Ad Clerum

[As this book views the subject of Biblical Criticism almost wholly from the standpoint of a preacher, it has occurred to me that a few observations bearing upon Pastoral Theology might be useful. Incidental light may thus be thrown upon practical points. The Christian preacher is largely dependent upon the Bible. Without it what message has he? what unique authority? what standard of appeal? By approaching the Bible from the standpoint of the preacher’s actual service we may see how pastoral Experience may become a critic and an

ARE you very much disheartened just now? Are there no friendly faces shining upon you? Come, then, let us talk to- Discouragements gether, and let me be your and

elder brother. I have been just

as much cast down as you can possibly be, yet I have lived to sing in the warm light and take the gift of peace from the right hand of Christ. The Saviour clearly saw that his servants would often be in trouble. So he laid up for them a rich store of comfort, one of the very first comforts being the lesson that is to be drawn from his own experience. The servant is to be as his Lord. If the Master of the house has been called Beelzebub, how can they who are of his household escape vituperation? Did not the people take up stones to stone him? Did he not go to places that refused to receive him? Had the Son of Man where to lay his head? By thinking these things over I have often received great comfort. My sorrows are nothing to Christ’s. He was despised and rejected of men. “He was a reproach of men and despised of the people.” The people sneered at his ancestry; they questioned his credentials, saying, “Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet;” they said he had an unclean spirit; “he came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Now, where are your little troubles? Some man has left your ministry in a resentful spirit; well, what of it? He will show his true colors some day, and the mystery will be made plain. Do your duty; do not be affected by his evil spirit; show by your forbearance what the grace of God has done for you, and then forget the injury and go on steadily with your work. Do not allow yourself to think of resentment. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Your enemy, or his children, will one day come to your door to beg. “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.” By making a right use of the Bible, in such experiences, you will find, as I have found, how wonderfully it proves itself to be the Word of God. It knows me altogether. It knows exactly what I want. When my sorrow is supreme, it says, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no Physician there?”

“But people are so ungrateful,” ypu remind me.

Yes; some of them are. But are not some of them grateful? I am always struck with the kindness of people, their love, their sympathy, their patience.

“True; but the people I have done most
for are most ungrateful.”

Very likely. That has been sadly illustrated in my own experience. But even on that point the Bible gives the best comfort. It would seem, as in the Apostle’s case, the more you love some people the less you will be loved.

How wonderfully the Bible meets this very case. “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.” Now will you think your case over from this point of view? If you will, I am sure you will take heart and begin again. Do not give up your work. Write your letter of resignation, and write it very strongly and even vehemently, and then place it most carefully in the middle of the fire, the devil’s post-office for the devil’s letters. Why should a faithful man be faithless? You were not called to the ministry by the will of man, but by the will of God. “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths.” A minister must have no self? He must be his Lord’s loving slave. In such a case his chain is his liberty. What have you or I suffered in comparison with the Apostle Paul? When I think myself ill-treated or wronged in any way I read Paul’s record, and become ashamed of my petulance:

“Are they ministers of Christ? I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and pain fulness, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”

Yet we are tempted to resign because some man has given up a pew! I am ashamed of myself when I think of this possibility. What did the Apostle do with all his sorrows, disappointments, sufferings, and infirmities? He turned them to good account. He made capital out of them. Oh, listen to this heromartyr:

“I take pleasure in infirmities,
in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s
sake: for when I am weak, then
am I strong.”

If we are in the apostolic succession we will do the same. “If I needs must glory, I will glory in the things which concern mine infirmities.” Paul thus made failures into successes. They brought him nearer to his Lord. They helped him toward Gethsemane. “He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Our weakness gives Christ an opportunity to show the power of his grace. He does not always save us from trouble; he always saves us in it. “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” That we are “not destroyed” is a proof that we shall be saved. With the Lord, a negative may mean a positive. Are you destroyed? Is your root consumed with fire? Is there no remnant of strength? Let us look to our Lord and expect his incoming to our hearts every moment. “Though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God.” “If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” Now read the twenty- third Psalm, and tell me if it is not the Word of God uttered from the human side.

