How to Find Time for Learning
All ministers are not called to be equally learned: it would be idle to expect such a result, amidst the marked differences of talent and circumstances. There is a gradation in this from the young pastor who has almost all his time at his command, to the itinerant who thinks he can do no more than read his pocket Bible. The objection to regular studies which meets us most frequently is, that there is no time for labour in the closet, from the pressure of parochial cares. You need no prompter as to this: indeed, I fancy I hear you exclaiming, How is it possible for one situated as I am, to find hours for learning? I desire, in the present letter, to answer this very question, and to suggest a few considerations which will, perhaps, clear the path, and open some light through the seeming forest. After having had the same perplexities, I think I perceive certain princij)les by which a life of faithful pastoral and pulpit labour may be made compatible with sedulous aj)plication.
First of all, if you would make the most of your scanty hours, keep the one sacred object in view in every study you undertake. This is the way to secure imity of plan. You bear in mind the twentieth proposition of Euclid’s first book: the straighter your line, the shorter. I trust it is no wresting of the apostle’s words to say, One thing I do; or more laconically still, in the four letters of the original, ev Se. Let your intentions branch out in every direction, undetermined whether you mean to be a great linguist, or an elegant classic, or a mathematician, or, peradventure, a botanist, or a master of English literature, and it is plain enough that you will find all your time too little. There is such a thing as being very idly and unprofitably engaged in one’s study. Far from loving restriction, or from wishing to coerce the mind in pursuing its bent, I would, nevertheless, beseech you, when you go among your books, to know what you are after. Your end in life is sufiiciently obvious; and the studies by which it is to be attained are enough to occupy your time, if you are but faithful. It is of deliberate and stated application that I now speak: you certainly will not expect me to plan ways and means of gaining time for the annuals, monthlies, or weeklies. In your regular professional studies, you will find the whole field brought more clearly under survey, and the whole process simplified, by looking on every part of it with reference to your main work of expounding the Scriptures and preaching the gospel.
This leads to a second suggestion, of a particular under this general head. Form the habit of contemplating all your study as the study of the word of God. In a large, but just sense, it is imdoubtedly so. All your discipline and all your acquisition, all your reasoning power and all your taste, all your library and all your eloquence, are only so many means for learning God’s word, and for teaching it. Exegesis, theology, controversy, church history, are only portions of the apparatus for learning and teaching. With this in your mind, you may go much further than many think, and yet return safe. As Scott, the commentator, used to say, “The bee may range widely, so that it brings all to the hive.” Say to yourself daily, En codicem sacrum! “Here is my hive; hither all my gatherings must be brought.” The range of some men has been wonderful, and their powers of assimilation have been so great, that they have laid every department under contribution, and filled their discourses with the digested results of multifarious and almost incongruous reading: take as instances Baxter, Saurin, and Chalmers. But common minds need a strong centripetal force, and this is to be found in reverential love for Holy Scripture. No method known to me is so likely to keep you in the right state of mind, in this respect, as the practice of devoting the first and best part of every day to the perusal of the Bible in the original tongues. Few will the days be, in which you will not discern the directive influence of this on the researches of the subsequent hours; and the influence will be there, even when not discerned.
From what has just been said, you will deduce the all-important rule, to lop ofl all irrelevant studies. Observe, we are not talking now of amusements, but of dogged labour. And if you mean to succeed, and to save precious time, see to it, that you rid yourself of all impertinent matters. In this age of books, tempting studies will grow rank around you, and creep into your windows, as a great vine has been doing into the chamber where I write; but you must be unrelenting, and make short work with their pretensions. The blue and yellow flowers among the corn must be plucked out, and you must be doing it every day. It is not a bad remark of Helvetius, though a bad man, til at in our day the secret of being learned, is heroically to determine to be ignorant of many things in which men take pride. Keep, as Fenelon says, the pruning-knife in hand, to cut away all that is need- “less: “On a besoin d’etre sans cesse la faucille en main, pour retrancher Ic superflu des ];)aroles ct des occupations.”” Especially must this resolution be exercised towards such branches of study as require a
* Ep. 338.
great expense of time, in order to any proficiency. There are some arts wliicli are so jealous as to nsurp the whole life. JElian tells of a young Greek who took up a famous philosoj)her into his chariot, and, driving round the stadium at full speed, showed him that his wheel had never deviated from a given line: the philosopher replied, “JSTow you have demonstrated to me that you are fit for nothing else.” There are, indeed, cases in wdiich a strong tendency of taste and genius, toward some foreign branch of knowledge, as for example mathematics or geology or language, may break through all rule, and force the clergyman to eminence in his chosen or destined pursuit. But these are exempt cases, and we are treating of those persons who avow their determination to live and die in the work of the ministry. If yon, my dear friend, have other intentions, express them frankly, and save me the pains of any further disquisitions. But he who chooses the service of God in his sanctuary is called to great subjects, which are sufiicient to fill up all his thoughts. “Whatever a man may do as subsidiary to these, or as a healthful diversion from them, it is still true that scriptural or theological learning is the j)eculiar domain of the clergyman.
