in the world of God 
 that now is. Without cynicism, with courage 
 and hopefulness he toils on, confident that 
 his labours cannot be in vain in the Lord 
 even though the fruit is not immediately 
 apparent. He knows himself to be the min- 
 ister of life, to be associated with God in the 
 one great task which He seems to have set 
 Himself to do. Life God gave, life men want. 
 For life the preacher prays, to produce life 
 he preaches and toils. Such is the preacher's 
 task, such the ideal that should control his 
 life and work in this modern world. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 
 
 "^■^ THAT is truth?" The sneering 
 \/\/ question of the Roman governor 
 ▼ ▼ may be asked in all seriousness, 
 and it will be answered with some difficulty. 
 A distinction is sometimes made between 
 fact and truth, the former term applying to 
 things and incidents, the latter to relations. 
 No such distinction is necessary to the pur- 
 poses of this chapter. By truth as here used 
 is meant simply a statement which corre- 
 sponds to reality, whatever that reality may 
 be. With this definition in mind let us see 
 what effect the vital ideal in the ministry 
 will have on the minister's relation to truth. 
 
 There are men whose sole object in life 
 seems to be the pursuit and discovery of new 
 and hitherto unknown truth. They toil as 
 pioneers and discoverers on the border-land 
 of the known, now and then making a suc- 
 cessful incursion into the region of the un- 
 known. Their business is to discover, ex- 
 plore and chart the newly discovered lands 
 54 
 
THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 56 
 
 for subsequent travellers and settlers. To 
 men who devote their time and energies to 
 this kind of work we owe an inestimable debt 
 of gratitude. They have laboured in the 
 midst of obloquy and opposition, without 
 other reward than the consciousness of noble 
 effort to discover truth. They have given us 
 most of our knowledge of the universe in 
 which we live and our power over the forces 
 of nature. We cannot honour them too 
 highly, nor can we render those who are now 
 living more sympathy and aid than they de- 
 serve. 
 
 But the labours of these pioneer discover- 
 ers become valuable only when they or other 
 men apply the results of their efforts in a 
 practical way to the various needs of men. 
 The interest of the discoverer is in the truth, 
 that of the other man is in men who are to be 
 served by the truth. 
 
 Now the preacher belongs to the latter 
 class. He is not indifferent to the discovery 
 of truth, but that is not his business. His 
 spiritual and intellectual eyes have been suf- 
 ficiendy opened for him to realize something 
 of the dimness of the light that shines about 
 him. He remembered that Paul even with 
 his great native ability and learning, his 
 wonderful religious experience and the illu- 
 
56 A VITAL MIOTSTRY 
 
 mination of inspiration was yet compelled to 
 write that " we know in part " only, and now 
 " see in a mirror, darkly." With the old Puritan 
 divine he believes that there is more light to 
 break from God's word, and not only from 
 God's word but also from God's world. He 
 feels sure there is a vast, indeed an infinite, 
 field of undiscovered truth lying out before 
 us. As the philosopher long ago thought of 
 himself as a boy playing on the seashore and 
 picking up a particularly beautiful shell now 
 and then while the great ocean of truth rolled 
 before him unexplored, so the intelligent 
 preacher knows that there is a vast field of 
 truth as yet unknown — in fact that we know 
 almost nothing of the heart and essence of 
 things, that which we care most to know. 
 
 Moreover he fears nothing that may be 
 dragged out of that dim unknown, for he rests 
 in the confident conviction that all the unex- 
 plored regions belong to his God. No gen- 
 uine discovery is to be feared, therefore, but 
 welcomed as a further and fuller revelation of 
 the character and methods of his God. It is 
 not truth that he fears, but error, not too much 
 discovery, but too little. He rests assured 
 that God made and rules over both the known 
 and the unknown in love and power, and gave 
 us the spiritual powers with which to trace out 
 
THE MINISTEE AND TEUTH 57 
 
 and follow His footsteps. It must, therefore, 
 be not only allowable and appropriate, but, as 
 he thinks, obligatory on him and infinitely 
 pleasing to God for man to use his powers in 
 the discovery of truth. He looks about him 
 and backward over the centuries and notes 
 the inestimable blessing which discoveries 
 have brought to mankind. The physical uni- 
 verse has been in some measure conquered, 
 unnecessary and unfounded fears, errors 
 hoary with age and extremely hurtful, have 
 been exploded and have vanished, life has 
 been beautified and elevated. Judged from 
 every standpoint, it seems to him, investiga- 
 tion is to be commended and encouraged. 
 
 This is the ideal attitude which, it would 
 seem, ought to have characterized every min- 
 ister and indeed every Christian throughout 
 the centuries. But how different has been the 
 actuality I Scarcely anything in the whole 
 history of Christianity is more discouraging 
 and disheartening than the incredulity and 
 hostility with which the organized Church 
 has usually greeted the announcement of any 
 great discovery. These discoveries have 
 most frequently been made by devout Chris- 
 tian men, and can, therefore, be justly claimed 
 as the legitimate fruit of the Christian life. 
 In order to estimate Christianity fairly it is 
 
5S A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 necessary to distinguish between the indi- 
 vidual Christian and the Christian organiza- 
 tion, the Church. As in other great corporate 
 bodies, the Church has not always been led 
 by its best men. Christianity has better suc- 
 ceeded in making individuals of high charac- 
 ter than in creating organizations of that 
 type. The flower and richest fruitage of our 
 religion is seen in individual lives rather than 
 in any visible corporate body. It should not, 
 therefore, surprise us to find an individual 
 Christian sometimes suffering at the hands of 
 the Christian Church. 
 
 But whatever zeal for investigation and 
 hospitality to new truth we may find in the 
 individual Christian the Church has never 
 been a discoverer, has rarely if ever encour- 
 aged investigation, and has often persecuted 
 the man who dared with impious feet to step 
 outside the beaten path of long recognized 
 and accepted truth. In this attitude of hos- 
 tility the controlling factor has been the 
 clergy. They have almost uniformly looked 
 with fear and suspicion on newly announced 
 discoveries, and in a solid phalanx fought the 
 discoverer. This was especially true of the 
 Middle Ages and the Roman Church, but 
 other bodies have not escaped this obsession. 
 
 And yet it would seem as if no other man 
 
THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 59 
 
 would have so much reason to welcome new 
 truth, so much desire to escape from old 
 error as the minister. He above all other 
 men, it would seem, would have confidence 
 in truth, its value to men in its power to 
 bless. With a proper and adequate faith in 
 God he must also believe that all truth is of 
 God, is necessarily consistent with all other 
 truth, is a further revelation of God and of 
 value to the welfare of man, temporally and 
 eternally. He above others ought to have 
 seen the hurtfulness of error, and the su- 
 preme value of facts. He more than others 
 ought to realize that facts are the realities 
 which come from God, while the theories and 
 explanations, the systems, are faltering fabri- 
 cations of men, constantly liable to change 
 and decay. He should know that a system 
 is helpless before a fact, that one fact incon- 
 sistent with a theory is sufficient to effect its 
 modification or even its complete dissolution. 
 Such has not been the case. They have not 
 been able to realize that there remained yet 
 undiscovered truth lying outside their sys- 
 tems. 
 
 Whatever may have been true of the clergy 
 of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages 
 such an attitude is certainly most unworthy 
 of a Protestant minister in the twentieth cen- 
 
60 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 tury. He at least should have reached a 
 point where he does not fear the light. He 
 must have faith in truth, must not fear truth, 
 must welcome new truth. To use an expres- 
 sion of the Master Himself, when He had 
 just uttered a mass of truth that was to His 
 hearers both new and frightfully radical, 
 he must be "like unto a man that is a 
 householder, who bringeth forth out of his 
 treasure things new and old " (Matt. xiii. 52). 
 Without fear, with perfect calmness and in- 
 tense interest and sympathy the minister 
 should be able to sit before the refiner's fire, 
 watch the test tube, peer through the tele- 
 scope and the microscope, attend, welcome, 
 encourage all the experiments and efforts of 
 the scientist. Why should he fear? He is 
 convinced that 
 
 *' In the dim unknown 
 Standeth God within the shadows 
 Keeping watch above His own." 
 
 This confidence will give him calmness and 
 poise in the presence of opposing views and 
 hostile criticism. Like all other thoughtful 
 men he has a world-view, that is, a set of as- 
 sumptions from which he starts in all reason- 
 ing. They are not the result of a rational 
 process but rather the presuppositions of all 
 
THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 61 
 
 reasoning. He knows they are assumptions 
 incapable of absolute proof ; but he knows 
 also that other world-views rest on assump- 
 tions equally incapable of proof and equally 
 necessary to the conclusions reached by their 
 advocates. His inner religious experience, 
 his knowledge of the world, his study of the 
 course of history, all seem to him to agree 
 with and confirm the Christian view of God 
 and the world, and he is confident that noth- 
 ing will overthrow or even seriously affect 
 the integrity of this view. He knows too 
 much of the diversities of men to expect all 
 men to accept his view, but that considera- 
 tion in no wise alarms or disconcerts him. 
 Secure in the conviction that his own view is 
 fundamentally correct and that profounder 
 study and investigation will only lead men 
 more and more to accept it, he demands for 
 every man freedom of thought, the right of 
 unhampered investigation. That does not 
 mean that men of widely divergent and dis- 
 cordant views should remain in the same 
 ecclesiastical organization, for a certain de- 
 gree of harmony is necessary to effective 
 Christian activity. Nor does it mean that 
 variant views shall be immune from criticism 
 and effort at refutation. It only means that 
 every man shall have the right in society and 
 
62 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 the state to think for himself and to express 
 his honest thoughts, that they shall not be 
 suppressed by force but refuted by argument, 
 and this it does mean with emphasis. This 
 position he takes not only because of the 
 fundamental rights of man, but also because 
 he hopes for further discoveries by these fear- 
 less independent thinkers. He remembers 
 how discoverers in the past have been 
 execrated during their lives and almost can- 
 onized after death. He has no desire to play 
 any part in the repetition of this sorrowful 
 drama. He does not believe that all truth 
 is known, and feels confident that every truth, 
 new and old, has some power to bless and 
 elevate man. 
 
 The wise and confident modern minister, 
 then, encourages investigation and welcomes 
 new truth. But he is not primarily an inves- 
 tigator. His mission in the world is not to 
 discover but to use truth, that is to apply it 
 to the business of producing life. Indeed, 
 strange as it may at first sound, his interest 
 is not primarily in truth at all, but only in 
 truth as the minister to life. His mission is 
 neither the discovery of truth nor the defense 
 of truth, not even the propagation of truth 
 for its own sake. He may as a minister 
 do all these in fact and with propriety, 
 
THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 63 
 
 and the last two functions he must per- 
 form. All this he does, however, not for 
 truth's sake, but in the interest of the main 
 matter which is the production and cultiva- 
 tion of the life of men. He must never for 
 one moment forget that he has been sent 
 forth by his Lord to give life to men. 
 
 The fatal mistake of supposing that the 
 main business of Christianity was to formulate, 
 preserve and defend the truth has not in- 
 frequently been made ; but it can scarcely be 
 doubted that the paramount interest of Jesus 
 and His immediate disciples was in the life of 
 men, not in any body of truth. He was the 
 way and the truth, but only that He might 
 culminate in the life. Not until He reached 
 the life was His work complete. He judged 
 men by their attitude to His Father and 
 towards their fellow men, not by any body of 
 truth they might be holding, except in so far 
 as it might affect this filial attitude. To 
 love God with one's whole being and the 
 neighbour as one's self, that was to fulfill the 
 whole law and the prophets. Such was His 
 thought. 
 
 But His free and vital attitude did not long 
 survive in the infant Church. Christianity 
 quickly passed into the custody of the Greeks. 
 Their interest was in truth, speculative 
 
64 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 thought or philosophy, far more than in life 
 or the welfare of the people. Ethics and 
 religion, except as an esthetic stimulus, had 
 little value for the Greek. He was usually 
 immoral himself even when profoundly 
 learned. It was doubtless natural that he 
 should have speedily fastened his own in- 
 tellectual attitude on the infant Church. 
 Gradually a man's intellectual beliefs came to 
 be the standard by which he was judged. 
 Theology established itself as the supreme, 
 and in fact as almost the sole, criterion of the 
 Christian life. A man must be orthodox or 
 suffer the extreme penalties of ecclesiastical 
 and civil displeasure. The kind of life he was 
 living was a matter of secondary importance ; 
 he was tried by the truth he professed. As 
 we have seen this was the reversal of the at- 
 titude of Jesus and the early churches, and its 
 evil effects soon made themselves manifest. 
 Persecution stalked on to the stage, sectarian- 
 ism and bitterness rent the Church, moral 
 standards rapidly sank and Christian life be- 
 came little better than that of the heathen. 
 
 The truth was formulated into creeds as a 
 sacred deposit, infallible, unchangeable, uni- 
 versally valid and binding. In this form it 
 was regarded as final and absolute truth, to 
 be permanently preserved from all ^enemies 
 
THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 66 
 
 and mercilessly turned against all foes. 
 Subscribe to these formulas and all was well ; 
 depart from them and the flames of earth and 
 of an eternal hell were the penalty. Thus 
 men thought and acted almost universally 
 throughout the Middle Ages ; and this is still 
 the attitude of the Roman and Greek Catholic 
 Churches. In fact it is to the present hour 
 the most striking characteristic of these two 
 great Churches. They claim above all else 
 to be orthodox, that is, correct in teaching. 
 They have the truths securely packed in 
 creeds and labelled, easily found and always 
 ready for deadly use against men, against 
 life. No other Christian body has laid so 
 much emphasis upon truth, no other has 
 made such failure in the production of life. 
 Their great mistake has been that they placed 
 truth in the room of life as the object of 
 thought and endeavour, with the woeful result 
 that they have largely made failure of both 
 truth and life. In no other bodies are there 
 such ruinous masses of superstitious and 
 hurtful error, and in no other is the standard 
 of Christian living so low. This condition is 
 no accident, but is the direct and immediate 
 and inevitable result of the mistake of putting 
 truth in the supreme place given by Jesus to 
 life. 
 
66 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 The true minister will, therefore, shun this 
 great and specious danger as he would the 
 blight. On the other hand he will not make 
 the equally serious mistake of being indiffer- 
 ent to truth, of believing that one opinion is 
 as good as another. He knows that no 
 error can be as valuable for life as the truth. 
 Truth is the food of the soul, and as such is 
 of supreme importance to every man who 
 would nobly serve the life. As it is the busi- 
 ness of the minister to serve the life he must 
 know and know how to use the truth. Just 
 as the world to-day has the most intense and 
 practical interest in the purity, value and ef- 
 fects of the various kinds of foods in the 
 building and sustaining of the body, so the 
 preacher cannot fail to be interested in the 
 food of the soul. Sanitation, nourishment 
 and exercise are as necessary to spiritual 
 health, growth and strength as to the welfare 
 of the body. Providing these conditions of 
 vigorous growth is the minister's work, and 
 he cannot, therefore, be indifferent to the 
 soul's food, if he be a worthy man. He will 
 seek the truth, winnow out the error, be sat- 
 isfied with nothing but the truth. He may 
 be responsible to some ecclesiastical organi- 
 zation for the presentation of a certain type 
 of theology and ecclesiastical opinion, but he 
 
THE MINISTEE AND TEUTH 67 
 
 is responsible to God and the souls of men 
 for the presentation of the truth and nothing 
 but the truth, the pure, unadulterated food of 
 the soul. It is a solemn responsibility which 
 cannot be lightly assumed by any man who 
 seriously considers his duty. Reflection on 
 these facts should make the minister a most 
 diligent truth-seeker — a seeker after the truth 
 in order that he may be a minister of the 
 truth to the life. 
 
 The preacher's interest in truth is prag- 
 matic ; he cherishes it for its value to life. 
 This leads him to make sharp distinctions 
 among truths, so as to be able to put them 
 to use according to their respective values. 
 He has been called of God and men mainly 
 to cherish the moral and religious elements 
 of man's nature. Society has provided the 
 school to care for the intellectual develop- 
 ment of the race, and the means of ministra- 
 tion to the physical man are numberless. 
 There is comparatively little that the preacher 
 needs to do or can do here, other than gen- 
 erate an atmosphere of divine and human 
 love that will demand justice and kindness in 
 all social and economic relations. He can- 
 not of course be indifferent to men's physical 
 welfare. That is a part of the specific prob- 
 lem to whose constant solution he has been 
 
68 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 called. But he must reach and contribute 
 his share to that solution in the way which is 
 appropriate to his own place and calling, that 
 is through the infusion of life and vigour into 
 the spiritual nature. He is working towards 
 an ideal, not on a program. It is granted to 
 him to contribute powerfully to the making 
 of men with right purposes and the ability to 
 carry them into effect ; statesmen and econ- 
 omists must carry through the program. 
 This practical work is in modern times done 
 mainly through the state and municipality. 
 The modern preacher is thus left free from 
 principal responsibility for the training of the 
 mind and the care of the body, except as he 
 creates an atmosphere friendly to these tasks. 
 But he is charged with almost exclusive re- 
 sponsibility for the care of the moral and re- 
 ligious nature of men. This is due to the 
 exclusion of moral and religious instruction 
 from the state schools in America, to the 
 growing disposition to neglect this instruc- 
 tion in the home. The church and the Sun- 
 day-school, led by the preacher, are thereby 
 assuming an importance in the religious life 
 of Americans that they perhaps never had 
 before. 
 
 In meeting this grave responsibility the 
 minister will choose those truths for presenta- 
 
THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 69 
 
 tion which best serve the purposes and ends 
 of his calling. It is his duty and privilege to 
 bring men to know God and feed their lives 
 from this eternal source of all life. He will 
 avoid the trivial, the unimportant, the 
 ephemeral, however true they may be, and 
 drive straight at the heart of the eternally 
 important. The affairs of the kingdom of 
 God and the life eternal are of such transcend- 
 ent importance and the opportunities for 
 addressing men on these themes are so in- 
 frequent and brief that no time should be 
 lost on the unimportant. Judged from this 
 standpoint, and it is undoubtedly the correct 
 one, how much irrelevant matter is some- 
 times presented in the modern pulpit I What 
 value, for example, have curious questions of 
 literary criticism for the temporal or eternal 
 welfare of the average man ? The question 
 as to whether there are one or two Isaiahs 
 has about as much bearing on his life as the 
 discussion of the chemical composition of the 
 planet Mars. So with most of the other 
 critical opinions which some dapper young 
 theologues and a few older preachers whose 
 age has not increased their wisdom, feel com- 
 pelled to air on occasion. Brilliant and 
 startling attacks on long and widely cherished 
 views may call forth a momentary news- 
 
70 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 paper notoriety and even provoke a heresy 
 trial, but will never save a soul or build up 
 the life of a man. If ministers kept con- 
 stantly before them the supreme object of 
 their high calling, the production of life, and 
 really cared for this unique privilege, we 
 should be spared such dazzling spectacles. 
 Negations sometimes clear the ground for the 
 building of life, but they make no direct con- 
 tribution thereto. Nature hates an intellec- 
 tual or spiritual vacuum as much as a physical 
 one, and usually destroys it or penalizes its 
 presence in the same way as in material 
 nature. 
 
