An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times

The Christian ministry, in its character and work, is a subject of growing interest in this country. During the last twenty-five years it has been the object of much effort to furnish a sufficient number of men to meet the demand. The claims of the office have been set forth strongly in view of our extending and destitute population. Institutions have been multiplied for the purpose of educating men for the work. So deeply has this necessity been felt, and so many were the agencies to be organized and sustained to supply it, that we have been in danger of thinking too little of the character of the ministry. While the efforts to increase its numbers ought not to be diminished, it must not be forgotten that a numerous ministry may not be an efficient one.

Many, it is believed, will rejoice in the appearance of this work by Mr. James, who has presented the subject, in one of its departments, in a most impressive manner. If the respected author had written for American readers, doubtless some things would have been omitted. But nothing will be found in the book to hinder its usefulness.

It is obvious that the subject has deeply interested the mind of the writer. An earnest heart guides his able pen, No minister, or candidate for the ministry, can read the book without receiving a deep impression of the greatness of the trust, and some valuable aid in the discharge of tilt is generally acknowledged, that we must rely on the living ministry as the principal agency for the extension of the Gospel in this land, not simply in view of the prominence which Christ has given it in his word, and in the progress of the Church, but because of its adaptation to the condition and character of the people.

The mind of this nation presents some remarkable features in its present character and position, deeply interesting to the Christian as well as the philosopher and statesman. It is an intellectual life which is not marked by the quiet pursuit of its object, but by an incessant and hurried movement. It is not the intellectual action of a few, concentrating in one constellation the light of the age, but it involves the entire people. It is pre-eminently a diffused mental activity. The superiority of mental energy is acknowledged from the town-hall of the country village, to the chamber of the Senate. If this action is somewhat superficial, and if it is often sustained by unhealthy means, yet it is everywhere discernible.

This mind is not of one common type, not having been educated under the same political institutions, nor taken the impress of any one system of religious faith. Many old erroneous opinions, as well as new, have their adherents, and are struggling for prevalence over the truth. We have a mixture of intellectual and moral elements, strikingly diverse. Tributaries from every quarter of the globe are finding their way into our stream, and must ultimately impart to it their different hues. We wonder not

that the wisest are unable to foretell what is to be the result in respect to the strength and permanence of government or the religious character of coming generations. We wonder not that we witness the conflict of thought and feeling; or that we are sometimes shaken with a sudden and violent concussion. These cross-currents of mind will be likely to keep up a deep agitation.

We must have a religious agency which is fitted to meet this posture of things. It must be that which will powerfully arrest mind, in the midst of its warm conflicts, and bring the Gospel in its full power to the sympathies and hearts of the people. It must be that which will come in where worldliness, ignorance and corruption reign, with resources adapted to overcome prejudice, supplant error, and lay broad and permanent foundations for the reign of truth and righteousness. It must possess the wisdom, energy and facility in action, to meet character and opinion of every type, and with the divine blessing to mould them according to the truth and law of God.

To what agency do such qualifications belong, if not to the Christian ministry? It comes with the power of a living character, visibly illustrating and practically enforcing the truth. By its ever-living presence it encompasses mind with an attracting and moulding influence. To this, it adds the wondrous influence of oral delivery. We impute no magic charm to the human voice and countenance. Yet that voice is made to speak the truth in tones which move the heart. In the human face there is a strange power of speech. It is the language of the soul kindling into sympathy with it the souls of the hearers. Reason about it as we may, the fact is as wonderful now as it ever was. There is no example of influence (nor mind more simple and sublime than that of a man of (rod in the

earnest delivery of the gospel message. He does not exert it by means of unholy stratagem or mere novelties in style and action, but by the exhibition of truth on old, familiar themes, with old and familiar tones. But he exhibits that truth with a heart all glowing under its power. He separates his hearers from the associations of worldly business, and gathers them into the presence of Jehovah. He charges their sins against them, arraigns them at the bar of God, and pronounces their doom as impenitent men. Now he collects over them the clouds of Divine wrath, and then he draws them around the cross, and makes them hear the winning voice of the Redeemer. He does it with the strength and courage imparted by confidence in God, but with the humility and love of a man and a sinner. They love to hear the tones of such a voice; to feel the power of that speaking eye, as that voice and that eye utter the gushing thoughts of a spirit intensely moved in sympathy with them. What reader of Edwards’ sermon, entitled “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” is impressed as they were who heard him utter it in the solemn earnestness of the pulpit? We read the sermons of Whitfield without the realization of the power which accompanied his preaching. We by no means attribute the astonishing effects of his preaching only to his look, tone and action as a speaker. We forget not that these were the expression of a soul, into the depths of which the truth had come with a penetrating, awakening influence, and that the power of God attended him. Yet, in his ready speech, so as never “to stumble at a word, and never to stop for the want of one;” in his natural gracefulness and inimitable power of action; in his ability “to paint with all the effect of real scenery,” and to make sinners tremble, as if about to sink into perdition, and even believe themselves doomed.

as in the tone and air of a judge lie pronounced the sentence, “Depart!” — we have those qualities which constitute the peculiar advantage of the preacher in gaining attention to the truth, and which are worthy of being diligently cultivated.

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