Transcriber's Note:

 1. Obvious misspellings and printing errors have been corrected. 

 2. Archaic word spellings have been retained. 

 3. The list of books by the same author has been moved from the beginning to the end of the book. 

 4. Footnotes have been placed immediately following the paragraphs in which they are noted. 

 5. Notation for Footnote 4, which is missing in the original, has been supplied. 

 6. A word that is missing at the beginning of Footnote 8 has been supplied as (I). 

 7. Capitalized headings within chapters are running page headers. 

 8. Running page headers which are designated by * reflect subject matter that occurs within paragraphs in the original and are broken into paragraphs for the purpose of better readability in this document. 

 9. Scripture references (e. G. , Mal. 2. 1; Acts xx. 19; 2 Tim. 1. 12; etc. ) which appear as sidenotes in the original are placed within [ ] and immediately follow the quoted scripture or statement pertaining to scripture to which they refer. 

10. Redundant book heading and redundant chapter headings have been omitted. 

TO MY YOUNGER BRETHREN

Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work

by

THE RIGHT REV. HANDLEY C. G. MOULE, D. D. Lord Bishop of Durham

Fourth Edition

LondonHodder and Stoughton27, Paternoster Row1902

Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld. , London and Aylesbury. 

 TO

 MY DEAR BROTHER AND VICAR, THE REV. JOHN BARTON, M. A. , INCUMBENT OF TRINITY CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE, AND RURAL DEAN, AND TO MY DEAR BROTHERS AND FRIENDS, THE PRESENT AND PAST STUDENTS

 OF RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 

 H. C. G. M. 

 "_Give those who teach pure hearts and wise, Faith, hope, and love, all warm'd by prayer; Themselves first training for the skies They best will raise their people there. _"

 ARMSTRONG. 

PREFACE. 

The following pages do not appear to need any extended preface; theirtopic is set forth in the first lines of the first chapter. With whatsuccess it has been handled is another matter. 

But as a writer reviews his own words, it is inevitable that some sortof _envoi_ should present itself to his mind. In this case the _envoi_seems to me to be the vital necessity of personal holiness in theChristian Minister, in order to the right working of the ChristianMinistry; a personal holiness which shall be no mere form moulded fromwithout but a life developed into manifestation and action from within. 

Never did the Church of Christ more need to remember this than at thepresent day. The strongest surface currents of the age are against it;alike that of unregulated, hurrying, indiscriminate enterprize, and thatof an exaggerated ecclesiasticism. In the one case the worker'scommunion with God tends to be sacrificed to the work, the fountainchoked for the sake of the stream. In the other case there is a seriousrisk that "the Church" may come to be regarded as an almost substitutefor the Lord in matters affecting the life and growth of the Christianman, and of course of the Christian Minister. Sacred are the claims oforder and cohesion, but more sacred and more vital still is the call tothe individual constituent of the community to come to the livingPersonal Christ, "nothing between, " and to abide in innermostintercourse with Him, and to draw every hour by faith on His greatgrace. 

If these simple pages may at all, in His most merciful hands, promotethe holy cause of such a hidden life and its fruitful issues, it willindeed be happiness to the writer. In these days of stiflingmaterialism in philosophy, and withering naturalism in theology, but inwhich also the Holy Spirit, far and wide, is breathing upon us inspecial mercy from above, there is no duty more pressing on theChristian than to seek, in the world of work, after that life which is"lived in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, " and which is manifestedin the strong and patient "meekness of wisdom. "

RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE, _April 22nd, 1892_. 

 "_Servant of God, be fill'd With Jesu's love alone; Upon a sure foundation build, On Christ the corner-stone; By faith in Him abide, Rejoicing with His saints; To Him with confidence, when tried, Make known all thy complaints. _"

 MORAVIAN HYMN-BOOK. 

CONTENTS. 

 CHAPTER I. 

 _THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD_ (i. ). PAGE

 Need of watching and prayer over three departments of a Minister's life--The secret department--Temptations in it from work--From solitude--Secret Devotion--The Morning Watch--Physical precautions--Evening hours--A Minister's prayers must sometimes forget the Ministry--This will be to the advantage of the Ministry--"_Tell Him all_" 1

 CHAPTER II. 

 _THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD_ (ii. ). 

 Secret intercourse with God the life of a Minister's life--The Example of Jesus Christ--Testimony of von Machtholf--Special need of divine communion at the present day--The cry for effort and enterprize--Secularizing theories of religion and the Ministry--A call to young English Clergymen--A caution from Laodicea--Study of the Holy Scriptures--"The New Testament about twice a week"--What says the Ordinal?--M. Henri Lasserre on Devotional Literature and the Gospels--Study the Bible unprofessionally--Bridges' quotation from Witsius--Ridley in the Orchard 21

 CHAPTER III. 

 _SECRET STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. _

 A fragmentary chapter--Higher Criticism--A technical and innocent term--Actual assertions of certain critics--"Do not follow this Book; follow Christ"--Weigh facts before theories--Testimony of Nature and History to Scripture--The Duke of Argyll in the _Nineteenth Century_--Prediction--Problem of the Human Knowledge of Jesus Christ--Current fulfilments of Prophecy--Methods of Bible Study--The plough--The spade--Specimen of spade-husbandry, in a Church Congress Study of the Epistle to the Philippians 45

 CHAPTER IV. 

 _THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (i. ). 

 Secret Communion with God must _accompany_ everything else--We are watched--Self-respect--Consistency largely means Considerateness--"A consistent gentleman"--The Tongue--St Augustine's couplet for the dinner-table--The Clergy-House, its opportunities and risks--The duty of Example--Is it remembered as it used to be?--"For their sakes I sanctify Myself"--"Others" and their claims on us--Manner--Temper--Simeon's patience--The Secret of the Presence 79

 CHAPTER V. 

 _THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (ii. ). 

 "Take heed unto thyself"--Relations with Woman--Christian chivalry--And Christian caution--Special difficulties--"Know thyself"--Celibacy--The Clergyman's Wife--The problem of means--The Clergyman and money--Pecuniary intemperance--Accurate accounts--Investment circulars--"Lay not up for yourselves" 101

 CHAPTER VI. 

 _THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (iii. ). 

 Curate and Incumbent--A Chancellor on Curates--The ideal Incumbent--No Incumbent perfect--And no parish perfectly content--Loyal watchfulness needed accordingly--The Curate's Party--"The lost grace, humility"--Subordination--Take sides against yourself--A letter to _The Record_ on Curates' grievances. 123

 CHAPTER VII. 

 _PASTOR IN PARISH_ (i. ). 

 A boundless subject--Visiting--All-important--Prepare for the round with prayer--Method--Brevity but not hurry--An example--Courtesy--It must be impartial--Visitation of the sick--Its special demands--Punctuality always a duty--Use of the Bible--The advantage of coming as "the Clergyman"--Mistaken for the undertaker--Come to the point--Lying in wait for the occasion--Happy rebukes to timid reticence 147

 CHAPTER VIII. 

 _PASTOR IN PARISH_ (ii. ). 

 Teach as you go--Urgent need of teaching--About Christ--And the Holy Spirit--And Sacraments--Common mistakes about the teaching of the Church--Sin--Evidences--Recollections of a visiting round--The retired tradesman--The sceptical blacksmith--The invalid artizan--The civil-servant--The consumptive--The dying printer--The cripple--Aged poor saints--Saddening visits--Humbling memories--A bright conversion at eighty-two 173

 CHAPTER IX. 

 _THE CLERGYMAN AND THE PRAYER BOOK. _

 "As bad as inspired"--Imperfections in the Book--Yet it is priceless--Spirituality of the Prayer Book--What it takes for granted in the worshipper--A remarkable reason for secession--The Prayer Book as a weapon--Its Scripturality--Its compilers jealous for the Word of God--Ministerial use of the Prayer Book--Put yourself into it--We are not to preach the prayers--Yet we are to pray them--Reading of the Lessons--Baptism--Marriage--Burial--The Holy Communion--Reverence--Of what sort--Instruction-addresses on the Prayer Book--"Less worship" 201

 CHAPTER X. 

 _PREACHING_ (i. ). 

 The Pulpit a central point in the Ministry--Mutual influence of "parish-work" and preaching--"Truth through personality"--Let us "labour in the Word"--"Litho Sermons"--Addison's village-parson and his sermons--_Attractive_ preaching--Is a duty--Audibility--Of the right sort--Good English--Why to be cultivated--Mr Spurgeon's style--French hearers of an English preacher--Good effects on his style--"Written or extempore?"--Length--Action 225

 CHAPTER XI. 

 _PREACHING_ (ii. ). 

 Further remarks on Attractiveness--And, in passing, on Ministerial Considerateness--This is to be practised in preaching--As well as in other functions--Attractiveness to be guarded by Faithfulness--Requisites to attractiveness--"Preach the Gospel earnestly, interestingly, fully"--Jesus Christ is _the Gospel_--Personal conviction the essence of _Earnestness_--"Matter-of-Fact"--_Interest_ sustained by anecdote and illustration--But still more by intelligibility and practicality--Expository sermons--_Fulness_ in the message--Jesus Christ for us--And in us--The Holy Spirit must work with the Word 249

 CHAPTER XII. 

 _PREACHING_ (iii. ). 

 Notes from a Sermon-Lecture--On diction, arrangement, fidelity to the text, proportion of parts, accuracy--On statements about revelation, justification, faith, grace--A paper in _The Churchman_ on Old Sermons--Be a preacher indeed, whatever be the fashion of the time--The Directory of 1645--Its instructions on "the Preaching of the Word"--Spiritual Power in Preaching--How sought and received--Farewell 273

 _Fordington Pulpit_ 301

 _"What contradictions meet In Ministers' employ! It is a bitter sweet, A sorrow full of joy; No other post affords a place For equal honour or disgrace"_

 OLNEY HYMNS. 

 "_The Interpreter had Christian into a private Room, and bid his Man open a Door; the which when he had done, Christian saw a Picture of a very grave Person hang up against the Wall, and this was the fashion of it: It had eyes lift up to Heaven, the best of Books was in its hand, the Law of Truth was written upon its lips, the World was behind his back; it stood as if it Pleaded with Men, and a Crown of gold did hang over its head. _"

 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 

CHAPTER I. 

_THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD_ (i. ). 

 _Pastor, for the round of toil See the toiling soul is fed; Shut the chamber, light the oil, Break and eat the Spirit's bread; Life to others would'st thou bring? Live thyself upon thy King. _

Let me explain in this first sentence that when in these pages I address"my Younger Brethren, " I mean brethren in the Christian Ministry in theChurch of England. Let me limit my reference still further, by premisingthat very much of what I say will be said as to brethren who have latelytaken holy Orders, and are engaged in the work of assistant Curacies. 

AIM OF THE BOOK. 

Day by day, for many years past, my life has lain among men preparingthemselves for just that work. As a matter of course my thoughts haverun incessantly in that direction. Many a lecture in the library wherewe work together, and many a conversation in dining-hall, or by studyfire, or in college garden, or on country road, has given point to thosethoughts and enabled me, I trust, better to understand my youngerBrethren, and with more sympathy to make myself, as an elder brother, understood by them. What I here seek to do, with the gracious aid of ourblessed Master, is somewhat to extend the range of such talks, and toask a friendly hearing from younger Brethren in the holy Ministry withwhom I have never had the opportunity of speaking personally. 

I have not the least intention of writing a treatise on the ChristianPastorate. To talk to young Christian Ministers about some importantdetails of pastoral life and work, but above all of life, inward andoutward--this is my simple purpose. 

 * * * * *

THREE LINES OF PRAYER. 

One day in each week, at Ridley Hall, we unite in special prayer, without liturgical form, for those members of the Hall who have gone outinto actual ministry. As I lead my dear younger Brethren in thatsupplication, the heart feels itself full of many, very many, well-remembered faces, characters, lives. It seems to see those many oldfriends scattered abroad in the Lord's work-field; and it sees, ofcourse, a very large variety among them, in the way of both characterand circumstances. But, with all this consciousness of differences, mythoughts and my petitions always, by a deep necessity, run for all alikealong three main paths. The first prayer is for the young Clergyman'sinner and secret Life and Walk with God. The second is for his daily andhourly general Intercourse with Men. The third is for his officialMinistrations of the Word and Ordinances of the Gospel. And in all thesedirections, after all, one desire, one prayer, has to be offered, theprayer that everywhere and always, from the inmost recesses of life toits largest and most public circumference, the Lord and Master may take, and keep, full possession of the servant. I pray that in secretdevotion, and in secret habits, Jesus Christ may be intensely presentwith the man; and that in common intercourse, in all its parts, He maybe the constant and all-influencing Companion, to stimulate, to control, to chasten, to gladden, to empower; and that in the preaching of theWord the servant may really and manifestly speak from, and for, and in, his Lord; and that in ministration of the sacramental and otherOrdinances he may truly and unmistakably walk before Him in holysimplicity, holy reverence, and full spiritual reality, "serving theLord, " and serving the flock, "with all humility of mind. " [Acts xx. 19. ]

My present talks on paper will take very much the lines of theseprayers. Secret walk with God, common and general walk with men, specialministrations--I desire to say a little on each and all of these points, and more or less in this order, though without attempting too rigid anarrangement, where one subject must often run over into another. 

 * * * * *

SECRET WALK WITH GOD. 

Let me take up the first great topic of the three for a few preliminarywords in this chapter: THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD of the young Pastor ofChrist's flock. 

HINDRANCES: WORK. 

My brotherly reader will not need any long explanation or carefulapology from me here. He knows as well as I do, on the one hand, that aclose secret walk with God is unspeakably important in pastoral life, and, on the other hand, that pastoral life, and not least in its earlydays, is often allowed to hinder or minimize the real, diligent work(for it is a work indeed in its way) of that close secret walk. He findsall too many possible interferences with the inner working on the partof the outer. Such interferences come from very different quarters. Thenew Curacy, the new duties and opportunities, if the man has his heartin his ministry, will prove intensely interesting, and at first, verypossibly, encouragement and acceptance may predominate over experiencesof difficulty and trial. Services, sermons, visits to homes and toschools, with all the miscellanies that attend an active andwell-ordered parochial organization--these things are sure to have aspecial and exciting interest for most young men who have taken Ordersin earnest. And it will be almost inevitable that the Curate, under eventhe most wise, considerate, and unselfish of Incumbents, should find"work" threatening rapidly to absorb so much, not of time only butthought and heart, that the temptation is to abridge and relax veryseriously indeed secret devotion, secret study of Scripture, andgenerally secret discipline of habits, that all-important thing. 

*HINDRANCES: SOLITUDE. 

Then, on the other hand, there is a risk and trial from a region quiteopposite. The Curate comes to his new work, and takes up his abode inlodgings--alone. Only a few months ago, perhaps only a few weeks ago, hewas in rooms at College, amidst all the social as well as mentalinterests of University life, and (so it is, thank God, for manyUniversity men now) feeling on every side the help of Christianfriendship and fellowship of the warmest and truest sort. And now, socially and as to fellowship in Christ, he is, to speak comparatively, alone. I say, _comparatively_. Very likely he has found in his Incumbenta friend and elder brother, perhaps a friend and loving father, in theLord. And most probably he will find among his people, and that verysoon if he is on the watch, friends in Christ, gentle or simple. He maybe associated with a brother Curate or Curates; and if so, the inmostaim of both or all ought to be, and in most cases will be, not only towork in the same parish but to work heart to heart as "in Him. "Nevertheless, the Vicar or Rector, though a friend, is a very busyfriend; and so is the brother Curate; and the Christian friend in theparish is after all only one of the many souls to whom the man has tominister, and he must not forget those who perhaps need him most justbecause they are least congenial to him. 

*ITS DANGERS. 

So the sense of change, of solitude, in such part of his life as isspent indoors, may be, and, as I know, very often is, real and deep, sadand sorrowful, and in itself not wholesome, to the young Minister ofChrist. Possibly my reader knows nothing of all this; but I think itmore likely that at least he knows something of it. And it needs hisprompt and watchful dealing if it is not to hurt him greatly. Solitudewill not _by itself_, if I judge rightly, help him to secret intercoursewith God. A feeling of solitude, under most circumstances, much moretends, by itself, to drive a man unhealthily inward, in unprofitablequestionings and broodings, or in still less happy exercises of thought. Or it drives him unhealthily outward, quickening the wish for merestimulants and excitements of mind and interest. Aye, let me not shrinkfrom saying it, it sometimes quickens a wish for "stimulants" in themost literal sense of the word. Exhausting and multifarious parochialwork, and the lonely bachelor quarters at the day's end, have brought tomany a young man sore temptations of that sort, and sometimes they havewon the battle, to the wreck and ruin of the work and of the worker. 

HINDRANCES ARE OCCASIONS. 

Well, all these facts or possibilities are just so many reminders thatthe new Curate's life will not, of itself, greatly help him to maintainand quicken his Secret Walk with God, that vital necessity for his work. It certainly will _not_ do so directly; it will, directly, be a problem, not an aid. But on that very account, dear Brother and reader, your newconditions of life may prove indirectly a most powerful aid, by being aconstant and urgent _occasion_. As you are a Minister of Christ, yourlife and work will, in the Lord's sight, be a failure, yes, I repeat it, a failure, be the outside and the reputation what they may, if you donot walk with God in secret. But therefore your life and work are adaily and hourly occasion for the positive resolve, in His Name, thatwalk with Him you will. Recognize the risks, right and left, the risksbrought by pastoral activities and interests, and those brought bypastoral loneliness and uncheerfulness. Remember the vital necessityamidst those risks. And then you will the more deliberately purpose andplan how to guard your secret devotions, and how to order your secrethours even when devotion is not your direct duty, so that your Lordshall be indeed there, at the centre, "a living, bright Reality" to you. 