Lest this should be thought too exclusive, I must add, that some degree of acquaintance with collateral sciences is absolutely necessary to a full understanding of our own; for, as Lord Bacon says, large yrospects are to be made not from our own ground, but from contiguous towers and high places.’^ But another sagacious observer says: “It is in my opinion, not any honour to a minister, to be very famous in any branch that is wholly unconnected with theology; not that knowledge of any thing, proyerly speaking, is either a disadvantage or ground of reproach; but for a man to show a deep knowledge of some particular subject plainly discovers that he hath bestowed more time and j)ains upon it than he had to spare from necessary duty.” f There is more self-denial in acting on this maxim than is commonly thought, and you will often be called upon to lay aside darling entertainments that you may more fully make proof of your ministry. Whatever will enable you to preach better, though it were a fable or a ballad, you may legitimately include in your plan; but when you lay out your chief strength on -matters purely secular, you so far abuse the golden vessel of the sanctuary. Observe this rule, and your will find it more easy to accomplish study, even in your limited time.
It is not unworthy of statement, that there is such
* “Prospcctationes fiuiit a turribus aut locis praialtis; ct impossibilc est ut quis exploret remotiores interioris sciential alicujus partes, si stet super piano cjusdem scientise, ncquc altioris scicntite veluti speculum consccndat,” — Nov. Org.
f Witherspoon’s AYorks, vol. iv. p. 20.
a thing as making the line of your studies coincide with the tenor of your preaching, even without the wearisome formality of a declared series. The subject of the sermon ought somehow to be included in some recent course of study, though much of the latter may never be brought into the sermon. If, for example, you should be going into those heads of divinity which relate to the Person of Christ, you might easily draw material for all your morning discourses from subjects allied to this: in this you will find great economy of time.
You cannot well overrate the benefit to be derived, in these respects, from carrying always with you a high estimate of your study-labours, in comparison with other men’s labours, and other labours of your own. The clergyman’s study, which some people regard as they would a yantry, or a genteel appendage to housekeeping, is the main room in the house, and (if consistent with Ileb. xiii. 2) ought to be the best. It is the place where you speak to God, and where God speaks to you; where the oil is beaten for the sanctuary; where you sit between the two olive-trees, Zech. iv. 3; where you wear the linen ephod and consult TJrim and Thummim. As you are there, so will you be in the house of the Lord. A prevalent sense of this will do more than any thing to procure and redeem time for research, and will cause you to learn more in an lionr, than otherwise in a day. That upper-chamber is also the spot where you will enjoy one of the most valuable means of learning and preparation, which we too much neglect — I mean conference with brethren about your work, and especially your preaching. And it will be your duty to impress on your people the truth, that you are as really serving them, when you are in your study, as when you are in their houses. But to render these views efficacious, you must, from the beginning, look on all your meditation, reading and writing, as a tribute to God, and a free-w411 offering in his holy temple. This will lead you to pray over your researches, and to handle every topic as in the presence of Christ. It will tend to prevent your lucubrations from lapsing into a selfish, solitary, anchoretic abstraction from your charge. The more you are occupied upon the simple text of Scripture, the more remarkably will this temyer yrevail in you.
In this, as in every thing else, there is economy of time in punctuality and order: as Hannah More says, “It is just as in packing a trunk; a good packer will get twice as much in as a bungler.” The example of Dr. Doddridge on this point, as recorded in his life, is worth looking at. Lay before yourself some scheme, and have a distinct notion of what you are going to attempt. This is like the builder’s working-model; how sadly would he waste his timber and his time, if he should fall to hewing, squaring, and sawing, without any clear conception of what he was going to erect! Allow me to bring this matter a little more closely to you, by proposing the following questions, to be frankly answered by you on the spot, infoTO conscientice. 1. “What part of the week do I devote to study; and, of this, how much to the original Scriptures? 2. What yart of Scripture am I engaged in studying critically? 3. What head of theology has lately been under investigation?
4. What work of research have I lately mastered?
5. What is my plan of study for the coming day? I think it likely that there are some young pastors (and in none of these letters do I address myself to any others) who may find in these queries a key to their meagre attainments. One of the highest objects proposed in this correspondence, is to afibrd you some assistance in chalking out your work, and rendering manageable the great business of clerical study.
But after all, it cannot be concealed that there will be need of vigorous and unceasing efforts, to secure time for application, and to cut off all occasions of sloth and waste. You will be under a perpetual attraction to leave your study. The obviously pressing claims of your parish will pull you by the sleeve.
