 CHAPTER 1. WHERE FOR ALL THIS? Please, let me shut the door. We are here alone, brethren, and we want no eavesdroppers. Human ears are sensitive, and if we do not speak in quiet tones, I fear the laity may come flying as doves to our windows. It is characteristic of human nature to be interested in what is intended for somebody else. A short time ago I invited into my study a company of laymen that we might have a confidential chat concerning certain matters relating, especially, to the people in the pews. But before the evening was far advanced, my invited guests were crowded completely into a corner by the throng of ministers who came rushing in. I had spoken only briefly when a minister began suggesting things which laymen ought to hear, and when at last my talk was finished the most robust, amen, which reached by ears, came from the approving throat of a clergyman. I fear, therefore, that should our present meeting be noised abroad it would be necessary to adjourn from the study to the church auditorium and possibly to the public square. For nothing so stirs the curiosity of laymen as the things which ministers discuss in secret. I have long wished, brethren, to talk over with you certain things which are so delicate in their nature one hesitates to mention them, but which are of so great importance to us clergymen and to the church universal that silence concerning them cannot be commended. What I shall say is not said as criticism, but rather as suggestion and admonition. Some of you have written to me, others of you have come to see me from time to time concerning perplexities in your work, and there are other things no doubt on your mind which you have not yet had opportunity to mention. In order that we might have a good, confidential talk together about these things of moment to us all, I have opened wide my study door and asked you to come in. You are all, I see, younger men than I am, and therefore I can speak with greater plainness and fuller freedom. But however frank and bold my utterance, brethren, not one syllable shall be spoken to hurt, but every syllable to help. I am not a sour-eyed censor of ministerial morality, nor do I wish to swell the chorus of that horse-voiced company just now shouting the minister's dispraise. I have no sympathy with the men who persist in the affirmation that most ministers preach what they do not believe, nor do I accept the dictum laid down with gravity by sneering judges that if preachers could only preach a little all the churches would be filled. The stormy lamentations of those who would make seminaries hopelessly antiquated institutions and most recent graduates anointed numbskulls are in my judgment sound and fury signifying nothing. But a man with open eyes cannot fail to see that in the ecclesiastical world as in every other there are stumblings and failings and fallings, and if his heart be sympathetic he cannot but wish to help his brethren avoid the pitfalls into which some have fallen and safeguard them from forms of conduct which weaken and offend. Ministers as a body are, I think, the best men living on the earth. I could fill a dozen evenings with praises of the pulpit saints whom I have known. Impurity of motive ministers as a class surpass the lawyers. In breath of sympathy the physicians. In fidelity to principle the editors. In self-sacrifice the merchants. In moral courage the soldiers. In loftiness of ideals the teachers. In purity of life the highest classes in our best society. This is not said boastfully but gratefully as a fact not to be disputed. But ministers to be as good as other classes of men must be better than they. No other set of men make such assumptions or bind themselves to such high ideals. A lawyer, when admitted to the bar, does not promise to obey the Ten Commandments. A physician on receiving his diploma does not agree to practice the sermon on the mount. Being an editor involves no assumption of fidelity to gospel principles. And merchants do not enter business announcing to the world their purpose to give their life a ransom for others. If therefore both in spirit and conduct ministers as a body were not superior to every other class of men, they would be a disgrace to their profession and a scandal to the world. While all men, no matter what they're calling, are under the eternal law of God and therefore morally bound to keep the Ten Commandments and to live in the spirit of the sermon on the mount. Yet as clergymen are the only men who voluntarily confess these obligations and give their life to the work of making them real to other men, it follows that more may rightfully be expected of them, than from any other tribe of workers in our modern Israel. Much is rightfully expected and much also is received. To be sure there is escape grace here and there, and if not a few clerical workmen there is abundant reason to be ashamed. But in a world like this universal piety and wisdom among the professed servants of religion is as impossible today as it was when Jesus chose his dozen men of whom one was Judas. Taking the clerical body as a whole it is made up of honest, capable, faithful men. But a man may be all this and still fail. There are infirmities of temper and infelicities of conduct which, while hardly falling into the category of sins, are nonetheless so disastrous in their effects on spiritual life as to be worthy of a place among those evils from whom one should pray to be delivered. Ministers with rare exceptions are neither rogues nor hypocrites, but being human they are capable of all sorts of distorted action and the very nature of their work exposes them to a multitude of dangers from which other men are on the whole exempt. Many a man in the ministry fails, not because he is bad, but because he has a genius for blundering. Men with abilities sufficient to carry them to distinction fail to rise because of foibles and oddities which they seem unable to shake off. Oh, if he would quit that! How frequently that doleful exclamation has fallen from the lips of the despairing saints. Even slight defects in clergymen are momentous because they live always in a light as searching and intense as that which beats upon a throne. What other man in the community makes such constant self-disclosures as the minister? His eyes, lips, teeth, facial expression, voice, mind, heart, moods? All these are subject to public scrutiny. Whatever is crooked or unchristian in him is certain to come out. The scripture says the saints shall judge the world. It is their special province and delight to judge those who minister to them in spiritual things. Since this is so, there is reason, brethren, why we, of all men, should walk circumspectly, redeeming the time. End of chapter one Chapter two of quiet hints to growing preachers in my study. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Marianne. Quiet hints to growing preachers in my study by Charles Edward Jefferson. Chapter two, a mirror for ministers. Probably no other man in the town is subjected to such a constant stream of criticism as the minister, and possibly no other man profits so little by criticism as he. This is not because of the rhinoceros quality of the ministerial skin, but because the criticism does not reach him. Those who make the fiercest onslaughts on him get in their best work while he is not in sight. Even the glib-tongued experts become silent on his approach. Other men are censured to their face. The tough meat sold by the butcher brings an immediate and audible response. The merchant who sells unsatisfactory goods must take the condemnation which is sure to come. If the editor offends in a word or deed, the next mail brings him condemning letters. The mechanic who scamps his work is promptly overhauled. The servant who shirks his duties is reprimanded or dismissed. But who is bold enough to face a clergyman and tell him of his sins? There is such a divinity doth hedge a king that treason can but peep to what it would. And there is such a divinity doth hedge a preacher that dissatisfaction dares but whisper what it feels. Outside the hedge, disapprobation makes rye faces, and detraction does its deadly work. While within the hedge, the minister lives on in ignorance of his critics' strictures, untouched by what the parish thinks and says. Disgruntled men sputter at the Sunday dinner table in the presence of their children, and women in diverse places drop assiduated observations. Va ta las, the man who ought to be helped by this discriminating wisdom, is left a flounder in the morass unto which he has fallen, and dies at last in his sins. If, perchance, someone ventures to call the minister's attention to any one of his shortcomings, it is seldom done in such a way as to bring the needed help. A caustic cavel or poisoned fling is tucked into an envelope and sent to him unsigned, and the good man who has been told to pay no attention to anonymous letters tosses it promptly into the wastebasket unread. An anonymous letter has little healing in its wings. But there are occasional mortals bold enough to meet the preacher face to face. There are, in almost every congregation, two or three keen-eyed individuals who are determined in all hazards to be faithful. But these persons are generally as disagreeable as they are faithful, and in their work of pulling motes their awkwardness is so exasperating as to lead the unhappy minister to consider them not ministering angels, but new incarnations of that spirit of evil against which the Christian warrior must learn to stand. The ordinary self-appointed critic of ministerial character and conduct undoubtedly has a place in God's plan of creation. But what it is has not yet been definitely ascertained. But if the anonymous bloodhounds and the professional faultfinders are useless in the work of redemption, how is a minister to be saved? Shall some sweet, sane saint call the pastor aside and tell him gently of his sins? Possibly yes, but it is a hazardous undertaking as many a saint has long ago discovered. A minister, like other mortals, is human, and whenever pricked he bleeds. Even the best men, when censured, writhe and tingle and sometimes smart for many days. The smarting may generate, even in a pious heart, a feeling of resentment, or at least of suspiciousness, so that forever afterward the relations between the pastor and his critic are not what they were. Any minister who has ever talked plainly to a parishioner concerning his shortcomings knows that always afterward that talk has loomed up between them like a Chinese wall, giving each of them a sense of separation which could not be obliterated. The relations between a pastor and his people are so delicate that like the finest porcelain they cannot be broken and ever be the same again. They may be mended, but there is always a consciousness of the existence of the crack. Laman who have ventured to give their pastor from time to time quiet hints know how delicate and critical such business is. As a rule they do not pursue it far, finding relief henceforth in an interior protest against that which they do not like, and endeavouring to remember the apostolic injunction. