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THE NEW MOVEMENT IN HUMANITY. From Lib
erty to Union. An Oration delivered before the Phi
Beta Kappa Fraternity of Harvard University, June
30, 1892. i6mo, paper, 25 cents.
THE MAKING AND THE UNMAKING OF THE
PREACHER. Lectures delivered in March, 1898, on
the Lyman Beecher Foundation, before the Divinity
Students in Yale University. i6mo, $1,50.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.

THE MAKING AND THE
UNMAKING OF THE
PREACHER Lectures
ON THE LYMAN BEECHER FOUNDATION
YALE UNIVERSITY, 1898
BY
WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER
PRESIDENT OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
<Wbt iRtoenSibe J9re#*, Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TO
THE YOUNG MEN
WHO HEARD THESE LECTURES

CONTENTS
LECTURE PAGE
I. Preaching, under Modern Conditions . i
II. The Making of the Preacher by Edu
cation  31
III. The Unmaking Process . . . .61
IV. The Preacher and his Art ... go
V. What the Preacher owes to the
Truth  116
VI. What the Preacher owes to Men . 145
VII. The Pulpit and the Church . , • 169
VIII. The Optimism of Christianity . . 198

THE
MAKING AND THE UNMAKING
OF THE PREACHER

PREACHING, UNDER MODERN CONDITIONS
Each new incumbent of this Lecture
ship can but feel the increasing stringency
of the situation. Twenty-five courses of
Lectures on Preaching have now been de
livered on the Lyman Beecher foundation.
Doubtless one who ventures upon another
course may count upon the good will of
his predecessors, but he quickly learns that
they have done nothing to lighten his task,
but rather everything in their power to
make it difficult. The one source of in
spiration and courage to each Lecturer, in
his turn, is the presence and cooperation
of men, who, in their turn, have come to

2 PREACHING
feel, in the separateness of their own first
experiences, something of the responsibil
ity and joy of preaching. I thank you,
therefore, for your assuring welcome.
Allow me an opening word in regard to
the significance of a subject in such a
course of lectures as that now before us.
A subject, to borrow the homely analogy
of our Lord, seems to me to be like " the
leaven which a woman took and cast into
three measures of meal till the whole was
leavened." It is the idea, the personal
idea, which one casts into the common
stock of opinions and experiences and be
liefs, and it is to be measured altogether by
its quickening and pervasive force. It is
not good as a subject beyond its power to
leaven. I am proposing to speak to you about
The Making and the Unmaking of the
Preacher. That is my subject. Outside
its reach I have nothing to say about
preaching. My subject places us in the
discussion, as you see, under the limita
tions of the personality of the preacher.
We are also to remember that it gives us
the freedom of his personality.

MODERN CONDITIONS 3
How shall we really put ourselves within
so great a matter as that of preaching?
Where is the point of reality ? I know of
no place where one may so certainly expect
to find it as in the consciousness of the
preacher. Around him and above him
stretch the vast ranges of truth. They all
contribute something to his message. Be
fore him is the common humanity. No
thing which belongs to that can be alien to
him. But neither truth nor man has any
thing to do with preaching until each has
found the rightful place in the conscious
ness of the preacher.
Here, then, you have the method as well
as the reason of my subject. I am intent
upon finding out and taking the measure
of those forces which are steadily at work
toward the making or the unmaking of the
preacher, because they are actually deter
mining at any given time the value of
preaching. Some men are preaching bet
ter at forty or at sixty than when they
began ; others are not preaching as well.
The unmaking process is going on side by
side with the making process. Some of
the forces which are acting in either direc-

4 PREACHING
tion are altogether personal ; others are
too general to be of much account. We
say that there are preaching ages, ages
which furnish at once the message and
the listening ear. We say that there are
ages which are lacking in stimulus and in
response. I think that we make far too
much of these contrasts. I believe that
it is one part of our business to reduce
these variations to a minimum. If there
is anything which should move on from
generation to generation in the consist
ency of power, though it should be as
flexible and elastic as the spirit of man,
it is the Christian pulpit.
I do not propose to enter into any defi
nitions of preaching. These have their
legitimate place in the class room. But
having chosen a subject which lays the
stress so largely upon personality, I can
not afford to pass by the question — Who,
under present conditions, is the Preacher ?
I address myself to the answer of this
question in the opening lecture.
There are a great many ways in which
we can discriminate the preacher from
other men of like general aims or meth-

MODERN CONDITIONS 5
ods. We can say that he is like this man
in the use of method, though unlike him
at every other point; or that he is like
that man in the object which he seeks to
accomplish, though unlike him in other re
spects. Let us make no account of these
likenesses or contrasts, but rather try to
find what is necessary to enable one to
meet the present conditions of preaching.
Whether the preacher has much or little
in common with men of like callings is
for our purpose a matter of indifference.
How shall we name the preacher of to-day
by his actual work ?
It may not be saying the greatest thing,
but it is saying something very much to
the purpose, as I conceive, when I insist
that the preacher of to-day is the man who
is able to enlist other men in his work of
persuasion. He is the man, that is, who is
able to make his audience preach with him
and for him. Jesus alone with the woman
at Jacob's well was the preacher. Paul and
Silas were preachers in the jail at Philippi.
But they were not preaching under modern
conditions. An essential, one is tempted
to say, a supreme condition of modern

6 PREACHING
preaching, is an audience. Modern preach
ing is so far conditioned upon an audience
that the argument for the pulpit above the
press, as an agent for the effective commu
nication of truth, rests very largely upon
this condition as a premise. Why should
a man go to church when he can stay at
home and read a sermon ? Put aside the
necessity for worship, and what answer can
you make ? It is hardly safe to risk the
argument upon the assumed advantage of
the spoken above the written word. That
advantage depends upon the effect of the
spoken word, not simply upon one's self as
an individual, but also upon the whole body
of which he is a part. It is indeed quite
conceivable that the spoken word may find
a lodgment in the heart of one hearer,
when all others are untouched. The writ
ten word usually has a better fortune. But
the highest efficiency of the spoken word
may be far above that of the written word.
The power of preaching, I insist, that
which is natural and legitimate to it, is
the power to reach the one through the
many. It is the power to bring the con
senting reason and the awakened con-

MODERN CONDITIONS 7
science and the kindled emotion of the
whole to bear upon every part. You can
easily test this principle. You find your
self in an inattentive congregation, or, if it is
formally attentive, unawakened and unkin-
dled. The state of that congregation is a
hindrance to your reception of the truth.
You expend a good part of your power of
reception in resistance to the general indif
ference. You find yourself in another con
gregation. The mood is eager and expec
tant. The congregation knows the preacher
and is ready for him. Before he has uttered
a word you are in a measure committed to
him through those who have learned to feel
his power.
Every person who attends church may
be made to answer a twofold purpose. To
the degree to which he is receptive he
thereby becomes influential. He is a com
municating force. In fact he may actually
communicate more good than he receives.
I doubt not that in every congregation
there are those whose chief virtue lies in
the fact that through their quick sensibili
ties they are distributing agents of the
truth.

8 PREACHING
It is this possibility of using men as his
allies in the interest of righteousness which
constitutes one of the chief attractions of
the pulpit to men of what is known as pop
ular power. There is a true philosophy in
the vulgar, commercial test of a preacher,
— " Can he draw ? " Drawing men means
that the preacher is utilizing them. They
may not be conscious of it. Some of them,
if they knew it, might deny the fact. Still
the fact remains. It is the reason for their
presence. If you ask me in what this power of the
preacher to utilize an audience consists, or
why it is that one man can make an audi
ence preach with him more than another,
I do not intend to be beguiled into any
detailed answer. The personal gift which
is usually offered in explanation of per
sonal power is always insufficient and
often misleading. But I will give one an
swer, without prejudice to what I may
wish to say hereafter, which seems to me
to be most inclusive. The power of a
preacher to reach the individual through
the audience is usually in proportion to
the depth and breadth of his humanity.

MODERN CONDITIONS 9
The great preachers have various personal
characteristics. Some have humor, and
therefore pathos, and others have neither.
Some are men of presence, others are not.
Some speak, others read. Some are think
ers, others speak to the limit of the last
thought. But, without an exception, all
within my knowledge who stand the test
of compelling others to join with them in
their work of persuasion are men of tre
mendous humanity.
What do we mean by humanity when
we apply it as a quality to the individual ?
Certainly it is something very different, as a
qualifying term, from the adjectives which
come out of the same root. To say that a
man is human is to suggest some weakness
or fault, on which we look with leniency, if
not with tenderness. We like to draw our
great men a little nearer to us on the com
mon ground of shortcomings and imperfec
tions. It was not on the whole an unplea
sant discovery when the American people
found out that Washington had a vigorous
vocabulary. And when we go a step further
and say that a man is humane, we simply
apply to him a term of advanced civiliza-

io PREACHING
tion. We mean that he has the great qual
ities of justice, tolerance, and charity. But
when we speak of the humanity of an indi
vidual, we refer, I think, to the amount of
human nature which is to be found in him.
It is a word of amplitude, a term of inclu-
siveness, standing over against everything
which is narrow or hard or thin, as well as
against mere artificiality and conventional
ism. We naturally turn for our chief ex
ample to that great impersonality, Shake
speare, who, however elusive he may have
been in himself, held in his imagination
every type of human nature, and whose
creations are therefore as secure in the life
of the world as are the men of its own his
tory. Or we turn to our own Lincoln,
whose personality when measured at this
point seemed almost as great as that of the
nation. I doubt if the national conscience
ever carried a heavier burden of justice
than that which weighted his soul. Recall
Emerson's word about him, spoken at Con
cord on the day of his burial, — " He is the
true history of the American people in his
time. Step by step he walked before them,
slow with their slowness, quickening his

MODERN CONDITIONS n
march by theirs, the true representative of
this continent, an entirely public man,
father of his country, the pulse of twenty
millions throbbing in his heart, the thought
of their minds articulate in his tongue."
Humanity then, according to our under
standing of it, is something quite beyond
any of the terms which are identified with
it. It is in every way to the advantage of
the pulpit that ministers are now under
stood to be human. When it was ac
cepted as a qualification for the ministry
that one was not a man of like passions
with others, or when the ministry itself was
considered as offering special exemptions
from temptation, it must have been a terri
ble ordeal to preach. I cannot conceive
how a man could stand in the presence of
his fellow men and speak right out the
words which should fall into the midst of
temptation and struggle, and at the same
time feel that his words might stir the
question in any man's heart, — what do
you know about it all? where are your
temptations ? Let us be thankful for the
recognition of the human in the profession
of the ministry. And of course it goes

12 PREACHING
without saying that ministers are supposed
to be a humane class, notwithstanding the
occasional bloodthirstiness of the pulpit in
times of national excitement.
But the humanity of the pulpit, its power
to cover in thought and feeling the life be
fore it, to stand for the common nature, to
be so far able to represent men that it can
turn them to its own uses, that is something
which waits full recognition, because it is
something which needs to become more
evidently the fact. I was careful to say
when I began to speak about this matter,
that the ability of the preacher to make
other men help him, to make his audience
preach for him, might not be the greatest
condition of modern preaching which one
has to satisfy ; but the more we dwell upon
what this ability implies, the more we shall
be disposed* I think, to advance the claim.
Nothing can be more fundamental to the
preacher than his humanity. There lies
the priestly quality of his life. And just as
the wants and desires and aspirations of
men go sweeping through his humanity
when he intercedes for them with God, so
through that same channel God's message

MODERN CONDITIONS 13
returns to them. Preaching at its best is
prayer turned round. " Now then we are
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did
beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's
stead, be ye reconciled to God."
It may seem to you, however, that I put
myself on clearer and firmer ground, when
I say that if one is to satisfy the conditions
of modern preaching he must be able to
show that he has a sufficiency of truth in
actual command. Of course this means
the authority of the pulpit. I desire to say
with the greatest possible emphasis that
modern preaching waits the word of au
thority. There is a good deal of preaching
which is not modern, which uses the author
itative language and tone. On occasions,
as it passes into controversy, it deals in ana
themas. But these are manifestly futile.
An assertion of authority which wakens
the protest of the devout reason or reverent
scholarship of an age fails, because it lacks
one of the chief elements of authority.
Authority cannot rest upon the impossible
or the unreasonable, or upon what may be
to most minds the merely external. When,
therefore, men of recognized spiritual power

i4 PREACHING
choose to plant themselves upon the liter
alism of Scripture, they are accepted by the
majority of their hearers for what they are
in themselves, not for what they say. Their
life may preach to all, and it may be a glo
rious message ; but the interpretations, the
criticisms, and the arguments in which they
trust for conviction, meet none of the con
ditions of authority.
But because a good deal of the author
ity which the pulpit assumes is misplaced,
it by no means follows that we have
enough of it. On the contrary, I reaffirm
the statement that the mind of the age is
ready and anxious to come under the au
thority of truth. What proportion of men
do you think wish to reason God out of
existence or out of his world ? How many
are longing to disbelieve in immortality?
How many of those even who break the
commandments wish to abolish them ?
How many would prefer to have Chris
tianity proven a myth rather than an his
toric fact ? Let us not wrong the temper
of our age, however much we may share
in its mental perplexities. I am confident
that nothing would receive so true a wel-

MODERN CONDITIONS 15
come from the mind of this age as some
great vindication of religious faith — the
equivalent in our time of Butler's Anal
ogy, or of Edwards on the Will. It is no
disproof of this opinion to say that we
stumble over the creeds and confessions.
We forget that the ages which produced
these symbols had the advantage of us in
that these symbols were their own produc
tions. The age which produces the next
great confession will take delight in it,
and repeat it in sincerity, it may be in
triumph. Meanwhile, however, we must remind
ourselves, in justice to the fact, that faith
has not been left amongst us without its
witnesses. If pressed too hard, our age
may reply to any age of the creed, " Show
me thy faith without thy works, and I will
show thee my faith by my works." The
same faith which wrote the confessions is
busy on mission fields, in hospitals, and in
schools. It is no more to the discredit of
faith to be obliged to confess that it is now
more practical than intellectual, than it is
to the discredit of genius to be obliged to
confess that it has gone over so largely

16 PREACHING
into invention, and become the slave of
utility. And yet, I think that I cannot be
mistaken when I note the growing desire
and disposition of men to come again
under the sway of great intellectual beliefs,
to come again under authority. This is
no retrograde movement. It is not a call
to rest. It is rather, as I interpret it, the
appeal of the intellect to be allowed to go
out once more into the affirmative, and to
take the open field in behalf of spiritual
truth. We have given over a long gener
ation to criticism, to discussion, and to
readjustment in the region of theological
beliefs. Darwin published the " Origin of
Species " in 1859 ; Jowett, the " Essays and
Reviews " in i860; and Colenso, his views
on "The Pentateuch" in 1862. From
that time on English-speaking Christen
dom has been engaged in investigation or
controversy. There has been no waste of
time. There is no reason now for impa
tience. Neither truth nor righteousness
is ever in haste. As Charles Sumner
used to say, " Nothing is settled till it is
settled right." But as the power of the
pulpit depends upon the sufficiency as well

MODERN CONDITIONS 17
as upon the certainty of truth, there is
coming to be a popular demand for an in
crease in the volume of acknowledged
truth. Measured by the formalities of the
creeds, there has been a large shrinkage.
Has there been in reality a shrinkage ?
Has there not been an extension of natu
ral and revealed truth — if in using these
terms we keep to the old distinctions — in
all directions ? Is not the thought of God
larger, closer, more pervasive than ever
before ? Does not Jesus Christ hold a
more fundamental and central position
than he held at the time when Christianity
began to be reexamined ? Is the Bible
less true in its new freedom than when it
was in bondage to inerrancy and infallibil
ity ? Are the problems of human destiny
less serious or awful because studied in
the terms of a larger Christianity. Surely
if we are straitened, it is not in the truth,
it is in ourselves.
I do not underestimate the work of a
generation just emerging from a period of
criticism and controversy. We must be
patient. No progress is made by running
in advance of facts. But there comes a

18 PREACHING
time, we are always to remember, when
the pulpit anticipates the schools. Great
truths announce their presence before they
are formulated. They are tried, proven,
experienced, before they are ready for the
confessions. The proclamation of the in
coming truth always precedes by necessity
and therefore by right the formulation of
it. This has been the history of the great
doctrines. The deity of our Lord, and in
due time his humanity, justification by
faith, the sovereignty of God, the universal
ity of the atonement, were all apprehended
and declared by the clearer and braver
souls before they became the doctrines of
the church. It is at the dawn, before a
truth has faded into the light of common
day, that the preacher has the rare, inspir
ing authoritative opportunity. Let no man
be deceived by the shallow dictum, — the
true is not new, the new is not true. Truth
is always coming into the world under con
ditions which make it for the first time clear
and imperative. Then it is as new as if it
had not always existed. It was justifica
tion by faith on the background of pen
ance, indulgences, and superstition, which

MODERN CONDITIONS 19
gave us the Reformation. It was the
sovereignty of God over against spiritual
tyranny in high places which gave us
Puritanism. It was a universal atonement
made necessary by the unanswerable ap
peal of an opening world which gave us
modern missions. It is no less evidently
true that the immanence of God could
not have come into the real apprehension
of the world until modern science had pre
pared the way for it; nor that the con
ception of the Kingdom of God on earth
could have really become a hope and an
expectation until men had begun to see,
as in our time, the capacity of human
society, and had begun to feel, as we are
feeling, those strange and well-nigh uni
versal yearnings for the brotherhood of
man. The process is always going on. It
is the divine method to bring out truths,
to force them to the front, to make them
new. Blessed are the ages in which the
work is most evident. Blessed are the
men who at such a time have vision.
" Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken :
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

20 PREACHING
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
But you may say to me, every preacher,
as he begins his work, has something more
than the uncertainties of his time to con
tend with. He has the uncertainties of his
own mind. How then can he have author
ity? Dr. Dale quotes the saying of a
young friend, " A minister, when he is just
beginning to preach, must sometimes write
a sermon to clear his own mind on a sub
ject." To which he adds the shrewd re
mark, " A sermon which is written to clear
the mind of the preacher will be very
likely to perplex and confuse the minds
of the hearers." " It would strike you as
very odd," he goes on to say, " if a politi
cian told you that he had made a speech
in Congress in order to clear his own
mind on the true economical doctrine
about money." No, that particular exhibit
would not strike us as very odd, but, bar
ring the illustration, we will take the prin
ciple. I may be pardoned if I refer to an expe
rience of this sort in my own early minis-

MODERN CONDITIONS 21
try. I had prepared a sermon which had
been, I doubt not, profitable to me, but
which was so utterly ineffective as a ser
mon that I took the liberty of asking a
very discerning friend what was the diffi
culty with it. His reply was the best criti
cism I ever received. " You seemed to
me," he said, " to be more concerned about
the truth than about men." Yes, that was
the difficulty. I saw it in a moment. I
had no right as a preacher to be concerned
about the truth. I should have had the
truth in command, so that I could have
given my whole concern to men. As it
was, the sermon lacked authority.
It is not so practical a question as we
may at first suppose — how far can the
preacher be a searcher after truth and yet
be the preacher. A searcher after truth
he must be to be the preacher. The
preacher ought to have the two qualities
of freshness and fullness. I have recently
listened to a course of lectures from one
of the really great teachers of our time, a
man characterized by both these qualities.
He told, I think, the secret of his power,
when he chanced to say in conversation,

22 PREACHING
" Every day's lecture should stand for what
a man might say, as well as for what he
does say." It is the unsaid word, if we
know it is there, it is the sense of power
in reserve after one has done his best, it
is the absolute certainty of mental and
spiritual growth, which give a people con
fidence and grateful delight in a preacher.
But a preacher must learn to guard
the processes of his mind so that he can
think not only forward but backward :
backward, that is, toward what is most fun
damental and even elementary in truth ;
for it is there that he makes sure and
deep contact with the mind of his audi
ence. " What is eloquence," Vinet asks,
" but the power of the commonplace ? It
is making the primitive chords vibrate."
Great fundamental truths have this power :
unquestioned and unquestionable truths,
that go from heart to heart, never denied
access or hospitality, and never enfeebled
by use. The more of these truths the
preacher has in command, the more he
will be able to realize what I spoke of at
the beginning, the preaching power of
an audience. A truth of this sort when

MODERN CONDITIONS 23
once it is in full play between the preacher
and audience, how good it is to be either
preacher or hearer ! Hearing is then the
answering voice. Preaching and hearing
— it is " deep calling unto deep."
Grant that the preacher of to-day has
humanity and authority, that he has the
power to compel men to help him in his
work of persuasion, and that he has a suf
ficiency of truth in command, what does
he lack, if he lack at all, in meeting the
conditions of modern preaching ? Is there
any other quality, which is a peculiar ne
cessity of our age, and which, because of
this necessity, the age has the right to de
mand of the pulpit? I answer unhesitat
ingly, yes : the preacher of to-day must
have faith. He must be able, that is, to
give men elevation and outlook.
One cannot fail to see when looking
at our time from a spiritual point of
view, that it is not only self-absorbed, but
self-centred and self-sufficient. We have
broken the connection with other times.
We are living in the isolation of our
knowledge, as others may have lived in
the isolation of their ignorance. We are

24 PREACHING
so much to ourselves that we have re
jected the companionship of the past, and
are not anxious or even curious about the
future. Of course, this is a kind of pro
vincialism ; just as the resident of a great
city is apt to be bounded by it to the de
gree by which he is enlarged by it. The
average Londoner or Parisian or New
Yorker lives more in his city than in his
country. He is not so sensitive to the
national spirit as his neighbor is who is
less overpowered by his immediate sur
roundings. It is not to be wondered at that the aver
age mind which is in and of this age is
bounded by it. Not only is there more of
the world than at any previous time, but
most of the things in the world are worth
more. One cannot calculate by just how
much the* valuation of the world is in
creased. This is not necessary. The
moral effect of this increase lies in the
appeal which the world of to-day makes to
sense rather than to faith. In spite of the
great contrasts in material condition, no
one can mistake the satisfaction which
men take in the material world, as they

MODERN CONDITIONS 25
know it, as they possess it. With some it
is a purely sordid gratification, the mere
sensual enjoyment of prosperity. With
others it is the satisfaction which comes
from the opportunity of search and strug
gle, the hot competition of the business
world. With others still it is the joy of in
vestigation and physical research, the pur
suit of knowledge for the sake of know
ledge. We cannot overestimate the fact
that the world, this physical world, means
more to us than it ever meant to living men.
Never before did men possess so many lands
or subdue so many seas. Never before did
men know so well the secret of wealth.
And never before have there been opened
to them so many provinces in the invisible
realms of matter.
Now it is not difficult to see that soon or
late there will be a spiritual reaction from
this intense satisfaction in what we call the
world. I do not mean simply a reaction
from low and sordid worldliness, but from
all which the material world has to offer.
The soul of man cannot live upon the in
come of material wealth. The soul of man
cannot live upon the discoveries of science.