SECRET DEVOTION. 

Let me plunge into the midst at once, with a few simple suggestions onSECRET DEVOTION. 

LET IT BE DELIBERATE. 

I ask my younger Brother, then, to keep sacred, with all his heart andwill, an unhurried time alone with the Lord, night and morning at theleast. I do not intrusively prescribe a length of time. But I do mostearnestly say that the time, shorter or longer, must be _deliberatelyspent_; and even ten minutes can be spent deliberately, whilemismanagement may give a feeling of haste to a much longer season. Donot, I beseech you, minimize the minutes; seek for such a fulness of"the Spirit of grace and of supplications, " [Zech. Xii. 10. ] as shalldraw you quite the other way. But if the time, any given night ormorning, _must_ be short, let it nevertheless be a time of quiet, reverent, collected worship and confession and petition. One thingassuredly you can do: you can, if you will, secure a real "MorningWatch" before your day's work begins. I do not say it is easy. Young menvery commonly sleep sounder and longer than we seniors do; they are notalways easy to rouse in a moment. But they can direct some of theirenergy to contrive against themselves, or rather _for_ themselves, howto secure a regular early rising to meet their Lord. Most ingenious, notto say amusing, are some of the devices which friends of mine haveconfided to me; schemes and stratagems to get themselves well awake ingood time. But after all, in most lodging-houses surely it must bepossible to be called early, and to instruct the caller to show no mercyat the chamber door. Anyhow, I do say that the fresh first interviewwith the all-blessed Master must at all costs be secured. Do not bebeguiled into thinking it can be arranged by a half-slumbering prayer inbed. Rise up--if but in loving deference to Him. Appear in the presencechamber as the servant should who is now ready for the day's bondservicein all things but in this, that he has yet to take the day's oath ofobedience, and to ask the day's "grace sufficient, " and to read theday's promises and commands, at the Master's holy feet. 

A PRACTICAL SUGGESTION. 

I do not recommend an unpractical physical mortification as the rule forsuch early hours with God. Fully believing that there is a place fordefinite "abstinence" in the Christian (and certainly in theministerial) life, I do not think that that place is, as a rule, theearly morning hour. Very many men only procure a bad headache for theday by beginning any sort of earnest mental effort without food. Suchmen should take care accordingly to eat a _chotee házaree_ (as oldIndians say), "a little breakfast, " however little, before they pray andread. There are appliances, simple and inexpensive, by which the man inlodgings can, without giving any one trouble, provide himself with hiscup of cocoa or coffee as soon as he is up; and he will be wise to dosomething of this sort, if he is a man whose work by day is heavy forboth body and spirit, and who is thus specially apt to find the truth ofwhat doctors tell us, that "sleep is, in itself, an exhausting process. "

But at any cost, my dear friend and Brother in the Ministry, we musthave our Morning Watch with God, in prayer and in His Word, before allthe day's action. Not even the earliest possible Church service canrightly take the place of that. 

GOOD HOURS AT NIGHT. 

It is obvious to add that punctuality and early hours in the morningwill bring into your life another rule; that of punctuality andreasonably good hours at night. No temptation is greater, sometimes, forthe man alone than to ignore or break such a rule. And no doubt theexigencies of pastoral life, sometimes, but surely not often, make ithard to keep it. But it is extremely important, for the man who wouldwalk closely and humbly with his God, to end the day deliberately at Hisfeet. And here accordingly is another occasion for watchfulness, and formethod, and for will. Do not _drift into the night_. Have a settled hourwhen, as a habit, you lay interests and intercourse of other sortsdown, and turn unhurried to the holy interview, spreading open yourBible by the lamp, the Bible marked and scored with signs of pastresearch, and then kneeling, or standing, or _pacing_, for yourprayer--your prayer which is to be the very simplest (while mostreverent) speech with the Lord. 

PRAY AS A PRIVATE CHRISTIAN. 

In such acts of worship, morning and night, thought for others, for dearones, for parishioners, for colleagues, will have its full place ofcourse. Let it be so, with an ever-growing sense of the preciousness ofthe work of intercession. But I do meanwhile say to my Brother inChrist, take care that no pre-occupation with things pastoral allows youto forget the supreme need of drawing out of Christ's fulness, and outof the treasures of His Word, for _your own_ soul and life, as if thatwere the one and solitary soul and life in existence. We Clergy are indanger of becoming too official, too clerical, even in our prayers. We_are_ the Lord's Ministers; we have a cure and charge of souls as theunordained Christian has not; and let us daily remember it, humbly andreverently. But also we are, all the while, sheep of the flock, absolutely dependent on the Shepherd, men who for their own souls'acceptance, and holiness, and heaven, must for themselves "live at theFountain. " We have to serve others, and "lay ourselves out" for them, daily and hourly. But on that very account, that "our selves" may be, ifI may say so, worth the laying out, we must see that "our selves" are, in their own innermost life and experience, filled with the Spirit ofGod, filled with the presence of an indwelling Lord Jesus Christ by theSpirit. And so we must worship Him, and draw on Him, and abide in Him, and acquaint ourselves with Him, just as if there were no flock at all, that we may the better be of use to the flock. 

LIVE BEHIND YOUR MINISTRY. 

I am sure that this is an important point for the thought and practiceof the young Clergyman. While never really forgetting his ordainedcharacter, let him, for the very purposes of his ordained work, continually "live behind" not only the work but the character; living inthe presence, in the love, in the life, of his Lord and Head, simply inthe character of the redeemed sinner, the personal believer, the gladyounger Brother of the glorious Firstborn, the living Christian with theliving Christ; "knowing whom he has believed, " [2 Tim. I. 12. ] andwalking by faith in Him. 

FOR THE MINISTRY'S SAKE. 

Do you so live, by His grace and mercy? Is the sitting-room and thebedroom of your curacy-lodging the place where you habitually holdintercourse in this holy simplicity with Him who has loved you and givenHimself for you? Then I venture to say that all the more for this, bythat same grace and mercy, you shall be enabled to "lay yourself out"for others, in your pastoral charge. You shall understand other menbetter, by thus securing for your own soul a deeper understanding of theLord Jesus and a fuller sympathy (if the word is reverent) with Him. Ihardly care to analyze how, but somehow, you shall more readily andclosely "get at" men through this direct, simple, unofficial, unclericaldrawing very near indeed to God in Christ. The more you know Him thus at_first-hand_ the more shall you understand alike the needs of the humanheart (of which all individual hearts are but various instances), andthe supplies that are laid up for all its needs in Him. And so youshall go out among your people armed, equipped, with a trulyheaven-given sympathy and tact. True personal intercourse with the Lord, the very closest and deepest, is the very thing to open the whole manout for others, and to teach him how, with a loving intuition, to lookinto them and "upon their things. " [Phil. Ii. 4. ]

A HYMN. 

In the next Chapter I shall speak a little more about the youngClergyman's secret devotion, and secret study of the heavenly Word. Butenough for the present. And let me close with the quotation of ahymn, [1] a new friend of mine, but already a very dear one, andthankfully added to the treasures of memory. It puts in the simplestform possible, while in a form most beautiful, the vital truth that"intercourse with God is the power for holy service. " Happy the youngClergyman whose secret daily life, from its beginning in the "MorningWatch, " on through the intercourse and energies of the day, up to theevening hour of weariness and repose, is a translation into experienceof that blessed hymn. 

[1] By G. M. TAYLOR: _Hymns of Consecration and Faith_ (Second Edition), No. 349. 

"TELL HIM ALL. "

 "When thou wakest in the morning, Ere thou tread the untried way Of the lot that lies before thee Through the coming busy day; Whether sunbeams promise brightness, Whether dim forebodings fall, Be thy dawning glad or gloomy, Go to Jesus--tell Him all!

 "In the calm of sweet communion Let thy daily work be done; In the peace of soul out-pouring Care be banish'd, patience won And if earth with its enchantments Seek thy spirit to enthral, Ere thou listen, ere thou answer-- Turn to Jesus--tell Him all!

 "Then, as hour by hour glides by thee, Thou wilt blessed guidance know; Thine own burthens being lighten'd, Thou canst bear another's woe; Thou canst help the weak ones onward; Thou canst raise up those that fall; But, remember, while thou servest, Still tell Jesus--tell Him all!

 "And if weariness creep o'er thee As the day wears to its close, Or if sudden fierce temptation Bring thee face to face with foes-- In thy weakness, in thy peril, Raise to heaven a truthful call; STRENGTH AND CALM FOR EVERY CRISIS COME--IN TELLING JESUS ALL. "

CHAPTER II. 

_THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD_ (ii). 

 _He that would to others give Let him take from Jesus still; They who deepest in Him live Flow furthest at His will. _

I resume the rich subject of Secret Devotion, Secret Communion with God. Not that I wish to enter in detail on either the theory or the practiceof prayer in secret; as I have attempted to do already in a little bookwhich I may venture here to mention, _Secret Prayer_. My aim at present, as I talk to my younger Brethren in the Ministry, is far rather to layall possible stress on the vital importance of the habit, however it mayprove best in individual experience to order it in practice. "As a manthinketh in his heart, so is he" [Prov. Xxiii. 7. ]; and as a lifeworketh in its heart, so is it. And the heart of a Christian Minister'slife is the man's Secret Communion with God. 

Let us Clergymen take as one of our mottoes that deeply suggestive wordof the Lord by Malachi, where the ideal Levi is depicted: "_He walkedwith Me_ in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. "[Mal. Ii. 6. ]

THE LORD'S EXAMPLE. 

Remember with what a heavenly brightness that principle was glorified inthe recorded life on earth of "the great Shepherd of the sheep, " [SN:Heb. Xiii. 20. ] who in this also "left us an example, that we shouldfollow His steps. " [1 Pet. Ii. 22. ] Never did man walk more genuinelywith men than the Son of Man, whether it was among the needy and wistfulcrowds in streets or on hill-sides, or at the dinner-table of thePharisee, or in the homes of Nazareth, Cana, and Bethany. No Christianwas ever so "practical" as Jesus Christ. No disciple ever so directlyand sympathetically "served his own generation by the will of God" [Actsxiii. 36. ] as did the blessed Master. But all the while "His soul dweltapart" in the Father's presence, and there continually rested and wasrefreshed, [John iv. 32, 34. ] and there found the "meat" in the strengthof which He travelled that great pilgrimage by way of the Cross to theThrone. Jesus Christ, our Exemplar as well as our Life, did indeed livebehind His work, behind His ministry, behind His ministerial character, in the region of a Filial Communion in which His Father was His all inall for peace and joy, His law of action and His eternal secret of life. And observe, this habitual communion in the midst of active service didnot at all supersede in His blessed experience the stated and definitework of worship and petition before and after the busy hours of service. "He was alone, praying" [John vi. 57. ]; "He continued all night inprayer to God"; and at last, "He was withdrawn from them about a stone'scast, and kneeled down and prayed. " [Luke ix. 18; vi. 12; xxii. 41. ]

All this is not only matter for wondering notice, as we read our NewTestament. It is example, it is model. The Head is thus showing Hismembers the way, the only way, to maintain a life among men and for menwhich shall be full of good for them, because itself ever filled withthe life and presence of God. 

TESTIMONY OF LUCIUS VON MACHTHOLF. 

From a leaflet which came long ago into my hands, I quote the experienceof a German Christian, eminently successful in spiritual work; apassage which will illustrate and bring home my appeal in this wholematter:--

"When Lucius von Machtholf was asked how he carried on religiousintercourse with individuals, he wrote:--'I know no other tactics than_first of all to be heartily satisfied with my God_, even if He shouldfavour me with no sensible visible blessing in my vocation. Also toremember that preaching and conversation are not so much _my_ work asthe outcome of the love and joy of the Holy Ghost in my heart, and, afterwards, on my lips. Further, that I must never depend upon anyprevious fervour or prayers of mine, but upon God's mercy and Christ'sdearly-purchased rights and holy intercession; and cherishing a burninglove to Christ and to souls, I must constantly seek for wisdom andgentleness. . . . Finally, I would guard myself from imagining that I knowbeforehand what I should say, but go to Christ for every good word Ihave to speak, even to a child, and submit myself to the Holy Spirit, asthe Searcher of hearts, who, knowing the individuals I have to do with, will guide and teach me when, where, and how to speak. 

"'Be always following, never going before. It were better to be sick ina tent under a burning sun, and Jesus sitting at the tent door, than tobe enchanting a thousand listeners where Jesus was not. Be as aday-labourer only in God's harvest-field, ready to be first among thereapers in the tall corn, or just to sit and sharpen another's sickle. Have an eye to God's honour, and have no honour of your own to have aneye to. Lay it in the dust and leave it there. Never let your inner lifeget low in your search for the lives of others. '"

I dare to say that this quotation contains no mere "counsels ofperfection, " but principles which are indispensable for the Minister ofJesus Christ who would be not only reputable, popular, and in thesuperficial sense of the word successful, but--what his dear Masterwould have him be for His work. And the blessed spirit it suggests andexemplifies is a thing which cometh not in "but by prayer" and by atleast such fasting as takes the shape of a most watchful secretself-discipline. When von Machtholf speaks of "never depending onprevious prayers" it is obvious what he means; not that prayer shouldnot precede work, but that nothing should satisfy the worker short of aliving and present trust in a living and present Lord. But that trust isthe very thing which is developed, and prepared, and matured, in thelife of genuine secret intercourse, in which the Lord is dealt with asman dealeth with his friend, and gazed upon and (I may reverently say)studied in His revealed Character, till the disciple does indeed "know_whom_ he has believed, " "who He is that he should believe on Him. " "Mysoul shall be satisfied . . . When I remember Thee, when I meditate onThee, in the night watches, " [2 Tim. I. 12; John ix. 36; Ps. Lxiii. 5, 6. ] aye, and in the Morning Watch also. 

URGENT PRESENT NEED TO MAINTAIN SECRET DEVOTION. 

I know not how to get away from this subject; not only because of itsintense connexion with the most blissful experiences of the believingsoul, but because of its unspeakably important bearing on the work ofthe Ministry, the Ministry of our own time and of my reader's owngeneration. Never was there a period when the cry for enterprize andpractical energy was louder; and God knows there is occasion enough forthe cry, and for the answering resolve. But never was there a time whenthe need was greater to distinguish true from false secrets of energy, and to be content with nothing short of the deepest and most divine asour ultimate secret. Do you not well know what I mean? Is there not farand wide in the "Christian world"--I do not speak now of the exteriorregions of avowed scepticism or indifference--a tendency to merge thewhole idea of religion in that of philanthropic benevolence, and therebyto draw inevitably the idea of philanthropy downward in the end into itsleast noble manifestations? Is it not a fashionable thing to regard theChristian Ministry, for example, as a useful and ready mechanism withwhich to work out the social and sanitary amelioration of the lives ofthe multitude, and so to take him to be the best qualified Clergyman whois, perhaps, the most "muscular" of Christians, or the cleverest at theinvention or superintendence of recreations on a large scale, or thequickest student and exponent of the principles or theories of politicaleconomy, or possibly of socialistic enterprize? But all this may leaveentirely out the very life-blood of what the New Testament means by theGospel of the grace of God; and in many, many cases it does entirelyleave it out. 

*"NATURALISM" IN CHRISTIAN WORK. 

A conception of "Church work" is widely entertained, and thought to beadequate, out of which is practically dropped all the mystery, and allthe mercy; above all, the work and message of the atoning Cross and thedying Lamb; and the need of the sovereign grace of the Holy Ghost tobegin and carry out the Regeneration of the soul; and the depth of ourFall; and the offered greatness and splendour of our New Creation; and"that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God and ourSaviour Jesus Christ. " [Tit. Ii. 13. ] It is just one wave of the greatanti-supernatural tide of our time. Christian work is viewed as much aspossible as man's work for man in this present world, under the example, doubtless, of the beneficent life of our Lord, but not under the shadowof Calvary, nor in the light of Pentecost, nor in the definite prospectof an immortality of holy glory. 

HOW TO COUNTERACT IT. 

To counteract this tendency, and to do so _in the right way_, is one ofthe very noblest tasks set before the younger Clergy of the EnglishChurch in our time. It is for them, under God, in a pre-eminent degree, to find out the secret, and then to live it out, how to be at once theperfectly genuine _man_, devoted to the service of men, carrying what heis and what he believes into the actual surroundings of modern life, notallowing illusions and poetic day-dreams to come between him and facts;and also the convinced, unwavering, spiritual _Christian_, conversantwith his own soul, and with his living Lord and Saviour, and with thatsacred, unalterable written Word which that Saviour put into Hispeople's hands, never to be taken out of them. Nothing is more wanted atpresent in the sphere of "Church life and work, " unless I am greatlymistaken, than a generation of young Clergymen (soon to be seniors) whoshall conspicuously combine the best forms of practicality with anunmistakable chastened personal spirituality which is seen to be "thepulse of" their busy "machine. " And if the spirituality is to be indeedgenuine (away with it if it is anything but genuine to the centre), ifit is to be quite different on the one hand from a thing of artificialphrases, and on the other from merely formulated and regulateddevoutness, I am deeply sure that its only secret and preservative is afully-maintained secret walk with God. 