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves. If the improprieties and delinquencies are too numerous and flagrant to render protracted endurance of virtue, the church committee sometimes acts as a tribunal before which the offending pastor is summoned. But this usually marks the beginning of the end. It brands the minister in the eyes of the congregation as a culprit, and when once a minister's reputation for good sense or fine taste is tarnished, he has already entered upon that downward road which leads to the dissolution of the pastoral relation. It is for this reason that church committees are loath to censure their minister unless driven to it by repeated indiscretions and blunderings which cry aloud for redress. What then is a church to do? Brethren, it is a serious question. Many of us clergymen do not realise how serious it is. A congregation is at the mercy of a man who, although a minister, may have poor judgment, bad taste, a coarse nature, a blunted conscience, and a fatal gift for saying and doing the wrong thing. He may have pulpit manners which are abominable and mannerisms which are constant subtractions from his power. He may have constitutional ailments and temperamental deformities which might be reduced or cured by a course of patient treatment, but of whose existence he himself is apparently unconscious. He may be guilty of conduct which, though not positively sinful, is unbecoming in a man of God. Because of spiritual obtuse-ness he may persist in courses of action which are so flagrantly un-Christian as to cause the unbelieving to blaspheme. He may become the slave of any one of a thousand hateful habits, and so difficult is it to rescue him from these tyrants. One sometimes wishes that all the ministers of Christendom could be gathered at stated intervals into spiritual hospitals especially provided for the purpose, in order that every man might be critically dissected by men not afraid to lay their finger upon every blemish and ex-Christens, and able to burn afresh upon every heart the loftiest ideals of ministerial character and service. A Mirror for Magistrates is the suggestive title of a book long famous in English literature. Why should there not be a Mirror for Ministers? Chapter 3 The Man of Macedonia A student on emerging from the seminary sometimes experiences a chilling surprise. The world does not seem glad that another labourer is now ready to enter the vineyard. It bustles unconcernedly along its hurried way without the slightest manifestation of interest in the youth who longs to do its service. It cares apparently nothing for his Hebrew or his Greek or even for his stores of information concerning the latest speculations of the greatest German scholars. And even for his earnest spirit which yearns to render Christ-like ministry it shows an indifference at once inexplicable and crushing. What makes this indifference well-nigh intolerable is that it is the indifference of the Christian world. The pagan world cannot be expected to take an interest in a herald of the Nazarene but surely the Christian world will reach forth a loving hand and lift him into a place of usefulness and power. Not so. The churches are engrossed each in its own affairs and have no time to create a sphere in which this Christian orator can exercise his gifts. Most of the churches are already supplied with leaders and those whose pulpit is without an occupant are either feeble and fainting enterprises struggling for existence in forlorn and obscure places or they are churches of historic dignity to whose leadership a man fresh from school cannot aspire. What shall the young man do? He cannot dig and to beg he is ashamed. There does not seem to be anything to do but to begin and live the gospel. To do this is always well and a man ought to begin to do it before he is entrusted with a church. The division of labor has been carried far and will no doubt be carried farther but it will never be so extended as to enable one set of Christians to preach the gospel while the other set is left to practice it. If a man expects to move men by his preaching he must first do a deal of living and the sooner he begins to live the better. Where can a man find larger opportunity for the exercise of that faith and hope and love of that patience, persistency and courage of which he intends through all the years to speak than just in that dark and troubled period which for many men immediately follows the completion of the seminary course. If a man is to hold up Abraham as an example worthy of imitation why should he shrink from going out not knowing whether he goes and if he proposes to spend his life in teaching men to believe that the just must walk by faith why should he not do a little of that sort of walking himself? If he believes in the principle announced by Jesus that everyone who asks receives why does he not proceed to put that principle to the test? A man who intends to preach the gospel ought to learn early that God is no respecter of persons and that a student of theology is not allowed to enter the kingdom by a road specially constructed for his own tender feat. Anything like favoritism or coddling is abhorrent to the spirit of the Christian religion. Christ thrusts a cross into a man's face and holds it there. A curse is every policy which attempts to hide it or take it away. Men who prepare for the ministry ought to have no advantages given them which are denied to their fellows. They should work for their education as hard as do the men who prepare for journalism or medicine or law. Every indulgence and plum intended to make the way into ministry more attractive than that which leads into the other professions ought to be feared and discarded. If this reduces recruits for the ministry so much the better for the churches. What can organized Christianity accomplish unless its leaders are stalwart and tough? Men are not going to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ when once installed as pastors of churches unless they have been trained to do this from their youth. No one who is not willing to work like a slave through as many years as may be necessary to fit him for his work is worthy to stand before the world as an ordained expounder of the message of the Son of God. After a man has secured his schooling then let him make himself a place in which to work. If all the doors are shut let him open one. If he cannot do this he is not needed. No man can open men's hearts for the gospel who is too weak to open a door for himself into the ministry. It is not a diploma which proves a man's right to be a preacher but a spiritual temper and a moral stamina like unto those of the apostles. Occasionally one catches a whimpering tone in the talk of young men looking for a church. In their judgment they are badly used. The churches do not appreciate the sacrifices these men have made. If some church does not speedily repent and give a call then these ill-used prophets will shake off the dust of their feet against them and will not preach at all. All such whining proceeds from a heart which is not right. The young physician, in making a place for himself in a world already overcrowded, expects a long, drawn struggle and he has seldom disappointed. In many cases years of poverty and privation lie between him and the shining goal on which his hungry eyes are set. The average lawyer fights a long and tremendous battle. So do the journalist and professor, the architect and artist, the merchant and musician. Every man is left to make for himself his own place in the world and why should a minister be favored above his brethren? While in the seminary he heard the world calling for him and in his dreams a noble church stood up, glorious and imploring and would not let him rest. But now when he is ready the church has melted into air and in his disappointment he is ready to believe that all things are as vain and empty as the baseless fabric of a dream. Let him remember that his vision was similar to that of the apostle Paul. The man of Macedonia who would not let Paul sleep for his constant cry, come over and help us, was nowhere to be seen when Paul reached the shores of Europe. Paul could not find him at Neapolis nor even at Philippi. Outside the Philippian gate a few women listened to the first Christian sermon preached in Europe, but the man of Macedonia was conspicuous for his absence. Europe was preoccupied with her business and pleasures and it was only by the boldest and most preservering exertions that the apostle succeeded in opening a door in any European city. Europe needed the gospel she did not wanted. The world today needs young men equipped to preach the gospel, but it does not want them. Like Saul of Tarsus they must fight their way into public recognition assisted by some good Barnabas or Silas who is always present to lend a helping hand and instead of railing at a world which is slow to crown them they must build for themselves the thrones from which they are to judge the tribes of Israel. CHAPTER IV It is well for a man not to be too heavily weighted with theories at the beginning of his career. Otherwise he may become so entangled as to be crippled for life. Man proposes, but God disposes and the manner of his disposition is often marvelous in our eyes. Precious time may be squandered in a fruitless endeavor to bring the Almighty into conformity to human expectations. It is natural for a minister to have his preferences, but he should not insist on these when it becomes evident that heaven prefers something else. He should not draw a circle round a limited area of land and say, up to the circumference of that circle shall my activity be felt, but no further. A man who says that needs to reread his New Testament. The men who crowded into favored localities already overstocked with ministers and stand all the years idle bitterly complaining because no church has hired them, eking out a precarious livelihood by snapping up occasional opportunities to preach in pulpits temporarily vacant are not meant to be trusted with the guidance and training of Christians. Ministers of the gospel should be made of more heroic stuff. Old men, out of whom the years have taken the lunge and the fire may be forgiven for such conduct. But for a young man to hover round a particular city like a moth round a candle, forgetful that he is ordained to be a light in a place that is dark, is an exhibition of selfishness which ought to doom him in the estimation of the Christian public. A man ought to preach not where he wants to preach, but where he can preach. Nor is it wise to say, I will begin with a small church and none other, or I will start in the country and later on come to the city. The theory held by many that every minister should begin in a small church in the country is the creation of the closet and not to be universally accepted. Let a minister begin where he can. Some men are more mature at twenty than others at forty. Why insist on a narrow field if the Lord of the vineyard points out a wide one? And why insist on staying in the country if circumstances mold themselves into a trumpet through which a voice is heard saying, Arise, go into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do. Ministers, as well as laymen, ought to surrender themselves to the guidance of the spirit and in the fire of the spirit all opinions and theories will be as chaff. A young man ought to go through the widest door which swings on its hinges before his face. But to sit down before a narrow open door, refusing to enter it because of a hope that a wider door will someday be opened is the act of a man whose life is guided not by the Holy Spirit but by his own unholy ambitions. But suppose a field is hard, shall a young man take it? Why not? All fields when known at first hand are hard. The easy fields of which we sometimes read exist only in the imagination. Each heart knows its own bitterness and each parish has its own snags. The minister whose life seems to be one grand, sweet song is found to be a heavenly laden, burdened bear when one comes close enough to hear his heartbeats. There is not that difference in parishes which the unthinking observer imagines. Conspicuous advantages have their manifold subtractions and striking losses have their surprising compensations. No one man can have everything, even in the ministry. If a man is deprived of privileges in the country, so does a man paid dearly for living in the city. If a small church has its difficulties and distresses, a large church is not free from complications and perplexing problems. If a man is afraid of fields which are hard, never let him think of becoming a minister. A field reputedly hard ought to have peculiar fascination for a man who has grit. If a dozen men have failed in it, the charm ought to be all the greater. Woe to the minister who is looking for an easy job. There is more hope for a fool than for him. And as for the church being small, that is nothing against it. There is the glory of a small church that it can grow. To see a church grow is one of the deepest joys a minister can know. What greater privilege could a young man ask than that of taking a little church and by the process of nurture carried through patient years, causing that church through the blessing of God to develop until it becomes the crown of the community, the center of wide regions whose people look to it for impulse and guidance. It is becoming, gladdening task, compared with that of a man who takes a large church whose limit of growth has already been reached and for which the years contain no brighter prospect than that of successfully resisting the process of disintegration and decay. It is not becoming in young men fresh from school to be over particular about either geography or finance. A man cannot tell how much he is worth in the pulpit by computing the amount of money he has expended on his education. Nor ought he, with a flourish, dictate to churches the lowest terms at which his services can be secured. A man with a wife and ten children may be excused for making sundry inquiries concerning the salary, but a young man, unencumbered, should seek first of all a chance to work and finding this all necessary things will be added unto him. The men who put salary first and church second are usually the men whose salary never increases. A man who will not preach at all, unless some church puts into his palm the precise sum which he thinks he is preaching worth, ought to be left to die with all his sermons in him. Young men, with the ribbon on their diploma