The ministry

Front matter

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Preface

This book has been written not only for men seeking to know their vocation, but also for men who have definitely decided to enter the ministry. Some men will be patient and, in its printed order, read the book through. Others may care to use it to answer this question or that. I hope that the table of conl:ents will lead them to the answers which they seek.

Obviously no handbook such as this may be counted a sufficient guide. Biography will give color to dry details; and varied biographies of the ministry abound. Two books especially I suggest as vivid, concrete illustrations of the life of the ministry. One of them chances to be a book which I had the privilege of writing — the ''Life of Edward Lincoln Atkinson."* The book is

* Published by Longmans, Green, & Co., London and New York.

vii viii PREFACE

so truly Atkinson's that I have no qualms in drawing attention to the happy experience of his brief ministry; for it will tell a young man what he may expect at the beginning. The other book is John Watson's ''Cure of Souls."* Here the reader will find the rich experience of an older man.

V^. l^m O*

Grace Church Rectory

New York

♦ Published by Dodd, Mead, & Co., New York.

Contents

CHAPTER PAOB

I. The Call of Every Man . . i

II. What the Ministry Is . . . 8

II What The Ministry Is

This whole book attempts to explain the ministry. At this point it seems wise to put down in as few words as possible what the ministry is. The rest of the book, it is hoped, will fill in the details.

I

The ministry is, first of all, a profession which allows a man to spend his whole life in helping others. That is his business. The community supports him for that purpose. A man in business sometimes gives one night a week to a boys' club. As he becomes interested in the individual boys he goes to see them in their homes. Then he becomes interested in the parents. He sees conditions in American homes which need radical reform. He knows that only personal service can effect this reform. He wishes he could give three nights a week

WHAT THE MINISTRY IS 9

and several days each week to the beguiling work for his boys. But he cannot. After all, he must give his chief attention to his business that his family may be supported, and that his colleagues in business may know that he is not shirking his share of the work. Inevitably he must look with envy upon the parson who is set free to spend all his time in doing just such work as his boys' club opens to him in vision.

The best men long to serve. Every good man tries to do what he can for others. The ministry sets a man free to spend all his time in service.

II

You will instantly think of the doctor and the teacher. Their lives, too, are dedicated to doing unselfish good; and the world would be a forlorn place without them. All honor to them in their superb service ! But their work is essentially limited to the bodies and minds of men. It is quite true that many a doctor heals the sick soul of his patient, and many a teacher builds up the soul of his pupil, but that is not their necessary function. In so far as they belo THE MINISTRY

stow these larger benefits, they are entering the special domain of the ministry.

The ministry helps in any way it can: it teaches, it binds up wounds, it gives bread ; but its essential function is to help men in the highest and deepest places in their lives. When they are glad, the ministry tries to make them generous with their joy; when they are grief-stricken, the ministry tries to give them hope; when they have confessed awful sin, the ministry tries to open the door of their despair into genuine repentance and the assurance of God's forgiveness. The very best part of the work of the ministry is hidden, because it is confidential.

It is a great thing, when you have reached a high or a deep place in life, to know that there is a man in the community to whom you have a right to go. Your friend might be bored or shocked; your family might be incredulous or distressed. The parson, you discover, exists for this very purpose: he is to help men in the high and the deep places in life. He may fail. But he will try. And what you tell him, no one else in the world will be told.

WHAT THE MINISTRY IS ii

If it is a great thing when you are exalted or abased to know that there is such a would-be helper of mankind, think what it must be to be that man himself. Can you imagine how he must rejoice that men, whether many or few, count on him in the supreme moments of life? Do you think he envies any famous man his fame, any rich man his riches, any powerful man his power ? No ; there is no place in life which he would exchange for his own place. He is thrilled with the thought that he is expected to help men in the heights and the depths, and he reaches out with all his might not to disappoint them.

