The minister as a man

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THE MINISTER AS

A MAN

By

ANDREW GILLIES

MATRICULATION DAY ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT THE BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF
THEOLOGY, OCTOBER 8, 1913.

CINCINNATI : JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS

Copyright, 1914, by
Jennings and Graham

MAR 30 1914

©CI.A371130

The Minister As a Man

It has long since become a truism
that personality counts. It counts
above everything else in the work of
the Christian ministry. It is that
and not eloquence which at last gives
wings to our words. It is that and
not enthusiasm which at last gives
weight to our deeds. Emerson said
it when he wrote those well-known
words, "What you are thunders so
loud that I can not hear what you
say." A. J. Gordon said it when
he declared that in getting ready for
Sunday his hardest task was not the
preparation of his sermon, but the
preparation of himself. Dr. King,
of Oberlin, said it when he wrote
something like this: "A Christian's
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THE MINISTER AS A MAN

greatest work is not to go to men
and speak to them about their souls.
It is to live such a life and be such a
man that when people are concerned
about their souls they will want to
come to him." And Phillips Brooks
said it when he defined a sermon
as "the truth through personality."
They all said it, and the world knows
it because it is fundamental. It is
not the Epistles of Paul that live.
It is Paul. It is not even the Gos-
pels that weigh. It is the Christ.
In the short, terse words of Henry
Ward Beecher, "Manhood is the best
sermon."

It has not become so much of a
truism that a minister's first business
is to be a man. Now, I do not mean
what is meant by being "a man
among men." I have become suspi-
cious of that fine flowing phrase, and
[ 4 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

of much to which it seems to lead.
The Church and ministry of to-day
are suffering from an overdone prin-
ciple of adaptation. I confess to a
dislike to the term "mixer" as applied
to the Christian minister. I despise
the term "job" as applied to the
Christian life among men. "There is
a certain reserved and reticent dig-
nity which will always be an essential
element in our power among men."
Familiarity still breeds contempt, and
the way of irreverence is the way of
disaster.

It is ours to adapt ourselves to the
times, but always in the spirit of the
timeless. In the sway and swirl of
things temporal it is the task of the
Christian minister to breathe the
spirit of the eternal. It is of vast
significance that he who said, "I am
all things to all men," could first say,
[5]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

with perfect assurance, "I am cruci-
fied with Christ." It is of vaster sig-
nificance that He who knew men bet-
ter than they knew themselves, who
could eat with publican and sinner
and not be strange among them, who
could rouse a philosopher and charm
a harlot into the higher life — it is of
vaster significance that He could say,
"The Father and I are one."

Neither do I forget the immense
importance of culture and scholar-
ship and art. They are all no longer
ministerial luxuries. They are min-
isterial necessities. I knew a man
who lost a call to a Church because
of his slovenly appearance. I knew
another who failed to hold the edu-
cated men of his congregation be-
cause of his wretched pronunciation.
An education is not something which
you may have if convenient. It is
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THE MINISTER AS A MAN

something which you must have if
you would be assured of a place of
influence and leadership. The mat-
ter of a sermon counts, and the form
of a sermon counts, too. He who,
like Father Taylor, loses his nomina-
tive case in the pulpit, is in danger,
unless of extraordinary native power,
of losing his influence in the pew.
Even the Methodists, who want their
food hot, dislike to have the dishes
rattle overmuch.

In fact, I am not preaching the
gospel of the good fellow. I am
not blind to culture and scholarship
as necessities in the equipment of
our leaders. I am reminding you
that preparation for the ministry is
more than the preparation of the
mind. It is that harder and holier
task of the preparation of our total
selves. We are called not so much
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THE MINISTER AS A MAN

to do a peculiar kind of work as to
live a certain quality of life. It is
ours to go out and be a prophet, to
learn the will of God for the race
and interpret that will to the people.
It is ours to go out and be a pastor,
to "lead the sheep, carry the lambs,
and once in awhile deal with an ob-
streperous old ram." It is ours to
go out and be an executive, to run
the Christian Church with honest,
business-like efficiency. But above
all these and in all these, indeed,
that all these may avail, it is ours
to go out into the world and be a
man, to interpret the love of God
by what we are, to command a
hearing with men by what we are,
to uplift the cross and upbuild the
Kingdom, not by what we say or
what we do, but by what we are.
Now, I know how primary it is
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THE MINISTER AS A MAN

for me to say that. But I know,
too, as somebody has said, that it is
ours to learn what we know. The
crucial thing for a student for the
ministry is not his call's certainty,
but its inclusions. It is not simply
the question of source, but the ques-
tion of moral objective. The min-
isterial road is lined with those who
have missed their way. Other pro-
fessions are sprinkled with ex-min-
isters. Adapting the picturesque
words of Joseph Parker, some of
them blared their way in like an
amateur military band ; they coughed
their way out like a squad of con-
sumptive tramps. Making a man a
minister does n't make him any dif-
ferent, only more so. Let it also be
understood that I speak as a learner,
and not as a teacher. "I count not
myself to have apprehended, but this
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THE MINISTER AS A MAN

one thing I do." Hear me, then,
while I touch our theme on some of
its various sides. I know I will not
say anything new. I hope to say
much that is true.