 Equally futile and barren is the defense or 
 advocacy of views that have no vital signifi- 
 cance to either preacher or hearers, on the 
 ground that they are old and orthodox. 
 They may even be true and may have filled 
 an important place in the life of men in the 
 past when conditions were different ; but if 
 conditions have so changed as to render 
 them relatively useless for the life of men to- 
 day the wise preacher will omit them. He is 
 to build the life and must choose his message 
 to that end. It is not established views of 
 Scripture or subscription to creeds that give 
 life to the soul, but knowledge of God in 
 Christ Jesus, brought home to the hearts of 
 
THE MINISTER AND TRUTH 71 
 
 men by the passionate earnestness of a 
 preacher fired by a heart conviction. Such 
 truth gives life. Official ecclesiastical ortho- 
 doxy may be just as barren of the fruits of 
 the Spirit and the graces of the Christian life 
 as the most radical liberalism. To see that 
 this is historically true one needs only to turn 
 his eyes to the Orthodox Church of the East, 
 or to those periods in the history of any of 
 the modern churches when most emphasis 
 was laid on orthodoxy. They are never the 
 periods of greatest harmony, holiness and 
 activity. The periods of vital preaching are 
 the periods of Christian power. 
 
 Thoughts of other things are constantly 
 thrust on men by the exigencies of their daily 
 lives, while there is little to recall them to 
 God. They have little time to learn to know 
 God and themselves, sin and the Saviour, 
 this world with its duties and the eternity that 
 lies beyond. It must also be admitted that 
 most men have all too little inclination to re- 
 flect on these things. These are, therefore, 
 the thoughts, meditations and aspirations 
 that ought to speak especially from the pul- 
 pit. Silence would be better than the barren, 
 blatant, negative criticism, or the dry, dreary, 
 droning polemics that are sometimes heard 
 there. If the preacher would only remember 
 
72 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 that his mission is to life such subjects would 
 not be treated in the pulpit. They have 
 their place no doubt. Let the preacher do 
 his share in the world's intellectual battles, 
 for such battles must be fought. But in the 
 pulpit we want food, not powder and ball, no 
 matter which direction the gun may be 
 pointed. In the pulpit let us seek to build up 
 life, not to kill and destroy, and let us select 
 our truths accordingly. Not truth for truth's 
 sake, but truth for life's sake ; not all truth, 
 but relevant truth ; not official truth, but vital 
 truth, truth of highest worth to the life of 
 men — this is the truth which the minister 
 who is furnished to every good word and 
 work will discover and present. 
 
IV 
 
 THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 
 
 WE live in an age when Christian 
 thought is in a state of solution 
 more complete than at any time 
 since its crystallization in the fourth and fifth 
 centuries. Dogma in the old sense of the 
 final authoritative statement of religious truth 
 has almost disappeared from the Christian 
 world outside of the Catholic Church. The 
 whole of Christian thought is again in the 
 crucible. The Protestant churches are radi- 
 cally changing creeds that have stood the 
 strain of centuries, and some bodies, as for 
 example the Baptists, repudiate all statements 
 of doctrine except as confessions of their faith 
 to be used for purposes of information and 
 instruction. Even the systematic presenta- 
 tion of religious beliefs in the form of sys- 
 tematic theology has fallen into confusion 
 and even into disfavour in some quarters. 
 The old statements no longer satisfy multi- 
 tudes of people, but as yet no satisfactory 
 new forms have been found to supply the de- 
 73 
 
74 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 fects of the old. Theology seems to be try 
 ing to get on a new basis, to approach its 
 theme from a new direction and to justify it- 
 self by a new method. But as yet it has not 
 attained. It is hesitating, uncertain, con- 
 fused. The old is going and the new is 
 coming, but neither process is sufificiendy 
 advanced to be able to forecast the result. 
 One theologian goes in one direction and 
 another in another ; there is no concerted or 
 harmonious movement in any direction. 
 This confusion and hesitation come just at a 
 time when science, history and other fields of 
 thought are showing most progress, activity 
 and assurance. 
 
 I. When we inquire concerning the causes 
 of this strange phenomenon several possible 
 partial explanations suggest themselves. In 
 the first place theology was the first of the 
 sciences to be developed. Men were inter- 
 ested in and reflecting on God and man and 
 their relations to each other long before they 
 took up the other questions with which 
 modern man is so largely engaged. Specu- 
 ladve theology will scarcely ever go beyond 
 the great systems of the past. In an age 
 largely given to philosophic thought this 
 theology, so widely and minutely developed 
 in all directions, was thoroughly satisfying. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 75 
 
 Theology was known as " the queen of the 
 sciences" long before the so-called natural 
 sciences had begun their triumphant career. 
 It was justly entitled to this preeminence, for 
 more thought and effort had been expended 
 upon it than upon all other fields of thought 
 combined. Men lived and moved in an at- 
 mosphere surcharged with theological specu- 
 lation. With the outbreak of the Renais- 
 sance this began to be changed. Interest in 
 other matters began to dispute the supremacy 
 of theology. Slowly but surely and irresist- 
 ibly history, a non-theological philosophy 
 and the sciences claimed a larger and larger 
 share of the thought and attention of man- 
 kind. Theology, which had so long been 
 supreme, could brook such upstart rivals with 
 no good grace. It was thrown on the de- 
 fensive, became suspicious, combative and 
 oppressive. Unable to keep its leadership 
 by intellectual superiority it resorted to 
 forcible repression. As a consequence it be- 
 came static, stagnant and reactionary. The 
 rest of the world swept gloriously onward 
 while it stood by the wayside glowering at 
 the progress it could not prevent, still 
 vehemently asserting its claim to finality 
 and supreme authority over other realms of 
 thought. This claim the rest of the world 
 
76 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 could at length afford to spurn. This it did, 
 and toiled on with its own fascinating task, 
 leaving theology to point proudly backward 
 to its own great attainments in the past. 
 The very glories of that past throttled the 
 possibility of progress, and thus became the 
 occasion of its own downfall. Too proud to 
 recognize rivals or acknowledge the possi- 
 bility of further development two centuries 
 and more were required for it to learn that 
 humility which was necessary to its revival 
 and rehabilitation. That time has at length 
 come. It now modestly admits that it is 
 neither final nor infallible, and has as a con- 
 sequence begun a reconstruction in the light 
 of all that the world now knows. 
 
 The Teuton and Anglo-Saxon of the nine- 
 teenth and twentieth centuries have begun to 
 claim that they have reached their theological 
 majority and are capable of writing their 
 own theology. They no longer feel com- 
 pelled to accept as final the work of the 
 Greek and Latin theologians of the Catholic 
 Church of the Middle Ages and the earlier 
 centuries. They frankly recognize the great- 
 ness and importance of the work done by 
 those fathers, but they assert their own right 
 and even their duty to question both its form 
 and contents. The ancient world made mis- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 77 
 
 takes in other matters, they say, why not in 
 theology ? They were Catholics, we are 
 Protestants ; their knowledge of the world 
 was far more limited and imperfect than 
 ours ; their methods of study were inferior to 
 ours ; the religious life and experience about 
 them, forming the spiritual atmosphere in 
 which they worked, was much less vital than 
 ours. All this, it is claimed, gives the 
 modern theologian the right and in fact lays 
 upon him the obligation to think the whole 
 field of theology through afresh as every 
 other field of thought has been reinvestigated 
 in modern times. Otherwise, it is felt, 
 theology will lose all hold on the thinking 
 men of the present and be thrown on the 
 scrap-heap as a system of thought at length 
 outworn and useless. It is admitted that it 
 would doubtless be cherished a while longer 
 by the uncultured and backward ; but ulti- 
 mately they would give it up, for that which 
 thinking people have finally discarded will 
 infallibly lose its significance for all. The- 
 ology must, therefore, it is claimed, be re- 
 worked or lose all influence on modern life. 
 
 Now whether one agrees with these asser- 
 tions or not he must recognize the fact that 
 they constitute a powerful plea, and further 
 that they are actually leading men to do the 
 
78 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 work for which they claim the right. They 
 are actually at work afresh on theology, not 
 simply restating the old Catholic doctrines in 
 modern language, but also inquiring with all 
 possible diligence, in the light of all we know 
 and all we think we know to-day, whether 
 the ancients did not fail to apprehend the 
 whole truth or did actually make theological 
 mistakes. 
 
 2. Another fact in the history of theology 
 has doubtless contributed to this desire for 
 change. The mind of the ancient world, in 
 so far as it was cultured, was formed chiefly 
 by the study of literature, philosophy and 
 law and in the Middle Ages by the last two. 
 The studies that are chiefly instrumental in 
 moulding the modern mind were as yet 
 largely non-existent. And it is an indispu- 
 table fact that all the great theologians down 
 to and including the period of the Reforma- 
 tion were trained in the law. The Roman 
 Empire within whose borders and under 
 whose influence most of our theology was 
 formulated was the great developer and cus- 
 todian of law in the ancient world. During 
 the Middle Ages canon law was a very im- 
 portant study for all theologians. Under these 
 influences and with this culture it is not 
 strange that theology was formulated almost 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 79 
 
 exclusively in legal terms and forensic concep- 
 tions. The relation between God and man 
 was conceived as a legal one. Paul had been 
 trained in the Jewish law and constantly used 
 legal terms in expressing his conception of 
 the relations of God and men. Some of these 
 terms which at once occur to the mind are 
 law, election, justification, redeem, redeemer, 
 redemption, ransom, adoption, heir, inherit- 
 ance and others. The great Latin theolo- 
 gians of the earlier centuries such as Tertul- 
 lian, Cyprian, Ambrose and Augustine were 
 all able and learned lawyers. They all con- 
 ceived religious truths in a legal way and 
 expressed them in legal terms. Moreover 
 their statements became normative for later 
 ages. The Latin language became the 
 sacred language of worship and all ecclesias- 
 tical learning. Latin law terms fixed theol- 
 ogy for centuries. In the Middle Ages 
 Anselm, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and all the 
 other creative minds both used the Latin lan- 
 guage and were deeply versed in canon law. 
 Strangely enough when we come to the Ref- 
 ormation the same is found to be true. The 
 two great creative minds were Luther and 
 Calvin and both were deeply versed in law, 
 in fact had intended to follow the law as a 
 profession. Very many^ of the men of lesser 
 
80 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 calibre and significance were likewise lawyers. 
 Under these circumstances it would have re- 
 quired a constant miracle to have prevented 
 theology from being expressed in legal con- 
 ceptions and terms. It was just what was 
 needed at that time, fitting the social condi- 
 tions as well as the current culture. Theol- 
 ogy could not have been so vital to the 
 people if expressed in any other terms or 
 conceptions. 
 
 It is far otherwise now. Law has little im- 
 portance as an instrument of culture. Its 
 purpose is purely practical, and the lawyers 
 form a small class of society. There is noth- 
 ing among Protestants in any measure cor- 
 responding to the canon law in which the 
 theologians of the Middle Ages had to be 
 carefully trained. In fact the great majority 
 of the theologians of the last century and a 
 half have never studied law in any form. A 
 new culture has arisen and by that the mind 
 of the modern theologian has been moulded. 
 Mathematics, the classics, history and the 
 sciences have fixed the nomenclature and de- 
 termined the forms of his thought. He has 
 been taught to be suspicious of speculation, 
 to doubt what he cannot test. Of law he has 
 little knowledge and for it cherishes no great 
 respect. He has as little dealings with it as 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 81 
 
 possible. It is mechanical and remote from 
 his life, frequently a positive hindrance to so- 
 cial progress and remedial legislation. Gov- 
 ernmental relations and work are not suffi- 
 ciently personal and vital to serve him as 
 molds and imagery for his religious convic- 
 tions, feelings and aspirations. 
 
 Religion itself has been greatly spiritualized 
 and deepened since the work of the medieval 
 Catholic and the Reformation theologians 
 was done. Social conditions have so changed 
 that many of the terms in use formerly are 
 no longer applicable. The modern man 
 thinks in terms of biology, life, science and 
 social relations. He conceives his relations 
 to God and his fellow men in a much more 
 intimate and vital way than the ancients. 
 They employed the analogies of law and the 
 state to express the relations that exist be- 
 tween God and men ; but to him those of 
 life and the family seem better fitted for this 
 purpose. It was, therefore, inevitable that 
 the old theology with its philosophical specu- 
 lations, its legal terminology, its scholastic 
 and dialectic definitions and divisions, its ex- 
 ternalized conceptions, should seem to him 
 a priori^ external, mechanical and remote 
 from life and experience. He wants to come 
 into more intimate relations with God than 
 
82 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 legal terms and conceptions will admit him. 
 He wants a theology expressed in such terms 
 as he can understand — that is, terms drawn 
 from life, the family and science. 
 
 3. Systematic theology has always been 
 intimately related to current philosophy, and 
 has reflected more or less completely the 
 changes and conditions of the latter. Now, 
 since Kant, philosophy has been in consider- 
 able confusion. There has been nothing of 
 the unity and assurance of the Middle Ages. 
 Men have been in uncertainty as to what 
 could be known and how the knowable could 
 be mastered. They have felt suspicious of 
 speculation and have felt themselves com- 
 pelled by science to rely upon experience. 
 The philosophic basis and method of the old 
 theology have fallen into disfavour. Natur- 
 ally theology itself has felt the shock of these 
 changes in its old ally. It too has fallen into 
 uncertainty and confusion. 
 
 4. Another influence which has undoubt- 
 edly operated largely in bringing theology to 
 its present position has been the tremendous 
 interest in historical studies during the last 
 century. The history of theology has been 
 investigated. It has been found that every 
 doctrine has had a history, a growth, or, to 
 use a scientific term for a very familiar ex- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 83 
 
 perience, an evolution. Men have not always, 
 everywhere, believed the same thing or any- 
 where near it. Moreover some of the chap- 
 ters in this history have not been of a 
 character to commend the conclusions to the 
 confidence of men. Both the historic method 
 and the historical conclusions have modified 
 the conception of the finality and authority 
 of dogma. It has been more difficult to ac- 
 cept the dogma when one knew its history. 
 
 5. The scientific method, which is the 
 special mark of the intellectual life and train- 
 ing of modern times, is also exerting a very 
 great influence on theology. The old method 
 was a priori. '^ Aristotle was king in Zion." 
 Conclusions were reached by the methods of 
 deductive logic. From generals men de- 
 scended to particulars. It was the method 
 of philosophy and theology. To-day Bacon 
 is almost king in Zion in so far as method is 
 concerned. Inductive logic insists with con- 
 siderable success that it is the only legitimate 
 method in philosophy and theology as well 
 as in science. Every conclusion must be at 
 least tested by experience and if possible 
 should be reached and built up by the in- 
 ductive method. This insistence has put a 
 great strain on both philosophy and theology. 
 So powerful is science that the demand can- 
 
84 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 not be evaded or ignored, and yet how can 
 it be applied ? That has been the embar- 
 rassment of theology for many years. Some 
 theologians frankly say that there can be no 
 truly scientific theology, and the scientist 
 immediately answers with emphasis that, if 
 this be true, then there can be no theology 
 at all. Theology has not yet transcended 
 this embarrassment as to method and reached 
 firm ground again. Until that is accom- 
 plished there will certainly continue to be 
 hesitation and little progress in theological 
 reconstruction. A theological method, recog- 
 nized as legitimate, is the need of the hour. 
 
 6. Other phases of our modern life have 
 contributed to the present chaotic state of 
 theology. The intense study of the Bible 
 and its ever increasing prominence in the 
 religious life of the last century have forced 
 it into a more influential position in the pro- 
 duction of theology, as well as changed the 
 manner of its use in that science. A Biblical 
 theology has arisen, and with it has declined 
 the disposition to produce a systematic the- 
 ology whose chasms are bridged by specu- 
 lation. Men have been more inclined to stop 
 where the Bible stops and they have learned 
 much better during the last century where 
 the Bible does stop. Biblical theology has 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 85 
 
 thus in some measure discredited or weak- 
 ened systematic. 
 
 7. The evangelical character of the Chris- 
 tianity of the nineteenth century has elevated 
 Christian experience, especially that of the 
 emotional type, to a position it never held 
 before. Christian experience is insisted on 
 not only as a factor to be reckoned with in 
 the construction of theology, but as its norm 
 and basis. Not only must theology conform 
 to experience, it is thought, but must even 
 grow out of and not go beyond experience. 
 The scientific method of inductive study has 
 measurably strengthened this tendency. It 
 is not sufficient that theology should satisfy 
 the intellect ; it is required that it should con- 
 form to religious experience and thus become 
 a vital force in the life. 
 
 8. The democratic trend of modern times 
 has emphasized and intensified this tendency. 
 It is scarcely possible that the theology of 
 the Middle Ages should have much affected 
 the masses. They were ignorant and con- 
 sidered worthy of little attention either by 
 lord or theologian. Theology was for the 
 school and the class-room, for the scholar, 
 and the clergyman. That is changed now. 
 The common man has come to his majority 
 and must be heard. He is interested in the- 
 
86 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 ology, he holds the strings of the purse whose 
 contents are necessary to make the work of 
 the kingdom go under our modern voluntary 
 system. He must be considered, and he 
 demands a theology that reaches his own 
 life and bosom. Preachers and theologians 
 have been compelled to listen, and, let us 
 believe, have been glad to listen. Theology 
 has thus been democratized and vitalized in 
 the same movement. The effort is now on 
 to bring it into intimate and vital relations 
 with all of modern life. 
 