You know that the value of all comfort depends upon the right with which we can claim it. It is not meet to take the children’s Self-Examination bread and cast it unto the dogs. Personal.

We must not be comforted in wrong-doing. “What glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” I must, then, probe my heart before God. I must not spare myself. The hot iron must go right in. Have I been envious of some other man? Have I sought to injure his reputation, or to modify his influence? Have I been secretly pleased when I have heard that he is not quite so popular as he used to be? And yet have I said how sorry I was that he was not maintaining his position? What wonder if God should chide me, and feed me with the bread of rebuke? My soul was indeed mean, and my breath was corrupt in prayer, yea, my holiest words were bathed in pestilence, and my supplications were weighted with deceit. Is it to be wondered at, then, that God stirred up men against me, and rolled rough stones before my feet? It was righteous judgment. I had shut the door of the sanctuary in my own face, and excluded myself from the light of love. Or, if I have not sinned in this particular way, have I not sinned after a manner of my own? Have I not burned with unholy passion? Have I no secret altar of illicit worship? Has covetousness perverted love, and seduced motive from its first simplicity? Have I not become entangled in an unprofitable process of self-justification without going to the root of the matter? It is along this line of inquiry that I often find the probable reason of my discouragements and depressions. Other people may have been the visible instruments, but the hostility which they expressed may have been divine. Very rarely does chastisement of this sort begin and end with a personal opponent. The opponent himself may not fully know what he is doing. He may even do it without reluctance. It does the soul no harm to see God himself in all this penal action; on the contrary, it brings the soul to great principles and gives it an opportunity of penitence and confession. Never spare your own soul, or regard yourself as an instance of injured innocence. Self-severity is the way to health. At this point also I have proved the Bible to be the very Word of God. There is no severity like the severity of that Word. “The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. iv. 12). This may or may not technically be the Bible as a mere book, yet it is in that book I find the dividing sword as I find it nowhere else. When the Lord says, “Is not my word like as a fire? and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” my heart can only answer in a solemn and grateful Yes. A favorite figure is that of the sword;

“He hath made my mouth like
a sharp sword.” — Isaiah xlix. 2.

“Out of his mouth went a sharp
two-edged sword.” — Rev. i. 16.

“Repent, or I will come unto
thee quickly, and will fight against
them with the sword of my mouth.” — Rev. ii. 16.

We may know the Word of God by its severity as well as by its gentleness. It is a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. It effectually worketh in them that believe. The Word of the Lord is as the Lord himself. “Hell and destruction are before him; how much more, then, the hearts of the children of men.” Are we very much cast down and exceedingly troubled? “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer. xvii. 10). That maybe the explanation! It finds the reason in myself, and therefore it is likely to be true. I must no longer trifle with myself. “If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.” What, then, shall I do? Wherewithal shall I cleanse my way? I will arise, and go unto my Father, and will say unto him, “Search me, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Along this line you will find release, and hope, and heaven.

Why do I preach? This is not so simple an inquiry as it seems to be. Have I really a message Self=Examination to the people, and is it so urgent

