A Chapter on Pastoral Theology
A GOOD many most gifted and scholarly young men have failed rather in the administration of affairs than in the discharge of their pulpit duties. This circumstance has chafed them, has rendered them impatient, and in the long run has occasionally wrecked their public usefulness and honour. I have known a few marked instances of this unhappy experience; and have seen how strong is the temptation to fasten upon the supposed imperfections of a system the faults which are distinctly traceable to want of practical discipline on the part of unsuccessful men. Believe me, it will be of small service to you as a pastor if you know how to parse a chapter in the Greek Testament, but do not know how to accost an unfriendly critic or give the turn to a disagreeable debate. Not a few young men who have been able to discuss Aristophanes have been utterly routed by a third-rate shopkeeper as to the order in which resolutions and amendments should be put to a meeting; no doubt this is very humiliating: the third-rate shopkeeper was utterly ignorant of ‘’ The Clouds ‘’ and ‘’ The Frogs,’’ yet he had a grain of common sense, and with that he was able to overthrow the Goliath of scholarship. Too often the said Goliath has abused the church system which gave such men an opportunity of displaying their tiny abilities, never dreaming that he himself might have been qualified to beat such opponents on their own ground. Now I wish you to be a sensible man in all practical afiairs, to have a knowledge of men and things and in all departments of your work to be a workman who needeth not to be ashamed. Happily in your case there is no occasion to reply to the senseless conceit that business is vulgar. Some dazzling geniuses of the clerical order solace themselves with the comfortable falsehood that men of their rich culture need not stoop to the engagements and distractions of common mortals. It is enough that they discuss various readings, that they bestow a languid patronage upon the literary club, and that they dream of their own overshadowing greatness and destined immortality. It is amazing how many of those gigantic men manage to slip out of the worlds sight into total oblivion! They began so blazingly, their programme was so polished, their tone so elevated in unearthly refinement; and yet in less than two years people hardly care to inquire whether they are yet in the world: this, I say, is very amazing, and yet perhaps after all it is not so very wonderful when we remember in what a crooked, hard-grained, vulgar world our lot has fallen. Do you remember Mr. Washington’s story of the truly learned and thriftless snob who astounded a ferryman by a display of his attainments? “My good man,’’ said he,” do you understand mathematics?” The boatman ingenuously answered that he had never heard of them, whereupon the man of learning assured him that one-fourth of his life was lost. “Do you then,” continued the refined inquirer, “understand astronomy?” The boatman shook his head; ‘Then,” said the mighty man, “another fourth of your life is lost.”
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After a pause, the sage put a further question: ‘^ Do you know anything of the science of chemistry? The ferryman replied that he knew nothing about it, and instantly the scholar assured him that three- fourths of his life was lost. The boatman looked uneasy; he turned to the right hand and to the. left with the air of a frightened man; a powerful steamer was bearings rapidly down the river; addressing the intellectual fare, he said — “Did you ever learn to swim V And when the illustrious scholar said “No,’^ the boatman replied,” Then all your life is lost together! ‘’ The man of genius went down into that dreary cemetery where no marble is allowed to mark the pillow of the sleepers. The story is its own moral, whether applied to common people or to manufactured and machine-made scholars, — beware of knowing everything except the one thing needful!