"GOD, I THANK THEE. "

"I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. " [SN:Rev. Iii. 17. ] Such was the thought and word of the Laodicean long ago. Is it not in effect the thought, if not the word, of not a few hardworkers and energetic enterprizers now? "What do I want with the dialectof 'Christian experience'? What have I, with all these irons in thefire, and a strong hammer and a strong hand with which to strike them, what have I to do with 'old-world faiths' about sin and salvation, aboutgrace and conversion, about pardon and justification? What have I sopressingly to do with much prayer, save in the form of much work? God, Ithank Thee that I am a worker; let it be for others to dive intospiritual secrets, if it is good for them to do so. "

"THOU KNOWEST NOT. "

I would not overdraw the picture. And the words I have put into apossible mouth are words which, if I heard, I hope I should hear withevery wish to judge them fairly and to see where any truth lay in them. But none the less I am sure that those words not unjustly represent atype of thought widely prevalent among even ministerial workers, andthat it is a type of thought pregnant with disaster for Christian work. "Thou knowest not that thou art poor"; "I counsel thee, to buy of Me";"I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open thedoor I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me. " [Rev. Iii. 17, 18, 20. ] So said Jesus Christ to the Laodicean. And though it mayseem paradoxical to compare a man involved in the rush of modern "Churchwork" with the Laodicean, the comparison may not be always far astray, nor the words of the Lord in Rev. Iii. 18 out of place accordingly. Tobe "neither cold nor hot" towards _Him_ is all too possible for us, alas, even when "the irons in the fire" are most numerous, and even whenthey are being most briskly hammered. 

TO KNOW CHRIST IS INDISPENSABLE. 

So let us listen, making a pause to do so. Perhaps just now the knockmay be audible, and certain articulate sounds may come from outside, saying that a PERSON waits for readmission to HIS place in our busy, multifarious life, and that HE can be content with nothing short ofheart-intimacy with us, and that we, if we would not forsake our ownmercy, must be content with nothing short of heart-intimacy with HIM. 

"I counsel thee to _buy_ of Me. " Let us do it; let us pay over, at Hisfeet, our poor fancied wealth of self's energies and undertakings (asregards our own good opinion of them), receiving from Him the heavenly"gold" of His own glorious grace and peace, and the "white robe" of aliving and loving conformity to His likeness, and the "eye-salve" of Hisillumination, in which we see things as He sees them. It is better, asvon Machtholf says it is, to have Him within the heart's chamber, atonce as Guest and as Host, in that blessed inter-communion, than to beapparently the most successful of organizers or of toilers, strong inourselves, but without the secret of the Presence of the Lord. 

It is scarcely needful, I trust, to explain what I do _not_ mean. Myvery last intention is to speak slightingly of devoted work andself-sacrificing endeavours, whether or no they take the line which mostapproves itself to me. A _fainéant_ in the English Ministry to-day issomething worse than even a cumberer of the ground; he is, I dare tosay, like a upas upon it, blighting where he throws his shadow, soconspicuous and so deadly must be the example of such a life in theMinister of such a Gospel. But what I mean, again and again, is this, that the days demand, along with a thoroughgoing while prudentpracticality, more and more also of a profound reality of spiritualknowledge of the Lord in those who labour in His Name. With the growingstress of our time we _must_ have not less but more of this, in thosewho are called to meet that stress. This is vital, if we would not bestifled and succumb as Christians altogether. 

So this is my plea, dear Brother in the Ministry, now making your firstessays in some great city parish, or wherever it may be: cultivate, asfor your life, secret intercourse with God. 

BIBLE STUDY. 

And with this view, I now say specially, cultivate such intercourse_laying His holy Word open before you_. I spoke in the previous Chapterof the Bible spread open by the evening lamp, the Bible marked withsigns of diligent search. With all my heart I mean to press thatthought. It will be best to reserve for another Chapter certainsuggestions on methods of Bible study. But I may, and I will at once, offer a few words on the subject in general. It is a subject which liesnear my heart, and of the urgent importance of which I am very sure. 

THE ORDINATION CHARGE. 

Above all then I would entreat you to be a Bible student _at whatevercost of other religious reading_. It is a very common thing tosubstitute, practically, for the Bible a little library of _livres depiété_, as the French would call them, small "good books. " Not very longago, in the course of an ordination examination, I came across aninstructive instance. In answer to a question in a "Pastoral Paper" forcandidates for Priest's Orders, a thoughtful young Clergyman statedincidentally that he used every day with great profit certain devotionalbooks, and that about twice a week he took for definite meditation andprayer a passage from the Gospels. It struck me that here was a strangeand sad inversion of the right order of proportion; devotional booksdaily, and the New Testament (in any sense of earnest meditative study)about twice a week! Very different, I thought, is the view and teachingof the Church of England in this matter of the spiritual reading of herMinisters. What does the Church say, through the Bishop, when the Deaconis ordained Presbyter? "Seeing that you cannot by any other meanscompass the doing of so weighty a work, pertaining to the salvation ofman, but with doctrine and exhortation taken out of the Holy Scriptures, and with a life agreeable to the same; consider how studious ye ought tobe in reading and learning the Scriptures. . . . We have good hope that youwill continually pray to God the Father, by the mediation of our onlySaviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost;that, by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures, ye may wax riperand stronger in your Ministry. "

And I need not go about to prove that the Church does not mean suchdaily "reading and weighing" to wait till the young man is actuallyordained Priest. We should scarcely have had the First Homily of theFirst Book written, if such had been her mind. Have you ever read overthat "Voice of the Church"?

M. HENRI LASSERRE ON DEVOTIONAL READING. 

A remarkable confirmation of my present contention comes to us from anunexpected quarter. I refer to the Preface prefixed by that ardent RomanCatholic, M. Henri Lasserre, to his remarkable French translation of theFour Gospels, the book which, December 4, 1886, received the cordialbenediction of Leo XIII. , but within a twelvemonth, such is "the powerbehind the Pope, " was placed on the _Index Expurgatorius_. Probably suchpassages as the following had much to do with this strange and suddenself-reversal of the judgment of the Vatican. 

"A timid school, " after the crisis of the Reformation, which finds, ofcourse, little favour with M. Lasserre, and on which, very unjustly, helays much of the blame of the practical prohibition of the Bible within"the Catholic Church, " "a timid school tended thenceforth to strike fromthe hands of believers the divine Book which makes the foundation ofour faith, and laboured to substitute for it by degrees a piousliterature, intended to furnish hearts and minds with a nourishmentsuited to their weakness, a diet without danger. Some of these books, weown without hesitation, are excellent in themselves, and havecontributed to the sanctification of many souls. However, this is theexception. In the majority of these works, where, alas, the sugar ofdevotion takes the place of the salt of wisdom, the eternal truths andthe genuine teachings of the Gospel were soon diluted, and, as it were, lost in strange waters. . . . One and all, the better specimens and thedeplorable (_les lamentables_) alike, they are another thing altogether, yes, absolutely another thing, than the Gospel, whose apostolic missionthey have noiselessly usurped by an invasion insensible, I had almostcalled it clandestine. . . . The general ignorance of the Gospels has beenthe one cause in France, these twenty years, of the success of thescandalous romance which appeared under the title of _La Vie de Jésus_. Among a people moderately familiar with the narratives of St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke, and St John . . . There would have been no need torefute it. Every one would have seen, without assistance, its flagrantfalsifications, its gross sophisms, its absolute emptiness. Thisdeep-seated and complex evil, this enervation of the Christian spirit, this _anæmia_ (_cette anémie_) of so many among us, are an object ofsorrowful anxiety (_préoccupation_) for the Catholic thinker" (pp. X, xxv). 

CURRENT NEGLECT OF SCRIPTURE. 

For the Protestant thinker too, within a Church which has now forcenturies, in every possible official way, pressed home the reading ofthe Bible upon her every member, and of course upon her every Minister, there is material for similar anxieties, _mutatis mutandis_. Biblestudy, such as our Lord and the Apostles enjoined and encouraged, is noton the increase amongst us, to say the least of it; certainly theignorance of the blessed Book even among candidates for holy Orders issometimes, is not seldom, very great indeed. Nay more, there issometimes, however rarely as yet, an ominous disposition even inclerical circles to shelve the Bible. Quite lately I heard, on excellentauthority, that a certain large Clerical Society, revising its rules, deliberately decided that the meetings shall _not_ in future be begunwith the reading of Scripture. My friend and Brother, do not swim evenon the edges of such a current. Swim with all your might, in yourMaster's might, against it. 

READ IT FOR YOUR OWN NEEDS. 

Then lastly I put in my plea, as I sought to do when we were consideringthe matter of secret prayer, for such a secret study of the Word of Godas shall be _unprofessional, unclerical, and simply Christian_. Resolveto "read, mark, and inwardly digest" so that not now the flock but theshepherd, that is to say you, "may embrace and ever hold fast theblessed hope of everlasting life. " It will be all the better for theflock. Forget sometimes, in the name of Jesus Christ, the pulpit, themission-room, the Bible-class; open the Bible as simply as if you wereon Crusoe's island, and were destined to live and die there, alone withGod. You will be all the fresher, all the more sympathetic and to thepoint, when you do come to speak to the listening people about the Book. The discoveries which we make in it for our own souls are just thethings which we cannot help reporting so as to interest and attract ourbrethren; as least, that is the sure tendency of things. 

BRIDGES AND WITSIUS ON BIBLE STUDY. 

Let me write out a slightly abbreviated extract from a golden book, unhappily no longer in print, _The Christian Ministry_, by that diligentstudent, loving and laborious Pastor, and heavenly-minded man, theremembrance of whom shines on me like a ray reflected from the ChiefShepherd's face, the late Rev. Charles Bridges. [2]

[2] He died at Hinton Martell, in Dorset, 1869. 

"The maxim, _Bonus textuarius est bonus theologus_, marks a grandministerial qualification--'mighty in the Scriptures. ' The importance ofthis is beautifully expressed by Witsius: 'Let the theologian ascendfrom the lower school of natural study to the higher department ofScripture, and sitting at the feet of God as his teacher, learn from Hismouth the hidden mysteries of salvation, _which eye hath not seen norear heard, which none of the princes of this world knew_; which the mostaccurate reason cannot search out; which the heavenly chorus of angels, though always beholding the face of God, _desire to look into_. In thehidden book of Scripture, and nowhere else, are opened the secrets ofthe most sacred wisdom. Let the theologian delight in these sacredOracles; let him exercise himself in them day and night; let himmeditate in them; let him live in them; let him draw all his wisdom fromthem; let him compare all his thoughts with them; let him embracenothing in religion which he does not find there. The attentive study ofthe Scriptures has a sort of constraining power. It fills the mind withthe most splendid form of heavenly truth. It soothes the mind with aninexpressible sweetness; it satisfies the sacred hunger and thirst forknowledge; . . . It imprints its own testimony so firmly on the mind, thatthe believing soul rests on it with the same security as if it had beencarried up into the third heaven and heard it from God's own mouth; ittouches all the affections, and breathes the sweetest fragrance ofholiness upon the pious reader, even though he may not perhapscomprehend the full extent of his reading. . . . We ought to draw our viewsof divine truths immediately from the Scriptures themselves, and tomake no other use of human writings than as indices marking those chiefpoints of theology from which we may be instructed in the mind of theLord'" (pp. 79, 80, ed. 1830). 

 * * * * *

RIDLEY IN THE ORCHARD. 

"In thy Orchard, Pembroke Hall, " wrote Nicholas Ridley within a few daysof his fiery martyrdom, "(the wals, buts, and trees, if they couldspeake, would beare me witnes), I learned without booke almost allPaules epistles, yea, and I weene all the Canonicall epistles, save onlythe Apocalyps. Of which study, although in time a great part did departfrom me, yet the sweete smell thereof I trust I shall cary with me intoheaven; for the profite thereof I thinke I have felt in all my lyfe tymeever after. "

And so shall it be with us also, if we go and do likewise in our "lyfetyme, " our period, not at present of martyrdom but, God knoweth it, ofneed. 

CHAPTER III. 

_SECRET STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. _

 _Like those Emmaus travellers we go Forth from the city-gate of things below; Christ at our side, His Scripture for our light, Here burning hearts and there the beatific sight. _

Already I have broken ground to some extent in the all-important subjectof private Bible Study. Let me now put before my reader and Brother afew more detailed remarks and suggestions on that subject. Such is theholy Book, and such is the variety of possible modes of study, that allI can dream of doing is to touch some parts and sides of the matterwhich present themselves with special impressiveness to my own mind, orwhich experience of the needs of friends has suggested to me somewhatparticularly. 

HIGHER CRITICISM. 

To discuss the sacred problems of Scripture Inspiration is not mypurpose here. Elsewhere[3] I have attempted to deal with some of them. All I would do here is, in view of what is truly a "present necessity, "to ask my Brethren, very deliberately, not to be in haste to take upwith the last and boldest word of what is called the Higher Criticism (Ispeak particularly now of its application to the Old Testament), as ifits "advances" were always towards light and fact. I have no complaintagainst the term Higher Criticism, which has a recognized place inliterary technical language, denoting that familiar and lawful process, the study of books not for their grammar and style only, but in order toinfer from their whole phenomena what their age is, and their structure, and their character. The Higher Criticism is a term pointing not tomethods and results transcending ordinary intelligence, but to a studywhich aims "higher" than grammatical and textual questions considered asfinal. And thus of course the most earnest defender of the supernaturalcharacter of the Scriptures may be, and very often is, as diligent a"higher critic" as the extremest anti-supernaturalist. 

[3] _Veni Creator_, ch. Iii

A PLEA FOR CAUTION. 

It is not its definition in the abstract but its actual work and spirit, as seen in many leading instances, which constrain me to enter anearnest protest against a too easy confidence in this criticism of, particularly, the Old Testament Scriptures. It is "a thing to give uspause" when we are asked to accept it as proved, or at least asextremely probable, that righteous Abel is a myth; that there waslittle, if any, monotheism before Abraham; no theophany at Sinai; noWilderness-Tabernacle; no record of the conquest of Canaan written tilllong generations after the event; not much written record at all tillSamuel; few, if any, Psalms before the age of the Captivity, if notbefore the age of the Maccabees; certainly two if not more Isaiahs, andprobably hardly one Daniel; at least, that the book bearing his namedates from the second century before Christ, and is in fact aPalestinian story-book which has not, perhaps, even a nucleus of historywithin it. It ought to make us stop and think when we are told thatIsaiah did not predict coming events; indeed (for the drift of thisteaching goes very strongly in that direction), that predictive prophecyis hardly to be recognized anywhere; that it is better out of ourthoughts; that it is but "soothsaying" after all, and that the true workof the prophet was not to fore-tell but to "_forth_-tell, " to proclaimpresent and eternal principles, which again were not revealed to himfrom above but arrived at by intuitions and meditations within his ownconsciousness. It is a grave thing to be asked to believe, as many wouldhave us do, that such was the lack of feeling for veracity in ancientJudah that Hilkiah, Jeremiah, and Huldah could arrange for the"discovery" of a fabricated Deuteronomy, and then (_see the narrative_in the Second Book of Kings) [xxii. 8-20. ] get the prophetess to followup the fabrication with awful denunciations--all fulfilled--in the nameof THE LORD Himself. Such theories we are asked to hold in face of ourMaster Christ's deliberate, persistent, manifold testimony to thesupernatural character and _authority_ of the Old Testament; to thesolidity of its records of fact, to the reality of its predictiveelement--on which He stayed His sacred soul in Gethsemane, and on theCross itself. It is no longer a question of details, an inquiry whetherthe numerals are invariably authentic and accurate; whether the minuteparticulars of a king's death as told in Chronicles tally with theaccount in Kings. It is a question whether the Old Testament at large isnot a singularly and flagrantly untrustworthy record. It is a questionwhether its literature as a whole is not to be explained, practically, by "natural causes"; including a causation by deliberate, elaborate, andinterested untruth. 

A GRAVE ALTERNATIVE. 

Is it too much to say that the alternative has come to be this: Was ourLord Himself right or very gravely wrong about the nature of Scripture?Did the Spirit of Pentecost guide the Apostles into all truth, or leavethem under a vast illusion in this central matter of their witness? "Donot follow this Book, young men; follow Christ": so said a speaker ofhigh Christian reputation, holding up a Bible, before a great gatheringin America, not long ago. But what does this mean? Christ carries theBook in His hand; if you follow Him you must follow it. If you declineto follow the Book, your following Him is a following--so far as atpresent you agree with Him, and not further. 

WITNESSES FOR SCRIPTURE. 

Meantime, what are some facts of the case, facts not nearly so wellremembered now as they should be? One comprehensive fact is that thetestimony of nature and of history goes, as a whole, to affirm theveracity of the Scripture records, and to do so more and more pointedlyas research advances. In a remarkable recent essay by the Duke of Argyll(_Nineteenth Century_, January, 1891), the growing accumulation ofgeological evidence for a Great Flood, affecting at least the northernhemisphere, and falling within the human period, is forcibly set out bya master hand. In the same paper is indicated the fast-gatheringevidence, now digging up month by month from the soil of Palestine, tothe accuracy of the picture of Canaan drawn in the Pentateuch andJoshua. The Ordnance Survey of Sinai has amply shown that the geology ofthe peninsula confirms down to minute details the record in Exodus. [4]And now the Oxford Arabic Professor is making it, at the least, extremely likely that the Hebrew written two centuries before Christ wasmore modern by many generations than that presented by the Book ofDaniel. [5]

[4] See Sir J. DAWSON: _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, "The Topographyof the Exodus. "

[5] _See_ MARGOLIOUTH: _The Place of Ecclesiasticus in SemiticLiterature_. 