In the first place, the minister
must be a man of Blameless Life.
He must show to the world in every
way that he really is a man of God.
Horace Bushnell once said, "We
preach too much and live Christ
too little." I want to re-echo and
reinforce the words of that great
preacher.

The world is very exacting toward
the man who dares to preach. It asks
of him not eloquence but sincerity,
and looks to him for leadership in
life.

In his tragedy of Hamlet, I think
it is, Shakespeare says:

[ 10]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

"But good, oh, my brother,

Do not as some ungracious pastors do,

Point us the steep and thorny road to
heaven,

While, like some puffed and reckless liber-
tine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance
treads."

And in his novel, "The Virginian,"
Owen Wister makes the cowboy say,
"I can stand a middlin' doctor; I can
stand a middlin' lawyer; but save me
from a middlin' man of God."

Now, I do not care whose words
you like, those of the poet or those of
the novelist. It is not their words
but their thought which I seek to
bring home to you. In what they say
they speak not for themselves, but
for the whole world of folks. The
world demands more of a minister
than it does of any other man. They
do not want us to walk alongside.

[ 11 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

They want us to walk ahead. They
do not want us idealists in the pulpit
and opportunists outside. And in
their demand the wrorld of folks is
right, or at least they are justified.
They ask more of men of God be-
cause we claim to be men of God.
We assume to stand for more than
any other class of people. "Ministers
to be as good as other classes of men
must be better than they. No other
set of men make such assumptions or
bind themselves to such high ideals.
A lawyer, when admitted to the bar,
does not promise to obey the Ten
Commandments. A physician, on re-
ceiving his diploma, does not agree to
practice the Sermon on the Mount.
Being an editor involves no assump-
tion of fidelity to Gospel principles,
and merchants do not enter business
announcing to the world their pur-
[ 12 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

pose to give their life a ransom for
many." "If, therefore/' continues
Charles E. Jefferson, "if, therefore,
both in spirit and conduct ministers
as a body were not superior to every
other class of men, they would be a
disgrace to their profession and a
scandal to the world."

Contrary to the opinion of the
world, the ministry is full of moral
perils. It has pitfalls on every hand
and bywrays on every side. There is
a widespread impression that the life
of a minister is one of sheltered se-
curity. It is a sort of quiet, land-
locked bay beside the stormy sea.
And of all impressions of which I
ever heard, that is the farthest from
the truth. The life of a minister of
the gospel is one of storm and stress.
The work of the ministry creates
temptations of which others do not

[ 13 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

dream. There is the temptation to
become hardened and perfunctory in
the handling of holy things. I had
not been in the ministry a year before
I made the horrifying discovery that
a man can be proclaiming the evan-
gel, burying the dead, praying with
the dying, and yet be slowly losing
his own personal hold on God, There
is the temptation to be worldly in
mingling with worldly people. "The
world offers itself as a climate, and
we may be led into accepting it as
the atmosphere of our lives." I re-
member with grief a number of good
men who, starting to bring others up
to Christ, have ended by descending
to them. Yes, and there is the ever
present temptation to the baser and
more bestial of sins. There is the lust
of the flesh as well as the lust of the
eyes and the pride of life. The peril
[ 14 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

to the minister's moral manhood :'s
more deadly than the world has ever
dreamed. It inheres in the very na-
ture of his work, in the tasks given
him to do. The preacher's very emo-
tional intensity often brings him to
the point of danger. The pastor's
work leads him into situations where
moral wrong-doing is made easy.
Sometimes he is cast headlong to the
very center of the crucible. Some-
times he is compelled to withstand
the subtlest assaults on the citadel of
his soul. One day Jowett and Hugh
Price Hughes were walking the
streets of London. Long did they
talk of their common tasks and tri-
umphs. Suddenly, however, the im-
petuous Hughes stopped and grasped
his confrere by the arm. "Jowett!"
he cried, " Jowett! The evangelical
preacher is always on the brink of an
[15 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

abyss." Hugh Price Hughes was
everlastingly right. His cry was a
cry of warning and appeal to every
man who dares to preach the gos-
pel. The abyss may differ at differ-
ent times, it differs with different
men, but its yawning maw is ever
there.

So here are the world's stern de-
mands and the world's bitter tempta-
tions. Together they constitute a
moral challenge, and enhance the im-
portance of our task. The most pite-
ous spectacle in this world of trage-
dies is the man of God who goes
wrong. It is he who in seeking to
help others has become a moral cast-
away himself. Verily it were better
for him that he never had been born.
The greatest farce in all the world is
for a man to try to be a "middlin' '
man of God. It is the greatest farce
C 16 1

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

because he fails in the very thing he
seeks to do. In the immortal words
of Henry Ward Beecher, "You can't
pray cream and live skim milk." In
the tart words of another modern,
"You can't eat garlic in private with-
out smelling of it in public." But
the sublimest thing in all this world
is the minister of pure and spotless
life. It is he whose soul is an open
book, and whose ministry is spiritu-
ally antiseptic. It is he who creates
a climate of good, and is really in
the world but not of it. It is he who
adorns the gospel by a splendid and
holy manhood. It was such a minis-
try that made Henry Drummond be-
loved by a boundless host. When he
entered a room it was said that the
temperature seemed changed. It
was such a ministry that enshrined
Bishop Ninde in a thousand, thou-
[ 17 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

sand hearts. It is such a ministry to
which we are called by the Living
God.