26 PREACHING
Extend the world as you will, there is no
lasting satisfaction in it for the human soul.
And when the time of spiritual dissatisfac
tion comes, — no one knows how near it is,
— then we have this alternative, either the
return to some kind of other worldliness,
or the advance into some more spiritual
conception of the world itself. I cannot
believe in modern mediaevalism. I must
believe in such a spiritual interpretation
of this world, and in such a spiritual use
of its forces as will satisfy the souls of
men. But, meanwhile, the problem of the
preacher is how to lift men above their
time for spiritual uses, how to give them
elevation and outlook. You may be sur
prised when I say that one of the greatest
incentives to faith in such a time as this is
the historicspirit. Here lies the interpre
tative power of faith. Balaam was right
when he said of Israel, " Israel has no need
of diviner or soothsayer: it is enough to
say in Israel, what hath God wrought."
The men of our time must be made to see
and to know their place in the long plan of
God. We need to go back far enough to

MODERN CONDITIONS 27
get the grade on which the world has been
moving, to feel the ascent in the providence
of God. The increasing argument for faith
lies in history. It is the great argument
against narrowness, against complacency,
against low outlooks. It lifts the spiritual
horizon. When we think of the peculiar office of
faith we naturally turn toward the unseen.
One of our first questions is about immor
tality. Can the preacher make that real to
men to-day ? Yes, but not in the same
way as at some other times. This world is
not the same as when the contrast was first
made between it and heaven. The outlook
into the future from Rome under Nero was
very different from the present outlook
from England and America. Persecution
offers no spur to hope. The Christian cen
turies have made this world more desirable.
We can hardly sing, except under some
spiritual exaltation, the hymns of mediaeval
saints as they turned their hearts heaven
ward. It is not possible therefore that im
mortality can make its appeal in precisely
the same way to us as to them. It is no
longer the appeal of one world against an-

28 PREACHING
other. What is the present significance of
immortality ? It is the appeal to the soul of
man in behalf of its rights both here and
hereafter. Immortality means more and
more the spiritual, not only that which out
lives time, but that which cannot be satisfied
with the things of time. The faith of the
preacher shows itself therefore in the clear
ness, in the urgency, and in the expectation
with which he addresses himself to the spir
itual man. If he does not himself see the
things of the spirit here and now, and be
lieve in them, he has scant vision for such
an age as ours. If he does see these
things, if men as they come and go be
fore him are more to him in their souls
than in their outward estate, whatever it
may be, they too may have power to look
at the greater and imperishable self, and
come under the power of the vision now
made their own.
But there is another way of elevation and
uplift which is open to the preacher accord
ing to his faith. I believe that it is in some
respects more possible to make Christ real
to men than it is to make their own souls
real to them. And if there has been any ad-

MODERN CONDITIONS 29
vantage from the distractions to the pulpit
during these past years, it has been in the
unanimity and urgency with which the pul
pit has turned to the person of Christ. It is
the wider and more familiar knowledge of
Christ, which, more than all else, has held
our age to faith. Men could not utterly
disbelieve in his presence, they could not
deny the Kingdom of God which he set
up on the earth, they could not despair of
themselves, when they saw the possibilities
of their own nature revealed in him. There
are altogether insufficient ways of preach
ing Christ, but I doubt not that even
through these many have been led to touch
the hem of his garment and have been
made whole. It is given to the individual
soul to claim the right of its full salvation
in Christ. That obtains at all times and in
all places. It has been given to our age in
a very real and very peculiar sense to be
saved, as an age, by the presence of Christ.
It is his presence which has made it possi
ble for the spiritual to live in the midst of
the tremendous materialism of the century.
I think that I have said enough in these
opening words to show you my conception

30 PREACHING: MODERN CONDITIONS
of the preacher as he undertakes his work
under present conditions. Modern preach
ing puts the emphasis on the humanity of the
preacher, on his authority, and on his faith.
He must have power enough over men to
make them help him ; he must have some
sufficient truth in absolute command, that
is, he must be possessed by it ; and he must
have some vision of the spiritual, which, at
the highest, as at its nearest, is the vision
of Christ.
Do the conditions seem to you to be
hard ? They are none too hard for the
greatness of the work, nor for the joy of its
reward.

II

THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER BY EDUCA
TION
In the opening lecture, after considering
the motive and reason for our subject, we
passed at once to the question, Who, under
present conditions, is the Preacher ? Mod
ern preaching, as we saw, lays the empha
sis upon the humanity of the preacher,
upon his authority, and upon his faith.
The questions which it is asking all the
while, and with the greatest solicitude
about every man in the pulpit, are these :
Does he compel other men to help him in
his work of persuasion : does he make his
audience preach for him ? Has he a suffi
ciency of truth in command : does his
preaching rise to the stress of a gospel ?
Is he reaching the spiritual man who is in
bondage to the material wealth of the age :
is he able to give elevation and outlook to
those about him ?

32 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
These questions, as we judged, revealed
the inexorable conditions of modern preach
ing, — hard conditions, we granted, were
they not matched by the greatness of the
preacher's task, and by the joy of accom
plishing it.
There is another question which lies
upon the threshold of our discussion. It
is so much a part of our inquiry into the
Making of the Preacher, that we cannot
afford to pass it by. How far can we ex
pect to educate the Preacher ?
I address myself to-day to the answer to
this question, premising that it is in no
sense limited to the training in our semi
naries. We are met at the outset by the classifi
cation in some minds of the preacher with
the poet and orator, as born, not made.
Let us not altogether ignore this classifica
tion. The preacher may be the poet or
the orator, according to his birthright.
And to the extent to which he justifies
either claim, it is to be admitted that there
is a personal element which is a law unto
itself. " Genius," John Foster says, "lights
its own fires." The independence of genius

BY EDUCATION 33
is to be acknowledged. If any consider
able part of those entering the ministry
or any profession bore the unmistakable
mark of genius, I confess that our systems
of education would be strained to make
room for them. Somebody has asked
what chance Carlyle would have in a mod
ern university. Tennyson refers with lit
tle satisfaction or gratitude to his student
days at Cambridge. It is not enough to
reply with the cheap sarcasm that it will
be sufficient time to consider this matter
when the number of Carlyles and Tenny-
sons entering our universities is appreci
able. We are not to trifle with the per
sonal element in any man. It is as sacred
to society as to the individual. I concede
that it must be allowed the largest free
dom which it can show a right to, and that
it must be put under the full stimulus to
which it is entitled. Education cannot be
conditioned in mediocrity. It must have
regard to the exceptional as well as to the
average man. Indeed, there is an increas
ing reason, which I will adduce in a mo
ment, why I think that in the training or
recruiting for the ministry especial re-

34 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
gard should be had for the exceptional
man. We are beginning to recognize the
fact that in the interest of the social econ
omy, for the very necessities of society,
we must draw upon the widest sources of
intellectual supply, and open the way out
toward all the unknown possibilities of
genius. Let me quote the word of Pro
fessor Marshall in reference to the large
duty of education at this point, assuming
that what he says has its proportionate
application to the use of opportunity and
incentive toward the ministry :
" The laws which govern the birth of
genius are inscrutable. It is probable that
the percentage of the children of the work
ing classes who are endowed with natural
abilities of the highest order is not so great
as that of the children of people who have
attained or have inherited a higher position
in society. But since the manual-labor
classes are four or five times as numerous
as all other classes put together, it is riot
unlikely that more than half of the best
natural genius that is born in the country
belongs to them; and of this a great
part is fruitless for want of opportunity.

BY EDUCATION 35
There is no extravagance more prejudicial
to the growth of national wealth than that
wasteful negligence which allows genius
that happens to be born of lowly parent
age to expend itself in lowly work. No
change would conduce so much to a rapid
increase of national wealth as an improve
ment in our schools, and especially those
of the middle grades, combined with an ex
tensive system of scholarships, which would
enable the clever son of a working man to
rise gradually from school to school till he
had the best theoretical and practical edu
cation which the age can give."
Now the special reason for consideration
in behalf of the ministry, of the unknown
or exceptional man, lies in the change
which has taken place in the outward in
centives toward the ministry. Under the
New England traditions the ministry was
an aristocracy, and therefore had the social
incentive at work for its supply. Family
life was set toward it. It passed as a pro
fession from father to son. Children were
consecrated to that form of service, and not
infrequently bore names to remind them of
their high calling. Mr. Beecher used to

36 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
say that " none of the boys in his father's
family ever thought of trying to get away
from the ministry, except one, and that he
made no such success in his waywardness
as to encourage the others to attempt to
follow him." The ministry of that time
was more than a profession, it was a class.
Our non-conformist brethren from Eng
land who visit us think that traces of this
distinction still remain.
And as the family life was set toward
the ministry, so was the higher education.
College after college arose, that " the light
of learning should not go out, and that the
study of God's word should not perish."
If one wanted the best education, he must
find it in the courses leading to the minis
try. These were full and abundant. They
had the acknowledged right of way. They
moved on in easy confidence to the remot
est bounds of theological learning. The
contract with the first professor of lan
guages in Dartmouth College ran as fol
lows : " Mr. Smith agrees to settle as pro
fessor of English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew,
Chaldee, Syriac, etc., in Dartmouth Col
lege, to teach which and as many of them

BY EDUCATION 37
and other such languages as he shall under
stand, as the trustees shall judge necessary
and practicable for one man, and also to
read lectures on them as often as the pre
sident and tutors, with himself, shall judge
profitable to the seminary."
We may not say, perhaps, that the change
in regard to these two early incentives to
the ministry is equally great. The ten
dency of the family toward the ministry
is probably still stronger than that of the
school. But from both directions the
change is very manifest. And the com
pensation for this change is in the fact
that in place of these intermediate influ
ences we have now the more direct appeal
of the ministry to the individual man.
More men are to-day, I believe, entering
the ministry of their motion than at any
previous time. I have in mind not a few
candidates who are making their way into
it out of hindering and diverting surround
ings. I see those in our colleges who want
to cross the lines of study that they may
put themselves into connection with a the
ological training, indicating that the earlier
direction was unadvised. I take account

38 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
of those who are leaving other professions
while it is yet early enough to study for
the ministry. Nothing, I think, impressed
me so much, when in the service of a the
ological seminary, as the number and the
quality of men who had turned to the pul
pit out of mature conviction, and under
purely personal and independent incentives.
I am convinced that the recruiting ground
of the ministry must be more and more
among undesignated, uninfluenced, un
known, and exceptional men. The min
istry must find its recruits, like any call
ing, among those who are so minded ;
only that in this regard it has the mighty
advantage, in the case at least of the excep
tional man, that he is consciously and im
peratively called of God.
As we p£,ss then to the direct question,
How far can we educate the preacher ? we
must keep in mind the fact that educa
tion no longer makes a favorite of him.
The favorite now is the student of science.
The larger increase of subject matter, the
accepted method, and the enthusiasm from
discovery and from application, are to his
especial advantage. So it appears. But I

BY EDUCATION 39
am not sure that it is really any more to his
advantage than it is to the advantage of
the preacher. In any event what matters
it whether we be favorites or not ? Who
wants more than his opportunity ?
Education, meaning by it that organized
system which is now open to every one,
can do these three things to make ready
the preacher :
First, it can do more than at any previ
ous time to develop and furnish the man,
provided he has insight and patience. The
old education, which specialized from the
beginning straight toward the ministry,
produced some very clear and noble re
sults, the like of which you may see to-day
in the Romish priesthood. It was an edu
cation with clearly prescribed ends, which
were reached by clearly prescribed meth
ods. But something often seems to be
lacking in the lives of those who came
under that training, and sometimes the
lack is pathetic. We. are aware that the
whole man is not always before us. Some
part of the nature is untouched, or if
touched undeveloped. Occasionally we
get a hint of what the life might have

40 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
been under a broader or freer training.
Does any one suppose, after reading Jon
athan Edwards' study of the spider, that it
would have been a loss to theology if he
had opened his mind wide to the study of
nature ? To the extent to which we allow
ourselves to be less than we are capable of
being, we make ourselves of less use to
society. Society wants the full man, the
live man, the sincere man. I do not refer
to the after straightening which may come
to every one. The first business of educa
tion is to make sure that the discovery of
one's self is reasonably complete. And at
this point modern education can serve
the preacher better than the old, provided,
I have said, he be patient. Impatience,
haste, will neutralize the larger opportu
nity. It is the danger which confronts
every one fo-day in the process of edu
cation. The contention is now stoutly
urged that the schools deliver too late
into life, therefore the time of preparation
must be abridged. I take issue, in behalf
of the ministry, with the premise. As Mr.
Greeley replied to the man who demanded
a job of him on the ground that he must
live, — " That remains to be proven."

BY EDUCATION 41
Why should one take less time to enter
upon those callings which are preceded by
what is known as an education, than to
enter upon those callings which are pre
ceded by an apprenticeship ? Mark Twain
has stated the present business situation in
an aphorism, — " No occupation without
an apprenticeship ; no pay to the appren
tice." In what business may one expect to
find himself thoroughly established, with
influence or authority in the firm or cor
poration, with a generous income, and pos
sessed of a home, while as yet he is within
the twenties? Is it in banking, or in man
ufacturing, or in railroading, or in general
trade ? How much farther along is the
man of business at thirty than the lawyer
or doctor at that age, unless he has unlim
ited capital or is of exceptional capacity?
The open fact is, that society is growing
more complicated, its demands are more
exacting, and consequently personal ad
vancement is slower. As surely as the
rate of interest is declining, so surely are
we all coming under the law of diminishing
returns ; which means that for the same re
sults we must do harder work or secure a

42 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
better equipment, which in turn means that
we must take a longer time in preparation.
I see no reason, therefore, why a man who
proposes to enter upon his life work by
way of an education should complain of
the time required to prepare for it, and
especially in view of the fact that the work
ing time of life has been greatly extended.
If society calls a man later to his tasks,
it allows him to remain longer at them.
The age of retirement has been advanced.
Whatever the young man in his impatience
seems to be losing reappears in the unspent
force of later years.
A second result to be expected from
modern education — I cannot overestimate
its value to the preacher — is that it can
give him contact with the mind of his
time. Without question the minds of men
are finding their chief training to-day in
the school of utility. When Thoreau
graduated at Harvard — it was about sixty
years ago — he made the statement in his
graduating address " The world is more
beautiful than useful." That is a state
ment which no one could dispute then or
now. Every one's opinion must depend

BY EDUCATION 43
upon his point of view. But whatever
may have been the proportion in Tho-
reau's time, it is now evident that where
one sees real beauty in the world, ten see
more clearly some kind of utility, and
without doubt the proportion is increasing.
Here then is a vast amount of mind to
be reached, some of it thoroughly trained.
It does not follow that a preacher must
therefore become a utilitarian in his think
ing. It does not follow that he must use
the motives which lie on the low plane of
utility. It does follow that he has an im
mense advantage if he knows and under
stands through his own training the work
ing of this kind of mind. For one thing,
he will not offend and alienate it by in
exact methods of thought. His statements
will bear verification. His arguments will
hold true to the laws of evidence. Having
made contact with the mind thus trained,
he will be able to move to his own ends.
Imagination, sentiment, emotion, will not
be wasted. Exact thinking is not opposed
to high thinking, nor logic to feeling, nor
carefulness of speech to the freedom of the
imagination.

44 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
I have a practical suggestion to offer to
our seminaries. I find that there is a con
siderable number of men who have been
trained in the scientific or semi-scientific
courses in our colleges, who wish as they
near the close of their college course to
study for the ministry.. Usually they are
men of assured strength. Their decision
shows that they are of mature and inde
pendent mind. No motive could influ
ence men in these conditions except the
overruling desire to enter the ministry.
What can be done for them ? They will
bring strength and consecration to the
pulpit. They will be a special power in
bringing the pulpit into contact with the
type of mind which we have been consid
ering. I do not hesitate to ask for a place
for them in our seminaries, in our best
seminaries, and that facilities be offered
them for gaining the necessary technical
knowledge, especially in Greek. Other
wise we shall lose, out of the trained min
istry at least, more and more of the best
mind which our colleges are producing.
The third result which education ought
to be expected to give to the preacher is

BY EDUCATION 45
the clear and sure access to truth. Not
possession of it in any large degree, that
is the work of a lifetime, but access to it.
I desire, gentlemen, to enter my protest
and warning in your presence against the
assumption that truth in any form can be
had for the asking, that it lies within easy
reach of the mind. That is never the fact.
Truth there may be within us or above us,
written " on the black bosom of the night,"
for the guidance of our feet in plain paths ;
but that is not enough. The paths of men
are no longer plain ; they cross and re-
cross in bewildering confusion ; the world
thickens; and he who makes too easy a
thing of duty or of truth only adds in time
one more bewildered or wayward soul to
the care of the great shepherd and his
church. In spite of what we rightly call pro
gress, in spite of the great and sure gains
of knowledge, in spite even of revelation,
nothing is more evident and more impres
sive than the remoteness of truth from
each new age. What is it which calls out
the finest energy of each new age except
the search after truth ? This is no pas-

46 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
time. It is the serious business of serious
men, lovers of their kind as well as lovers
of truth. Who are scholars, and what are
they trying to do ? Men who want to
know the truth, the whole truth, and no
thing but the truth, and who want to have
their fellow-men know, as they know, that,
as Descartes said, " they may walk sure-
footedly in this life."
It is well to remind ourselves of these
motives and aims of all true scholars, and
of the urgent necessities which rest upon
them, in view of the still remaining atti
tude of a part of the church towards its
most advanced scholarship. We cannot
do too much to correct the mistake in
many honest minds, that scholarship cre
ates confusion, and introduces doubt
where before there was faith. And to
make this correction, we must show how
simplicity of thought and life has given
way to complexity, which means that much
hard, brave, patient thinking must be done
by somebody in every department of life
before anybody can act. There never was
a time when the motto of Governor Win
throp, of Massachusetts Bay, was more

BY EDUCATION 47
pertinent than now — ''When you don't
know what to do, don't go and do it."
In fact, it has now become evident that
there are but two valid positions for the
church to take, to fall back upon authority
and go to Rome, or to encourage all clear,
straight, honest, reverent search after the
truth. The truth we want and need and
must have for the ordering of faith and
the conduct of life is not so accessible that
we can dispense in the least degree with
scholarship, unless we are prepared to ac
cept authority. The most serious business
therefore in the education for the minis
try is to give to the men who are to as
sume its responsibilities access to the truth.
If there is any distinction between an ed
ucated and an uneducated ministry, it is
here : not simply that one man can use
better English than another, or quote more
authors, or answer men with quicker wit,
but that the educated preacher can give
light, restore confidence, guide more safely
and farther, and if need be take command
when there is a call for a spiritual leader.
You do not ask me how this access is
to be gained. You are in the process.

48 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
I cannot forbear, however, a word as to
the range of the work. The same kind
of eager but patient thought is needed
in every department of theological train
ing. The Bible is no more inaccessible
to us than to our predecessors, when mea
sured by the separating effect of language ;
but it does offer a more arduous task to us,
since we have undertaken to find its place
in history, and more than that, to put our
selves within its great historic order and
movement, and let it carry us along accord
ing to the providence of God.
It is no easier task when we turn to
theology, when we consider either what
the Bible has to say, or nature. Nature
seemed to the theologian of the past
generation simplicity itself. Our fathers
preached Paley's Natural Theology as
easily as they preached the Levitical law.
They may not understand the embarrass
ment of those who must now take account
of the theory of Evolution, but they have
no right to say to us, after this long and
pleasant experience in the use of " Paley,"
that the pulpit has no further use for what
they called natural theology. There is no
option about the use or disuse of truth.

BY EDUCATION 49
And when we turn to our social pro
blems, we find ourselves under no less a
necessity for painstaking and thorough
study. The difference between the old
philanthropy and the new, or between the
lower and the higher, has been well put in
the statement, " The lower philanthropy
tries to put right what social conditions
have put wrong: the higher philanthropy
tries to put right the social conditions
themselves." The difference is immense.
It is the difference between the charity
which expresses itself altogether in relief
and rescue and the charity which expresses
itself in restraint and precaution, in the
effort to rescue the rights of the individ
ual, and in the greater effort to effect at
some vital points the readjustment, if not
the reconstruction, of society. If the good
is the foe of the best, then it is true that
there is a sense in which the old-time char
ity hurts the new. As Jacob Riis said a
little time ago in a convention, in which
the scripture " Charity covereth a multi
tude of sins " had been made to do its ac
customed work, — " Brethren," speaking
with his Danish idiom, "it was time to
take that cover off."

50 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
Whichever way, then, we turn in our
present work, we see that education puts
the newer demands upon us, and offers us
everywhere the new privileges. We get
much in method : we get something in
actual results : we get more in the sense of
the strain and toil which truth demands,
no, I will not say demands, but allows, of
those who are to use it for the good of
their kind. Is there not an unmistaka
ble joy to-day in the companionship of
scholars, an exultation in the atmosphere
of scholarship ?
These three things we ought to ex
pect of education as an organized system,
which takes a man up on his way to the
ministry: it ought to develop him and
furnish him as a man, not simply as a
preacher; it ought to give him contact
with the mind of his time ; and it ought
to give him access to the truth ; not the
means simply, but the strenuous spirit of
search. I would like to devote the remainder
of this lecture to the somewhat informal
consideration of certain influences, which,
though not strictly and technically educa-

BY EDUCATION 51
tional, are operative within the period of
education. Among these influences which I have
in mind, I put first the influence of some
one person, be he instructor or author,
upon the mind and heart of a student.
In the old version, there stood out in the
margin of the book of Malachi a phrase
which expresses by a happy turn what I
want to say. The phrase has been incor
porated into the new version, but in the
change its power as a definition has been
lost. God was threatening, as one of the
penalties of disobedience, that He would
cut off from Israel master and scholar.
The margin said, " For master and scholar
read, ' him that awaketh, and him that an-
swereth.' " That is the influence I have
in mind as I speak, the influence of " him
that awaketh " upon " him that answereth."
It is something beyond the constant im
pression which comes from good teaching.
It is the spark, which at some fit moment
is dropped into the nature, which is ready
to be kindled.
As these lectures allow personal experi
ence, I will recall an illustration from my

52 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
own life. Near the close of my seminary
course, when I was in no little doubt about
the reality of what I had to preach, and
was therefore hesitating between the law
and the ministry, I chanced upon the " Life
and Letters of Robertson." One letter
which caught my attention contained a
statement of his personal feeling toward
Christ. I had never known till then that
a man could feel in just that way about
Christ. Here at last was reality. It gave
me what I wanted. I began at once on my
own account the study of the life of Christ.
I began with the temptation, the point I
judged of greatest reality to him. And
from that time on I had no question about
the ministry. Robertson, with his passion
ate loyalty to Christ, wakened the answer
ing passion in my soul.
There are many ways in which this
more personal influence may be expressed.
One man is able to impart something of
the quality of his own thought to the
thinking of those who come under him.
The virtue which goes out of him lies in
a certain sentiment which spiritualizes his
thought. This imparting of the quality or

BY EDUCATION 53
sentiment of one's mind may mean more
in the way of personal influence than a
founding of a school of disciples. The
influence of Coleridge was, I judge, of this
order. It held together many minds which
differed widely in their theological posi
tions. Another form of influence may
be traced to those who deal in method
or impression, to those who are distinc
tively preachers, whether they are thinkers
or not. In times just gone by, we recall
at once Mr. Beecher and Mr. Spurgeon.
The influence of these men was profoundly
spiritual and ethical, albeit it produced as
a secondary result not a little imitation
on the part of those who could not look
below their methods into their spirit. But
the chief influence which comes to us
from helpful men is that which comes to
us straight out of their personality. They
may be thinkers ; they may be distinctively
preachers: we do not refer to them in
either capacity : we call them by name.
So we speak of Maurice, and Robertson,
and Kingsley, and Bushnell, and Brooks.
These, and the like, are men who touch
us, and we are most sensitive to their

54 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
touch in the days of our preparation for
the ministry, especially if for any reason
our thinking or our plans go wrong.
Next to the stimulus of the " master,"
whoever he may be, I put the contagion
of the group, — the influence of the as
sociated life of which one is a part dur
ing the process of education. Education
in its earlier stages is largely a matter of
society ; later, in more mature life, it may
be a matter of isolation. It is good for
the full-grown man to withdraw at times
from the city into the desert, unless per
chance the city may be to him a place of
solitude. There are those who are never
so much alone as when the multitudes
throng and press. But the fundamental
idea of the school is the group. A col
lege or seminary or university is a society,
in which tlie conditions are favorable for
rare and inspiring fellowships. Great so
cial and moral movements have their fre
quent origin in these inner groups. Oxford
alone has given the Wesleys and their
friends, Newman and Keble and Pusey,
and Arnold Toynbee and his fellow work
ers. Paul lays great stress, you will recall,

BY EDUCATION 55
upon the quality of like-mindedness. The
group is organized around this quality. It
signifies more than a common disposition
or taste or liking. It carries with it one
ness of aim and purpose and consecration.
The group guarantees the steady impulse
and the resolute endeavor. One member
may lose heart : he has the common faith
to fall back upon. There are times when
the individual may have an immense deal
to give, there are times when he needs to
make great drafts upon the general fund.
We are coming to recognize the econ
omy of the group in the more exhausting
forms of moral and religious work. Ser
vice in the midst of depressing surround
ings must itself be characterized by good
cheer and steady courage. The constant
strain upon the sympathies is the test of
the real significance of living and working
under wrong social conditions. I doubt if
one person can well bear the strain. It is
the group which saves the individual to his
work, and supplies that fund of good cheer
which is indispensable to spiritual success.
The social settlement is founded in the
idea of the spiritual economy of the group.