still unfaded, ought not to go into the market shouting, so many sermons for so many dollars. The supreme question is, where can I work? Where will the followers of Christ give me a chance to work? Where can I make my life count for the most in the extension of the kingdom? The man who goes into the world with these queries burning in his heart will not long be without a congregation, nor will he lack shelter and raiment and food. If, however, the time of waiting is longer than he anticipated, let him not be despairful. If one door after another is slammed in his face, let him keep on knocking. If one field after another fades from his eyes, let him keep on seeking. If these disappointments move him, he was never foreordained for the ministry. Men who are worthy of the Christian pulpit will get into it, though they climb to it over obstacles, highest the Alps, and over the Himalayas of disappointment. It may be necessary for a time to earn one's bread by secular employment. But if the man has been chosen by the Lord, he will sometime, somehow, somewhere, overcome the last opposing circumstance and enter into the joy of ministerial service. A scotchman who knocked in vain while a young man at the door of twenty-three churches and filled ten years with patient waiting became at last one of the most distinguished and influential preachers of his generation. Charles Edward Jefferson, Chapter 5 Starts Good and Bad All's well that ends well. But in order that one may end well, there should be a good beginning. A bad start and a pester it is disastrous. The blunders of the first few weeks may throw a shadow over many years. When a minister goes into his new parish, he ought to give himself at once to his supreme task, feeding the sheep. Whatever else a minister may be, he is, first of all, a shepherd. To feed the people entrusted to his keeping is his first and most urgent duty. If he attends, first of all, to this and keeps on attending to it, blessed is he. But if he begins, as many a man has begun, by endeavoring to show the sheep what a wonderful man he is, he will wreck the peace of many days. If, for instance, he spends his first Sunday in the discussion of some useless theme as the relation of the pastor to the church, the hungry sheep, in spite of all their looking up, will go away unfed. Not even a goat can find nutriment in any such juiceless discussion. A minister is a servant and it ill becomes a servant to come into the presence of those he serves with an analysis of abstract relationships on his lips. When we hire a servant to feed us, we want him to put the dishes on the table. What he thinks of our relations to him and of him to us will come out in the way in which he does his work. If he postpones the dinner in order to enlighten us concerning our mutual obligations, we are in no mood to appreciate his ideas or to accept his conclusions. A servant who calls attention to himself rather than to the dinner is a servant who does not understand his business. The minister who on the first Sunday magnifies himself by telling his hearers what he has a right to expect of them and what they may properly demand of him is guilty of an indiscretion for which he may be forgiven but which a man of tact will not commit. Do what he may, the minister on his opening Sundays is sufficiently in the public eye and it is the part of wisdom for him to obliterate himself so far as possible in the humble task of feeding the sheep. To keep the eyes of a congregation steadfastly fixed on Christ is wisdom always but it is never quite so important as on those first, searching Sundays when eyes as yet untrained to love are prone to find and magnify defects. A mother does not read to her newborn baby an essay on the obligations of maturity. She feeds it. So spoke one of the greatest of modern preachers to a company of students years ago. His contention being that a preacher who goes before a new congregation with a discussion of mutual obligations is as foolish as a woman who should postpone the feeding of her baby for a dissertation on the relations of parent and child. Nor should the new minister convert his earliest sermons into programs of parochial work. We are living in a driving age but it is possible for clergymen to drive too fast. A minister of the gospel is not a sheep driver but a sheep feeder. The former inevitably gets himself into trouble especially if he manifests his driving propensities the first week. For a stranger to come into a parish and proceed forthwith to tell his hearers what he expects them to do borders closely on the impertinent. Why not first of all feed the sheep? To feed sheep does not smack of presumption nor does it stir up opposition. Sheep like to be fed. They never resist. When repeatedly fed by the same shepherd he will follow him with or soever he leads them. He can share them again and again and weave their wool into all sorts of lovely patterns for the glory of God. But when the new minister attempts to share a flock of strange sheep the first day before noon he usually precipitates a furious scrimmage which is likely to leave the shepherd discomforted and out of breath. Many a man has complained bitterly of the foolishness and stubbornness of his sheep who would have thought no trouble had he only placed the feeding before the shearing. No sentence more momentous for clergymen lies between the lids of the Bible than the little sentence which too many of the successors of the apostles have in every age overlooked. Feed my sheep. Nor should there be undue haste in knocking to pieces the contrivances which the former minister created. These things should be allowed to stand if not for ever at least till the day after tomorrow. Other men have labored and the new minister should enter into their labors not stamp upon them. To begin afresh as though all who had gone before him were drones or dunces is not commendable. Every minister must do his work in his own way and it is natural that a man should feel himself capable of making sundry improvements over the methods of his predecessor. But this predecessor was probably not so great a blunderbuss of a man who comes after him. No matter with what wisdom and fidelity a man may labor he leaves a perish in an unsatisfactory condition. Everything is incomplete much is perverted and wrong. There is more or less friction appalling inefficiency and on all sides a wide chasm yawns between the actual and the ideal. A new man on coming into such a field especially if he be without experience is apt to feel that things would be as they are had his predecessor done his work with greater ability and wisdom. Upon this departed man as upon a scapegoat are saddled all the sins of the perish and the new pastor eager to prove himself superior to all who have gone before him proceeds to break to pieces the parochial machinery and to create a new set of agencies which will usher in the golden age. Poor man he is no better than his fathers. Do not be in a hurry, brethren, to revolutionize the constitution and bylaws of your perish before your perish learns to trust your judgment and comes to occupy your viewpoint. You may be able to introduce an improvement here and there as the years come and go but please wait until after dinner before you start. There is a conservative instinct implanted by the Almighty in the human heart because of safeguarding the world from the folly of fussy reformers and against this instinct as against a Damascus blade a minister hurls himself if feverishly ambitious to make all things new. Instead of splitting former societies and methods into kindling wood why not be content to feed the sheep? Feeding sheep involves no perils whereas kindling wood may lead to a conflagration. End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 To all the sons of Adam there comes the temptation to be lazy and therefore let the minister beware. It is not true as some men think that all clergymen are lazy and it is not true that they, like other men are tempted and alas, too many of them succumb. Intellectual indolence is far more common than is generally supposed. Mental activity except in rare cases is not congenital but an achievement. The average man is prone to follow the line of least resistance and unless the angels of his better nature repeatedly bring him back he will wander far away in a mental toil. Many a minister is indolent without realizing how indolent he is. It is possible to entertain demons as well as angels unawares. Not infrequently a man will fuss and bustle over miscellaneous matters giving the parish the impression of tremendous diligence while all the time his intellect is a dawdler at its work. A man intellectually lazy will do anything he will scamper over the parish and astonish the county by the number of his parochial visits. He will multiply organizations and manipulate them with a dexterity quite amazing. He will engage in all sorts of schemes and enterprises to maintain the interest of the people rather than buckle down to hard exacting, redeeming mental labor. There are many Bible sentences appropriate for mottos to be hung on the wall but none of them has in it a greater wealth of needed warning than the Hebrew proverb go to the aunt thou sluggard consider her ways and be wise. It was the conviction of the Hebrew sages that idleness is ruinous and that if a man prefers ease to labor his poverty will come as a robber and his want as an armed man. The robber has already overtaken many a clergyman and the armed man is on the track of many another. What other man has such urgent reasons for being diligent as a minister? If he is indolent his sin will find him out and so will everybody else. Other men can more easily conceal their mental sloth for most of them do their work as if it were in a corner. But the minister is a public character and when he speaks whatever rust is on his mind is seen. A scraggie scrambling prayer a raveled faded style a juiceless, pithless sermon. What are these but weeds in the garden of a man who has folded his mental hands? No man can long be interesting in the pulpit who does not think. No man can think wisely who does not study. Constant mental application is the price a minister must pay for power. When men cross the deadline under 70 it is ordinarily because they have ceased to develop new cells in the gray matter of their brain. They may have been students once but their early studies cannot save them. A parish soon discovers when the minister is trusting to his diploma and has put his mind to bed. The necessity for unceasing labor lies in the nature of the minister's work. He is a public teacher always teaching. If he spoke less frequently his words would carry greater weight. He does not get credit for the ability and worth which he actually possesses for nothing so dulls the sense of appreciation as familiarity. Any man of intelligence endowed with a gift of expression can preach one sermon. Many men can preach seven. A few men can preach seven times seven. But seventy times seven is the work of every preacher. It is this incessant creation of new sermons which constitutes the crowning test. How to keep the reservoir full that is the tormenting problem. Nothing short of Herculean labor will solve it. Much of the charm of public speech lies in the freshness of the speaker's accents, in the novelty of his cadences, in the newness of his viewpoint, in the surprises of his rhetoric, in the unexpected disclosures of his personality as revealed in his mannerisms. But to administer all these charms are denied, his voice, rhetoric, conceptions, figures, oddities, soon become a tale that is told and he has nothing to rely on but the earnestness of his spirit and the energy of his thought. Laman forget this when they compare clergymen with interesting speakers whom they hear about once. They hear a man speak at a banquet or on the rostrum and go home saying ah, if we could have preaching like that, what a brainy and interesting man. In all probability he is no brainier or brighter than their preacher. Let this fascinating speaker speak ten times to the same audience and his brilliancy will fade a little. Let him give fifty addresses and his freshness will vanish as the do. Let him speak five hundred times and he might turn out to be as dull and stupid as a preacher. A man may be brilliant once or twice, but not all the time. Nothing grows stale so soon as brilliancy. Learning may overwhelm at first, but after we have lived with it for a season we cease to be impressed. Exentricities of voice and gesture are delicious on their first appearance, but by and by they become intolerable. If the editors and professors and college presidents and other critics who say and write bold things against the pulpit should attempt discourse twice a week to the same congregation for ten or twenty years, they might find themselves