The man of God should be a man
of heroic spirit. It is his to fill up
that which is behind of the sufferings
of Christ.

Some time ago a so-called leader
in our Church delivered an address
on the ministry. It was not mine to
hear the address, but I did read an
abstract of it. In it he pleaded for
young men to go into the ministry
because it is a good practical profes-
sion. One of our own Advocates
cites him as uttering these extraordi-
nary appeals: "A minister has his
place in life made for him. He re-
ceives more salary to begin his pro-
fession with than do lawyers or doc-
tors. He does n't have to sit around
waiting for his work to begin. And
[ 18 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

then, in addition to all the rest, he is
always sufficiently paid to live well."
Now, I wronder if this leader has
not unwittingly touched the weak
spot in the leadership of our time.
If the ministry is weak and flabby, it
is because it is unheroic. It asks of
us no definite sacrifice, and seems to
include no great hardship. Theolog-
ical students are often guaranteed a
living while preparing for their work.
District superintendents advertise for
men and offer alluring salaries as
bait. While the smell of the lamp is
still on their sermons, young preach-
ers are invited to wealthy parishes
and asked to become chaplains-in-
ordinary to a few rich families. The
Conferences are working for the in-
crease of salaries, and the Church as
a whole is struggling to see that the
veterans are adequately pensioned.

[ 19 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

In the meantime the work of the
Kingdom languishes, and everybody
knows it. Membership increases
while spiritual momentum becomes
gradually and beautifully less. The
sense of sin is gone, and the sense of
responsibility with it. Too often the
Church is indifferent to the world,
and the world is indifferent to the
Church. I confess to a desire to
laugh when I hear a roomful of
Christians sing, " Stand up, stand up
for Jesus," and then stick so tight to
their seats that you could n't get them
up with a derrick. I confess to a
smile when a row of comfortable,
conservative, self -contented gentle-
men and ladies stand up and sing,
" Onward, Christian soldiers, march-
ing as to war," and then go home to
loll in their parlors while hell yawns
at their very doors. I confess to a
[ 20 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

sob when I see the thousands who are
alienated from the Church, who not
only never darken its doors but sneer
at its claims and pretensions.

Time was when a call to the Meth-
odist ministry was synonymous with
a summons to the heroic. It offered
a man hardship in place of ease, a
battlefield for a home, abuse and per-
secution for a salary, and short ra-
tions most of the time. It sent him
where he was n't wanted, and usually
where he did n't want to go. He was
ostracized by his kind, opposed by
misguided Christians, and often ma-
ligned by those to whom he pro-
claimed the evangel.

Some years ago it was mine to
know a real Methodist preacher. In
early manhood he was called to
preach, and forsook all to respond.
He offered himself as an itinerant
[ 21 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

when that word meant what it said.
They sent him out on the trackless
prairies, and he went with a song on
his lips. Like Abram he went forth,
not knowing whither he was going.
He roamed those wastes in a ceaseless
quest for immortal souls. He was
baked in summer and frozen in win-
ter, and blown about by the winds all
the year. For some time his salary
was nothing, paid in advance. Then
it was raised to three or four hundred,
and he was left to raise it. "He did
double work on half rations and quar-
ter pay." For forty years he plodded
on without a groan or a whine. In
some unaccountable way he saved a
few hundred dollars. Then he bought
a little farm in Vermont, and tried to
avoid becoming a mendicant and a
burden on the Church. He worked
his farm for a living, and continued
[ 22 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

serving God for fun. He preached
in a little chapel out at Forgotten
Corners. He rode over the hills to
beseech men to be reconciled to God.
He went in and out of the homes of
the village like a benediction on two
legs. He had little, but was im-
mensely rich and happy with that
little. And then one day God called
again, and he answered, "Here am I."
He slipped out with a smile on his
face, and joined the ranks of the re-
deemed. And everybody for miles
around came and bared their heads
and wept while they laid the worn
body to rest.

Oh, he was a glorious man, an am-
bassador of Christ indeed! I would
walk barefoot, if need be, ten miles
to behold his like again.

Has the need for a life like that
really gone from our religion? Is
[ 23 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

there no longer a call for genuine
self-effacement? Has a something
else come to take the place of the
heroic and the sublime? In fact, does
this age of plenty and power require
that its ministers be simply well-edu-
cated, tactful, and well-dressed?

Now I have come to where I
would not utter a wrong syllable.
I would not give a false impression
for all the wealth of the Indies.
The laborer is worthy of his hire,
and the Church should care for its
servants. The measure of sacrifice
is not what a man gets, but what
he could be getting at some other
business, and what he is doing with
what he has. When McCabe was be-
ing belabored by the General Confer-
ence for taking pay for his lectures,
he said, "I wonder if they knew that
every dollar I receive in that way
[ 24 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

is given to weak and struggling
Churches?" I would not give a dis-
torted translation of the demands of
our Lord. But I would re-utter the
eternal law upon which all progress
is based.