 9. As the counterpart to this tendency to 
 stress experience, the modern passion for 
 testable facts has worked towards the disin- 
 tegration and discredit of theology. Much 
 of its content cannot be subjected to the or- 
 dinary tests of experience. The inevitable 
 result has followed — an agnostic attitude 
 towards many positions that were asserted 
 with all possible confidence a few centuries 
 ago. This decline of dogmatic certainty does 
 not necessarily mean a decline of faith, but 
 only a more modest estimate of the triumphs 
 of the intellect. The medieval theologians 
 were gnostic and confident, the modern are 
 less confident and perhaps more modest. 
 They are not so sure that they know all about 
 the nature and plans of the Infinite as were 
 
THE MINISTEB AND THEOLOGY 87 
 
 their predecessors. As the knowledge of the 
 immensity and complexity of the universe 
 and the inexplicable doings of God in history 
 has broadened and deepened, reverent lips 
 have become less ready to speak. Increase 
 of knowledge has increased the sense of 
 greatness and mystery in the universe, and 
 laid boasting lips in the dust. The assurance 
 of the old theology concerning the attributes, 
 purposes and work of God, the condition of 
 the human soul and much more, is no longer 
 shared by modern Christian men. The old as- 
 sertions were in large part built on the then cur- 
 rent philosophical speculations and presuppo- 
 sitions as to what such a God as ours must be 
 and do. These statements were then but- 
 tressed by Scripture quotations which were 
 often misunderstood or misapplied. The con- 
 clusions were not drawn from Scripture but 
 only fortified by its use. The modern Chris- 
 tian man is utterly agnostic about much of 
 this. He knows that he does not know and 
 he does not believe the ancients knew. He 
 is not disposed to speculate himself nor to 
 follow the speculations of others very far, 
 even though those speculations are hoary 
 with age and have been crystallized into 
 creeds and theological systems. He is much 
 more inclined to stop with facts that are his- 
 
88 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 torically and scientifically and experientially 
 testable. These facts are sufficiently abun- 
 dant to satisfy his spiritual needs and support 
 his Christian hopes. He has become a Chris- 
 tian agnostic. He has no interest in going 
 beyond that which is written and experienced. 
 He is tremendously interested in this world 
 and its uplift. He looks about him and sees 
 that the simple Gospel has power to save and 
 transform men, and he is content to stop there. 
 ID. A further phase of our present relig- 
 ious life must not be forgotten. The modern 
 missionary movement for the conversion of 
 the non-Christian world, along with the in- 
 tensified endeavours for the evangelizing and 
 social uplift of the masses at home, have ex- 
 erted a profound influence upon theology. 
 They have emphasized the love of God for 
 the entire race and His efforts for their salva- 
 tion and welfare. The old theology said that 
 the justice of God must be satisfied ; the new 
 affirms that His love must be satisfied. How 
 can men believe in election in the old sense 
 when they have come to believe profoundly 
 that it is the will of God that the whole race 
 should be redeemed ? How can they believe 
 that divine justice is retributive and penal 
 when the purpose of punishment in our world 
 is, according to advanced modern views, 
 
THE MINISTEE AND THEOLOGY 89 
 
 chiefly if not wholly corrective ? Thus men 
 question their hearts. The sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries were filled with war, 
 hardship and suffering. Social and interna- 
 tional injustice made men stern and unsym- 
 pathetic. They were compelled to fight for 
 life and all that life holds dear. Under these 
 circumstances it is not strange that the great 
 theologians of this period gave to God's jus- 
 tice the supreme place in their systems, build- 
 ing on the righteous and sovereign if not 
 arbitrary will of God. The idea of human 
 rights and especially the dignity and rights 
 of the individual, was almost non-existent. 
 All government was a despotism in which the 
 actions of the ruler were limited only by his 
 power and self-interest. The individual pos- 
 sessed no other political, social nor religious 
 freedom or significance. Society was on a 
 tooth and claw basis. Under these condi- 
 tions it was inevitable that theology should 
 be harsh, stern and aristocratic. God loved 
 men, it was thought, but only the men whom 
 He had elected to salvation — an election 
 which was in no way related to the faith or 
 character of the individual. The view that 
 Christ died for none but the elect and that all 
 the rest of mankind are perfectly helpless and 
 wholly unable to escape eternal damnation did 
 
90 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 not shock the moral sense of that age. It was 
 almost universally accepted without question 
 or protest. A change in social conditions 
 has brought about a similar change in the- 
 ology. The modern passion for humanity, 
 for the welfare of all men irrespective of race 
 or condition, has now made such a theology 
 well-nigh impossible. Men have been unable 
 to give themselves in love and service to 
 all men and at the same time believe that God 
 has passed by a large part of the race without 
 providing any way of salvation ; much less 
 can they believe that God has actively blasted 
 them forever, ** to the praise of His glorious 
 justice." With his high views of the worth 
 of a man it is hard for the modern to believe 
 that such a course would be to the praise of 
 God's justice. Indeed, to be perfectly frank, 
 he does not believe that such a course would 
 be either just or loving. That conception of 
 God has not been able to survive in our mod- 
 ern atmosphere of service and has in fact dis- 
 appeared from among most of those who still 
 call themselves Calvinists. They are Calvin- 
 ists in only a modified sense. As yet no con- 
 sistent system has come to take the place of 
 the old, and present-day theology hangs sus- 
 pended between heaven and earth, unable to 
 ascend or descend with comfort. 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 91 
 
 These and other considerations have had 
 a most profound influence on theology. In 
 the olden days it was the ** queen of the 
 sciences." The great universities of Europe 
 and the denominational colleges in America 
 were built upon it. The professorship of 
 theology was the most honoured in all our 
 seminaries. Much of the preacher's duty in 
 the pulpit was the defense and propagation 
 of a certain system of theology. The pew, 
 where it was free to select, chose its minister 
 largely for his ability as a theologian. The 
 officials sat in rapt and critical attention 
 while the minister delivered long theological 
 disquisitions which a modern congregation 
 would scarcely tolerate. All this is now 
 gone. Does the change mean a religious 
 declension ? Undoubtedly many good people 
 think so. But this is not necessarily the 
 case. It signifies a shifting of emphasis, 
 but it may be, and in the judgment of many 
 good people is, a gain rather than the con- 
 trary. In the old days the chief religious 
 interest was intellectual, now it is vital ; then 
 the highest concern was directed to the way 
 men thought, now the stress is on the way 
 men live ; then emphasis was laid on the- 
 ology, now it is on spirituality, ethics and 
 philanthropy. Then the congregation in- 
 
92 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 quired if the minister was a sound and able 
 theologian, now it investigates his ability to 
 build up the moral and religious life of the 
 church and community. 
 
 Now in view of and in the midst of these 
 changes, already great and still in progress, 
 what is the modern minister to do? What 
 is to be his attitude towards theology ? Is it 
 to have any place in his training and work 
 in the future ? Does Christianity need a 
 systematic theology or have we passed en- 
 tirely beyond the theological stage of its 
 history ? 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that these 
 changes have not come without protest. No 
 such radical transformation ever came in any 
 department of the world's life without seri- 
 ous challenge, and this is especially true in 
 the conservative realm of religion. The 
 theological attitude has had a long and hon- 
 ourable history. Very early in the career of 
 Christianity the standard by which a Chris- 
 tian was to be judged came to be an in- 
 tellectual one. He must be intellectually 
 *' sound," hold a *' sound theology," in a 
 word, be ** orthodox." Faith came to be, not 
 the acceptance of the person Christ Jesus, 
 but the approval of a creed. Among the 
 Greeks whose interests were intellectual, vital 
 
THE MINISTEK AND THEOLOGY 93 
 
 issues disappeared behind intellectual ones. 
 MoraJs, service, life, ceased to be standards 
 of judgment as they had been, preemi- 
 nently, in the thought and ministry of Jesus. 
 The creeds and systems of theology arose 
 demanding allegiance and speedily found it. 
 So it was throughout the Middle Ages and 
 still is among the Greek and Roman Catho- 
 lics. The Reformers wrote new creeds with- 
 out discarding or modifying the old, and 
 continued the demand for allegiance. This 
 demand they sternly enforced by appeal to 
 the civil arm. Lutherans, Calvinists, Ana- 
 baptists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Angli- 
 cans, Catholics, all parties suffered at the 
 hands of others at one time or another, and 
 chiefly because of their theology. Their 
 intellectual conception of the Christian re- 
 ligion, not the character of their lives or 
 actions, was the cause of this sufiering. 
 In some Christian bodies, as we have seen, 
 this intellectual standard still prevails. The 
 emphasis is still on the teachings. At the 
 same time there is in most Protestant bodies, 
 and to some extent in the Roman Catholic 
 Church, a decided change in the place of 
 emphasis in recent years. At the same time 
 only a part of any of the denominations are 
 so affected, and as a consequence deep clefts 
 
94 A VITAL MINISTBY 
 
 are seen in the fellowship of many commu- 
 nions, made by the movement of some and 
 the stability of others of its communicants. 
 
 What, now, is the minister to do in these 
 perilous and trying times of theological tran- 
 sition, when ecclesiastical bands are strain- 
 ing and snapping and theological scaffolding 
 is swaying and falling? There is danger 
 that he will be too theological, conservative 
 and reactionary, or swing to the other ex- 
 treme and repudiate all theology — danger 
 that he will be theologically strong and dry, 
 or theologically weak and consequently shal- 
 low and feeble. What is he to do ? 
 
 In the first place let him realize that there 
 is no occasion for alarm. Realities have not 
 changed and will not change. God is the 
 same Father that He has always been, 
 man the same sinful and needy creature. 
 Let him believe in the theological toilers of 
 to-day as much as those of the earlier cen- 
 turies. They are no less able, no less sin- 
 cere. They have the same material for the 
 construction of a theology that the ancients 
 possessed and more beside ; they work in a 
 better atmosphere, in a period of far greater 
 Christian activity and higher Christian char- 
 acter ; they are trying to write a theology for 
 the modern world which will grip the man of 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 95 
 
 to-day as that of the Middle Ages gripped 
 the men of that time. In their work they 
 are seeking to take into consideration the 
 whole circle of knowledge and follow pres- 
 ent-day methods so far as they can be applied 
 to the subject, that there may be no failure 
 of appeal because of fault in knowledge or 
 method. It would seem impossible, when 
 all these advantages are considered, that any- 
 thing but good could ultimately come out of 
 the current effort at restatement. 
 
 But far more important than these reflec- 
 tions is the thought that the preacher's busi- 
 ness is not theological at all except in the 
 most incidental way. The vital ideal will 
 greatly help him here. If he keeps steadily 
 in mind that his work is the building up of 
 the life of his people the occasion of much of 
 his fear, uncertainty and anxiety will disap- 
 pear. " I am come that they may have life,'* 
 not that they may have a sound theology. 
 The Arminianism of Wesley and the moderate 
 Calvinism of Whitefield were equally effect- 
 ive in the pulpit, when uttered by a power- 
 ful personality filled with a passion for God 
 and humanity. There are certain great relig- 
 ious facts whose acceptance with deep con- 
 viction are absolutely essential to efficiency 
 in the ministry ; but the manner in which 
 
96 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 these are fused into a system is of no 
 material weight in the work of the ministry. 
 The early non-theological years of Christian 
 history were among its most triumphant. 
 The minister need not, therefore, be anxious 
 about the chaotic condition of theology to-day. 
 It is an incident of the readjustment that had 
 to come and will be set right by the scholars 
 while he, the preacher, is earnestly engaged 
 in the work of making men. 
 
 At the same time it must never be forgot- 
 ten that Christianity has an intellectual side 
 and that every rational Christian will have a 
 theology, that is a body of Christian truth 
 more or less fully systematized. Moreover 
 the richer and fuller this truth and the more 
 completely it is systematized the better it is. 
 No man was ever weakened by the extensive- 
 ness of his knowledge of religious truth or the 
 thoroughness with which it was organized. 
 The danger to the preacher does not consist 
 in the possession of truth or the systematiz- 
 ing of truth, but in making a system of truth 
 or supposed truth an end in itself — a feeling 
 that he is called to defend and propagate 
 that system rather than build up the life of 
 those men, women and children who are 
 committed to his care. The moment the 
 preacher assumes this attitude, thus losing 
 
THE MINISTEE AND THEOLOGY 97 
 
 touch with the life of men, his proper pulpit 
 power is gone, even if every sentence he ut- 
 ters contains an important truth. It is a fatal 
 defect in the theology of the preacher when it 
 has no vital touch with the life of other men. 
 It is equally defective if it is not the out- 
 growth of his own Christian experience. 
 The working theology of the pulpit cannot be 
 handed down by tradition, already finished, 
 tied up and labelled. Such a product usually 
 is dry and musty in the pulpit, and contributes 
 very little to the life of the people. He may 
 have received it as the final truth, honoured 
 of his fathers and dear to the saints in the 
 past, and yet it may have little more relation 
 to his own spiritual life or that of the men of 
 his generation than a proposition in Euclid. 
 The theology is not his own. He took it 
 whole from his predecessors. He has the 
 *• form of sound words," but none of the sub- 
 stance and red blood that the generations 
 who made these ** forms " put into them. 
 The preacher needs a theology that is his 
 own ; one that has grown out of his own life 
 and experience and contains his own best 
 thought. He can no more get a valuable 
 working theology out of books alone than he 
 could get geometry by memorizing proposi- 
 tions, figures and demonstrations. A vital 
 
98 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 theology comes only through the vital proc- 
 esses of living, thinking and expressing 
 religious truth for one's self. 
 
 This making of one's own theology is not 
 an easy task. It requires work, toil of the 
 most exacting kind. But hard as it is the 
 preacher ought resolutely to determine to 
 preach nothing which he has not himself 
 brought to the test of his own experience and 
 wrought out on the anvil of his own heart. 
 He will be tempted to take the easier and 
 (yes, let us recognize the fact) the safer road. 
 He knows that a certain traditional theology 
 is necessary to his good standing and pos- 
 sible advancement in ecclesiastical circles. 
 His own living and that of his loved ones de- 
 pends on his ability to earn a support in his 
 ministerial calling. How near lies the temp- 
 tation to cowardice ! Or mental inertia may 
 be his weakness and the fear of the necessary 
 toil may frighten him into the appropriation 
 of the labours of the fathers without the 
 trouble of mental mastication and assimila- 
 tion. Or the multitudinous distractions of 
 the modern pastorate may deter him from all 
 real mental effort. In any case his theology 
 will be devoid of vitality and power in the 
 pulpit. Such theology is no longer truth, for 
 religious truth is living and active and 
 
THE MINISTER AND THEOLOGY 99 
 
 sharper than any two-edged sword. When 
 the life is gone out of it there remains only 
 the bleaching skeletons of departed truths, 
 once beautiful and powerful but dead and use- 
 less. He may be as zealous for it as if it were 
 still alive, but its powerlessness is in no wise 
 altered by that fact. 
 
 In all this it is not intended to claim that 
 the modern preacher must discard the old 
 theology and proclaim something that is 
 called new in order to be powerful. The 
 new may be appropriated in the lump and 
 be just as undigested and useless as the old. 
 The presumption is certainly in favour of that 
 which has stood the test of centuries and 
 has satisfied the mental and spiritual needs 
 of millions. What is said here is not in the 
 interest of either the new or the old as such, 
 but of the true and the vital. Neither age 
 nor youth is a proof of worth and vitality, so 
 far as a system of theology is concerned. 
 What is insisted on is the necessity for 
 vitality in the preacher's theology, whether 
 it is new or old. It must come out of his 
 own life, express his own deep convictions, 
 utter his own personal religious knowledge 
 and experience. The preacher cannot be 
 satisfied with theological negations. It must 
 express his positive convictions. 
 
100 A VITAL MIOTSTEY 
 
 These and other theological mistakes will 
 be avoided if the minister will only remem- 
 ber that his duty is to minister to the life of 
 the people, that his calling is vital and only 
 incidentally theological. Seeking to vitalize 
 the people, his efforts will undoubtedly react 
 and vitalize his theology. He will deliver a 
 message that is not meant primarily to save 
 theology, but the people. And the people 
 will respond and his theology will be saved. 
 The richer, fuller and more systematic he can 
 make his message the better for his people. 
 But let him never forget that he is deUvering 
 it for their sakes, and he will then be careful 
 to present it so as to bless them. Consider- 
 ing the interests of his people he will not 
 proclaim a truth because it is in his system, 
 but only because of its probable beneficial 
 effects on his charge ; it will not appear in 
 scholastic .but in popular form. The methods 
 pursued in one congregation will in another 
 be exchanged for others that promise better 
 results in vital power. In one this truth will be 
 emphasized, in another that, according as there 
 is need. But always the people will be upper- 
 most in his thoughts, for he will steadily re- 
 member that his Master said, " I am come that 
 they may have life " ; and further said, " As 
 the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you."* 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SERMON 
 
 THE importance of preaching in the 
 work of the kingdom of God can 
 scarcely be overestimated. This 
 public presentation of religious truth by word 
 of mouth was the method of the old prophets, 
 it was the plan of John the Baptist and Jesus ; 
 Luther, Knox, Wesley and all other great 
 Christian leaders have accomplished their 
 splendid tasks mainly by preaching. Periods 
 of aggressive and vital piety have always 
 been characterized by diligent and effective 
 preaching; and conversely vigorous evan- 
 gelical preaching has not failed to call forth 
 a Christianity with vision and power. By 
 the testimony of English historians the 
 preaching of Wesley regenerated eighteenth 
 century England, and saved it from the hor- 
 rors of a cataclysm like the French Revolu- 
 tion. This wonderful work, surpassing in 
 magnitude that of any statesman of modern 
 times, was almost wholly the effect of inces- 
 sant, evangelical, vital, practical preaching, ex- 
 tending to every nook and corner of the land. 
 101 
 
102 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 Ours is a reading age. Never before in 
 the world's history has the printed page filled 
 so large a place in the life of the people. In 
 the enormous literary stream there is a large 
 element of distinctly religious literature — 
 periodicals, tracts and books. By far " the 
 best seller " in the world's output of books is 
 the Bible, and yet all this religious literature 
 has not and will not replace preaching or 
 greatly reduce its importance. '' For seeing 
 that in the wisdom of God the world through 
 its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good 
 pleasure through the foolishness of the 
 preaching to save them that believe " (i Cor. 
 i. 2i). The Christian religion is of such a 
 nature that it needs the advocacy of person- 
 ality for its propaganda. 
 
 Furthermore, ours is an age when the 
 science and art of teaching is being studied 
 and practiced with unwonted diligence. The 
 teacher is coming to be regarded as the most 
 important personage in the body politic. 
 Education is universal. Naturally and prop- 
 erly this intellectual movement has passed 
 into religion, and is to-day deeply affecting 
 all our Christian work and ideals. The 
 Sunday-school has multiplied the number of 
 religious teachers and increased the amount 
 of religious teaching to enormous propor- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SERMON 103 
 
 tions. But with all the blessed results of this 
 work already apparent and the further benefits 
 anticipated, it can never take the place of that 
 method which is distinctively called preach- 
 ing. As a matter of fact these various types 
 of Christian activity are an admirable prep- 
 aration for the more effective presentation 
 of truth from the pulpit. The well furnished 
 minister ought to be apt to teach, for teach- 
 ing is an important feature of his work ; but 
 whatever be his ability in the distinctive 
 field of teaching, he must nevertheless be a 
 preacher. The people will be pleased if he is 
 a good pastor, a skillful organizer, an ac- 
 complished scholar. All these they will, 
 however, forego if he is a good preacher — 
 that he must be. 
 
 If, then, good preaching is so essential it is 
 important to discover the elements necessary 
 to effective preaching. What is the purpose 
 of preaching, what is a good sermon ? In a 
 word its purpose is vital, the production of 
 life. In accordance with the spiritual con- 
 stitution of man God has chosen preaching 
 as the best method of reaching him with the 
 regenerating power of religious truth. The 
 reason for preaching is psychological, and the 
 purpose of preaching is vital. Under the 
 blessing of God the minister uses the sermon 
 
104 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 for the generation, nourishment and growth 
 of a genuine and abounding spiritual life in 
 his hearers. It is not his only means for the 
 accomplishment of this high and holy pur- 
 pose, but it is beyond doubt the principal 
 means, so ordained by human nature and 
 the God of human nature. Preaching and 
 the sermon, then, should be judged from 
 this standpoint. The sermon is made to 
 produce life, and if it fails in this, its sole 
 legitimate purpose, it is a failure, however 
 famous and popular the preacher, however 
 numerous and enthusiastic his hearers. 
 
 If, now, the vital ideal of the sermon is the 
 correct one, let us see how the fact affects the 
 preparation and delivery of the sermon. 
 Obviously, on that supposition, much that has 
 been written on the subject has been irrelevant 
 if not positively harmful. The sermon can- 
 not be justly estimated by the standards 
 applied to other literature, for the manifest 
 reason that its purpose is different. What- 
 ever may be the purpose of other literature 
 that of the sermon is purely utilitarian. In- 
 deed the production of literature is not a 
 purpose of preaching at all. The minister is 
 in the business of producing men, and the 
 sermon is one of his means for the attain- 
 ment of that end. 
 