Ministerial. that I must deliver it or die? Whose message is it? Is it mine or God’s? Is it not partly mine? Say the setting of it in words, and in choosing the words have I not given the preference to words which man’s wisdom teacheth? Have I not been betrayed by my own cleverness and sordidly delighted with my own originality? But I have been told that I can have as direct a message from God as Jeremiah had, or the Apostle Paul. Is that a fact? Yes and No. God does now certainly communicate with the men who are “called to be saints,” but not to the exclusion of other men whom he has chosen, and not at regularly appointed canonical hours. You have to preach in the morning and in the evening and in mid-week, and to do this for ten years, or twenty, or fifty. Never forget that there is an “everlasting gospel” as well as an immediate message — a central fund of truth, public and permanent, as well as the word just dropped from heaven. How could human vanity be more flatteringly besieged than by the temptation that God speaks privately and even secretly to the one man, and that the one man is to be listened to as the oracle of heaven? I believe that even the one man is only really strong as he speaks the common truth, under the common inspiration. We must beware of “another gospel, which is not another,” and we must be so deeply attached to the common truth as to understand the apostolic exhortation: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Paul would not allow any preacher, even himself, to substitute one gospel for another. He was so emphatic upon this point that he repeated it: “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” But was not Paul inspired? Yes. Yet he did not claim what we call originality. He was inspired to “receive” and to “deliver” a great public trust of the Church: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received” — and was it something that he himself, and he alone, received as a personal and direct message in answer to his own individual prayer? He gives the contrary impression by going constantly to “the Scriptures” for his facts and arguments. The doctrine which Paul “received” and “delivered” he states to be: — -Christ died: Christ was buried: Christ rose again: Christ was seen: Christ was seen by me. All this is set out in the fifthteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. That is the doctrine which I have to receive and deliver. These are the unchanging facts. Personal inspiration may come and go, but the sacred deposit abides. There is a standard truth — an “everlasting gospel.” God will surely visit his servants and reform their faith and grant them larger understanding, but he will not change the foundation — the sure corner-stone — nor destroy the election of his Son.

Am I preaching faithfully? Am I afraid of men’s faces? Do I take my income and my worldly position into account? Is my example like a holy fire in the Church, or am I chilled by the indifference of others? I must stretch my very soul upon the rack of these inquiries if I would fight the enemy in the power of God. My humiliation will then be turned into true glory. I shall not be dependent for my comfort or peace upon popular applause. With that applause I shall have no concern. Not what is popular but what is right must be my incessant and fearless inquiry. “Jesus, still lead on.” O my Father, help me in all my vows; nay, do Thou Thyself first form the vows within my heart, then nurture them with Thy grace, and help me to turn them into life that they may be of use to others also. May I preach the everlasting gospel under the gracious inspiration of the immediate moment, that it may come with great power and tenderness to hearts that are confident in the coming of Thy kingdom. Father, make me a vessel meet for Thine own use.

The Apostle Paul has laid down the subjects of his ministry, and I do not see why I should change them. Preaching on the right They are great subjects. subjects. They are at once historical

and prophetical. Let me slowly repeat them: Christ died: Christ was buried: Christ rose again: Christ was seen: Christ was seen of me. This is the true modernness. The element of personal experience and testimony is essential to true preaching. No matter who else has seen Christ, if I have not seen him myself I cannot preach him. A spectacle to the eyes of my body he may never be, yet he may be the daily vision of my soul. We are told that Paul did not preach on gloomy things, but upon “Jesus and the resurrection.” But what does resurrection imply? Resurrection is the last word of a series. Born, Died, Buried, Rose — that is the series, and every point glows with eternal meaning. I must preach Jesus and the Birth, Jesus and the Death, Jesus and the Burial, if I would intelligently and powerfully preach Jesus and the Resurrection. Death by itself is a poor theme, but death regarded in the light of the Resurrection becomes a servant of the Lord, and to die may be to partake as of a holy sacrament. Death is now no more death. It is not the old servitude to law. It is obedience, vivified by hope. It is necessity, with consent. I must, then, follow the Apostle’s commanding example and preach on great subjects. They will lift the ministry to its right level. They will bring in that element of majesty which does not consist in pomp of words or gorgeousness of metaphor, but in a solemn and subduing consciousness of the Supernatural, as if God filled the air and placed his almightiness at our disposal. We shall know the nearness of God by the obliteration of ourselves; by our sense of unworthiness; by our eagerness to bless others; by our hatred of sin. The tests are many and perfect. The very greatness of his themes will drive a minister to prayer. Let him discourse upon some small theme, and he feels that he can handle it without help. Let him face Eternity, and he will clese his eyes in humble supplication! Woe to the minister who thinks he can handle all themes with ease, and woe to the church whose minister he is! Woe, also, to the minister who thinks that the Cross is an old theme and that everything possible has been said about it. That is a fatal error. The Cross is the oldest and the newest of themes. They who know it best see in it a new glory every day. “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “To me to live is Christ.” “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Still the “me,” always the “me,” necessarily the “me also.” “I live, yet not I.”