56 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
The settlement has already produced some
very striking results, but it is contribut
ing a principle which, as fast as it may be
applied, will reinvigorate and gladden all
lowlier forms of service, wherever the idea
is practicable. I wish that it could be
made more practicable among those enter
ing the ministry. What it requires on
their part is the willingness to postpone
" a call to a church," to delay the home,
and to give the first years of one's trained
life to associated work in city or country.
It is difficult to say where the need is the
greater. The principle is equally applica
ble to the congested wards of a city and
to the sparser settlements of the country.
I am confident that a term of service in
a well-organized and well-manned group
will give one an impulse throughout the
after ministry for which there is no equiv
alent. I refer to one other influence, which
reaches within the period of education and
is really a part of it, whether we formally
recognize it or not, namely, the interest
which attaches to the moral movements of
one's time. This interest may often seem

BY EDUCATION 57
to be too absorbing for the best intellect
ual discipline, but it cannot be, and ought
not to be, ignored. The educated man
cannot afford to separate himself from any
movement which is to affect in vital ways
his own future, or the future of those with
whom he may have to do.
The American church has passed
through two great moral awakenings, and
is now passing through a third. What if
the young men of their generation had not
heard that first personal call to modern
missions ! Suppose the now memorable
and well-nigh accomplished word of Mills
to his comrades — " We ought to carry the
gospel to dark and heathen lands, and we
can do it if we will " — had passed through
the churches unheeded ; can any one calcu
late what the state of religion would have
been in that generation, or even in this ?
Or can any one measure the possible moral
result of a like denial of the anti-slavery
conflict ? The initiative in this conflict
can hardly be credited to young men.
Neither can it be said that the conflict was
assured till " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was read
in the homes, and the speeches of Seward

58 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
and Sumner and Lincoln were read in the
schools and colleges of the land. The
present movement in behalf of social right
eousness waits in like manner full recogni
tion from the young men of the country, es
pecially from those in the process of edu
cation ; for the movement calls for insight
and sagacity, as well as for consecration.
The man who helps here must be both
trained and consecrated, and training and
consecration rest alike upon the interest
which can be awakened. I commend to
you, in your immediate outlook upon the
ministry, the utterance of Lyman Beecher
in his forecast of his own times : " I read
the signs of the times. I felt as if the
conversion of the world to Christ was
near. It was with such views of the future
that from the beginning I consecrated my
self to Christ with special reference to the
scenes which I saw to be opening upon
the world. I have never laid out great
plans. I have always waited, and watched
the fulfillment of prophecy, and followed
the leadings of Providence. From the
beginning my mind has taken in the
church of God, my country, and the world

BY EDUCATION 59
as given to Christ. It is this which has
widened the scope of my activity beyond
the common sphere of pastoral labor."
How far can we educate the preacher ?
We cannot guarantee the individual man.
Out of any given number in training for
the pulpit, one or more will quite surely fail
to become preachers, though failure will not
always follow the prediction. But the pro
cess will go on to its large results. Educa
tion, especially the education which opens
into the ministry, is an ideal world, in
which one learns to live till he becomes
in some sense superior to the world of
tradition and circumstance and struggle
which lies before him. It has its own dis
cipline, always severe and exacting. It
allows no interferences with its aims and
standards. But it is not narrow or arti
ficial. It offers the inspiration of the
master, it introduces the stimulus of the
group, and it stands open to the moral
enthusiasm of the age. It is a world by
no means free from doubts or temptations.
Not all is gain to those within it. Much
power has to be expended in resistance to
dangerous forces which inhere in its very

60 THE MAKING OF THE PREACHER
life. But it is a world of great incentives,
of stirring fellowships, and of honorable
ambitions. It cannot deliver the preacher,
but it can present the scholar furnished
for his task, and the man made ready and
expectant.

Ill
THE UNMAKING PROCESS
The subject of to-day will carry us alto
gether within the life and work of the
preacher. I am to speak of the forces
and influences which stand in one way or
another for his unmaking. The subject
of my lecture is The Unmaking Process,
if that can be called a process which may
have no clear sequence of causes. What
is cause at one time may be effect at an
other time. What is cause with one man
may be effect with another man. All that
we can say is that there are influences
which are continually present to under
mine or disintegrate or demoralize the
preacher. They may be resisted. And
in so far as they are resisted, the preacher
has the advantage which always attends
the successful defense of anything which
is as sacred as preaching. I do not wish
to make this lecture a chapter on the moral

62 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
deterioration of ministers. It will answer
its purpose if I can expose and set forth
with the right emphasis some of the more
subtle influences which are working to undo
the preacher, or to neutralize his power.
The foe which lies in wait for the
preacher from beginning to end is unreal
ity. I do not know whether the danger
is greater at the beginning or at the end,
but I naturally dwell in your presence
more upon the danger at the beginning.
It is always difficult to be real, but never
more difficult than when one tries at first
to put all his newly acquired powers to
use. Preaching consists in the right corre
spondence between the apprehension and
the expression of a given truth. The mo
rality of preaching lies at this point, just
where also Its effectiveness lies. Preach
ing becomes unmoral, if not immoral, when
the preacher allows the expression of truth
to go beyond the apprehension of it. This
is unreality in the pulpit. Doubtless some
unreal preaching is effective, but never for
long time. The law is, that the power of
the pulpit corresponds to the clearness and

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 63
vividness of the preacher's apprehension
of truth. The preacher who really believes
the half truth will have more power than
the preacher who half believes the truth.
But it is almost equally true that preach
ing may fail for want of adequate expres
sion. Hence the occasion for the art of
sermonizing, or for the art of preaching ;
the art, that is, of making the expression of
truth satisfy the apprehension of it. This
art, because it is an art, has its own moral
danger. I shall speak of other phases of
the art in my next lecture, but I now touch
upon the moral element involved in it.
Unreality comes into preaching usually
at one of these three points : First,
through the commitment of a truth to
some one faculty exclusively, — to the rea
son, or the imagination, or the emotions.
Logic, as we well know, may lead us into
the impossible, the unbelievable. The con
clusion of the dogma of an arbitrary elec
tion in the dogma of infant damnation was
logical enough, but it could not find accept
ance in the category of Christian doctrine.
It could never gain the consent of any
other faculty than the logical faculty. Out-

64 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
side the sphere of logic it was reckoned im
possible, unbelievable. The imagination
and the emotions cannot be trusted alone
any more than the reason. Things are
not necessarily true because we want them
to be true, nor because we can describe
them as if they were true. Nothing can be
more unreal than the work of the imagi
nation when it is divorced from feeling, or
when it advances in some directions beyond
the power of feeling. It is for this reason,
I suppose, that the descriptions of the fu
ture torment of the wicked, as given by the
old preachers, are as a rule so ineffective.
They are certainly no more effective than
the descriptions of the dramatists. But the
preacher is more closely bound to reality
than the dramatist, although reality is the
mark of genuineness in all literature. I
emphasize "the danger of intrusting truth
to any one faculty. The test of reality is
the consent of the whole nature. A man
has no right to say, I believe, unless the
whole man believes. No creed can live
which is repeated under the protest of any
part of the consecrated nature.
A second point at which unreality may

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 65
come into the pulpit is through undue
striving after effect. The motive may be
right, the preacher wants to get a hearing
for the truth. When Robert Hall says
that " miracles were the bell of the uni
verse which God rang to call men to hear
his Son," we see the propriety of the figure.
Truth must have a hearing. But when we
take unfit, exaggerated, unscrupulous meth
ods to get a hearing for the truth, we rob
it of its reality. Here is the vice of sensa
tionalism. Truth in the hands of a sensa
tionalist does not impress us with its reality.
We discount so much that the little which
is left is ineffective. It must be the same
to the man himself who deals in the sen
sational method. He cannot take the truth
seriously, in so far as he is using it for mere
effect. And all like strivings for effect,
whether in style of speech or manner of
delivery, fall under the same charge of un
reality. And the third point at which danger
comes in is through undue stimulus from
an audience. Extempore preachers are
often charged with rhetorical courage.
They borrow their courage, the charge is,

66 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
from the situation. They say things in
public as they would not say them in
private, if indeed they would say them at
all. Rhetorical courage is not necessarily
unreal courage. One may legitimately do
that on an occasion which he could not
do without the occasion. We must give
a large liberty to public utterance. That
may be perfectly real to one in the pre
sence of men, and under the common feel
ing when once it is awakened, which could
not be real in the same degree to one when
alone. Still it is a part of the spiritual obli
gation of the preacher not to be dependent
for the reality of great truths upon the oc
casional excitement. He is to be the stead
ier force among men. He is to make the
positive, as Mr. Emerson says, stronger
than the superlative. He ought to have
no need of exaggeration. He must never
allow himself to utter as truths any of
those sentiments which cannot be verified
to some degree in the common experience.
These are the dangers which threaten
the preacher at the beginning. They all
come from the failure to get the right cor
respondence between the apprehension of

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 67
truth and the expression of it. I do not
say that they are greater at the begin
ning of one's work than at the end. The
young preacher may want to express too
much. The older preacher may not dare
to express enough. Certainly, if conserva
tism is the mark of age, it has its dangers.
There is a saving of truth which is a los
ing, a fear for the truth which comes to be
a distrust of it. The ultra conservatism of
the pulpit which stands more and more for
the defense of truth, whose chief concern
is that the truth shall suffer no harm, makes
the preacher himself less and less an out
going force. He, too, becomes unreal, be
cause he no longer comes up to the measure
of the truth.
Next to the danger of the preacher from
unreality, I put the danger which comes
from the want of direct and wholesome
criticism. Criticism of a certain sort there
is in abundance, but it never reaches the
preacher's ears. For aught he knows, un
less he is a man of rare insight, he is ex
empt from criticism. Contrast his situation
with that of the young advocate, who makes
his plea before the jury in the presence of

68 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
an alert antagonist, or even with that of the
young author, who waits the word of the
reviewer. The want of an open antagonist
or critic is, I think, the greatest disadvan
tage of an intellectual sort from which the
pulpit suffers.
When Mr. Webster was at Marshfield,
an old friend said to him, " Mr. Webster,
were you ever practically helped by any
body in forming your style ? " " Yes," Mr.
Webster answered at once. " Soon after I
was admitted to the bar, I gave a Fourth of
July oration at Portsmouth. The editor of
a magazine in Philadelphia published the
oration with a running comment upon it.
Taking it up part by part, he said : ' This
passage shows good reasoning ; here is a bit
of eloquence; but here is a lot of rhetoric,
mere wording. If the speaker cannot learn
to use simple and sincere language, he can
never be the orator for the common peo
ple.' I read that criticism over and
over," Mr. Webster said, " and finally con
cluded that if I was to get my living by
talking to plain people, I must have a plain
style." How invaluable a just and competent

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 69
critic would be to a young preacher. But
instead of that the average preacher has
much to fear from flattering tongues. Few
men are insensible to flattery. And preach
ers are more liable, not susceptible, to this
enervating experience than any other class
of men, with the possible exception of ac
tors. I wonder at the liberties which men
and women take in this regard with the
preacher. They seem to assume that the
preacher is a non-resistant. Appreciation
is a virtue. There is none too much of it.
It is not only grateful, it may be inspiring.
But flattery, or mere compliment, or even
unthinking acquiescence, each and all are
enervating to the last degree. As far as
they have an effect, they hold the preacher
to his lower levels. Far better the stimu
lus, the spur, if need be, the goad. I count
it the sure mark of deterioration when one
begins to be content and satisfied with
himself, because others, it matters not
whether they be few or many, are appar
ently satisfied with him, and say so. In
the absence of open criticism the preacher
must learn how to interpret facts which
stand for criticism. Absence is criticism ;

70 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
inattention is criticism ; unresponsiveness
is criticism ; and the failure to secure ap
preciable results may be criticism. The
preacher is the last man who can afford
to ignore or misinterpret facts which have
a bearing on his personal or professional
growths. You will not be surprised when I remind
you that the preacher has much to fear
from the dissipation of personal energy. A
very competent authority, himself enough
on the inside to observe, has said that the
two besetting sins of the ministry are lazi
ness and lying. By lying he means the
essential thing about which we have been
talking under the name of unreality. But
by laziness he means, I take it, the disposi
tion or the willingness to do the lesser in
place of the greater duty. This is the subtle
refinement *of laziness always and every
where, the postponement of the hard and
exacting duty beyond the one which is
easier and more agreeable. The minister
has an unwonted range of duties. Every
day gives a large choice. He can satisfy his
conscience by keeping at work indiscrimi
nately. He can be the busiest man in town,

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 71
and yet leave his great task undone. He is
simply working out of proportion. He can
do this ; few other men can. And every
preacher is working out of proportion when
he does not make preaching the one high,
commanding, inspiring duty of his life. I
do not underestimate the exactions or the
joys which belong to the pastorate. But I
do say that the imperative obligation of the
minister is to his pulpit. And when dis
tractions multiply and duties apparently
conflict, he ought to be able to hear, and
to know that he must obey, the mandate of
the pulpit, — -' Enter into thy closet and
shut thy door."
No, I do not mean this literally. I com
mend to you the necessity to the preacher
of the power of mental abstraction. A
preacher cannot altogether control time
or place. He ought not to expect to do
this. He must make allowance for inter
ruptions. As Dr. Payson used to say,
" The man who wants to see me is the
man whom I want to see," a rule of pre
sent application, barring book agents and
college presidents. The preacher who
excludes himself from men in the time

72 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
of their want or necessity is the preacher
whose sermons will in time betray this
seclusion. What, then, is the preacher's
defense ? The power of concentration or
of abstraction, the power to hold a subject
in thought and in heart under interruption
or in the midst of distracting influences.
A preacher ought to consider it one part
of his mental training to make himself
reasonably independent of conditions. He
ought to be able to work on a train, if he
has elbow room, not perhaps as well, but
as resolutely, as in his study. He ought
to be able to think clearly and calmly, or
clearly and passionately, in the midst of
alien surroundings, as well as when he is
within reach of his favorite authors, pro
vided of course he does not need to con
sult them.
And be/ond this consecration of the
preacher to the pulpit, I advise strongly
that a preacher seek first and above all
things to gain a secure standing in his
own pulpit. No people have the like
claim upon him with his own people ; and
no causes have a like claim upon him at
the beginning with the cause for which his

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 73
own pulpit stands. Later I shall have
occasion to speak of the growing range
of a preacher's activity, but at the first, a
preacher has the imperative duty, which
he owes alike to himself and to his people,
of concentrating upon his own pulpit. I
commend the example of Dr. Gordon at
the opening of his pastorate at the Old
South Church, Boston, who resolved that
for three years he would make no public
addresses. He kept his resolution. To
day he has the freedom of the country.
There is a very strong though subtle
influence which is at work toward the un
making of the preacher, coming up out of
the social situation. The social situation
is continually thrusting the question into
the preacher's face, How much ought you
to sacrifice for the people about you, most
of whom are in circumstances of comfort,
a few in circumstances of luxury? If he
were a pioneer in a new country, or if he
were a missionary among some peoples,
this question would not arise. A part of
the heroism of the missionary in distinc
tion from the routine of the parish min
ister lies in the social sacrifice. There is

74 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
evident need of that sacrifice. Hardship,
privation, possibly suffering, show the price
of his consecration. But why should a
minister, the insidious question will surely
arise, whose lot is cast in the midst of
social plenty and refinement, — why should
he sacrifice anything ? and if he is to make
no sacrifice, why should he not want and
expect the many and various privileges for
which society stands ? The question be
comes a very absorbing one when once it
begins to enter seriously into the thought
of a minister, or into the thought of his
family. And there is no end to its per
plexities. It has more power of petty dis
tractions than all other questions put to
gether. The Presbyterian Church seems
to have settled the difficulty in the terms
of the call which a local church extends to
a pastor. " The call runs in this wise : —
" And that you may be free from worldly
cares and avocations, we hereby promise
and oblige ourselves to pay to you the
sum of  in regular quarterly (or half
yearly, or yearly) payments, during the
time of your being and continuing the
regular pastor of this church."

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 75
This seems to settle the question; but
if the terms of a call are freely met, this
would be far from a settlement of the diffi
culties of the social situation. The salaries
of ministers are graduated everywhere very
closely to ordinary expense. They are in
this respect like the salaries of teachers
and professors, or for that matter like the
salaries of congressmen and judges, the
salaries of any persons outside the com
mercial classes. But the wants of a min
ister and his family are the same with
those of the average members of the com
munity in which they live. Their tastes
are probably rather above the average, and
beyond these lies the appeal of ambition
and privilege and opportunity.
What, now, can the preacher do ? I say
unhesitatingly he must accept in the main
the social situation as it is, and find his
satisfying compensations in the peculiar
aims and opportunities of his work. By
this I do not mean that the business side
of the ministry is to be made light of. It
is one of the first duties of a minister to
see that a parish gives for its own uses up
to the full limit of self-respect. Nothing

76 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
is gained to charity, but everything is
lost, by condoning with stinginess. That
parish will give most to foreign missions
which is trained to meet its own obliga
tions to the full. But when this has been
done, I know of nothing further to be done
except for a preacher to turn himself with
contentment and satisfaction to his work.
He cannot work under a social grievance.
He cannot preach and complain. But a
great many preachers are complaining. I
think that there is more complaint in the
ministry than in any other profession or
calling ; and of the various branches of the
church, I think that there is the most rest
lessness and complaint in the Congrega
tional ministry. The Methodist system
determines a preacher's lot and in part, at
least, his disposition toward it. The Epis
copal ideal supports the minister through
the dignity and separateness of his position.
The Congregational ministry is essentially
democratic. That means that it feels the
strain of social equality. The very spirit
which, as I shall show you by and by, makes
it difficult for us to maintain our churches
in certain localities, makes it difficult to

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 77
maintain our ministers in a state of mind
reasonably free from social competitions
and embarrassments. And therefore I ap
prise you in advance of the peculiar danger
from this source.
Let me go a step further in the same
direction and speak of the loss of power
to the preacher from frequent changes. I
conceive that the shortness and change-
ableness of the pastorate are doing a great
deal at present toward the unmaking of
the preacher. I know that there are two
sides to this matter; and especially that
it may seem to have a different aspect as
one looks at it from the side of the min
ister or of the congregation. It is, I be
lieve, among the traditions of this place,
that when a student asked Mr. Beecher,
" What was the special reason for short
pastorates," he got the quick reply, "The
mercy of God."
Permanency in the pastorate, other
things being equal, is a tremendous source
of power to the pulpit. It gives the
preacher the advantage of the accumula
tions in his personality. The old rhetori
cians used to say that one office of an

78 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
introduction was to present the speaker
and gain acceptance for him with his audi
ence. The preacher, who rises in the pul
pit after years of preaching, is a known
man, and if known probably honored and
loved. If he has shown intellectual ad
vance, the congregation is expectant of
more truth. When he applies that in
hand, his wisdom in the past enforces his
application. And when he appeals to his
people, every influence from character and
association and personal kindness and sac
rifice goes with the appeal.
There is but one valid argument on the
other side, speaking now in the interest
of the truth, of which I am aware. It is
the argument from freshness, the chance
for the new truth or the new setting of it.
But this all depends upon the question as
to whether the preacher's past is for him
or against him. If he cannot improve
upon that, if he repeats himself, if he is no
more to the truth than formerly, then he
ought to go. But if he can keep himself
abreast of truth, continually in advance of
his people, and maintain the good cheer
and enthusiasm of his personal faith, then

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 79
he ought to stay, so far as the interests of
truth are concerned.
And now about other interests, and espe
cially about that of the preacher himself.
The community, it goes without saying, is
usually the loser when a man is called
away under the urgent solicitation of an
other parish. If this were not the case,
calls from one parish to another would be
very scarce. But how about the minister
himself? It must be true that the man
who is under frequent call to leave his par
ish can afford to stay. At least, he need
not fear lest the last opportunity has come
to him. But can he satisfy the proper
demand for what may be the larger field ?
Let him ask himself if he has enlarged his
field to the utmost. Has he pushed out
into all legitimate relations to other fields
of work entirely germane to the preacher ?
One of the most popular of our younger
preachers has declined a call to a large city
on the ground, in part, that his influence is
extending into the colleges, and that he
cannot afford to forego that extension of
his ministry. That fact suggests one of the
new sources of pulpit power. Every board

80 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
of preachers in the colleges makes ten men
necessary where one served for the place
a generation ago. The work of the pulpit
is growing more intensive and extensive.
Preaching has to be clearer and more
direct, more to the point, than ever before.
And it has to do with wider relations. I
am very careful about advising interfer
ence with social and semi-political issues
till one is thoroughly trained and prepared
for such business. But this outer ministry
has a place in every tried, enlarged, influen
tial pastorate, provided the preacher shows
personal aptitude. I see no need of fre
quent changes of pastorate, in the interest
of freshness, either to preacher or people, if
the preacher will use all his opportunities
to keep himself in close and quickening
relations to truth and men. I cannot
overestimate the power to the pulpit of
men whose personality has begun to count
for something before the public. Usu
ally this power comes from men who are
placed. They are institutions. What mat
ters it just where the preacher is, if when
he speaks he gets the wider hearing, if the
book he prints is read, if the cause he

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 81
advocates is forwarded, if the inspiration
of his life and work goes out from heart to
heart. I am not saying that a man should
stay always where he begins, though I
think he ought to stay long enough to pay
the people for having taught him his ap
prenticeship ; but I am protesting against
the restlessness which comes with so great
frequency of change in the pastorate.
Greater permanency would, I am sure, give
us better churches and better preachers.
One of the chief sources of discourage
ment in one's early ministry is disappoint
ment in men. This disappointment does
not usually extend to loss of faith in human
nature, though a tendency to generalize
from a few particular cases of disappoint
ment is very strong, and the result in such
instances very disheartening. Whenever
the result is suspicion, distrust, or personal
bitterness, a preacher's power is greatly
lessened, and sometimes utterly lost. But
the danger which I now have in mind,
while less, is enhanced by the fact that it
comes to one early. I recall with gratitude
the advice which I received as a younger
man from the Hon. Alpheus Hardy, of

82 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
Boston, " Don't expect too much of men."
No layman within my knowledge had
higher standards than he. No man had
a more scrupulous sense of honor in busi
ness or a broader sense of public obliga
tion. But his words were wise. I have
had frequent occasion to prove their mean
ing. Men at large are not only under
greater temptations than we may suppose,
but they are under greater restrictions in
the matter of right doing than we may sup
pose. I think that the pulpit often lays a
burden on the individual man which ought
to be shared by society. The preacher is
continually saying to the man in business
or politics, or in any of the departments of
worldly struggle, repent, repent. And the
call is none too strong. But, on the other
hand, what if the individual man replies,
as he does by his silence and neglect,
" How can I repent ? how can I repent
alone? I represent my calling, my busi
ness, my party, my sect. When you ask
me to repent, you virtually ask me to leave
my business or calling or party or sect.
For when I have done all that I can to
reform the situation of which I am a part,

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 83
I am still a party to very much which you
condemn and which I disapprove."
Here lies the argument to-day, gentle
men, for the training of the social con
science. I do not say that we have no
right to urge individual repentance, and
works meet for repentance, but I do say
that we have no right to expect the full
and proper response to our message till
we have made the conditions more nearly
possible for personal righteousness. The
call to repentance which we send out must
be addressed to the church, to society, to
every calling and business which ought
to listen and obey. We ought to make
it harder for men to sin and more possi
ble, if not easier, for men to be righteous.
Meanwhile, let us not be disappointed in
men, if we can see discontent and struggle
on their part. Let us incorporate every
gain in personal righteousness into public
sentiment. We do not need to-day mere
come-outers ; we need men who will help
from within, men who will leave their busi
ness or profession, and society and the
state and the church, safer places to live
in than when they found them.