THE MINISTEE AND THE SEEMON 105 
 
 Much that has been written on the prepara- 
 tion and delivery of sermons has failed to 
 keep this vital aim of the sermon steadily in 
 mind. It has been considered too much from 
 the standpoint of literature, too much from 
 the standpoint of the reader and too little 
 from that of the hearer. Sermons, it must 
 never be forgo cten, are made to be heard, not 
 to be read. The considerations which should 
 control their content and construction are the 
 needs and the mental and spiritual character- 
 istics of the congregation sitting immediately 
 before the speaker. Here and there is an 
 audience which is so cosmopolitan that the 
 preacher in successfully addressing it can, if 
 he has the ability, make sermons which will 
 also reach a much larger audience through 
 the printing press. But preachers of such 
 ability are rare, and cannot be taken as 
 models by the rest of us. We must content 
 ourselves with the audience immediately be- 
 fore us ; their needs and their characteristics 
 must be met and satisfied. The sermon is, 
 therefore, the most ephemeral, specific and 
 local of all forms of literature, if indeed it has 
 any just claim to be classified as literature at 
 all. Any sermon perfectly adapted to one 
 occasion can never without modification per- 
 fectly fit another. The sermon is, therefore, 
 
106 A VITAL MIOTSTEY 
 
 almost necessarily ephemeral, and the sooner 
 the average preacher recognizes this fact the 
 better for him and the fruitfulness of his 
 ministryc 
 
 This means that the plans for the making 
 and delivery of sermons must be very elastic. 
 What is good preaching in one community 
 may be very poor in another. That is good 
 preaching which reaches and blesses the 
 people, and that is the best preaching which 
 best performs this task. Give us above all 
 adaptable preachers who are thinking of the 
 people in all their ministrations. Frequently 
 the sermon is poured into some fixed homi- 
 letical molds which the preacher obtained 
 years ago in the seminary, and comes forth 
 so stiff and stark as to have its effectiveness 
 materially impaired. The preacher has felt 
 that the production of sermons in accord 
 with approved plans of homiletical workman- 
 ship constituted his business, and if this 
 standard was attained he considered himself 
 a good preacher. If his hearers did not 
 relish or appreciate his efforts, so much the 
 worse for the hearers ; it only showed their 
 perversity or stupidity, not his failure as a 
 preacher. Now this ought to be changed. 
 The minister ought to realize that nothing is 
 good preaching unless it fits the congrega- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SERMON 107 
 
 tion he is addressing, no matter how perfectly 
 it conforms to the most approved homiletical 
 models. It must fit and bless the people. 
 
 It is not intended to assert or even to sug- 
 gest that the study of homiletics is necessa- 
 rily useless or injurious. Far from it. But it 
 is intended to affirm that slavery to the homi- 
 letical ideal of preaching may seriously im- 
 pair the vital effectiveness of the message. 
 Homiletical rules are a means to the great 
 vital end of preaching and in no sense an 
 end in themselves. The best service homi- 
 letics can render the preacher is to loose him 
 and let him go — that is, to give him the 
 power to adapt himself and use his gifts for 
 the delivery of a life-giving message, palpi- 
 tating with vital spiritual power, to the audi- 
 ence that sits before him — to give him this 
 high ideal and the power to attain it. The 
 danger of homiletics, as of all other studies 
 whose object is practical, is that it will put 
 the young preacher in a straight jacket of 
 ideals and rules that will greatly hamper the 
 free movement of his own powers. The pur- 
 pose of an education is to release and train 
 the powers of men, but there is constant 
 danger that it will bind rather than loose. 
 It does so by fixing the attention on subsidi- 
 ary matters, thereby creating wrong ideals 
 
108 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 which shackle individuality and destroy the 
 power of adaptation. Paul found the highly 
 cultured audience of Mars Hill spiritually the 
 most barren and unresponsive he ever ad- 
 dressed. No denomination of modern times 
 which has insisted on a thorough education 
 as an absolute prerequisite to admission into 
 the ministry has been able to reach the 
 masses. On the other hand it is equally 
 significant that no Christian body has been 
 able to reach the cultured without an edu- 
 cated ministry. Want of adaptation through 
 inability or unwillingness is the explanation. 
 The uneducated man is necessarily unable to 
 satisfy the cultured, while the educated man 
 is often either unwilling or unable to adapt 
 his methods of thought and expression to 
 the uncultured. A true homiletics should 
 help a man to fit his work to all classes, 
 whereas it too often unfits him for work with 
 any but the cultured. A practical homiletics 
 needs to be based on principles of psychol- 
 ogy rather than upon rules of rhetoric ; upon 
 the mental and spiritual condition of the 
 people to be addressed rather than upon the 
 models of pulpit oratory that have charmed 
 and edified past generations. The educated 
 preacher is not necessarily incapable of 
 adaptation. Paul was a highly cultured 
 
THE MINISTEE AND THE SEEMON 109 
 
 man, trained in many respects into a haughty 
 narrowness and exclusiveness, and yet after 
 he became a Christian he could say of him- 
 self, " I am become all things to all men, that 
 by all means I may save some." It was his 
 devotion to^ the welfare of men that gave 
 him this freedom ; and equal devotion would 
 give almost any man the power to reach 
 almost any audience. Of course every man 
 has his limitations. Perfect adaptation is 
 impossible. What is insisted on is that the 
 preacher shall consciously build his sermons 
 not to attain to standards of literary excel- 
 lence, but to reach and bless the people. 
 
 This does not mean, of course, that no 
 thought or attention is to be given to the 
 literary qualities of the sermon. On the 
 contrary the ideal that is here being set forth 
 requires rather more than less attention to 
 preparation ; for it means that each sermon 
 is a separate structure whose workmanship 
 and style must be determined by the char- 
 acteristics of the particular audience to which 
 it is to be delivered. They are not all to be 
 constructed on one model, determined by the 
 methods of Chrysostom, Spurgeon or some 
 other great preacher of the past ; but each is 
 to be composed to meet its own situation. 
 This means special attention to each separate 
 
110 A VITAL MIIS^ISTEY 
 
 sermon, and consequently endless variety in 
 style and construction. Each separate sermon 
 becomes a work of art, specially designed 
 and executed to fit into its own peculiar 
 niche in the temple of humanity. Styles 
 will differ according to the niche, and the 
 artist can never neglect to give large atten- 
 tion to each creation. In some cases literary 
 finish will be of the highest moment to the 
 effectiveness of the sermon. Solecisms, bar- 
 barisms and even provincialisms will inevi- 
 tably and greatly obscure for a cultured audi- 
 ence the truth that is being presented ; on the 
 other hand overrefinement of style will with 
 equal certainty be prejudicial to the effective- 
 ness of the sermon delivered to the uncultured. 
 But while each sermon is thus a work of 
 art in itself it must nevertheless not be for- 
 gotten that there are certain qualities that all 
 good sermons must have in common. There 
 is no reason for great variation in content or 
 subject matter on account of differences in 
 audiences. The religious needs of all men 
 are substantially the same. Sin is universal, 
 temptations and heart hungers do not greatly 
 vary, the hopes and fears, weaknesses and 
 aspirations of men vary in degree but not 
 greatly in kind. Every sermon should be 
 replete, therefore, with evangelical truth, that 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SERMON 111 
 
 is truth suited to meet the moral and spiritual 
 needs of all men. It should comfort them in 
 their sorrows, strengthen them in their aspira- 
 tions, confirm them in their hopes, call them 
 to repentance, stimulate their faith, assure 
 them of forgiveness and victory over sin, 
 lead them into communion and fellowship 
 with the Father and partnership in service 
 with Jesus Christ. Nothing but evangelical 
 truth will do this for any congregation, cul- 
 tured or boorish. Within this great body of 
 evangelical truth there is ample room for all 
 the variety that will ever be needed, for both 
 man and God are inexhaustible as objects of 
 thought, and likewise of intense and perennial 
 interest. Just as the average reader " skips " 
 all else in the novel that he may get the 
 story, that is the human, so it is precisely 
 those preachers who confine themselves to 
 evangelical themes who to-day are heard by 
 the greatest numbers. Occasionally some 
 disappointed preacher is heard to assert that 
 the people will not hear the Gospel. Of 
 course there are many that will not hear that 
 or anything else that is good ; but there can 
 be no greater mistake on the part of the 
 preacher than to turn away from the Gospel 
 in search of more popular themes. Men are 
 more interested in the Gospel, clearly, 
 
112 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 earnestly, forcibly and lovingly presented, 
 than in any other subject that can possibly 
 be brought to their attention ; and there 
 ought to be no doubt among Christian minis- 
 ters as to the value of such preaching. It is 
 the Gospel that attracts and regenerates and 
 reforms the lifCo 
 
 As the subject need not vary greatly from 
 one congregation to another of different 
 characteristics and culture, so there are cer- 
 tain common qualities of style which should 
 characterize all preaching. The language of 
 the sermon should obviously be clear and 
 simple, and as attractive as possible to the 
 audience before the preacher. Everything 
 within the compass of the preacher's speak- 
 ing powers should be done to stimulate and 
 hold the attention, enlighten the mind, arouse 
 and cultivate the higher emotions, strengthen 
 and direct the will. The objective is the 
 making of deep and lasting impressions 
 which will bear immediate and continuous 
 fruit in nobler living. Moreover it must be 
 remembered that the effect of the sermon 
 must be gathered from one swift hearing, that 
 the more leisurely process of reading cannot 
 be used. Hence the preacher must strive to 
 deliver a discourse that will attract, be easily 
 understood and profoundly impressive. Its 
 
THE MINISTEE AND THE SERMON 113 
 
 vocabulary and language should be as far as 
 possible that of the people to whom it is ad- 
 dressed, its illustrations those with which they 
 are familiar. Words whose signification is 
 not immediately apprehended cloud the 
 meaning and weaken the force of the entire 
 sentence or paragraph. The ideal is to 
 speak so plainly as to render misunderstand- 
 ing impossible. Unfamiliar words cause a 
 sense of strangeness, thus putting religion in 
 a realm more or less aloof from the life of the 
 hearers. If the audience is a highly cultured 
 one the language of polite literature will be 
 quite appropriate and effective ; but if the 
 people are a plain unvarnished folk the 
 vocabulary should be our homely Saxon, 
 plain and direct. Not that ungrammatical, 
 slovenly or inaccurate language is necessary 
 or desirable. However uncultured them- 
 selves the congregation will wish their pastor 
 to employ correct speech. But the plain 
 Anglo-Saxon of the common people is 
 adequate to the forcible and attractive ex- 
 pression of all the truth which the preacher 
 will ever need to utter, as is abundantly 
 shown by the continued fascination and 
 power of Bunyan's immortal allegory. There 
 is a simplicity of speech as well as of person 
 which is sublime. 
 
lU A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 The appropriate use of illustrations is very 
 important to effective preaching. They give 
 point, pith and pungency to the thought. 
 They illuminate and adorn, they are easily 
 remembered and frequently constitute the 
 only part of the discourse that is recalled. 
 This is especially true of the plainer people, 
 but all hearers are helped by apt illustrations. 
 To a matter of so much consequence the 
 minister can afford to give large attention 
 and thought. Illustrations should be se- 
 lected, wrought out and fitted to the thought 
 with almost as much care and attention as is 
 expended on the thought itself. They should 
 be drawn as far as practicable from the circle 
 of thought in which the people themselves 
 move. Illustrations which must themselves 
 be explained before they can be used to il- 
 luminate the sermon are seriously defective 
 for that audience, and should be used but 
 sparingly. Illustrations from history, art and 
 other subjects more or less familiar to a cul- 
 tured audience, are less effective before the 
 uncultured. The farmer is moved by a well 
 turned comment on things in the country, 
 while the city-bred man responds to the circle 
 of city illustrations. The line of demarcation 
 is certainly not absolute, but the general prin- 
 ciples on which illustrations should be se- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SERMON 115 
 
 lected is pretty clear. The point to be re- 
 membered is the fact that the illustration is 
 not to be used to fill space, nor to adorn the 
 tale, nor to display knowledge of nature, his- 
 tory or other extensive and curious learning, 
 but solely for the good of the hearers. It is 
 intended to help them to apprehend and re- 
 member the truth. Its purpose is vital The 
 characteristics and needs of the people must 
 determine the number and character of the 
 illustrations. They are for the sake of the 
 people, not for the sake of the sermon or the 
 preacher. If they help to produce an abound- 
 ing life in the hearers they are good. Let 
 the welfare of the people determine the 
 method of illustrating. 
 
 The adoption of the vital ideal will assist 
 in the solution of the important problem of 
 the length of the sermon. In the light of 
 this principle it is clear that nothing ap- 
 proaching a rule can be laid down for all 
 preachers and all congregations. The needs 
 and characteristics of the congregation to- 
 gether with the ability of the preacher to 
 hold the attention are the controlling factors. 
 A country congregation who read compara- 
 tively little and hear preaching infrequently 
 will profit by a much longer sermon than the 
 city congregation will submit to. The most 
 
116 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 faithful members of the city church hear 
 three sermons and take part in Sunday- 
 school every week. For the country people 
 life is not so stressful, Sunday is a rest day, 
 there is no occasion for hurry, and hence 
 they want a good strong meal of mental and 
 spiritual food. On the other hand in the 
 city not only are the week days filled with 
 driving business, but as Christianity is at 
 present organized and at work Sunday also 
 is a very strenuous day for active Christian 
 people. Under these circumstances they 
 would be something less or more than hu- 
 man if they did not demand short sermons. 
 In every case the sermon should be just long 
 enough to do the greatest good to the people 
 to whom it is delivered. Doubtless this can 
 never be ascertained with accuracy; but if 
 the preacher has the ideal consciously before 
 him he is less likely to go astray in this re- 
 gard. He is to remember that the length of 
 the sermon is not to be determined by some 
 homiletical ideal, nor by the usual custom of 
 himself or other ministers, nor by the desire 
 to expound some truth in extensoy but solely 
 and alone by the needs of the people who 
 are before him. It is well also to remember 
 that he is not likely to confer any large 
 blessing on the people after the average man 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SERMON 117 
 
 begins to think he has spoken long enough 
 and to wish him to quit. Attendance on 
 preaching is a purely voluntary matter which 
 must be induced by attraction not by com- 
 pulsion. A restless, uninterested or resent- 
 ful audience is litde benefited by the minis- 
 ter's words, however true and important they 
 may be in themselves. Moreover resent- 
 ment and complaint are not simply futile, 
 they are positively harmful. The congrega- 
 tion will come to church next time not only 
 expecting to be bored but also apprehensive 
 lest they will be scolded. Their attitude is 
 not likely to be favourable for a sympathetic 
 and profitable hearing. Let the preacher 
 control the length of his sermon by the 
 temper and characteristics of his congrega- 
 tion and his ability to make it a blessing to 
 them. Not homiletical models nor ecclesias- 
 tical customs nor the supposed interests of 
 truth nor the dignity and standing of the 
 ministry nor the asserted obligation of the 
 people to hear the preacher a half hour or 
 longer each week, but the needs and interest 
 of the people, these considerations must con- 
 trol. The purpose of preaching is practical 
 and it should be controlled by practical 
 rather than by theoretical considerations. 
 The relation of the sermon to the remainder 
 
118 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 of the service is to be determined in the same 
 way. What proportion of the time should 
 be given to music, how much to song and 
 prayer, how much to the sermon, how long 
 should the entire service be? These ques- 
 tions constantly perplex the minister. The 
 chief difficulty in my opinion is the feeling 
 that the services in all churches, at least in 
 all churches of the same denomination, should 
 be substantially the same. All freedom and 
 power of adaptation is thereby sacrificed to 
 ecclesiastical regularity. But if our principle 
 of the vital ideal in the ministry is the correct 
 one, that is if the interests of the people are 
 to be considered the matter of paramount im- 
 portance, then the question is much simpli- 
 fied. The preacher needs only to determine 
 what is best for his congregation and proceed 
 to do that. It may be somewhat difficult to 
 apply the principle, but the principle itself is 
 perfectly clear. The relation of the sermon 
 to the rest of the service may vary from 
 church to church, from morning to evening, 
 from occasion to occasion. Moreover one 
 preacher need not divide the time to the va- 
 rious parts of the service as any other does. 
 In short, this principle which makes the in- 
 terests of the people the controlling consider- 
 ation gives the preacher freedom. He not 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE SERMON 119 
 
 only can but should manage the length of 
 the sermon and its relation to the rest of the 
 service in the way that he and his people can 
 get most good from it. 
 
 In the same way the principle can be ap- 
 plied to all the questions that arise with re- 
 gard to preaching and the sermon, and they 
 will be found to be much simplified if not en- 
 tirely solved by its application. There will 
 be freedom, flexibility and adaptabilityo The 
 full personality of the preacher can express 
 itself, unhampered by the habits and thoughts 
 of the past. David will not be trying to fight 
 in Saul's armour ; the man's work will be his 
 own. Men will stand at the centre of his 
 thought and effort ; his ministry will be vital 
 and effective. He will be toiling as a fellow 
 worker with God at His own great task of 
 making a perfect humanity, that is bringing 
 in the kingdom of God in its fullness on the 
 earth. There will be a joy, an efficiency, an 
 optimism and hopefulness, that are other- 
 wise impossible. There will be less restless- 
 ness among the preachers, less dissatisfac- 
 tion and criticism among the people. The 
 vital ideal in the ministry will beget a vital 
 ministry, and a vital ministry will create a 
 living and triumphant Church. 
 
VI 
 
 THE MINISTER AND WORSHIP 
 
 THE usual services in Protestant 
 churches consist of two parts, more 
 or less distinct from each other. 
 The earlier portion, consisting of song, 
 prayer and the reading of the Scripture, may 
 be called the worship ; the remainder, con- 
 sisting of the sermon and the closing exer- 
 cises which are intended to gather up and fix 
 the impressions thus far made, have for their 
 main object instruction. It is to be feared 
 that these two parts of the service are not 
 very closely related to each other in the 
 minds of many worshippers, both laymen 
 and preachers. The tendency in Protestant 
 churches is to lay large emphasis on the in- 
 struction, while among the Catholics it is on 
 worship. But Protestant churches differ 
 widely among themselves as to the relative 
 length and other relations of the elements of 
 instruction and worship in the service. The 
 preacher naturally lays chief emphasis on the 
 sermon, regarding it as the most significant 
 120 
 
THE MINISTER AND WOESHIP 121 
 
 part of the service. In this opinion the ma- 
 jority of the laity in the non-liturgical 
 churches agree with him. On the other 
 hand the choir and the musical part of his 
 audience, together with the liturgical churches 
 generally, are disposed to stress the impor- 
 tance of the service of song, prayer, reading, 
 etc. 
 
 These differences which exist among the 
 different denominations and different churches 
 of the same denomination are not due to any 
 thoughtful consideration of the relative merits 
 of the various practices, nor to the application 
 of any intelligible principle to the determina- 
 tion of the content of worship. They are 
 largely the result of inheritance. Luther with 
 his personal tastes and peculiarities has de- 
 termined the general contents of Lutheran 
 worship down to the present time. The per- 
 sonal tastes and peculiarities of Zwingli and 
 Calvin are registered in the worship of the 
 Reformed and Presbyterian Churches. Cran- 
 mer and Queen Elizabeth loved ritual and 
 ceremony, and their personal preferences are 
 crystallized in the ornate services of the An- 
 glican and Episcopal Churches of the world. 
 The free bodies such as the Anabaptists, Con- 
 gregationalists and Baptists, stood as a protest 
 against the established order and were weak 
 
122 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 in numbers, wealth and facilities. They lacked 
 all the necessities and incentives to an elab- 
 orate ritual and consequently reacted strongly 
 against the practices of their opponents. 
 Naturally, too, in justifying and defending 
 their non-conformity, they magnified the ele- 
 ment of instruction, minimizing worship to 
 make room for the sermon and discussions. 
 This tradition continues especially among the 
 Baptists who are less hospitable to ritual than 
 most other bodies and still generally keep 
 their services quite simple. The extreme of 
 simplicity and bareness was developed in the 
 Quaker meeting, whose unique services were 
 determined by the prejudices and religious 
 experience of their peasant founder. In the 
 same way the character of the worship among 
 the Methodists comes from Wesley ; and that 
 of other bodies has been determined by the 
 founder or the circumstances of their origin or 
 by some predominant figure in their early 
 history. Antiquity, custom and religious 
 usage and experience have hallowed these 
 various practices for their supporters and dev- 
 otees until they are among the most sacred 
 possessions of the religious life. They are 
 practiced and defended because they have 
 been inherited and hallowed by personal ex- 
 perience rather than because of the intelligent 
 
THE MINISTEK AND WORSHIP 123 
 
 apprehension of any intrinsic superiority. 
 Denominations whose congregations differ 
 widely in culture and taste often develop 
 friction within the body because of the diver- 
 gent wishes of these different churches. The 
 great Puritan controversy of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries in England is a case in 
 point. The various elements of the worship 
 constituted one of the burning points in the 
 struggle in which both parties were loyal to 
 the State Church. The same controversy is 
 seen in small compass in most of the non- 
 liturgical churches to-day. 
 
