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 ^N ^DEQTJ^TE IMlIlSriSTRY, 
 
 SERMON 
 
 DELIVEKED BEFORE THE 
 
 AMERICAN EDUCATION SOCIETY 
 
 ANNIVERSARY MEETING IN BOSTON, 
 
 MAY 25, 1869. 
 
 BY REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 131 CONGRESS STREET. 
 
 18 6 9. 
 
A.N A.DE3QTJ-A.TB: IVtlNISTR Y, 
 
 SERMON 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 AMERICAN EDUCATION SOCIETY, 
 
 ANNIVERSARY MEETING IN BOSTON, 
 
 . MAY 25, 1869. 
 
 BY REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 131 CONGRESS STREET. 
 186 9. 
 
^ 
 
 ^3 
 
 n> 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Acts xvi. 1-3.— Then came he to Derbe and Lystra : and behold, a certain disciple was 
 there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess and believed, 
 but hie father was a Greek : which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra 
 and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him. 
 
 1 Tim. ii. 2.— And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the 
 same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. 
 
 The first of these passages gives us the fact that the Apostle 
 Paul, having become acquainted with a young man of piety and 
 promise, took him under his care and into his company, as an 
 assistant in evangehcal labors, and, if we may so express it, as a 
 theological student. It seems prqbable that the acquaintance com- 
 menced at the Apostle's first visit in those parts, and that Timothy 
 became a " disciple " as soon as the story of Jesus the Christ, was 
 made known to him. We know that, afterwards, the intimacy and 
 affection between those two persons became like the intimacy and 
 affection between a father and his son. In the two Epistles from 
 Paul to Timothy, which were written long afterward — one of them 
 apparently the last production of the Apostle's pen — allusion is 
 made to several of the particulars here mentioned. The young 
 man's Jewish mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois, are 
 spoken of as persons of eminent faith ; and though his father was 
 a Greek — probably a Pagan, and though, as following his father's 
 nationality, he had not been circumcised, and had probably received 
 a Greek education in respect to intellectual culture, the influence 
 of his mother over him was such that from a child he had 
 known the Holy Scriptures, and had thus been taught to fear and 
 worship the true God. At Paul's second visit to Lycaonia, this 
 young man " was well reported of by the brethren that were at 
 Lystra and Iconium," who had seen his deportment as a Christian, 
 and knew his qualifications for usefulness. Allusions in each of 
 
the two Epistles show that great expectations had been formed in 
 regard to him ; and that he was set apart to the duties of an evan- 
 gelist — as Paul himself had been set apart at Antioch to similar 
 duties — by a solemn form dedicating him to God's service, and 
 committing him to God's blessing. In one of those allusions, 
 [1 Tim. iv. 14,] the Apostle tells him, *' Neglect not the gift that is 
 in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of 
 the hands of the presbytery." In another, he says, "This charge 
 I commit to thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which 
 went before on thee, that thou by them, [encouraged and stimu- 
 lated by them,] mayest war a good warfare." As the Holy Spirit, 
 moving on the minds of the prophets and teachers who, in the 
 church at Antioch, ministered to the Lord and fasted, had said, 
 " Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have 
 called them ; " so the same Holy Spirit, moving on the minds of 
 the brethren at Lystra, had said, with sufficient distinctness to sat- 
 isfy the judgment of Paul, ^' Separate me Timothy for the work 
 whereunto I have called him." In this way it was that the young 
 man was invited and introduced to the ministry of the Gospel. 
 
 The second of the two passages which have been read as the 
 basis of this discourse, shows us that Paul, when the time of his 
 departure was at hand, deemed it necessary to enjoin on Timothy 
 the duty of bringing forward others, and introducing them to the 
 same ministry, in essentially the same way. " The things which 
 thou hast heard of me among many witnesses," — those facts and 
 doctrines in which I have been your teacher, and which are not a 
 secret system in the custody of a priesthood, but are the common 
 property of all believers, so that a host of witnesses can testify 
 what the things are which were committed to you — " the same 
 commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others 
 also." The duty thus enjoined on Timothy, rested not on him 
 alone in his day, but on all to whom the same ministry had been 
 committed, and on all Christians, according to their various oppor- 
 tunities of cooperating for that object. As the brethren at Lystra 
 and Iconium, many years before, had commended Timothy as a 
 fit person for the ministry, and had taken pains, not without some 
 sacrifice, to introduce him to the work, so it was the duty of the 
 brethren, in every church, to find out and bring forward all who 
 were divinely called to preach the Gospel. The same duty has 
 
rested on the ministry and the churches of each successive age, 
 and is now resting upon us. To us in our several stations, and 
 according to our several faculties and opportunities, it belongs in 
 common with others, and in concert with others, to use all neces- 
 sary measures for perpetuating in the churches, and for extending 
 through the world, a fit and faithful ministry of the Gospel. In 
 the interest of future ages, we are to see to it that the same things 
 which the Apostles committed to those whom they introduced into 
 the ministry of the Gospel, shall now and continually be committed 
 to a competent number of true and trustworthy men, who in their 
 turn shall be able to teach others also. 
 