as prosy and stale and repetitious as the luckless culprits they now condemn. If then the industrious can hardly stand, what shall the lazy do? Get out of the pulpit or go to work. To be a preacher and a preacher whom the years cannot wear thin, a man must be a painstaking, indefatigable, everlasting worker. He must have a genius for toil. He must be willing to drudge and dig and grind. He must lay out his lines of study and pursue them doggedly and unconquerably through the years. He must forsake cheap papers and beware of books published for mental babes. He must trounce his mind whenever he catches it dawdling or slouching or lounging. He must quit pottering over incidentals and conundrums and wrestle with the great doctrines and dragons. He must give himself soul and body to his work with a devotion and fidelity of a slave whose heart has been redeemed by a master who renders to every man according to his work and creates a heaven for every soul to whom he says, well done. Chapter 7. COWARDIS If a minister is willing to live laborious days, he is in the way of being saved, but his salvation is not assured. He may be stricken down in the midst of arduous labour by cowardice. It is easy to call preachers cowards. Cowardice is the sin of which they have been accused from the beginning. It is an ugly insulting word and to hurl it has been the past time of all enemies of the church. But it is easier to call a man a coward than to prove him one. To some men, a man is always a dastard who refuses to do what they think he ought to do. That makes swift work of a man who must be gotten rid of. If you cannot answer his argument or understand his conduct, call him a coward and leave him. Now it is impossible for a minister to do everything which every man would like to see him do, or to say everything which men who are self-constituted judges insist that he must say. He must be guided by the Holy Spirit so far as he can ascertain what this guidance is, but even when following the manifest leading of the Spirit, he is sure to disappoint and nettle persons who follow nothing but their passions, prejudices and wins. To many men in Palestine Jesus was the greatest coward in history. And really they could make out a strong case against him. He declined to answer plain questions which the crowd put to him. He avoided taking sides in contentions of national importance. He refused to strike a blow at the Roman Empire, the embodiment of all villainy and the oppressor of God's people. Repeatedly he dodged his enemies in order to save his life and he maintained a silence often times which it is impossible to justify or explain. So it seemed to men who stood close to him and studied his career. But now that we behold his life in its true perspective, we see how egregiously mistaken his maligners were. For in him we behold courage at its climax, the very incarnation of moral heroism. No true man can live a faithful life without appearing to men of less insight and wisdom, a recreate and a coward. But nevertheless, the temptation to ministerial cowardice is genuine and constant. A man may be a coward without knowing it. The greatest cowards are often the most confident of their heroism. It is true, as Thomas Fuller used to say, that there is much terra incognita in a man's own heart. This is true even of men given to introspection and patient self-examination. Satan gives one convincing reason that his own course is best and takes him along the downward course so gradually that he is not conscious of the descent. Surely no minister can be other than a coward unless strength be given him from above. All things conspire to make him calculating and faint-hearted. Civilization is built on the principle that the chief end of man is to please. All society recognizes this. Well-bred people are trained not to say anything in the parlor and contradicts or hurts. The commercial world is built on the same foundation. The merchant lives to please his customers. He caters to their wishes. He anticipates their wants. He bends to every whim and mood, puts up with their criticisms and unreasonableness, makes himself a swift-footed servant and counts himself successful if, at any sacrifice of personal wish or comfort, he can sell his goods. Hotel managers live to please their guests. What any guest desires, that is the thing which he shall have, for hotel guests must be humored. After people have been petted, indulged, and flattered by those who serve them through the week, they are in no mood to be crossed or rebuked by a man in the pulpit on Sunday. They do not want to be reminded of their sins, nor do they relish the personal, passionate appeal for self-crucifiction. And the preacher, knowing this, is a peril of tempering his message to their wishes. If the failure to speak with sufficient plainness of sin, a failure widespread and notorious, is not due to cowardice, how shall we explain it? A preacher is a leader of thought. More light is continually breaking out of the Bible. The facts of our religion never change, but the interpretation of these facts widens with the process of the suns. Sacred phraseology grows antiquated and must be discarded. Ancient conceptions must be left behind. But many Christians do not read, still fewer of them think. In every congregation there are good men and women who cling to the old phrases and the old interpretations, long after they have become obsolete to the world of thinking men. They are suspicious of new terms and alarmed by new expositions, and fear exceedingly lest the ark of the Lord be upset. What is the preacher to do? To hurt an ignorant saint is not pleasant, and to mar the peace of a congregation is distressing, and yet the minister as leader of God's people must often do what the man of Galilee did, shock the sensibilities of the pious by tearing old traditions to tatters. A leader of thought must follow the unmistakable guidance of the spirit no matter what commotion may be stirred up in his parochial teapot. It is hazardous to lay one's finger on any man and say, Thou art a coward. But when one sees how many giant evils are entrenched in our Christian civilization, and how many injustices on every side go unrebuke and unredressed, he cannot suppress misgivings which keep rising in his heart that the clergy as a whole have failed to exhibit the dauntless daring of the man who once drove a pack of mercenary peddlers from the court of the Jerusalem Temple. No more magnificent company of heroes have added luster to the ages than the intrepid warriors who have led the world from Christian pulpits. But when we read the history of the last nineteen hundred years and see how closely we have reproduced the bloody record of the Hebrew people, the sons in each generation building the sepulchres of the prophets whom the fathers killed, the conviction is born in upon us that fewer of these tragedies would have come to pass if more religious leaders had bravely followed in their day and generation the light which the Holy Spirit was willing to bestow. One likes to believe that if every minister of the Gospel would speak out clearly the word of the Lord as it is made known to him the church would have a continuous and joyous progress into Christian truth and Christian history would not be what it has thus far been a series of vast upheavals and reigns of terror. Every dawn being wild with thunderpeels and every forward step marked by a new Golgotha. Brethren, have you been silent concerning the colossal evils the burning questions of our day? Silence is often the coward's cave. Have you struck evil with all your might? Not the evil of patriarchal times but the evil which has lifted itself in your own parish. Have you gone on boldly in front of your people imposing broad views on narrow hearts endeavoring to lead both young and old into the new conceptions and interpretations which modern scholarship has forced upon the world? If you have not done these things it might be well to ask yourself the reason why. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Marianne. Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study by Charles Edward Jefferson Chapter 8 In Patience But it is possible to be too bold. All virtues when pushed too far to generate in devices excessive boldness is recklessness and recklessness wrecks a church. Some ministers are so afraid of being cowards they make themselves a nuisance by marching always on the warpath. They count a Sunday lost on which they do not preach a new crusade. Denunciation is their forte and to scalp a whore-headed sin is the aim of every sermon. But the human heart cannot live on anathemas. In the economy of preaching as in that of nature Thunderbolts have their place but in the pulpit as in nature there must be abundant sun and seasons filled with bloom and holy calm. The 26th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel must be followed by the 14th Chapter of John. A man may be courageous when not trampling abominations under his feet. One may mistake an undue development of the Red Indian in him for a manifestation of saving grace. Spunk is good but the servant of the Lord must be something more than fighting talk or bulldog. Evils cannot be battered into dust by the ceaseless lashings created by the atmosphere created by the unfolding of great ideas. Ministers must be patient. When William Pitt declared that the quality most essential for a successful prime minister is patience he gave utterance to words which contain a hint for every man whose business it is to work with men. No man either in church or state can carry beneficent enterprises to their consummation who lacks a patient spirit. Probably no other sin works such havoc in the Christian church as the impatience of her ministers. It is characteristic of average human nature to move but slowly toward those goals upon which Christ bids men set their eyes. It is likewise human to cling to customs old and tried rather than to enter upon paths which are new. It is a minister's work to lead not simply one man but a company of men from one position to another and then another along that upward and difficult road and unless his spirit is held in firm restraint he will not be able to brook delays or endure the oppositions and retrogressions which are sure to come. A leader of men must be patient with them. Even the malcontents and the cranks must not be stubbed nor squelched. Some ministers cannot endure the presence of even one man whose heart is not with them and proceed forthwith to hurry him out of the parish. Unless this man has gotten rid of there can be no peace in the ministerial bosom. But in rooting out the offender what damage may be wrought? The tears always grow close to the wheat and one cannot be uprooted without damaging the other. If a preacher is only patient death may come to his assistance and remove the tear without touching the wheat. A beautiful, indispensable friend is death. He saves preachers from despair when they see certain parishioners flourish like a green bay tree. If men's sins are to be patiently endured much more worthy of gentle consideration are their stupidities and frailties. It is the province of the preacher to see the new Jerusalem hovering in the air but he ought not to break the skulls of the saints in his haste to get the fair city squarely located on the earth. Every man who sees visions and dreams cannot but yearn to have his parish far different from what it is and to change whatever seems to hinder the free development of church life along the lines of largest usefulness is certainly a laudable ambition. But in making changes a minister should ponder Josh Billings' counsel to young men. If you want to get along quick go slow. Because a thing is good it does not follow the parish must have it before sunset. It is not sufficient reason why the parish should bow sweetly and instantly to his will. Things which are accepted willingly are the only things which a minister can establish in his parish to the edification of his people. Whatever is forced upon them even though excellent in itself causes an irritation which offsets whatever service it might have been expected to render. The momentary gratification which comes to a man who succeeds is poor compensation when it is secured at the sacrifice of the sympathy and goodwill of the people. A minister ought to learn how to stand and wait. If a man is convinced in his own mind that a certain step is advantageous for his people and his people will not let him take it let him not lie down and turn his face to the wall watering his couch with his tears. Neither let him stride stormfully across his people's wishes or the meaning of which they disapprove but let him be resolute and patient. Men's souls are narrow let them grow my brothers we must wait. A congregation is composed of pupils in various stages of development