The law of vicarious suffering is
the law of service for all time. It
wras true in the age in which it was
given. It is true in the age in which
we live. Without shedding of blood
there is no remission of sins. Neither
is there anything else. There is no
Church, no gospel, no Kingdom, no
conquest. And that law is woven in-
extricably with the work of the Chris-
tian ministry. There, above every
other place or profession, it must find
its reincarnation. "The gospel of a
broken heart demands the ministry of
broken hearts. As soon as we cease
to bleed we cease to bless. When our
[ 25 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

sympathy loses its pang we can no
longer be servants of the passion" —
in those other and most wonderful
words of Dr. Jowett's, "To be in the
sacrificial succession, our sympathy
must be a passion, our intercession
must be a groaning, our beneficence
must be a sacrifice, and our service
must be a martyrdom. In everything
there must be the shedding of blood."
In the Church of to-day there are
those leaders who illumine the glory
of this principle. Their lives are in-
vested for the race, their strength is
gladly spent for their fellow-men.
Years ago General Gordon wrote to
Sir Richard Burton: "You know the
hopelessness of such a task as Afri-
can missions till you find a St. Paul
or a St. John. Their representatives
nowadays want so much per year and
a contract."

[ 26 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

I resent that moral slap in the face,
and claim that it is n't altogether so.
It is about as true as all sweeping
statements are. We may not have a
St. Paul, but we do have a towering
Grenfell. We have him who says,
"Do n't pity me. I 'm happiest when
I 'm in Labrador." We have a Dan
Crawford in Africa itself, who can
live white on no salary in order that
he may think black. We have Bash-
ford, who chooses China, and Stuntz,
who says, "Send me to South Amer-
ica." Yes, and we have a host of the
anonymous whose names are un-
known and unheard, men who are
wearing out their lives in the con-
gested parts of our cities, men who
are asking that they be sent to the
hardest fields and neediest places,
men who are toiling in obscure cor-
ners with never a whimper or com-
[ 27 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

plaint. Some years ago one of God's
great noblemen came to my study to
see me. I did n't recognize him at
first, because his regalia was thread-
bare and worn. He was one of our
men who tramp the Iron Range in
search of souls for the Kingdom.
He told me of his trials, and I most
foolishly tried to extend my sym-
pathy.

"Why, you needn't be sorry for
me," he said. "I 'm the most wonder-
fully blessed man in the world. I 'm
a country preacher, and I expect to
remain so all the days of my life.
But I would not change places with
any man in the world." And as he
said this a light shone in his face, and
a halo seemed resting on his head.

That is the spirit which must en-
ter into us all. We become great
only as we are caught in the sweep
[ 28 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

of a great task. The enterprise
committed to us is the greatest ever
given to man. The obstacles are co-
lossal, the competition is hot enough
to burn. And no tin soldiers with
wooden leaders will ever win the bat-
tle. The frontiers of the plains are
disappearing, the frontiers of the
slums have come to stay. The city is
challenging the Church. The country
is calling for the heroic. The whole
time, the whole situation, cry for the
reinterpretation and the reincarnation
of the spirit of heroic self-efface-
ment. We may not need men to
go into the flames. We do need
them to seek the hard fields. We
do n't ask that you burn at the
stake. We ask that you burn out
for God. We may not need men to
forego their salaries. We woefully
need men who forget them. "Our
[ 29 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

enterprise is not a pastime. It is a
crusade." A while ago I stood beside
the grave of Adam Clarke. And I
saw anew that seal which has been
placed upon it. It is not a crown or
a cross. It is a candle burned down
to the socket.

That is the seal that must be upon
us in our ministry. We become real
leaders only as we give all — all in
vicarious suffering, all in heroic
service.

"Count thy life by loss instead of gain,

Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine
poured forth,

For love's strength standeth in love's sac-
rifice,

And whoso suffers most hath most to
give."

Again, the man of God must be
a man of fearless loyalty to his con-
victions. He must be obedient to
[ 30 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

the heavenly vision which God in
His goodness vouchsafes him, obedi-
ent at whatever cost to him and his
ecclesiastical future. In a superb
chapter on the sin of impatience, a
modern religious leader says many
wise things. He says things which
every man needs, especially in his
earlier years in the work. Ours has
been a ministry enamored of the im-
mediate. We want the Kingdom of
God to come, and we want it to come
at once. In the stirring words of
Emerson, we are constantly wanting
to pull souls up by the roots to see
if they are really growing. And in
sincere warning against a tactless
haste, this leader flings out some
frank utterances. "It is ours to bring
down the New Jerusalem," he says,
"but it is not ours to bring it down
in such a hurry that we break the

[ 31 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

heads of the saints." I say his words
are words of wisdom, and worthy of
serious thought. A man can mistake
a bellicose temperament for enthusi-
astic zeal for the Kingdom. But I
say now that this danger is not the
one that crouches at our doors.