I am only indicating and suggesting. Remembering the curiously similarhistory of New Testament criticism during the recent past, some of itsstages running out their course within my own memory, I cannot butthink, looking from the merely literary view-point, that the days arenot far off when the now powerful theories of revolutionary criticismwill seem improbable. And so I ask my younger Brethren at least _topause_ before going with the strong, deep stream. 

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL QUOTED. 

Let me quote a few sentences from the Duke of Argyll's paper:--

THE WORK OF THE SPADE. 

"The assumption . . . That precision in research is undermining the creditof the Hebrew Scriptures, is a presumption almost comically at variancewith fact. There is, in particular, one 'weapon of precision' which hasof late been working wonders in precisely the opposite direction. Thatweapon is the spade. And what has it been unearthing? Everywhere overthat narrow strip of our planet on which its human interests have beenmost impressive and profound--everywhere from Tyre and Sidon, fromCarmel and Lebanon, on the west, to Babylon and Nineveh and the boundarymountains of Assyria on the east--the spade has been disentombingcontinuous and triumphant proof of the genuine antiquity and historicalcharacter of the Jewish books. . . . Only the other day Mr Flinders Petriehas told us how the spade has uncovered those impregnable walls of theAmorite cities which were reported to invading Israel by the spies ofMoses. . . . 

"I may be permitted to express a very strong opinion that in recentyears Christian writers have been far too shy and timid in defending oneof the oldest and strongest outworks of Christian theology. I mean theelement of true prediction in Hebrew prophecy. It may be true that in aformer generation too exclusive attention had been paid to it. . . . Butthe reaction has been excessive and irrational. A great mass ofconnected facts, and of continuous evidence, remains--which cannot begainsaid. Even if the greater prophets can be brought down to the verylatest date which the very latest fancies can assign to them, theydepict and predict overthrows and vast revolutions in the East which didnot take place for centuries" (pp. 28, 30). [6]

[6] "Professor Huxley speaks of the hopeless position of Christiandivines 'raked by the fatal weapons of precision with which the _enfantsperdus_ of the advancing forces of science are armed. '. . . Perhaps hemeans the small arms of the modern critical school. If he does, thenprecision is the very last characteristic which belongs to it. Itsmethods are largely subjective. Here and there it may have a clearlyascertained fact to rest upon. Here and there it may have arrived atsome tolerably secure results. But in the main its methods aremetaphysical, resting on nothing but individual preconceptions, applyingtests and private canons of interpretation which are purely arbitrary"(_Ibid. _, p. 28). 

 * * * * *

PREDICTION. 

The analysis of prophetic _consciousness_ may be, and in a great measureis, impossible. But the facts of prediction remain. It remains that ourLord Himself predicted. He foretold minutely His own death, and the endof the City and the Temple, and the circumstances of the close of thisæon. Was He "soothsaying"? It remains that He perpetually and mostemphatically claimed to be the exact Fulfilment of predictions which, on any hypothesis, were then ages old. Was He mistaken in theircharacter and quality?

CHRIST'S WITNESS TO THE BIBLE. 

In those last words I step, as I well know, upon a field of the mosturgent controversy. What is the weight to be assigned to our everblessed Lord's verdict upon the Old Testament as history and prophecy?It is now asserted, and by Christian men, that that verdict is notfinal; that He in the days of His flesh so submitted to humanlimitations that He was liable to mistakes of fact just as His bestcontemporaries were; that we adore Christ, and rely absolutely on Him, but it is on Christ not as He was but as He is, the glorified Christ. Here is an unspeakably overawing subject. I would not treat of it as ifthe question could be swept away in a sentence. But I do, as in ourliving Master's presence, venture to say that His witness to the natureand character of the Old Scriptures claims definitely to be _excathedrâ_. True, He doubtless spoke in this matter, as elsewhere, not inwhat may be called the technical style; not every reference of His to"Moses" need necessarily mean to assert precisely that Moses wroteevery clause of the Pentateuch. But the present question goes, as wehave remembered, much deeper. It asks whether or no the Lord Jesus wasaltogether and in principle mistaken. He treated the Law, Prophets, andPsalms as a solid structure of historic fact and supernatural promise, divinely planned all through, divinely carried out and up from thefoundation, and leading straight up to Himself. Was it all the time truethat large parts of them were no more historical than the FalseDecretals on which the high Papal claims were built?[7]

[7] I may remind the reader that about the middle of the ninth centurythere were published, by one Isidore, a collection of decisions anddecrees, purporting to be by the earliest Bishops of Rome, allsupporting the Papal claims as known in the Middle Ages. The collectionwas afterwards increased, and in the middle of the twelfth centuryengrafted into Gratian's _Decretum_, on which is based the Canon Law ofthe Roman Church. These documents are undoubtedly fabrications longafter date. 

If we revise the opinion of our Redeemer on this conspicuous point ofHis teaching, where shall we securely pause? Certainly we cannot_securely_ trust, as oracular and final, His own predictions of thingsstill future, at least in their details. 

HE HAS AFFIRMED IT FROM ABOVE. 

One great utterance is often quoted as a confession that His consciousknowledge had limits; Mark xiii. 32. Quite true; but what sort ofconfession is it? It indicates in its very terms the vastness of Hissupernatural knowledge; asserting His cognizance of the fact that _theangels in heaven did not know_ that day and hour. Such an avowal ofnescience is an implicit assertion of an immeasurable insight. 

And has He not, _as the glorified Christ_, thrown a light of affirmationon the "opinions" of the days of His flesh? The glorified Christ sentdown the Paraclete. And the first and abiding work of the Paraclete wasto illuminate the Apostles with a new understanding of the truth andglory of the Old Scriptures, altogether in the lines of their crucifiedMaster's teaching about them. Unless indeed Resurrection, and Ascension, and Pentecost are themselves to melt into the haze of myth! The NewTestament is as full of the supernatural as the Old. 

Reverently and humbly, and with full recognition of a large place andlawful work for a true higher criticism in the literature of the OldTestament, and of the New, I yet decline to think that our Lord'sestimate of the nature of the Bible is not to be final for me, and thatHis reasonings from it are to be revised, while yet I adore Him as myLight, my Life, and my God. And I ask my Brethren to pause many times, and on their knees, before they think otherwise. 

PRESENT FULFILMENTS OF PROPHECY. 

As regards prediction, let them look around them. Two great fulfilmentsof Old Testament prediction are going forward at this moment. One is, the vast work of missions, whose whole aim is to make known "to the endsof the earth" the Name of Messiah, Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son ofGod. The other is, the dispersion and yet permanence of the Jewish race, and (may I not add, in view of the facts of the last few years?) thebeginnings of a re-population of Palestine by the Jews. Crediblestatistics assure us that they are now returning to their old land atthe rate of many thousands in a year. True, no "miracle" brings themback. But no thoughtful student has ever said that the miracle ofprediction demands miracle in the circumstances of the fulfilment. 

BIBLE READING IS THE BEST DEFENCE OF THE BIBLE. 

I have gone beyond my intended length in these observations. [8] Thepresent urgency of the subject, which encounters us everywhere, is myapology. But now, all the more gladly for the delay, I hasten to a fewsimple words of suggestion on that practical duty of Secret BibleReading which is, after all, the best and surest antidote andpreservative against scepticism about the Bible, if it is carried on atonce thoroughly, intelligently, and as before the Lord. Vain without it, worse than vain, will be the most diligent and successful study of theapologetics of the Bible. For the Bible was given to be, not abattle-field, but a field of wheat, and pasturage, and flowers, and agold-field also all the while. 

[8] (I) have elsewhere called attention to the following among workshelpful at present in the controversy about Scripture: Lord Hatherley's_Continuity of Scripture_, Dr Waller's _Authoritative Inspiration_, DrCave's _Inspiration of the Old Testament_. Let me add four able populartractates: Cave's _Battle of the Standpoints_ (Queen's Printers), Eckersley's _Historical Value of the Old Testament_ (Society forPromoting Christian Knowledge), G. Carlyle's _Moses and the Prophets_and Seaver's _Authority of Christ_ (Elliot Stock). Dr Liddon's memorablesermon, _The Worth of the Old Testament_, is full of helpfulsuggestions. See too Professor Leathes' _Witness of the Old Testament toChrist_, Sir J. W. Dawson's _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, and BishopHarold Browne's _Messiah Foretold_. I specially call attention to CanonR. Girdlestone's recent book, the work of a master, _The Foundations ofthe Bible_, most temperate, judicial, solid, and establishing; and tothis must be added now (1892) Bishop Ellicott's excellent Charge, published by the S. P. C. K. Under the title _Christus Comprobator_. 

How then shall I read my Bible so as at once spiritually and mentally toknow it, or rather, to be always getting to know it? The answer mustbe--"at sundry times and in divers manners. " I must make time to readoften, however brief each time may be. And I must use methods of study, more than one, in parallel lines. 

As a sort of ground-work to all other methods I venture first to say, bealways reading the Bible _through_, however slowly, or rapidly. Forcertain purposes, for instance in order to grasp the scope of a book, asperhaps an Epistle, or the Revelation, or St John's Gospel, or thelatter half of Isaiah, or the Book of Genesis, [9] rapid reading may bequite reverently done. In any case, get as soon as you may, and asoften as is practicable and practical, over _the whole surface_. LordHatherley, amidst the heavy occupations of a barrister's and judge'slife, used to read the whole Book through carefully every year, and thisfor more than thirty years. I cannot say that I do the same. But I aimto read the Bible over carefully within every few years. 

[9] To touch on a very small point I write here "the Book of Genesis, "not "the Book Genesis. " English literature, if I do not mistake, is asunfamiliar with the latter phrase as it is with "the city London. "

PLOUGH-HUSBANDRY. 

Then, practise what I would call the _plough-husbandry_ of the Book. "Make long furrows. " Investigate what the Scriptures have to say bytopics, by doctrines, by leading words, over great breadths of theirsurface; keeping _that_ subject, _that_ word, all along in view. Bringall your mind to work that way, in the light of the Presence sought byprayer. An occasional special form of such study may be illustrated bythat admirable book, written long ago, but full of life still, the lateProfessor Blunt's _Undesigned Coincidences_. I was thankful in my firstdays of ministry to be led to put in practice its examples andsuggestions by ploughing in the field of the New Testament for thecoincidences between the Gospel narrative and the allusions to ourblessed Lord's life scattered over the Epistles. 

SPADE-HUSBANDRY. 

Then, practise also a diligent _spade-husbandry_ in your Bible study. Dig as well as plough. In each narrow plot of the great field there aretreasures hid. Dig a verse sometimes, using perhaps the spade ofparallel references. Dig a paragraph at other times; a chapter; a shortbook. You are quite sure, under the blessing of the Master of the Field, to bring up rich results, more or less. 

I will close my talk upon the Bible by offering a specimen of suchspade-husbandry. A few years ago, at the Church Congress at Wakefield, Iread a paper on Bible-reading. It mainly took the line of recommendingearnestly the use of the Biblical student's "spade, " and then itillustrated the recommendation by the following "spade-study" of theEpistle of St Paul to the Philippians; given here just as it was read. 

 * * * * *

A CHURCH CONGRESS PAPER ON BIBLE STUDY. 

"It has been laid on me to say a few words on the devotional study ofthe Holy Scriptures, taking some one Book of Scripture, and in somesort exemplifying such study from it. I accept the theme, with a deepsense both of its opportuneness in our busy period, so full oftemptations to the Christian Minister to postpone his Bible-study toother things, and of its sacred, paramount, vital importance. May ourdivine and sovereign Master be pleased to use my simple suggestions tocall once more the attention especially of His ordained servants to theurgency of our need to be personal Bible-students before Him, and to thestrength and joy that lies in such study, really pursued. He, in thedays of His flesh, was the supreme Believer in the Bible, the supremeLover, Student, Expositor, and Employer of the Bible. With the letter ofthe Bible He sustained Himself and quelled the Enemy in the Temptation, and the quotations He then selected suggest the minuteness of His study. Upon the written Word He spent the whole Easter afternoon. AcceptedSacrifice for Sin, Conqueror of Death, Lord and Head of Life, He hadcome that morning from the grave; and He came as it were holding theScriptures in His hands. 

"He found around Him in those earthly days a mass of religious popularopinions, and He spoke His holy mind freely against the false amongthem. But there was one opinion which He noticed only to sanction, tosanctify, to glorify. It was the opinion that the Scriptures weredivine, were charged with the authority of God. 

"I pray to Him, and trust Him, my Master and Lord, to hold me now humblyfirm to the end, after many a struggle, in His opinion of the HolyScriptures. I would enter into, as He abode in, their rest; therefore Iaccept, as He accepted, their yoke. I would feel what He felt, thatliving incitement to their study which is indissolubly bound up, if Imistake not, with the firm persuasion of their supernatural characterand authority. I would read them, as He read them, above all things toact upon them in the life which we, His followers, have in Him; thatlife whose exercise and outcome means our whole walk here as well ashereafter. I would regard them, as it is apparent that He regarded them, as being (in a sacred sense) self-sufficient; not, indeed, to theself-sufficient reader, but to the reader who prays in reverentsimplicity that the Holy Spirit may dispel every moral mist, everyhindrance of heart and will, from between him and the meaning of thewritten Word; and who intends in truthful sincerity to consent to, toobey, the discovered meaning; and who is taking pains over the Book. 

"It is a great joy to know how entirely this was the view of the matterheld, and loved, and taught in the ancient Church. Is there anythingabout which there is a larger consent of the Fathers? St Athanasiusloves to dilate on the [Greek: autarkeia], the self-sufficingness, of'the divine Scriptures. ' St Cyril of Jerusalem entreats his hearers toguide and fix their belief by the reading of the Canonical books. StChrysostom boldly accounts for all mischiefs by the lack of personalacquaintance with the Scriptures. 

"We are in the nineteenth century, almost in the twentieth, and perhapswe therefore need, even more than our elder brethren of the fourth, torenew our energies in Scripture-study by prayerful, painstakingrecollection of what the Book is. We need an ever fresh realization ofwhat it is immortally, unalterably; the divinely trustworthy, andtherefore authoritative, account of God's mind, and specially and aboveall of God's mind concerning Jesus Christ and our relations to Him, ourlife by Him, our peace, and power, and hope, in Him. And it is a fewwords about this aspect of Scripture, and the search of Scripture, thatI now lay before you, with humility and simplicity of purpose, in theway of a description and example of a sort of study that has been agreat blessing to myself. 

"Take one of the holy Books, or a section of one of them; and for thispurpose shorter is better. By a certain exercise of imagination supposeyourself to be reading a _newly-discovered_ fragment of the apostolicage. Treat it somewhat as many of us have recently sought to treatBryennius' discovery, _The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_. Whatmicroscopic attention has been brought to bear upon that little book, just because good evidence gives it a place in the first century, andbecause it speaks of Christ, and of Christians; of faith, worship, ministry, and life, in a part of the primeval Church! Now I attempt fromtime to time, reverently but very simply, to treat some inspired Epistlesomewhat in the same way. I place myself before it as much as possibleas if it were new to me and others. I seek, with something of thecuriosity which such conditions would create, to collect and arrange itstheology and its ethics. And then I bring in upon the results of mystudy the fact that it is God's Word, the Word which I am to embrace, and live upon, and act upon, to-day. 

"For example and suggestion, let us turn to the EPISTLE TO THEPHILIPPIANS; few but golden pages, precious product of those two yearsof St Paul's physical imprisonment but blissful spiritual liberty. Tostimulate our consciousness of what the Epistle contains to rewardsearch, and search alone, let us try to place it before us as what it isnot now, but once was, a newly-given oracle of God. It was once read forthe first time, perhaps in the house of Lydia. Let it be to us, so faras thought can make it so, what it was then. And let us remember allthe while that it is really even now new, for it is immortal with thebreath of the Spirit of God. It not only 'abideth, ' but 'liveth, ' forever. 

"Let us take two titles under which to classify the results of ourinspection of this primitive Document. First, its doctrine of Christ;then, its doctrine of Christian Life. As a subordinate third title wemay collect what it indicates of Christian life as exemplified in theWriter's allusions to his own experience. 

"I. --The Christology of the Epistle. 