and the wise preacher remembers this in the preparation of his sermons. The congregation is a flock of sheep. Many sheep can walk but slowly some of the lambs must be carried while an occasional old ram with discretion. It is the business of the shepherd to be ahead of his sheep but he must not be so far in advance as to be out of sight. If he gets too far ahead a sense of superiority may take possession of him and this may pass into a feeling of contempt. Newfound truth, says Carlisle like the new got gold burns the pockets until it is spent. The clerical liner who has been digging gold all week for his people on Sunday with an air which says if you do not accept this you are benighted. Ministers should imitate the Holy Spirit and guide men into the truth. Too many of them try to take their hears into truth on the jump. If a man has advanced ideas he must give his people time to catch up with them. Many a good man in his eagerness to display his emancipation from the past has by his headlong impetuosity closed the hearts of his best people and rendered impossible the achievement of that which was dearest to his heart. Brethren, study the life of Jesus for the high art of reticence and reserve. I have many things to say to you that you cannot bear them now so he said and says the mind cannot be forced. New truth cannot be hammered into the heart even by a man fresh from the seminary. Old interpretations are sloughed off and new conceptions find entrance into the mind only as the affections are enriched and the life is enlarged. This work is done by the Holy Spirit and like all the works of God it is carried on by processes which require time for their completion. If a man is willing to speak out in love the truth which has become certain to his soul and has sense enough to abstain from scornful words of bygone teachers and traditional teachings he can ordinarily preach what his people need without the slightest danger of precipitating an ecclesiastical earthquake. Patience, then, is the queen of the ministerial virtues. Like the farmer, the preacher is engaged in a work which demands the exercise of all the powers of long-suffering diligence and protracted wakefulness and waiting. It is noteworthy that our Lord saw in the slow and stately operations of nature the salvation of the process of spiritual growth and to nature we must go for rare disclosures of the secrets of successful spiritual labor. To his disciples then and now and always the Son of God makes this declaration In your patience he shall win your souls. End of chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Marianne Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study by Charles Edward Jefferson Chapter 9 Clerical Hamlets A wide reader of ministerial biography has declared that a gently complaining and fatigued spirit is that in which evangelical divines are very apt to pass their days. If this be true we have found an explanation of many a pulpit failure for no man can be masterful as teacher or leader whose spirit is either plentiful or fatigued. The message of the preacher is glad tidings of great joy and unless there is joy in the herald his message will have a broken wing. Whatever else a minister may be he must be preeminently a man of good cheer his presence must be a constant exhortation. Rejoice again I say unto you Rejoice But who has not known ministers whose voice and face seemed to be always saying let us cry? Such a man goes about shutting up all the eastern windows which look toward the sun. In his presence the singing swallows becomes silent and the brooks of morning dry up. Those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death find no deliverance in him for he is in darkness himself. He abides not in the light because there is no light in him. It is surprising how many ministers live in a petulant eevish mood. Even men who are able to carry a serene exterior are often found on closer contact to be morbid and glum. Life is going hard with them. Things are all wrong. They are not appreciated. Parish interests are in a snarl. The world has not treated them fairly and so in private they bleed and pout and whine. The age gives such men no end of trouble. It is a materialistic, sordid age and they wear themselves out shrieking the time is out of joint. The world has grown indifferent to spiritual voices and as it rushes to destruction the poor preacher looks helplessly on and blubbers. But why these tears? Ours is not the only materialistic age. When was there an age since the great flood that was not more materialistic than this one? The apostles grappled with a generation more sought and far and brutish than the one now on the stage and not a whimper escaped from one of them. Preachers are not ordained to preach to golden ages but to ages of stone and bronze and iron. A minister sometimes gets the impression that his town is wicked above all others. It's inertia and stupidity first sadden him and then make him mad. He rails at it. He cuffs it as though it were a wayward child. In a town of greater intelligence his work, he thinks, would receive a more generous recognition. But is not such complaining unmanly? All places are wicked. Men who live in great cities are ready to confess that the devil has made the city his headquarters. That men who live in little country towns declare that towns are even worse than the cities. Sodom and Gomorrah lurk under the thin crust of civilization everywhere. A man engaged in religious work soon discovers that the world is possessed of seven devils. But this discovery should not dash or damp him. If humanity were clothed and in its right mind the occupation of the preacher would be gone. It is because men have lost their way that a guide is needed. It is because men are sick unto death that God has raised up physicians. They that are whole have no need of a physician. The more godless a community the greater need of a man of God to work in it. Saul of Tarsus was not daunted by the rottenness of the cities of Asia. Their squalor and wretchedness made him all the more desirous of preaching the gospel in the world's darkest center. The godless metropolis of the Roman Empire. Paul saying, I must also see Rome. Our faint-hearted modern brother wailing, this place is wicked, I must get out of it. Oh, what a fall is there in my countrymen. Sometimes it is not the world in general but a man's own parish which causes him to wince and quail. A newspaper gets on his track and misreports him. His sermons are garbled and his actions are misjudged. And the mangled son of thunder goes about bleeding at every pore. A man too thin skinned to stand newspaper criticism is not a fit man to lead the Lord's army. A newspaper is frequently the most troubled and merciless of antagonists. And when controlled by men who are hostile to the church it may make the clergymen the target for continuous abuse. But a minister who is wise will never enter into a controversy with a newspaper. To be beaten with a few stinging sentences is not so painful as to be beaten with a Roman scourge and it was after being whipped with a Roman scourge that Paul and Silas sang. If a minister cannot sing after being whipped by the most merciless reporter who ever poured bad blood into ink he should get out of the pulpit and seek a position where thin skin is not a hindrance to duty. Or the anonymous coward instead of attacking him in a newspaper may stab him through the mail. Two or three anonymous letters will cause some men to swell up as though they had been bitten by tarantulas. For days afterward they smart and moan and try they never so hard to hold it back more or less of their hurt feeling trickles into their next Sunday's discourses. The criticism may not be written but spoken. It may float through the atmosphere in the shape of poisonous rumors. A set of liars by attending strictly to business can fill an entire community with aerial hints of their personality and a minister who is disposed to take notice of every word spoken against him will be kept in a state of chronic resentment. Men may resist him not only by their words but by their actions. This opposition may come from members of his own church. All Christians are called to be saints but him many of them the saintship has not passed beyond the germinal stages. Even church officials may surpass the heathen Chinese for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain and the luckless preacher repeatedly outwitted and imposed upon by men whose moral development is yet embryonic may have such a budget of wrongs to talk about that these wrongs are more frequently on his lips than the truce in which he is supposed to live. Nothing is more nauseating than a grown baby forever dwelling on his wrongs. A minister who constantly appeals for sympathy is a minister whom everybody wants to get away from. One instinctively shrinks from the man who as soon as he gets you alone proceeds to take off the poultices to which he has bandaged his soul that you may see how badly he has been hurt. How can a man who snivels preach the gospel? Clouds and darkness are round to most men and it is the preacher's business to let the sunlight in. A congregation needs nothing so much as sun. Melancholy is a disease both contagious and deadly. One man may poison with the virus of his despondency an entire community. Therefore, oh man of God quit your pining. Stop your moping. Put an end to your brooding. Get out of the slow of despond. Cut down your cypresses and willows. Burn up your sermons with sobs in them. Be converted. Be not afraid. Be of good cheer. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. That is the language of Christ in his apostles. Yours it is to loathe the waste with dreams of gain and on midnight sky of rain paint the golden morrow. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Mary Ann. Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study by Charles Edward Jefferson Chapter 10 Despondency The prime causes of despondency are three. Nerve exhaustion protracted delays unfounded expectations A minister is subjected to an incessant nervous strain. As executive officer he is harassed by the details and friction of church administration. As pastor he is in constant contact with the sorrowing and the sick. The poor are also always with him. He knows as few men do how the other half lives. Numberless needy men and women slip up to him in the crowd and by their touch draw virtue from him. It is often with a dizzy head and a sick heart that he goes into the pulpit Sunday morning to make a still heavier draft upon his vital forces. The world does not know how great attacks upon a sensitive man an earnest sermon is. No man can vitalize other men without devitalizing himself. Sermons that heal and lift have in them the red blood of the preacher's heart. He may save others himself he cannot save. It is cruel, says London's greatest preacher, to ask a man to preach twice in one day. Only men to whom preaching is the shedding of blood can understand so bold a saying. It was physical exhaustion which cast Elijah under a juniper tree and drew from his heroic lips the unmanly cry, it is enough. The tree has a crowd still under it suffering from like exhaustion. But a man who lives under a juniper tree cannot preach gospel sermons. The tree will affect the quality of his voice. A juniper tree of voice is an abomination to God and man. It will also control his choice of subjects. He will select themes which give large room for lamentations. Even jubilant texts he will drag through the mire of his gloom. No matter what tune he attempts he will play it with a tremolo stop. Whatever sermonic gold is cast into the fire will come out a calf and a sick calf at that. A disheartened man takes the heart out of everybody else. Unless he is resisted he will drag the whole parish under his juniper tree. Such a man needs food for the nerves. Let him get out into God's doors. Men like trees live largely on air. Red corpuscles in the blood save one from the malady of seeing all things blue. A preacher must get away from his work one day in seven. Who is he that he thinks he can drive a coach in four through the decalogue without paying the penalty? He should rest one month out of every twelve. If his church will not grant him this he should take it. No man can wear in the pulpit forty years without periodic seasons for recuperation and repairs. There are men now fishing who catch no fish because they have never taken the time to mend their nets. If a man makes a practice of preaching through his vacations, verily he has his explanations and his reward. Sometimes the despondency is the result of accumulated disappointments. The very finest spirits are often broken experiences through which a minister is called upon to pass. Every true workman wants to see results of his labor, but in the