The outstanding fact in modern
life is the gulf between the world and
the Church. No comforting statis-
tics can obliterate the fact, juggle
them as we will. Some time ago
President Fitch of Andover spoke
on the religious problems of our time.
And he touched on this tragic fact.
He said that there are to-day three
distinct classes who are alienated
from the Church. There are the in-
tellectuals, the men who do much of
the thinking. There are the social
idealists, the revolutionists in things
social and economic. And there are
[32 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

the wage-earners, the men who work
with their hands. Now, President
Fitch may have been brutally frank,
but he w^as also startlingly correct.
He put his finger on the wound in the
modern religious world. And he
pointed out a condition that is preg-
nant of tremendous disaster. I sup-
pose I have a typical Methodist
Church. We do have the rich and the
poor, folks of all kinds and stations.
And yet I confess to you to-day that
I could count the real laboring men,
the men who work with their hands
for weekly wages, on the fingers of
my two hands. Ten in sixteen hun-
dred and fifty is about the proportion.
The insistent claim of the world is
that this serious condition is the fault
of the Church. The intellectuals say
that they will not come because of
the bootless exactions of our outworn
[ 33 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

creeds. The socialists say that they
will not come because the Church of
to-day is run by the capitalistic class.
And the laboring men say they will
not come because we are rich and ex-
clusive. We belong not to all the
people, but to those who can aff ord it.
And in their accusations all these
classes involve the ministry. Some
years ago, while meeting with a group
of friends, President Harper, of the
University of Chicago, said in a ban-
tering way, "I have come to the con-
clusion that a man can not be a popu-
lar preacher and an honest man at
the same time." Some time ago a
theological student, a friend, said:
"You ought not to go into the min-
istry. You ought to go where you
can be free. No man can be in the
ministry and be his own man." These
are the things that are said, and more
[ 34 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

often this is felt. The tide of life is
ebbing away from the shore of organ-
ized Christianity, and those going out
with the tide put the blame on the
Church.

Now let us dare to be honest in our
endeavor to meet the issue. If one
count in the indictment is correct, we
are the men who ought to know it.
It is not ours to cry, "Wolf! wolf!"
when there is no wolf. But it is ours
to face the facts.

The Church is too often afraid to
slough off the accretions of tradition.
Orthodoxy, instead of vitality, is too
often our basis of examination for
entrance into the Kingdom. We talk
about the dynamic theory of truth,
and yet we cling to the static. We
thumbnail the revelation of God, and
would run religious experience in a
mold.

[ 35 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

Once more I aver my faith in
Christ as the Savior of mankind.
I believe in God the Father Al-
mighty* and Jesus Christ His only
Son, our Lord. I believe that, rightly
understood, it is the blood that makes
Him our Savior. But I don't believe
in hanging the redemptive process on
a lot of non-essential, unimportant
theological pegs. I do n't believe in
putting bars at the door of the King-
dom which the Lord Christ Himself
would throw down, and in that con-
viction I follow in the footsteps of
our father in the gospel, John Wes-
ley.

The Church is too often controlled
by financial considerations. The rule
of the well-to-do is not a deliberate
decision. It is an evolution. Like
Topsy, our Church bosses are not
born ; they just grow. Unconsciously
[ 36 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

we defer to the man of commanding
personality and power. In the strik-
ing words of William North Rice,
"There is a subtle logic of the hopes
and fears that insidiously smuggles
its conclusions into the realm of the
intellect."

The Church is yet afraid to dare
the whole teaching of Jesus, to drive
home with unerring hand the moral
exactions of the Master. It leaves
men in places of leadership who never
should be there at all. It permits
practices and conditions which are a
stench in the nostrils of God. It ac-
cepts the teachings of Jesus and di-
lutes them to the taste. It is content
to be a hospital when it ought to be
an army on the march. It hacks
away at the limbs when it ought to
strike at the roots.

Some years ago I read Elizabeth
[ 37 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

Stuart Phelps5 book, "A Singular
Life." Some years ago I read, too,
that much-talked-of book, "Robert
Elsmere." And only yesterday did
I finish that book of which the Nation
is talking, "The Inside of the Cup."
They are all crude in their theology
and in some of their ecclesiasticism.
They all err in some important par-
ticulars. Robert Elsmere was a fool
to leave the Church because of new
light. And John Hodder was wrong
in identifying Socialism with Chris-
tianity. But they are all tremendous
in that they point out the subtlest
peril of the ministry, and in that they
show us the only way that we as men
of God can grip the world. The peril
is not that we won't be orthodox, but
that we won't be honest. It is not
that our sermons will be doctrinal,
but that they won't be vital. It is
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THE MINISTER AS A MAN

not that we will sell our convictions,
but that we will unconsciously lose
them. "The world offers itself as
a climate, and we may be led into
accepting it as the atmosphere of our
lives." In "The Inside of the Cup"
you remember John Hodder, the
preacher, is awakened. He sees that
the Church itself must be changed in
its ideals, and with grim determina-
tion he goes to face Eldon Parr. But
at the door of the mansion he pauses
in actual fear. He is afraid of him-
self in the air he is to breathe. He
is afraid, not that he will be cowardly,
but that he will be overwhelmed. He
fears "lest the changed atmosphere
of the banker's presence might de-
flect his own hitherto clear perception
of true worth." And John Hodder
here stands for every man who
preaches.