84 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
I am not intending to speak in this lec
ture, or at any time, about the great lapses
from faith or from righteousness or from
God, which completely undo the preacher.
They are self-evident in their application.
I speak only the passing word about the
effect of intellectual doubt upon the power
of the preacher. The effect of doubt de
pends upon the kind of doubt. There is
a doubt which is utterly demoralizing.
There is a doubt which is a challenge to
sincere and brave souls. Who questions
the effect of doubt on the soul of Robert
son ? What mighty and passionate sym
pathies it gave him with humanity. What
depth of view it gave him into the heart of
truth. How near it brought him to the
personal Christ. Doubt of such a nature,
and it is the only kind worthy of a strong
and sane rnan, may have an incalculable
power for good. It may lead the way into
reality. When the darkness is spent, it is
the true light which shineth.
The most serious danger to the preacher
must of course come from himself. I can
not make clear all the ways in which it
will become real to you. But there is one

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 85
aspect of the danger which I cannot over
look, because it grows with the true growth
and success of the preacher. The longer
one lives, the harder one works, the better
in some senses the results of his preach
ing, the farther apart the man seems to
himself to be from the truth he utters.
I do not see how it can be otherwise.
Ideals must outstrip the reality. The in
creasing brightness of the truth brings
out more clearly personal deficiencies and
shortcomings. In the very joy of preach
ing there may come in upon one the sense
of personal unworthiness which is over
whelming. The success which one may
gain may seem to him to have a lower in
terpretation. He cannot accept the ver
dict of the hour. He anticipates a diviner
judgment, which may be a reversal of that
which has apparently been rendered. I
am about to read you an extract from one
of the greatest, — it is altogether the most
searching sermon of the last generation,
that of Canon Mozley on the Reversal
of Human Judgment. I count each year
in especial danger which has not felt the
tonic of its words.

86 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
" Suppose any supernatural judge should
appear in the world now, it is evident the
scene he would create would be one to
startle us; we should not soon be used
to it ; it would shock and appall ; and that
from no other cause than simply its reduc
tions ; that it presented characters stripped
bare, denuded of what was irrelevant to
goodness, and only with their moral sub
stance left. The judge would take no cog
nizance of a rich imagination, power of
language, poetical gifts, and the like, in
themselves, as parts of goodness, any more
than he would of richness and prosperity ;
and the moral residuum left would appear
perhaps a bare result. The first look of
divine justice would strike us as injustice ;
it would be too pure a justice for us ; we
should be long in reconciling ourselves to
it. Justice would appear, like the painter's
gaunt skeleton of emblematic meaning, to
be stalking through the world, smiting
with attenuation luxuriating forms of vir
tue. Forms, changed from what we knew,
would meet us, strange, unaccustomed
forms, and we would have to ask them
who they were, — 'You were flourishing

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 87
but a short while ago, what has happened
to you now ? ' And the answer, if .it spoke
the truth, would be, ' Nothing, except that
now much which lately counted as good
ness counts as such no longer ; we are
tried by a new moral measure, out of
which we issue different men ; gifts which
have figured as goodness remain as gifts,
but cease to be goodness.' Thus would
the large sweep made of human canoniza
tions act like blight or volcanic fire upon
some rich landscape, converting the luxury
of nature into a dried-up scene of bare
stems and scorched vegetation."
Sometimes I say, Yes, more and more,
this sense of dissatisfaction with personal
gifts, this sense of their danger as substi
tutes for plain and simple righteousness,
finds a place in the heart of the preacher.
It is perhaps as much a sign of the true
spirit and of the growing reality, as the
trembling knee is the inseparable sign of
eloquence. The preacher has the right to
know that humility is the one sure posses
sion which gives him entrance into the
high places of his high calling.

88 THE UNMAKING PROCESS
" Humble must be if to heaven we go,
High is the roof there, but the gate is low."
I once asked Dr. Philip Schaff to preach
for me. As we passed through the door
way near the foot of the pulpit stairs, he
turned to me and said, " Don't you always
feel humble when you go through this
door ? " I knew at least that he felt what
he said, and I knew that, though he was
not distinctively a preacher, we should
have that day great preaching, and we
had it.
The safety of the preacher, the safe
guard from himself, lies in the growth of
humility. All God's chosen ones have
had it. It is the sure and fine quality
which underlies their natures. It explains
their shrinkings from duty, their hesita
tions and reluctance. It was the ground
of Moses' protest, — " Who am I that I
should go in unto Pharaoh ? " of Isaiah's
despair, — "I am undone, because I am
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the
midst of a people of unclean lips : " of
Jeremiah's shrinking, — " Ah, Lord God,
I am but a child : " of the abasement and
of the exaltation of Paul, — "I am the least

THE UNMAKING PROCESS 89
of the apostles ; I am not worthy to be
called an apostle." " I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me."
Gentlemen, there is no fellowship so
great or safe or assuring as that into
which we enter through humility.

IV
THE PREACHER AND HIS ART
In a course of lectures like the present,
which has to do altogether with the person
ality of the preacher, due account must
be made of those influences coming from
his work or from his surroundings, which
are to his harm, influences which, if unde
tected and unrestrained, will soon or late
reach the man himself, and take the heart
out of his preaching. So we gave up the
lecture of yesterday to the consideration
of influences of this nature. I confess to
you that it is with a sense of relief that
I turn again to those constructive forces
and habits in which we find the guarantee
of the safety and power of the preacher.
I have, however, a misgiving about the
lecture of to-day. It will take me, beyond
any other lecture of the course, into the
immediate province of the class room. I
do not know how this can be helped ; but I

THE PREACHER AND HIS ART 91
find no little satisfaction in remembering
that if by any chance my opinions should
not coincide with those of the department,
no greater harm will come to you than this
waste of words. I say in advance, gentle
men, that the work of the department is
the essential thing, not the casual utterance
of a lecturer. A special train may be gen
erously given the right of way for a trip,
but it is of very little account compared
with the regular travel and traffic for which
the road was built, and which support it.
The subject of to-day is the Preacher,
considered as an Artist.
There is no reaction upon a preacher
like that from his work. That creates a
habit. In the lecture of yesterday, I spoke
of the morality of preaching as consisting
in the right correspondence between the
apprehension of truth and the expression
of it. Preaching becomes unmoral, if not
immoral, when the expression of a truth is
beyond the apprehension of it. Then the
preacher crosses over the line into unreal
ity. But I also said that the effectiveness
of preaching lies in this same correspond
ence. It is just as necessary that the

92 THE PREACHER
expression of truth should satisfy the ap
prehension or realization of it, as that the
expression should not surpass the realiza
tion. When the attempt is made to com
municate more truth than one has in actual
possession, or when feeling is simulated,
preaching becomes, so far as the preacher
is concerned, an immorality. But this is
not the danger of the majority of preachers,
certainly not at the beginning. The dan
ger then is that the preacher will not com
municate the truth he has, or express the
feeling which he actually entertains towards
it. Hence the occasion for the art of
preaching or sermonizing, the art of mak
ing the communication of truth satisfy the
personal apprehension of it. In so far,
therefore, as preaching is an art, the
preacher is an artist, and ought to have
the conscience of an artist ; conscience,
I say, for conscience is just as much con
cerned with the communication of truth
as it is with the search after it. The con
science of the preacher as an inquirer or
believer is never at variance with the con
science of the preacher when he is doing his
work as an artist, and never demands that

AND HIS ART 93
this work shall take a subordinate place.
This is the fundamental position of the
present lecture; and if any one is not pre
pared to accept it in full, then I cannot
expect to convince him of the moral sig
nificance of the subject of to-day to the
present course of lectures.
The preacher, considered as an artist, is
to be judged by his use of method, by his
sense of proportion, by his style, and by the
tone of his preaching.
There are two, and, as it seems to me,
but two, perfectly natural methods of
preaching. One where the sermon is
prepared for extempore speech, the other
where the sermon is written to be read.
Between these lie two other methods in
common use, entirely legitimate, in them
selves forcible, and probably best adapted
to the average preacher, — the memoriter
method, and that of the sermon written to
be delivered. I will give a brief characteri
zation of each method for our present uses.
The characteristic of the extempore
method, as I view it, is that the mind of
the preacher remains in the creative mood
throughout the delivery of the sermon.

94 THE PREACHER
The ordinary definitions of extempore
speech do not satisfy this conception, as
when it is said that the " extempore
speaker knows what he will say, he does
not know how he will say it ; " or that
" the extempore preacher enters the pul
pit as the writer takes his pen to write."
These definitions ignore the idea of the
creative energy as still active under the
process of speaking. The true conception
of extempore preaching is that the preacher
enters the pulpit before the creative fires,
the fires which kindle thought, have been
put out. The preacher is still in heat when
he enters the pulpit. The mind is in its
most intense activity, and therefore clear
est and most discriminating in its action.
The sermon has been thoroughly prepared,
that is, thought out, otherwise it would be
an example of mere impromptu preaching ;
but something of the material in mind
may be rejected, and other material may be
added. The genuine extempore preacher
does not know just how the truth will pos
sess him as he stands before men ; he does
not know what his audience will have to
say about it. It is this unknown element

AND HIS ART 95
which enters into and determines the best
extempore preaching. The best extempore
sermons, I do not say the average of them,
but the best, never could have been en
tirely prepared in the study. The extem
pore preacher who is such by clear distinc
tion usually thinks his best thoughts in
the presence of men. Without the stimu
lus of their presence, these thoughts would
not have been conceived. They are born
of the quick contact of the mind of the
preacher with the mind of the audience.
There is a just sense in which they belong
to the audience as well as to the preacher.
The extempore preacher must of course be
prepared to preach without these partially
extraneous aids : then we have ordinary
preaching. He must be prepared to wel
come and utilize them : then we have ex
traordinary extempore preaching.
It is hardly necessary to say that
this distinction separates the extempore
preacher entirely from the merely ready
preacher or the fluent preacher or, accord
ing to the old parlance, the unwearied
preacher. He belongs to another genus.
Fluency is the greatest foe to true extern-

96 THE PREACHER
pore preaching. The fluent, easy, self-
satisfied talker has none of the stuff in him
of which extempore preachers are made.
In the memoriter method, or that of the
sermon written to be delivered, — they are
alike in principle, — the preacher forecasts
as far as possible the situation ; he prepares
his sermon with his audience before him in
imagination ; he thinks how he will utter
the given truth in their presence ; and hav
ing prepared the sermon in thought and
feeling to the best of his power, he com
mits it, in the one case to memory, and in
the other case to manuscript. The memo
riter preacher has a considerable advantage
in ready contact with his audience, in the
use of eye and gesture ; the preacher from
manuscript may have the advantage of
using his manuscript as an instrument, an
instrument of great accuracy and preci
sion. A preacher from manuscript should
never be ashamed of his manuscript. He
should make his audience feel that it is a
source of power, that it is an effective in
strument in his hands. Preaching from
manuscript, it is to be remembered, is in
itself an art. As Dr. William M. Taylor

AND HIS ART 97
has said, in speaking of the change in his
own case from the memoriter method,
" One must educate himself to the free and
unfettered use of the full manuscript."
But both the manuscript sermon and the
sermon written to be delivered are in their
intention oratorical. The preacher is the
orator, so far as he may be, in his study ;
he tries to put his feeling as well as his
thought into the care of his memory or of
his manuscript, and then to recover them in
the presence of his audience, a fact which
explains clearly enough, I think, what I
meant when I said that either method,
though extremely forcible in itself, is by
comparison with the extempore method
unnatural. The aim being oratorical, the
method is not so true to the aim.
The sermon written to be read is by dis
tinction literary. It is not written to be
delivered, it is written to be read. The
action is not in the man speaking as the
orator, the action is in the style. The
style is terse, vivid, axiomatic, picturesque,
vital in word as well as in thought, and
everywhere pervaded by the imagination.
Mere smoothness of diction is as fatal to

98 THE PREACHER
this method as is fluency to the extempore
method. Every sentence has its own car
rying power. Gesture may be used, but it
helps very little. The use of the eye is
not necessary. I heard a preacher some
twenty years ago, a young man then, now
unhappily no longer in the pulpit, read a
sermon of this type without lifting his eyes
from the manuscript, but I doubt if any
one in the large audience took his eyes off
the preacher. This method, though not
absolutely natural, is relatively natural. It
is true to its aim. Its aim is the best ex
pression of a truth through the most effec
tive literary qualities. The literary aim
allows the literary method of presentation,
that is, reading.
Now while these methods differ, as I
conceive, at the points I have named, they
all have the great and essential qualities of
the sermon in common. A sermon must
be a sermon in any and all conceivable cir
cumstances, as a plea must be a plea, or an
essay an essay, or a poem a poem. But in
the choice of a method, and in the adapta
tion of it to his own powers, the preacher
is the artist. There lies a considerable part

AND HIS ART 99
of the responsibility in relation to any art.
And the choice is not to be quickly settled.
For this reason I would advise the method
of the sermon written to be delivered to
begin with, as the one which secures the
best immediate results, and from which one
can pass into the method of the extempore
or written sermon, should one feel that he
is capable of making the change. The
memoriter method, if one has a reliable
memory, has the advantage of direct ap
proach to an audience. The danger of the
method is declamation, than which nothing
can be more out of place in the pulpit.
But if one is to become the extempore
preacher, or the preacher of the sermon
written to be read, he must enter into long
and resolute training; especially in case
of training for extempore preaching, he
must put himself under inexorable safe
guards against uncertainty in thought, un-
evenness in temperament, diff useness in lan
guage, — the fluent man, I repeat, should
never become the extempore preacher, —
against repetition and monotony in the
choice of subjects, the overworking of
words and phrases, overstatement, undue

100 THE PREACHER
familiarity with an audience, and various
other dangers of like nature too many to
be enumerated. He must subject himself
to a training which is positive and continu
ous ; and when he has his method well in
hand, then he will beware most lest through
overconfidence he lets in some of the vices
which will destroy its power. But the end,
as indeed the end to be reached by any
method, is worthy of the struggle. Just so
far as conscience goes into the task, just so
far may one take to himself the joy of his
conscience in the result.
Proportion in the sermon reveals the ar
tist in the preacher more even than his use
of method. A sermon proceeding upon
any method must have proportion. It is
the artistic test. I once heard a sermon
from a very able man on the hidings of
God's power. These hidings, the preacher
said, were to be found in history, in provi
dence, and in grace. It took the preacher
thirty minutes to find them in history, ten
minutes to find them in providence, and
three minutes to find them in grace. The
element of time, considering the sermon as
a whole, enters into the question- of propor-

AND HIS ART 101
tion. A preacher must determine how long
a given truth, under his presentation of it,
can hold an audience for the best impres
sion, not how long an audience will stay and
return another Sunday. The arrangement
of a sermon has a great deal to do with
the impression of time. Some preachers
frighten an audience at the outset by the
way in which they lay out a sermon, even
when the fear is not justified by the actual
time taken. I have in mind a preacher who
lays out his sermon for an hour, but he
always stops inside thirty minutes. I sup
pose it may have been a man of this type
who raised in the mind of Sydney Smith
the horrible suspicion, which he communi
cated to his neighbor in the pew — " You
don't suppose, do you, that the man has
forgotten the end ? "
Proportion demands of the preacher that
he shall always choose a manageable sub
ject, and this means sometimes that he
shall leave a subject alone, it may be for
years, until it becomes manageable. A
manageable subject is one which can be
presented in its wholeness. Wholeness
requires unity, but it is more than unity.

io2 THE PREACHER
It is bringing the weight of the subject to
bear, not in fragments, but as a whole.
Proportion calls for emphasis in the dis
tinction of parts. Equality of treatment
measured in time and space may be a false
equality. One part may be made emphatic
by the simple statement of it; another part
requires full and elaborate treatment. Pro
portion is not a matter of outline. It is a
matter of impression. When a thought
has done its work, then the next. Or to
change from the figure of structure, which
always restricts the thought of proportion,
let me say that the characteristic of a ser
mon from beginning to end is movement,
progress. You can test the sermon at any
point by this characteristic. There is no
such thing, for example, as the introduc
tion to a aubject. Introduction is a part of
the subject. It is that part which invites
entrance. Once within, the mind is car
ried along by the preacher, now by argu
ment, now by illustration, now by appeal,
but always carried along. At any given
moment the listener is not where he was
the moment before. And when the end
comes, one knows that he has been under

AND HIS ART 103
motion. A sermon that has had move
ment cannot stop without creating this
feeling in an audience, even if it has not
been apparent before. The stillness which
has prevailed gives way to the movement
of relief. The tension is broken.
Under whatever figure you consider the
idea of proportion, it comes to the same
thing. The preacher has given the right
amount of truth for the end sought, he has
kept its unity, he has left it with an impres
sion which does justice to the truth as a
whole. And meanwhile the appropriate
effect is to be seen in the audience. The
audience is brought to a conclusion, not the
sermon simply, or the truth. " Preaching,"
according to one of the best definitions of
it of which I have knowledge, " is making
men think, and feel as they think, and act
as they feel."
The pulpit, as much as any agency of
public speech, places insistence upon style.
The truth in itself, however true it may be,
will not insure the preacher a hearing. It
is in preaching as in all good speech, the
truth, plus the man, plus the style. The
pulpit, however, insists upon no particular

104 THE PREACHER
style. It has no style of its own. The at
tempt to create something distinctive and
peculiar in this regard always results in
unnaturalness, the worst possible vice in
preaching. What the pulpit demands, and
all that it demands, is adherence to the
fundamental laws of effective speech. It
continually throws the emphasis upon the
most elementary and fundamental qualities.
There must be vitality, the one physical
quality, the expression of which may vary
from the restraint of the deep, almost im
possible utterance to the outburst of pas
sion, but the quality must be in evidence.
The preacher must be alive, the sermon
must be a living thing, otherwise the infer
ence will be against the truth as well as
against the preacher. And there must be
sincerity, the one moral quality; sincerity
in the choice of a subject and at every step
in its presentation ; a sincerity so absolute
that it will insure the denial of all ambitious
themes, the rejection of all unproven or un
real statements, the contempt of all feigned
emotion ; a sincerity also which will show
itself in the quickening of the whole moral
nature and in its ready and complete re
sponse to the truth.

AND HIS ART 105
The literary qualities of the sermon
which are in demand are equally clear
and simple. I would lay the stress upon
these three, — plainness, force, and beauty.
What is necessary to insure plainness in
the sermon ? First, that the thought of the
sermon be prepared for others. The think
ing of the preacher is not to take the place
of the thinking of the audience, but it is to
adapt itself to their thought to the degree
that it may prove a stimulus. There must
be no strangeness, no remoteness in the
thought of the pulpit. It must not be alien
to the current life of men. What are
called " living subjects " are not necessa
rily subjects of the hour, but subjects
through which life is always flowing in
steady current. The preacher must learn
to think toward men, not away from them.
Why should he not learn to think in their
terms, just as he always shares the com
mon feeling ? There is no more reason
for the divorce of the pulpit from the in
tellectual life of the people than there is
for its divorce from their emotional life.
And second, that the sermon have order
of thought. Order is the chief aid to

106 THE PREACHER
understanding. A sermon should be so
arranged or developed that a hearer can
never lose his place in it. The preacher
can count upon a good deal of simple logic
in the common mind. There may not be
enough to expose sophistry, but there is
always enough to follow clear reasoning on
plain matters. And third, that the sermon
have simple construction, or movement in
its parts. A clear thought may be utterly
lost in a complicated sentence. An in
volved period may cost the preacher the
attention of his audience. Conciseness
may sometimes be carried to the point of
obscurity, but conciseness never leads the
mind astray. Conciseness will not tolerate
a wandering mind. And fourth, that the
words employed in the sermon be the
words of .well understood and accepted
speech. They must be current words.
Some preachers need to take their ideas
to the exchangers. They will not always
receive in return short, homely words. A
term of Latin derivation may be more
common than its corresponding Saxon
form. Familiarity is the chief test. Still,
the preference goes with the strong, sin-

AND HIS ART 107
ewy, terse word rather than with the more
elegant or even more scrupulously exact
word. I commend to you the advice which
Charles Kingsley puts into the mouth of
the wife of the country esquire of Harthover
House: " So she made Sir John write to
the 'Times' to command the Chancellor of
the Exchequer for the time being to put
a tax on long words : a light tax on words
of over three syllables, which are necessary
evils, like rats, but which like them must
be kept down judiciously; a heavy tax on
words of over four syllables, such as heter
odoxy, spontaneity, spuriosity, and the like;
and on words of over five syllables a totally
prohibitory tax, and a similar prohibitory
tax on words derived from three or more
languages at the same time." Plainness
depends upon such simple requisites as
these which I have named ; but it rises to
finer issues, as in the power to simplify,
the gift of the great teachers ; or in the
power to make vivid, the gift of those who
have imagination as well as reason.
The quality of force is illustrated by
different types of personality. Its expres
sion is determined largely by the tempera-

108 THE PREACHER
ment of the speaker. There are two dis
tinct classes of speakers who may be
rightly termed forcible. In the one class
power lies in repose, in the other it is in
strong, intense, it may be, vehement action.
The one class holds an audience, taking
command of it by authority. The other
class projects itself upon an audience, and
arouses, inspires, or inflames. Not many
speakers are able to contradict the condi
tions of persuasive speech, and produce
results in others which are not manifest in
themselves. In this regard Mr. Phillips
was the exceptional orator of our genera
tion, the only man within sound of his own
words who could remain cool and unim-
passioned. The distinction which I have
drawn between force in comparative repose
and force in personal action is quickly re
cognized in the distinction between Ed
wards and Chalmers, Webster and Choate,
Finney and Moody, Conkling and Blaine,
Spurgeon and Brooks. The versatility of
Mr. Beecher enabled him to cover both
types, though his usual type was that of the
impassioned speaker. I recall with great
vividness of impression one example of

AND HIS ART 109
the range of his eloquence. It was upon
the occasion of the reception of English
delegates at the first National Congrega
tional Council, held in Boston, near the
close of the civil war. The state of feel
ing between England and the United
States was then very different from that
which we are now witnessing. It was no
easy task for the English delegates to pre
sent the greetings of the English churches.
But the men themselves were not at their
best. Their words were not well chosen.
The audience as it listened grew more ex
cited and aroused. When Mr. Beecher,
who had just returned from his triumphant
tour in England, rose to reply — it was a
personal, not an official reply — he faced a
vast body of men in the heat of smothered
passion. His opening words met the mood
of the audience. " When I landed in Eng
land and first met the people," he said, " it
seemed to me that God had sent them a
strong delusion, that they should believe
a lie, that they all might be damned."
Then, with inimitable humor and pathos,
as he described the scenes of his cam
paign, he relieved the tension and unbur-

no THE PREACHER
dened the heart of his hearers. And then
having made his audience plastic to his
touch, he began to mould it to his end.
His speech broadened, as it advanced, to
the limits of Christian charity, and rose to
the height of moral passion befitting the
subject and the occasion. It was the
speech of a man who had himself in per
fect command as well as his argument,
and who was therefore able to command
his audience. He found his audience rest
less and angered ; he left it calmed and
elevated, at peace with itself, if not alto
gether at peace with the outer world.
If one may attempt to describe force by
its qualities rather than by the personal
expression of it, I should say that it con
sisted in such qualities as these : direct
ness, the power of straightforward, on-
moving speech, speech which brooks no
interruption but which moves with a stead
fast determination to its end, not the mere
advance of logic, but the advance of the
whole man ; copiousness, the utterance of
the full man, which relieves at once the
fear of mental exhaustion and gives the
assurance of power in reserve ; nervous-

AND HIS ART in
ness of style, the characteristic of which is
that every thought is alive, that every word
leaps to its task ; and massiveness, the
weight of well-organized thought, through
which the speaker is able to make the whole
of his thought felt through every part.
I do not dare to venture upon any de
finition of beauty, in its application to
style, within the limit of a paragraph. Cer
tainly beauty does not consist in faultless
ness nor in any rhetorical devices. It is
chiefly the product of the imagination, the
sane imagination. It attends greatness of
thought, not its mere refinements. It be
longs to the positive, the real, the spiritual.
It is to be found in such simplicity of con
ception as marked Mr. Lincoln's Gettys
burg Address, in Ruskin's appreciation of
nature, in Shakespeare's insight and per
fection of form.
These are the qualities of style, upon
which I would insist, for the pulpit. I can
not conceive of a good sermon which does
not show vitality and sincerity, which is not
plain and forceful, and in which the trained
mind at least may not feel at some point
the presence of beauty.

ii2 THE PREACHER
To speak of the tone of the sermon as
belonging to its artistic side may seem to
be going beyond the range of art, but I
think not. Tone is personal, it belongs to
the man, but it belongs to the preacher as
such in his relation to given conditions
and to a well-defined occasion. The pul
pit tone has become a term of cant. Let
us remember that the counterfeit assumes
the genuine, the caricature, the original.
The language of the pulpit must be the
language of certainty; that gives charac
ter to its speech. It must be the language
of sympathy ; that gives character to its
speech. It must be the language of hope
fulness, the hopefulness of the gospel ; that
gives character to its speech. Its speech
must be characterized by that spiritual
quality which is no more satisfied with
mere intellectualism than with sensuous-
ness. The sermon is the utterance of a
man who feels in all his nature his de
pendence upon God, who stands in awe of
the divine working in and through him,
but who rejoices none the less in the joy
of the divine fellowship. Can anything
declare in a more perfect simplicity the

AND HIS ART 113
secret of the inner life of the preacher
than the opening words of the Apostle
John in his first epistle ? " That which
was from the beginning, that which we
have heard, that which we have seen with
our eyes, that which we beheld, and our
hands handled, concerning the Word of
life (for the life was manifested, and we
have seen, and bear witness, and declare
unto you the life, the eternal life, which
was with the Father, and was manifested
unto us) ; that which we have seen and
heard declare we unto you also, that ye
also may have fellowship with us : yea,
and our fellowship- is with the Father, and
with his Son Jesus Christ: and these
things we write, that our joy may be ful
filled." Yes, the sermon ought to have a charac
ter which befits it. That gives it tone. But
character in speech can come only out of
the life of the speaker. If it be true in any
sense that " the style is the man," it is ten
fold more true that the tone is the man.
And yet I am well aware of the common
fact that the best men are not always the
best preachers ; nor is the fact to be over-

n4 THE PREACHER
looked, that the best preachers, who have
the fine distinction of character in their
speech, often preach below their subject
and below themselves. I will not attempt
any full explanation of this falling short of
the pulpit in its best estate. I will, how
ever, suggest one reason why, as it seems
to me, the pulpit in any given case may
lack the right tone. The lack may be
due to a certain want of timeliness in the
immediate preparation for preaching. The
intellectual and the emotional have not
been made to act in close and continuous
companionship. As a result, when the
time comes to preach, the intellectual ele
ment is found to be immature, or the emo
tional element has become a spent force.
To be able to utter a truth in heat, and yet
when it has taken form and shape, and
reached its great conclusion — that is
preaching. But what preacher has not
felt the fires burning low or dying out
under the process of elaboration ? The
truth wrought out at last is not the truth
which first laid hold upon the heart and
cried out for utterance. The greater ex
periences of the preacher are the reverse

AND HIS ART 115
of this, when the truth grows warmer as it
grows clearer, when it flames as it expands,
and finally comes forth not only radiant in
its own light, but touched with emotion.
Touched with emotion, this is often the
touch which makes the old new and the
common fresh. As a quaint old commen
tator said, after reading Paul's words to the
Philippians, — "I have told you often, and
now I tell you weeping" — " Ah, Paul, that
makes it a new truth. You have not said
just that before."