 It is not improper to ask in the midst of 
 this confusion whether there are any prin- 
 ciples which might guide us to peace if not 
 to uniformity. Have we not reached the 
 time when we ought to consider afresh the 
 purposes of worship and the best means for 
 attaining the desired end ? Can we now 
 calmly discuss the various elements and types 
 of worship from the standpoint of their in- 
 trinsic merit, unhampered by the traditions 
 of their origin and usage ? Such a consid- 
 eration would undoubtedly make for peace 
 and probably for the progress of the king- 
 dom of God. Worship touches the man in 
 the pew^ more closely than any other element 
 of religion It is therefore a most important 
 
124 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 matter. The following discussion is intended 
 to be a suggestion of a way to freedom and 
 peace and efficiency. 
 
 The value of worship is confined to those 
 who are present and participating. Its worth 
 must be judged by its effects upon the lives 
 of these worshippers. In other words its ef- 
 fects are psychological in the religious sphere. 
 It is not intended to affect God but men. No 
 doubt the Father is pleased with the adora- 
 tion of His children, but He will probably be 
 the more pleased the more this worship helps 
 His children. It is hard to see how any wor- 
 ship could please and glorify God unless it 
 had this aim and effect, and having this re- 
 sult it could hardly fail to please the God and 
 Father of men. If this be true, then the bene- 
 ficial effects of worship on men is the matter 
 of chief concern. The purpose is the genera- 
 tion of a psychological state or condition 
 which may be termed spiritual soundness or 
 good health. It should stimulate a conscious- 
 ness of sin and a desire for holiness, it should 
 call to repentance and point the way for faith, 
 it should strengthen belief in the unseen 
 spiritual realities in the midst of the material- 
 ism of the present, it should arouse elevating 
 emotions, lead to the formation of high and 
 holy purposes and strengthen the will for 
 
THE MINISTER AND WORSHIP 125 
 
 their accomplishment. It should build up 
 faith, hope and love. In battle it will be the 
 crash of martial music, calling on to high en- 
 deavour ; in defeat it will lead to resignation, 
 submission and fortitude ; in discouragement, 
 sorrow and distress, it will soothe and sustain. 
 In short worship should be myriad-ton gued, 
 uttering in music, prayer and song or cere- 
 mony the message needed by those pres- 
 ent on each several occasion. The emotions 
 are life's motors, and worship is specially in- 
 tended to move the emotional nature. It will 
 be heaven when and where the emotions 
 come into complete harmony with the will of 
 God. Then the life will be sound and com- 
 plete. Worship should seek to realize these 
 conditions in the life of the worshipper. It 
 should serve the life of the men and women 
 there present. God can have no other pur- 
 pose in it. No forms or ceremonies can be 
 sacred to Him in themselves. At a certain 
 point in their history the Israelites trusted in 
 the fact that they were the elect nation and 
 had Jerusalem the holy city as their capital. 
 But Jeremiah and other prophets informed 
 them that all this but aggravated their guilt ; 
 their ceremonies were hateful to God unless 
 righteousness rolled down as a flood and a 
 holy people made use of these blessings. 
 
126 A VITAL MimSTEY 
 
 They were thinking of the institutions of re- 
 ligion, He of the life of the people. Religious 
 ceremonies and holy places have no signifi- 
 cance to Him apart from the life of the peo- 
 ple. Worship is to be considered from just 
 one standpoint, that of its value to the people. 
 The consistent application of this principle 
 makes certain conclusions obvious and inevi- 
 table. In the first place this principle makes 
 it clear that there must be freedom and 
 variety in worship. If God cared for worship 
 in itself there could be one best form that 
 satisfied Him always and everywhere, for He 
 is the unchangeable God. But since its ef- 
 fects are to be looked for in the people rather 
 than in God, there must be adaptation to 
 their needs ; and since these needs vary from 
 place to place there must be variety in wor- 
 ship. Common elements there will be, of 
 course, in all helpful worship, because the 
 fundamental characteristics of human nature 
 are found in all men. But it is equally cer- 
 tain that the vast differences in culture, taste, 
 religious knowledge and spiritual attainments 
 among worshippers render wide variations 
 necessary in the adaptation of worship to the 
 needs of all. There is no reason why all de- 
 nominations should have the same forms of 
 worship ; neither is there any reason for 
 
THE MINISTER AND WOESHIP 127 
 
 exact uniformity in the usages of the various 
 churches of the same denomination, where 
 there are variations in taste and in mental and 
 spiritual insight. The Scriptures contain no 
 forms of Christian worship, while the wisdom 
 and experience of all the Christian centuries 
 is not equal to the task of producing a liturgy 
 which will serve the needs of all men on all 
 occasions. One of the most irrational acts in 
 all Christian history is the attempt to impose 
 the same forms of worship upon all the varied 
 conditions and classes of people to be found 
 in a nation, under severe ecclesiastical and 
 civil penalties. It brought hypocrisy, blood- 
 shed and ruin, but it did not and could not 
 secure uniformity. It failed to take into ac- 
 count the fact that men are very different in 
 their needs and that worship is designed to 
 meet those needs. No one form of worship 
 can possibly satisfy all these needs no matter 
 whether the form under consideration be the 
 noisy worship of the Salvation Army, the 
 more dignified service of the average non- 
 liturgical church or the ornate liturgy of the 
 Anglicans. No one of them can possibly 
 best fit and serve all classes. The incon- 
 gruity and futility of the Salvation Army in 
 St. Paul's cathedral would hardly be greater 
 than that of an Anglican rector in robes on 
 
128 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 the street corner reading his service. Neither 
 service would be suited to its alien surround- 
 ings. 
 
 If the needs of the people are to be con- 
 sidered rather than some fancied sacredness 
 or excellence in traditional forms, then any of 
 these forms may be used, modified or dis- 
 carded according as the occasion may seem 
 to require. Is there anything in the nature of 
 the case to prevent a liturgical church from 
 laying aside its more formal worship if it can 
 thereby better serve the people where it is 
 located ? On the other hand would a non- 
 liturgical church lose any of its character or 
 usefulness if it could better serve some of its 
 congregations by the use of a more elaborate 
 service ? Does not the highest loyalty to 
 the cause of Christ demand freedom in this 
 regard ? 
 
 Among a cultured and instructed people 
 the dignity, beauty and catholicity of the 
 liturgy might well make it more useful than 
 an unwritten service in its effects on the 
 life of the participants. It is the product of 
 the thought, life and experience of genera- 
 tions of saintly men and women. It cannot 
 fail to be helpful to many as is proven by its 
 extensive use. But to impose it on all wor- 
 shippers would be as irrational as to forbid it 
 
THE MINISTEE AND WOESHIP 129 
 
 to all, or to impose on all the unconventional 
 services of the Salvation Army, in the hope 
 of producing the same ebullition of relig- 
 ious feeling among all possible classes of 
 people. Booth's followers strive by every 
 means suggested by common sense, experi- 
 ence and religious zeal to hold the attention 
 and bless the lives of the irreverent, un- 
 sympathetic and often debauched and be- 
 sotted humanity of the streets ; the Episcopal 
 rector has a totally different audience under 
 equally different surroundings. Booth broke 
 away from all accepted forms and methods of 
 worship and Christian work because they 
 would not serve his purposes. He was after 
 men of a certain class, the outcasts whom the 
 churches never touched, and he created forms 
 which would reach and help that class. In 
 doing so he not only saved a mass of neg- 
 lected people, but also gave to all men an ex- 
 cellent lesson, turning their attention from 
 the sacredness of methods to the sacredness 
 of men. According to him the effectiveness 
 of the service in attracting and helping men 
 was to be its criterion of judgment. The 
 vital ideal must dominate, he thought, and 
 wherever there is life there will be variety. 
 Accordingly variety was and continues to be 
 the most striking feature of the Army services. 
 
130 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 In like manner there is no good reason, it 
 would seem, why any two churches of the 
 Baptist or any other persuasion should have 
 precisely the same services. Common sense 
 and religious interest would seem to dictate 
 a policy of complete freedom in the choice of 
 such methods of worship as will best serve 
 the needs of each congregation. And yet 
 in the non-liturgical churches there is a 
 rather rigid uniformity from which any 
 church or minister may depart only at the 
 cost of some loss of ecclesiastical standing. 
 Uniformity in a written or an unwritten form 
 is a fetish of many pious minds and a refuge 
 of lazy preachers which has little to com- 
 mend it in the fruits of vital living. Let the 
 service be made to fit and bless the individual 
 congregations. 
 
 The vital principle may also play the r61e 
 of peacemaker between the advocates of 
 the liturgical and the non-liturgical services. 
 The test of the service is its effect on the 
 congregation. The liturgy, being the prod- 
 uct of much of the best Christian thought 
 and experience of the past, will always be 
 beautiful and adequate in form. It is not 
 dependent, in these respects, on the ability 
 and faithfulness of the individual minister 
 who officiates. But it may be conducted in 
 
THE MINISTER AND WORSHIP 131 
 
 such a perfunctory manner as to counteract 
 all its excellencies. And the tendency is 
 undoubtedly in this direction, since the min- 
 ister is not compelled to arouse himself in 
 preparation for the worship, knowing that its 
 form is prescribed for him and has been 
 recited by him hundreds of times already. 
 This perfunctoriness is, however, by no 
 means necessary, and the service is often 
 read with as much fervour and impressive- 
 ness as any ex ternpore service could possibly 
 have. Moreover the frequent repetition of 
 these forms of worship gradually creates an 
 atmosphere of sacredness which helps the 
 worshipper who is familiar with them, even 
 when the leader falls a victim to his own 
 incompetence or indifference. 
 
 On the other hand the ex tempore service, 
 while far more adaptable than the written 
 service, is almost wholly dependent on each 
 individual minister for both its form and its 
 fervour. If he is devoid of culture its form 
 will inevitably be defective and crude, no 
 matter how great its fervour. If he is indo- 
 lent or careless of the service it will be want- 
 ing both in excellence of form and in spiritual 
 fervour. In both the written and the un- 
 written service there may be utter perfunc- 
 toriness and there may be real spiritual fer- 
 
132 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 vour. In both cases much depends on the 
 minister. In the hands of a vital and faithful 
 man the unwritten service has possibilities of 
 warmth and adaptability to all congregations 
 and occasions which the unwritten service 
 cannot rival. The unlettered man with the 
 uncultured congregation naturally suits his 
 work to his people, while he would be unable 
 to handle a liturgy. The unwritten service 
 permits a greater variety of preachers and a 
 greater variety in the congregations. For 
 its highest excellence and effectiveness it 
 requires a very high order of ability and 
 faithfulness in the ministry ; higher perhaps 
 than is necessary for an effective service with 
 the liturgy. If all ministers were capable of 
 perfectly adapting the unwritten service to 
 the congregation before them and willing to 
 undergo the labour necessary to perform this 
 task it would always be the best. But this 
 will never be true, and many Christian people 
 will continue to find greater helpfulness in 
 the liturgy than in the ex tempore service. 
 This is proven by the way in which other 
 communions lose their members to the li- 
 turgical services of the Episcopal Church. 
 Feeling this pull some of the non-liturgical 
 churches have recently drawn up written 
 services which may be used if desired in any 
 
THE MINISTEE AND WORSHIP 133 
 
 of their congregations, and other bodies^ 
 who have not gone so far as yet, are 
 nevertheless beautifying and elevating their 
 services. 
 
 On the other hand the weakness of the 
 liturgy is seen in the revolt against it in 
 England in the sixteenth century, and in the 
 further fact that the Episcopal Church in 
 America has never greatly influenced the 
 masses of the people. It is not a people's 
 church and probably never will be. The 
 character of its services is probably the chief 
 cause of its want of popularity. The com- 
 mon people weary of its stiffness and for- 
 mality. The elevation and uniformity of 
 its worship would make wide popularity 
 impossible. It appeals to a rather small 
 but quite definite class of society, and not 
 strongly to the rest. The same statement of 
 inadequacy for universal use may be made 
 with equal justice of all other forms of wor- 
 ship when rigidly adhered to. Each has its 
 excellencies, but each has also defects that 
 render universal appeal impossible. And 
 yet is not every church and denomination 
 called of God to reach all classes of society ? 
 If this be true what is needed is elasticity, 
 the ability and the disposition to make use of 
 that form of service which will bring the 
 
134 A VITAL MINISTBY 
 
 greatest blessings to the participants and 
 hearers. 
 
 The most striking negation of this prin- 
 ciple is the worship of the Catholic Church 
 which is still kept in the Latin language. 
 Notwithstanding much symbolic action the 
 worship is little understood ; the people see 
 little more than a dumb show which is any- 
 thing else than a " rational service.'* The 
 devout Catholic believes this worship works 
 in a magical way to bless, even when it is not 
 understood. In fact he believes it has or 
 may have a blessing for those who are absent ; 
 even the dead may be blessed by it. Protes- 
 tantism holds that the benefits of worship 
 must be appropriated by the rational proc- 
 esses of the mind ; the significance of the 
 worship must be grasped and assimilated by 
 the thinking man. At bottom the Latin 
 service is retained by the Catholics, because 
 the service itself is regarded as sacred and 
 pleasing to God. Attention is fixed on the 
 service rather than on the men who are to be 
 blessed. It has no message for the " un- 
 learned and ignorant man." The first dic- 
 tate of the vital principle is that the service 
 shall be understood. This will necessarily 
 put it in the vernacular of the people. Let 
 it be in English, French, German, Yiddish, 
 
THE MIOTSTER AND WORSHIP 135 
 
 whatever the people speak and understand. 
 The people and not the service constitute the 
 object of God's solicitude. 
 
 The vital principle requires that the entire 
 service — language, quality and type of music, 
 circle of thought and other constituents — 
 should be within the easy comprehension of 
 the people present. One had almost as well 
 speak in a foreign tongue as to make use of 
 a vocabulary and language that the people 
 do not comprehend. Elegant and classic 
 diction, abstruse thought and extensive vo- 
 cabulary are not only lost on an uncultured 
 audience, they are worse than lost. They 
 endanger the attendance and interest of the 
 people by making them feel inferior and in- 
 capable of reaching up to religious thought. 
 The pastor, the church and its work, seem 
 far away, unsympathetic and unrelated to the 
 daily tasks and trials of their simple lives. 
 Religion itself is likely to be thought of as 
 something for the church house, something 
 that needs to be shut away from the light of 
 common day in the ** dim religious light " of 
 the sanctuary ; something for the Sabbath and 
 the clergy, for women and children, but not 
 for ordinary mortals with the grime and soot 
 of life upon them. The hold of religion on 
 the whole of life is thus endangered. 
 
136 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 One of the severest tests of the devotion 
 and adaptability of the cultured minister is 
 his ability and willingness to lay aside the 
 fringes and adornments of culture and so 
 come at the heart of realities as to hold and 
 help the plain man in his worship. The 
 want of this adaptability is the explanation 
 of the frequent failures of cultured men where 
 others of inferior native gifts and smaller cul- 
 ture succeed gloriously. The latter knows 
 the people he addresses and fits his modes of 
 thought, feeling and expression to them ; 
 the former either does not know them or finds 
 himself unwilling or unable to adapt himself. 
 
 In like manner the music and song should 
 be within the reach of the people. It is a 
 matter of common observation that sacred 
 music of the highest quality, exquisitely ren- 
 dered, fails to attract the masses. They do 
 not comprehend it, it has no message or help 
 for them. Popular gospel hymns, sung with 
 verve and vigour, may not satisfy the artistic 
 taste of the cultured, but they serve the pur- 
 pose of worship for the common man far bet- 
 ter than more elevated efforts. The music 
 and service of the Salvation Army offend the 
 cultured but save the human wrecks of the 
 street. Christian music should help to save 
 the people. It is inexcusable indifference to 
 
THE MIOTSTER AND WOESHIP 137 
 
 the purposes of worship to insist on elevated 
 music where the simple would serve the in- 
 terests of men better. It is not the music but 
 the people that the churches should seek to 
 elevate and save. Just as rapidly as the 
 progress of the people will permit an eleva- 
 tion of the music let the improvement be 
 made ; but let it be kept clear that all changes 
 are in the interest of the people rather than of 
 the music. The richest and juiciest hay be- 
 comes food for the cattle only by being put 
 within their reach. It is not the taste of the 
 minister or of the paid choir that must be con- 
 sulted and satisfied, but the taste and needs of 
 those who sit in the pews. 
 
 One other question is settled by the appli- 
 cation of the vital principle to worship — the 
 relative length and other relations existing 
 between the service and the sermon. The 
 choir wants a lengthier, more elaborate, ele- 
 vated and ambitious service ; the preacher 
 wants the time for his sermon. Neither may 
 be thinking of the needs of the people, the 
 interested third party for whom all the services 
 exist and by whom they are supported. How 
 shall the contention be settled ? Obviously 
 by considering the interests of the people. 
 No universal rule can possibly be laid down. 
 Usually the less instructed the people are the 
 
138 A VITAL MINISTBY 
 
 more they will need to have the sermon 
 stressed, and the more they will respond to 
 the sermon in comparison with their response 
 to the rest of the service. As they become 
 more cultured, think and read for themselves 
 more extensively, attend services more fre- 
 quently, the more they are likely to value 
 worship in comparison with the instruction 
 of the sermon. Let the minister resolutely 
 put their interests first no matter what his 
 personal feelings may be or what sacrifices it 
 may require at his hands. Not his reputa- 
 tion or wishes, not any usual custom or fixed 
 standard, but the interests of the people must 
 control. 
 
 The whole contention of this chapter 
 amounts to this — the purpose of worship is 
 the blessing of the people, the building up of 
 the life of the people. No form of Christian 
 worship now in use is wholly devoid of worth 
 in the prosecution of this task. All forms 
 have elements of strength, and at the same 
 time suffer from defects peculiar to themselves. 
 No one form of worship appeals equally to 
 all classes. Therefore the ideal of a uniform 
 service, for all congregations, either written 
 or unwritten, is a fetish which should be dis- 
 carded for the ideal of flexibility and adap- 
 tation to the needs of the congregations as 
 
THE MINISTER AND WORSHIP 139 
 
 those needs manifest themselves in actual 
 practice. Insistence on uniformity is unwise 
 and contrary to both common sense and to 
 the purpose of worship, which is the blessing 
 of the people who are personally present. 
 All churches and ministers should hold them- 
 selves in readiness to make use of those 
 forms of worship which will mean most to 
 the lives of the people. 
 
VII 
 
 THE MINISTER AND CHRISTIAN ARCHI- 
 TECTURE AND ART 
 
 IN the matter of church architecture two 
 ideals are at the present time struggling 
 for ascendency. In the thought of 
 some Christian men the church building is 
 a workshop, the people's house, and is to be 
 used freely for all good purposes which 
 promise the uplift of humanity. It is not for 
 use one day in seven only but every day in 
 the week ; not for worship and preaching 
 alone, but also for teaching, social meetings, 
 lectures, reading, and even for recreation, 
 exercise and amusements. Little thought 
 or money must be expended for esthetic or 
 devotional effect. Indeed such use of ** the 
 Lord's money " is little short of misappropri- 
 ation of funds when there are so many souls 
 to save and so much misery to alleviate. 
 So it is said. This ideal is frankly utilitarian 
 — a utilitarianism in which the house is re- 
 garded as having no value in itself as a 
 message or educative influence, but only as 
 140 
 
CHEISTIAN AECHITECTUEE 141 
 
 the shop in which the work is done, the plat- 
 form from which the message is delivered. 
 