Is it at all short of criminal for any man to preach doctrines which affect the very foundations of char-Preaching founded a°ter and the remotest issues of

on Authority. human life without being able to test their truth except by his own supposed inspiration? Who is the preacher? Who sent him? Who gave him his word? Every other teacher has a basis. Every other teacher has his book of evidences. Why should the preacher alone have a license bearing no signature but his own? Every other teacher has a book not of his own writing. What is the sky but a book? What is the earth but a book? What is unwritten daily life but a book? How foolish, then, it is to speak of Christianity as a book-religion. Science is a book-science. The only superstition that has no book is Agnosticism, and it has no book because it has no science and no religion. Agnosticism is a cipher shutting out everything and inclosing nothing. It is an impertinence hardly less than profane for a man to base his preaching upon nothing but his own variable and capricious inspiration. Even bibliolatry may be preferable to self-deification. The authority of the Christian preacher is the Inspired Word. His ministry is founded upon a revelation. His sermon is modern: his gospel is everlasting; his illustrations are a thousand: his Message is one. As a minister I must found myself upon the Bible. What it is to others I know not; to me it is the abiding and unchangeable Word of God. Revelation is at once the guarantee and the test of true inspiration. “Try tinspirits whether they are of God.” “Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” To every Timothy I would affectionately say: “I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Preach the Word.” “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.” These oracles are declared by the apostles to be “the word of this salvation” (Acts xiii. 26), “the word of faith” (Rom. x. 8), “the word of life” (Phil. ii. 16), “the engrafted word which is able to save your souls” (James i. 21). If any man ask Christian ministers to produce their authority, let them gratefully and exultantly reply: “God... hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. v. 19).

We cannot preach unless we pray. We can talk; we can say good things; we can be popular; but Preaching the other in the dear Lord’s sense of the

side of Prayer. term we cannot preach. The Apostle calls upon us to “pray without easing,” and this exhortation has been designated an “apostolic hyberbole.” I solemnly deny it. We breathe without ceasing, we love without ceasing, we believe without ceasing, why is it hyperbolical to pray without ceasing? Why will we find figures of speech where we might find the very breath of heaven? Christianity is nothing if it is not hyperbolical, from a worldly and carnal point of view. Nothing in it is on a low level. Nothing is ordinary. It is the religion of the Incarnation — that hyperbole of love! We cannot always be upon our knees, but attitude is not prayer. We cannot always be uttering formal or verbal petitions, but “prayer is the upward glancing of an eye when none but God is near.” The grammarian cannot explain “pray without ceasing,” but the child-heart knows it well and knows it all. Is it hyperbole to say “we live and move and have our being in God”? To accept that being in the right spirit is to “pray without ceasing.” Prayer may be a look, a sigh, a tear, an expectation without words and beyond them. In the soul’s highest moods, when the soul is nearest heaven, we eat the Lord’s flesh and drink the Lord’s blood, without heeding the sneer and the quibble of unbelief. And so we pray. And so we read the Bible and lovingly call it the Word of God. We may be challenged to say where it calls itself the Word of God, but we should be unjust to our inspired and ardent love if we called it by any inferior name. It has told us all we know about God and Jesus, and Sin and Pardon and Prayer, so we call it the Word of God. It tells me that I may pray. It says God hears and answers prayer. It invites me to draw nigh unto God. In its very midst there is a Throne of Grace. I must keep close company with my Lord. I must not lose sight of him for one moment. He must be so near me that we can talk in whispers. Without him I can do nothing. With him I can do all things. “Lord, abide with me, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent.”