"(1) We trace hints of the _human history_ of Christ. He was man, inreality and in seeming; He died a death of suffering, the death of theCross [ii. 7, 8; iii. 10. ]; He rose again, for there is a power of HisResurrection; [iii. 10. ] and, apparently, He so left this earth that itwas known that an immeasurable exaltation attended His going, so thatthe heavens are now His seat [ii. 9. ], from which He is definitelyexpected to return. [iii. 20. ]

"(2) Going back to antecedent and prehistoric matters of faith aboutHim, we find here that before He became man He subsisted in possession, lawful and natural, of the manifested reality [Greek: morphê] ofGodhead, equal to God [ii. 6. ]. His appearance as man was the sequel ofHis own action of will in that eternal state [ii. 7. ]. It was a noveland voluntary assumption of the condition of the Bondservant, the[Greek: Doulos], of God. Antecedently possessing the [Greek: morphê] ofGod, He now _de novo_ 'took' the [Greek: morphê] of a bondservant. Whatcreated beings in general are of course, God's bondservants, He had notbeen but now became; a fact as astonishing in its region as the fact ofHis possession of the Supreme Nature is in its region. He assumed this[Greek: douleia], we find, because His essential work was to obey, to'become obeying, ' yes, to the extent of death [ii. 8. ]; which death wasthus in Him altogether voluntary, part of a free undertaking to be notHis own. The immediate result for Himself, it next appears, was anexaltation by God to supreme majesty under all these conditions. Asbeing all this, possessor of Deity and accepter of bondservice, He wasnow _de novo_ proclaimed as [Greek: Kyrios], as Lord, in a senseinterpreted by the adoration of the universe; to the glory of God HisFather. For it repeatedly appears in the Epistle that God is His Father;He is the Son of God [ii. 11. ]. Further, all 'the riches of God inglory' [i. 2; ii. 11. ] are 'in Him. ' [iv. 19. ] It appears that in Hisexaltation He is embodied still, for it is to likeness to the body ofHis glory that the body of our humiliation is to be changed at Hisexpected return. He is Almighty 'to subdue all things, ' and thesubjugation is 'to Himself. ' [iii. 21. ]

"(3) As regards His relation to His followers, such is it that theirwhole life and every exercise of it is mysteriously but emphaticallysaid to be IN HIM. He, the supreme Bondservant, is to them (wecontinually read) absolute Lord. His grace animates their spirit. Thedivine Spirit ministered to them is His [i. 2; iv. 23. ]. Their 'fruit ofrighteousness' is generated and produced 'through' Him [i. 19. ]. He isevermore and profoundly near to them. Their heart-emotions are 'in Hisheart. ' [i. 11; iv. 5. ] To believe in Him is their essentialcharacteristic [i. 8. ]. To suffer for Him is a special boon to them [i. 29. ]. They live in expectation of His return, His day. [i. 6, 10; ii. 16; iii. 20. ]

"II. --The Epistle's account of Christian Life, inward and outward. 

"We gather that the disciples are saints, [Greek: hagioi], separatedfrom self and sin to God; brethren to one another; the true Israel, citizens of the City above [i. 1, 14; iii. 3, 20; iv. 21. ]. Their beingand life are so united to Christ, that they as Christians (and it isevidently assumed that this covers _everything_ for them) exist, and areto act, 'in Him. ' In Him, we find, they are 'saints' and 'brethren' [i. 1, 14; iv. 1, 2; ii. 29. ]; in Him they are to 'stand fast'; to be 'ofone mind'; to 'receive one another'; to possess comfort, consolation; toglory; to rejoice [ii. 1; iii. 1, 3; iv. 4. ]. It is solemnly guaranteed, under certain most holy and happy conditions, that 'the peace of GodHimself shall'--the promise is positive--'keep safe their hearts andthoughts in Him' [iv. 7. ]; wonderful words, but perfectly distinct. Inthem God 'has begun a good work, to be carried for its completion up tothe day of Christ'; and God is now 'working in them to will and to dofor the sake of' His plan and purpose [i. 6; ii. 13. ]. It is laid uponthem accordingly, in the profound inner rest of such union, suchpossession, such submission, to 'work out their salvation, ' to live outtheir life as the saved, with the 'fear and trembling' of sacredreverence [ii. 12. ]. They are 'to look each not on his own things, ' buton the things of others, in their Lord's manner [ii. 4. ]; to holdtogether in loving and courageous union for the Gospel, standing fast in'one soul, ' under the 'one Spirit's' power; to keep their place in themidst of evil surroundings as the 'children of God' [i. 28. ] and the'light-bearers' of 'the message of life. ' [ii. 16. ] They are to abstaintotally, in the power of their life in Christ, from all sin, to 'donothing' (I take all possible note of these '_alls_' and '_nothings_' asI study and classify) 'for strife or vainglory' [ii. 3. ]; to be 'anxiousabout nothing, but in everything' to tell God their desires; to 'do allthings without murmurings and disputings' [iv. 6; ii. 14. ]; to be'unblamable, unhurtful, unblemished, God's children, ' not in adreamland, but in the realities of Philippian life; to bear fruit, 'fruit of righteousness, which is through Jesus Christ, ' [ii. 15. ] andso to bear it that at last it shall turn out, in the day of the Lord, that they are 'filled' with it [i. 11. ]; every branch is laden. Theyare to let their 'moderation, ' that is to say their yieldingness, theirself-lessness, come out in common life, 'known to all men, ' in the powerof a 'Lord at hand' [iv. 5. ]; to fill their thoughts with all that isgood, straightforward, chastened, pure [iv. 8. ]; to 'mind' the things inheaven [iii. 20; ii. ]; to have 'the mind of Christ'; to grow inspiritual perception, along with the growth of love [i. 9. ]; to live thelife expressed in that profound summary, 'worshipping God in the Spirit(or, by the Spirit of God); exulting in Christ Jesus; having noconfidence in the flesh. ' [iii. 3. ]

"III. --The Life in Christ exemplified in the Writer. 

"Here let us forget the Apostle, for he speaks wholly as the Christian, and in a way manifestly meant to be an instruction to all Christians. Heappears, then, in our document, as one whom Christ has 'seized, ' has'grasped' [iii. 12. ]; as one who has discovered in Christ, and in Christalone, the supreme Gain, the supreme Object of knowledge, the supremeSpiritual Power as the Risen One, [iii. 10. ] the supreme Interest andReason of life [i. 20; iii. 7-14], the one possible supply of theunspeakable need of a valid Righteousness before the Judgment Seat. Yes, he must be 'found in Him, having the righteousness which is from God onterms of faith, ' [iii. 9. ] the faith which enters into Christ. 'InChrist, ' we discover, the Writer is, everywhere and always. His 'bonds'are 'in Christ'; his 'glory' is 'in Christ' [i. 13, 26. ]; his hopesand trusts about the common events of life are 'in Christ'; in Christ hehas 'found the secret' how to do all, all he has to do, in peace [iv. 19, 24. ]. Christ fills his present life [iv. 13. ]; when he dies, he willbe so 'with Christ' that it will be 'far better' than this present life, though it is full of Christ [i. 21, 23. ]. He is the willing but mostreal bondservant of Christ [i. 1. ]. His relations with Christ so fillhim with peace and the power of peace, that extremely irritating rivalryand opposition at Rome does not irritate him, but occasions holy joy, and the suspense about life and death in which Nero keeps him ispowerless, wholly because of Christ [i. 12, etc. ], to evoke anythingbut a statement of the dilemma of blessings which life and death in theLord are to him [i. 21, etc. ]. On the other hand, as the whole Epistleindicates, every pure human sensibility circulates naturally in thissupernatural atmosphere [_E. G. _ ii. 27, 28; iv. 10. ]. And meanwhile, though 'perfect, ' in respect of reality of union and communication withhis Lord, he is not yet 'perfected' in respect of application andresults; the goal, the prize, is yet to come. [iii. 12, 14. ]

"And so I shut my Epistle to the Philippians, leaving very much more init for the next occasion. Such a study has not demanded long hours. Ithas asked only interest, purpose, and painstaking, a few such fragmentsof daily time as we must, yes, _must_, make and take for the Bible, ifwe are not to starve our people and ourselves. Suffer me to repeat itwith deep earnestness; we must, we absolutely must, not merelydevotionally read but devotionally search and penetrate this divineBook. And what shall come of the effort? By the grace of God, sought inthe deep joy of a profound submission, it shall come that we shall eachone realize, with a vernal newness and delight, that Christ is mine;that the springs and secrets of this life in Him are mine, for therealities of my home, my parish, my study, my soul. I go (it is for eachone of us to say it) with renewed thirst and certainty to Him theeternal Fountain; I live, I live, yet not I; and therefore I can work. It will be 'with fear and trembling, ' as I know myself to be indeed inthe eternal Presence; yet it will be also in the power-giving 'peacethat passeth understanding, keeping the heart and thoughts, in ChristJesus, ' a keeping that is not meant to vanish outside holy places andholy hours, but to do its strongest and serenest work in the midst ofcrookedness and perverseness, under the stress of toils and burthens, astruly for me to-day as for the Philippians and their Teacher then. "

 "_The Spirit breathes upon the Word And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford A sanctifying light. _

 "_My soul rejoices to pursue The steps of Him I love, Till glory breaks upon my view In brighter worlds above. _"

 COWPER. 

CHAPTER IV. 

_THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (i. ). 

 _When the watcher in the dark Turns his lenses to the skies, Suddenly the starry spark Grows a world upon his eyes: Be my life a lens, that I So my Lord may magnify_

We come from the secrecies of the young Clergyman's life, from his walkalone with God in prayer and over His Word, to the subject of his commondaily intercourse. Let us think together of some of the duties, opportunities, risks, and safeguards of the ordinary day's experience. 

A WALK WITH GOD ALL DAY. 

A word presents itself to be said at once, about the connexion betweenthe secret and the common walk of the servant of God. The former isnever to _give way to_ the latter; it is to _run into_ it, underground. "To walk with God _all day_" is to be our distinct and practicalpurpose, and not merely a sweet sentiment and holy aspiration of thehymn-book. The man who prays in secret is to be the man who knows howto pray secretly in public. The man who pores over the Word all alone isto be the man who, out in the open field of life, "sins not" because hehas "hid that Word in his heart" [Ps. Cxix. 11. ]; and who, being calledupon by circumstances, however casually, to show himself actually a true"man of the Book, " is internally ready to do so. Nothing short of "alife with Christ behind our work, " always and everywhere, is to contentus Pastors. To live that life is from one point of view our wonderful_privilege_, in our living union with our blessed Head. From anotherpoint of view it is our truest and deepest _work_, as we watch and prayover our privilege, and draw upon our Head in the holy diligence offaith. 

I have spoken already of this vital connexion between the walk with Godin secret and the secret walk with God in public. But it bearsreiteration. It is something gained if we only remind one another, withthe emphasis of repetition, that such a life is our bounden duty and ourblissful possibility:--

 "You may always be abiding, if you will, at Jesu's side; In the secret of His Presence you may every moment hide. "[10]

[10] I quote from a beautiful hymn, beginning, "In the secret of HisPresence. " It is given in part in several recent hymn-books, but for itscomplete form see _From India's Coral Strand_, (_Home Words_ Office, Paternoster Buildings, ) a collection of the poems of its gifted writer, a Hindoo Christian lady, Miss E. L. Goreh. 

But now, what will be the surface and expression of such a hidden life, as the young Clergyman passes through his busy common day?

LIFE IN LODGINGS. 

Let me speak first of his life indoors, that is to say, probably, in hislodgings. There the day at least begins and ends; and, in more ways thanhe is aware of till he sets himself to consider, he may--or maynot--glorify his Master _there_. He is quite certain to be watched, whether the eyes are friendly or unfriendly to himself and to hismessage and ministry. He will be watched of course not only as a man butas a Minister. And the results of the observation may be most important, for good or for evil, to the immediate observers; and they are prettysure to reach many other people through them. "What shall the harvestbe?"

SELF-RESPECT. 

Let one result be, a clear impression in the house that you, the newCurate, are a man of SELF-RESPECT. Perhaps that _word_ will not be used, any more than its Greek equivalent, [Greek: aidôs], that noblepre-Christian ethical term which lay ready and waiting to be glorifiedby the Gospel. But let Self-respect be your principle and your practice, and it will leave its impression, by whatever word the impression may bedescribed. Let the man be seen by those who are about him, and who inone way or another wait on him, to be _quite simple while quite refined_in ways and habits; to be active and wholesome in the hours he keeps; tohold self-indulgence under a strong bridle (shall I say, not least theself-indulgence which cannot do without the stimulant and without _thepipe_?); and he will be in a fair way to commend his message indoors. Let him be seen, without the least affectation, but unmistakably, tofind his main interests, within doors as well as without, in his Lordand His cause and work; to be the avowed Christian at all hours; and hewill be doing hourly work for Christ. With it all, let him be seen to be"gentle to others" while "to himself severe"; let him, while alwaysself-respectful, be always watchfully CONSIDERATE; and his light willshine; he will be an OEcolampadius, a _House-light_, indeed. 

CONSIDERATENESS. 

On that last point I must dilate a little; on the point ofConsiderateness. I remember a conversation a few years ago with one ofour college servants, an excellent Christian woman, truly exemplary inevery duty. She was speaking of one of my dear student friends nowlabouring for the Lord in a distant and difficult mission-field, andgiving him--after his departure from us--a tribute of most disinterestedpraise: "Ah, Sir, he _was_ a consistent gentleman!" And then sheinstanced some of my friend's consistencies; and I observed that theyall reduced themselves to one word--Considerateness. He was alwaystaking trouble, and always saving trouble. He was always finding out howa little thought for others can save them much needless labour. Thethings in question were not heroic. The thoughtfulness for othersconcerned only such matters as the bath, and the shoes, and the clothes, and some small details of hospitality. But they meant a very great dealfor the hard-worked caretaker, and they were to her a means of quitedistinct "edification, " upbuilding, in the assurance that Christ and theGospel are indeed practical realities. I break no confidence when I add, by the way, that my friend had not always been thus "a consistentgentleman. " But the Lord had found him, and he had found the Lord, inthe midst of his University life; and he had learnt most deeply andeffectually, at the feet of Jesus, the consistency of Considerateness. 

I do press this aspect of our daily walk with all earnestness on myyounger Brethren. I press it on them at least _to think about it_ withpainstaking attention. No Christian man, as such, means for one momentto be selfish. But lack of attention does in very many cases indeedallow the real Christian to contract, or to continue, selfish habits. Many good men quite fail to realize how selfish, practically, it is tobe unpunctual. You have your understood mealtimes in your lodging. Itmay not be always possible to keep strictly to them; the exigencies ofwork may make it honestly necessary now and again to be out of time. Butlet nothing less than duty do so for you. The breakfast kept standingbecause you are not up when you should be may very likely mean muchneedless trouble and much domestic disarrangement. Guests often broughtin without any notice may mean the same. 

SIMPLICITY AT TABLE. 

Perhaps I need not say, yet I will say it, that the consistent servantof God, whether at his own table or at his neighbour's, will "take heedunto himself" not even to _seem_ fastidious. There are some men aboutwhom, if you know them, you feel sure that they will _not_ choose thebest dish at the table; and there are others, I am afraid, about whomyou feel pretty sure that they will. One man will not think, or at leastwill not seem to think, whether the meat is hot or cold; and anotherwill rather decidedly avoid the latter. Pardon the details; they havesomething very real to do with our Consistency. 

USE OF THE TONGUE. 

And indeed we have need to ponder Consistency when we come to "theunruly member. " It is not often, perhaps, that the risks of the tongueare specially present in a bachelor's life in lodgings. But they are notabsent there. Friends come in, and we will suppose that you and they arewaited upon at your meal. What does the servant hear? Much talk aboutother and absent persons? Unkind or flippant criticisms? Idle, frivolouswords? Very likely not, thank God; for we do want to remember our Lord. But let us take heed. Nothing is more conspicuously inconsistent in theChristian than needless, unloving discussion of the characters and livesof others; nothing is more keenly noticed when overheard; nothing morebreaks the spell of influence for God. 

 "_Quisquis amat dictis absentum rodere vitam, Hanc mensam vetitam noverit esse sibi. _"[11]

[11] POSSIDONIUS: _De Vitâ Augustini_, c. 22. 

Such was the memento which St Augustine had inscribed upon hisdining-table. He found it necessary to remind the Bishops (_coëpiscopi_)whom he entertained not to misuse their ordained tongues. And thePastors of the nineteenth century need it still, quite as much as it wasneeded in the fifth. 

"SET A WATCH. "

It is impossible, of course, to lay down exhaustive rules for theChristian guidance of conversation in detail. It is quite certain thatthe Gospel does not prescribe, or intend, that we should never speakexcept about things spiritual, or even except about our special dutiesin the Ministry. But it is quite certain too that the Gospel doesprescribe inexorably the utmost watchfulness and self-discipline in thematter of the tongue, for all who name the Name of Christ. "For everyidle word that men shall speak they shall give account" [Matt. Xii. 36. ]; "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but suchas is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto thehearers" [Eph. Iv. 29. ]; "If any man among you seem to be devout([Greek: thrêskos]), and bridleth not his tongue, that man's devoutness([Greek: thrêkeia]) is vain" [Jas. I. 26. ]; "Set a watch, O Lord, beforemy lips. " [Ps. Cxli. 3. ]

LIFE IN A CLERGY-HOUSE. 

I may say a few words in this connexion about the peculiar call for careand consistency where a group of young Clergymen live together in a"clergy-house. "

*ITS OPPORTUNITIES AND NEEDS. 

It seems to me that such groups must in the nature of the case be_either_ means of the greatest good in the mutual intercourse of theirmembers, _or_ just the opposite. As sure as _corruptio optimi estpessima_, so sure it is that the young Clergyman who is not consistentin temper, word, and habit, is the most unhelpful specimen of the youngman; just because of the discord between his ministerial character andhis personal. And if, say, three or four young servants of God (byprofession) domicile together and are _not_ consistent, I am afraid theywill positively and actively draw one another, without in the leastmeaning to do so, away from the mind of Christ and the walk with God. Dothey allow themselves to engage in trivial foolish, unkind talk? Do theyso valiantly determine "not to be goody-goody" as tacitly to avoid allopen-hearted, loving, reverent conversation about their Lord and Histruth? Are they much fonder of endless argument than of the Word of Godand prayer? Do their united devotions tend to be formal and perfunctory?Do they (I come back to that point again) "bridle not their tongues"about the absent, about those over them, about those who differ fromthem? Then they are doing each other harm, at a rapid rate, by theircollocation. On the other hand, are they each for himself living closeto their Master and Friend in the secret chamber and in the inner heart?Are they walking humbly and gladly with their God, much in prayer, andhaving the Scriptures often open? And are they considering one another, to provoke unto love and to good works? Are they remembering generallyand habitually the sacredness of the duty of mutual influence andexample, in personal habits, and otherwise? Are they determined each forhimself to help his brethren in all things pure, and just, and lovable, and of good report, and to strengthen them to endure hardness, and notto be ashamed of the blessed Name? Then they are blessing one another inChrist, as few men otherwise can do. But personal, individualconsistency is the absolute requisite to this; each man must follow theLord _for himself_ in faith and fear. 