[ 39 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

One day Frederick Robertson came
to a crisis in his own religious experi-
ence. No longer could he believe or
proclaim as he had been taught. So
he left his pulpit and people and
sought the mountain fastnesses; and
there he found faith that lifted him
to heavenly places in Jesus Christ.
He knew, however, that to be true
he must also suffer. But he said:
"Henceforth I expect to stand alone.
But I am not afraid of a solitude
which His presence peoples with a
crowd." One day Lorenzo the Mag-
nificent said : "I am dying. Bring me
that honest friar. I do n't want those
who have said what I liked. I want
him who said what was true." And
they brought to the room the lean and
gaunt Girolamo Savonarola, and the
king said, " Savonarola, confess me
and give me absolution." And, true
[ 40 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

to the last, the friar said: "I will do
so on three conditions — that you con-
fess your dependence on the mercy of
God, that you order your sons to pay
back your ill-gotten gains, and that
you restore to the people of Florence
the liberties which you took from
them." And Lorenzo the king re-
fused, and the faithful friar walked
out.

One day young Henry Ward
Beecher was made pastor of a Church
in Indiana. And he found that the
subject of slavery was tabooed in the
pulpits of that section. They might
preach of the sins of the Jews, but
not of the sin of the South. And
young Beecher began to touch it by
means of illustration. And then he
went farther, and touched that open
sore of civilization. And after his
sermon one of the men came up to
[ 41 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

him and said, "Mr. Beecher, if you
preach against slavery, six of our
most prominent families will leave
this Church."

And that young preacher, with his
future before him, lifted himself up
in his might and said, "Give me their
names now, please, that I may give
them their letters at once."

One day the Wesleyan Church for-
got the spirit of Wesley. William
Booth wanted to go out and work
among the social outcasts. They
wanted to tie him down and run him
in a mold. In pious stupidity they
said, "You can do just this and this."
And a little woman in the gallery
rose up and cried, "Never, William!
Never!" And William Booth took
his hat and went out to found the
Salvation Army.

Those were supreme moments in
[ 42 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

the lives of those mighty men. They
were moments upon whose issues
hung the destiny of countless human
souls. Such dramatic moments may
be ours, and again they may not.
But ours it is to choose the higher
or lower road, the road of slavish
subserviency or the road of con-
science and God, the road to the
greatest power, or the road to im-
potence and barren labor. Let us
fail not when the test comes ; fail not
as God is our God. Do not be a
casuist in the pulpit and an oppor-
tunist outside. Do not do your pas-
toral work from the pulpit, but
preach the whole counsel of God.
Preach it in tenderness and love,
but preach it direct to men's souls.
Preach it not destructively, but con-
structively and wisely. Be the slave
of no man or class, but be the servant
[ 43 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

of all. Go forward with the Chris-
tian program though you walk the
way alone. Compromises you must
make, but make them always toward
the goal. Tact and patience you
must have, but both must be servants
of fidelity. Never take a backward
step for considerations of self-inter-
est. Never let personal friendship
blind your eyes to the truth, or stay
your feet from the path of duty.
You can trust the truth. You can
trust the best in men. Above all else,
you can trust God. Keep in touch
with all classes and get out of sym-
pathy with none. Let your con-
science be captive to God, and your
wisdom be from above. If need be,
and some time it may, take your
whole ecclesiastical future and lay it
on the altar of duty. Risk all in loy-
alty to conviction and in one vast ven-
[ 44 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

ture of faith. Renounce! Renounce
if need be all that makes life dear.
And then the world will heed, for it
will hear again the voice of the Christ,
the call of Almighty God. In the
urgent words which came to me long,
long ago:

" Be true to all truth the world denies,
Not tongue-tied to its gilded sin,
Not always right in all men's eyes,
But faithful to the light within."

The man of God must be a lover
of men. The salvation of souls and
the restoration of the race must be
his real meat and drink.

This is a tremendous age. It is
tremendous in its radical changes in
human life and thought. By many it
has been called an age of transition.
I prefer to call it an age of fermen-
tation. The difference between this
[ 45 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

and the centuries gone is not one of
mere mechanical change. It is rather
one of germinating seeds, of opening
and bursting life. Modern science
has laid to rest a thousand pet tradi-
tions and theories. It has altered not
so much our knowledge as our whole
method of thinking. Henry Van
Dyke says that the coat of arms of
this generation should be an interro-
gation-point rampant. He never
breathed a more trenchant phrase, ex-
cept when he said, "In times of ad-
versity prepare for prosperity." We
are holding up everything in the
heavens above, and the earth beneath,
and the waters under the earth, and
demanding of them self -explanation.
We are sounding the depths of truth
and testing the foundations of being.
Modern invention has wrought as
great change in our living as pure
[ 46 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

science has wrought in our thinking.
The one extended the life of the
earth. The other diminished its size.
God, through man, has made of the
seas a highway, and caused the desert
to blossom as a rose. We have all
moved into the same dooryard. The
wroiid is so small that we learn before
breakfast what struck it the night
before. Somebody said to me, "Is
your Church a large one?" "Rather,"
I answered, "rather. My front seats
are in New England and my back
seats in the Rocky Mountains." At
one service we knew of folks direct
from thirteen States, Canada, Eng-
land, and India. A man can stand in
a room in New York and talk with
his son in Chicago. He speaks at
two o'clock in the afternoon, and his
son hears him at one the same after-
noon. I do n't wonder that when an
[ 47 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

Irishman received a cablegram from
England, he looked at the hour at
which it was sent, then he looked at
the clock, and then he said, " There is
a miracle if there ever was one. This
happened before it came to pass."