 We can hardly fail to observe that the Apostle's words imply a 
 distinction between faithfulness and ability. It is not enough 
 that the men to whom this ministry is committed, be '* faithful 
 men;" they must be " able to teach others also." They must first 
 he faithful, or, more properly, worthy of confidence^ and then 
 they must be able or competent to the work of teaching, and 
 therefore of defending the faith once delivered to the saints, so 
 that others after them, through generations yet unborn, may keep 
 up that only apostolical succession. 
 
 Without attempting any extended illustration of the thought 
 represented by that phrase, "faithful men," I may say that of 
 course no man is worthy to be trusted with the ministry of the 
 Gospel unless, in humble and penitent faith, he has received that 
 Gospel into his own soul. How can any man be intrusted with 
 the Gospel if he gives no evidence of having experienced its 
 saving power ? Nay, such evidence on that point as might suffice 
 for his admission to communion in the church, is not sufficient for 
 his admission to participate in the ministry of the Gospel. The 
 only true idea of the man worthy to be thus intrusted, is the idea 
 of one who can be readily recognized as a man of God, a man of 
 prayer, a man diligent in the self-discipline of the Christian life, a 
 man growing in grace and in that knowledge of Christ which 
 comes from the experience of his power to save. Such are the 
 " faithful men," the men whose moral and spiritual qualities make 
 them fit to be trusted with this ministry. 
 
 Yet something more than this is necessary to a man in order 
 that he may be fitly placed in the true succession from the Apostles. 
 He must have, also, certain qualifications of a more intellectual 
 
sort, by which he may be " able to teach others." It is not a 
 ruling and mediating priesthood, but a teaching ministry, which 
 makes the apostolical succession. He who is to teach others, must 
 be *' apt to teach." What is that aptitude or fitness ? 
 
 First. In his capacity as a teacher — whether his work be that 
 of a bishop or pastor, or that of an evangelist or minister at large 
 — he must be able to command some measure of confidence and 
 respect. Otherwise, who will listen to his teaching ? Who will 
 be attentive to receive what he would communicate 1 Men may 
 attend occasionally, or temporarily, on the exhibitions of one whose 
 intellectual qualifications they do not respect or confide in — they 
 may attend to be amused, or they may attend under the force of 
 habit or of conscience, or they may attend because the public reli- 
 gious assembly is a good thing in society — but they will not attend 
 upon such an one to be taught by him. How important, then, is it 
 that the ministers of the Gospel in any community be men whom 
 that community shall be compelled to respect as men of competent 
 intelligence for the work of public instruction ! 
 
 Secondly. The man whom we can recognize as "able to teach 
 others," must not only have, in general, a character for intelligence 
 sufficient to command respect ; but, particularly in regard to the 
 things which he is to teach, he must have knowledge superior to 
 the knowledge of those who are expected to profit by his teaching. 
 A man may be quite competent to teach the simplest principles of 
 religion to a class of children, who is not at all competent to be 
 the stated teacher and guide of a Christian congregation. 
 
 Thirdly. The man must have such faculties of discourse and 
 utterance as will enable him to communicate the needful truth, 
 clearly, convincingly, and forcibly, to all the people, of whatever 
 class or condition, with whom he has to do. He must have not 
 only voice to reach the ear, but a power of arrangement and illus- 
 tration, and a command of words and images, by which he may 
 transfer his own thoughts, distinctly and vividly conceived, into 
 the minds of those whom he attempts to teach. 
 
 Now how are such qualifications to be obtained ? No man is 
 furnished with these qualifications by birth, by inspiration, or by 
 accident. The Apostles, indeed, were prepared and equipped for 
 their work miraculously, as well as by the three-years' personal 
 teaching of their Master. But in these days, the men who are to 
 
be intrusted with the Gospel as being not only "faithful," but 
 ** able to teach others also," must be men in whom the requisite 
 *' ability " has been formed by education, developing and cultiva- 
 ting those natural talents which grace has sanctified. 
 