THE DUTY OF EXAMPLE. 

I spoke just above of the sacredness of the duty of example. It is atheme on which I entreat my younger Brethren very often to reflect, with self-scrutiny before their Master: I may be wrong, but I cannothelp thinking that here is a duty which is decidedly less rememberednow, among young Christian men, than it was in other days. Withexceptions many and bright, I yet fear that there is a decline in thismatter as a rule. That unhappy _individualism_ which is the bane of ourday, and which is the fatal enemy of all true and healthy_individuality_, breathes its malaria through even earnest Christiancircles. In the formation or allowance of personal habits, inparticular, it is sadly common to see young Christian men practicallyquite forgetful of the power and responsibility of example. I do notthink that this was quite so common twenty or thirty years ago. Not thatI wish to take up the futile part of a mere _laudator temporis acti_; Ibelieve that the phenomenon has its reasons, its law so to speak, in thepeculiar conditions of our day. But then the Christian man is never tobe the slave of the conditions of his day, while he _is_ to "serve hisown generation by the will of God. " [Acts xiii. 36. ] So I appeal mosturgently to my reader, if he should chance to need the friendly call, toawake to a renewed attention to the responsibility of example, and towatch accordingly over consistency in everything. 

"FOR THEIR SAKES. "

With the humblest reverence may I quote in this connexion the words ofour blessed Lord in the High Priestly Prayer? "_For their sakes Isanctify Myself. _" So said JESUS CHRIST. [John xvii. 19. ] Perfectly holypersonally, He was yet always deliberately hallowing Himself, separatingHimself, to the Father's will and work, "for their sakes"; because ofHis relations with His disciples. Shall not we sinners, at whateverinterval, yet really, "follow His steps" in this also? "For theirsakes, " for the sake of our brethren in the Ministry, for the sake ofour servants, for the sake of our neighbour of all sorts and kinds, letus "sanctify ourselves" in a daily, willing separation from the way ofself to the will of God, diligently seeking the expression of that willin His holy Word. It is the duty of every Christian. It is _parexcellence_ the duty of every Christian Minister, from the oldestArchbishop to the youngest Deacon. To take Orders is to renounce allideas of a selfishly _private_ life. Our whole life henceforth is "fortheir sakes"; even in those parts of it which must, from another pointof view, be most jealously protected from officialism, and lived as iffor the time no one existed but the man and his God. We are emphaticallynow "their bondmen for Jesus' sake. " [2 Cor. Iv. 5. ] "Others" have nowan indefeasible right not only to our ministry of Ordinances, and to ourpreaching, and our visiting, but to the example of our habits, of ourlives. 

MANNER. 

Following up the same line of remark, let me say a word about our dutyto others in the matter of _manner_. It is sometimes, surely, forgottenby Christian men that they have no right to be careless of their manner. Many an excellent and otherwise consistent Clergyman seems to assumethat, whether with his brethren or with his parish neighbours, hismanner may take care of itself, if he only "does not mean it. " Butwell-meaning is a poor substitute for well-doing; especially that otiosesort of well-meaning which only means not meaning ill. 

*"NOBLESSE OBLIGE. "

Christians have no business with so poor and thin a phantom of virtue. They are not at liberty not to think about a kindly courtesy of address, and a manly deference towards elders, and watchful "honour" given towoman [1 Pet. Iii. 7. ], and a _manifested_ (as well as felt) sympathy ofheart with all who ask it. They are forbidden by the whole will andrights of their Master to be loud and "casual" in intercourse; to bemoody and uncertain; to be difficult to please, easy to offend; to thinkit a small thing to speak the word to others which may wound, evenlightly, with any wound but the really "faithful" one of a lovingcaution or reproof in Christ. No one is to be so independent in oneaspect as the Christian man, and particularly the Christian Minister. Few men have so strong a vantage-ground for independence as theClergyman of the English national Church. But it is the sort ofindependence which carries also the deepest obligation, the strongestsort of _noblesse oblige_. It is "for their sakes. " And so the same manis bound to be also the most accessible, the most attentive, the mostcourteous and sympathetic. Avoiding carefully, of course, allaffectation and unreality, he is to take care that a Christian realitywithin does show itself in a Christian manner without. "Let yourmoderation, your oblivion of self, be _known unto all men_. " [Phil. Iv. 5. ] Let it be seen and felt, in your rooms, in your parish, in yourchurch. 

TEMPER. 

Obviously this takes for granted the Clergyman's recognition of the callto "rule his spirit. " [Prov. Xvi. 32. ] The temptation not to do so isvery different for different men. One man finds temper and patiencesorely tried by things which do not even attract the attention ofanother. But very few men indeed, in the actual experiences of pastorallife, whether in town or country, quite escape for long together thestings which irritate and inflame. But they _must_ learn how to meetthem in peace and patience, unless they would take one of the mostcertain ways to dishonour their Master and discredit their message. Theworld has some very true instincts about the power of the Gospel, as itought to be, as it claims to be. And one of them is that a Christian assuch is a man who ought always to keep his temper. The ChristianClergyman is most certainly, at least in an ironical sense, "expected"never to be _personally_ vexed and hot. Will it be so? Will he takeignorant rudeness pleasantly, should it cross his way? Will he meetopposition patiently, however firmly? Will he show that he remembers thetext, "The bondservant of the Lord must not strive"? [2 Tim. Ii. 24. ]

THE REV. C. SIMEON. 

That text was the watchword of a great man of God, the Rev. CharlesSimeon, in the early and exquisitely trying experiences of his longministry (1782-1836) at Trinity Church, Cambridge. The parishioners shuttheir house-doors in his face, and locked their pew-doors against thosewho came to hear him. Every form of irritating parochial obstruction wasemployed. And the young Clergyman had by nature a very short temper, anda very fearless spirit. But he had found peace through the blood of theCross a few years before, and the interests of his Saviour were becomeall in all to him. So his first thought was, what would best commendJesus Christ to the angry people? And the words seemed to soundconstantly in his soul, by way of answer, "The servant of the Lord mustnot strive. " Never was tried patience more beautifully made perfect. Hewas always giving way, and always going on. He carefully ascertainedthat it was illegal to lock the pew-doors; but he _did not take the law_of those who locked them. His soul was kept in peace; and by degrees, asmight be expected, a calmness which clearly was not cowardice butconsistency won a victory whose effects are felt to this day through thewhole Church of England in the results of Simeon's mighty influence. [12]

[12] I may be permitted to refer to my brief sketch of Mr Simeon's Life:_Charles Simeon_ (Methuen, 1892), ch. Iv. 

THE SECRET OF PEACE. 

How shall we, in our measure, whenever called to it, "not strive, " but"let our oblivion of self be known unto all men"--in the cottage, in thevilla, in the vestry? There is only one way. It is by abiding in theSecret of the Presence, in the "pavilion" where "the strife of tongues"may be heard indeed, but cannot, _no, cannot_, set the hearer on fire. We must claim on our knees, very often, our Master's power to keep thesoul which He has made, and which longs to manifest Him

 "In faith, in meekness, love, In every beauteous grace, From glory thus to glory changed As we behold His face. "

POWER OF A CONSISTENT LIFE. 

I have inevitably touched only some parts of the great subject ofpersonal ministerial Consistency. More will be said later. But thetreatment on paper, at almost any length, must be incomplete at thebest; many an important side of the subject will need to be omitted. Myaim has been, and will be, to speak of those sides most, if not only, which are in special danger of neglect at the present day; and thismeans of course the passing by of some large topics. 

PAINS AND MEANS. 

But contributions, however fragmentary, to the study of Consistency willnot be in vain. "A Minister's life is the life of his ministry, " sayssome one of other days with pithy force. "Happy those labourers of theChurch, " says blessed Quesnel, the Jansenist (on Mark vi. 33), "thesweet odour of whose lives draws the people to Jesus Christ. " We allrecognize the beauty and truth of such sayings. We all admit thefitness and duty of Consistency. But we must also recollect that inorder to our consistency there is needed more than an abstractapprobation; we must attend, we must reflect, we must examine ourselves, we must discipline ourselves, as those who aim at an object at oncelovely and necessary. Above all, we must "order our steps in our Lord'sWord, " [Ps. Cxix. 133. ] and we must maintain a living communion ofspirit with our Lord Himself, who is not only our Exemplar, our Law, andour King, but also our Secret, our Strength, our Life. 

CHAPTER V. 

_THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (ii. ). 

 _If Jesus Christ thou serve, take heed, Whate'er the hour may be; His brethren are obliged indeed By their nobility. _

In the present chapter I follow the general principles of the last intosome further details. And I place before me as a sort of motto thosetwice-repeated words of the Apostle, TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF. 

These words, it will be remembered, are addressed in both places to theChristian Minister. [Acts xx. 28; 1 Tim. Iv. 6. ] At Miletus St Paulgathers round him the Presbyters of Ephesus, and implores them to takeheed to themselves, and to the flock. A few years later he writes toTimothy, commissioned (whether permanently or not) to be Pastor ofPastors in that same Ephesus, and lays it on his soul to take heed tohimself, and to the doctrine. In each case the appeal to attend to"self" comes first, as the vital preliminary to the other. And in eachcase it takes the form of a solemn warning; not only "remember" but"TAKE HEED. "

TAKE HEED UNTO THYSELF. 

I have already tried to emphasize the duty of "heed-taking, " in severaldirections. But I come in this chapter to some important matters whichseem specially to fall under such a heading; matters in which the lackof prayerful heed may, and often does, work great and even fatalmischief in the lives of Clergymen. 

RELATIONS WITH WOMAN. 

i. Let me first say a little, in brotherly confidence and candour, aboutthe young Clergyman's _relations with Woman_ in ordinary intercourse. 

It would be waste of words to talk about the delicacy of the subject; itis self-evident. And it is obvious also that in a book like this thesubject can be treated only in the way of general suggestion; no vainattempt shall I make to state and discuss possible exceptional cases ofsocial difficulty. But it is quite necessary to say something on thismatter, for it is indeed a pressing and important thing in ministeriallife. 

I will begin, then, with the assumption that the young Clergymanrecognizes, and seeks to practise, the great Gospel principle of asanctified chivalry. "To the feminine vessel, as to the weaker, givehonour, " writes St Peter [1 Pet iii. 7. ]; words which must be cut largeand deep into our ministerial hearts if we are to live as true Ministersand true men. They have a particular reference to married life, I know;but their full scope is far wider. And they are among the most wonderfulutterances of the apostolic Gospel, when we read them in the light, orrather under the contrasted darkness, of the contemporary_anti_-chivalry of the Rabbinic teaching about woman. They are theutterance of Peter, the married man, after his discipleship in theSpirit at the feet of Jesus, the Mother's Son. "_Giving honour_;" do notforget the phrase. It lifts us into a higher and far healthier regionthan that of either mere fondness or mere admiration. Indeed, it isall-important to remember what a deep gulph lies between two thingswhich at first sight may be mistaken for one another--Admiration forWomen, Reverence for Woman. 

So let apostolic chivalry, unaffected, but watchful and practical, govern your life, by the grace of God. Let it be quite impartial as aprinciple. You may possibly have to speak with a princess; you are sureto have to speak and deal with very poor and ignorant women. But eachand all they are WOMAN, and you must remember the Apostle's word. Courtesy and consideration are due to them all, as you are a man, aChristian, a Minister of God. The expression may vary, and within limitsit must, but the principle must be always there. To the poorest womangive the wall in the street, offer the best seat in the train. 

WE ARE TRUSTED. 

I must here so far anticipate a future chapter as to point out howconstantly this call to "give honour" must be remembered in pastoralvisitation. We Clergy are _trusted_ to an extraordinary degree inpersonal intercourse with female parishioners. How often a pastoral callis paid, whether at mansion or cottage, when no man is at home! "Takeheed unto thyself" _then_. The call under those circumstances should beas brief as possible. And the whole interview should be ruled by aheedful while unobtrusive respect and self-respect. Do not think astrong word of caution in this matter out of place and out of scale. Carelessness of even appearances here may wreck a life; it may certainlyblight an influence. 

WHEN AND HOW TO TAKE HEED. 

But I do not forget that we are not yet concerned directly with pastoralvisitation as such; we are thinking of incidental social intercourse. The young Clergyman will sometimes, however seldom, find himselfvisiting in not exactly the pastoral sense of the word. Courteoushospitality will be shown him by neighbours; and while he will veryoften decline these calls, because his Master's work in other and moreobvious forms claims him, sometimes he will accept them, as his Masterdid. Or his needful holiday has come, and he is staying at a friend'shouse, or is thrown into new intercourse at some health-resort. And wewill suppose that he is a bachelor, and not engaged. In what particulardirections shall he take heed?

"KNOW THYSELF. "

Below and above all details, he will take heed to remember his alwayspresent Lord and Friend, and to live and talk as knowing that "HE is theunseen Listener to every conversation"; a recollection which ought tobanish from our talk, whether we talk with man or woman, alikefrivolity, unkindness, untruthfulness, and dulness. Then, to come to afew details under that great principle--the man will need to watch andbe heedful in one or more quite different directions, according to hischaracter. And God grant us all such honesty and simplicity before Himas shall teach us to know at least something of our own characters, especially in their weak points. There ought to be no surer prescriptionfor a true [Greek: gnôthi seauton] than to "walk in the light" [1 Johni. 7. ] of the presence of Him who sees everything just as it is, and inthat light to look at ourselves, and the world, and His Word; aimingevery day, not to be thought "nice, " or to be thought remarkable, but tolet Him shine out of our lives. 

THE DUTY OF RESERVE. 

One man, then, will need more than another to cultivate a quiet reserveand restraint of manner in social intercourse with young ladies. It isthe way of some men, without thinking about it, to be toodemonstratively attentive. It is the way of others to forget that theyare not everywhere at home, and to be far too familiarly friendly. "Ilook on every girl I meet as if she were my sister;" so said one youngClergyman, a very fine fellow indeed, but certainly in this sentimentvery much and very dangerously mistaken. Attentions and confidences maybe meant as honestly as possible. But if they go beyond a certain line(soon reached) they may most naturally be thought to mean somethingmore; to be a preliminary, however distant, to an offer. And justpossibly such a thought may not be unwelcome to the other personconcerned. And if so, and if all the while nothing but courtesy wasmeant, you, my friend and Brother, without knowing it, perhaps withoutever knowing it, may _spoil the life_ of one who cannot possibly, as awoman, express herself to you. I have known such a case in clericallife. The man was a true man, but he allowed himself, for thepleasantness of it, to be very agreeable where he meant no more thanfriendship. Great, while silent, was the sorrow that resulted. Take heedunto thyself. 

SPECIAL RISKS. 

There are some parochial circumstances where even unusual caution isneeded in this direction; for reasons which I allude to with pain. Itis a fact, I fear, that in some parishes the Curate is in danger ofbeing rather actively pursued, by here and there a parent, as a possiblydesirable son-in-law. I have even heard of a certain Incumbent who wasgiven not indistinctly to understand that the coming Curate would beless welcome if he was a man already married. Such a state of things isof course one of exceptional social risk and difficulty for a Curate, and for a young single Rector or Vicar still more so. Nothing will dobut a very real "heed-taking, " beginning always in secret with God, andthen quietly carried out with sanctified common-sense. Fatal mistakes, really fatal to future usefulness in the Ministry, may very easily bemade otherwise. 

But then there is an opposite side to the question. Some young men, notall certainly but a good many, are in great danger of a ratherexaggerated estimate of their own attractions and importance. There aresome junior Clergymen who are, if I do not mistake, prone to think thatmost young ladies whom they meet are fascinated by them, or are at leastin imminent peril. Such delusions meet sometimes with not very gentlecorrections. But it is better to be forearmed against the delusion--asit most probably _is_ a delusion in the given case. And the bestprophylactic is the old one; a secret walk with God "in the light, " anda recollection of the constant need of self-knowledge exactly where suchknowledge is least pleasant. I repeat it; may the Lord grant us each andevery one His true [Greek: gnôthi seauton]. By a blessed paradox it issure to prove the secret of a true self-oblivion; for it means forcertain, among other things, a truer and fuller sight of HIM. 

MATRIMONY OR CELIBACY?

The subject thus before us is a very large one. It connects itself withthe whole question whether marriage or celibacy is the will of God inthe man's ministerial life. Happily I have no need, in the Church ofEngland, to defend "the holy estate of matrimony" as if it were in theslightest measure incompatible with the fullest sanctification of lifeand of ministry. Personally my belief is that, in the immense majorityof cases, the married Clergyman is the more useful Clergyman _if_ (an"if" of extreme importance) his wife is _altogether one with him in theLord_. But I distinctly think that there are very many exceptions to thematrimonial rule. There are branches of ministerial work, particularlyin parts of the sacred _missionary_ field, where the single man seems tomake the better Minister. And no true servant of God will allow himselfto think first of an opening for marriage and then of an opening forministry. 