V
WHAT THE PREACHER OWES TO THE TRUTH
In the lectures of this week I shall en
deavor to show you how the making or
unmaking of the preacher is determined
by the way in which he meets two of his
imperative responsibilities, his responsibil
ity to the truth and his responsibility to
men. The nearest obligation of the preacher,
an obligation of the nature of a discipline
or of a task, is that which he owes to his
art. Day by day, in season and out of sea
son, he is at work under the increasing
force of the homiletic habit. The preacher,
as we saw at the last lecture, is the artist.
He must have therefore the conscience of
the artist. Let not a preacher imagine for
a moment that he can satisfy his high call
ing by any kind of general or specific right
eousness, if he neglect his business, his
art. If God has called him to preach, He

WHAT PREACHER OWES TO TRUTH 117
has called him to be a preacher. Preach
ing is more than sermonizing, more, that
is, than the preparation, or the writing, or
the delivering of a sermon. It involves the
constant study of all the conditions which
make the sermon effective. If a sermon is
ineffective, the preacher has no right to go
on making sermons just like it. He must
stop and ask why it is ineffective, and not
be content until he has found out the rea
son. That is the way in which any other
man works, who has put himself under
moral obligation to his art.
But quite beyond any obligation of this
nature, and in a sense quite above it, are
those responsibilities which a preacher as
sumes toward the truth and toward men.
And in the treatment of these responsibili
ties we may find the clearest evidence of
the tendencies which are at work for the
making or the unmaking of the individual
preacher. The subject of to-day is The Responsi
bility of the Preacher to the Truth, with
special reference to present conditions.
The preacher, in distinction from other
men who are concerned with the truth, has

118 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
a threefold responsibility: First, that the
truth shall have a hearing. Second, that
it shall be rightly interpreted to the popu
lar mind. Third, that it shall reach men
through the proper and sufficient motive.
The first responsibility of the preacher
is to gain a hearing for the truth. William
Lloyd Garrison announced his personal
platform as a reformer in these words : " I
will not equivocate, I will not compromise,
I will not retreat a single inch, and I will
be heard." I believe, gentlemen, that the
preacher of to-day must have something of
the personal determination of the reformer.
The outward situation is not one of hos
tility and antagonism. Apparently the
preacher has the advantage of all other
men in the setting of his task. Who but
he has one day in seven given him for an
opportunity ? Who but he has an institu
tion widespread and universally recognized
standing for his support ? Yet, as we well
know, neither Sunday nor the church can
guarantee the preacher a hearing for the
truth at all commensurate with its signifi
cance or with his obligation to it.
Dr. Fisher has reminded me of the old-

TO THE TRUTH 119
time custom in New Haven that whenever
a preacher of repute arrived unexpectedly
in the town on a week day, the church
bell was rung for an evening service, which
was sure to gather up the greater part of
the community. Religion as an intellectual
pursuit was the prevailing interest, a state
of affairs which no longer exists, so far as
we know, outside the parish of Drumtochty,
or possibly the neighboring parish of Til-
biedrum. In our impatience, we may
charge the difference to the secularization
of the age. That may or may not explain
the change. Certainly it does not offer the
sufficient excuse ; for we are bound to be
lieve that religion has its interests, apart
from any peculiar type of intellectualism
which it may develop, and equal to the
passing concerns of an age.
In an after - dinner speech, Justice
Holmes, of the Massachusetts Supreme
Court, quoted the remark of a friend to the
effect that, " After all, the only interesting
thing is religion ; " and then added for him
self, " I think it is true, if you take the word
a little broadly, and include under it the
passionate curiosity as well as the passion-

120 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
ate awe which we feel in face of the mystery
of the universe. This curiosity is the most
human appetite in man." Now, if to this
most human appetite we have, which though
latent in many is constant in all, you add the
incitement of great disturbing questions,
questions of authority and destiny and
human welfare: if you stimulate religion
on the intellectual side by critical inquiry,
and on the sympathetic side by contact
with misery; if you call upon Christianity
as an historical religion to verify its history,
and as a religion of humanity to humanize
the forces which control life ; if, I say, you
increase and stimulate the common reli
gious instinct or appetite by these extraor
dinary incitements and demands, you have
brought about in general the exact state
of religious thought and life which now
exists. Without a doubt religion is to-day,
not only by its own personal rights, but in
its relation to the age, a "most interesting
thing." This, of course, is a generalization in re
gard to the personal appeal of truth. When
you break up the generalization, and reduce
the subject to its commonplace conditions,

TO THE TRUTH 121
when you ask how men feel about religious
truth in a given locality, you are met, I
grant, by comparative indifference where
you might have expected interest. Church
going is conceded to be less the custom
than it was several generations ago ; though
this fact is not to be stated alone. It is
also true that the proportion of church
members to the whole population has in
creased, and that the worth of the church
to the community, when measured by its
benevolences and general activities, has
also increased. Church going, too, is some
thing which cannot be determined by the
presence or absence of distracting influ
ences. The church of the city is on the
whole better attended than the church of
the remote country; which shows that re
ligion can contend better against strong
competitions than against stagnation or
lethargy. The traditions of a locality or
of a sect have much to do with church
going. A community is usually in whole
or in part set toward the church or away
from it. A preacher finds, wherever he
goes, that he has an inheritance of in
terest or of indifference. But when the

122 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
proper allowance has been made for the in
fluences which can be counted upon to
gain the truth a hearing, it still remains
that a large added obligation rests upon
the preacher. To satisfy this obligation he
must make all legitimate use of his person
ality, both within and without the pulpit.
There are very few uses of one's personal
ity, which are genuine and natural, which
are not legitimate. All affectation and ar
tificiality are ruled out, all tricks and man
nerisms, all imitations of other preachers, all
perversion of one's own powers. But every
really natural gift has a place in the pulpit.
It is impossible to discuss the question
of the introduction of humor into the pul
pit, apart from the knowledge of the man.
The humor of one preacher may be as re
verent as the solemnity of another. That
charming quality of quaintness, which gives
the truth the constant advantage of fresh
ness and delicate surprise and unsuspected
meaning, how much more effective it is
than any rhetorical elaboration or any
straining after originality. And the use
of dramatic power, if the power is abso
lutely genuine and irresistible, how surely

TO THE TRUTH 123
it lays hold upon us all without respect to
persons. When Father Taylor drew to his
sailor chapel, where he kept the body of
the house reserved for his sailors, Dr.
Channing and Daniel Webster, and later
John A. Andrew and his friends, it was
" the touch of nature which makes the
whole world kin."
I know of no limit which we can put
upon the freedom of a greatly gifted man,
whom God has set in the pulpit. Great
gifts, however, have a various result. They
may repel as well as invite. It is for this
reason that the most popular preachers
are seldom universally popular. They all
have their limitations. Test the fact by
the attempt to exchange the audiences
which different men may have gathered,
and I think that you would be surprised
at the result. Who supposes that Canon
Liddon could have retained Mr. Spur
geon's audience had it been transferred to
St. Paul's, or that Mr. Spurgeon could
have retained Canon Liddon's audience
had it been transferred to the Tabernacle ?
Or apply the same test to men of such
wide humanity in common as Phillips

124 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
Brooks and Dwight Moody. When Mr.
Moody was in Boston some years ago, Mr.
Brooks took his service at one session.
After reading his sermon, which was re
ported in the papers, I wondered how long
the same audience would have been held
under that type of preaching. An audi
ence there would have been, but not, I be
lieve, for any long time the same.
As the element of genuine personality
in the pulpit is increased it will insure an
enlarged hearing for the truth, but how it
will act in a given case cannot be predi
cated in advance. We must deal in total
results. The law is, the greater the per
sonality of the preacher, the larger the use
of his personality, the wider and deeper
the response of men to the truth. And the
same law applies, though in less degree, to
the use of personality outside the pulpit.
The pastoral gift serves the truth. The
preacher who can establish right relations
with men at large in any community, im
pressing them with his genuineness, ear
nestness, and disinterested zeal in their be
half, has won a clientage for the truth
which he holds. I will not touch upon

TO THE TRUTH 125
what I may wish to say later about the
knowledge of human nature in the con
crete as the pastorate opens it to the
preacher, but I cannot refrain from saying
at this point that pastoral service is the
proper apprenticeship to the pulpit. At
some time the preacher ought to know
human life in its details.
The preacher is not limited in the use
of his personality in gaining a hearing for
the truth; he has the liberty of wise in
vention. There is an old term, now out
of use but very significant, the means of
grace ; means of grace are usually means
of spiritual impression. It is to be re
membered that the various denomina
tions are founded upon the use of means.
The Christian communions are not so
clearly or widely separated from one an
other by doctrine or by polity as by method.
As the emphasis is laid upon authority, as
with the Romanist, or upon creed, as with
the Presbyterian, or upon worship, as with
the Episcopalian, or upon experience, as
with the Methodist, you have in the main
the distinguishing characteristic. Any
thing which is so fundamental as method

126 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
must be capable of very great and ex
tended use. Why should not the preacher
use it according to his ability and accord
ing to his sense of the fitness of things ?
A great deal is sometimes gained by the
appeal to the unused side of the spiritual
nature. I noticed some years ago in a
series of meetings held by Mr. Moody, in
New York, that many of the most earnest
attendants and supporters were Episcopa
lians and Quakers. The Puritan churches
have made their uninterrupted appeal for
many generations to the reason and con
science. Why should they not also make
the appeal more distinctly and impressively
to the instinct of reverence and to the
craving for worship ? Why should they
not also carry the appeal straight to the
heart ? And if there be other methods
which recognize and utilize any of the
primary instincts of human nature, let
them be brought into service. One such
is the instinct for association, which under
lies the various organizations, societies,
and clubs, which make an opportunity for
the truth. If men who would not other
wise support or even attend a service of

TO THE TRUTH 127
the church will become actively interested
in the church by forming a club for the
maintenance of a special service, why
should not the principle be recognized and
the aid accepted ?
I will go a step further and plead for
the recognition of peculiar means, which
must be limited in their use to those whose
chief reliance is upon the employment of
them. My illustration shall be the use of
authority as exemplified by the methods
of the Salvation Army. The outfit of uni
form, drums, and the like is simply an out
fit. The underlying principle is authority.
The man who is reached by the army is
asked to surrender himself absolutely to
its discipline. It is assumed, in the ma
jority of cases, that his will has been
weakened. The army offers him its will,
organized and disciplined, as a substitute
for his own, till he is strong enough to act
for himself, and in turn to contribute to
the common stock. His first and constant
act is obedience. He is put under orders,
tasks are assigned to him, days of special
denial are appointed; he is made to live
under the common eye; the surrender is in

128 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
every way complete, till he is transformed
from a mere dependent upon others to a
helper and strengthener of others. This
is the philosophy of" the means of grace
employed by the Salvation Army, an ex
ample of the use of authority unequaled
outside the Romish Church.
Certainly the question will arise how far
the incidents attending the use of any
great principle are to be approved or al
lowed. Religion can bear a good deal, but
it stops short of the grotesque. As Dr.
Howard Crosby once said, " If the gospel
were preached by an orang-outang, it
would not be the gospel." There must
be some fitness between means and end.
But I think that we have less to fear from
unfit methods than from the lack of an
aggressive invention. I believe that the
church suffers more from the under-use
than from the over-use of means.
I can refer only to the use by the
preacher of special and applied truths to
get a hearing for the essential truth. Let
me say that I believe so fully in the unity
of truth that I think we can afford to
meet men at all points of their personal

TO THE TRUTH 129
interest, provided their interests are not
hobbies. Concerning the man with a
hobby nothing is to be said but " to avoid
him, pass not by him, turn from him and
flee away." But there are outlying ques
tions which are fairly upon the territory
held by the gospel. The concerns of
Christianity are wide and sensitive, and
of an infinite variety. The preacher, if
he has the spiritual ability, can fitly go
out to men who are living in the remote
regions of the Christian faith or the Chris
tian interest, and try to bring them back
with him to the heart of Christ. I am
aware of the dangers of this method. The
untrained preacher will fail utterly as a
specialist. And the trained preacher
may go too far afield in the search after
the exceptional man. Still, there is an
opportunity within the range of so-called
special questions for introducing men's
thoughts to the more personal claims of
Christianity. The second responsibility of the
preacher to the truth is that of rightly in
terpreting it to the popular mind. The
interpretation of religious truth involves

130 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
the understanding of the mind to be
reached as well as of the truth to be de
clared. A preacher may have a clear and
right understanding of religious truth, but
he will still fail in the interpretation of it
if he does not know and estimate the state
of mind before him. We can see that no
amount of biblical or theological or homi-
letic training could enable one to interpret
Christianity to the Oriental thought. The
missionary must not only learn the lan
guage of an Oriental people, he must learn
the thought of the people, before he can
reach them to any extent. This is an ex
treme illustration. But we are apt, I think,
to overestimate the accessibility of reli
gious truth to the average mind of Chris
tendom. Let us analyze the situation.
A great many people are still alien to
Christian thinking who are not alien to the
Christian spirit. Interpretation means in
such cases the introduction of the terms
of Christianity. Ask the average young
person who is about to join the church,
" What do you think it is to be a Chris
tian ? " or " What does it mean to you to
be a Christian ? " and the chances are that

TO THE TRUTH 131
you will receive from one out of five an
answer in general moral or religious terms.
To be a Christian means to try to do right,
or to attend church, or to be kind and
helpful, — very good answers, but not an
swers lying at the heart of Christianity.
Personal Christianity remains to be inter
preted to such an one. The relation of
the soul to Christ is to be brought out
with a simplicity corresponding to the
outward duty which may already exist.
A great deal of the work of the pulpit,
in every community, consists in making
connection between Christianity and the
general moral sense of people, vitalizing
their existing life, purifying it, opening it
out into the Christian opportunity, and
giving it the motive and power which
come only from the indwelling Christ.
And then there is the relation of the
pulpit to a considerable amount of preju
diced mind, in the church and out of it. I
suppose that there is no type of mind so
unmanageable, so impervious to the ad
vance of religious truth, as the traditional-
ized mind. Sometimes it finds its way into
the pulpit. I once heard a minister say at

132 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
his examination, as his final answer to all
questions bearing upon modern inquiry,
" My mother's theology is good enough for
me." Doubtless his mother's religion was
good enough for him or for anybody else ;
but when one plants himself upon his mo
ther's theological standing, he announces
that he has no use for further theological
inquiry. There is no little amount of mind of
this character in and out of the church,
— quite as much without as within, and,
if anything, more difficult to reach. What
can the preacher do with it? It is of no
use to attack a prejudiced mind. You can
not always tell a man what you think of
his opinions if you want to reach the man.
Suppose one tells you that he believes in
the inerrancy of Scripture as based on the
correctness of the original autographs. I
do not know of anything to do except to
change the subject. You can hardly ex
press yourself about that opinion and have
a chance for further effort after the man.
I do not know of the way of arguing with
a literalist of any sort, with a view of con-
vincement. The only approach to such a

TO THE TRUTH 133
mind is through interpretation. You have
the opportunity, Sunday after Sunday, of
so opening the Scriptures in their spirit
that the final result may be a deliverance
from the bondage of the letter. Certainly
argument is useless and controversy is
wicked ; there is no power outside the
right use of interpretation. The spiritual
must always have time in which to do its
work. Familiarity with the broader truth
will in time displace the narrower view.
And then there is the over-familiarized
mind, both in the church and without, the
mind which knows it all, which is impa
tient of instruction and resentful of any
intimation of the need of further know
ledge. This is on the whole the most
common type and the most difficult to
reach. It is mind which all unconsciously
to itself has fallen into the commonplace.
And yet you cannot say just that, you
cannot accuse it of ignorance and dullness.
Nothing again remains but the art of in
terpretation. That is enough. There lies
the power to stimulate, to quicken, to
awaken. Sometimes the confession will
follow preaching of this order, the " whereas

i34 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
I was blind, now I see ; " but more fre
quently the preacher must be content with
the gradual opening of the mental vision,
and the gradual awakening of the spiritual
nature. These all represent types or states of
mind to be changed, — the mind alien to
Christian thought, the prejudiced mind,
and the mind which has been over-familiar
ized with religious truth.
But the great body of mind which is
before the preacher does not need to be
changed. It is serious, intelligent, well-
disposed, and open. What are the preach
er's obligations to this prevailing class of
mind ? One obligation is of the time, one
is permanent. The immediate obligation
is to present all necessary changes in reli
gious thought without prejudice to the
religious life. It cannot be denied that
we all love to believe in the unchange-
ableness of religion. So much is un
changeable in principle that we like to
carry over this quality into things which
are incidental. The traditionalist, the lit-
eralist, the ecclesiastic, have the advantage
in being able to relate everything, which

TO THE TRUTH 135
they believe to be or wish to make per
manent, to something which is permanent.
But when, as in our time, it seems neces
sary, to all who believe in progress, to
effect changes in the outward and inci
dental to save the really permanent, the
problem is, how to bring about these
changes with the least disturbance to the
life and work of the church. The most
difficult manoeuvre in war is change of
front in battle. The manoeuvre may be
well executed ; but if the battle be lost,
the greater has failed before the less.
Whatever theological changes are yet to
be. made in our time ought to be made
without loss to the fight. This particular
obligation rests almost entirely with the
pulpit. The preacher is in command
where truth is in conflict with all error
which is of the nature of unrighteous
ness. He cannot forget that the main
object is the victory. Neither can he
overlook his obligation to the truth, as
it becomes to his mind more clearly the
truth. He will not be disloyal to his
knowledge any more than to his convic
tions, but he will so interpret the truth as

136 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
he sees it that the change will be construc
tive and not destructive. He will wait till
he gets possession of the new truth posi
tively. He will wait till he knows where
to place the emphasis. He will wait till
he knows how to make the right adjust
ment. In a word, he will interpret the
truth so that it will fit the new duties
which have really been in waiting for it.
For you may be assured, gentlemen, that
if God has brought any new truth to this
age, it is to accomplish new tasks. Reve
lation and Providence are always so timed
that truth never stands idle in the market
place. But the personal obligation of the
preacher is always that of the larger and
nobler interpretation of the truth. I know
of no greater joy to the preacher than to
stand with his truth, the truth with which
he is aglow, before the hospitable mind.
And, as compared with all other types and
conditions, this is by far the largest. A
preacher has nothing to fear, but every
thing to expect, who enters his pulpit with
the deeper and fuller interpretation of
familiar truth. The opening of Scripture

TO THE TRUTH 137
as the result of study and insight, and I
may add of personal experience, is grateful
to an audience. The reward to the preacher
is the growth of his people in and through
the truth. He leaves them larger than
when he found them. The congregation
will probably have increased in numbers ;
it will certainly be larger by every other
measurement. It will have the great di
mensions, length, breadth, height, and
depth. I think that I have reserved enough
time in this lecture to say what is really
the essential thing, though being the essen
tial thing it may take the less time to say
it. The third and most serious obligation
of the preacher to the truth is, to see that
it reaches men at his hands through the
sufficient and proper motive. Motive, in
that lies the power of religious truth. In
directly, incidentally, all truth may have
motive. But in religious truth the motive
gives it reality. You could not take the
motive out of the atonement and leave it
a religious truth. I count by far the most
serious and difficult task of the preacher
to give the sufficient motive to the truth

138 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
he utters. Indeed, if he can really do that,
he has gained a hearing for it, and given it
its highest interpretation.
I sometimes question whether we have
the right to preach until we have become
so imbued with the motive of Scripture
that we have the mind of the prophet
under the utterance of his message from
God. It was not so much the message
which possessed him as it was the concep
tion of the heart of God which the message
disclosed : " Who is a God like unto thee,
that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the
transgression of the remnant of his herit
age ? He retaineth not his anger forever,
for that he delighteth in mercy. He will
turn again, he will have compassion on us ;
he will subdue our iniquities : and thou wilt
cast all their sins into the depth of the
sea." We" preach God in his own blessed
person, not his attributes, or his words, or
his doings, chiefly. Our supreme message
is God himself. As Paul says, over and
over again, " We preach Christ." I think
that it was Paul's apprehension of Christ
which has given him such a place of influ
ence in Christianity. More of the motive

TO THE TRUTH 139
of Christianity is in his writings than we
can find elsewhere. He never gets away,
not in the furthest reaches of his logic,
from the love of Christ. In this Paul is
true to his date in the divine revelation.
He comes into the divine thought as it
becomes more urgent in the endeavor to
save. We mistake if we think that the
Bible advances from the sacrificial to the
ethical. The advance, if the comparison
is to be made at all under the idea of
progress, is from the ethical to the sacri
ficial. That is, the motive of God comes
out with a deeper promise and with a
more irresistible power in the New Testa
ment than in the Old. God comes near
to man, surrenders more, not of righteous
ness, but of himself, to reach man, suffers
more for man. The sermon on the mount
holds all the ethics of the commandments ;
but from the sermon on the mount to the
passion and death of Jesus, what an ad
vance there is in the motive power of the
gospel ! Allow me to quote from what I
have elsewhere written on this point : —
" The method of Jesus was sacrificial, —
ethical certainly, but not to the exclusion

140 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
or subordination of the sacrificial. And the
proof of this lies in his treatment of the
principle and idea of sacrifice. When we
begin to study the method of Jesus we are
startled to find that he reversed the whole
course and current of sacrifice. The great
volume of sacrifice had been pouring
through innumerable channels from the
heart of man into the heart of God.
Christ met and overwhelmed the sacrifice
of man with the sacrifice of God. It was
the inflowing tide of the ocean staying and
returning the waters from river and creek
which were seeking its bosom. The act of
Jesus was an act of sublime daring. We
instinctively ask, Who is it who dares to
make this reversal ? Who is it that bids
men cease their propitiatory rites ? Who
is it that puts out the fires on sacrificial
altars and stanches the blood of sacrificial
victims ? It is He who carries out the
change in his own person and offers him
self the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world."
The failure of merely ethical religions is
that they lack motive. We can see that
fact when it is set forth on a large scale.