 The duty, then, which was incumbent on Timothy, is, in the 
 nature of the case, incumbent on us. It is incumbent not on min- 
 isters only but on all Christian men, according to their means and 
 opportunities, to take care that a competent number of men, suita- 
 bly endowed by nature and sanctified by grace, are educated for the 
 work of the ministry in the churches, and for the propagation of 
 the Gospel through the world. 
 
 In all that I have now said, brethren and friends, I am sure 
 that your Christian judgment is with me. Let me ask for your 
 kind attention to some considerations bearing on our particular 
 duty — yours and mine — as American Christians, in this year 1869, 
 to provide a well educated ministry both for the generation that 
 will soon have crowded us out of our places, and for generations 
 not yet born. 
 
 I. I ask you to consider what demand there is for an increased 
 number of such ministers — especially in connection with the 
 growth and the distinctive work of the American Congregational 
 churches. The question here is not whether the actual demand to- 
 day for ministers to become pastors in vacant churches can be met 
 to-day, — but it is whether the existing arrangements and the spirit 
 now prevalent in our churches are such as to warrant anything like 
 a reasonable expectation that in the year 1880, (when the boy now 
 twelve years old will be old enough to be a preacher,) or in the 
 year 1900, (which many of those who now hear me hope to see,) 
 the young men who will then be wanted and called for to go and 
 teach not this nation only but all nations, preaching the Gospel to 
 every creature, will have been fitly educated for that work. 
 
 If we would know what demand God is making upon us in this 
 respect, we must forecast the future. The ministers wanted to-day, 
 cannot be had to-day, if they have not been educated beforehand. 
 The ministers who were wanted at the day of Pentecost, were 
 forthcoming only because they had already been learning three 
 years in Christ's own theological seminary. No safe conclusion, 
 as to the demand for young men of the right sort to be put in 
 
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 training for the work, can be deduced from the number of super- 
 annuated or otherwise disabled ministers — nor from the number of 
 those who find employment as teachers, or in connection with the 
 religious press, or in the service of beneficent institutions — nor 
 from the number of those whom some necessity, obvious perhaps 
 in each particular instance, has turned aside to other occupations. 
 Far more pertinent is it to ask what becomes of the young men 
 educated for the ministry as they go forth in their successive classes 
 year by year ? Are there more of them than are actually called 
 for and employed as fast as they are ready to begin ? Ask the 
 Executive Committee of the Home Missionary Society whether 
 the young men whom we are educating for the ministry are numer- 
 ous enough, and whether they would be able to employ and to 
 sustain more missionaries if they could find them. They will tell 
 you that, as they survey the wide field of American home mis- 
 sions, the want which oppresses them is the want of men to preach 
 the Gospel — men whom they may send westward beyond the Mis- 
 sissippi, beyond the Missouri, into the great central territories 
 which are so soon to be imperial States — men whom they may send 
 beyond the grand sierras that divide the waters of the continent, and 
 into the golden States of the Pacific. Their call is for men to fill the 
 vast wilderness with the cry, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" — 
 men to organize Christian institutions and influences all along the 
 line of the railway which, within the last few days, has begun to 
 bear along its track to this emporium, from our remotest west, the 
 teas and spices and all the richest fabrics of what was once to us 
 the remotest east — men whose work for Christ, in such a field and 
 at such a crisis, shall tell on all the future of the human race. 
 Some men we have sent forth, and are sending year by year — true 
 men, worthy to be numbered with " the heroes of faith " — men 
 whose work is dotting the vast area with luminous points ; but oh 
 how few are they ! And where are the many who ought to go, 
 and whom we would send if we could find them ? Where are we 
 to look for the men who ought to be sent into that field ten years 
 hence, and twenty years hence ? 
 
 With this question, turn your thoughts in another direction. 
 Think of the free and reconstructed South, and of what must be 
 done there in Christian zeal and love. Ask the directing minds of 
 the American Missionary Association, now laboring for the eman- 
 