It would be easy to show you that in practical life common sense is better than genius; of course, if you can have both common sense and genius, by all means have them, for it must be an advantage to have wings as well as feet. My object is to guard you against the genius that has no sense, and to save you from the coloured bottles that carry nothing but labels. It would not be difficult for a minister of twenty years’ standing to name half a hundred of his brethren who by common sense, without brilliance or scholarship, have preached the gospel and administered the affairs of the church with the most marked efficiency and success; brethren, too, who have been sneered at by clerical fledglings who have sought to make their way through the ministry into gentlemanhood. You need not trouble yourself with the sneers of such men; they cannot injure you; you have time as jour vindicator, and in seven years the sneerers will have been *’ buried with the burial of an ass/^ It is no doubt troublesome to the flesh to be exposed to the small remarks of small men, but if you live in your work and never lose sight of your Master you will soon be inaccessible to the influence of critics who work from the point of personal mortification. What you have to do then is to make yourself master of the affairs which must necessarily engage your attention; for a time they may be irksome; for a time you may long to escape to more congenial pursuits: but you must resolutely fight out the battle, and in your chief difficulty find your chief joy. Some of your people may mistake sciolism for scholarship, and others may not be able to distinguish between noise and music; but the majority of them will not be long in forming a just opinion of your business capabilities, nor need it be matter of wonder if you gain their respect and confidence by showing yourself their equal in departments with which they are most familiar. On the other hand a sensible man will be careful not to be fussy and meddlesome in the discharge of his duties; he will not force himself into everything as if nothing could be done without him, but by timely withdrawment, by seeing as if he were not looking, by leading as if he were following, he will double his influence and multiply his friends. I know a good man who has never been out of hot water simply on account of his self-importance in the matter of church business; his only fault is his omniscience; he knows everything better than anybody else; he writes all the resolutions, nominates all the officers, dictates all the programmes, dismisses his helpers without notice or reason, and so keeps himself in about as hot a bath as flesh and blood can bear. He is quite a terrible man of business; lie strikes the business with a steam hammer; he thunders and lightens at the business; fire and brimstone cannot keep him back from business. And what a business he makes of it! He knows the trust-deed off by heart; he can quote all the acts of parliament which relate to public meetings for political and religious purposes; he can beard revising barristers and claim his vote as the minister of the few mouldering bricks which he calls his chapel; he knows about magistrates, summonses, subpoenas, and aflSdavits; and all this knowledge he has so far turned to account in his ecclesiastical arrangements as to make his church into nothing better than a baptized police court. And such a man he is for technicalities! If a member of his church has a simple and inoffensive resolution to propose, he must give three weeks notice thereof to the pastor; a copy of it must be sent to a preliminary committee; the name and address of the seconder must be duly entered in a book kept for that purpose; and the unfortunate speaker must be thrice
assured that if he say one word contrary to the trust-deed (of which he never had an opportunity of reading a sentence) he may be ecclesiastically dismembered on the spot. You will readily believe that the wretched man is a martyr to his insane devotion to business, and that he no sooner gets a respectable seatholder than he loses him. He does not know the mystery of artlessness; he cannot preside unless he is in the chair; he is so burdened with rules as to be utterly without law; in a word, he is so orderly as to necessitate his living in a state of chronic disorder. If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
A few nights since we held another council meeting, and as the subject is immediately related to the topic now before us I will give you a rough note of our proceedings. The Safety-pin was in full force, and as is usual under such conditions he boldly plunged into the first subject that occurred to him.
‘^ As to church meetings/^ said he, I should like to know the opinion of the brethren; I confess they are my hete noirJ’
The dummies were shocked, for they are both managing men; their idolatry of prudence has kept them at a long distance from everything that looked like a lions den. For thirty years,-’’ said the elder of them, “I have never had a divided church meeting, nor even the appearance of divided sentiment “: this he said in a tone which nearly meant something.
“You must have been an awfully dead set of fogies then,’’ Safety-pin replied; “why in one-tenth of that time two of my officers prayed at me because I had not candidates enough to propose, and one old sinner hinted that he would like a little less theology and a little more Christianity in the sermons of Thy dear servant our esteemed pastor’ — a prayer unanswered to this day.”
The dummies looked uneasy, for they had patiently listened to the same solid devotions regularly once a week for many years, and had never ventured to dream of the possibility of one sentence being changed or one new petition being conceived.
“A very wicked thing is that of lecturing people in prayer,” our critical friend observed.
“A little prudence on the part of the minister”
one of the dummies was saying when Safety-pin cut him
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short with a malediction on prudence which I will not repeat.
‘’Still,” said Mr. Washington ‘’we should not forget that sometimes courage is concealed under prudence,, and it has often been shown that wisdom is better than defiance; in fact, as to all these questions of management I may give it as my opinion, founded on considerable experience, that in nine cases out of ten a minister may have his own way if he will only manage things properly.’’^
“That is,” said Safety-pin,” a man may live as long as he likes if he will only keep out of the way of death.’’
“Well, not exactly so,” Mr. Washington answered; ‘’at the same time a man should not expect to live long if he indulges pretty frequently in poisonous doses, and amuses himself by trying the effect of edged instruments on his throat.”