Yon will find it indispensable to have some certain times consecrated to the word of God and pra-er. The best proof that time can tlms be rescned, is the fact that so many clergymen engaged in laborious charges, do actually spend much of their life in study. If propriety would sanction the disclosure, I could easily go into particulars, and give the names of eminent living pastors, with the laudable devices by which they compass the end proposed. One would be found to trench largely on the hours of sleep; a method scarcely to be recommended. Another would be seen rising, year after year, a long time before day. Some are known to me, who accomplish all their heavy study before noon. A distinguished preacher in one of the largest churches, allows no interruptions during the last three days of the week. Two others have chambers attached to their churches, where they do not encourage visits, until certain hours. It is not for me to choose among these methods, nor to hold up my own as equal or superior. In nothing is it more important for a man to open his own path, than in habits of study. As a general thing, it would seem to be well (using Scott’s vrords) “to break the neck of the day’s work,’’ as early as possible. There have been clergymen of great eminence, who observed no certain hours. Dr. Payson never denied himself to visitors; G his motto was,” The man who wants to see me, is the man I want to see.” Such was also the practice of the late Dr. John H. Bice. There are situations where the young minister is constrained to act in this way. Where we cannot get the whole we must make vigilant use of a part. Even itinerants may gain knowledge; and I have heard eminent scholars say, that nothing they ever read made so deep impression on them, as volumes which they found in their chamber window, and which they devoured with the greater avidity, because they doubted whether they should ever see them again. Great concentration of mind is produced by such traits. John “Wesley, as his journals show, perused hundreds of volumes on horseback; you will find his notices of books in French, Latin, and Greek. Reading on horseback, though from no such necessity, was a favourite practice of the late Dr. Speece, who was a lielluo libroriim / and also of Dr. Campbell, of Rockbridge, whom I may name, though not a clergyman. More than twenty years ago, when I was much in the saddle, I was on a tour of preaching with the Rev. Abner W. Clopton, of the Baptist church. He was a man of much learning, and of such ministerial earnestness, that it was commonly said that he preached at least three hundred and sixty-five sermons in the year. It was summer time, and I observed, that after an early breakfast, lie would take his saddle-bags and retire into the shade of the woods for about three hours. For this purpose he always carried a Yoliime or two of solid reading; and at that time was making a second forest-perusal of Dwight’s Theology. By such decision and self-denial, some men counteract all the dissipating tendencies of itinerancy, while they are enjoying its unspeakable advantages. But it is to be observed that such self-control is seldom found, except in those who have been previously subjected to most vigorous scholastic training. Where there is a will, there will be a way; and the resolved purpose to be well furnished for the work is scarcely ever frustrated. But to carry out such a purpose, you must avoid a thousand things, to which, at your age, you will be tempted, and which consume time and preclude habits of application.
Providence so orders it, that generally speaking, the young pastor has a small charge. This is sometimes mortifying; but it aifords invaluable opportunities for study, and so fits him for subsequent labours, where he can scarcely call an hour his own”. There are many other respects, in which it is of vast moment to let the character grow up and take its settled form, in the shade of retirement. The danger is (and it ought to be fully before your mind) that you will use no more study than is necessary to meet
124: TKOUGHTS ON PKEACHING.
the moderate demands of your little rural congregation; if you yield to this, it may be safely predicted, that you will never rise above the stature you have already attained.
On these subjects, much is to be learned from men of other professions; and I have frequently been struck with the analogy between the busy lawyer’s life and ours. In this respect, the maxims of the late Charles Butler, Esq., of Lincoln’s Inn, are worthy of being transcribed; especially as in addition to large practice, and copious legal authorship, he published a number of works on general literature and religion. You will make the necessary modifications to adapt it to clerical life. Butler ascribes his saving of time to these rules; “Yery early rising — a s^stematic division of his time — absence from all company and from all diversions not likely to amuse him highly — from reading, writing, or even thinking, on modern party-politics — and, above all, never permitting a bit or scrap of time to be unemployed — have supplied him with an abundance of literary hours. His literary acquisitions are principally owing to the rigid observance of four rules: 1. To direct his attention to one literary topic only at a time; 2. To read the best book upon it, consulting others as little as possible; 3. Where the subject was contentious, to read the best book on each side; 4. To find out men of information, and, when in their society, to listen, not to talk.” “It is pleasant to him to reflect, that though few have exceeded him in the love oi literature, or j)nrsued it with greater delight, it never seduced, or was suspected by his professional friends of seducing him, for one moment, from professional duty.” ‘”- Here let me leave you for the present, convinced that nothing impracticable is recpaired of you, which I hope will be still more fully sustained by my next letter, which will be one of facts.