9 
 
 cipated blacks, what the result is which they hope to realize, and 
 by what sort of agency they expect that result to be obtained. 
 They will tell you that their schools for the freedmen are not the 
 end but the beginning, and are to be regarded as subsidiary and 
 introductory to a higher work. The work of civilizing those chil- 
 dren of barbarism, and of raising them to the level of a self-gov- 
 erning freedom, will never be complete, so long as their religious 
 guides are illiterate and untrained men. Not till they and their 
 neighbors of the race that once oppressed them shall have been 
 brought alike under the civilizing as well as the emancipating 
 power of organized Christianity — -not till the Gospel shall be min- 
 istered there, to all alike, by " faithful men who shall be able to 
 teach others also " — -will the new social order which has been 
 made possible by God's destroying judgments, be made actual and 
 complete. Already the field is beginning to whiten for the harvest. 
 Already peace has been established there under reconstructed 
 governments; and those who were slowest of heart to believe, 
 are beginning to understand that the new era of liberty will be an 
 era of new prosperity. Reviving industry will bring relief, and 
 something like oblivion of old hates and conflicts. The regions 
 which war has devastated are already smiling in the tranquillity 
 of better days — the cities swept by conflagration are rising from 
 their ashes in renovated beauty — broad acres once trodden into 
 barrenness by the feet of slaves are regaining their fertility — the 
 homes of thrifty freemen will soon take the place of slave-huts, and 
 will be clustered into villages around the school-house and the 
 Christian temple — and the traveler on railways and rivers bearing 
 the freight of a growing commerce, shall see the church spire here 
 and there, contrasting its whiteness with the dark evergreen of the 
 live-oak, or pointing with silent finger to the sky from amid the 
 magnolias or the palm trees. In the new world which is there 
 rising out of conflict and chaos, what work is there for men who 
 shall go thither in the spirit of Christ and with his Gospel — men 
 competently taught and trained for the ministry of that Gospel by 
 which he who sits upon the throne is making all things new. 
 What adequate provision are we making for the supply of that 
 demand ? The demand is already urgent ; and soon it will be ten- 
 fold greater than now. 
 
 Take a still broader view. Our churches are doing something 
 
10 
 
 in the field of foreign missions ; but here too, as in the home field, 
 the great want is the want of men. The conductors of the work 
 are confident that if the churches will only produce men of the 
 right sort, completely trained for the work of carrying the Gospel 
 to all nations, and of translating the Scriptures and the rudiments 
 of a Christian literature into all languages, they will surely give 
 the means also. Think, then, how much must be done, in the re- 
 maining years of this nineteenth century, for the diffusion of the 
 Gospel through the world. I am old enough to remember all the 
 great changes since Fulton's first steamboat slowly ascended the 
 Hudson, and you know that 
 
 — " Old experience doth attain 
 To something like prophetic strain " : — 
 
 let me then, as an old man, tell you that the thirty-one years which 
 remain before the beginning of the twentieth century, are to be 
 grander in their record than all the years that we old men have 
 seen. Think what changes are impending. What is it that we 
 see to-day ? China throws every avenue wide open for the Gospel 
 to enter ; and, placing an American citizen at the head of her 
 embassy, she asks admission into the great commonwealth of 
 Christian nations. The Sultan at Constantinople acknowledges 
 before his subjects that Mohammedan civilization is a failure, tells 
 them of their inferiority among the nations, and urges them to 
 learn what Christendom can teach them. European ideas, follow- 
 ing in the track of British conquest, and propagated not only by 
 missionary zeal but by all the agencies of commerce and of gov- 
 ernment, are revolutionizing India. The vast interior of Africa, 
 teeming with human life, has at last been penetrated, and its mys- 
 teries are unveiled. Great nations kindred to our own, and soon 
 to claim their place among imperial powers, are growing up be- 
 neath the constellations of the southern hemisphere. Commerce, 
 with its steamers on all navigable waters, with its railways stretch- 
 ing into every land, with the electric telegraph flashing intelligence 
 across the continents and beneath the oceans, has annihilated former 
 distances, and is breaking down all old barriers to intercourse and 
 mutual influence among nations. The greatest revolution since the 
 age of Luther is in rapid progress thfoughout Europe. Only a 
 few months ago, a six weeks' war made Germany a Protestant 
 
11 
 
 empire, and changed despotic Austria into a leading power in the 
 march of political reformation ; and still more recently what do 
 we see in Spain ! A crisis unparalleled in history is impending 
 over the whole world, and the years that remain of this nineteenth 
 century will be filled with it. Do I exaggerate the facts ? Do I 
 misinterpret the signs of the time ? I speak the words of truth 
 and soberness. 
 
 If then we are living to-day on the verge of these great world- 
 changes, have we not some responsibility in regard to them ? 
 What ought the ministers of Christ, and the churches, to be doing 
 at such a time as this ? Especially, what ought they to be doing 
 now, in order that the ministry of the Gospel in the great era now 
 opening, may be committed to a competent number of men not 
 only faithful but able ? In view of the openings into China, and 
 of the changes which are already unfolding there, our Board of 
 Commissioners for Foreign Missions have distinctly called on the 
 churches of their constituency for a thousand missionaries, to be 
 sent into that empire within the next ten years. Where are the 
 men to answer that demand ? I will not ask where are the thou- 
 sand, nor where are half of them. If only a hundred mission- 
 aries are to be sent into that empire of four hundred millions of 
 souls within the next five years, where are they ? Those who are 
 going in 1873 or earlier, ought to be now far advanced in their 
 education for the ministry. Where are they ? What are we 
 doing to bring them forward ? Surely, if the churches are to do 
 their part in preparing and shaping the new world of the twentieth, 
 century, there must be a great waking up to the duty of finding, 
 out where the young men are whom God is calling to the ministry,, 
 and of bringing them forward through such a course of training 
 as will qualify them for their work in these swiftly coming years. 
 of change, of conflict, of opportunity^ and of decision. 
 