The dummies were satisfied: the nearest approach to pleasure which they ever made in our meetings was when a keen word was said to Safety-pin; they dared not attack him themselves, but they warmly cheered the brother who laid a heavy hand upon him. We think ourselves courageous when we applaud courage in others.
As chairman of the council I requested Mr. Washington to give us his idea of managing things properly; for, though secretly, I had a suspicion that there was room enough in that elastic expression to admit the meaning which Safety-pin intended to convey by his blunt remark.
“I cannot do better,” he courteously replied, “than refer you to a few points which my old pastor wrote out for me; he said they had saved him from a good many mistakes in a long public life”
“Who was your old pastor, by the way? ^’ Safety-pin interposed.
Mr. Washington would have answered, but it was ruled from the chair that we must have the points; accordingly we set ourselves (with the exception of Safety-pin, who lay back in his seat and surveyed the ceiling with the air of an injured man) in an attentive posture, and Mr. Washington read the instructions of his venerable pastor: —
1. When a poker falls out of the fire never take it up by the hot end.
2. When a man has anything to say in opposition, insist upon his having the fullest opportunity of being heard, and when he is approaching a conclusion beg him not to think of giving over.
3. Never water a weed.
4. Never allow an opposition motion to be put to the meeting on its first proposition; express your interest in the novelty of the suggestion, and tell the proposer that it is due to him that a resolution so important and so far reaching in its bearings should have the advantage of careful study in private, and that you will feel obliged to him if he will politely allow you to take it home for critical reflection. (Few men can resist the pleasure of being publicly strangled in the noose of a compliment.)
[Safety-pin groaned, as he thus saw prudence degenerating into deceit.]
5. If you want to have the pulpit lowered a little, begin by asking to have the sjpire taken down.
6. If you suspect opposition in any quarter, privately request the suspected opponent to take charge of the very resolution which he is expected to oppose: tell him you feel the importance of his doing so (which is perfectly
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true): say that such resolutions ought to be introduced by the ablest men in the cliurcli; if lie hesitate ask him to dinner.
[” What an old ras — ‘^ Safety-pin said but the cbairman called “silence” peremptorily.]
7. If a man oppose your preaching, instantly request him to supply the pulpit.
8. If the deacons suggest that “o, change is desirable,” say that is exactly your opinion, ‘^’mutatis mutandis’’; the Latin will save you.
When Mr. AYashington ceased the Safety-pin sprang to his feet, and declared that the old pastor was neither more nor less than a crafty old fox, and he was glad that no name had been given.
“Wait ap while,’’ said Mr. Washington, anxious for his pastor’s honour; “calm yourself for a moment, and be good enough to answer one question — are we not commanded to be wise as serpents?”
Both the dummies instantly showed, by rapid motions of their shiny heads, that they had a lively recollection of the command.
“I say,” Safety-pin boldly replied, “that the honesty of a minister should be immaculate.”
“And has anybody in this council said anything to the contrary?” the elder dummy inquired.
“That paper is full of deceit,” was Safety-pin’s curt reply.
“I must claim a hearing on this point, Mr. Chairman,” Mr. Washington exclaimed with more than ordinary resolution in his voice,” because my old pastor has been misunderstood; of course his words are to be taken in an accommodated sense; he did not know what it was to truckle to any man, or to conceal an opinion where anygreat principle was involved: at the same time lie did not voluntarily run his head against a wall, nor jump into a ditch just to see how deep it was: he was a consummate tactician, so that he did by skill what others attempted by force, and if you will read his paper in the light of this fact you will find nothing objectionable in it/^
‘^A mans morality should not require a glossary to explain it,” Safety-pin persisted.
Nor should it need a flaming sword to defend it, amongst brethren,^^ Mr. Washington sharply rejoined.
“Brethren,” said I, “I agree with you both”
^’ Nay, nay,” said Safety-pin; “be honest, and fight one of us.”