spiritual world tangible results are not always immediately forthcoming. If a man can see of the travail of his soul he will be satisfied but it is hard to work by faith. The preacher does his best but the world does not budge. He preaches truth but hearts are locked and barred and lost it. Some men grow worse under his preaching and even from the best of soil there comes forth but puny and tardy harvests. For while he bears up under these cutting disappointments but at last his spirit flags and he falls headlong into a hopelessly dejected mood. By his voice and temper the world can see that he is a defeated and disheartened man. Unless he gets out of this pit he is lost. Let him go to the New Testament and master the seed law of the kingdom. Let him study the parable of the soils, a parable with worlds of consolation for preachers who are discouraged. Let him refresh himself with the thought that even when the seed is perfect and the sowing is faultless the harvest is often scanty or choked and that from at least one variety of soil there can be no harvest at all. Let him ponder the parable of the harvest coming gradually and rejoice in the assurance that the full corn is coming though his wistful eyes may see no more than tiny blades. The processes of spiritual development are slow but they are as orderly and certain as are the processes by which the universe has come into its present estate. It is a great thing to believe with one's heart and mind and strength that every bit of work done for God with patient hands and faithful heart is certain to bring forth some day, somehow abundant harvest to his glory. No minister of Christ should rest content until this faith is his. Many a man has been cast down by unreasonable expectations and these expectations in numerous cases have been aroused by mistaken reading of the scriptures. It is frequently asserted that if men will only preach the gospel it is blocked to hear them and as proof of this a sentence of St. Mark is quoted the common people heard him gladly people who quote the scripture ought to find out first what the scripture means. On the day on which Jesus upset the Pharisees and discomfited the scribes, the common people so Mark says listened with delight of course they did. The scribes and Pharisees were their hereditary foes and their jobs and pedants rolled headlong in the dust was to the common people and experienced quite delicious. The words of Jesus were plotted with hilarity and glee but outside of a few forlorn and forsaken sinners to whom Jesus's kindness was over-mastering what classes of people listened to him gladly when he was pressing upon the conscience high conceptions or arduous duties. As soon as they discovered he was not to Barabbas they had no further use for him and cried not this man but Barabbas. The next time someone gravely quotes the common people heard him gladly ask him when. Certainly not in Nazareth for they tried to kill him there not in Capernaum for they deserted him there not in Jerusalem for they cried crucify him, crucify him not on the cross for they wagged their heads and derided him it is a monstrous perversion of the facts to say that the common people of Palestine accepted gladly the teachings of the Son of God. If they did why did he utter woes upon Vesida and Capernaum and Karazin cities filled with common people and why did he sob O Jerusalem how oft would I but you would not and how did it happen that after three years of as hard work as a perfect man with perfect methods could do assisted by twelve apostles and seventy heralds he left at death a little company of only six hundred converts drawn from the millions of the common people in the midst of whom he had done his mighty works. The common people rejected both Jesus and his teachings and their temper has never changed. Let no man dilute himself with the foolish expectation that the world is going to rush to hear him preach. The world has found Jesus out it knows he is not a Barabbas nor a Schlatter but a teacher of high ideals and uncomfortable commandments whose disciples must not expect to be above their master and whose servants must be as their lord. The New Testament makes it clear that we preachers shall have tribulation. If we live godly in Christ Jesus we must suffer persecution. We are sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves unless we take up our cross daily we cannot be his disciples. If we are wise we will accept this as our lot not despondingly but with exceeding joy desiring always that we may know Christ and his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death if by any means we may attain unto the resurrection of the dead. The obstacles without are as nothing compared with hindrances within men sometimes disparage their parish when they ought to be cuddling themselves. I have a hard field the good man sighs and on his sigh as on a rug lies down the self complacency of some men is colossal it is easier to lose one's way in the ministry than in any other calling many a man groves hither and thither like a traveller lost in a fog the vastness of the world in which the minister moves renders it easy for him to be vague theology itself is a boundless science but it is only one of many which closely touch the preacher's work in the library as on the ocean one is lost without a compass the details of administrative labor are multitudinous and a man unless clear headed will be swamped a minister's work is of a routine character and routine always tends to reduce the vitality of a propelling purpose when the community expects a man to pray at stated seasons every week whether he is in the spirit of prayer or not and at fixed intervals to give a discourse whether or not he has received a message and to keep up this clock like regularity straight onward through the years it is not difficult to see that the exercises which began as means to lofty ends may at last become ends in themselves the prayer which once was winged with a definite aim may become a spoke in a revolving wheel from whose turning neither the preacher nor anyone else expects results the sermon which once thrilled with a burning purpose may dwindle into a display of verbal handiwork or a string of meaningless common places with which to tie up the service even men who work prodigiously on their sermons may forget the end for which sermons ought to be prepared to know one is sermon production easy to many it is exhausting toil and so intense sometimes does the worker become in the unfolding of his idea as to lose sight entirely of the work which the idea is meant to accomplish the arrow is carefully and ingeniously fashioned and then shot at random into the air the bullet is molded at great pains but no target is visible to the marksman's eye preaching which is if rightfully done the most exacting and purposeful of all forms of labor may easily become the most desultery and purposeless of all this lack of aim works havoc in a parish the man without a goal seldom gets anywhere the leader who knows not whether he wishes to go will land his followers in the ditch a man is effective in the ministry other things being equal in proportion to the clearness of his purpose and the definiteness of his aim this lack of intention reveals itself in the sermon an aimless sermon breaks down the interest of a congregation and sends it home disheartened and confused men say to one another I do not know what he was driving at one of the saddest whales which ever escapes the lips unless a man can make the purpose of his sermon stand out broad as a barn door he ought to go into some work for which the Lord has fitted him the very mission of the pulpit is to fire men's hearts and set them moving out to battle but if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound who will prepare himself for the conflict laymen frequently stand non-plussed at the close of a sermon not knowing what they ought to think this target blindness also discloses itself in parish administration if a minister has nothing definite in his mind he is likely to organize a new society there may be no need of it in the parish and its creation may absorb vitality needed for the development of organizations already in existence but to the clouded vision of a man without an aim a new society is always a thing to be desired partly because it gives him opportunity to appear to be doing something when he is doing nothing and partly because a community is always ready to mistake the multiplication of wheels for an increased speed in the progress of the Lord's chariot probably half the organization's now in existence would never have cumbered the ground had it not been for the idle and fussy brains of men and women who care more for the manipulation of machinery than for the accomplishment of spiritual ends that upon the attainment of definite results do not want to be weighed with unnecessary paraphernalia and desire as little machinery as possible a clear cut aim is the preacher's life preserver a preacher without a purpose is worse off than a man without a country the frequent pondering of a purpose braces the heart and energizes the will no question should be oftener on the preacher's lips then to what purpose is this that is the question with which he should begin every sermon on the first page he should write in clean terse Saxon the precise work which this particular sermon is intended to do and on the last page he should write his honest answer to the question is this sermon so constructed as to be likely to accomplish the result for which it has been written the first and last pages of the sermon need not be given to people although if a minister has not the gift of clothing, thought and garments of light let him help his people by telling them frankly at the beginning just what his sermon aims to do and at the close let him condense into one compact and memorable sentence the gist of all he has tried to say to what purpose that is an improving question for men who lead in prayer it is a knife which prunes away superfluous petitions there would probably be fewer skeptics in regard to prayer if ministers had not prayed so abominably the man who goes into the pulpit to dawdle aimlessly through a long series of meaningless and unrelated petitions is taking God's name in vain if a clergyman has lost his purpose let him seek for it as for rubies and fine gold when he finds it let him use it day by day no meeting be held no society organized no new enterprise launched no campaign entered upon no sermon preached no prayer offered without a sharp and serious pondering of the question for what purpose is this there will be a new consternation in the ranks of the army of the prince of darkness when a larger number of the captains of the Lord's host come to realize more fully the necessity of keeping one's eyes on the target End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Marianne Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study by Charles Edward Jefferson Chapter 12 Building the Tower A church likes to feel itself in the grip of a man who knows not only where he is going but also by what stages the goal can in all probability best be reached wretched indeed is the predicament of a congregation whose leader is a man with a higgledy-piggledy mind and with no ascertainable ambition but to keep the sermonic mill grinding through the year a minister should live and move and have his being within the four corners of a far-reaching constructive purpose all his work should be done with an eye single to some one glorious end marvelous is the transfiguring power of a purpose held firmly in the preacher's mind language cuts with a keener edge ideas burn with a hotter flame sermons no longer isolated and unrelated become confederates in a holy cause joining hand in hand to pull down the strongholds of evil and lift men to the upper heights some men's sermons are only bushwhackers fighting the sultry and bewildering skirmish other men's sermons sweep through the year like a well-disciplined battalion going forth to fight the battles of the Lord to one preacher sermons are variegated beads loosely strung together on sabatic thread to another they are constituent parts of an organic and growing whole it is only when the sermons become connected chapters of a continuous story the aim of which is clearly in the preacher's mind that the heart life of a congregation is symmetrically developed and the parish built up four square in righteousness ministers of Christ are church builders and the architectonic gift is one of the most valuable of the gifts bestowed by the eternal spirit a preacher should have the instinct and skill of the builder what materials and in what quantity and in what proportions times and in what places these are questions as important in spiritual church building as in the erection of structures of brick