Will prayer supersede labor? Never. To labor is to pray. Prayer may rearrange labor, may give new scope and new direction to labor, may charge our aptitudes with new responsibilities, may operate in many ways, but will never sanction or prosper indolence. I will go so far as to say that a minister may be withdrawn in a large degree from literary attention to artistic sermon-making. He may have been a manufacturer of idols. Herein God may “stain the pride of his glory.” He may have to think more of the truth and less of the form; more of the Master and less of his own petty reputation. It may be the most painful of all fates to be merely a popular preacher. At this point prayer will work its silent miracles, in mellowing thought, in deepening tenderness, in enlarging charity. O brothers, let us pray without ceasing, that we may work without fainting. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” “The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” In prayer we are alone with God. We are in his treasure-house receiving the costliest of his riches. “The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people.” It is as if he would give us his almightiness. “He giveth power unto the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” Incomplete power despises weakness: perfect power nurses it into force. There is One who will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. We must get near him in prayer. “The Lord will give strength unto his people,” “for which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” I will boldly go to my Father’s throne, and tell him every day what Jesus did tor me. He will not say No to Jesus, “for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory forever.”

The ministry of Christ is not a “learned profession” in any monastic sense which separates it offi-Words and Things c’m^Y from the life of the cornnot Necessary to mon people, or in the sense of

Salvation., uu,,

having a crabbed terminology

of its own without which no man can hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Unhappily, the ministry of the gospel has been made scholastic. Men who enter it must know a little Latin and a little arithmetic. Latin and arithmetic no man of sense will undervalue. They may be extremely useful in any walk of life. But they have no necessary relation whatever to the ministry. To the ministry men are called directly from Heaven. The true minister is a miracle of the Holy Ghost, and on the Holy Ghost he must rely for daily inspiration. Modern ways of training ministers inexpressibly sadden me. Sometimes I feel as if they must grieve the very Spirit of God. There are many things really not necessary to the ministry. Even a final year in Germany is not absolutely indispensable. I am not now speaking of scholars, but of ministers, preachers, pastors, who have to mingle with the common life of the people. Scholars we must have. I am now speaking from a purely pastoral point of view, and I say that pastors must not be priestlings, and certainly must not be sciolists and pedants. They must humble themselves to the acceptance of the fact that a great many beautiful things can be said even in the English language; even some fairly original things may be expressed by that instrument. It is really a very fair language, and men should take pains to spell it well before they sneer at it. I have sometimes thought of making a list of words not necessary to salvation and of hanging it up in the pulpit. The list would contain such words as:

Absolute, Relative, Hypothesis, Phenomena, Agnostic, Positivist, Synoptic,the Johannine problem, Assurbanipal, the Septuagint, Psychology, Assyriology, Orthophonic, Targum, and I [egelianism.

I have no personal prejudice against any of these words — indeed, some of them look as if they might mean a good deal — yet I do not think they are necessary to salvation. I think the Church could do very well without some of them. The sort of preaching which I describe as the Gospel-made-difficult never did me any good. Nor did I ever wish to speak to the preacher. He always seemed to be preaching out of a cloud into a cloud, and to be writhing with intellectual and verbal pain. I have avoided the portentous creature, and have sincerely wished that he would at once take a final year in Germany. The style that I like is the style of the Beatitudes, and the style of the Parables. Jesus finds my heart. Jesus feeds me. Jesus gives me rest. “The common people heard him gladly.” Dear Saviour, help me to preach in Thy way and to tell sorrowing men how they may find Thee. I am most anxious to be infinitely removed from the idea of being a member of a mere profession. If this ministry is a profession, it is a wicked fraud, with Simon Magus as its type and head. An expert I can understand, and I can assign him large functions; but the half-bred scholar who appoints himself as an oracle is a stumbling-block, an uncertificated priestling, a pretender, and a sham. A great process of unfrocking must go on in every ministry. This will separate the true from the untrue, and invest the true with their rightful influence. The priest, regarded as the type of certain traditions and pretenses, must be got rid of. He profits by ignorance and grows rich by superstition. He sells heaven for a livelihood, and makes an investment of Calvary. The humiliation of listening to such an embodied falsehood is intense and intolerable. On the other hand, how noble a picture is that of a good minister of Jesus Christ! He is a sincere, simple-minded, unpretending, sympathetic soul; he longs to do good; he hides himself behind his Lord; for him to live is Christ. The world will always want such ministers, and the Head of the Church will never cease to supply them. They will not necessarily be literary experts; but they will be rich in that varied and well-tested experience which has tried the quality of faith in the stress and sorrow of life. The bigness of the man will explain the dignity of the minister. The ministry calls for large and generous natures. I am well aware that ignorance may pervert my meaning, and that, being destitute of every qualification, it may claim the mantle of inspiration. There is, however, no serious cause for alarm. Ignorance can have but a short day. Where there is no deepness of earth the process of withering cannot be long put off. Never trust a man simply because he knows nothing. It is a poor ground of trust. To blatant fluency truth owes nothing. Even where reading does not add to my wisdom, it humbles me by revealing my ignorance. To know my ignorance may be the beginning of true knowledge. So, then, I would be saved from the little-learning, which is the worst ignorance, and from the no-learning, which makes self-confidence so possible. I must go to God in loving prayer, and put myself wholly into his hands. I would bathe myself in God. O God, hear my crying, and turn Thyself toward me in great compassion.