^’I can be honest and agree with both of you,” I firmly continued; ‘’’the paper which Mr. Washington has read was never intended as a lesson in Loyola-ism; it was evidently meant to be humorous rather than serious, and to take the study of human nature out of the list of hard subjects. The very fact that the bright old man allowed the paper to be copied and to pass from hand to hand is to me evidence enough of his candour and simplicity; if he meant it as a lesson in snare making or man trapping, he certainly outwitted himself and put the collar round his own neck as a public deceiver.”
This view of the case had a happy efiect upon the council, and here I may note that the most successful reasoning in such circumstances is to show that no man would willingly make such a fool of himself as your opponent is anxious to prove. For a few moments our conversation was suspended; we were looking for that most useful and much worn old bridge by which unskilled interlocutors cross to a new subject. Bridge or no bridge, we soon found ourselves discussing the question of pastoral visitation which. we did in a tone of general dissatisfaction and complaint.
^’ An infinite nuisance! ^’ said Safety-pin, ^’ at least so far as I am concerned. Talk about old pastors,” He continued with recovered good humour,” I ^11 matcb. my own against any of yours for pastoral visitation. I never saw such a man in all my life. No sooner was one of his people ill than the old boy was down upon him twice a day the first week, and once a day ever after, until the poor patient was glad to get better in order to escape him, I can assure you. And as for a memory, it was perfectly astounding; if you met him after an interval of a month, he would say, Good morning Mr. So-and-so; is your toothache quite gone ?^ of course you would look half stupid as if you had no recollection of what he was talking about, and then he would remind you that when he saw you last you were crazy with toothache, not having slept for a week, and so on; and then you would suddenly remember your old torture and laugh at it, and thank the old man, and say how kind he was, and all that sort of thing. ■’^
“I know the style of man,” Mr. Washington replied, ‘and have often coveted the memory you speak of, for it is really marvellous; for my own part I should be thankful to remember people’s names, whatever might come of their ailments: it is very humiliating to be talking to one of your members, and yet to be unable to mention his name, and that kind of thing is after all set down to a mans disadvantage.”
“I am rather fortunate in that way so far as adults are concerned,” I replied; “but when I go into a family where there are from six to ten children I am often at a loss to recollect their names,”
“Legitimately so,” the younger dummy interposed, with his usual simplicity of speech.
‘^ Yet as necessity is the mother of invention,” I continued, “I have hit upon a plan which serves me very well. When an unknown youngster runs up to me I hail him with the challenge, Now you can’t spell your first name?’ Then he begins: ‘Tho — /” Jose — / Hen — / and he is mine safe enough. You will find that to remember a child’s name will cover a multitude of sins in a sermon.”
“But after all,” said Mr. Washington, “ought not the preacher and the pastor to be two different men? You have men who devote their whole time to the study of the human eye, and others who devote their whole time to the study of the human ear; why should it be thought unreasonable that another class of men should give their days and nights to the study of preaching, and others spend their lives in the equally important work of comforting and directing the disconsolate and perplexed?”
“You overlook a point, I think,” the Safety-pin suggested; ‘^ you will find that sympathy on the part of the people is established in connection with what the hear from the pulpit; the preacher excites their admiration, satisfies their judgment, and so secures their confidence; the natural and, I must confess, happy consequence is that when they come into circumstances requiring special solace or counsel they wish to see the man whom they love and trust as their public teacher. Send a stranger to them; and however wise and excellent he
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may be there is no point of sympathy to begin with, they do not know Ms voice they can make no references to bis teaching, they have no cause of thankfulness in relation to him, and the consequence is a prevention of hearty communication.’’
Mr. Washington instantly allowed the soundness of the doctrine. ‘’ I only contend,” said he, ‘’ that it is to be regretted that men who have a marked gift of preaching should be under the necessity of attempting a kind of work for which they are quite unfit; where a man has the double gift of the preacher and pastor his service must be the source of the purest joy which the heart can experience upon earth: my remarks must be understood to refer solely to ministers whose one gift is the gift of preaching, and who yet have to undertake engagements for which they have no fitness.”