This help is given in various ways. It is often given face to face. It is quite as often given by sermons, which are straight attempts to speak to a congregation as one would speak to an earnest friend who wished to reflect upon the secrets of a good life — begun, continued, and ended in God. Occasionally the help is given by an ofiicial act like a baptism or a marriage or a funeral into which the personality of the minister has been poured, because he himself has been deeply moved. His voice has unconsciously revealed how much he cares; and therefore men suspect how his Master cares. The help is also given in the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion, when the people, obeying the command of Christ, come especially near not only to one another but to Christ Himself, so that their lives are fused in Him and His life enters into them in the simplicity of a mutual loyalty and a loving faith. Really there is no end of the ways in which a man serves, once he takes the service of Christian ministrations as his one and only business in life.

Ill

The vocation of the ministry would be

\^^^ hopelessly baffling if a man had to depend

on his own strength. He is trained to look

for and to find the help which his difficult

task involves.

A

He finds this help in two ways. The first way is through others. In the beginning, a man depends a good deal upon other people's experience. Men who teach him face to face or through the printed page

WHAT THE MINISTRY IS 13

tell him the experience which has come to them. Their honesty and clear sight he cannot doubt. He trusts them. He often gives his parishioners solid assurance; giving it, indeed, with gleaming eye and firm voice, because he knows good men whose word he can and does absolutely trust. He has entered into their experience and appropriated it; and it is, in a genuine sense, his possession.

Little by little, as his ministry grows, he learns immediately what life at its highest and deepest is. He sees it in the faces of his sorrowing or triumphant parishioners. '*The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain.'' He knows certain facts of life, hitherto hidden from all eyes, as surely as the scientist sees certain other facts of life through his powerful microscope. As he helps, he is helped. As he brings assurance, he receives assurance. Naturally shrinking from the delicacy of his mission, he is fortified by the constantly enlarging knowledge which his experience with men is giving him. As the years pass, he can say with increasing conviction, ''This I know."

B

The other way In which a minister finds help for his work is by a growing intimacy with God. A youth is rightly modest about his knowledge of God. He knows that if he is to assist men in the highest and deepest places in life he must bring them through all human assurances to a spot where they will be alone with God. There, quite alone, they will receive the aid which only God can give. But men will ask hard questions about God; and the neophyte is frightened lest his knowledge of God be too dim, too inarticulate, to form a basis of introduction. Now what can be said about this ?

First, a man who goes into the ministry is expected to spend a good deal of time in prayer and in quiet reflection (which may be a deeper kind of prayer, because it is listening to God). To act well in any vocation, a man must pray and think. One does not go into the difficulties of the ministry fully equipped. The equipment is given day by day to the man who asks and then listens. There need be no fear.

Secondly, public worship means more to

WHAT THE MINISTRY IS 15

the minister than to any one else in the church. In much of the service, he speaks in the presence of the people, for them and for himself, before God. Their silent and most real worship is joined to his. The fact that it is common worship makes it possible for each person in the church to come nearer to God than he could come if he were alone. The spiritual energy of the devotion and aspiration of all is, in some wonderful way, given to each one. But every man must make his own effort ; then the reinforcement is given. Public worship can be for the minister no perfunctory or formal act. It is fundamental. He goes out of church knowing that God is closer to him, more intimately his companion, more truly the source and end of all the help he would give to mankind.

In the third place, a minister is helped, as the days pass, by appreciating that he is a member of Christ's glorified body. Christ is his Master, his Head. Not only is he responsible to his Leader, who is both human and divine; but this divine and human Leader is also responsible to him. The help which the minister is appointed to give IS not isolated and sporadic; it is organized and continuous. One stands behind the ministry of the Church, who is using now this man, now that, to bring His unfaiUng strength to the children of His Father. The man who tries hardest in his own strength, at last, with all honest preparation, yields himself to be a medium through which the omnipotent Strength may pass into the life of the man whom the minister would help with the Greatest and the Best. Then he stands aside, as it were, and beholds the wonderful works of God.

The ministry gives a man the most effective and necessary service which one man can hope to give to another. And the man who undertakes it need not be afraid. He will himself steadily be given the help whereby he may be confident that he shall be able to give the surest help to others.

Ill

THE ESSENTIALS OF A CALL TO THE MINISTRY

Let us now imagine that the boy or young man who reads this book is wondering if he is not intended for the ministry of the Church. The first question such a person will ask is whether he believes he has a call to the ministry.