and steel but they are questions which in many a parish are slighted or ignored the master said that any man about to build a tower ought to first calculate the cost this preliminary investigation and estimate is an indispensable part of the work the preacher is a church builder but not every preacher seems to be aware of the fact the most patent fact to some men is that two new sermons must be gotten ready every week like avenging furies these sermons drive their victims through the days and nights and whether they will carry on and complete the work which preceding sermons have begun or prepare the way like John the Baptist for other sermons not yet arrived is a question for whose consideration the hurried hours allow no opportunity a man thus harassed may become so absorbed in the work of preparing bricks and mortar for his tower that no time is left for the consideration of its architectural proportions or for thought concerning the eternal laws in obedience to which all lasting structures must be built this lack of forethought and design is painfully apparent in many men whose gifts are conspicuous and whose success might be increased a hundredfold if they should form the habit of building the months and years into a plan such a habit systematizes the study and thought of the preacher and gives him a poise and power not otherwise obtainable it is the misfortune of many men that they fear to take hold of large things their texts and themes and outlooks and projects and problems are too small to develop themselves or inspire a congregation a man may tempt himself by setting before him a block of five or ten years and saying to himself by the help of God I will carve out of this huge block of time the loveliest and greatest piece of work of which my powers are capable by fixing his eyes not on next Sunday but on a Sunday ten years away he will walk with a new tread under a new heaven and across a new earth lift up your eyes then brethren take in the years which are to be every preacher ought to see clearly at least one year ahead of him if he can see five it is still better if he blinds his eyes in the dust of the immediate present and allows life to become a haggard scramble for two new sermons for the coming Sabbath he not only stunts his own intellectual development but dwarfs the spiritual stature of his church every preacher should have a church year well-nigh indispensable if he does not like the one laid down in the book of the churches which retain the traditions of the fathers let him make one of his own if he does not map out his scripture lessons in advance he will find himself reading the same passages again and again passing over large sections of holy writ which his people need it is only by painstaking planning that a minister can secure variety in his pulpit themes it takes time to recall his sermons of last year and to organize into a schedule the sermons of the coming year he will almost invariably cultivate some narrow field to which his own tastes incline him ignoring wide domains of revelation which are never neglected save at the sacrifice of health and growth he will fail also to present truth in its true proportions there are certain facts of the Christian revelation which ought to be presented to a congregation every year there are a few principles of conduct so central to Christianity and so vital to spiritual health that no year should pass without the preacher bringing to their unfoldment the united strength of all his powers without prearrangement these vital matters will be slurred or crowded completely out not only are the phases of truth manifold but the methods of presentation are almost numberless these should be employed in such a way as to give variety and refreshment some preachers are intolerably monotonous because they invariably appeal to the same faculties and deal always with the same type of doctrine if they would sit down at the beginning of each year and make a careful diagnosis of the spiritual condition of their people noting the dispositions to be curved the tempers to be nourished the heirs to be choked the truths to be enthroned the vices to be starved the virtues to be cultivated and then map out the year as a general outlines a campaign appointing a definite number of sermons for the accomplishment of each particular design and arranging the sermons in a sequence which will secure both continuity and momentum and at the same time allow relaxation both to the preacher and the hearer by calling into exercise new combinations of faculties by the presentation of diverse but related realms of truth he will not only find himself doing his work with increased facility and joy but he will see the spiritual life of his parish passing under his hand into those forms of beauty and power which he beheld first in vision and which by the cooperation of God are now embodied in the life of humanity to the glory of his blessed name End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of quiet hints to growing preachers in my study this lipovox recording is in the public domain recording by Marianne quiet hints to growing preachers in my study by Charles Edward Jefferson Chapter 13 Selfishness The crowning glory of the character of Jesus was his unselfishness for their sakes I sanctify myself in this golden sentence of his high priestly prayer is expressed the disposition which shaped his conduct from Nazareth to Golgotha if it is essential that the servant be as his master and the disciple as his lord then to every minister of Christ there comes the call to sanctify himself for the sake of his congregation it is for his people that the true preacher lives and labors to serve them is his cardinal ambition his consummate joy by serving them he serves God God and the people cannot be separated in the preacher's work thick-witted men occasionally get the notion that they can glorify God by preaching theology and at the same time scoring their congregation by proclaiming in the pulpit unpalatable ideas in offensive ways they pride themselves on serving God no matter how they hurt God's people indeed a man may become so wrong-headed as to think that the farther he gets from his people the near he is to the Almighty but if a man loves not his congregation whom he has seen how can he love God whom he has not seen if a minister says he loves God and in his heart slights or despises his people he is not only a liar but a murderer of the spiritual life of his parish this neglect of the people a minister is more common than one likes to acknowledge selfishness may crop out in a man's vocabulary because a minister is familiar with the language of German philosophers and Scotch metaphysicians he may thoughtlessly use this dialect in addressing businessmen and farmers servant girls and mechanics uncaring whether they understand him or not the man with the unselfish heart and the language for the sake of his people he trims his sentences and simplifies his periods until his thought stands out radiant and compelling before every attentive mind he makes himself of no reputation and takes upon him the form of a servant and is made in the likeness of a man by humbling himself and becoming obedient to the law of the cross God highly exalts him by giving him access to the hearts of the believers a man of sympathy instinctively thinks of the limitations and needs of those with whom he deals Paul always carried in his mind's eye the faces of the unlearned and the unbelieving he insisted that a church service ought to be shaped with these people in mind if they could not understand what was going on they could take no part in the service and might think Christians out of their head he was hotly vehement in his denunciation of the selfishness which uses language that edifies the speaker but does not enlighten the hearers in a burst of magnificent earnestness he says in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that by my voice I might teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tone would that this Pauline common sense were abundant in all our pulpits the choice of themes often bears witness to the same deep-seated sin the true preacher lives for his people to build them up is his supreme delight for their sakes he shapes his reading and directs the main currents of his thought their aptitudes and attainments their conscious wants and their unconscious needs stand before him day and night like so many angels of the Lord sent to tell him the sermons ought to be but not every minister listens to these angels personal tastes are often followed favorite lines of study are pursued with no consideration of the parish needs literary ambitions are cultivated and scholastic inclinations gratified in wicked disregard of everybody but the preacher himself such a man becomes a specialist and while cultivating his speciality his people pay the bills they come to the house of God on the Lord's Day hungry for bread and instead of bread they receive a discussion of a tangled problem in sociology or the elaboration of a distinction which struck the preacher's fancy in his reading of the last new volume on ethics it is advantageous and right for the preacher to have favorite studies and to set aside particular domains of learning for special cultivation but over the gateway of this garden the words should be written for their sakes I sanctify myself that both on entering and coming out of the garden he may be reminded of the obligation which surpasses all others and be saved from the selfishness which favorite studies so insidiously induce to persuade a clergyman to forsake his parish the devil counts his greatest victory if he can beguile him to scamper over the country giving his strength and time to miscellaneous audiences while his own people remain at home unsheparded and untrained he wins a triumph over which the netherworld rejoices an English writer of note has said that the devil in our day comes to ministers disguised as a railway train he might have added that if a Pullman sleeper cannot catch a man the printing press may the prophet of the Lord may be seized with a mania for writing books these books may have little relation to the gospel or to the needs of his congregation but the chapters of these books may be worked off on unsuspecting and defenceless saints as sermons it has happened more than once that a preacher has allowed his pulpit ministration to be determined largely by the demands of his publisher a man who perpetrates the chapters of his next book on his people not because his people need these chapters but because his publisher can use them may excuse himself by saying that in his books he can serve a larger audience than could be assembled inside his church walls but the average church layman who has not debauched his conscience by any such sophisticated argumentation will say that the man who receives a salary from one set of people for time and strength which he habitually gives to others and who uses the pulpit simply as a source of supplies while engaged in a work other than that which he has promised to perform is a shirk and a scamp even though he is a doctor of divinity and pursues his rascality for the avowed glory of God a minister owes much to his community denomination and country the man who steadfastly stays at home refusing to turn a wheel or lift a burden outside his own little parish is the victim of a selfishness which he has promised some as any of those above mentioned upon the Lord's wide work a minister must look with sympathetic eyes and to many companies of brethren he must give himself as occasion offers with generosity and gladness but he belongs first of all to his parish the field in which he works is the world and his church is the force with which he cultivates the field to develop and consolidate this force with increasing efficiency in subduing the world this must be his supreme ambition his constant study his incessant care to love his brethren over whom he has been appointed teacher and shepherd this is the beginning and end of the whole matter let us not then love in word neither in tongue but indeed and in truth End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of quiet hints in my study this libra box recording is in the public domain recording by Marianne quiet hints to growing preachers in my study by Charles Edward Jefferson Chapter 14 dishonesty If an honest man's the noblest work of God Satan's ignoble masterpiece is a dishonest Christian minister nothing so undermines the confidence of laymen in their spiritual leader as the slightest indication of him is a double dealing no sin is more deadly and degrading to a man of God than insincerity that one heir fills him with faults makes him run through all the sins if a man is crotchety he can be tolerated if he is prejudiced or ignorant he can be born with he may be lacking in a score