 Others regard the church as God's house, 
 sacred and separate from all ordinary life. 
 The common light of day must be softened 
 by stained glass windows, the sights and 
 sounds of daily life must be shut out as far 
 as possible, the head must be reverently 
 bowed as one seats himself on the sacred 
 cushions, conversation must be subdued to 
 an awed whisper or tabooed altogether. 
 " The Lord is in His holy temple : let all the 
 earth keep silence before Him." The house 
 itself is sacred, the abode of God, a message 
 to men. Much attention and money must 
 be devoted to religious symbolism and the 
 artistic beautifying of the house. No amount 
 of money or time are too great to expend on 
 a building which is erected to the glory of 
 God. If instruction, lectures, amusements, 
 must be had (and it is admitted that they have 
 their place), they must be housed in a neigh- 
 bouring building which is not so sacred as 
 this " house of God." So these people believe. 
 
 These two conceptions of the character 
 and use of a church building are sharply 
 clashing at the present time. The former is 
 an exaggerated Protestant view, the latter 
 is the Catholic conception. The fundamental 
 
142 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 conceptions of the Christian religion itself are 
 involved in the choice between these two 
 types of architecture. Does the Christian 
 religion find adequate and appropriate ex- 
 pression in art and architecture, sacred days 
 and seasons, fixed ceremonies, or in the 
 sanctified lives of men ? Does any religious 
 institution glorify God except as it blesses 
 men? Is the thing to be aimed at in the 
 erection of a church building the service of 
 men or that intangible something called the 
 glory of God ? The answer to these ques- 
 tions determines one's attitude towards the 
 church building. The vital ideal of the 
 Christian religion puts us frankly on the side 
 of the view that the service of men is the 
 only way to serve God or glorify Him ; and 
 if the one or the other of these types of archi- 
 tecture must be chosen to the exclusion of 
 the other we should unhesitatingly select the 
 first, the one which seeks the welfare of men 
 as the supreme reason for the existence of 
 church buildings. 
 
 But we are not reduced to the alternative 
 of choosing the one or the other. A litde 
 reflection will make it apparent that each 
 type has an ideal at its base which may be 
 made of great value to men. 
 
 The pagans regarded their temples as the 
 
CHEISTIAN AECHITECTURE 143 
 
 dwelling places of their gods. The Hebrews 
 had much the same conception. It is not, 
 therefore, strange that we find the same feel- 
 ings among the Christians soon after they 
 began to have separate buildings for their 
 worship and religious work. This sense of 
 the special presence of God in the church 
 was intensified and made more concrete by 
 the rise of the view that Christ is really 
 present in the supper. In the ceremony of 
 the mass, it was thought, the sacrifice of 
 Calvary was repeated and God became ac- 
 tually and visibly present in the form of 
 bread and wine. The altar, where this mys- 
 terious tragedy took place and the blessed 
 presence was manifested, became the centre 
 of thought and attention. The awful mys- 
 tery of the divine presence enveloped it. 
 Accordingly the great cathedrals and many 
 of the parish churches of the Middle Ages 
 were erected as the dwelling places of God 
 in which adoration of the divine presence 
 thought to be present in the Eucharist was 
 the only action to be considered. The whole 
 structure stood about the altar where God 
 was visibly present. With such a conception 
 of God and the church nothing but awe- 
 struck silence and humble prostration are 
 appropriate on the inside of the building. 
 
144 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 Nothing of the freedom and the various ac- 
 tivities within the buildings of the modern 
 Protestant churches can be expected from 
 men who hold such a view of the supper. 
 This conception, being fundamental with the 
 Catholics, of course abides with them. 
 
 The Reformation, by abolishing the mass 
 and establishing a more spiritual conception 
 of God, wrought a great change in the con- 
 ception of the functions of a church building. 
 It was no longer regarded as the dwelling 
 place of God, nor was He thought to be 
 present in any such special visible form as 
 was claimed by the Catholics to be true in 
 their churches. The Bible, the reading desk 
 and the pulpit became the centre of attention 
 and thought and instruction tended to dis- 
 place or at least minimize ceremonial wor- 
 ship. The sermon took the place of the 
 mass and churches were henceforth designed 
 and built to facilitate public speaking. God 
 was recognized as everywhere present, and 
 could be found outside as well as inside the 
 church building. Men did not come to 
 church to find God, but to get the help which 
 comes from the presence and instruction of 
 men who know God. 
 
 In recent years the functions of the Prot- 
 estant churches have been greatly enlarged, 
 
CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE 146 
 
 occasioning further modifications of church 
 architecture. First came the Sunday-school 
 with its study of the Scripture, demanding 
 facilities for teaching which the old catechet- 
 ical curriculum and method, with the careful 
 home instruction then in vogue, did not need. 
 Thus came the Sunday-school addition to 
 the church; then followed rooms, depart- 
 ments, etc. Still more recently the effort of 
 the churches to enlarge their field of service, 
 stem the flood of questionable amusements 
 and control the social life of the young has 
 stimulated the introduction of libraries, 
 kitchens, swimming pools, equipment for 
 basket-ball, and similar facilities. All this 
 has created new architectural problems which 
 have been solved in many different ways. 
 But all of them have further broken up the 
 unity and harmony of the church building as 
 a whole and have tended to dissipate the at- 
 mosphere of sanctity and worship. 
 
 Such in brief outline has been the develop- 
 ment of the form and significance of church 
 architecture, and the ideals that predominate 
 in the various types. The old ecclesiastical 
 ideal tends to make the building useless for 
 every purpose except ceremonial worship, 
 and the newest ideal tends to make it useful 
 for everything except worship. Each view 
 
146 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 is seriously defective alone and in itself. 
 Can they be combined into an ideal architec- 
 ture for the modern church ? Can a church 
 not be made both useful and worshipful ? 
 
 The newer ideal is undoubtedly correct in 
 its insistence that the vital interests of men 
 must be the controlling consideration. But 
 we are not compelled to choose between a 
 useful house and a beautiful and worshipful 
 one. Rather we are obligated to discover 
 and build the house that will contribute most 
 to the life of man, the whole man — the house 
 that will afford for man the service which 
 God wants the church to render. The 
 danger of the first ideal is secularization, 
 that of the second is isolation ; the former is 
 vital but is in danger of losing religion, the 
 latter is religious but tends to lose vitality ; 
 the former minimizes worship, the latter has 
 the same effect on activity. 
 
 Having affirmed that usefulness is the 
 final criterion by which to judge church 
 architecture it remains to inquire what will 
 make it most useful for its purposes. Has 
 nothing in a building any value for the pur- 
 poses of a church except good acoustics, 
 plenty of rooms for Sunday-school and other 
 organizations, facilities for exercise, amuse- 
 ments and similar forms of service ? Have 
 
CHEISTIAN AECHITECTURE 147 
 
 Christian art and architecture no value for the 
 life of men ? Are they not useful ? Assuredly 
 so. And yet their religious and ethical value 
 are often exaggerated. The noblest church 
 buildings of earth arose during the Middle 
 Ages when moral and religious life were at 
 the ebb tide. They were built ** for the glory 
 of God." Wealth of money and talent and 
 skill were lavished upon them. All that art 
 and architecture could do towards the ex- 
 pression and fostering of religious truth and 
 life was accomplished in the erection of these 
 glorious piles. It is not likely that they will 
 ever be surpassed in grandeur, beauty and 
 impressiveness ; but there was little thought 
 of serving men by them or in them, and men 
 have been little served. How sordid and 
 secular the life about the great cathedral of 
 Milan, for example I Life flows past this 
 wonderful structure as if there were nothing 
 beautiful or impressive in the whole world. 
 The great building with its marvellous decora- 
 tions and rich artistic effects speaks a wonder- 
 ful language to the cultured tourist but is 
 dumb to the poor citizen who lives in its 
 shadow. If the bronze doors of the baptistry 
 of Florence, which Michael Angelo declared 
 worthy to be the gates of Paradise, even so 
 much as suggest the existence of a paradise 
 
148 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 to the crowds that brush past it, there is no 
 evidence of the impression in their conduct. 
 If noble architecture had possessed any large 
 power of uplift Greece would have been the 
 moral mentor and guide of mankind instead 
 of their moral undoing as she really was. If 
 art were capable of doing much for the uplift 
 of mankind the artists would naturally be 
 striking examples of noble living, but this has 
 not been the case. 
 
 The fact is, the message of art and architec- 
 ture is not easily perceived and appropriated 
 by the average man. The cultured historian 
 and antiquary will linger about the great 
 cathedrals, tracing their history as seen in 
 their construction with kindling interest, en- 
 thralled with the glories of soaring column 
 and vaulted roof, the long vistas of nave and 
 aisle, the far beauties of the exalted dome, the 
 mysteries of the great altar, the splendours of 
 window and organ ; he will bow in solemn 
 reverence before the varied symbolism, the 
 placid beauty and deep significance of the 
 whole. In it all God speaks and he hears. 
 So it is in less degree in the beautiful parish 
 churches of the older Christian countries. 
 But the common man is not so moved by 
 these things. It is only the unusual man 
 who has eyes to see and ears to hear the 
 
CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE 149 
 
 voice of God in the glories of church architec- 
 ture. To be effective it requires a cultivated 
 interpreter. Stone and mortar, paint and 
 mosaic, do not speak with the same clearness 
 and insistence as the human voice or the 
 printed page. We may not expect, then, any 
 great moral and spiritual service to be ren- 
 dered the common man by the most impress- 
 ive architecture. It is too high, he cannot 
 attain unto it. The human personality and 
 voice are indispensable to the implanting of 
 Christian truth and the building of Christian 
 character in him, and chief emphasis in 
 Protestant churches must be put on facilities 
 for preaching and instruction. The sense of 
 sacredness and reverence which a Catholic 
 feels is impossible and undesirable in a 
 Protestant. God is not present in the church 
 in such special and peculiar way as to create 
 a feeling of awful fear and reverence for this 
 place. God is equally present everywhere. 
 ** Not in this mountain nor at Jerusalem, but 
 in spirit and truth." 
 
 And yet noble architecture has in itself the 
 power of great blessing to many, and these 
 the most cultured. It cannot be disregarded. 
 The church is a distinctive building for a 
 distinctive purpose, and its construction should 
 not only afford room and facilities for the ac- 
 
150 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 complishment of the ends in view, but the 
 architecture should contribute all that can be 
 effected in this way for the same ends. *' My 
 house shall be called a house of prayer." 
 Whatever architecture can do to aid and as- 
 sist in this worshipful spirit ought to be done. 
 
 Is it not possible to combine the two 
 ideals of Christian architecture ? Can it not 
 be the " people's house " and " God's house" 
 at the same time ? Can it ever be truly the 
 people's house without at the same time being 
 God's house, and vice versa ? The feet of the 
 people, present for their own highest welfare, 
 can never profane a house of God. Nothing 
 in this world is too sacred and holy to be 
 used for their good. It was for them that 
 Christ died, and no building can be dedicated 
 to Him without at the same time being 
 dedicated to them. But it is not necessary 
 that a church building should resemble a 
 barn or be treated as one in order to be of 
 use to the people. A good warehouse is an 
 excellent institution for its purposes in a com- 
 munity, but a church is not designed to meet 
 the same needs as a warehouse, and should, 
 therefore, be different from one. 
 
 The problem before the Christian architect 
 of to-day is to produce a church that shall 
 afford ample accommodations for all the 
 
CHRISTIAN ARCHITEC5TURE 151 
 
 varied activities of modern church life, and 
 at the same time preserve unity and harmony 
 throughout the whole, and throw over all 
 departments the atmosphere of worship. Let 
 him remember first of all, above all and al- 
 ways, that a church is erected by and for the 
 people, that the sole reason for its existence 
 is the service and welfare of men. But he 
 must also remember that it has its own 
 peculiar mission to the community. It is not 
 a barn nor a blacksmith shop. It stands 
 primarily to serve spiritual interests, to fight 
 sin and the destructive forces that infest and 
 infect modern society, to build up the life of 
 the individual and the community, to woo 
 and win men to faith in God and righteous 
 living. In this task a worthy building, sub- 
 stantial and beautiful, genuine at every point, 
 suggestive as a whole (and in its details) of 
 the reality and importance of the spiritual, 
 the presence of the divine, the victory of faith 
 and hope, the joy of religious service will 
 be a most valuable asset. These qualities 
 should be incorporated without sacrificing 
 any of the utilitarian value of the house on 
 the one side or creating a sense of the myste- 
 rious sacrednes of the house on the other. 
 
 It is important that all the activities of the 
 church should be carried on under the same 
 
152 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 roof in the same building. A separate build- 
 ing for any part of the church's work tends to 
 break up the unity of the whole and secularize 
 that portion which is separated from the place 
 of worship. There is not wanting a disposi- 
 tion on the part of adult Sunday-school classes, 
 young people's societies and some other 
 organizations to become detached from the 
 church. This tendency explains in part, no 
 doubt, the decreasing attendance in American 
 churches in recent years. It is undoubtedly 
 strengthened by breaking up the various ac- 
 tivities of the church, and carrying them into 
 different rooms or even separate buildings ; 
 for it is much easier to slip away from such a 
 room than from the church auditorium. By all 
 means have everything under the same roof. 
 But more than this, the entire building 
 should be a unit, harmonious in design and 
 execution. Whatever architecture can do in 
 aid of worship ought to be done in all parts 
 of the building. The spirit of worship ought 
 to pervade the Sunday-school department, the 
 recreation and amusement rooms equally with 
 the church. They are just as sacred as the 
 spot from which the sermon is delivered. 
 Basket-ball, if played in a church, should be 
 played in the consciousness of a pure religious 
 atmosphere. Too often the architect creates 
 
CHEISTIAN AECHITECTURE 153 
 
 a worshipful auditorium, while the other 
 portions of the building have no more sug- 
 gestions of religion than an ordinary school- 
 room or gymnasium. The child thus loses 
 in his tenderest and most impressionable 
 years while frequently in Sunday-school but 
 rarely in the auditorium, all the blessings 
 of worshipful surroundings. It is not any 
 occasion of wonder if he shows no attach- 
 ment to the place of worship when he grows 
 to maturity. His religious training has 
 lacked the element of worship all along, and 
 he is slow to pick it up. 
 
 Christian architects should address them- 
 selves seriously to the problem of creating an 
 architecture suitable to the needs that have 
 been called into being by the religious devel- 
 opments of the last fifty years. Heretofore 
 we have had a church with other institutions 
 around it ; we need a church with all the 
 institutions and activities within it and bathed 
 in its atmosphere. It can be done and it 
 ought to be done. The matter is important. 
 The church building is for the service of men, 
 and the creation of a worshipful atmosphere 
 and spirit in all departments of religious 
 work, unifying the whole under this gracious 
 and blessed influence, is one of the greatest 
 services that the building can possibly render 
 
154 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 the community. Let us have buildings fitted 
 to satisfy the varied needs of the church 
 to-day, but let all departments be under the 
 unifying spirit of worship. 
 
 Much that has been said of architecture is 
 equally true of Christian painting and sculp- 
 ture. The medieval church made much of 
 Christian art ; all the great churches and 
 many of the smaller ones were beautified and 
 adorned by rich treasures of art. But the 
 productions of Christian art, as is well known, 
 were not used simply for purposes of adorn- 
 ment and instruction, nor alone as aids to 
 worship and the inspiration of religious sen- 
 timents ; theoretically they were used as ob- 
 jects of adoration and in actual practice they 
 were doubtless really worshipped by many, 
 thus becoming objects of a new idolatry. 
 Very many of the most prized treasures of 
 Christian art were once in use as altar pieces. 
 This abuse of art, together with the vener- 
 ation of the saints who so frequently ap- 
 peared in art, caused the Protestants, and 
 especially the Calvinists, to react violently 
 against their use in worship and even their 
 presence in the churches. Storms of icono- 
 clasm broke out on occasions when all such 
 objects were forcibly removed from the 
 churches and destroyed ; stained glass win- 
 
CHRISTIAN AECHITECTURE 155 
 
 dows of priceless value were shattered, and 
 pictures on the interior walls were painted 
 out. Empty niches on the exterior walls tell 
 of the destruction of the statuary which once 
 adorned the outside of the great cathedrals. 
 To the Reformers who were just emerging 
 from the Roman Church these objects were 
 the paraphernalia of idolatrous worship, and, 
 therefore, to be destroyed with a ruthless 
 hand. They themselves had been Roman- 
 ists, and must have known how they were 
 used ; their own experience with these objects 
 is the justification for their violent opposition 
 to them and lawless destruction of them. 
 
 But we are now far enough away from the 
 dangers of Catholicism and idolatry to per- 
 mit even the descendants of the Calvinists to 
 begin a tentative employment of Christian 
 art again in the churches. Nearly all de- 
 nominations have finally admitted the organ ; 
 and the stained glass window, even containing 
 figures of men who are Catholic saints, is 
 found in very many Protestant churches. 
 Pictures are employed for pedagogical pur- 
 poses in the Sunday-school. But there Chris- 
 tian art stops in most Protestant churches. 
 Here and there churches go further and at- 
 tempt to assist the worshipper by the use of 
 art. A worthy painting of Jesus is now 
 
156 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 sometimes seen over the pulpit or the bap- 
 tistry, such a painting as might really assist 
 the heart in rising to God. But it is probable 
 that Catholic misuse of Christian art will long 
 prevent Protestants from employing it even in 
 legitimate and helpful ways. We largely judge 
 the value of things from our former prejudices 
 rather than from their intrinsic worth. 
 
 In some respects Protestantism can never 
 foster Christian art as Catholicism has done. 
 Protestants have not the same traditions of 
 art behind them to stimulate effort, nor do 
 they live so much in the past as the Catholics 
 do. Saints and martyrs mean far less to 
 Protestants than to Catholics. Modern his- 
 torical investigation and criticism have ex- 
 ploded and dissipated the legends and con- 
 ventional subjects which form so large a part 
 of the material utilized by the medieval and 
 Renaissance painters. The less materialistic 
 and more spiritual religious views of Protes- 
 tantism restrain its painters from attempting 
 themes that were freely handled by the 
 Catholics. But it is probable that Protestant 
 painting will gain in reality and in influence 
 on the daily life of the present more than it 
 loses in the compass of its material. In re- 
 cent years Protestantism has surpassed 
 Catholicism in religious painting — in depth, 
 
CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE 157 
 
 reality, compass and spirituality. Some time 
 this art may be made richly helpful to the 
 spiritual life of Protestants without any of 
 the objectionable features of the past, as it is 
 already a means of attractive adornment. 
 