Before defining what might constitute the signs of a call to the ministry, I must draw attention to the fact that it is no more essential for a clergyman to be called to the ministry than it is for a teacher to be called to teaching, or a lawyer to the law, or a merchant to the shop.

As you look over the people of a community there are certain men whom you instantly decide could have done no other work than the work they are doing. There is the family physician. He is so far essential to the Hves within many houses, he is so bUthe in the presence of joy or of sUght ills, he is so firm and siire in the hour of great need, he is so absorbed in his profession, that you could not for one moment imagine him anything but a doctor. You know that he has been called of God. Then there is the famous banker, known perhaps on two continents. You look deeply into his life. You see that long ago the mere desire to make money evaporated. He is interested in huge enterprises. He makes railroads and steamships possible. He is secretly caring for the unfortunate. He is sensitive to public panic, and often so stills feverish men that a national calamity is averted. He watches men who are honest in the moment of their danger, comes cheerily into their offices, tells them all that he has is behind them; and they are saved. He sees a bank about to fail, bringing into its crash widows and orphans; he puts his wealth into it, and there is no '*run on the bank''; all men trust it. It may seem a very worldly task to be a banker. But this man whom I have described you know God has called to be a banker; you could not imagine him anything else. I remember going into a cabinetmaker's shop years ago. I wished this man to make me some Chippendale chairs. He showed me a distinguished old chair which he said he would copy. I said, ^^Will you copy it exactly"? His eyes flashed. '^I shall make better chairs," he cried; and then he showed me a certain line which I saw could be improved. Afterwards he broke part of a chair which he was just making to show me that it would break an5rwhere but in the strong joint, which his craft had fastened. That man, I knew, God had called to be a cabinetmaker; and to this day I look at those chairs with the reverence with which I look upon a beautiful picture or the sonnet of a master poet.

In contrast with the men who are obviously called, there are the rank and file in every town, in every city, who have no sense of vocation. They are like dumb, driven cattle. They work because they must, or they do no work at all because they can eat the bread of idleness. No one likes to see a clergyman who, so far as one can determine, has no sense of vocation. Neither does one Hke to see any man, whatever his occupation, who is not sure that he has been called to do what he is doing. The responsibility to get God*s verdict on what you are meant to do is imperative throughout the length and breadth of life. Do not comfort yourself with the thought that you can go into any work in life without a call, provided you have the least hope of being anything more than a nonentity. In whatever direction you turn, you must put yourself to the pains of knowing the signs which will indicate to you that you have a call from God.

II

If you have, then, an inclination to consider the claims which the ministry has upon you, how shall you decide whether God has called you to it? For some men the heavens open, as they opened for St. Paul, and there is the light brighter than the light of the sun; everything is immediately clear. If you are called in such a manner you have nothing to do but obey. But most men are obliged to think out the problem in a dimmer, more gradual light. They may in the end be exactly as sure; for God's revelation is always to the man who desires to receive it. God will always open the door to the man who knocks. The experience of older men may show to youth some of the signs by which God might indicate a call to the ministry.

In the first place, the superficial qualities of voice, presence, so-called gifts of oratory, may be put aside. They are only useful if more important things have been weighed. A man with a rich voice, imposing presence, facility in utterance, may easily be only a pompous seven-day wonder, whose words and life carry neither conviction nor help. On the other hand, a man with a defect in his speech, of insignificant presence, of no skill in marshalling words, may be the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to all who hear his voice or look into his eyes, because he has certain qualities which the other man wholly lacks. Charles Lamb stuttered: I have often thought what a wonderful minister he would have been — not because he stuttered, but because he had qualities which would have made his parishioners first love him and then follow his virtues, without a thought about the manner of his utterance. I do not mean that the superficial qualities may not help or hinder; what I emphasize here is that they are not fundamental.

Further, young people often have the impression that only learned men ought to be in the ministry. A learned ministry is exceedingly desirable; but most clergymen to-day could not qualify before adequate judges as learned men; and these men who are not in any sense learned, but who have other admirable qualities, are often among the most valuable officers the Christian Church has now, or has ever had. There are certain demands which the Church makes for education in the ministry; but these do not include such acquirements as would entitle a man to be called learned; nor do they make a barrier to any one who has only a very fair mental equipment. If a young man feels the call to active life rather than to the life of a student, the ministry may still be for him. Certain posts in the life of the Church require men of wide and deep knowledge. Other posts may be manned by men whose knowledge is only moderate, provided always that they have the fundamental qualities of which I shall presently speak. I am trying to sweep aside the qualities which are subordinate, that you may fix your attention on the two qualities which seem to me of elementary importance.