Mr. Ruskin says that Political Economy is citizen’s economy. That is definition by etymology, which is often the best definition of all. Pastoral theology is shepherdly theology. Shepherd is as hard to define as Father. We all know the meaning, yet we can never tell it all. Care is so watchful, gentleness is so patient, love is so unselfish, that we cannot eas-Ily follow their whole way and set down in plain words exactly and completely what they are doing. Love is always coming back, like Abrarri, to the altar which it “built at the first.” Gentleness always adds one more soothing touch, and anxiety has always one more “good- night” before weariness drops asleep. The shepherd, or pastor, is not necessarily a literar- expert, yet he is an expert in his own way. Mothers must not be clumsy, nor shepherds, nor nurses, nor the hand that stirs the fire in the hushed chamber of suffering. There are fine arts that have no name. The angels train us to their use. The Spirit guides the chosen craftsman and holds the hand that draws and cuts and molds the finest lines. We should do nothing for ourselves, but quietly and intently await the coming of the angel.

THE PASTOR SHOULD KEEP HIS PEOPLE AROUND

HIS DESK

whilst composing his discourse. The audience will be imagined, not imaginary. Thus every sentence

will be addressed to some known experience, and thus the hearers will know that the pastor lives in their midst. The wise pastor is under no delusion as to the capacity and qualifications of his audience. He knows that most of his auditors are in absolute ignorance of his subject, and therefore he takes nothing for granted. Even greatness has its own fine way of being elementary. Greatness never snubs the congregation, for that would mean exasperation on the one side and loss of influence on the other. Yet greatness can stoop to the lowest and wait for the slowest. The pastor knows that most of his people are wholly unprepared for continuous and elaborate argument. They have just left a thousand worries: the child is ill; the field is bare; there is no blossom on the fig-tree; there is no herd in the stall: the mind, therefore, must be humored and lured into the subject with pious and tender tact. The minister makes a fatal mistake who supposes that his congregation is composed of intellectual and highly cultivated hearers. A few such there may be, and where the description is really true they will be the strongest supporters of any pastorate bent upon carrying forward the common life of the church. True culture is generous and patient. Probably the most prominent characteristic of any miscellaneous audience is ignorance. If a minister could question his hearers one by one as to their knowledge of the Bible, he would be simply horrified. Ask them about the scheme of any Epistle, its characteristics, its purpose, its supreme thought, then he will knowexactly on what a cultured audience he is lavishing his genius. The most discouraging feature of the case is that people are under the delusion that whatever else they may be ignorant of, they certainly do know the Bible. Not a man in a million knows anything about the Bible beyond a few of its most familiar chapters and texts. I venture to think that when the Bible is really known, in its unity, its purpose, its spirit, men will have little difficulty in calling it the W ord of God. In the meantime they must be largely regarded as not knowing it. This fact creates the opportunity for a wise handling of the Word. How to be guileful without deceit? How to rem< ignorance without first insulting it? The pastor must study these inquiries in the light of facts. He must often work obliquely. By explaining a word or an argument to the young, and asking grown people to be patient with him in doing so, he may now and then get a beam of light partially into heads — if heads they are — which are the very sepulchers of darkness. But specially and lovingly must the pastor remember that the majority of his hearers do not live in a library. They have not been trained to follow a linked argument. Why, then, should the pastor pose before them as the descendant of an Aristotle who would be the first to disown and despise him? Rather let him “serve the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears.” This baptism of tears is no mean sign of power. They are the tears of a strong man. “Out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote unto you with many tears” (2 Cor. ii. 4). “He beheld the city and wept over it” (Luke xix. 41). Man is not made up of intellect exclusively. Nor by intellect alone can man be saved.