 Both as to art and architecture the minis- 
 ter must remember that he cannot consult 
 his own tastes, nor follow the standards 
 which his culture and training would warrant 
 in his case. He must take conditions as they 
 are, and pursue that policy which will be 
 best for his congregatiouo There may be 
 strong though groundless prejudice against 
 stained glass windows or the use of human 
 figures either in the windows or on the walls. 
 This feeling may appear to him very foolish, 
 but as the shepherd of souls he cannot fail to 
 consult the interests of his flock rather than 
 his own tastes. His ministry is to life and 
 of that he must think constantly. Art and 
 architecture must be made to serve life, the 
 life of the people that attend that particular 
 church. Anything that would hinder that 
 supreme goal must be discarded, everything 
 that can be done to assist in this task through 
 the construction and adornment of the build- 
 ing in which the work is to be accomplished 
 should surely be done. Life here as every- 
 where else is the supreme consideration. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE MINISTER AND THE BIBLE 
 
 BIBLICAL criticism has put a very con- 
 siderable strain on the modern Chris- 
 tian world. The consciousness of dif- 
 ficulties in the Bible is nothing new. The 
 early Christian fathers discovered many such 
 difficulties in their own studies or had them 
 thrust upon their attention by the assaults of 
 their opponents. These difficulties were met 
 in various ways more or less convincing, but 
 never entirely satisfactory and never final 
 During the Middle Ages the critical spirit 
 was dormant; the authority of the Church 
 was final for scholar as well as layman. The 
 Bible, known almost exclusively to scholars, 
 was accepted as far as it was used at all with- 
 out question as the Church interpreted it. 
 Most of the Reformers of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury took the same attitude as to the author- 
 ity and infallibility of the Scriptures, and even 
 strengthened it by setting an infallible Bible 
 over against the Catholic Church which they 
 had repudiated and were leaving. Such an 
 158 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE BIBLE 159 
 
 attitude was almost inevitable, for they were 
 fighting a church that claimed to be infallible 
 and they naturally felt need of the support of 
 something with an equal authority. The 
 inerrancy ascribed to the Bible extended to 
 every detail of composition and content. 
 These sentiments with regard to the Scrip- 
 tures continued through the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the age of dogmatic Protestant ortho- 
 doxy. 
 
 With the rehabilitation of the critical spirit 
 in the eighteenth century the historic Protes- 
 tant views of the Bible and Christian doctrine 
 were again challenged. This attack on what 
 was believed to be the fundamental position 
 of Protestantism came from the children of its 
 own bosom, and at first was sternly frowned 
 upon. It, however, increased in volume and 
 power throughout most of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and has at length mastered most of the 
 Protestant scholarship of the world. Con- 
 fined for a long time to the learned some of 
 these views have at length filtered down into 
 the mass of Christian people until one finds 
 in Sunday-school literature statements that 
 would have horrified adult Christians a cen- 
 tury ago. While acceptance of the critical 
 attitude is true of many Christians, at the 
 same time many pious people hold back and 
 
160 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 anathematize these so-called '* advanced " 
 viewSo This variance and antagonism exist- 
 ing between different sections of the Chris- 
 tian community puts a great strain on Chris- 
 tian fellowship. Throughout the Christian 
 world the bonds of fraternal feeling and co- 
 operation are more or less weakened by this 
 want of harmony with regard to the origin, 
 interpretation and authority of the Bible. 
 Heresy trials on this subject are probably not 
 wholly behind us. 
 
 There is then both hearty agreement and 
 sharp disagreements with regard to the 
 Bible. By the almost unanimous consent of 
 Christian scholars and the testimony of Chris- 
 tian experience the Bible is in some sense a 
 unique revelation from God. Opinions differ 
 widely as to the date, authorship and com- 
 position of some of its books ; they do not 
 entirely agree as to the nature and extent of 
 its authority, nor as to the measure and man- 
 ner in which it is inspired, nor as to the char- 
 acter of the revelation that appears in its 
 pages ; they vary widely as to the interpreta- 
 tion of individual passages and as to its 
 teachings as a whole on certain subjects. 
 But Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and 
 Arminian, liberal and conservative, maintain 
 the uniqueness of this Book. In its pages 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE BIBLE 161 
 
 they find God as nowhere else. The simple 
 believer and the erudite scholar draw from its 
 pages comfort in sorrow, light in the shadow 
 of doubt, hope when despair threatens to 
 overwhelm, strength in hours of temptation 
 and weakness. By common consent the con- 
 ception of God found here is the most satis- 
 fying and stimulating known to man. The 
 Psalms express our present-day religious ex- 
 periences better than we can do in our own 
 language. The Bible reader is conscious of 
 a continuous enrichment of his life from the 
 springs of its instruction and inspiration. If 
 God is not the God found in the Bible then 
 He is indeed the great unknown, and if He 
 could be known He would probably have 
 little value for our lives. Of course it is in 
 the Bible and there only that we come to 
 know God as revealed in Jesus Christ, the 
 highest and completest manifestation of God 
 we can ever have. Whatever treasures exist 
 in Him we mine from the Bible alone. 
 
 About thus much Christian scholars of all 
 schools are practically agreed. But along 
 with this conviction of the unique value of the 
 Bible many scholars admit mistakes in detail, 
 due to the fact that revelation has been pro- 
 gressive, that the agents of revelation were 
 imperfect in character and knowledge, to the 
 
162 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 exigencies of transmission through centuries 
 of copying, and to other causes. But their 
 faith in God and in Christ as the Redeemer 
 is, they insist, in no way affected by these 
 minor defects. They look at the Book as a 
 whole, in the large, and, seen in perspective, 
 it is in a unique and authoritative sense the 
 Book of God. They use it in the support 
 and cultivation of their own spiritual life as 
 diligently and as lovingly as any. Their faith 
 does not depend en belief in its absolute in- 
 errancy in every detail ; minor discrepancies 
 do not shock or shake their faith. 
 
 On the other hand a great part of the 
 Protestant people have so long regarded the 
 Bible as absolutely infallible in every partic- 
 ular that the first suggestion of even the 
 smallest error shocks their faith ; indeed their 
 Christian hope seems to be dependent upon 
 the maintenance of the complete accuracy of 
 the Bible in every particular. Recession 
 from this position undoubtedly seems to 
 threaten the stability of their faith. 
 
 What is the preacher's duty under these 
 trying circumstances ? For they are trying to 
 the preacher, bent upon the accomplishment 
 of practical tasks, regardless of his own con- 
 victions in the premises. Shall he ally him- 
 self with the conservatives or with the liberals, 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE BIBLE 1G3 
 
 with the orthodox or the heretics ? Or ought 
 he to remain neutral, either through igno- 
 rance of the questions at issue or indifference 
 to the results of the controversy, or fear for his 
 own ecclesiastical standing ? There can be no 
 question that his position judged from a purely 
 practical standpoint is often perplexing. 
 
 But certain facts and principles necessary 
 to his guidance seem to be reasonably clear, 
 in view of his practical and vital aims. He 
 needs to keep it clear in his consciousness 
 that his duties are practical and constructive 
 rather than literary and critical. They are 
 vital, having to do with men rather than with 
 literature. The Bible is one of his implements, 
 not his field of labour. There is a place for 
 the Biblical scholar who makes the Bible his 
 field of endeavour, but the preacher has 
 chosen the world of mankind as his field. In 
 its cultivation he ought to be an expert, an 
 authority, a distinction to which he can never 
 attain in the field of criticism while he con- 
 tinues his work as a minister. As a practical 
 man he has the right, he may regard it as a 
 duty incumbent upon him, to sit in judgment 
 upon the results of the work done by other 
 men in the critical field. But he does it as a 
 practical man using the resources of common 
 sense and general rather than technical 
 
164 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 knowledge. Often conclusions of the scientist 
 in this and other departments of investigation 
 need just this check of common sense, and the 
 preacher need feel no hesitation in applying 
 this test. 
 
 It seems hardly necessary to say that he 
 must jealously guard his mental independence 
 and honesty. He must never allow fear or 
 any other motive of personal interest to deflect 
 him for a moment from the path of absolute 
 sincerity. To play hide-and-seek with the 
 truth is to condemn oneself to mental barren- 
 ness and spiritual decay. Even if loyalty to 
 honest and hard-earned convictions puts him 
 into disharmony with his church, let it come ; 
 when the variance reaches such a pitch that 
 they can no longer do the Lord's work to- 
 gether let him relieve the tension by handing 
 in his resignation, not by repudiating his 
 sincere and honest convictions. Proper self- 
 respect and due devotion to the welfare of 
 men render this course unavoidable. 
 
 He must frankly recognize y^^^^, no matter 
 what they are or by whom they were dis- 
 covered and revealed to the world. They 
 may contradict his own former beliefs and 
 threaten to overthrow the faith of some ; but 
 if "after honest investigation they are facts to 
 him they must be accepted. A fact is a fact 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE BIBLE 165 
 
 and sooner or later it will be recognized as 
 such by rational and thoughtful men. More- 
 over the minister ought to rest secure in the 
 conviction that no fact or truth can long en- 
 danger faith ; faith is so vital that it quickly 
 adapts itself to the advancing knowledge that 
 comes through discovery in every field of 
 learning, Biblical and literary as well as scien- 
 tific and philosophical. The fact that the 
 period of greatest scientific progress and 
 most rabid Biblical criticism has also been the 
 period of most rapid Christian expansion 
 should provoke optimistic reflections. Cer- 
 tainly no minister is called upon to close his 
 mind to facts, much less deny them, in the in- 
 terest of established beliefs. Indeed he dare 
 not do so. Such a course of action would 
 richly deserve the contempt which it would 
 surely invite. 
 
 Only let him be sure that alleged facts are 
 really such, at least determined by him to be 
 so after the application of all available tests. 
 Acceptance of facts is not equivalent to the 
 passive gulping of all that is handed out by 
 some scholar or school whose fame happens 
 for the moment to be in the ascendant. It 
 presupposes the vigorous exercise of one's 
 own common sense in a critical estimate of 
 what is offered. There are fashions in opinion 
 
166 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 as well as dress. A position need not con- 
 tinue to be held because it is old or be ac- 
 cepted because it is new. The preacher is 
 interested in its truth and reality, not in its age 
 or antecedents. We need such a profound 
 confidence in facts, their stability and service- 
 ableness, as to inspire us to toil for them with 
 consuming zeal. Such an attitude will de- 
 mand courage of a high order ; but with con- 
 fidence in facts a man can walk firmly and 
 steadily where the steps of others may falter 
 and fail. In places and at times it will re- 
 quire as much courage to walk in the old 
 paths and be cried out as orthodox as at other 
 times and places will be necessary in accept- 
 ing something new which may involve the 
 charge of heresy. And this statement applies 
 to all departments of Christian thought 
 equally as much as to the various views of 
 the Bible. But in the face of all difficulties 
 and the pain which it may cost him the minis- 
 ter must still search for facts and accept noth- 
 ing but what he regards as facts. In the end 
 he will find that facts have the highest value for 
 the life of men, and his function in the world 
 is the service of the life of men. 
 
 In the third place the minister should re- 
 member that most of the questions handled 
 and most of the conclusions reached by Bib- 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE BIBLE 167 
 
 lical criticism are only remotely related to 
 the life of men. They are not, therefore, 
 proper themes for pulpit treatment. How- 
 ever interesting they may be to the scholar 
 they are inexpressibly dreary, abstruse and 
 petty to the common man. They are the 
 mere husks of truth at the best, and men 
 want the kernels. Whatever in them is 
 true will gradually and naturally filter into 
 the lives of men without the inevitable shock 
 which must come with direct treatment. 
 What men need to learn from the Bible and 
 the pulpit is to know and serve God, not 
 when or how or by whom the Pentateuch or 
 Isaiah was composed. To know infallibly 
 the solution of every question that has en- 
 gaged the attention of Biblical critics for a 
 hundred years would contribute nothing to 
 the spiritual life of a single man. The pastor 
 who is continually hammering on Biblical 
 criticism is wasting and worse than wasting 
 his time, for he may be weakening and unset- 
 tling the faith of some whom he was called 
 of God to strengthen and establish. The 
 date and composition of the Homeric poems 
 in no way affects the beauty and sublimity 
 of the Iliad or the Odyssey ; the question of 
 the authorship of Macbeth or Hamlet, how- 
 ever decided, can neither enhance nor dimin- 
 
168 A VITAL MIOTSTEY 
 
 ish the value of the contents of these master- 
 pieces. In like manner the minister should 
 remember that it is not a knowledge of the 
 authorship, date and composition of the Bib- 
 lical books that can help men, but a knowl- 
 edge of the God who shines out from the 
 pages of that Book. The Bible is not an 
 end but a means ; the saving knowledge of 
 God is the end and the Bible is the means to 
 that holy end. Knowledge of the Bible has 
 little importance except as it aids to the 
 knowledge of God. Apart from its relation 
 to God Israel's history is only the story of 
 one of the smaller and less important seg- 
 ments of humanity and Israel's literature 
 merely a fragment of the world's great out- 
 put. It is God's presence in the nation that 
 gives it significance. The preacher would 
 do as well to descant upon Greek or Roman 
 history and literature as upon that of Israel 
 unless he sees God in the latter. The dis- 
 cussion of the composition of the Homeric 
 poems is just as edifying as the question of 
 two or more Isaiahs. The point insisted 
 upon is the worthlessness of all such dis- 
 quisitions for the specific purposes of the 
 preacher. It is not some theory of the 
 Bible's composition or inspiration that is 
 valuable, but the Bible itselt 
 
THE MINISTER AND THE BIBLE 169 
 
 Let the preacher take the Bible as he finds 
 it and use it for the supreme purposes of the 
 ministry. The average man does not trouble 
 himself and will not sufEer the preacher to 
 trouble him about abstruse and technical 
 questions concerning the Bible ; it is the 
 meat, the ethical and spiritual content of the 
 Book, which he wants. Unconsciously and 
 unerringly, if left to himself, he chooses and 
 uses those portions of the Word which are 
 replete with religious fatness. He does not 
 argue that the Psalms and the Gospel of 
 John are more inspired than Chronicles or 
 Esther. The question of the relative inspi- 
 ration of the various parts of the Bible has 
 never risen to plague him ; but the former 
 books he uses, the latter he leaves by the 
 side. In proportion as the preacher is inter- 
 ested in the life of the men of to-day he will 
 seek to bring to them that message which is 
 fraught with the richest blessings. Out of 
 the Bible he will bring to his parishioners the 
 contents of our religion ; his message will be 
 a religious and ethical one. In the Bible he 
 will find both for himself and others such 
 treasures as no other book affords, such 
 knowledge as can be gathered from no other 
 source. And this he will do regardless of 
 any theory of the date and authorship of 
 
170 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 any of its books. If he will allow the Bible 
 to speak for itself to his heart and head 
 it will tell him of God and give him the 
 wisdom and power necessary to bring others 
 to that knowledge. This statement is justi- 
 fied not only in the experience of the indi- 
 vidual but also on the broader arena of 
 Christian history as a whole. Those men 
 who have been most diligent and faithful in 
 the study and preaching of the Bible have 
 been most successful as ministers and Chris- 
 tian workers ; likewise those periods in Chris- 
 tian history in which the Bible has been 
 most widely circulated and generally studied 
 have also shown most evangelical zeal and 
 renewing power. It was Wesley's proclama- 
 tion of the message of the Bible which regen- 
 erated England in the last half of the 
 eighteenth century. The cold, contemptu- 
 ous intellectualism of the eighteenth century 
 melted and disappeared in the warm gulf 
 stream of vital Scriptural preaching. The 
 Bible is here to be used. 
 
IX 
 
 THE MINISTER AND HIS CHURCH 
 
 ONE of the most perplexing problems 
 that confronts the young minister of 
 to-day in America is that of the re- 
 lation of himself and his church to other 
 churches and denominations. American 
 Christianity is splintered into fragments as 
 that of no other country. Many of the de- 
 nominations came to these shores in the 
 early settlement of the country bringing from 
 their European homes the bitterness of years 
 of strife. Others have sprung up here, but 
 amid the hardship and turmoil of struggles 
 that have left deep clefts behind. Denomi- 
 national competition has brought its blessings 
 no doubt, but the gains have been accom- 
 panied by terrible losses in friction and con- 
 troversy. These and other circumstances 
 have conspired to make the religious life of 
 America very strictly denominational. Even 
 where little unfriendly feeling has existed, the 
 lines of separation, not only in beliefs and 
 practices but also in those tasks of human 
 service that should be common to all Chris- 
 171 
 
172 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 tians, have been very clearly drawn. Men 
 would work together in business and pleas- 
 ure, but in the tasks of the kingdom of God 
 they held sharply apart. These conditions 
 obtained more or less widely down to the 
 generation that preceded ours. 
 
 At present these conditions are changing. 
 There is friendlier feeling between the various 
 religious bodies, and many noble Christian 
 men and women have begun to look with 
 some hopefulness for the ultimate union of 
 divided Protestantism, if not of all Christen- 
 dom. Ours is apparently an age of transition, 
 always a difficult time for the conscientious 
 Christian man. This change of sentiment is 
 due to many causes — the world-wide longing 
 for peace in every sphere of life, the growing 
 sense of the overwhelming size and difficulty 
 of the Christian task at home and abroad as 
 the knowledge of a world's need presses in 
 upon us, the movement for the conservation 
 of resources and the elimination of waste in 
 religion as in other spheres of labour, the ex- 
 altation of the practical over the theoretical 
 and the decline of interest in theological spec- 
 ulations and divisions, the dawning con- 
 sciousness of the essential unity of all true 
 Christians in the great spiritual realities and 
 tasks, and others. Whatever the causes of 
 
THE MINISTEE AND HIS CHURCH 173 
 
 the change the fact of the change brings more 
 or less embarrassment and strain to many 
 ministers. 
 
 On the one hand the past draws fast about 
 the minister the lines of denominationalism. 
 The shibboleths of controversy die slowly and 
 painfully. Long after they have ceased to 
 represent realities they linger to vex and to 
 retard progress. Moreover the older breth- 
 ren who may have waded through the bitter- 
 ness of controversies are likely to be unable 
 to escape the blight in later years. They 
 are prone to stand for aloofness. Again 
 those general workers whose duties lead them 
 to foster and rely upon strong denominational 
 support are apt to look askance at any rap- 
 prochement of the denominations, lest it 
 weaken denominational efficiency and lame 
 their own work. 
 
 Less worthy motives are not wanting. All 
 the unsanctified elements of human nature 
 array themselves on the side of denomina- 
 tional aloofness — bitterness, hatred, the petty 
 ambitions of small men, the love of conten- 
 tion and glory, and other unworthy motives. 
 
 Besides this pressure from without there 
 comes to the young minister a powerful in- 
 ternal plea. He is himself probably the 
 spiritual offspring of the denomination to 
 
174 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 whose membership he belongs. He cherishes, 
 and rightly so, a degree of reverence and 
 gratitude for this foster mother that renders 
 it extremely difficult for him to do anything 
 that would cause pain or even apparent in- 
 jury. He believes in the truth and rightness 
 of its doctrines and practices as in those of 
 no other church or denomination. As a 
 minister of the body which gave him spiri- 
 tual life and continues to nourish him he owes 
 the loyal service which he solemnly vowed 
 at his ordination to give. Moreover, his 
 standing, good name and usefulness, his very 
 living, are dependent on the confidence with 
 which his own people regard him. There is 
 no undenominational, unorganized Christian- 
 ity in America to give him support. Still 
 further he recognizes the fact that organiza- 
 tion is absolutely necessary to any effective 
 work in religion, as in other things where 
 great tasks are to be accomplished. To be 
 without the support of an organization is for 
 all except those who are great enough to 
 create their own organizations, to be shorn 
 of all possibility of doing anything worth 
 while. These and other considerations tend 
 to make him a strict denominational man, 
 ready to fight the battles of his church and 
 stand with it against all others. 
 