 II. Let not your patience fail, if I now ask you to consider, for 
 a few moments, what reasons there are in our country, and in thi& 
 age, for endeavors to establish and keep up a system of thorough 
 preparation for the ministry. And if I speak especially of intel-^ 
 lectual preparation, let me not be understood as implying that any 
 possible intellectual preparation — any riches of knowledge and 
 learning—any drill and discipline in logic-— any accomplishments 
 
12 
 
 in the arts of discourse and utterance — anything that the world 
 recognizes as scholarship or culture — can qualify a man of what- 
 ever genius for the ministry of the Gospel^ without that higher 
 and nobler culture which begins in the fear of God, which believes 
 in Christ and learns of him, which consecrates the soul with all its 
 powers and attainments to the service of Christ, and by which the 
 man, renewed within and ever becoming more like Christ, is made 
 ready alike for labor and for sacrifice. Far from us be the thought 
 of a merely intellectual preparation for the ministry. Far better 
 is the most ignorant preacher that can spell out a text from the 
 Bible, if he has had a spiritual training like that of John Bunyan 
 the tinker, than the most learned theologian who undertakes to 
 preach the Gospel without any experience of its renewing power. 
 God grant that we may have *' faithful " ministers even of inferior 
 *' ability," rather than "able" ministers who are not truly and 
 spiritually "faithful," But without forgetting this, let us remem- 
 ber what need there is of a well trained ministry for these times. 
 Let me ask then, is there not danger that the importance of 
 thorough preparation for the ministry will be overlooked in our 
 churches ? We are not tied up by authoritative rules, forbidding 
 us to ordain a minister, or to recognize and employ a preacher, 
 whatever evidence there may be of his having been divinely called, 
 unless he has pursued a certain prescribed course of study. There 
 is always among us a ready recognition, and admission to our 
 pulpits, of any man whom God has evidently called to the min- 
 istry and qualified for it — without inquiring whether the candidate 
 has « spent four years in college studies and three years in a theo- 
 logical seminary. Yet we have a system of preparation for the 
 ministry — one which our fathers instituted at the beginning of our 
 history, and which has been enlarged and modified to keep pace 
 with the progress of the ages ; and under that system the ministry 
 of our churches is not inferior, as a whole, to any equal body of 
 ministers, here or elsewhere, either in general culture or in the 
 knowledge specially pertaining to their work. Heretofore, while 
 we have maintained the system, and have been improving it, ex- 
 ceptional cases have been recognized and dealt with as exceptions. 
 But is there not, of late, a tendency to undervalue the system — to 
 let down the standard — to insist on having some shorter course of 
 preparation which shall give us a more abundant supply of cheap 
 
13 
 
 ministers supposed to be good enough for pioneer work and for 
 inferior parishes ? Therefore it is that I ask you to consider for a 
 moment, what reasons there are, in our country, and in our times, 
 for keeping up and enlarging our system of thorough preparation 
 for the highest and holiest work ever committed to human hands. 
 
 The times through which we are passing in this country — and 
 through which all Christendom is passing — are distinguished by a 
 great intellectual conflict. Evangelical Christianity is called to 
 contend with powerful enemies for its legitimate dominion over 
 human souls. It must maintain itself against the superstitious tra- 
 ditions of Romanism on the one hand, and the atheistic tendencies 
 of modern philosophy on the other hand. At such a time as this 
 — in a country and in an age of the sharpest intellectual conflict — 
 are not the churches and their pastors and other ministers sum- 
 moned to make every possible provision and arrangement for the 
 education of a ministry thoroughly equipped for a spiritual war 
 whether with the specious learning and ensnaring sophistries of 
 Romanism or with the fatalistic, demoralizing, godless tendencies 
 of Naturalism. Within the next thirty years, all the traditions 
 which have come down to us from the Reformers in the sixteenth 
 century — the forms and definitions of the doctrines which the 
 Scriptures teach — nay, the authority of the Scriptures themselves, 
 and the manner in which we are to receive and use those holy doc- 
 uments of the Christian faith, must be reconsidered and our con- 
 ceptions must be clarified and readjusted ; or the truth which the 
 Gospel reveals to sinful souls will be obscured, and men will perish 
 for want of it. 
 