Modern civilization has created
conditions of which our forefathers
knew nothing. Every great move-
ment is pregnant of great disaster,
and every age has its own peculiar
perils. This age has problems and
perils never known before. "The
solidarity of the race" is a phrase
that has literally been born again.
This is a social age in the largest
sense of that term. The sins of to-
day are corporate sins, and the sor-
rows are aggregated sorrows. A fire
in a Negro's hut in the South means
a whole city in ruins. The question
of the Lord's day in the city, with
[ 48 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

fresh air and green grass miles away,
is vastly different from the question
of the Lord's day when a man could
step over his door-sill and be in the
open. The matter of moral piracy
when men scuttle cities is vastly dif-
ferent from what it was when men
scuttled ships. We do n't murder
with a bludgeon any more, we mur-
der with an adulterant. Evil has or-
ganized for business, and the man
highest up is bound by thongs to the
man wrho is lowest down. And so
the phrase and fact of social service
have been incorporated in vocabulary
and life. The brotherhood of man
has taken on a very broad and prac-
tical meaning. It is ours not merely
to arrest the drunkard. It is ours to
arrest the saloon. Our task is not
simply to reform the scarlet woman,
but to smite the social evil, and smite
[ 49 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

hard. The laborers must be given
justice as well as the offer of salva-
tion. Christianity in the heart de-
mands large fruitage in social rela-
tions. A man can not be a John the
Baptist on the official board and a
Judas Iscariot in his business. Chris-
tianity is very thorough, or the term
has lost its significance. It is honesty
in business, purity in life, the spirit
of service, and all by the constrain-
ing love of Jesus Christ. Those are
the lights and shades of modern civ-
ilization in this new-born twentieth
century.

In this stupendous and complex
age the Church has just one task. It
may have many duties, but it can
have just one task. And I dare
aver that that task is not the bring-
ing in of a new social order. The
danger of the Church of God to-
[ 50 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

day is not that it will attempt too
little, but that it will attempt too
much. It is not the danger of nar-
rowness, but the danger of scattera-
tion. The preacher of to-day is in
peril of becoming a mere teacher of
ethics. The pulpit is in peril of be-
coming a public rostrum for the dis-
cussion of a thousand questions of
general interest but subordinate im-
portance. "A lot of men are ham-
mering hard, but when they get
through we find they have only been
driving brass-headed tacks." The
Church is in peril of becoming a mere
social center, without an appeal to the
conscience and a consequent change
in character. And the peril of the
Christian life to-day is that, in the
lives and minds of many, it wrill be-
come a mere aggregation of humani-
tarian activities.

[ 51 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

The Lord Jesus Christ incurred
obloquy and death because He would
do just one thing. He went about
telling men about God when they
wanted a new social order. The in-
tellectual thought Him insipid, and
the reformers called Him a fool.
But that arbiter, Time, has decided
the case in favor of the Master Man.
Those little stories of God have be-
come leaves of healing for all peoples.
That foolish death on the cross has
become source and secret of all prog-
ress. Out of that handful of follow-
ers came a Mary Magdalene and a
St. John. And out of that slow-
going process have come a new
heaven and a new earth.

We are wonderfully smart, but

we can not improve on the Christ .

We go backward, not forward, when,

in our haste, we try to run ahead

[ 52 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

of God Almighty. "Only the
Golden Rule of Christ can give
us the golden age of man." And
only the twice-born man can give us
the Golden Rule of Christ. The
Christian minister is not an Old Tes-
tament reformer. He is the apostle
of the New Testament redemption.
His message is not simply social re-
construction. It is repentance and
regeneration. His first work is not
to bring in new laws, but rather to
bring out new lives. He is a witness,
and his constant cry is, "Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved." The great business of the
Church is not to build new tenements,
but rather to build new men. It is
not to raise men's wages. It is to
teach men, so that they can not for-
get it, that the wages of sin is death.
In fact, the final problem of the
[ 53 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

world is the old black problem of sin.
Not, if you please, of evil, but of
individual personal sin. And the
only adequate remedy for sin is re-
demption in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is that which makes weak men
strong, sick men well, and bad men
good. It is that which leads nations
out of darkness into light. It is that
which fuses a man and flings him
out to fight sin and serve God. It
is that and only that which can give
us a new social order, for it is that
and only that which can bring in the
Kingdom of God. And the Church
of God is to make such men and send
them out to live and serve.

And now let me say the one last
thing on this all-important subject.
In this great enterprise the only
leader for the Church is a genuine
lover of men. It is he who cares for
[ 54 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

men's souls, and cares till he can not
sleep. It is he who makes everything
bend toward the one work of getting
men saved.

In the new edition of John Wes-
ley's Journal I find this naive entry:
"On Thursday, the 20th, I set out.
The next afternoon I stopped a little
at Newport Pagnell, and then rode
on till I overtook a serious man, with
whom I immediately fell into conver-
sation. He presently gave me to
know what his opinions were, there-
fore I said nothing to contradict him.
He was quite uneasy to know whether
I held the doctrine of the decrees as
he did. But I told him over and
over we had better keep to practical
things, lest wre should be angry at
one another. And so we did for two
miles, till he caught me unawares and
dragged me into the dispute before
[ 55 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

I knew where I was. He then grew
warmer and warmer; told me I was
rotten at heart, and supposed I was
one of John Wesley's followers. I
told him, 'No, I am John Wesley
himself/ upon which he would gladly
have run away outright. But being
the better mounted of the two, I kept
close to his side, and endeavored to
show him his heart till he came into
the street of Northampton."