THE MINISTEE ANB HIS CHURCH 175 
 
 On the other hand much of the best in 
 modern life tends to lead him away from the 
 strict denominationalism of the old style. He 
 recognizes the fact that the kingdom of God 
 is greater than his or any other church, and 
 he remembers that the Master talked much of 
 the kingdom and little of the church. He 
 looks at the noble work other denominations 
 are doing, scarcely inferior if not actually 
 superior to that done by his own ; he recog- 
 nizes the hand of God working with them and 
 asks himself why he should not himself 
 cooperate. He sees the need of power for 
 the great tasks of the kingdom, tasks that tax 
 the resources of the Christian world, and he 
 longs for that efBciency which comes through 
 unity. He looks about him and sees what 
 appears to be a great loss of power through 
 the reduplication of plants and forces and the 
 inevitable friction and heat which develop 
 where the same work is being attempted by 
 different Christian bodies. He studies church 
 history and learns that the peculiarities of 
 this and that denomination, his own among 
 them, are due in large measure to the per- 
 sonal peculiarities and exigencies of some 
 man or men of the sixteenth or some later 
 century. He traces the history and develop- 
 ment of his particular type of theology only 
 
176 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 to discover a very human continuity of strife 
 and struggle which severely shakes his confi- 
 dence in its finality and infallibility. He 
 learns the faults and weaknesses of his own 
 church as well as the excellences and strength 
 of others. He sees how others have blessed 
 the world, how men are still strengthened 
 and uplifted by them. All this tends inevi- 
 tably to weaken the strenuousness of his 
 denominational partisanship. It is compara- 
 tively easy for an ignorant and provincial 
 man who knows nothing of other churches 
 beyond the petty squabbles of village religious 
 life to stand aloof and remain hostile ; it is 
 not so easy for the man whose vision is en- 
 larged by study and by an earnest effort for 
 the Christianizing of the whole world and the 
 whole of life. All his selfish feelings and in- 
 terests and some of the noblest feelings of his 
 life lie on the side of denominationalism, 
 while many of the best aspirations of himself 
 and others weigh on the other side. What is 
 he to do under these circumstances ? 
 
 Obviously it is not strange that many young 
 men, and older ones for that matter, find 
 themselves in great embarrassment at present. 
 When they weigh the practical considera- 
 tions of the immediate present they are driven 
 powerfully towards a vigorous denomination- 
 
THE MINISTER AND HIS CHURCH 177 
 
 alism ; when other Christian sentiments and 
 ideals come under review they feel them- 
 selves drawn no less strongly in the opposite 
 direction. They find those who are leading 
 in the work of their church earnestly em- 
 phasizing and developing the distinctive and 
 the denominational, while the leaders of 
 thought^ whose personal interests would be 
 secure in any event, inclined to harmonious 
 cooperation and even union with others. In 
 his own congregation the minister will prob- 
 ably find some who deprecate his denomina- 
 tional narrowness and others who with equal 
 vigour protest against his undue liberalism. 
 These conditions are not everywhere equally 
 acute, but sense of mal-adjustment and strain 
 is not wholly wanting in any part of our 
 country. The question must be repeated, 
 What is the preacher to do ? 
 
 Let him recall the fact that the task of the 
 minister is preeminently a practical one. 
 His aim is ideal, but the material and means 
 with which he is to work are far from ideal. 
 He must take human nature as he finds it 
 and do with it what he can to bring it up as 
 far as possible towards the Christian standard 
 of perfection. His primary duty before God 
 is the nurture of life in men ; consequently 
 that course of action which, tested in the long 
 
178 A VITAL MliJISTEY 
 
 run and looked at in the large, will contribute 
 most to the life of men will be his line of 
 duty. Put in other words, it is his first duty 
 to consider the interests of the kingdom of 
 God. No other considerations can possibly 
 be paramount. This high purpose will not 
 solve all his perplexities, but it will give a 
 working principle of great value. He must 
 remember that he is not to decide individual 
 questions from purely local and temporary 
 considerations. The issues at stake are not 
 temporary. Compromise may seem to be the 
 course dictated by Christian sentiment and 
 common sense, and yet judged by the light 
 of the centuries it may prove to be the high- 
 est unwisdom. It was largely through the 
 door of compromise that those beliefs and 
 practices entered, which transformed the 
 primitive Church into the great Qatholic 
 body. What seemed to be the way of pru- 
 dence and progress proved to be the broad 
 road that led rapidly towards destruction. It 
 might conceivably be so again. Nothing of 
 permanent importance must be given away 
 in the interest of any supposed Christian 
 unity and fraternity. On the other hand 
 mere partisan prejudice must not be allowed 
 to hinder efficiency in the work of the king- 
 dom. The question the preacher must de- 
 
THE MINISTER AND HIS CHURCH 179 
 
 cide is the ultimate effect of this or that 
 course of action on the life of men. 
 
 Many denominational differences are un- 
 doubtedly without vital significance, the 
 troublesome rubbish and debris of former 
 controversies. Others involve loyalty to the 
 teachings of Scripture even as to the very 
 essence of the Christian religion. Still others 
 involve important questions of fraternity and 
 expediency that cannot be ignored. Serious 
 men will not expect serious and conscientious 
 men to sacrifice convictions about such mat- 
 ters. Some of the talk in behalf of Christian 
 union is scarcely creditable to either the in- 
 telligence or the faithfulness of its advocates. 
 Some questions cut too deep into the heart 
 of things, they have too much bearing on the 
 eternal destiny and welfare of men to be ar- 
 bitrated, blurred or compromised. 
 
 It is, however, most gratifying that the 
 fuller emphasis which is constantly being put 
 on the spiritual side of Christianity is con- 
 stantly diminishing the space that separates 
 the various Christian bodies. The spiritual 
 elements of Christianity have never been the 
 prime causes of division and strife. Differ- 
 ences gather about the outward manifestations 
 of religion ; neither has there been any great 
 difference among the independent scholars of 
 
180 A VITAL MIKISTEY 
 
 the Christian world as to the teaching of 
 Scripture as to these matters and the task that 
 lies before the followers of Christ. Differ- 
 ences have arisen when conscious or uncon- 
 scious additions have been made to the sim- 
 plicity of Christ's Gospel. Frequently these 
 have been imposed on men not only by the 
 power of the Church but also by that of the 
 State. Unfortunately we have not yet got- 
 ten away from the effects of this attitude of 
 mind. Multitudes of Christian men will not 
 permit the freedom with which Christ has 
 made us free ; but as the spiritual becomes 
 the predominant consideration this attitude 
 must weaken and gradually disappear. In 
 the meantime the minister must be loyal to 
 the truth and to the spirit of Jesus Christ, 
 fraternal with all the followers of the Master, 
 ready to work with every man who is not 
 against us, for the coming of the kingdom on 
 the earth, thinking always first of all of his own 
 supreme task of building up the life of men 
 by bringing them to know God. Vital truth 
 cannot and will not be sacrificed. No earnest 
 man will expect another to stultify his con- 
 science by denying or leaving in abeyance 
 what he believes to be important truth. Such 
 a course would be disloyalty to the highest 
 qualities of manhood with which we have 
 
THE MINISTER AND HIS CHURCH 181 
 
 been endowed, and would inevitably result in 
 serious mental and spiritual deterioration. 
 Loyalty, fraternity and cooperation in the 
 service of the life of men, that must be the 
 minister's guide in the midst of the perplex- 
 ities and difficulties of his position in Amer- 
 ica. If his soul is sometimes vexed and 
 restive because of the hardships incident to 
 a divided Christendom, let him recall the fact 
 that periods of unity have had their own great 
 evils to endure. There has been unity with- 
 out harmony, unity without life and without 
 outlook. 
 
THE MINISTER AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS 
 
 IT is a compliment to the churches and 
 their ministry that all manner of reforms 
 so largely turn to them for comfort and 
 assistance and feel such keen disappointment 
 and resentment when they fail to respond as 
 readily and generously as is thought to be 
 proper. If the churches do not themselves 
 institute reforms they are relied on for sup- 
 port and are at once exploited in the interest 
 of almost every movement which aims at the 
 betterment of man through popular support. 
 In Europe the beggars sit by the church 
 doors, and in this country every man who is 
 pleading for help in a good cause besieges 
 the church. In these days such benevolent 
 movements, local and general, are multitudi- 
 nous and their demands on the time and 
 strength of the minister are large and insist- 
 ent. If he fails to lend a ready ear and a 
 helping hand to every good cause he is 
 branded as an ignorant reactionary out of 
 sympathy with his times. On the other hand 
 no man's strength would be equal to the 
 182 
 
MINISTER AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS 183 
 
 burden of actively supporting all the worthy 
 causes that are brought to the attention of 
 our city churches to-day, even if he gave his 
 whole time to the task. Moreover by such 
 preoccupation he would lose the valuable 
 asset of his ministerial calling and position 
 which give these movements access to the 
 churches and render the minister's support so 
 weighty and desirable. He would then be 
 only a reformer like the rest, and his distinct- 
 ive spiritual functions would disappear. 
 What is he to do in this perplexing embar- 
 rassment of riches ? The very extra-eccle- 
 siastical forces which are so powerfully mak- 
 ing for truth and righteousness and are in 
 very large degree his allies frequently em- 
 barrass him by their numbers, excellence and 
 insistence. 
 
 The application of the vital principle to 
 his work will often help him. According to 
 this principle he is to serve man — oppose and 
 destroy his enemies, build up his life. Let 
 him keep this goal steadily in view and be 
 controlled by that aim. He is called to serve 
 man, the whole of man, body, mind, and 
 spirit — man physical, moral, intellectual, 
 spiritual. All parts of man are equally the 
 handiwork of God and the health and devel- 
 opment of each part contributes to the wel- 
 
184 A VITAL MINISTEY 
 
 fare of all others and of the whole. The 
 Gospel aims at the salvation of all the parts, 
 the whole man, and consequently everything 
 in humanity is worthy of the thought and ef- 
 fort of God's minister. He can and should, 
 therefore, encourage all movements that look 
 to the betterment of men in any respect — 
 better homes, adequate wages, reasonable 
 hours ; sanitary, safe, healthful working con- 
 ditions ; moral and healthful amusements, 
 good schools, the prevention of contagious 
 and infectious diseases, protection from the 
 dangers of vice and other moral contamina- 
 tion come within his purview. But in the 
 midst of this service he cannot forget that his 
 distinctive work has to do with the spiritual 
 nature of man. If man can be made morally 
 and spiritually sound through the ministra- 
 tions of religion all other problems will be 
 greatly simplified. The minister in his spir- 
 itual functions is laying the axe at the root of 
 the upas tree of all evils. 
 
 The minister must not, therefore, permit 
 anything to interfere with his duty to the 
 spirits of men. " This is life eternal that they 
 should know Thee the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." The 
 minister's peculiar function is to make men 
 know God in Jesus Christ, and having ac- 
 
MINISTEE AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS 186 
 
 complished this task he has ministered eter- 
 nal life to the whole man, and eradicated 
 most of his evils. And moreover he and the 
 ecclesiastical and social institutions and ac- 
 tivities under his direction are the only agen- 
 cies engaged in this specific task. The school 
 trains the mind, the conscience, the body, 
 more or less successfully ; it does not seek to 
 lead men to a knowledge of God. In fact 
 religious training and even moral instruction 
 are largely excluded from or at least neglected 
 in our state schools. Numberless agencies 
 are working towards the improvement of 
 man's physical condition and environment. 
 The new^spapers are enlisted, the press groans 
 with the output of books and pamphlets on 
 economic and social questions, labour unions 
 and individual reformers thunder and plead 
 and anathematize, clubs watch the theatres, 
 dance halls and picture shows. The tide of 
 interest in these matters is running at the 
 flood and threatens to engulf all distinctively 
 religious work. But not one of all these 
 varied and multitudinous forms of activity in 
 the interest of the temporal lives of men gives 
 any attention to their souls. The average 
 man can still say in the midst of this clamor- 
 ous social striving, '* No man careth for my 
 soul." The minister's supreme duty and 
 
186 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 function remain still his own. He is without 
 a rival or one who aspires to be a rival in 
 this field. He is the only man and the 
 Church is the only institution who are seek- 
 ing to lead men to root their lives in the 
 realities of the unseen spiritual world and 
 take hold upon the issues of eternity. And 
 it is a grave question whether it is possible to 
 keep a man climbing the upward path in other 
 respects while his deepest self is neglected. 
 
 The minister's field is the life of man, the 
 whole of man ; but like every other wise la- 
 bourer he will give particular attention to 
 those parts of the field which are most in need 
 of his care and which promise to respond 
 most generously and liberally to his efforts. 
 If other labourers occupy the same field he 
 will seek to avoid duplication of equipment 
 and effort. 
 
 As the minister examines the conditions of 
 his field from time to time he will find the 
 needs varying. The spiritual needs will 
 always be there and will always be left for 
 his treatment — spiritual blindness, indiffer- 
 ence and deadness leading to a whole train 
 of other evils. The other human needs will 
 vary from field to field and from time to time 
 in the same field. The faithful pastor must 
 meet these too. He will sometimes find his 
 
MINISTER AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS 187 
 
 people ignorant of unhealthful social condi- 
 tions and apathetic towards social reform ; it 
 will be necessary for him to instruct and 
 arouse them to the needs and to their duty in 
 the premises. Again he will find them un- 
 conscious of the menace of disease, or of prev- 
 alent moral dangers, or of economic injus- 
 tice in the community. Here again it is his 
 province to inform and warn and arouse. 
 Sometimes the issues in political contests are 
 at bottom moral, but the moral issues are 
 often obscured by party passions and prej- 
 udices and the greed for position and power. 
 The average politician fears a moral ques- 
 tion, shuns and taboos it as much as possi- 
 ble. It is often the preacher's duty to strip 
 these questions of confusing details and the 
 obscuring smoke of battle and set them forth 
 in their naked and fundamental meaning so 
 that the average man may see the real issues 
 at stake. 
 
 But all this must necessarily be on the side. 
 The preacher is not a social reformer nor a 
 political agitator nor a walking delegate. 
 " Christianity ceases to be Christian if it puts 
 the material prosperity of the masses in the 
 forefront, as the thing that is to be aimed at 
 first and before all else, and only claims that 
 religion is not to be overlooked as one of many 
 
188 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 means for realizing this secular aim." That 
 there is some danger that some preachers 
 may be swept away by the flood of social in- 
 terest and activity now regnant among us 
 will hardly be denied by any careful observer. 
 The fact that there are also many who are 
 wholly unmoved by the cry of their fellows 
 from the factory and the tenement does not 
 alter the danger to others. Now and then a 
 minister deserts the pulpit for the lecture 
 platform or the political hustings or becomes 
 a labour agitator as a means of larger useful- 
 ness. The tide has been too strong and he 
 has yielded, and yet if he be a true minister 
 he has undoubtedly shallowed and narrowed 
 his field of usefulness. Had Jesus of Naza- 
 reth devoted Himself to the amelioration of 
 the political, social and economic conditions 
 of His people His name might have been pre- 
 served to us as that of another patriotic agi- 
 tator whom the Roman government had cut 
 off in mid-career. Nobody would have sus- 
 pected that He was the divine Saviour of 
 mankind. By confining His attention to the 
 deepest things He renovated the whole man 
 and modified the face of mankind. 
 
 It is sometimes charged that Christianity 
 is uninterested in the physical and social 
 welfare of men. The charge is the fruit of 
 
MINISTER AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS 189 
 
 either ignorance or malice. While the 
 Church has steadily laid chief stress on the 
 spiritual and eternal interests of men it has 
 neither forgotten men's bodies nor divorced 
 the spiritual from the actual and the prac- 
 tical. It has never been wholly otherworldly. 
 During its entire history the Church has 
 sought to improve the temporal condition of 
 men, and during the Middle Ages it was 
 almost the sole support of those agencies 
 and institutions which strove for the social 
 and moral and physical uplift of society. 
 The schools and the other means for the 
 preservation and dissemination of culture, 
 the care of the poor and defective, the con- 
 trol of marriage and divorce ; the struggle 
 with vice, drunkenness, slavery, poverty, 
 disease, not only found in the Church sup- 
 port and sympathy, but were almost wholly 
 in the hands of the Church. Indeed these 
 duties were so engrossing that the Church 
 was largely secularized by their weight. In 
 modern times they have been very largely 
 transferred to the State, but this has been 
 through no fault of the Church. The trans- 
 fer was due in part to the fact that the State 
 had robbed the Church of its large financial 
 resources leaving it unable to cope with such 
 tasks as it formerly wrought, and partly to 
 
190 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 the divided condition of Protestantism which 
 leaves the State the only institution which 
 approximately represents the whole of society 
 and commands sufficient resources to meet 
 the demands. It is the spirit of Jesus Christ 
 which is penetrating the whole of society 
 and transforming the State into a benevolent 
 institution operated for the benefit of all 
 rather than for the prince and his entourage. 
 This enlargement of the functions and re- 
 sources of the State has left the Church 
 much freer to perform its own peculiar spir- 
 itual functions, but has deprived it of the 
 large field where its services were much 
 more obvious and where reasons for grati- 
 tude were tangible. It does not and cannot 
 devote itself so largely to the serving of 
 tables ; that work is now done by other agen- 
 cies. As in the long ago the apostles sought 
 freedom from temporalities that they might 
 give themselves undividedly to the spiritual 
 work of the kingdom, so to-day the Church 
 has been relieved by the progress of events 
 from the strain of the material burdens that 
 rested upon it in the Middle Ages. It is 
 to be hoped that it will give itself to prayer 
 and the ministration of the Word with undi- 
 vided attention and unflagging devotion. 
 Tables must be served, the whole man must 
 
MINISTER AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS 191 
 
 be cared for, living conditions must be im- 
 proved at countless points. But these do 
 not constitute the main matter in the work of 
 the kingdom of God. Ministers must assist 
 in the generation of the spirit and motives 
 which are necessary to these beneficent ac- 
 tivities, must often instruct, exhort and di- 
 rect ; but their business is with the spirits of 
 men. Man's soul, this is the neglected field, 
 left almost entirely to the minister's care. 
 
 The vital principle forbids the prescribing 
 of rules of action in this as in other aspects 
 of ministerial labour, but it certainly assists 
 him to a judicious distribution of his efforts. 
 It helps him to recognize his field as neither 
 man's soul nor man's body, but the whole of 
 man. The goal is the adequate cultivation 
 of this whole field so as to produce the best 
 and soundest man possible. To do this the 
 minister will need to make himself acquainted 
 with all human needs on his field of labour 
 and enter sympathetically into all human 
 striving for higher, happier and holier living. 
 Knowing his field thoroughly and seeking to 
 aid and inspire all endeavours for the welfare 
 of man he will put in his own ploughshare 
 where there is most neglect and most promise 
 of a rich and abundant harvest. The amount 
 of time and attention to be devoted to social 
 
192 A VITAL MINISTRY 
 
 questions must, therefore, be determined by 
 the conditions of his parish and community 
 and his own aptitudes ; but the minister can 
 never forget that the way to give men life is 
 to bring them to know God the Father and 
 Jesus Christ whom He has sent. 
 
 The effort has been made in the preceding 
 pages to show that the true ideal of the min- 
 istry is the vital one of producing godlike 
 men and women, and also to point out how 
 the conscious adoption of this ideal by the 
 minister would affect various aspects of his 
 work and relations. The number could be 
 extended, but it is believed that sufficient has 
 been said to show the fruitfulness of the 
 idea. Should all the ministers of the Christian 
 religion come to this ideal much of our 
 inefficiency, divisions and strifes would dis- 
 appear in the warmth of a great effort to 
 realize the holiness and happiness of the 
 kingdom of God on earth. The output of 
 Christian work is a regenerated humanity ; 
 all else in our churches is only contributory 
 to that supreme end. **I came that they 
 may have life, and may have it abundantly." 
 " As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I 
 you." 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 

 Date Due 
 
 
 V^ Z '4j 
 
 
 
 
 ,©SsG ^4 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (a i 5 
 
 L7 
 
 
 
 ♦'WrtlllWIWIlW*' 
 
 «)>#^i!>£^\^^o^-.- 
 
 
 
 Hfaoiliii 
 
 ►• 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 1