 Nor is this conflict going on merely in universities, and at such 
 like centres of thought and learned discussion. The conflict is 
 popularized — it is everywhere. We are carrying on our grand 
 home missionary work in the very presence of this conflict. 
 Think, then, how grand a work that is. We are organizing 
 Christian institutions in broad regions that were yesterday a wil- 
 derness — on the Pacific coast — along the railways that are laying 
 their track across the continent — ^in the valleys and gorges of the 
 Rocky Mountains, and everywhere the same conflict meets us. 
 Go where we will to preach the Gospel, the Jesuit is there with his 
 beguiling sophisms, and the unbelieving Naturalist is there with 
 his denial — outspoken, perhaps — perhaps only suggested — of a 
 
14 
 
 personal and holy God. Wherever our periodical literature goes 
 — and it goes everywhere — wherever our daily or weekly news- 
 papers go — the minister of the Gospel finds himself under a 
 necessity of maintaining, by intelligent and manly argument, the 
 facts of the Gospel against speculative unbelief, and the simplic" 
 ity and freedom of the Gospel against superstition and spiritual 
 despotism. 
 
 At the same time we are pursuing, and must continue to 
 pursue, a proportionate work of foreign missions. If we would 
 save our own country — if the American churches are to be vigor- 
 ous and thriving in their home activities — these enterprises for the 
 propagation of Christian influences and Christian institutions 
 through the world, must be not only sustained but enlarged. What 
 sort of men, then, must we send forth into all the lands outside of 
 Christendom, in the prosecution of that work ? Ask, rather, what 
 sort of men we have already sent. What have they done ? 
 Largely their work has been a work of scholarship, though of 
 scholarship subordinate and incidental to their higher aim. Think 
 of their contributions to the science of comparative philology, not 
 in rude vocabularies, but in philosophical grammars and lexicons, 
 otten of languages never before reduced to any written form. 
 Think of their translations of the Scriptures from the original 
 Hebrew and Greek, into languages which, by strenuous effort, 
 they had made familiarly their own. Think of the many other 
 books, translated or original, which they have given to those lan- 
 guages — of the schools they have founded — of the pupils they 
 have trained. Think of what they have done, and are now 
 doing in China. Think of such a work as that of the venerable 
 Goodell and his surviving associate, Kiggs, — doing for the Armenian, 
 language, and the Armeno-Turkish, what Luther did three hun- 
 dred years ago for the German, and Tyndale for our own English 
 tongue. Think of the work commenced and continued through 
 many laborious years, by Eli Smith, and recently completed by his 
 successor Van Dyck — the translation of the Bible into the sacred 
 language of Mohammedanism, spoken to-day as a living language 
 by sixty millions of people — a translation so exquisite in the classi-- 
 cal purity and finish of its style, that it charms the fastidiousness of 
 Arab criticism, and challenges comparison with the Koran itself. 
 All the scholarship of the nineteenth century can boast of no greater 
 
15 
 
 achievement than this, which I refer to not simply as showing 
 what oar foreign missionaries have done, but rather as showing 
 what sort of men are needed for this work of preaching the Gospel 
 to every creature. The work is going forward with wonderful 
 development of opportunities and of resources ; and, as it pro- 
 ceeds, the men sent forth from our country must be, even more 
 than heretofore, men of trained and cultivated power ; they must 
 be qualified for leadership in great movements ; they must be 
 directors, organizers, founders of institutions, teachers in the higher 
 departments of instruction, translators and authors of Christian 
 books, and must employ, more and more, the agency of native 
 evangelists and pastors. It is easy to see that, in the coming 
 years, the demand in behalf of the now unevangelized world will 
 be not for uneducated men, or men half-educated, but rather for 
 men whose native powers, sanctified by grace, have been trained 
 by thorough education. 
 
 The question, then, comes home to us — let me say, brethren and 
 friends of this congregation, the question comes home to you, — 
 Are we not called, at this time, to make new and larger arrange- 
 ments for the education of a ministry that shall be " able " as well 
 as " faithful." 
 
 Some may be framing in their minds the answer, " What need 
 is there of calling on us for aid ? — what need is there of special 
 arrangements and endowments for bringing forward a supply of 
 educated ministers? — why will not the demand create the supply ? " 
 I will tell you why. 
 