THE PASTOR MUST LIVE FOR HIS CHARGE

by identifying himself with the spiritual education of his people. They are his people. Upon one fold he spends his care and love, as the father spends his heart upon one home. He must not be “a stranger “to his own sheep, or they will not know his voice. The standard of the true pastor is Christ.” I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life

.-//) CLERUM.

for the sheep.” In our own way and in our own degree we are to be what Christ was. That is our high calling! That is our cross. “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- smelling savor “(Eph. v. 2). Resentment is forbidden to the true pastor. He cannot act as a fellow-citizen or an equal. The pastor has often to be quiet when the natural man would be haughty and repellent. In a sense the pastor must be Christ.” Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.” The apostles are pastoral examples. “Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it.” This is argument! This is the witness of the Spirit! The pastor is not yet fully ordained in whose heart there linger- one trace of social contempt. u Condescend to men of low estate.” “Have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons.” Resentment, or vanity, or self-justification lias no commendation in the Bible. “Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee.” Acting in this spirit, the pastor will win the hearts of his people and prevail silently against the proud doer. Violence makes but temporarysuccess. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” Aggressive and boisterous policies are for the carnal man; gentleness is the power of the pastor. “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak.” Filled with this spirit,

THE PASTOR WILL NEVER DEPRECIATE HIS
CHARGE.

Wherever his lot is cast, the pastor will conscientiously and gratefully make the most and the best of his people. He will never set himself above them in any spirit of vanity, playing the worldly “gentleman” that he may throw their manners into humiliating contrast. The people will feel his superiority without having it thrust upon them. They will smell the rose without being pierced by the thorn. In the whole course of my ministry I have never failed to observe that the pastors who appreciate their people are the pastors who do the most enduring work. Besides, if the pastor were a real gentleman, owing nothing to pretense and nothing to veneer, he would know that, however much the peopie are inferior to him, they once had sense enough to elect him, and he once was glad enough to accept their favOrs. But such a gentleman never breaks down in his manners. He is filled with the Spirit, and is therefore appreciative, approachable, and of a tender heart. Let me lovingly warn my brethren against the too frequent practice of depreciating their people. Take Christ’s view of them. “Why dost thou set at naught thy brother?” In the pulpit the minister addresses his audience as “my Christian brethren” — “my dear friends” — “my beloved hearers.” He who calls his people by one name in public and by another in private brings himself under the charge of insincerity and practical falsehood. The ruder the people the larger the pastor’s opportunity for refining them. If the people are too rude to be mixed with, why live upon them? Why not take up some genteeler misery? They who gathered around the Saviour were not members of the social aristocracy. The Apostle Paul worked with his own hands that he might relieve the poorer churches from the charge of his sustenance. “Ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail: for laboring night ami day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel Of God.” There is a gentility that can work with its own hands when need arises. The pastor will never fail to look beyond the circumstances and fix his thought upon the man. He is a shepherd of souls, not of gold rings and soft raiment. “Not many wise men after the flesh are called.” The men whose “mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage,” are condemned by Jude as men who “walk after their own lusts.” The pastor will have his personal friends and his elect companions, but in his pastoral capacity he will be “kindly affectioned” toward the whole church. “I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.” The pastor has a special message to the rich as well as to the poor, and it is the more delicate message to deliver. “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches.” Charge them “that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.” In this way will the godly pastor bring into sympathy and fellowship many who are divided by the worldly distinctions of title and estate.