The former of these two fundamental tests is so obvious that it seems superfluous to mention it. It is encouraging that we may believe that young men seeking the ministry in our time take it for granted. Nevertheless it must be put down as the primary qualification for the ministry. It is this: Are you determined to lead a good and honorable life? You will say that this is the question which belongs to every Christian man upon the threshold of his Christian responsibility. And you are quite right. No layman may point the finger to the black deed of a clergyman and grant himself as a layman the privilege of doing the same black deed without blame. Both are equally bad in the sight of God. Only, when a clergyman goes wrong, he carries with him the people who have trusted him as a leader and guide. They are more than simply shocked or scandalized ; the props of life are suddenly knocked from under them. They feel that no one can be trusted. Their faith has been cruelly mocked. On the other hand, the transparent goodness of a clergyman has kept many a man in his town on the right track. When I say goodness I mean not simply innocence (though I do mean that) but unselfishness, kindness, quickness to speak up for the unpopular right, forgiveness of injury, patience, detachment from the things of the world, evenness of judgment.

Lest the suggestion of such a catalogue of virtues as this seem overwhelming, it must be pointed out that these virtues are put before one as a goal. One desires them, one will honestly strive for them. We generally attain in life what we honestly strive for. If a young man, looking at the ministry, really wants to lead the finest and truest life he can discover, then he has fulfilled the first of the qualifications for the ministry.

There are one or two details connected with such a principle which must be frankly examined. A man may hold back from the ministry because of an egregious sin in the past. If he be truly penitent, a man who has known the depths is sometimes turned into the best of saints. The youth of Augustine of Hippo was, the world would say, hopeless. Yet, by the grace of God, Augustine became one of the saints of all time. He never condoned his past; but it did not prevent his entrance into the ministry. The man who has never fallen into a disastrous sin is occasionally so complacent that he is a veritable Pharisee, blind to all the irritating faults which make him the contempt of his neighbors. It is not what a man has been, but what he means to be which is the serious question as he faces his choice.

Another detail to be considered is that a boy is saved certain temptations if he determine early to go into the ministry. A great vocatiqn set before one is something like a man's engagement to a noble and beautiful woman; as a man engaged to marry one whom he honors supremely does all he can to make himself worthy, so a man, decided to enter the ministry, does all he can to make himself worthy of what he believes a supreme vocation. He keeps himself unspotted from the world. He has an inspiring and positive reason for keeping himself at his best.

One more detail there Is to think of. Every one in his senses wishes to be of fine character. What would one not give to have one's face shine with the goodness which now and again shines in the face of the truly good man, the man of positive attainment in character! A rarely attractive compulsion of the ministry is that day by day it urges a man on to be his best. Other men do not feel the same need perhaps of absolute probity; they may not feel that so much depends upon it. The minister is always conscious of the necessity of being good, in the sense farthest from cant and smugness — really and deeply good. He is fortunate beyond other men that he has this stimulus.

While we must remember this in all its strength, we must also be assured that the power of the ministry is not in ourselves.

but in God. No preacher, for example, would dare to limit his message to his own attainment. It is what he longs to be, not what he is, of which a man thinks as he preaches. The shining example to which he beckons men is not even the best man he has ever known; but it is the absolutely perfect incarnate Son of God.

B

If the desire to be good is the first of the fundamental tests by which a man may discover his call to the ministry, the second is the genuine desire to help individual people. A man who enjoys preaching to a church full of people, but is bored by the individual members of the congregation, ought not to be in the ministry. A young man who was teaching school the first year after his graduation from college, left a friend with whom he was walking and crossed the street to speak to a man. Returning, he explained to his friend that the man to whom he spoke had a boy in his school; he wished to tell him how well his boy was doing, how satisfactory the boy was, etc. The friend smiled and said:

"You ought to go into the ministry; that's the sort of thing ministers do/' He did go into the ministry, and became one of the very best ministers imaginable. His friend made a sagacious comment ; Interest in Individuals, caring sufficiently to go out of one's way to help, thinking and doing what strikes most deeply for one man at a time, counting each man as he comes worthy of one's best efforts — all that is indication that one is called of God to go Into the ministry.