of qualities which men count desirable and still be a useful and an honored man but who can endure who cheats or lies the gospel preached by such a man falls dead and deadening prayer on his lips seems blasphemy a religious service conducted by him exasperates every heart which doubts him deplorable is the condition of a church which has in its pulpit an anointed rogue deliberate and cold-blooded liars are not numerous in the pulpit but there are many men there who lack a fine and scrupulous regard for the truth the ethical sense even in ethical teachers may become strangely blunted and men of noble gifts and lofty purposes have a curious fashion of doing unexpected and indefensible things a minister's environment has a tendency to develop in him whatever germs of unvaracity proceeding generations may have bequeathed him many things are expected of him and it is human to shrink from disappointing expectations he is expected to know everybody with whom he has ever shaken hands to speak a blighting no to a trustful smiling individual who innocently asks do you remember me seems an act of needless cruelty the consequence is that there are ministers who remember everybody forever they read paul's exhortation lie not to one another without wincing a minister is expected to rejoice with everybody who rejoices and to weep with everybody who weeps and it is the requirement of his office that he should give expression to these sympathetic feelings is it to be wondered at that his language sometimes becomes conventional and that his assertions occasionally have a hollow ring to be deeply interested in a large number of human beings passing through a wide variety of experiences is possible but not easy and men of narrow nature in using the broad and throbbing phrases of Christian brotherhood find themselves sometimes saying things which their heart does not follow human nature in many individuals is excessively fond of praise without it there is a coolness toward the church and preacher how easy to pour the oil of adulation over the heads of these influential people until it runs down upon the beard even to the skirts of the garments the habit of giving expression to genuine appreciation and merited commendation is both proper and lovely but when politic adjectives and appeasing adverbs are scattered with a reckless disregard of truth the preacher is securing an improvement in church climate at the sacrifice of his soul it is in these genteel and apparently unescapable ways that the minister receives his first lessons in departing from the truth the departure once made other steps are not difficult on going into the pulpit certain things are expected and the good natured man always ready to oblige proceeds to meet expectations ancient doctrines couched in traditional language will satisfy the men and women of light and leading and so the ancient doctrines are elaborately set forth though the minister if punctiliously faithful to his convictions would make considerable subtractions and sundry additions to say precisely what one believes in a place consecrated to traditional interpretations and in the presence of people who are expecting statements to which they have grown accustomed is not easy there are not so many lying cowards in the pulpit as bitter critics see there although the number is no doubt larger than it ought to be pulpit lying is generally of an unpremeditated part there are clerical munchausens who run a thread of romance through their sermons without the slightest compunctions of conscience they have fibbed so long they cannot tell fiction from truth these are the men who simulate emotions which they do not feel and narrate events which never happened and throw in exaggerations to heighten the effect and tell what they thought while on the Atlantic or the Alps in their study all of these prevarications seem to spring out of a certain oratorical fervor rather than from the deep soil of the heart this oratorical fervor is often responsible for lamentable behavior men become so zealous for the truth they lie for it they misrepresent their opponents and misreport what men of other schools of thought have said and written it is hard for some men to controvert the opinion of another man without telling lies about him in every season of theological controversy the amount of pious mendacity is incalculable the heavenly treasures are indeed in earthen vessels but there is another form of dishonesty which seems to bear upon its forehead more unmistakably the brand of the pit a man in the heat of discourse may run into statements which cannot be defended but what shall we say a man who deliberately lays his plans to deceive appearance rather than reality is still to many minds the one thing essential and an occasional minister is ready to lend himself to the unholy work of making his church seem other than it is Matthew Arnold has told us of our dangerous admiration for numbers and in his essay he might have incorporated a paragraph with windows opening out upon the clergy in an age which measures institutions not by spirit but by bulk and which ranks men not by the fineness of their achievements but by the magnitude of their operations a minister if ambitious is constantly tempted to increase the size of his church organization at the expense of its interior life people are hustled into the church unprepared spiritually for its obligations and duties and thus organized christianity becomes weighted down with a mass of material which it is impossible to assimilate and difficult to cast out men who build into the temple of God hay and wood and stubble are the scourge of the modern church the man who will inflate his church to impress the community by a display of figures is a man who will pursue dishonest courses to cover up a numerical shrinkage church roles are often left unpruned for years the names of the long absent and even the dead being jealously hoarded in order that steady and disheartening losses may be kept from public knowledge and the preacher enjoy the reputation which a large church is supposed to give brethren, be honest though the heavens fall be honest the church exists, as Newman says not to make a show but to do a work you are representatives of a religion the fundamental virtue is sincerity and the community has a right to look to you as men whose place is in the forefront of the age-long battle against all dishonesties and frauds and shams End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Mary Ann Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers in My Study by Charles Edward Jefferson Chapter 15 Autocracy a witty New Englander has given the world a fascinating sketch of the autocrat at the breakfast table but no one has yet given us a full-length portrait of the autocrat of the communion table the communion table is used in this connection as a symbol of clerical prerogative no one can touch it but a minister not even lay officials can take the bread and wine until they have passed through clerical hands there is here a distinguishing distinction which lifts the minister above his brethren and all distinctions however justifiable and necessary have a tendency to feed the Pope which comes into the world with every man the environment of a clergyman contains abundant nutriment for the nourishment of the papal proclivities of human nature not only is there a gulf between clergy and laity worn broad and deep in popular thought by the teaching of a thousand years but a minister's work is of such a nature as constantly to give him the sense of importance and authority does he not speak for God is he not a successor of the apostles has not a sacred charge been entrusted to his keeping the very dignity of his work gives him a lofty mindedness which easily passes into pride and makes him exceeding jealous of his great interference moreover in his preaching no one is allowed to contradict him no matter what he says the congregation sits dumb and acquiescing bitter protests may rise in the hearer's hearts but they fall back dead strangled in the silence if laymen were allowed today the privileges they enjoyed in the time of Jesus and could say to ministers as they said to him right in the midst of the sermon crazy what do you mean by that church decorum would be badly mangled but the minister would be saved from a temptation which like a beast now crouches at his door the practice of presenting to people instruction on a variety of subjects without fear of open contradiction is apt to beget in any man who is not constantly on his guard a temper which Shakespeare takes off in the lines I am Sir Oracle lips that no dog bark it is this immunity from contradiction on the Lord's day which renders many a minister so difficult to live with through the week he cannot suffer opposition at any point in the entire circle of church administration to differ from him is spiritual treason to oppose him in any of his movements is to be a son of Bilal it is this stripe of man who wants to run a church sure to meet layman who want to run it too and then but a church cannot be run by anybody except to its destruction a church is an organism and like all organisms it refuses to be run it will grow with carefully nourished and guided but to run it is to wreck it it is as delicate as a lily and as dependent on the law of freedom the earth does not run the lily it holds the lily tenderly by its roots and then gives it largest liberty to unfold in obedience to that mystic genius with which the lily is endowed a church must receive nourishment from the preacher but it is not for him to determine the shape of each petal or the precise length of its stem or to change the figure a church is a family and a family cannot be run some men try to do it and the result is a tragedy of the wife and the disposition of the children one can run a hotel but not a home that home is happiest in which there is least visible constraint and most spontaneity and affection a machine may be run but not a household a business enterprise but not a church some men now in the ministry were evidently intended for engineers or managers of railroads and trusts in the conviction that the church is a machine which they are to run along a track of their own devising to the destruction of every obstreperous layman who gets in their way a church is a family and wise is the minister who is content to let it grow it is for him to create the atmosphere in which the lovely things of the spirit shall come to their best estate from him must come much of the energy by which the church fulfills the law of its being most when to onlookers he seems to be doing least happiest the man who has the faculty of so inspiring his church with the spirit of freedom and service that while he himself stands in the background the church apparently moves of itself into enlarging circles of spiritual culture and achievement it is a fatal blunder for a minister to make the decalogue and his own wishes equally binding on the consciences of his people a preacher ought to prize with all diligence the men who differ from him and make use of their gifts up to the level of his opportunity every church ought to have in it men of all types of dispositions and temper and opinion and culture and politics and theology no one type ought to be suppressed in the interest of deadening uniformity or for the purpose of securing universal harmony with the preacher it is the business of a minister to make his church roomy he must be the friend of the radical and of the conservative of the orthodox and the heretic of the zealous and the phlegmatic of the sane and the crotchety of the popular and the friendless of the man who is with him and the man also who is against him making himself all things to all men that he may do them good for him to drive out the men who do not agree with his theology or politics or refuse to fall in with his favorite enterprises is to rob the church of its virility and originality and cripple it hopelessly in the work it aims to do a minister must learn to labor and submit Cromwell's dictum is well worth remembering in yielding there is wisdom even a good man is not infallible and the stars will not fall from heaven though the preacher fails to get his way the things which a church ought to have will come to it not by pushing but by waiting Horace Bushnell late in life said that could he live his life over again he would never push the fable of the sun and wind making a wager as to their ability to compel a traveler to remove his cloak is not without significance for the men who would deal successfully with men the minister who in order to induce his people to throw off habits not like converts himself into a cold northeaster filling Sunday mornings with his icy blast will not succeed in the thing which he aims at and may possibly blow himself out of the pulpit End of Chapter 15