THE PASTOR SHOULD KNOW HUMAN NATURE,

for that is the truly “original language.” No matter what else you know, if you do not know human nature you are not fit to teach and guide human life. Man is odd. Each man is a man by himself, a separate study, an independent puzzle. Do not be misled by mere manners. I tremble when I am introduced to “a nice man,” “such a nice man “; “a quiet man,” “such a quiet man.” You never know what a man is until you have interfered with his vested interests, or until you have seen him under insult. Then will you know how very nice a man he is, how extremely quiet, how absolutely modest. I have had to do with “nice men” until I dread the very term.

“There’s a deal o’ solid kicking
In the meekest-looking mule.”

So says James Russell Lowell, and so will every pastor say who has had to do with “very nice men.” Jesus Christ knew human nature, and acted with discretion that was meant to be exemplary. “Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that he should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.” He did not treat Nicodemus as he treated Herod. The pastor will need discrimination in distributing spiritual instruction and comfort. Sometimes he will be miscellaneous; sometimes personal and direct. “I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.” Even the disobedient must not be treated as hostile. “Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” Beware of false professors. “Take heed that no man deceive you.” Pastors should not live for flattery. They will never be really happy until they live primarily for the favor of God. To the inquiring pastor I would say: Form your own estimate of men. Keep your counsel to yourself. Never listen to gossip; never descend to tittle-tattle. Give your people to feel that your mind is set upon great subjects and the application of such subjects to daily experience, and they will soon feel that you are disinclined to indulge in local slander or frivolous criticism. The holy man will bring unholy subjects into disrepute. If you know human nature well, you will let some men talk themselves right out. You need not listen. But you might look at them in a way that they could hardly mistake for an encouragement.

THE PASTOR SHOULD KEEP A GOOD CONSCIENCE.

This will be his stronghold in the day of trouble. It has been the defense of good men in all time. To my junior I would say, Let no man do you such favors as would pervert your judgment or quell your courage. Borrow from none. Avoid debt as you would avoid a wolf. Never forget that a pound a week is not three shillings a day. Keep your tastes within your income. How nobly Samuel addressed the people:

“Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? And I will restore it you” (1 Sam. xii. 3).

That is independence. There should be nothing shady in a pastor’s relations with his people. The pastor’s motto should be Straightforwardness. The

Apostle Paul had a noble record. “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. ... In all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.” An infinite shame to modern churches if the pastor should be neglected, yet the pastor’s own honor need not be tarnished. “Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.” A horrible shame to the churches! To whom is the pastor, in many cases, least indebted for support? To the rich. Always allowing for brilliant exceptions, the rich men in a church are the robbers of pastors. They rob them in the very act of patronizing them. They tempt them into needless expense. The richest man I ever knew gave me seven and sixpence per quarter for his seat, and every time I submitted to the humiliation of dining with him my traveling expenses were in excess of that amount! Yet with what glory he covered my ministry! Surely the time will come when spiritual things will be rightly valued. “If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?” Is flesh to be balanced against thought? “Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?” These are lessons for the churches. The less the pastor thinks of them the more should they be thought of by the people. Let the pastor so order his conduct in all such matters as to have a conscience void of offense. Along this line many high rewards are to be gathered. “Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience.” A solid — a sacramental feast! A banquet with the Lord himself! Hear the Apostle: “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” “And herein I do exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men.” It was in this bank of conscience that the Apostle laid up large wealth. “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with a pure conscience.” According to the testimony of his conscience every pastor is strong or weak. The conscience is the man. Never have an artificial conscience, or a one-sided conscience, or an oblique conscience. If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

And in what will all faithful shepherdliness end? Suppose a pastor has fed the flock of God, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly: not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. What then? Will he die the death of a dog and be buried as an unclean thing? Suppose the pastor has been blameless as the steward of God and an ensample to the flock? Suppose he has been an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity? What then? Shall he pass away as smoke and be forgotten as a wind? It is not so that the Apostle speaks of the end. His words glow with thankfulness; his spirit is immovable in confidence:

“When the Chief Shepherd shall appear
ye shall receive a crown of glory that
fadeth not away.”

“Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”