I have mentioned two outstanding tests by which one may judge if one has been called of God to go into the ministry. I have not spoken of belief. I have not spoken of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. I have not forgotten the importance of belief. I have not forgotten the supreme importance of trust in our divine Master. It Is because I am sure that if a man does all he can to keep Christ's commandments (that Is, to be simply and truly good as Christ taught and lived) then he shall know the doctrine (as Christ promised); and further. If he goes about helping individuals

(people in prison, ragged, hungry, sick), he shall find Christ (who said: '* Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me"). And if a man tries to be as good as he can be and to help people as much as he can, then he will cry out to have his life filled with Christ, not only that Christ may give His perfection to absorb the man's imperfection, but that Christ may speak through his lips, and act through his hands, to help people, one by one, just as He helped them in Galilee years upon years ago. The hidden yet ever present Christ is the secret of all our enthusiasm as we seek the ministry of His Church. That we may test ourselves and know that our enthusiasm is not emotion merely, but is solid, and therefore acceptable to Him, we ask two questions: Do I want to follow Him — that is, do I want to be good as He was good? Do I want to serve with all my being those whom He calls His brothers, one by one, each according to his need?

If you can answer these two questions with a frank and joyful Yes, I think that you will see the light brighter than the light of the sun. I think that the Lord Christ will speak to you, telling you that He needs you to preach His Gospel, in deed and in word, to all the people whom you can possibly reach.

IV Types Useful For The Ministry

Certain types of men enter the ministry with such quaHties as conduce to its effectiveness. These types may not be essential to what in the best sense we may call success. Men of quite different characteristics may be so strong and able that they can win without qualities which for ordinary men are indispensable. But for every man it is an advantage to partake in some degree at least of the qualities which in this chapter are set down. If a man can answer the demands set forth in the last chapter, he will find encouragement if he have these additional traits.

I

THE GENTLEMAN

To be a gentleman is for one man exceedingly easy, for another supremely difficult. The fact that a man's ancestors have been what in a technical sense are called gentlefolk does not necessarily assure his own gentility. The vulgar boors who are brutes to their wives, bores to their friends, and a scandal to the youth of the land, are quite apt to be what are called well-born. They have an innate selfishness and crudeness which make them an abhorrence to all decent people. The thin veneer of good clothes and conventional manners make their cheap characters only the shabbier and more disgusting to the discreet observer.

On the other hand out of the simplest environment have often come the most shining examples of the gentleman in succeeding generations. The man who is always gracious but not effusive, who is dignified but not prim, who sees everything but notices nothing which could embarrass, who avoids the words which wantonly open wounds, who, in a word, is invariably kind, and is able to show forth his kindness, is quite as likely to be born in a cottage as in a palace. The title of gentleman transcends all class boundaries. It is one of the great words of life. In the last analysis a gentleman, like a poet, is born — not made. And again, like a poet, the gentleman cannot be sure that his son will succeed to his genius. The poet's son has amazing opportunities if he is inclined to write verse; the gentleman's son has also amazing opportunities if he is inclined to practise the fine art of inherent kindness nobly expressed; but gentlemen in successive generations can be no more assumed than poets can be assumed. The gentlemen and the poets quite often appear in strange corners of humanity. They are born, not made.

In every town, in every school, in every college, are the youth who stand out as gentlemen. They are the delight of all who know them. One relies on them in emergencies. If a willing hand is needed they are always ready to put aside their own convenience and do the deed which needs to be done. The old are touched by their invariable respect and remembrance; the young look up to them and follow in whatever leadership they may possess. Even the dumb creatures like them. They are unselfish, considerate, tactful. In one word, they are kind; everything is rooted in their kindness. But kindness alone will not make a gentleman. A gentleman is a kind man who has both the intelligence and the skill to show forth his kindness.