“An unavoidable necessity though, I am afraid,“” said I, “especially considering what has now been said about the sympathy which comes naturally from gratitude for pulpit services. There are men in our ministry who ought never to leave the pulpit, they should be chained to it if ever they are to do any good; they seem to have a knack of getting into blunders; by levity, by love of eating and drinking, by a fatal habit of always saying the wrong word and never hitting Hhe right time, they somehow bring themselves into contempt: on the other hand, there are men in our ministry who ought never to be allowed to enter the pulpit; in the parlour they are charming men, they can set their voice at the right key, they have nice little sentences for nice little occasions, they can make inquiries about a headache in a tone which exquisitely combines sympathy and hopefulness and they can ask for the children in a manner which wins the parental heart most entirely j in higher matters, too, they are quite as successful; they know what passages of Scripture to read under any given domestic circumstances, and with most consummate tact can throw into a supplicatory form the most secret desires of the heart. I know two or three such men, most admirable and useful men in their own way, yet when they get into the pulpit they are stiff, cold, pointless preachers, always drivelling upon the brevity of time, the uncertainty of life, and a place which they refer to as ’ yon bright world above, The consequence is that the young (unless they happily escape to a livelier ministry) become prematurely old, the old fall asleep, and the lackadaisical report to them that they have had such a heautifid sermon, Still, in the face of all these things, I see no prospect of separating the pastoral from the ministerial, so fa.r as Congregationalism is concerned,”
‘^ There is one point you have omitted,” said one of the brethren with the shining heads, “in making out the list of qualifications possessed by some ministers who are not preachers; I mean their qualification for Bible-class teaching, — an important department of our work you will allow,”
Safety-pin anticipjbted me. He said that he had no opinion of men who had young ladies’ Bible classes, young men’s Bible classes, and children’s Bible classes; he always thought there was a screw loose when men had to get up so much collateral machinery to keep their ministry going. My note of our proceedings on the occasion in question ends here; yet I must, in the absence of Safety-pin, give it as my opinion that he was wrong in
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his judgment of his brethren, and I can give this opinion the more freely that I have no claim to the high title of a Bible-class teacher. I question whether you can get at the deepest veins of biblical wealth in the pulpit; the process, besides exposing you to the charge of pedantry, is too minute and (for want of a better word) scientific to be followed by a miscellaneous congregation; not only so, there are portions of Scripture best developed by cross-examination on the part of the class, and that, so to speak, will show their brilliance only after prolonged and careful friction. You will find when you come to this department of work, one thing requiring special attention: many of your pupils will seek to engage you in useless speculation, they will start unprofitable inquiries, and try to detain you upon all the points which are in debate among Christian thinkers. I have always found it best to acknowledge at once that there are unsettled questions which it would be presumptuous for any but the ripest scholars and theologians to attempt to discuss, and to decline on that honest ground to intermeddle with such subjects in an ordinary Bible class. At the beginning of the second period of my ministry a few conceited sciolists made a determined attempt to force such difficulties on my attention; but happily, though perhaps at the expense of their self-complacency, I was enabled to escape their importunity and ultimately to drive them from the field. A remembrance of that fact causes me to put you on your guard against a very powerful temptation to vindicate yourself from a charge of incapacity or cowardice, by “rushing in where angels fear to tread.-*^ In the Bible you will find scope enough, for the exhaustion of all your ability and resources withp 2 out frittering away your time on tilings too high for you. I have found it very convenient and profitable to follow up in a Bible class a course of expository preaching: say, for example, you are expounding one of the gospels in a series of Sunday morning lectures, get the members of your Bible class to take notes of your exposition and to give the criticism or argument in their own words. This will supply an excellent basis for further discussion in class and if your experience correspond with my own you will often receive suggestions enough to enable you to prepare a second and better lecture on your last Sunday morning’s subject. You will probably find a difficulty in getting some of your members to adopt the habit of taking notes and making abstracts or paraphrases, but a little gentle persuasion in private will often secure the object you have in view. In conducting processes of this kind I have received many a hint as to the best method of preaching. You find out the ignorance of your hearers; you see how they mistake the meaning of words which to the preacher are quite simple; you feel how slow they are to comprehend any process of reasoning, and how little account they can give of arguments on which you set great store. These facts will often clip the wings of your soaring rhetoric, and force you, if you are an honest steward, to preach not to yourself but to others. This is the condescension which comes of being crucified with the Saviour, and this the holy desire which is intent on the one infinitely blessed object of saving the souls of them that hear the holy word from your lips.