 The work of preaching the Gospel, whether as a missionary or 
 as a pastor, is not a remunerative employment. We cannot safely 
 apply the maxims of the market, or of political economy, to a 
 problem like this. No young man devotes himself to the ministry 
 in the expectation that the money which his education will cost, 
 and the time and labor which he must expend in it, will be profi- 
 tably invested — profitably to himself in the commercial meaning 
 of the word. Not only would he be disappointed if he should 
 act on such an expectation, but who would want him for a minister 
 if the expectation of making money by the ministry were among 
 his motives ? No ; the problem of providing a faithful and able 
 ministry of the Gospel for our country and for the world, is a 
 problem on which the commercial doctrine of a fixed relation 
 
16 
 
 between demand and supply in the market, can shed no light ; for 
 the demand in this case addresses itself to motives and sentiments 
 altogether different from those on which the whole science of 
 wealth and trade, with all its certainties, is built. The call which 
 addresses itself to young men, is not, " Behold these opening ave- 
 nues to wealth, to ease, to the world's honors." It is the voice of 
 God, sounding in his sanctuary, *' AVhom shall I send, and who 
 will go for us ?" It is the voice of Christ, saying, as he said of 
 old, to the sons of Andrew, and to the sons of Zebedee, and to 
 Matthew " at the receipt of custom," " Follow me — forsake all 
 and follow me — go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to 
 every creature, and lo ! I am with you always." It is the voice 
 of faith, " Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be 
 fed." The demand on the churches is, " Find out the young men 
 whom the Lord hath need of — whom the Holy Ghost is quicken- 
 ing and calling — make it possible for them to do the great work 
 to which God calls them — encourage their diffidence — take them 
 by the hand, and put them forward after a godly sort." 
 
 The truth is that the ministry of the Gospel always has been, 
 and in the nature of the case, always must be recruited largely 
 from the families of what are called the humbler classes in society. 
 Provision must be made for their support in part, through the 
 whole course of their preparation for a work which will never 
 repay them, save in spiritual blessings, for the cost and toil of 
 preparation. The question, then, is, first of all, Will the living 
 Christianity of our country do this ? Will those men in our 
 churches, to whom God has given large means and large hearts, 
 lay the necessary foundations for educating thoroughly the pastors 
 and the missionaries demanded by the exigencies of our age, and 
 by the prospective need of Christ's great work ? Will they pro- 
 vide that the young men whom God calls, and who answer to his 
 call, shall have not only theological instruction, but shelter and 
 home, and daily food if they cannot procure it for themselves, 
 while making preparation for a work so unattractive save to heroic 
 souls kindling with love to Christ, and with the spirit of self- 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 Next, the question is, Will the churches, guided by their pas- 
 tors, find out the young men whom God is calling, and put them 
 on the way to the ministry ? Many a young man there is who 
 
17 
 
 might be greatly useful in the work of the Gospel, at home or 
 abroad, but who knows not that the Lord hath need of him. His 
 modesty, perhaps, and too diffident estimate of what is in him — 
 perhaps his lack of opportunity — perhaps his poverty and the 
 lowliness of his condition — have kept him from knowing his own 
 capabilities. But ought not his pastor to know him ? Ought not 
 some brother in the church to know him ? Might not that pastor 
 or that Christian brother be the organ of a Divine call to him ? 
 Ought not the church to take him by the hand and say, ''Leave 
 the farm — the workshop — the counting-house — leave whatever 
 may seem to be your secular calling, and begin to prepare yourself 
 for the ministry of Christ." Ought not the churc h to tell him, 
 '^ We will help you to bear your burthen ; we will help you if 
 you need help, at school and at college ; if you are willing to 
 struggle for yourself, we will see that you are neither hungry nor 
 cold, nor yet ragged." The question is, Will the churches, guided 
 by their pastors, do this — or anything like it ? Are they doing it ? 
 
 There is another form of the question. Will Christian parents 
 in our churches consecrate their sons to Christ, in the prayer and 
 hope that God will make them ministers of his word ? The sec- 
 ular activities of our country are such — there are so many paths 
 leading to wealth, to social position, and to enviable distinction of 
 one kind and another — that many a parent — yes, many a parent of 
 whom better things might be expected — shrinks from the thought 
 of giving up his son to the humble and seemingly ill-requited 
 work of ministering in the Gospel of Christ. It is not the rich 
 only whose minds are infected with such a feeling. Even a poor 
 man may say to himself, '' This bright boy of mine, if I can help 
 him to a good education, may be distinguished at the bar ; his 
 income may be not thousands of dollars but tens of thousands ; 
 the highest judicial or political offices may be within his reach. If 
 I put him in the way of becoming a merchant or business man, I 
 may live to see him a great capitalist, one of the merchant princes, 
 doing good on the widest scale by his munificence. But if he 
 becomes a minister of the Gospel, the chances are a thousand to 
 one that there will be for him only a ' shady-side ' experience. 
 I must dissuade him from such a course. Let my son be a rich 
 man, and let somebody else's son endure hardness in the ministry 
 