"ONE IN THE LORD. "

Here I pause to say what it lies much on my heart to say somewhere. Letthe true man, who is at present free in respect of marriage-engagements, resolve that in the whole question of seeking or not seeking a wife hewill consider first, midst, and last his Master's work, his Master'sMinistry. Better a thousand times be the most solitary of human beingsthan choose with your eyes open a married life in which you will notfind positive help (not merely no positive hindrance) in your work forthe Lord Jesus Christ. Beware of the temptation to seek the mere prettyface, or the mere fortune large or small, or mere accomplishments, orindeed anything short of the truly converted believing heart anddedicated will. 

*MARRIED LIFE AS IT SHOULD BE. 

The Clergyman and his Wife are sacredly bound to live their united lifewholly for Christ. They are to help one another on in Him, to stimulateone another in work for others in Him, to give each other always mutualaid towards a constant growth in faith, hope, and love; towards an everbetter use of means, and time, and tongue, and everything. If their Lordgives them children to train for Him, those children are to see theirparents so living, not only individually but together, as to glorify andcommend the Gospel _to them_, from the very first. And the wider familyof the parish, sure to be observant, is to see the same sight inmeasure. Happy the married Pastor whose home and its life respond tosuch a description. Alas for the man whose passion, blindness, hurry, self-will, or whatever else it is, has betrayed him into a condition ofthings which cannot be so described. 

I may be writing for some readers to whom such a "take heed untothyself" may be in point even as they read. If so, let me seize theoccasion. With not a few very sorrowful illustrations in my mind I layall emphasis on this earnest word of affectionate warning. And let meadd to it another word, as in duty bound, and with the utmost solemnity, knowing that the thing is vitally important. I appeal to you not lightlyto seek marriage, not lightly to make engagement, even where you havegood assurance that all would be spiritually well, if there is a realprobability of a married life _clogged with pecuniary perplexities_. 

You observe that I do not speak absolutely on this point; I dare not. Ido not say, Do not do it; I say, Do not _lightly_ do it. Faith is onething; "light-heartedness" is another. And sometimes light-heartednessmeans nothing better than a vague expectation that "something will turnup. " Perhaps what does turn up is a weary and distracting struggle withdebt, and a gradual habituation to a not very creditable life upon themeans of others, who very likely can spare only with difficulty whatcomes at length to be taken without gratitude. I beseech my Brother to"suffer the word of exhortation. "

RISKS OF DEBT. 

ii. I touch thus already on the second point about which I would faincry, Take heed unto thyself. That matter is _Money_. A few words herewill sufficiently convey my appeal, but those few must be pressing. Iappeal to my younger Brethren to be watchful day by day in the matter ofmoney. At this moment there rises in my memory the face and name of aClergyman with whom, long years ago, I became acquainted about the timeof his ordination. He was unquestionably in earnest; I believe that hetruly knew his Lord and Master, and was truly desirous to serve Him inHis flock. But I am perfectly sure that he must have forgotten, almostfrom the first, to take heed unto himself in the matter of money. [SN:PECUNIARY INTEMPERANCE. ] Perhaps he had brought with him from theUniversity that fatal habit of _pecuniary intemperance_ which sometimesgets a hold upon a man second in its grasp only to that of intemperancecommonly so called. Unhappily the ways of modern college life too easilygenerate such a habit, as University men are led more and more by theirsurroundings into a dread of appearing to be poor, and are almostexpected to cost their fathers more for the academical year of eight ornine months than they will earn in the clerical year of twelve. Buthowever it was, my poor dear friend _had_ about him the tendency todebt. And not all his earnestness and his devoutness could maintain hisinfluence when that tendency began to tell. One post of duty had to besoon quitted for another, and so again and again, under thisever-recurring failure. Let us take heed unto ourselves. 

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MONEY. 

In dealing with money which in any sense is public, no care can be toogreat. In a case well known to me, a Clergyman imperilled his wholeinfluence, to the verge of ruin, by the simple but effectual process ofallowing money collected for a church-object to be mixed and "muddled"with his private funds. He was not business-like, and he was not at allwell off. And somehow, when the time of reckoning came, the money hadmelted, he knew not whither. Strenuous exertions on the part of friendsreplaced privately the missing collection; but it was only just in time. I have often heard our Indian Missionaries say how great and frequent isthe difficulty raised by the apparent incapacity of some otherwiseexcellent native Pastors to keep public and private money apart. Theymean all that is honourable; but a friend comes in begging for a loan, and there is the church fund at hand, and of course the sum taken shallbe soon repaid, and of course it is _not_ repaid. But such difficultiesare not confined to India. The native Pastors of England have great needto take heed unto themselves. 

THE ACCOUNTS IN GOOD ORDER. 

If possible, let us make our lay parochial friends our secretaries, andabove all our treasurers. But if it must be otherwise, and often it mustbe, let us take heed, at any cost of pains. To do so may be overruled towin a positive influence for the Clergyman. I well remember a dearfriend of mine telling me, with loyal pleasure, of his holy and devotedVicar's care in this direction, and its power over the keen-sighted andnot always friendly members of the school-committee in his great parish. Every item of the books was accurate; every halfpenny of receiptsaccounted for. Men could find no fault in that Clergyman save concerningthe Law--and the Gospel--of his God. 

INVESTMENT-CIRCULARS. 

Perhaps I need only allude in passing to that crude sort of temptationput so freely before us Clergy, the circular advertisement of the minewhich is to pay twenty per cent. , or of the company just formed (I havesuch a circular in my possession, and keep it sacredly, ) to promote theconstruction of a new projectile which shall make war more horrible thanever; one condition to the success of the Clergyman's investment being, of course, that war, thus made more horrible than ever, shall also be asfrequent and continuous as possible. But the schemes announced in thesecirculars are very various in character; good, indifferent, and bad. Need I say that, as a very safe rule, they must all be viewed as badfrom the point of view of the young Clergyman's (or indeed of theClergyman's) purse? It is a truism to remark that high interest meanslow security; but even a truism can bear occasional repetition when ithas to do with a good man's whole life and work, and when the oblivionmay mean acute or chronic misery. Such investments are for us a form ofgambling, almost as much so as the shameless circulars which wesometimes receive from foreign cities, announcing the possibility ofclearing a fortune at one stroke by a turn of the lottery machine. Doesthe sending of such missives to the English Clergy mean that EnglishClergymen sometimes answer them? If so, I say that it is strictlyimpossible that the man who so answers, whether he loses or wins, canalso be walking with God, and so working that the Lord works with him. So far as such acts go, he is acting an awfully untrue part, and hisMaster knows it. Let us take heed unto ourselves. 

OTHER MONEY-PERILS. 

In conclusion, I turn another way. The whole question of the increaseand investment of money is a very solemn and searching one for theChristian, clerical or lay. There are holy men who say that we ought inno degree to "lay up. " While I reverence their meaning, I do not agreewith them. Yet I do most deeply feel that their warnings raise adanger-signal in a direction opposite to that which we have beenviewing, but equally important. Some of my younger Brethren have alreadya private competency; others may be expecting one. 

*"WHEN RICHES INCREASE. "

To others, gifted in one way or another for marked acceptance in theChurch, posts are, or will be, offered which even in these days bring agood income, perhaps a growing one. Take heed unto thyself. It is withdeep significance that the Word of God bids us not set our heart uponriches _when they increase_. [Ps. Lxii. 10. ] It is often observed, Ifear, that a man's readiness to give diminishes in proportion to hispower for giving. There is a subtle fascination for many minds, andamong them for minds generous at first, in an access of possessions; thethirst for more sets in, however imperceptibly, and perhaps theChristian, perhaps the Pastor, has become--before he knows it--covetous;caring a good deal for money. Let us take heed unto ourselves. [13]

[13] I cannot help relating a pathetically amusing remark I once heardin a Dorsetshire cottage. I had looked in on the good housewife in thecourse of a long walk, and she was telling me about the needs andstraits of a recent time of illness. The aged Vicar of the large andthinly-peopled parish was a well-to-do man, and not at all unkind inmeaning and manner. But he never gave alms, or indeed material help ofany kind. "Poor Mr ----, " said the cottager, with the kindliest_naïveté_, "he never _do_ give away anything. There, _I suppose it behis affliction_. "

"LAY NOT UP FOR YOURSELVES. "

I am sure that the Gospel has no censure for modest comforts and forsimple refinements. I am sure that it bids the Christian, whether Pastoror not, "_provide_, " look beforehand, with a view to save needlessanxiety and disadvantage both for himself and yet more "for them of hisown house. " [1 Tim. V. 8. ] But I am equally sure that it commands useven more emphatically not to lay up treasure upon earth; not to makethe sad mistake of thinking that the work of life is to get. Rather mayours be the spirit of a noble-hearted friend of mine, now at rest forever, early called away from heroic Missionary work. He had foundhimself rapidly getting richer in a successful school-enterprize; andrecognized _in this_ a summons to give it up, and volunteer for theforeign field. 

But I say no more. Probably to the great majority of my readers theselast paragraphs seem little to the purpose, at least at present. Butthere are few lives in which, sooner _or later_, such reflections maynot find a corner for application. 

THE MOTIVE. 

Meanwhile, whether our call is to avoid debt or to avoid gathering, wewill look up for new motive power into our Master's face. Him we love;Him we long to commend; and to Him we belong with all we have. In HisName, and for His sake, we will take heed unto ourselves. 

CHAPTER VI. 

_THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (iii. ). 

 _Thrice happy they who at Thy side, Thou Child of Nazareth, Have learnt to give their struggling pride Into Thy hands to death: If thus indeed we lay us low, Thou wilt exalt us o'er the foe; And let the exaltation be That we are lost in Thee. _

Let me say a little on a subject which, like the last, is one of somedelicacy and difficulty, though its problems are of a very differentkind. It is, the relation between the Curate and his Incumbent; or moreparticularly, the Curate's position and conduct with regard to theIncumbent. 

A LECTURE ON CURATES. 

I need not explain that the legal aspect of this important matter is notin my view. Not long ago I listened, in the library of Ridley Hall, toan instructive lecture, by a diocesan Chancellor, on the law of Curates;one of a series on Church Law delivered under the sanction of theUniversity. The Lecturer informed the audience, certainly he informedme, of many points of practical moment not clearly known to us before. He gave a sketch of the history of the licensed Curate as aninstitution, and made us aware that he is a modern institution, comparatively speaking. Before the Reformation the numerous host of"chantry-priests" was largely used to supplement the offices of theparochial Clergy. After the Reformation, for a very long while, thepastoral arrangements did not include a special institution ofAssistants. Then, as the unhappy system of pluralities grew large andcommon, such as it was all through the eighteenth century and beyond it, "the Curate" meant not the active assistant of the resident Pastor butthe substitute for the non-resident--the Curate-in-Charge. It was nottill well within these last hundred years that men were commonly to befound doing what we now understand so well as Assistant-Curates' work. The presence in the Church of us Assistant-Curates (I hold a licencemyself, and am therefore one of the company) is at once an effect and asign both of the great increase of population and of the concurrentincrease throughout the Church of England of the desire for fuller andmore laborious ministrations. 

A CHANCELLOR'S SUGGESTIONS. 

So our able Lecturer led us through our own history; and then heproceeded to instruct us in some main elements of our legalqualifications, and duties, and rights: how to get into a Curacy, andhow to get out of it; what are the Bishop's rights over the Curate, andhow the Archbishop may interpose if the Curate pleads a grievanceagainst the Bishop. But I trust that this and other Lectures of the samecourse may see the light some day in a better form than a rough andpassing report of mine. My purpose in referring to them now is that Imay call attention to one point on which the Lecturer laid no littlestress. It was, that it is the wisdom of the Curate, when he has oncedeliberately accepted a Curacy, to be thoroughly loyal all along; toconsider himself as "at the Vicar's beck and call"; to serve himheartily and unreservedly. If tempted to do otherwise, particularly iftempted to complain of the Vicar to the Bishop, let him resist thattemptation to the utmost of his power. "There may be sad exceptions, andnecessity knows no law; but _as a rule_, " said my honoured friend, "Imay assure you, from a large experience, that the Curate who complainsof his Incumbent to his Bishop injures not the Incumbent but himself. "

LOYALTY. 

Our Lecturer avowedly spoke not as a spiritual but as a legalcounsellor. I would now take up his words, and from the point of view ofthe friend and Brother in the Lord say a little to my younger Brethren, engaged or about to be engaged in assistant Curacies, concerning theChristian rightness and Christian wisdom of taking the sort of linewhich the diocesan Chancellor recommended. 

THE IDEAL INCUMBENT. 

As I come to the subject, let me say on the threshold that I am sure tobe writing for many readers who little need the discourse, at least atpresent. You are working under a Vicar or a Rector whose example andalso whose friendship is one of the greatest blessings of your life. Yousee in him a man perhaps much older than yourself, perhaps nearly yourcoeval, but however a leader, who is also, in the Lord Jesus Christ, your brother, and your most considerate while stimulating friend. Heconsults you, without forgetting his responsibility of ultimatedirection. He gladly and fully recognizes and honours your work doneunder his organization. He has not the slightest wish to come betweenyou and the affections of his parishioners among whom you move. Hecultivates, in his busy life, Christian fellowship with you in private;you pray together, and talk together, not only about the parish butabout the Lord, and the Word, and your own souls. He lets you find inhim, as he is glad to find in you, just a man, a friend, a Christian, with trials and blessings of inner experience on which it is sometimesgood to speak to one another; a living soul, companionable and human, while in it Christ dwells by faith. You have experienced with happyuniformity your Incumbent's patience, sympathy, fairness, trustworthiness. You have seen in him one who is himself always at work, always watching for the flock; who does not put on you this duty or thatmerely because it is irksome to himself, but whose whole purposes are inthe cause of God, and who distributes labour in any and every interestbut his own. 

And perhaps you see this man honoured and loved by all around you, asthey too see and know him to be what he is. You move about in theparish, and you are quite sure to hear allusions to the Vicar. And as arule, perhaps, they are all friendly, all loyal, all grateful. You findyourself, in short, under no appreciable present temptation, being (asof course you are) a true man yourself, to do anything but identifyyourself very gladly with him. 

YET EVEN HE IS NOT PERFECT. 

But then, even in this bright supposed case--a case of which the Churchof England contains hundreds of practical examples, thankGod--appreciable temptations in the other direction, the wrong, unhappy, fatal direction, may very conceivably creep upon you with time. Youradmirable Incumbent is all the while a mortal man, and as such, mostcertainly (he himself above all men knows and owns it), he is notperfect, not quite equal to himself in every way. Perhaps he has come tobe not perfect in physical health, and thus he is obliged, to his owngrief, to do less in this or that branch of activity than some of hispeople think he ought to do; and then you are tolerably sure to hearsome not very just and generous complaints in the parish. Perhapsdomestic sorrow, or domestic straits and care, may have come in tobecloud his spirit and to make his energies for a season flag. Perhapsamong his many gifts you may find some gift a little lacking; he may bemanifestly less strong in the committee, or in the labours ofarrangement generally, than in the pulpit or the class; or it may bejust the other way. And you, my dear friend, may be (or may thinkyourself to be) somewhat strong where he is somewhat weak; anopportunity for many subtle temptations. The days and weeks go on; andif you let "the little rift" of criticism widen, and do not continuallytake it to your Lord to be examined and mended, other feelings--not bornfrom above--may steal in between you and this good man, your elder andleader in Christ. Petty dislikes and impatience may rise in your heartabout some trifling point of manner, some momentary failure of sympathy, some oblivion of arrangement or engagement due to a sore stress ofwork, some very small matter of Church order, or Christian dialect; orwho can tell what?

GRAVE POSSIBLE TEMPTATIONS TO DISLOYALTY. 

But also it is just possible that I am writing for some reader who findshimself in more grave and pressing difficulties than these. My mosthonoured brethren the Incumbents, if any of them should cast their eyesover these chapters, written by a Curate mainly for Curates, will notblame me for saying that there are cases, sad and sorrowful, where theCurate cannot honestly think with perfect happiness of his leader's workand influence. Perhaps that Incumbent has "run well, " nobly well, but(as it was of old with some primitive saints) something or someone"hindered him. " [Gal. V. 7. ] Perhaps he has lost first love andzeal, and sunk, he knows not how, into an indolent clericalism, oranticlericalism, of thought and habit. Perhaps he has suffered care, disappointment, parochial conflicts, to sour his spirit, or at least totake his heart away from his people. Perhaps he has felt the sadinfluence of controversial battles, and the love and richness of the oldGospel has somewhat faded out of his life, and conversation, andsermons; I do not refer to faithful care over distinctive andworld-offending truth, but to the controversial _spirit_, which isaltogether another thing. Perhaps he has somewhat lost command overtemper; perhaps he has not yet found in our Lord's great fulness theopen secret by which He supplies patience to His servants, even whenthey are sorely vexed by man. And just possibly difficulty betweenCurate and Vicar threatens to arise from some side-quarter; from thosewho stand around the Vicar, who inevitably see him often and intimately, who are active and important under-workers in his field, and who maythemselves be not quite fully "governed by the Spirit and Word of God. "

BEWARE OF THE GROWTH OF A CURATE'S PARTY. 