TO THE TRUTH 141
It is equally a fact when the ethical is the
sole power in a man's preaching. He has
not come into the permanent power of the
Bible. He has not caught the secret of
Christianity. He is not giving the truth
its full chance with men through the proper
and sufficient use of motive.
I must not fail to remind you, or to in
sist upon the fact, that there is need of
a constant education on the part of both
preacher and people in the use of motive.
A motive may meet a man where it finds
him, and be sufficient to work a great
change in his life. It does not follow that
it is the sufficient motive for his after
years. It is difficult to arrange motives
in order. We should place fear below
love; but the soul which has been won by
love may advance into the fear of sin, and
in a very true sense into the fear of God.
It is, however, certain that a change of life,
which takes place through a fear of conse
quences, has not arrived at the dignity or
honor or security which ought to come in
through the advance in motive. The dis
tinctively Christian motive is gratitude.
" The life which I now live I live by faith

142 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
of the Son of God, who loved me, and
gave himself up for me." Gratitude is
altogether unselfish, and it knows no limits
in the measure of its obligations. There
is nothing which a profoundly grateful
Christian will not do. His gratitude
carries with it the whole argument for
consistency. What should not one be
ready to give up, or to seek to accom
plish, who has been reclaimed by Christ,
and is thoroughly conscious of the fact ?
Prudential motives are not excluded from
the gospel. A man has the same right to
escape from sin, and for the same reason,
that he would escape from any evil or in
jury. Motives of self-respect are not ex
cluded from the gospel. The gospel makes
its appeal to men on the ground that they
are worth too much to themselves, and to
other men, and to God, to waste themselves
in sinning. Neither are motives which
centre in happiness. There is a joy in
separable from right doing. All these
motives are in place, and may be timely.
But the principle in the use of motives for
one's self, or for others, should be that of
advance. Life consists not only in doing

TO THE TRUTH 143
better things, or doing the same right
things in a better way, but also in doing
them for a better reason. It is this alone
which explains the change in some people
when they become Christians. They keep
on doing the very same things. They do
not change their business. They do not
change, of necessity, their methods. They
have changed their motives, and in the
light of that change all life has been
purified, refined, and ennobled. It is this
which explains the growth in so many
Christians. They are acting from higher
and higher reasons. The lower reasons
have been supplanted. Their lives are
growing in unity. They are reaching the
Christian standard. I cannot make too
much of the power of motive rightly ap
plied, first to change men, and then to
purify and increase their lives. And a
great deal of the quality of this power
depends upon the quality of the motive in
the thought of the preacher. One preacher
will secure large tangible results by the
use of lower motives; another preacher
will secure equally large and tangible re
sults by the use of the higher motives.

144 WHAT PREACHER OWES TO TRUTH
Does any one question where the advan
tage lies ?
These, then, are the responsibilities, as
I conceive, of the preacher to the truth.
He is commissioned to get a hearing for
the truth. He has no right to be satisfied
with a meagre response. God has given
him the truth, the freedom of his personal
ity, and means to be used according to his
own invention. He is to see that the truth
is rightly interpreted, that no type of mind
is excluded by reason of its limitations, and
that every hospitable mind is filled to the
full. And he is allowed to share in the very
motive of God himself in the utterance of
truth. A part of his education is made to
consist in the appreciation and use of the
highest motives. And the reward of his
ceaseless persuasion of men is to be found
in the qualfty of the new life which he gives
back to God as the result of his ministry.

VI
WHAT THE PREACHER OWES TO MEN
If the responsibility of the preacher to
the truth is sacred, no less sacred is his re
sponsibility to men. I do not know which
obligation is the more difficult to satisfy.
Probably it varies with the preacher himself.
With one man, the ardor for truth sur
passes the passion for men. With another,
the love of men exceeds in urgency, at
least, the love of truth. I should say, how
ever, that the distinguishing characteristic
of the preacher was his feeling toward
men. Others may share to the full his
feeling toward the truth, scholars, inquir
ers, believers, but few are able to come into
like sensitive relation to the human soul.
What does the preacher owe to men ?
How shall we take the measure of his
obligation ?
Let me begin with what is fundamental.
If I cannot ground the obligation of the

146 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
preacher to men in something deeper and
firmer than sentiment, my words can have
little meaning.
The first thing, then, which the preacher
owes to men is the clear understanding
and unconditional acceptance of Christ's
view of humanity. Christ's estimate of
men, his way of looking at men, his whole
conception of humanity, must become a
part of the preacher's thinking, the very
habit of his mind. What was Christ's esti
mate of humanity ? What was the con
tribution which Christ made to man's
thought of himself, to the thought which
the race might have of itself? Jesus
Christ gave to the human race that new
conception of itself which, as fast as it has
been apprehended, man by man, has been
changing the order of the world. It was
a religious conception, but it had other
than religious uses. It was good for all
the possible needs of humanity. It was
the simple but then rare conception, every
man a child of God. That truth gave
every man a standing in the world. It
was fundamental. It was communicable.
It was part of the glad tidings. And

TO MEN 147
as it went abroad under the sanction of
religion, it was commissioned to do any
work for man to which he was entitled as
a child of God. The question is often
asked, Why did not Christ say something
directly about slavery, about political ty
ranny, about any of the specific wrongs of
his age ? The sufficient answer is that he
said the one word which could avail for his
own age, and which could not be super
seded in time.
This word of Christ is now almost lost
in the commonplace, but at its time it
brought in the one value which had always
been wanting. Man had never had any
value to himself as man. Man had had
standing in the world, but not as man.
History had been the record of heroes
only, not even of peoples. Ordinary men
were of no account. When, therefore,
Christ put this new valuation upon man,
partly through what he was in himself,
partly through what he did and suffered,
and partly through the idea which he sent
abroad into all the world, it was inevitable
that history must be written in a new
language.

148 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
I would that I could take this truth of
Jesus out of the commonplace of our reli
gious thinking and make it real to you in
its original meaning. Let me recall a para
graph from a book which you have been
reading of late, which brings out the ap
parent impossibility of the new idea as it
came into the world. I quote from the
letter of the Roman philosopher and man
of the world, Petronius, to his young friend
Vinicius, who had urged upon him the
Christian faith, to which he had become
a convert : —
" No, Vinicius, thy religion is not for
me. Am I to love the Bithynians who
carry my litter, the Egyptians who heat
my bath ? I swear by the white knees of
the Graces that if I wished to love them I
could not. In Rome there are a hundred
thousand persons at least who have either
crooked shoulders or big knees, or thin
thighs, or staring eyes, or heads that are
too large. Dost thou command me to
love them, too ? Where am I to find the
love, since it is not in my heart ? And if
thy God desires me to love such persons,
why in his all might did he not give them

TO MEN 149
the form of Niobe's children, for example,
which thou hast seen on the Palatine ?
Who loves beauty is for that very reason
unable to love deformity."
Whatever exaggerations the book from
which I have quoted may hold, this pro
test is no exaggeration of the pagan feeling
toward man as man. The virtues which
Christianity enjoined — love the forgive
ness of enemies, and the like — seemed
impossible virtues. And all for the reason
that man as man had no standing in the
world. Even the greatest and best men
had taken little pride in their humanity.
Sometimes it seems as if it were still so.
It is so much more to be a philosopher, an
orator, a ruler, a maker of money, or man
ager of affairs, any one of these things,
than to be simply great in one's humanity !
You can see, then, the difficulty which
Christ must have had in introducing this
principle, and of making it actually an ac
cepted truth, first to make the best men
believe it of themselves and act upon it,
changing their ideals and also their ambi
tions and desires, and then to make them
believe it of others, this Pharisee of this

150 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
publican, this Greek of this barbarian, this
master of this slave ; and then to make
these other men believe it of themselves,
these men who could not idealize them
selves, who had no sense of the meaning
and worth of the human, to make them
believe that they, too, were sons of God,
and had a standing in God's world.
And the difficulty is still immense. It
is for this reason that I am saying so much
about it. It is so hard to get at the idea
of Christ in its perfect simplicity, and hold
it in its right proportions. We are apt to
pass to one extreme or the other in our
thought of men. The pagan's estimate
was based on his natural or trained likes
and dislikes. He loved the beautiful, he
honored the heroic. For the opposites he
had only contempt or hate. The Chris
tian is apt to go to the other extreme, to
estimate his Christianity altogether by its
power to overcome his dislikes or hates.
For the exercise of love he relies upon the
incitement of pity. He waits the appeal
which comes to him from want or misery
or sin. We have come to count it a virtue
to love men according to the incidents

TO MEN 151
in their character or conditions. It was
this principle which led Cardinal Manning
to pass his generous encomium upon the
Salvation Army as the only considerable
body of Christians who had ever shown a
passion for sinners just because they were
sinners. Now Christ's position is very
much broader and more fundamental than
either of these. The estimate which he
enjoins is not simply respect for high at
tainment, nor pity for low condition. It
unites the recognition and acknowledg
ment and support of the fact, let it go
where it will, — every man a child of God.
What ! must I love the man who does
not need me, who has no outward wants
which are unsatisfied, this rich man, per
chance, who is entirely independent of me,
and with whom I have no tastes in com
mon ? Certainly ; otherwise why am I any
broader than the Roman who could not
love the Bithynians who carried his litter,
or the Egyptians who heated his bath ?
Do you not see the difficulty of accept
ing Christ's estimate, the difficulty of even
understanding it? And yet there it is, the
very first thing which meets us in Chris-

152 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
tianity, just as plain as the view which he
gave us of God. I cannot lay too much
stress upon this obligation to think of and
look upon every man as a child of God.
I speak of it as expressed in the estimate
or conception we have of men, rather than
in a doctrine about men. We are apt to
retire our doctrines. They represent the
truth we have on deposit. They fulfill a
very needful and substantial office in this
respect. But we need also thoughts, views,
estimates, which are never apart from us,
which we always take with us on the street,
and into the house, the office, and the shop.
We must allow a large liberty in the
application of so great and difficult a prin
ciple. It is not possible for one man to
think of his fellowman precisely as an
other man may think of him. Tempera
ments vary. We are allowed to reach the
same ends by different methods. One of
the most human preachers of our time, a
man whose name was almost a synonym
for the human, once said to a friend, " I
love man and hate men." That was not
so bad a saying as it appears to be on its
face. His love worked from the ideal into

TO MEN 153
the real, from man down into men, over
coming on its way his natural dislikes.
This is the opposite in method of the love
which shows itself first in interest in cases.
Objects of pity or commiseration come be
fore one. One begins to be interested in
them. Interest spreads from the individ
ual to the class. Finally it comes out into
a great generalization.
I recall a fine example of the latter and
more common method in the person of a
well-known philanthropist of New York,
who for more than half a century followed
the lead of individual want and suffering
into the class which it might represent.
The personal relief of the poor brought to
light the child of poverty, the child of pov
erty led the way to his crippled brother,
the diseased child pointed to the suffer
ing mother. When I knew my honored
friend, he had passed his threescore and
ten years. An incident associated with his
greatest personal bereavement revealed to
me the whole spirit of his life. As I called
upon him in his sorrow, he took me after a
little into the presence of his dead, and
there talked as only the voice of love and

154 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
age could speak. Suddenly he stopped,
put his hand in his pocket and took out a
check. " There," he said, " is a check for
twenty-five thousand from Mrs. Stewart
for my woman's hospital." Then, resum
ing the conversation as if there had been
no interruption, there really had been none,
he covered the face of his dead, and with
drew to take up again in its time his now
solitary but still joyous course.
The preacher's obligation to men, upon
which I have thus far insisted, shows itself
chiefly in the breadth of its application.
Let me now urge the necessity for a cer
tain intensity in the exercise of it. The
obligation cannot be satisfied with the love
for men which does not have in it the ele
ment of devotion or passion. In this re
gard it simply demands what is the real
characteristic of love in any circumstance.
You have the suggestion of my meaning
in a line from one of the recent poems of
Stephen Phillips. It is the reply of the
earth maiden as she rejects the suit of
Apollo on the ground that his love for her
would surely wane, and this would be the
sign of it : —

TO MEN 155
" Thou wouldst grow kind,
Most bitter to a woman who was loved."
" Kindness " is a good word, a word of
gentle quality, but the very thoughtfulness
which it implies, the premeditation which
it assumes, may defeat the large end of
love. Kindness is not that irresistible,
conquering power that love is. It may
awaken gratitude and create a permanent
sense of obligation, but it does not really
overcome and capture the soul.
The preacher will certainly come short
of fulfilling his obligation to men if his
love for them does not rise to the strength
of a spiritual passion for them. It must be
utterly devoid of sentimentalism. That is
too weak a thing to speak about. It must
be a strong, manly passion, but it must
have the ardor of the soul in it. And
this alike in public and private, when the
preacher is dealing with men under condi
tions which invite it. Passion is something
which has its times and seasons. It is not
for all times, nor for all subjects in the
pulpit, nor for all the circumstances which
invite the preacher's attention. There
must be a proportion in the expression of

156 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
love. Usually the man who has it in any
real depth of feeling will give the fit ex
pression to it. It will come forth sponta
neously, and according to the real demand
for it. There is nothing so impressive as
the irrepressible outburst of feeling on the
part of a man whose feelings are usually
under strong restraint.
The obligation of the preacher to men,
let me say further, has one of its most
timely expressions in sympathy. That is
the exact quality which is called for in
our time more than any other. It meets
the general situation as nothing else can.
It gives the preacher access where other
wise access will certainly be denied him.
The preacher, as we have seen, if he has
caught the secret of his Master, has learned
to pay his respects to humanity in whom
soever it may be represented, and at any
cost. Respect is the prince of influence.
It is the respecting element in Christianity,
more than the pitying element, which is
the peculiar sign of its power. Sympathy
measures the respect we feel for those who
are in circumstances and conditions below
us. It is a very different quality from pity,

TO MEN 157
or from charity in any of its common
forms. It is the recognition of the human
element which survives poverty and even
degradation ; it is the acknowledgment of
the underlying equality between man and
man beneath all varying conditions; it is
the appreciation of the endeavor and am
bition to rise to higher levels ; it is above
all the willingness to make room for men
as they rise, and to welcome them to
the places which they have earned. Pity
ceases when the object of commiseration
has been lifted a little out of the low
estate. Charity, which gives alms, follows
a little way above in the ascending scale.
Sympathy attends the man all the way
up till he has reached the level of his
manhood. Now it is perfectly evident that the moral
solvent of the present social situation is not
pity, it is not charity in any of its common
manifestations, it is sympathy. Analyze
the situation, study society where the strug
gle is going on, and you will discover two
clearly defined movements, the upward and
the downward; one class ascending, the
other descending the social scale, and yet

158 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
not far apart. On the one hand the worn-
out, the demoralized, the degraded, falling
steadily to the bottom ; on the other hand
a certain vital element gradually emerging
from the common mass, freeing itself from
base surroundings, organizing for self-pro
tection and self-advancement, and finally
able to stand with comparative security and
lend a helping hand to those in the crude
mass about it. Compare now the attitude
of the church toward the upward and the
downward movements, and you see at once
that it shows far more charity for the fall
ing, than sympathy with the rising class.
On occasion like that of the strike of the
East London dockers, or the coal strike
in England for the living wage, sympathy
is shown as well as charity. But, as a rule,
sympathy in distinction from charity is ab
sent ; and it is the absence of this precious
quality which makes the breach between
what is known collectively as labor and the
church. The average workingman gives
his money, his time, and his loyalty to his
association or brotherhood, and looks on
with indifference or amusement while the
religious world discusses the reasons why

TO MEN 159
men like himself do not fill the churches.
If I were discussing the attitudes of labor
organizations I might have something to
say of their spirit, but the divine function of
the church is sympathy, the highest possi
ble expression of its enthusiasm for human
ity. And judging the church of to-day by
this test I cannot claim for it that it satis
fies in any reasonable degree the require
ment of its Founder. The average man
within the church does not understand the
average man without, who may be estranged
from the church, nor does he take pains
to understand him. He may know the
man on his own social level without, but
not the man estranged, and who has his
complaint. The preacher interprets the situation
largely through his sympathy. And in the
proper expression of it he does the most
which in him lies to make Christianity real
to men who have misunderstood its atti
tude. And in the use of sympathy the
preacher puts Christianity in right relation
to the social and political order of which
we are a part. The general social and po
litical order bears the name of democracy.

160 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
Democracy means, if it means anything in
a Christian way, the sympathy of one man
with another. The kind of equality which
it stands for covers every lower form or
expression of Christianity.
One of the most delicate obligations
which the preacher comes under to men is
not only to believe in them himself, but
also to restore the faith which they may
have lost in themselves. A preacher learns
with time not to take men at their own es
timates, and especially not to take too seri
ously the deprecatory words of some men
about themselves. A great many men are
talking skepticism who are not skeptical.
Let the preacher waste no words on such.
But there are those with whom loss of
faith in themselves is real, and to outward
appearance justifiable. They have fallen
in self-respect, and their own opinion has
been accepted and confirmed by their fel
lows. The saddest word in literature is
the word attributed to Lord Byron : " Men
took me to be what I said I was, and I
came to be what they thought I was." So
ciety may have made haste to accept a fool
ish name or reputation which a man may

TO MEN 161
have given himself, and obliged him there
fore to justify it. A preacher has no right
to take any man's word about himself or
the word of society about him as final.
Jesus Christ alone speaks the final word.
Until that has been spoken, let the preacher
believe and act in his name.
The majority of cases may be against
one's faith in men. Grant that. There is
still the minority. Who knows in advance
how the man, who is most faithless in him
self, and most hopeless to others, is to be
classified ? This may be optimism. It is
also Christianity.
The wide obligation, however, of the
preacher to the individual man, whoever
he may be, who comes under his influence,
is that of interest in the welfare of his soul.
As there, can be no motive so great, so
there can be no equal and corresponding
obligation like that which comes out of the
realized value of the human soul. It is
really the unknown factor in human na
ture, which is so much more than the
known. It is the great item in the mys
tery of life. What makes the mystery to
us of the future state ? Chiefly the fact

162 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
that for ages the tide of human life has
been flowing into it. It is a world peo
pled with souls which once had a home on
this green earth. The future represents
the value of the soul measured by dura
tion. There are other measures, but above
all the measure of equality, the measure
of influence, the measure of use. No one
can settle the question whether one soul is
of more meaning to himself or to others.
We cannot go beyond the word of Paul,
" No man liveth unto himself, and no man
dieth unto himself." When therefore the
preacher thinks of the worth of any soul
before him, it cannot be in its separate
ness. It is a unit, but a unit in countless
and vital combinations.
I do not reach too far into the pastoral
relations when I urge this interest in every
one's soul, "because in this regard the pas
tor and preacher are one. One of the most
serious questions which a preacher can ask
himself is this : What am I doing when I
am not preaching? Where are my thoughts,
my plans, my imperative desires and long
ings? Towards what ends am I pushing
with the constant energies of my nature ?

TO MEN 163
Preaching is not an end, but it is very
easy to make it an end. Most preachers
do make it a chief end, in that they make
it the climax of their energy and thought
and spiritual purpose. The strong tides
of their spiritual being do not underrun
their preaching, flowing out with it into
the great life toward which it points. Dr.
Pentecost has told this of himself. He
was preaching at one time in the presence
of Dr. Bonar, enjoying, as a man will, the
luxury of proclaiming the gospel. Dr.
Bonar came to him at the close, touched
him on the shoulder, and said, " You love
to preach, don't you ? " " Yes, I do." " Do
you love men to whom you preach ? " That
was a much deeper question, and it is worth
every man's asking, when he finds himself
more in love with the truth, or with the
proclamation of it, than with men to whom,
and for whom, the truth has been revealed.
There is a love of men which the sermon
cannot satisfy. And the right to preach to
men carries with it other rights in their be
half. Preaching is simply the acknowledged
sign, the warrant of what Bushnell calls
" the property rights we have in souls."

164 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
The man, therefore, as he follows after the
preacher is not a spiritual impertinence.
He may of course make himself such, but
not if he acts wisely and tenderly, and
above all things manfully. It is the habit
of some preachers to follow the sermon
with the personal letter, others with timely
conversation, others with the opportunity
of the after meeting. In some cases these
personal methods may not be necessary.
Preaching may be so quickening as to
create of itself an office practice for the
preacher. Those who have listened to his
words may be so awakened and stimulated
that they will come to him and ask him for
further help in the life of the soul.
When a preacher has made a man aware
of his soul, then comes the work of helping
him to save it. And when that is well be
gun then the long task of showing him how
to use his soul. This is the continuous
work of the preacher ; this the work of
edification, the building up of character,
through the right and noble use of the
powers of the whole nature. Preaching
to this end, as you can well see, must be
thoroughly constructive and stimulating.