18 
 
 of the Gospel." Am I wrong in suggesting that this is the way in 
 which too many parents, professedly Christian, think and feel 
 about their children ? Surely there are few ministers of Christ in 
 this assembly, whose tenderest memories do not prompt them to 
 respond, " It was not so with my father," — or, at least, " It was 
 not so with my mother." Surely, there are few who will not 
 testify, ^* There were prayers over my cradle — lessons of duty and 
 of aspiration were breathed into my mind in early childhood — by 
 which I was consecrated to this ministry." Now the question 'is. 
 Will Christian parents in our churches, to-day and henceforward, 
 do as those parents did ? Have you who are the father of a hopeful 
 son, consecrated that son to Christ for the ministry of his Gospel ? 
 Has it been your prayer — dare you pray that God will take him 
 and use him in a work which offers so little of wealth or of worldly 
 honor ? Does he know that you are praying and hoping to see 
 him ^' stand up for Jesus " in the pulpit ? Have you ever told 
 him that, if it is in his heart to obtain such an -^^ducation as will 
 qualify him with the needful ability for the ministry, you are ready 
 to relinquish your worldly aspirations, and to help him forward by 
 every sacrifice in your power ? You who are a mother, is it your 
 daily prayer for your darling boy, that God may call him to be a 
 minister of the Gospel ? Fathers and mothers ! the great majority 
 of those who are now serving the churches, whether as pastors or 
 as evangelists, at home or abroad, are in that work because their 
 parents gave them to it in faith and pr-^yer, and let me say in their 
 name, *' If the spirit which consecrated us to this ministry when 
 we were children, is dying out, then the work which these churches 
 are required to do for our country and for the world, will not be 
 done." 
 
 The question presents itself in yet another form. Can the 
 young men be found who will give themselves to the work ? In 
 this form the question comes to all young men of competent gifts, 
 whose hearts God has quickened by his grace, and who are asking, 
 in reference to the future of their lives, '* Lord, what wilt thou 
 have me to do ?" But especially does it come to young men who 
 are already privileged with opportunities and means of culture, 
 and are looking forward to a life of intellectual activity. Perhaps 
 I speak in the hearing of some such. Let me say to them. You 
 
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 19 
 
 must not dismiss this subject from your thoughts without consider- 
 ing the distinct and loud appeal which it makes to you. If we 
 call on the churches to give their best young men to the high but 
 self-denying employment of preaching the Gospel in all lands, and 
 to provide the endowments and foundations on which young men 
 may be fitly trained for that employment, how much more may we, 
 in God's name, call on you to give yourselves ? Where shall we 
 find the young men upon whom Paul, if he were here, would lay 
 his consecrating hand, as he laid it upon Timothy ? Where shall 
 we, who have borne the heat and burthen of our day, find men to 
 take our places in the grand succession from Christ's Apostles ? 
 
 Some young men, with gifts that might be useful in this minis- 
 try, are looking for the avenues to wealth — some for the avenues 
 to secular distinction or to fame. I say to them, and to all. Friends, 
 there is for you, if you will hear God's call, an avenue to some- 
 thing better — better than wealth — better than all the honors which 
 this world can offer. Would you not rather be Paul than Felix, 
 or Festus, or Nero ? Would you not rather be Timothy than the 
 most fortunate and successful of the Epicureans or Stoics to whom 
 Paul seemed only a babbler ? Would you not rather be the 
 humble and faithful village pastor, than the successful village 
 lawyer ? Would you not rather be found among them who have 
 turned many to righteousness, and who shall shine as the bright- 
 ness of the firmament forever, than among them whom the world 
 calls happy ? 
 
 Here, then, is the conclusion which I would leave distinctly 
 impressed on every mind. There is a view in which those words 
 of " Paul the aged " to his " son Timothy " are his words — and 
 God's — to us ministers of the Gospel and hearers of the Gospel at 
 this time. From the cell in which the Apostle was waiting for the 
 executioner, his voice comes sounding through the centuries to us 
 — nay rather from the throne of Him to whom all power is given 
 in heaven and in earth, a more commanding voice comes down to 
 us, '* The things which ye have heard of me — the same commit 
 ye to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." 
 
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