Superb! Sublime! That is per-
sonal work, and there a lover of men.

Some time ago I sat and talked
with a district superintendent in the
West. He was deploring the inertia
of the Church to-day, and trying to
find the cause. At last he said:

"I wish I had the same faith and
fearless persistence that my preacher-
father had. He feared neither man
nor devil, official board nor mob. On
[ 56 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

one of his charges the work lan-
guished, and the church was spiritu-
ally dead. So he called his official
board together and said, 'What shall
we do?'

' 'Oh,' they said, 'there is nothing
to do. Things are as they are.'

' 'I want a series of meetings,' he
said.

"They replied: 'We are behind in
the finances this year. We can't af-
ford what they would cost.'

" 'All right,' he said. 'If I can't
have a series of services with you, then
I '11 have a series of services without
you.'

"And he did. On Sunday morn-
ing he announced from the pulpit,
'Special services will be held in this
church every evening this week ex-
cept Saturday.'

"Monday evening he and the jani-
[ 57 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

tor were the only ones present. When
he asked the janitor to lead in prayer
the man fled, and he was left alone.
And alone he met every night that
week. He built the fire and lighted
the lights. Then he read the Scrip-
tures, sang a hymn, prayed, and went
home.

"The next Sunday morning he an-
nounced from the pulpit, 'Special
services will be continued in this
church five evenings this week.' And
they were. On Monday evening a
group of young men heard him hold-
ing forth.

" 'Come on/ said one, 'let 's go in.
There 's an old fool in here who is
holding meetings with himself. Let 's
go in and see how he does it.' They
went in. He preached the gospel.
One of those young men arose and
came to God. The next night there
[ 58 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

were twenty there, including some of
the official board. The next night
the church was filled, and for six con-
secutive weeks that old man preached
Christ, and a hundred and fifty came
to God."

Years ago a plain Methodist
preacher fell in love with the world's
unlovely. In his own picturesque
phrase, he came to where he actually
hungered for hell. He pushed out
into the midst of it in the East End
of London. For days he stood in
those seething streets, muddy with
men and women. He drank it all in
and loved it because of the souls he
saw. One night he went home and
said to his wife, "Darling, I have
given myself, I have given you and
the children, to the service of those
sick souls." And she smiled and took
his hand, and together they knelt and
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THE MINISTER AS A MAN

prayed. That was the beginning of
the Salvation Army, of the great
work of William Booth.

You tire of illustrations. I as-
sure you that I do not. Would I
could go on hanging stars in the
sky, that you might not miss your
way. After all, the work of the
ministry is not a work at all. It is
a holy passion, consuming, over-
whelming, sublime. It is the passion
that made Paul immortal and John
Knox the human savior of Scotland.
It is the passion that set Whitefield
on fire and flung Wesley out into the
fields. It is the passion that sent
David Brainerd to his knees and kept
him there until a new day dawned. It
is the passion that gives no rest till
we see men made new by the grace of
God through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ.

[ 60 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

This is the plain message which
the minister needs to-day. To us
has been committed the task of in-
terpreting God to men. To us
has been given the yet holier task
of bringing men to God. We must
not, we can not, fail in the glori-
ous work entrusted to us. It calls
for our highest endeavor, for the in-
vestment of every talent. It lays
upon our shoulders the heaviest bur-
den ever borne by mortal man. The
doing of that task tests a man in
every last fiber of his being. There
are times of despondency and times
of despair, for the flesh is weak in-
deed. But the joy of fidelity and
loving service impoverishes man's vo-
cabulary to express. To have the
aged and infirm declare that you
have brought heaven nearer; to have
strong men say, " You put heart into
[ 61 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

me for the heavy work of life;" to
have children say, "You led me to
Jesus and made me to know life in
God" — and then to be able to say,
"It is not I; it is my Master!"

No other being ever knew what it
was to taste joy like that. The fields
are ripening to-day for the largest
harvest of souls ever gathered. The
race is ready for a new proclamation
of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
The leaders in science are preparing
the way for those with the higher mes-
sage. Philosophy cries out with un-
erring voice of the spiritual basis of
life. Lodge and Eucken and Berg-
son clear the way for the gospel. The
world's unrest may be the forerunner
of the glorious Gospel of Rest. Time
is on our side. God is with us. Go
out, then, to your mighty task in the
strength of the God of our fathers.
[ 62 ]

THE MINISTER AS A MAN

Be filled with the strength of Him
whose you are and whom you serve.
Let this mind be in you which was in
Jesus Christ our Lord. Forget all
else in the unutterable privilege of
knowing and being like Him. Sur-
render every corner of your soul to
His tender and loving dominion.
And then it will be yours to behold
heavenly conquests which we who are
passing on prayed for but never
knew. You will see, it may be, the
kingdoms of this world become the
Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

[ 63]

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