TO MEN 165
It must point out ways of helpfulness, and
set the feet of men in them. It must show
the opportunities which attend every ad
vance in this life, every gain in knowledge,
all increase in riches, all growths in repu
tation or influence. It must hold secure
to the great consistencies, honesty, justice,
charity of mind as well as of heart, nobility
of thought and of ambition, humility, and,
if need be, self-sacrifice.
I had hoped that I might be able to say
something about the relation of the preacher
to men in combination, that is, to society,
without exceeding the proper length of this
lecture, or breaking its unity. But I find
that I must reserve what I would otherwise
say now to my next lecture on the pulpit
and the church.
Before I close I wish to go back to
gather up a phrase which I quoted from
Dr. Bushnell, namely, the property rights
which we have in souls. It would not be
altogether fair to insist, as I have done,
upon the obligations under which we stand
to men, so strong and severe, so hard to
fulfill, so hard even to understand, without
showing in a word how the fulfillment of

1 66 WHAT THE PREACHER OWES
them goes into the making of the preacher.
The preacher cannot hope to make any
lasting contribution to the truth. Most
sermons are a waste, viewed as literature.
Some go out into their generation and
gain a wide constituency. Here and there
a sermon lives in tradition. It did some
thing that men never cease to admire and
wonder at, though they may be no longer
impressed by it. Occasionally a sermon
goes over. Some preachers cover two gen
erations, their own and the next.
But as the preacher tries to reckon the per
manent in his work, as he stops from time to
time, as he surely will, to ask himself what
does it all mean to him, his only sure and
satisfactory answer will come from men.
His property rights are there. There are
his spiritual earnings. The return into his
life is out of the life of men, first, in what
they are, changed in the direction of their
purposes, or changed in the level of their
aspirations ; then in what they have done,
the better deed in place of the low or base,
or in place of no deed at all — the helpful,
saving word in place of the unspoken, un-
thought word of brotherly kindness and

TO MEN 167
charity. Something of all this finds its way
back into the preacher's consciousness, and
helps him to preach. And if men do not
tell him, let him not be faithless and unbe
lieving. A preacher is entitled to the full
advantage of the known and unknown re
sults of his ministry. The unknown, I say;
for one maybe sure that if there be known
results there will be unknown results, with
the probability, yes, the certainty, that the
unknown will exceed the known. That goes
with the nature of the service. And some
times a glimpse into the unknown, a mes
sage from the unexpected, though it be of
another's work, tells him what to believe of
himself and of his own work.
Canon T wells, in one of his colloquies
on Preaching, introduces his readers to a
conversation between a rector and a vicar
on results in preaching. The conversation
opens with a bit of raillery, but as it pro
ceeds it grows more serious. At one point
the rector falls into a desponding mood,
like Bunyan's Christian, and the vicar plays
the part of Bunyan's Hopeful. The collo
quy closes with this incident, told by the
vicar : —

1 68 WHAT PREACHER OWES TO MEN
" A friend of mine, a layman, was once in
the company of a very eminent preacher,
then in the decline of life. My friend hap
pened to remark what a comfort it must be
to think of all the good he had done by his
gift of eloquence. The eyes of the old
man filled with tears. ' You little know !
You little know ! If I ever turned one
heart from the ways of disobedience to the
wisdom of the just, God has withheld the
assurance from me. I have been admired
and flattered and run after ; but how gladly
I would forget all that, to be told of one
single soul I have been instrumental in
saving ! ' The eminent preacher entered
into his rest. There was a great funeral.
Many passed around the grave who had
oftentimes hung entranced upon his lips.
My friend was there, and by his side was
a stranger, who was so deeply moved that
when all was over my friend said to him,
' You knew him, I suppose ? ' ' Knew him,'
was the reply, ' no ; I never spoke to him,
but I owe to him my soul.' "

VII
THE PULPIT AND THE CHURCH
If the question were asked under some
forms of Christianity, what is the deter
mining factor in the making or the un
making of the preacher ? the answer would
be, the church. In saying this, I do not
refer, of course, to those forms of Christian
ity which practically obliterate preaching.
Ritualism has no logical place for preach
ing, because in its conception of the church
it makes no sufficient allowance for the per
sonality of the preacher. The Church of
Rome, it is to be said, whether logically or
illogically, has always honored preaching.
It has always kept great preachers at com
mand, and has made special provision for
their training.
But although I am not prepared to ac
cept some theories of the church which are
held under Protestant Christianity, where
preaching still remains a power, I am desir-

170 THE PULPIT
ous of emphasizing most clearly the rela
tion of the preacher, as such, to the church.
And if I do not speak of his obligation to
the church in the same way in which I
have spoken of his obligation to the truth
and to men, it is because I conceive of his
relation to it in another aspect. I want to
show you how much the church means to
the preacher, how it ministers to him, sup
ports and strengthens him, how in its local
organizations it offers itself to him to be
used as a great agency or instrument for
the advancement of righteousness, and how
it becomes the reservoir into which he may
pour his life, the institution into which he
may build himself and his work.
It is the church, we are to remind our
selves at the outset, which gives to the
preacher validity to his message. Formally
this is effected through the preacher's ordi
nation. That act authorizes him to stand
before men in the name of the church, and
to declare the truth under its sanctions.
The church guarantees the character of
the preacher, his fitness to speak, and in
general the subject matter of his preach
ing, no mean advantage to any man at any

AND THE CHURCH 171
time, but of incalculable value at the begin
ning of one's profession. No man starts
upon his professional course with such a
presumption in his favor as the preacher.
The church creates that presumption. Or
dination is far more to the minister than
the sanction of one's profession which ad
mits to the bar or to the practice of medi
cine. It carries with it an assurance, coop
eration, and protection, for which there is
no parallel.
I will take a moment's time to bring out
the moral sympathy and support which un
derlie the ecclesiastical form. Let me con
trast in this regard the prophet with the
preacher. The prophet was an anointed
man. There was a prophetic succession.
But the prophet was a lonely man. He
dwelt apart. He did not frequent the
places where men came together, where
life thickened and grew dense. He was a
man of occasions. The infrequency of his
appearances, his remoteness from the com
mon ways, gave the power of mystery to
his words. And the truth which he uttered
was chiefly for occasions. It was not the
every-day subject of the pulpit. It was not

172 THE PULPIT
necessarily the unknown truth which he
proclaimed, but it was the unapplied truth,
the neglected truth. The prophet was
strongest when he was armed with the
antagonism of truth. His chief reliance
was the awakened conscience. Recall the
commission of Jeremiah : " Thou therefore
gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak
unto them all that I command thee : be
not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound
thee before them. For, behold, I have
made thee this day a defensed city, and an
iron pillar, and brazen walls against the
whole land, against the kings of Judah,
against the princes thereof, against the
priests thereof, and against the people of
the land. And they shall fight against
thee ; but they shall not prevail against
thee ; for I am with thee, saith the Lord,
to deliver' thee."
Preaching has in it the prophetic ele
ment. The preacher is charged to de
clare the whole counsel of God, and that,
still, whether men will hear or will forbear
to hear. There are times when denuncia
tion must be strong and persistent, when a
preacher must lift up his voice before a

AND THE CHURCH 173
community and cry aloud and spare not.
But that is the unusual work of the pul
pit. Ordinarily the preacher speaks with
the consenting voice of the church. The
common truth which he utters is a part of
the common experience. Preaching at its
best is quite apt to be an interpretation
of the Christian consciousness at its best.
As the preacher rises in the utterance of
his faith, men about him are saying, " Yes,
that is what we have felt, but have never
been able to tell. Go on, speak for us, that
is our faith." Preaching on its interpreta
tive and representative side is a recognized
fact. The pulpit and the church cannot
be separated in the minds of men. The
validity of the preacher's message is more
than that which comes from any ecclesias
tical guarantee ; it has in it the consenting,
supporting, persuading life of the church.
Intimately connected with this direct
power which the church confers upon the
preacher is the aid which it affords him
through various forms of religious impres
sions. Of course this is more apparent in
the liturgical than in the non-liturgical
churches, but the church always and every-

174 THE PULPIT
where creates an atmosphere which is un
mistakable. Reduce the church in all its
appointments to the minimum, let it be the
old New England meeting-house, with a
service as plain and bare as the walls of
the house, still the impression is there. Do
you not remember the fine touch in " Nor
wood," as Mr. Beecher describes the close
of a service in the village church? The
horse jockey of the village and the doctor
have driven up, and are waiting for the
congregation to come out. The jockey
is talking glibly to the doctor about the
neighbors' teams which are standing in the
horse shed. Soon the last hymn is heard.
" ' There, doctor, there 's the last hymn ! '
It rose upon the air, softened by distance
and the inclosure of the building, rose and
fell in regular movement. Even Hiram's
tongue ceased. The vireo, in the top of
the elm, hushed its shrill snatches. Again
the hymn rose, and this time fuller and
louder, as if the whole congregation had
caught the spirit. Men's and women's
voices, and little children's, were in it.
Hiram said, without any of his usual pert-
ness : ' Doctor, there 's somethin' in folks'

AND THE CHURCH 175
singin' when you are outside the church
that makes you feel as though you ought
to be inside.' "
The art of religious impression as it has
been developed by the church invites the
study of the preacher. I assume that you
approach the subject without prejudice.
Puritanism no longer exists as a protest
against form in worship. The Puritan of
to-day is not at this point the purifier.
The last determined opposition to the en
richment of worship of which I had per
sonal knowledge was in the case of a
clergyman of the old school, who, after the
anthem had been introduced into the ser
vice of his church against his will, used to
rise immediately at the close, and say,
" We will now begin the worship of God
by the use of such a hymn."
The difficulty to-day in the non-liturgi
cal churches lies in the cheap imitation,
or in the inartistic substitute. Nothing is
so appalling to a reverent mind as the in
troduction of the programme into so many
churches. Instead of an order of service
we have a musical exhibition, which takes
the fortune of the taste of the musical

176 THE PULPIT
committee of the society. It was a Sun
day evening performance of this sort which
brought out the famous bit of caricature
from Dr. Burton, closing with the " final
bellowings of the organ, after which dark
ness, silence, and the restored presence of
God." Where shall we look for our protection
against these tendencies ? Partly to the
people themselves whose tastes are being
refined, and who are becoming more able
to discriminate between the true and the
false in art, but chiefly to the ministry, as
it is being trained to the appreciation, if
not to the full knowledge, of the art of
spiritual impression. I put the preacher
especially on his guard against the usurpa
tion by the sermon of the prerogatives of
worship. Let him beware of thinking of
anything which precedes the sermon as a
part of the " preliminary service." With
all the stress which I have laid upon
preaching, I do not exalt it above the
other great office of worship. Above all,
let the preacher remember, that in the
simplicity of our order of faith he is the
priest as well as the preacher. It is as

AND THE CHURCH 177
needful for him to enter the pulpit in the
spirit of devotion as in the spirit of con-
vincement or persuasion. The sermon
ought not to dominate his mind so that
he cannot pray without reading his ser
mon into his prayer. Of course the
danger is greater from the extempore than
from the written sermon. Yet in either
case the mind may be so possessed by a
given subject that it is inhospitable to the
thousand desires and longings which are
to find expression in prayer, if the min
ister is to interpret the heart of the con
gregation. Pardon a personal reference. Early in
my ministry, as I was endeavoring to train
myself toward extempore speech, I found
that the most serious drawback was the
preoccupation of mind with the thought
of the sermon during the period of wor
ship. The difficulty became so great that
I determined to free my mind of the ser
mon for that time at any cost, and as I
had no verbal memory, I resolved to write
into the sermon, to the amount of five or
six minutes, and read what I had written,
passing then into the method of extempore

178 THE PULPIT
speech. The precaution thus taken became
a habit, — a most vicious habit as far as
the method of preaching was concerned, —
but a concession on the part of the sermon
to wofship, which I accounted none too
great a price for me to pay. The methods
of two personal friends of which I chance
to have knowledge are better. One of
them is in the habit of entering the pulpit
an hour before the service, and of going
over the congregation in mind, family by
family, endeavoring to call up their spirit
ual necessities with so great definiteness
and vividness that his prayer may be their
prayer. The other has made a profound
study of the liturgies of the churches, not
for the form but for the spirit of worship.
He does not memorize, he does not im
itate, but he does seek to enter into the
mind of the church as in its collective
thought, or in the thought of its most de
vout souls, it has turned toward God.
I advise the careful study of the devo
tional habit of the church. The preacher
who is unsupported by any formal expres
sion of the life of the church in worship
ought to be the more careful that he has

AND THE CHURCH 179
the true supports within himself. And he
ought to be able to gain every advantage
which is open to him in the genuine and
unaffected use of the art of spiritual ex
pression. Let no man think that he can
preach so well that it matters little how
he prays, or how the congregation wor
ships. It matters much how the best
preachers pray and how the congregations
which listen to them worship. I recall a
remark of Professor Ladd after he came
out from listening to Phillips Brooks.
" The congregation," he said, " was alive."
The attitude and mood of the congrega
tion impressed him equally with the spirit
ual earnestness of the preacher. I have
come away under the same impression on
the two or three occasions when I have at
tended St. George's Church in New York.
I cannot overestimate the value to the
preacher, as the preacher, of the devotional
spirit of the congregation. It is an in
spiration. Psalm and hymn, anthem and
chant, Scripture and creed and prayer,
whatever touches the heart of the congre
gation and makes it one before God, will
minister to him in all his spiritual nature,

180 THE PULPIT
if he will allow himself to become re
sponsive to it. The church, through its
aroused emotion, has opened the way into
the individual heart for the entrance of his
message. Not only does the church give validity
to the message of the preacher, not only
does it support him through the power of
religious impression, it gives to his work
the advantage of definite results. So far
as the pulpit represents the oratorical tem
perament, there is constant danger that its
force will be spent in the excitement of
feeling. A great many preachers leave
their hearers aroused, but undirected and
unutilized. They stir to duty, but they
point out no duties to be accomplished,
nor do they show how duty may be done.
Perhaps this is the most common weak
ness in what is otherwise very effective
preaching. The church offers the best
possible corrective for this weakness. It
makes it possible for the preacher to lo
cate duty. It presents the opportunity in
various ways for one who has been quick
ened to right doing to begin at once to
put it into practice. It is the office of

AND THE CHURCH 181
the church to take the individual life from
the moment when it begins to reach out
after Christ, and train it to discipleship ; to
give it congenial associations ; to provide
it with appropriate incentives and with ap
propriate opportunity for growth ; to open
to it paths of service. Where else and how
else can the soul make so natural and com
plete a commitment of itself to Christ ?
The confession of Christ is the fit response
to the conclusion of a large part of the ser
mons of the preacher even when they do
not end in the direct appeal. The cove
nant of the church shows the true and
proper relation into which one is to come
with others who are like-minded and of
the same purpose. And when once the
first step has been taken in the acknow
ledgment of Christ and in association
with Christians, then the church stands
for direction, helpfulness, responsibility,
and enlargement through the fulfillment
of duty.
What an utterly wasteful and extrava
gant force the pulpit would be but for the
church which follows after the preacher
and gathers up and utilizes his power.

182 THE PULPIT
Compare the work of the evangelist in
this regard with that of the pastor. The
power of impression on the part of the
evangelist is greater for the immediate
time than that of the pastor. But if his
work is detached it is in large degree
dissipated. I do not overestimate statis
tics, but, judged by any of the large tests
which centre in permanent results, the
evangelist has little to show when his
work is compared with that of the pastor,
unless it is associated with that of the
pastor. The church stands for economy
in the use of means. It prevents waste.
It makes preaching fruitful. And the
effect of this function of the church upon
the preacher is encouraging in the highest
degree. No one can be indifferent to re
sults. The secret grief at the heart of
many a minister is the apparent absence
of any adequate result of his preaching.
While he is in the act of presenting truth,
when mind and heart are aglow, he enters
into the joy of his calling. But as the
years of his ministry go by without the
return to him in changed lives, in an en
larged church, in results which are definite

AND THE CHURCH 183
and tangible, his heart begins to fail and
grow weary. I have known preachers to
be saved to themselves and to their
churches by the efforts of some quiet,
patient workers in the church who have
known how to gather the fruitage of the
pulpit. They have given the preacher the
one advantage, without which his ministry
must have steadily declined into a failure.
With it he has risen to his task in the
courage of spiritual success.
And now add to these advantages the
sense of permanency which the church
helps to give, and you see how large is its
ministry to the preacher. A great many
things tend to give the preacher the sense
of change, uncertainty, and even of inse
curity in his work. Men come and go.
Sometimes the fortune of a particular
church seems to be bound up in a given
generation. Churches lose their position
or character. The preacher himself is sel
dom a permanent force in any one com
munity. All the outward conditions are
away from the permanent. Yet the real
significance of his work is permanence.
How shall he realize this fact ? He may

184 THE PULPIT
live as the patriarchs lived. Abraham
dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, but
he looked for a city which hath founda
tions. The preacher has the outlook of
faith open to him. That gives the last
satisfaction. It is the realization of eter
nity underneath time, the realization, as
Carlyle says, that " time in every meanest
moment of it rests upon eternity." But
this is the common privilege of faith.
The preacher has no more claim to it
than any other believer. What is his
hold upon the permanent, as we count
permanence on earth? The church is an
institution. The ministry is a succession.
The preacher has his fellowship without
limit of time. How near the great souls
of the church of long ago are to us. How
easy it is for us to establish the intimacy
of personal" friendship with them. How
hospitable they are, how catholic, how sin
cere. They live and their work lives.
Measured by earthly standards the church
lasts.
" Oh, where are kings and empires now,
Of old that went and came ?
But, Lord, thy church is praying yet,
A thousand years the same."

AND THE CHURCH 185
I think that we fail to inhabit the church
at large as we ought. Our particular com
munion is small, it is a part, a small part,
but a part implies the whole, a small part
as much as a great part. In my Father's
house, said Christ, are many mansions.
Why should we not take the freedom of
them here ? And especially in respect to
time. What age of the church is closed
against us ? Where should we be unwel
come now, whatever might have been our
fortune then ? Who shall forbid to any one
of us his sense of permanency in the church,
according to the place he may make for
himself in the unfailing succession ?
It would be easy to enter into the long
enumeration of the advantages of the
church to the preacher, if he will but re
cognize them. But all that I have wished
to do is to turn your thoughts that way.
I have wanted to help you to see that the
church is carrying on a wide and generous
ministry in your behalf. Some of its min
istries I have suggested.- Nothing more
than the suggestion of them is necessary,
if it shall succeed in making you apprecia
tive of what the church is capable of doing

186 THE PULPIT
and will do for the ministry, if its offices
are recognized and accepted.
What now shall we say is the relation of
the pulpit to the church ? What are the
preacher's obligations ? How shall he use
his advantage honestly, generously, and to
his own upbuilding ? My first answer is
that the preacher should work from within
the church. Let him not take an outside
position, nor one as near the edge as pos
sible, but let him establish himself within,
firmly and securely, and then work from
within out.
This statement is so general that it raises
questions of its own. How far is the posi
tion of the preacher representative and how
far is it personal ? Is he bound to utter
the formulae of the church, or does he have
the freedom of Christianity? And if he
insists upon his freedom does he forfeit his
place in the church ? I suppose that by
common consent the preacher is the freest
man in the service of the church. He is
given, for necessary and evident reasons,
the largest use of his personality. The
church is always ready to allow the exercise
of liberty, when it seems to be an indispen-

AND THE CHURCH 187
sable part of the preacher's apprehension
of the gospel. Probably no one is judged
so fairly, by the whole scope and aim of
his work, as the preacher. But when the
preacher rests his contention for liberty
upon some one point, a point now of doc
trine rather than of personal enlargement,
then he makes the contention for others as
well as for himself. At least, if the point
is of sufficient importance to really contend
for in the name of freedom, it ought to be
sufficient to contend for in the interest of
truth. If again the truth which the church
holds seems to him to need a large inter
pretation, I think that he ought to try to
make room for it in the church. The lib
erty of being allowed to stretch one's self
a little further, of being a little freer than
others, is, after all, a small notion of lib
erty. Real liberty consists in making the
church roomy enough for all men who want
to hold the interpretation of the truth in
question. That is something worth con
tending for. To give a broad truth stand
ing, that makes all men free. To make
one man free, and leave the truth in bond
age, that leaves other men bound.

188 THE PULPIT
I believe, therefore, that if a preacher
wants a liberty beyond that which is
usually conceded to the use of one's per
sonality, he ought first to ask whether
other men ought to have it, whether it
inheres in the truth itself, and if so, then
to try to make room for it in the church.
I have little respect for mere assertion and
boisterous independence. I have great re
spect for the serious and responsible en
deavor for freedom. And there is no loy
alty to the church, of which I am aware,
which compels a man who feels the need,
for himself, and for others, and for the truth,
of more room and a larger freedom to go
outside to get it. It is time enough to
go out when it is proven that there is not
sufficient room within.
But suppose the question includes the
conduct of*a given church rather than the
faith of the church of which it is a part.
Suppose a church stands before a commu
nity charged with inconsistency. Its spir
itual life is too low to impress the commu
nity, or its moral life is such as to leave it
without influence. I do not refer now to
cases of personal discipline, which must

AND THE CHURCH 189
always be judged by themselves. I refer
altogether to the moral or spiritual condi
tion of a church which makes it powerless
for good. It is worldly, it is frivolous, it is
niggardly, it is out of favor with the com
munity, and rightly so. What shall the
preacher do? Shall he work on the outside
the church, as far as possible independent
of it, or shall he still work from it, taking
his position within ? Certainly the latter.
Let him enter all the more closely into its
life. Let him lavish upon it all the wealth
of his affection. Let him not play the
Pharisee before the people at large, and
draw attention to his own superior breadth,
or charity, or earnestness. Let him give
himself to the task of making the church
broader, more charitable, more earnest,
more human. Let him bring the best life
of the church to the front; let him encour
age, stimulate, and inspire. That must be
a dead church which will not revive under
such treatment. When it has been re
vived, the preacher holds its power in the
hollow of his hand. The true philosophy
of the relation of the pulpit to the church
is that of power from within. The preacher

i9o THE PULPIT
who has not first made his place strong
and secure, who has not made himself a
vital force within, has not established the
relation of the pulpit to the church.
Next to the obligation of the preacher to
work from the church, that is, from within,
I put the obligation to work through the
church. A great many churches are will
ing to let the preacher work for them.
They offer him, that is, not only as their
representative, but as their substitute. That
is not to be allowed. If the preacher will
avail himself of the instinct of helpfulness,
he can readily get people enough to work
with him. They will not always work
under him if the authority is too manifest,
but they will work with him. What matters
it, so that they work, and he works through
them ? It is too much to expect that all
preachers will be good organizers. Organ
ization is of advantage, but there may be
too much of it. Machinery in a church
is not a certain sign of strength. Some
churches are more cumbered by it than a
knight in mediaeval armor. The secret of
pastoral success on the executive side is
the ability to secure cooperation. This

AND THE CHURCH 191
implies first a policy. A church must know
what it stands for, what it is expected to
do. The policy must be made clear, and
definite, and commanding. It must be a
sufficient policy. A church must not be
asked to do less than it is capable of doing.
Nothing is so belittling as a weak, or small,
or uninspiring policy. Ask for large things
and expect them. And keep on asking and
expecting, till you get them. Educate your
people out of littleness, as you would out
of meanness.
A good policy will gain the support of
good people. That is pretty sure to follow.
Men and women will lend themselves to
the duty which is attractive because it is
satisfying. They will try to do it. Trust
them in their endeavors. Distrust on your
part is worse than blunders on their part.
Remember that you had to learn to preach.
It was not second nature. For two or three
years it may have been an open problem
whether the man would conquer the ser
mon, or the sermon would kill the man.
It is not always easy for a man who is
greatly gifted in public speech to speak in
a social meeting or to pray. It may be still

192 THE PULPIT
harder for him to say the personal word to
his neighbor. It is not easy for some men
to give, not so easy for those who have
money as for those who have n't it. Be
patient. It may not be easy for some men
to stand as moral reformers. Not all men
are brave. Be patient still. Courage, like
everything else, grows by success. It is
easier to stand, when one has once seen
that it has done some good to stand for
the right.
And not only have a sufficient policy,
and show a sufficient trust in men, but take
to yourselves the joy of companionship in
service. Respect those who labor with
you. Encourage them by your personal
as well as by your official regard. Respect
them according to their gifts. And rejoice
in any discovery of Christian talent, as you
would rejoice in personal wealth. Some
persons may become representative of the
church in larger ways of service than in
those which the local church has to offer.
Do not be jealous of their outside activity
or influence. Let them understand that
they are doing the work of the church in
the best possible way. The only way in

AND THE CHURCH t93
which the church can deal with many ques
tions, and many interests, is through its
representative men. You cannot make a
church support one party, or one policy, in
a community. There are limits to con
certed action, chief of which is the indi
vidual liberty of opinion and of conscience.
But you can count as a continual power
in the church any noble-minded man who
rises to the demands of public duty.
And one more obligation of the pulpit to
the church is that the preacher shall work
to it. From it, in acknowledgment of its
position ; through it, in acknowledgment
of its available power ; to it, in acknowledg
ment of its right to its own increase. The
church is entitled to the earnings of the
ministry. And the larger the earnings
the more the church is entitled to them.
A small increase might come about from
other incentives. A large and steady in
crease can come only from and through the
church. And yet one obligation which the
preacher owes the church is to see to it that
the church does not narrow its doors. The
church is for the world, not the world for
the church. It is hard to maintain this

194 THE PULPIT
principle under all conditions. Churches,
like corporations, like individuals, grow
selfish. Success is apt to develop satisfac
tion. Struggle is apt to develop narrow
ness. The preacher out of love" to the
church must see to it that it is set wide
toward humanity. This does not mean
that it has no tests of membership, no
standards of character, no confession of
faith. Open the church that way, and
you make it no object for men to enter.
You must make the motive to enter the
church as deep as you make the entrance
broad. There is one difficulty in our American
church life which no one has as yet told
us how to solve. It comes from our demo
cracy. Democracy demands that the church
shall acknowledge no distinctions of class.
The only answer which we make to this
demand is to organize churches on social
lines. Watch the changes in a great city.
The moment a church loses caste it begins
to be unpopular. Those of a given social
standing leave the community and so the
church, and those of another social stand
ing do not seem to care to come in to take

AND THE CHURCH 195
what is left. I can see no way of meeting
the issue except by developing such a love
and loyalty and reverence for the church
as will allow us to overcome even changes
of locality. It is a fact that the stronger
the church feeling is, the more democratic
in reality the church is. An Episcopal
church will usually stay longer down town
than a Congregational or Presbyterian
church. I think that we must come to a deeper
love for the church, if we are to make it
answer its larger and more generous pur
pose toward men. For this reason I value
all attachments to a local church. I am
not so anxious as many are to see the rolls
of an old church kept clean to the exact
resident membership. A man has a right
in the church of his father, and of his
father's father. Spiritual ancestry counts
for something. The old spiritual home
steads are sacred. Let us cherish them.
Let us keep the identity of the best souls
with them.
Why should not the churches bear the
name of the saints, — our churches bear
the names of our saints ? What is the

196 THE PULPIT
church, in one of its most glorious aspects,
but the succession of steadfast, loyal, be
lieving, sacrificing, conquering souls. I
put the eleventh of Hebrews beside the
Nicene Creed or the Westminster Confes
sion. I put the roll of God's elect at any
time beside " the form of sound words "
in which they utter their beliefs. The
greater souls of all generations, — they
are the living church. They maintain the
succession. They ennoble and enlarge
the spiritual kinship. They fix the stan
dards of faith and life. They live on from
age to age to shame the selfish, the unbe
lieving, the faint of heart ; to show willing
souls how to serve, to challenge brave men
to meet the possibilities of life and death.
Let their names stand, to be known and
read of all men, a reminder and an ex
ample of "the faith once delivered to the
saints." There are many things which I might
have said of the relation of the pulpit to
the church ; the field is very wide. What
I have said has been with the intent of
turning your thoughts towards your in
debtedness. If you succeed as preachers,

AND THE CHURCH 197
one large factor in your success will be the
acknowledged ministry of the church. If
you fail, one reason of your failure will be
the neglect of its strong, kind, and patient
ministry.

VIII
THE OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
I am conscious, as I bring this course
of lectures to a close, how inadequate has
been my presentation of those more vital
aspects of preaching, which I have been
trying to set forth. That preaching is a
vital process from first to last I am ab
solutely sure. There lies its power, and
there lies its weakness. Preaching rises
and falls with the preacher. It is sensitive
even to his moods. It is dependent upon
the steadiness of his intellectual discipline,
upon the nobility of his ambitions, upon
the growing susceptibility of his nature to
the highest inspirations. And yet we do
not make sufficient account, I think, of
this vital element in preaching, nor ap
prise the preacher sufficiently of the im
mense issues which are involved in the
development of his personality. The
preacher does not ask enough of him-

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 199
self, neither does society ask enough of
him. We want good preaching and like
it, but we do not expect it, as we ought.
As Pascal says, " We go to our library and
take down a book, expecting to find an
author, and lo, to our joy, we find a man."
We go to church expecting to hear a ser
mon, and lo, to our joy, it may be, we hear
a preacher. The attitude of men toward
the pulpit is expressed in the hope of dis
covery rather than in the confidence of ex
pectation. Public sentiment at this point
needs to be changed. Not that anything
has come in to take the place of preaching
in the public mind. There has been dur
ing the past decade a revival of the spirit
of worship in the non-liturgical churches.
It was greatly needed. The result has
been much experimentation, but with it a
large and positive enrichment of public
worship. The spiritual life of the church
has been quickened. There had been an
earlier revival of Biblical study. The
Scriptures have been searched as at no
previous time in the history of the church.
The spiritual life of the church has been
quickened by this also. But preaching

2oo OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
has not been rendered less necessary be
cause of the increase of worship or of
Biblical knowledge. These new influences
have properly reduced the time of the ser
mon, but they have greatly ministered to
its power. There is no religious any
more than there is any secular substitute
for preaching. It is the vernacular of the
gospel. The language of creed or chant
can never express the glad tidings as one
man can tell them to another. Preaching,
we say, is the soul of Protestantism ; but
why the soul of Protestantism unless it is
equally the soul of Christianity ? Let us
not draw our inspiration for preaching from
anything that is intermediate or formal. I
like to go back in my search for first things
to the saying of an old teacher in the sem
inary. " I teach," he said, " that Congrega
tionalism's a passing form of Puritanism ;
that Puritanism is a passing form of Pro
testantism ; that Protestantism is a passing
form of Christianity."
Back in the heart of the everlasting gos
pel lies the necessity and the guarantee
of preaching. And particularly because
Christianity can get no adequate expression

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 201
except through preaching. It cannot com
municate itself, its spirit, its tone, its de
sires, its certainties in any other way. Its
incentives call for the preacher. They are
made to stir him. For Christianity is the
revelation of a great hope as well as of a
great love. There is the secret of its power.
Men are saved by hope. Love that did not
issue in hope would be a futile and pathetic
love. In this last lecture I want to try to make
clear to you how much of the power of
preaching lies hidden in the optimism of
Christianity. Whatever incentives may come to the
preacher from any of the causes to which I
have referred from time to time, nothing
comes to him so fresh and quick from the
heart of Christianity as this incentive of
the great and sure hope. And Christianity
is, I believe, returning to its early opti
mism. There have been times in the his
tory of Christianity of sad depression, times
when Christianity was not itself. There
have been times when Christianity lived
upon borrowed strength quite as much as
upon its own. Its doctrines were not dis-

202 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
tinctive. Its language was not that of the
New Testament. Its tone was not true to
the life of Jesus. And there have been
times when Christianity has been over
shadowed by some prevailing doubt, pass
ing under the eclipse of faith. Christianity
has at such times remained true to itself,
but it has not been able to communicate
its spirit to the heart of the world. Men
have not wanted to disbelieve, they have
simply not been able to believe.
I think that no poet has caught so truly
this spirit of unwilling doubt as Matthew
Arnold. Listen to his lament : —
" Oh, had I lived in that great day
How had its glory new
Filled earth and heaven, and caught away
My ravished spirit too.
" No thoughts that to the world belong
Had stood against the wave
Of love, which set so fresh and strong
From Christ's then open grave.
" While we believed, on earth he went,
And open stood his grave :
Men called from chamber, church, and tent,
And Christ was by to save.
" Now he is dead ! Far hence he lies
In the lone Syrian town,

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 203
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down."
The religious life of the past generation
has found a true, because contradictory,
expression in Tennyson and Matthew Ar
nold. Tennyson has given expression to
the strong and irresistible, but undefined
hope which has held its place in our hearts ;
Matthew Arnold has given equal expres
sion to the widespread, unwilling, pathetic
doubt which has found its way at times
within. We have been strangely confused
in feeling by these alternating moods and
experiences. Now it has seemed as if Ten
nyson's hope was the incoming tide of faith;
and now it has seemed as if Matthew Ar
nold's doubt was the undertow which was
sweeping us out again to sea. There are
signs, I believe, that the confusion is pass
ing away. We are beginning to come out
into the calm assurances of Christianity.
The hope which greets us is not the out
come of sentiment. It is not a reaction
from past uncertainty and doubt. It has
its own reasons, some of which I will bring
before you, as I view the present religious
experience and faith.

204 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
The tone of Christianity is determined
primarily by the thought of God. What
ever the prevailing thought of God is, that,
more than all things else, makes Christian
ity what it is in sentiment and expression.
No one can fail to see that the theological
discussions of the past years, except those
on purely critical questions, have had to do
with the nature and disposition of God, and
with the methods of his working. As the
result of these discussions some things are
beginning to be clear.
It is beginning to be clear, as it seems to
me, that we did not say the final word when
we declared the change in theology from
the conception of sovereignty to the con
ception of fatherhood. I do not know that
we could have secured certain necessary
results in any other way, but the result we
did secure was not altogether complete and
satisfying. The fatherhood of God was a
satisfying conception of the personal rela
tion of the human soul to God, especially
as interpreted through the sonship of Jesus.
I recall the assurance which came to my
own thought when I read the confession
of faith of Richard Hutton, of the London

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 205
"Spectator," as he passed over from Uni
tarianism into the Church of England,
given in his treatise on " The Incarnation
and Principles of Evidence."
God, he said in substance, is our Father
because he is eternally the Father. That
is guaranteed by the sonship of Christ.
No new relation is created to meet the
need of men. It is the same principle at
work toward men in turn which had al
ways been in the heart of God, which had
its satisfaction in the eternal love of the
Father and of the Son. Nothing could
be more satisfying than that statement.
Within the limits of its application the
thought was complete.
But I really think that none of us have
been satisfied altogether with the popular
presentation of the thought of the father
hood of God, as it has been applied to all
the relations of God to men and to the
universe. Whatever we might put into it,
and say belonged there by right, others
would ignore, and thus leave the concep
tion incomplete and insufficient for the
satisfaction of truth. I think that we have
felt the need of a larger sense of power

206 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
and determination in the attitude of God
to men, greater even than could be ex
pressed in the thought of sacrifice. And
so I welcome, not the return of thought
from fatherhood to sovereignty, but the
advance of sovereignty into fatherhood,
the incorporation, the absorption, if you
will, of fatherhood into sovereignty, to give
it character, and disposition, and direction.
What we want to know in order to satisfy
the optimism of Christianity is, not simply
that God loves us, but that God is for us.
We want sovereignty relieved of all doubt
about its disposition and action. The idea
of the fatherhood of God gave us that
relief. It set sovereignty free from all lim
itations, free from an arbitrary election, and
limited atonement, and a restricted provi
dence. It left it " the power of God unto
salvation unto every one that believeth."
Now we can read the eighth of Romans,
and rejoice in it. We can read it aloud,
everywhere, to all men. We can read it
beside the parable of the prodigal son.
And with the advance in the concep
tion of God, the conception of his love
reinforced by power, we have a correspond-

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 207
ing advance in the conception of the work
of Christ. Here again, I think, we have
felt that there has been an insufficient use
made of the power of Christ. His human
ity has been brought to the front in every
form of promise and incentive. It has
been an infinite relief to turn from dis
putations about his work, about his atone
ment even, to the real Jesus as he lived,
and taught, and worked, and suffered, and
died. But in all our uses of the humanity
of Jesus, we have not been able to fathom
the meaning of his sacrifice or of the law
of sacrifice which he laid down. Aid has
come to us from an unexpected source.
The incoming of the theory of evolution
has done more, I believe, than all else to
develop and solemnize the thinking of our
times. For it has been a revelation or ex
posure of the suffering, the unconscious
sacrifice, going on in all the orders and
ranks of life leading up to man. And
surely, though almost imperceptibly, it has
been at work to change our conception of
human life. It has overthrown our easy
settlements of questions of human rights
and human obligations. Take its influence

2o8 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
upon the thought of man in his political
relations. I quote from Professor Royce :
" The dignity of human nature under
the old science lay in its permanence.
Because of such permanence one could
prove all men to be naturally equal, and
our own Declaration of Independence is
thus founded upon speculative principles,
that, as they were then stated, have been
rendered meaningless by the modern doc
trine of evolution. Valuable indeed," he
goes on to say, " was all this unhistorical
analysis of the world and of man, valuable
as a preparation for the coming insight ;
but how unvital, how unspiritual, how
crude seems now all that eighteenth cen
tury conception of the mathematically per
manent, the essentially unprogressive and
stagnant human nature in the empty dig
nity of* its inborn rights, when compared
with our modern conception of the grow
ing, struggling, historically continuous hu
manity, whose rights are nothing until it
wins them in the tragic process of civiliza
tion." We are at last beginning to have a view
of the place which sacrifice holds in the

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 209
development of nature, in the order of so
ciety, and therefore in the saving of man.
We see in a new light the meaning of the
great iterations of Jesus about the neces
sity of sacrifice, — words which he applied
sometimes to himself, sometimes to all
men. Above all, we see the necessity
which lay upon him from the beginning
to the end, from his temptation to his
cross, to ratify this law. We see how the
hope of the race was bound up in his un
swerving loyalty to the principle, in that
unfaltering courage which led him up to
Jerusalem, in full view of the end. As
the method of Jesus comes out more
clearly before the eyes of this generation,
we are enabled to mark its place in the law
of the universe, and also to see how weak
and inconsistent any other method would
have been, and therefore to realize how
great and sure is our hope of its success in
the spiritual salvation of the world.
And in like manner there has come to
us a clearer understanding of the power of
the spirit of God in the world, as manifest
in the continuity of God's working. We
have been led, perhaps I may say forced,

210 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
to recognize the universality of the work
of the spirit of God, its work in all times
and all places. We have been reading
history not only with a larger intelligence,
but with a broader faith and a wider spirit
ual vision. Great spaces in history, whole
ages, that were blanks have been filled in
with God's plans and with his presence.
And although we have not been able to
apportion all things aright, we have been
able to see, if not compelled to believe in,
the continuity of God's working. Doubt
less we have not yet gained the full per
spective. The mystery of the world is not
solved. What we call providence does not
always take the course to be expected, or
even, as we thought, to be desired. The
Christian believer may still cry out with
Lessing, '' Go Thine inscrutable way, Eter
nal Providence. Only let me not despair
of Thee because of Thine inscrutableness.
Let me not despair in Thee even if Thy
steps appear to me to be going back.
Thou hast on Thine Eternal way so much
to carry on together ! so much to do ! so
many side steps to take ! "
And yet some things are plain and sure.

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 211
The great plan itself is growing plain and
sure, and more glorious to the Christian
intelligence and faith. It is becoming
more evident that there is a divine order
in the world. And the tone of Christian
ity is changing with the larger and clearer
apprehension of the fact. This is the first
reason which justifies the present optimism
of Christianity. It has its rational support
and incentive in the conception of sover
eignty as directed and applied by the hand
of love, of sacrifice as the law of the uni
verse, of the divine order, as seen in the
continuity of God's working.
But Christianity takes its tone also at a
given time from the particular truth or
doctrine upon which stress at the time is
laid. The incoming truth of to-day brings
in with it, perhaps above all other distinc
tive Christian doctrines with the exception
of the doctrine of immortality, the element
of hopefulness. It is the truth of the
kingdom of God, the kingdom of God on
earth. I refer now to the doctrine, not to
the fact. The incentive to hope always
lies in the truth, more than by any possi
bility it can ever lie in the fact. It is the

212 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
ideal which stirs us to faith. We keep
our eye on the goal, even though it be, as
has been said, a flying goal.
The truth of the kingdom of God has
always existed. It has been an insepara
ble part of Christianity. Jesus preached it.
He made it central in his preaching. But
it has never had the separateness and dis
tinctness of a doctrine. It has never found
its way into our articles of faith in any
specific form. We have not tried to formu
late it, as we have formulated the doctrine
of the person of Christ, or of human na
ture, or of the church, or even of the last
things. And I do not know that we are
trying to formulate it now. But somehow
the truth is here. It is in men's thoughts,
it is on their lips, it is stirring at their
hearts. You may see the negative effects of its
power in our present conceptions of the
church. How small and petty our separa
tions and divisions are beginning to seem,
our denominations and sects, in the light of
that broader and more comprehensive idea
which has taken possession of our minds.
One must either secularize the church as

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 213
the Romanist usually does, or reduce it
to technicalities as the ritualist does, to
get any satisfaction out of mere church-
isms. We are all trying to get together
on the spiritual, the ethical, and the intel
lectual side. We work together in sur
prising ways, and we think together, or at
least we think above the separating lines.
We do not reason any longer by denomi
nations. We reason as scholars, or as
workers, or as preachers. Church unity is
not a fact ; perhaps it never will be. But
Christian unity is a great deal more of a
fact than it was twenty years ago, ten
years ago, one year ago. It now begins
to have dimensions. You can point to it.
Anybody can see it.
But the special fact to which I wish to
call your attention is the courage which is
taking possession of the church at large
under the incoming of this truth. The
courage to which I refer is seen in the
new objects which Christianity is seeking
to gain. Christianity began with the con
version of individuals. It has always been
and always will be the divine work of Chris
tianity to save the individual soul. Pro-

214 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
testantism gave a mighty impulse to that
work, but it inheres in Christianity. This
is not so much a matter of courage as of
patient and sacrificing love. The courage
of Christianity came out more clearly in
the conception of the modern missionary.
It was still the thought of individual sal
vation. Souls in heathen lands were the
objects of search and rescue. But gradu
ally the idea grew and enlarged itself into
that of the saving of the lands themselves.
It finally comprehended tribes and peoples
and races.
The present advance is more courageous
still. Christianity is now aiming at the
forces which make up civilization, to purify,
control, and direct them. If there has been
any loss of interest in missions it is due, I
think, very largely to this transfer of inter
est to the various forces of society and state
which need to be more thoroughly chris
tianized. Christianity is becoming might
ily concerned about Christendom. We are
beginning to understand, we have been
suddenly awakened to, the sense of what I
call the inevitableness of Christianity as a
power in the world. The Christian nations

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 215
are moving under an irresistible momen
tum. Nothing can be so impressive as to
stand in the presence' of a great moral law
when it is operating on a grand scale.
Such a law is now in operation all over the
world. It is the law which Christ enunci
ated: "To every one that hath shall be
given, and he shall have abundantly, and
from him that hath not shall be taken
away even that which he hath." Under
the working of this law the transfer is
now being made from lower civilizations
to higher, as before it had been made from
pagan to Christian. It is in some ways a
sad spectacle which we are now witnessing,
— old nations breaking up, old races losing
place, and new nations and races advancing
and coming upon them, often in the spirit
of greed and competition, to gather the
spoils. While the process was going on in
Africa we gave little heed to it. Now that
it is at work in Asia, on a larger scale and
before venerable races and civilizations, it
is startling and appalling. But it is inev
itable. The law will work, but it may be
made to work in Christian as well as in un
christian ways.

216 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
And now it has come to us. The great
national and international question which
has been so suddenly thrust upon us, and
which has so sobered the nation, is this
same question of the inevitable transfer
of power from the lower civilization to the
higher, from the less Christian to the more
Christian. We cannot escape the law. We
cannot delay it beyond its time. But the
responsibility of seeing that it works in a
Christian way is our responsibility, like
that of England or of any other Christian
nation in the East. It is this responsibility
which is now giving us pause. It is this
which sobers us. We are not acting in
the haste or indifference which comes of
the spirit of greed. We feel something of
the solemnity which comes to one who is a
part of an inevitable situation. We begin
to understand that it may be as solemn a
thing to gain as to lose, to be the one to
whom it shall be given as to be the one
"from whom it shall be taken, even that
which he hath."
And yet all these changes and transfers
are a part of the problem which Christian
ity has created. It has made a new world.

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 217
It has changed in every way the balance
of power. When Mommsen dates modern
history from the transfer of power from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic, he gives
also the ground of the change which was
to mark the moral advance of the world.
Christianity is in the blood of the races
which are in power. And the courage of
the church lies in the fact that Christianity
is now beginning to deal with its own crea
tions, with its own institutions and laws
and industries, in the endeavor to set them
right. It is a greater work than that of
evangelizing the world, though no more
sacred. It is a part of the threefold pro
blem, which Dr. Hitchcock used to say
was always present to Christianity, — to
keep, to gain, to recover. Christianity has
dropped a nation or a race here and there
on its westward march. These must be
recovered, like the peoples won from its
grasp by Mohammedanism. It is at the
same time seeking the remoter peoples of
India, Japan, China. It must still keep
those in hand, the peoples of Europe and
America. It is at this last point that the problem is

218 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
evidently the closest. Christianity is might
ily congested at the modern centres, Lon
don, Paris, Berlin, New York, and the forces
with which it has to deal are more difficult
to control than those which confronted the
old civilizations. Modern civilization intro
duces its own forces, having their seat in
the market, which are quite as strong as
those which raged on the field of war.
Turn which way we will, the emphasis falls
on some situation in the kingdom of God.
Every form of spiritual activity, every
method of material advancement, every
new movement of a people or a race,
brings the idea to the front. We cannot
escape it. We are not trying to escape it.
It is the inspiring truth which is now gath
ering in the consciousness of the church,
and is being distributed through the con
sciousness of the individual preacher to
react upon his personality.
I can call your attention to but one
other reason for the present optimism of
Christianity. The tone of Christianity at a given time
depends altogether upon those who are
most responsive to its claims. Where is

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 219
Christianity making its strongest appeal to
day? Upon whom in our generation does
the appeal fall with the greatest recognition ?
Where is the spirit of consecration the
readiest, and the most urgent ? I should
say that in a peculiar degree, and within a
wide range, Christianity had laid hold upon
the younger life of our time.
It is a very important question with any
organization, Does it have its available
force within call ? The most available force
of the church lies in the generation which
has time before it sufficient for a given plan.
Movements which affect the future of the
church and society usually originate with
young men, not because they are more in
ventive or necessarily more earnest, but
because they have time to carry them out.
There is a manifest awakening to-day in
that generation of the church which has
time for carrying out its plans. It may
be too much to say that plans have been
formed. It is not too much to say that de
sires and ambitions have been quickened.
I put in evidence the various groups which
largely gather up the incoming life of the
church in its various parts, — the Society

220 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
of Christian Endeavor, the Brotherhood
of St. Andrew, the Students' Volunteer
Movement, and the movement toward Col
lege Settlements in the great cities, which
though not in all cases distinctly of the
church is dominated by the religious spirit
— these, and their equivalents in the differ
ent communions, Protestant and Catholic.
I might add to this evidence the testimony,
in some cases the unexpected testimony, of
those who have to do with our educational
and religious institutions as to the serious
ness and earnestness of the incoming gen
eration. I have no hesitancy in affirming,
within the limits of my observation, the
promise of greater moral power in the gen
eration preparing for action than is to be
found in that now in action.
This movement all along the line starts
from the common principle of consecration,
and converges, or can be made to converge,
toward some end for the betterment of hu
manity. Something of this result is doubt
less due to the change of emphasis on the
part of the church from experience to con
secration, a change which some may depre
cate. It is but fair to state that the teach-

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 221
ings of the church were formerly repressive
rather than directive, tending to introspec
tion rather than to action ; but that does
not materially lessen the value of the fact
with which we are concerned. That fact is,
let me repeat it in another form, the heroic
is not far off. There is, on the part of the
better life in training, a growing sensitive
ness to human conditions. There is a grow
ing responsiveness to ideals of duty. Per
haps it may have no sufficient outcome,
but if such be the result, it will be the first
disappointment of the kind in Christian
history. The tone of Christianity is that of per
petual youth. It is unnatural when Chris
tianity cannot incorporate the optimism of
youth into its own optimism. Not every
age has succeeded in making this incorpo
ration. Our age has succeeded in a mar
velous degree. Its success constitutes in
a great part its religious enthusiasm. It
gives an inspiring spectacle. Just as it is
pathetic to see a generation passing away,
lamenting its unfinished work, losing heart
because it has failed in its plans, so it is
inspiring to see a generation come in with

222 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
undaunted hope, and with eager hands,
to take up its own tasks and carry them
on to a hoped-for completion. The new
generation may make no greater relative
advance than the old, but like each which
went before it has the joy of its service
and of its hope.
I am grateful in your behalf that as you
enter upon this vital process which deter
mines the making or the unmaking of the
preacher, your age is on the whole with you
and not against you. You must find your
encouragement as you look about you, per
haps as much outside the ministry as within.
I should not say that this was peculiarly
the age of the preacher ; but it does belong
by its greater incentives, its inspirations,
its discoveries, its responsibilities, by all
things which go to make up its sober opti
mism, tb the preacher as much as to any
body. More to him than to anybody if he
has the insight and courage of a noble
faith. I have been speaking to you to-day
about the atmosphere of Christianity in
which you begin your work. I believe
that it is charged with hope. I have given

OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY 223
you my reasons for my faith. The gener
ation, as you are better able to feel it than
any one else, is alive. You are not taking
up the unfinished task of old men, written
over with failure. You belong to a genera
tion which is taking the initiative, propos
ing to itself new methods and new ends.
You have the rare advantage of watching a
new truth as it begins to take shape in the
thought of the church, no less a truth than
that of the kingdom of God, a kingdom of
righteous forces, as well as of righteous men
and nations. And you have above all the
readjusted thought of God set with new
power to the needs of men ; the sovereignty
of God, transformed and transfigured by his
fatherhood ; the cross of Christ acknow
ledged as the supreme example of the sacri
ficial law of the universe; and the assurance
of the divine order, the continuity of the
divine working, made manifest by the re
cognized presence of the spirit of God as
a universal presence.
This is the present phase of the opti
mism of Christianity, some part of which
we must feel to be the preacher's. I do
not know that Christianity ever came to

224 OPTIMISM OF CHRISTIANITY
an age with a larger hope or a better faith.
It may be many and many an age before
He shall come to whom the kingdoms of
the earth belong, and whose right it is to
rule, but surely we may take up in con
fident faith and urge on its way the great
prayer of the Puritan statesman and poet
who caught the hope and expectation of
modern Christianity, the Christianity not
only of men, but of nations.
" Come forth out of thy royal chamber,
O Prince of all the kings of the earth; put
on the visible robes of thy imperial ma
jesty; take up that unlimited sceptre which
thine Almighty Father hath bequeathed to
thee : for now the voice of thy bride calls
thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed."

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