I have put a good many supposed cases. How much I should rejoice if Icould know that not one reader of this page could find any of my"peradventures" the least in point within his experience. But I mustemphasize one of them which is hardly a peradventure at all; namely thatthe Curate is practically certain, sooner or later, to find temptationspresented to his loyalty by the conversation of parishioners. There isnot one parish in all England where everybody is pleased with theIncumbent; pleased always and about everything. And if the given Vicaror Rector employs a Curate, and if that Curate is you, it will be amoral miracle if you never hear of such discontents. You will hear ofthem, very probably, in ways which will offer you, however faintly, anopportunity of acting towards your chief a little as Absalom actedtowards David when he expressed certain pious wishes that _he_ were madejudge in the land in his father's place. [2 Sam. Xv. 1-6. ] I do not fora moment mean that you are, or ever will be, a man of treacherous_purposes_; the Lord forbid. But if you do not watch, and are not insome measure forewarned, you may easily be betrayed unawares, quiteunawares, into speech or into action which will practically betreacherous to the man who is over you in Christ, and so toward Christ'swork and cause in the parish where you serve. Do you not know thepossibilities to which I refer? Have they not crossed either your ownpath or that of some Curate-friend of yours? Is there no such thing asan intimacy formed by the Curate in some house where the Incumbent isnot liked, and is that intimacy never used by the Curate _not_ for thenoblest ends? Is there no weak listening to parochial gossip on theCurate's part? Is there never any allowance by the younger man of agrowth around him, in ways which he could stop summarily, if he tried, of a certain unwholesome sort of preference and popularity? Is it notsometimes known that a Curate condescends so low as to concur withcriticisms or sarcasms on his chief, or even to volunteer them? Alas forthe parish where there is a "Curate's party, " small or more extensive. Happy the parish where no chance is given in that direction by eitherIncumbent or Curate. Happy the Curate who is so truly loyal and dutiful, it may be even under difficulties, that he makes it quite unmistakablethat, if a party is to gather, it must gather around some one else. 

HOW TO REPRESS IT. 

Some cases happily in point are present to my own mind. I once knew of aparish in which the truly devoted Vicar was, however, not popular; hehad sadly felt the weight of depression and disappointment, and this hadhad a weakening reflex influence on his ministry. He was joined by aCurate, a man in the prime of youth and vigour, well qualified toattract confidence and affection, and particularly gifted as a preacher. Very soon many parishioners showed a preference for the young man'sministrations in public, and for his company in private; it was a goldenopportunity for the almost spontaneous formation of a Curate's party. Bythe grace of God, the young Clergyman was enabled both to see theposition at once and, by most decisive and manly speech and act, in theright quarters, to show, without a chance of mistake, that he consideredhis work as altogether identical with his Vicar's, never to be carriedon for an hour outside a faithful subordination. Another instance may begiven. Some years ago it was my duty to explain at a meeting the objectsand work of the Divinity Hall with which I am connected. Quiteincidentally, while describing our course of teaching, I mentioned myearnest desire always to caution my student-friends against giving theslightest encouragement to the rise of Curates' parties. 

*AN EXAMPLE. 

At the close of the occasion, a Clergyman rose at the back of theparish-room where we met, and said a few words, as gladdening as theywere unexpected. He had come to the meeting-place with no knowledge ofthe meeting; merely to keep an appointment. But he happened to be theVicar of a large town parish, and there to have had a friend of mine ashis Curate; and he told us how this same Curate had come to him at atime when the parish, under circumstances inherited from past years, wasripe and ready for partizanship and division. Nothing would have beenneeded but the Curate's passive allowance of such tendencies toembarrass and spoil the difficult work of the Vicar. But my dear youngfriend was "found in Christ"; he knew his Lord's will in the matter, andhe strove to do it. By active discouragement he precluded the mischiefcompletely, and thus greatly strengthened his leader's hands for thework of God before him. 

"THE LOST GRACE, HUMILITY. "

Surely few Christian men have wider and nobler opportunity than Curateshave for the practice of "that lost grace, humility, " in its form ofunselfish dutifulness, "good fidelity in all things. " [Tit. Ii. 10. ] MyBrethren know the sort of humility I mean; no artificial mannerism, nothing in the least degree unworthy of the "adult in Christ. " What I domean is that thing so scarce in our days, the noble opposite to thatindividualistic spirit than which nothing is more narrow, more low, morehostile to all true, genial development and greatness. I mean thegenerous modesty which delights to recognize the claims of an elder, ofa leader; which loves the idea of trustworthy service, taking as itsmotto a more than princely _Ich Dien_. I mean the temper of mind whichsees the happiness of siding against ourselves, of judging not othersbut ourselves; the spirit which is much more anxious to vindicate asuperior's reputation than our own, more alert to ward criticism offfrom him than to shield our own head from its arrow. I mean the lifewhich shows that so far from being ashamed of the idea of subjection, the man has learnt at the feet of Jesus to think true service thetruest freedom. 

Another day, very probably, the Curate will find himself an Incumbent, and will have his own helping brother at his side. It will be a happything then for both parties if he has thoroughly learnt that greatqualification for command, the experience of obedience; and hascultivated the exercise of sympathy with his subordinate by having firststriven in honest loyalty to take his chief's part against himself. 

TAKE PART AGAINST YOURSELF. 

Few, very few, are the cases where a man who has accepted a Curacy _withhis eyes reasonably open_ finds that such is the friction of theposition that his first duty is to seek a release. There are such cases, I am afraid. But, I say it again, they are very few; and in every casewhich looks as if it were one of them, the Curate should _first_exercise the severest scrutiny upon himself, trying honestly to find, insome magnifying mirror, "the beam in his own eye. " [Matt. Vii. 3. ] Andeven where such scrutiny still leaves it plain, after consultation notonly with sensible friends (if necessary) but of course with the LordHimself, that it is best to seek a change, let it be remembered that, upto the very last day of connexion, the Curate is still the Curate, boundto all possible loyalty and good faith. 

"SUFFER THE WORD. "

It is with some misgivings of feeling that I have dwelt thus at lengthon difficulties and anxieties incident to the relationship of Curate andIncumbent. But I do not think after all that I shall be misunderstood. In the nature of the case, the bright sides of the matter have hardlyneeded comment. The Curate who finds himself the favoured and advantagedhelper of some true-hearted leader needs little counsel from me, unlessit be in face of the fact, on which we have touched, that the noblestleaders in the Lord in the whole English Church are not above parochialcriticism, or even parochial slander. But I do know that there areCurates whose circumstances are less favourable; and I long to impressit upon them that few Christians have a larger and more fruitful fieldthan they for the cultivation of some of the crowning graces of theGospel. It is for them to make no common proof of the power of theIndwelling Lord to subdue the iniquities of His people, to hallow theirinmost spirits, to set before their lips the watch and ward of Hisblessed Presence, to drive utterly away from their pastoral souls thewretched spirit of sarcasm, to enable them for an unselfish faithfulnesswhen no eye but the unseen Master's oversees. 

INDEPENDENCE AND LOYALTY. 

It is no part of the system of the Church of England, as it is of thatof the Church of Rome, to put a man (or a woman) under the "spiritualdirection" of a fellow-sinner, who is to be, for the "directed, " theorgan and representative of the will of God. For such a method is nopart of the apostolic Gospel, which never for a moment bids ussurrender conscience into the keeping of another. "Who art thou thatjudgest _Another's_ servant? To his _own Master_ he standeth orfalleth" [Rom. Xiv. 4. ]; words which deeply and decisively contradictthe root-ideas of spiritual despotism, for they teach us to think ofour fellow-Christians, as if--for purposes of the conscience--He whois their Master and ours was, for them, _another_ Master thanours. [14] Yet the ideas of spiritual despotism are only the distortionor parody of ideas which are as true and sacred as the Gospel can makethem; the ideas of self-abnegation for the good of others, and ofresolute denial of the miserable spirit which prefers self to othersand talks about rights when we should be intent on duties. TheChristian man, and _à fortiori_ the Minister of Christ, is called (aswe have seen in earlier pages) to nothing less than a life in which, while conscience is inviolable, self is surrendered to Christ, in thatpractical sense of the words which means surrender, for His sake, _toothers_, in all things which concern not right and wrong but ourself-will. 

[14] I owe this remark to my friend the Rev. H. E. Brooke. 

"CLOTHED WITH HUMILITY. "

"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. " [1 Pet. V. 5. ]I never forget how the Apostle finishes the passage; "Yea, _all of you_, be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility, " [Greek:egkoubôsasthe tên tapeinophosynên], "tie humility round you" as theservant ties on his apron. Most characteristic of the Bible is theimpartiality of the precept, so given; the Elders in the Church of Godwill not forget it on their side. But nevertheless the stress of theprecept bears upon the younger man. He, in the Lord's order, isespecially to recollect the sacred duty of a willing, loyal, andopen-eyed humility. 

A NOBLE SUBORDINATION. 

All the instincts of our time are against this. But for the truedisciple of Jesus Christ there is something stronger than any spirit ofthe age; it is the Spirit of God, dwelling in the inmost soul. By thatwonderful power the Christian Curate, who walks with the Lord in secret, and finds in Him his way of purity and consistency in the more generalaspects of his "walk with others, " will daily be enabled for a brightand glad consistency in the path of ministerial subordination. He willnot cease to be a man, who must observe and think; nor will henecessarily hold it his duty never, in all loyalty and respect, toexpress to his Vicar a differing wish or opinion. But his bias will beagainst himself, and for his chief, if he indeed lets the Spirit of Godlead him, and rule him, and fill him. For the Lord's sake, [Greek: diatou Kyrion], and by the Lord's power, [Greek: dia tou Kyriou], he willcarry the principle of a watchful "submission" not only into greaterthings, but even into the smaller preferences of his elder and leader, if they in the least degree affect the duties of the parish and thechurch. 

A LETTER ON CURATES' GRIEVANCES. 

I close this chapter with a quotation. It is a letter written to theEditor of the _Record_, in the spring of 1885, after the perusal of acorrespondence in that paper in which some "grievances of EvangelicalCurates" had been set forth, and in which it had been implied that suchgrievances might give some sufferers occasion to transfer theirsympathies to another "school. "

"After reading the recent correspondence, I cannot forbear a few wordsexpressive of the sad impression left upon my mind. Far be it from me tosay that Incumbents have no lessons to learn from this correspondence. All Incumbents who have, by grace, 'the mind that was in Christ Jesus'will surely embrace every suggestion, however painful in form, which canstimulate them to larger manifestations of holy and self-forgettingsympathy, perfectly compatible with the firm attitude (which is alsotheir duty) of responsible direction. But this thought leaves unalteredthe mournful impression taken from the tone of the letters of myaggrieved Brethren. In one form or another one thought seemed to breathein all;--the thought of _my_ rights, _my_ position, _my_ gifts andopportunities, and what was due from others in regard of them; thecomplaint that others were not humble, when the Christian's firstconcern with humility is to derive it for himself from his Lord. Such aspirit is not easily compatible with a true secret hourly walk with Godand abiding in Christ, the _sine quâ non_ of fruit-bearing. Andfruit-bearing is the supreme inner aim of the true pastoral life, fruit-bearing in the devoted doing of the Master's present will. 

"In one letter I read with pain that 'it is no marvel' if men who cannotsecure justice and happiness in one party should transfer theirallegiance to another. Is it indeed 'no marvel'? Is it to be expected, then, in the holy Ministry, that convictions about divine truth shouldbe modified by the personal claims and comfort of the holder, if theword 'hold' may be used without severe irony in such a connexion? Can asaint and servant of God, young or old, Vicar or Curate, walk closelywith Him all day, truly given to Him, wholly submissive to His word andwill, and yet find it possible to deal with convictions so? What arepersonal rights and exterior happiness weighed against the claims ofwhat we have really grasped as truth in the presence of the Lord? It iswell for us that martyrs and confessors, and their worthy successors, our Evangelical ancestors of a century ago, knew how to answer thatquestion. 

CONVICTION SACRED, SELF NOWHERE. 

"I aim to speak with all humility and sympathy. But I cannot but thusearnestly express the unalterable conviction that the only ministeriallife which can be 'sanctified and meet for the Master's use' is the lifein which conviction is sacred, in which Christ is all, and in which selfis nowhere. "

CHAPTER VII. 

_PASTOR IN PARISH_ (i. ). 

 _Master, to the flock I speed, In Thy presence, in Thy name; Show me how to guide, to feed, How aright to cheer and blame; With me knock at every door; Enter with me, I implore. _

We have talked together about the young Clergyman's secret life, andprivate life, and his life in (so to speak) non-clerical intercoursewith others, and now lastly of his life as it stands related to hisimmediate leader in the Ministry. In this latter topic we have alreadytouched the great matter which comes now at once before us, the man'swork amongst his neighbours as he approaches them in his propercharacter, as a Pastor. 

"THE PULSE OF THE MACHINE. "

How shall I speak of "parish-work"? It would be a boundless subject iftreated in detail and in the style of a directory of methods. But such atreatment is far from my purpose. To undertake it, I should not onlyneed to be a widely experienced Pastor, which I cannot claim to be, formy life for many years has been mainly devoted to academic teaching; Ishould need to be several widely experienced Pastors bound up into oneliving volume. So let no one expect to find here a prescription for theright plans and right practice of the many departments of the ruralpastorate, or of the urban, or suburban; directions how to organizework, and how to develop it; how to deal with the Sunday School, or theDay School, or the Institute, or the Guild, or the Visitors' Meeting, orthe Missionary Association. My hope is rather to get behind all thesethings to the pulse of the busy machinery; to offer a few hints to myyounger Brethren "how to do it, " from the point of view of theirpersonal and inner preparedness for the multifold work, and to statesome plain general principles which may run through all the doing. 

VISITING. 

I set before me then the Curate, and the Parish, with its demands forpastoral labour, and particularly for _Visitation_. Well do I know howimmense the differences are between place and place in this same matterof visitation; how the parish of a few hundreds, or even of two orthree thousand, is one thing, and the parish of ten, or eighteen, ortwenty thousand is another. I know that there are parishes, in Londonfor example, where all the efforts of a staff of devoted Clergy seem tofail to do more than touch the edges of the work of domestic visitation. Yet surely even in such cases that work must not, and will not, be quitegiven up as hopeless. A little, where only a little is possible, isvastly better than none; even if it be only the visitation of the sick, and of those who immediately surround them, and with whom the sick-visitgives the Clergyman an opportunity. Such efforts, where nothing more ofthe kind is possible, if only done in an unmistakable spirit of love andself-sacrifice, must carry good to the people. And do not forget thatthey must, quite as necessarily, carry good to the Clergyman. For theyare a means, for which nothing else can be quite the substitute, ofbringing him into contact with the people's thoughts and lives in wayswhich will tell usefully (as we have seen in an earlier page) upon hiswhole ministry, particularly upon his work in the pulpit, and at themission-room desk, and in the open air. 

But, to be as practical as possible, I will assume that the Curacy is ofa more normal kind than that just supposed. The parish, whether incountry or in town, is not so large as to make visitation from house tohouse impossible. And the Curate has had his work of this kind assignedhim, and is setting out upon it. A good portion of every day (though Ihope it is possible to give a part of one day each week to some sort ofwisely managed holiday) is devoted to "the district"; now for a steadyround of calls, door by door; now, in an irregularity not withoutmethod, for visits to special cases of sickness, or sorrow, or otherneed. 

PREPARE FOR VISITATION WITH PRAYER. 

What shall be my first suggestion? It shall point to the Throne ofGrace. Preface the pastoral round with special secret prayer. Sermonsare usually (I wish it were always so now) prefaced with prayer in thepulpit that the heavenly blessing may rest upon the ordinance. Is itless fitting, less necessary, to prepare for the afternoon's orevening's visitation with a secret petition in your own room that theapostolic ordinance of domestic visitation [Acts xx. 20, 21. ], to beadministered now by you, may have the special grace of God in it? Prayfor yourself, my younger Brother. 

*PRAY FOR SPIRITUAL READINESS AND SPIRITUAL FULNESS. 

Ask that you may go out well furnished with the peace, and patience, andwisdom laid up for you in your Lord; that you may have "by the HolySpirit a right judgment in all things"; that you may have "the tongue ofthe taught, [15] to speak a word in season to them that are weary";whatever sort of weariness it is. Pray for that secret skill ofdiscernment which can see the difference of spiritual states, and allotwarning or comfort not at random but "in due season. " Pray for thatreadiness for the unexpected which is best secured and best maintainedin a close and conscious intimacy with your Saviour. The man "found inHim" will be found ready _in spirit_ (and that is after all theessential in spiritual work) for the sudden question, whether anxious orcaptious, for the sudden rudeness of ignorance or opposition, and againfor the chronic and so to speak passive difficulty of indifference. "Thetongue of the taught, " while the "taught" man is found in Christ, willever be sweet, wise, and truthful, as the owner of it goes his round. But we must seek for it; "He will be enquired of for this thing. " [SN:Ezek. Xxxvi. 37. ]

[15] Isai. L. 4. Obviously the word "learned" in our Version is thereused in its old English sense, "instructed, taught. " No slight on"book-learning" is ever conveyed in the Scriptures. But the man in viewhere is not the highly-educated person, but the believer who haslistened with _the ear_ "of the taught" (see the end of the verse), as adisciple at the Master's feet; and so goes forth to speak with "_thetongue_ of the taught, " as a messenger who has learned sympathy, insight, holy tact and truthfulness, from the Master's heart. The wholepassage is full of the blessed Messiah Himself, I know. But it has itsreflected reference for all His true followers, and above all for allHis true Ministers. May He give us, in His mercy, for every act of ourmessenger-work, both the ear and the tongue of His "taught" ones. 

Then, as you pray for yourself, you will pray also for the people youare about to visit. Perhaps they are as yet strange to you, and you canask for them only in general. But if you know anything at all about themit will be worth while to individualize your prayer, however briefly. Special, detailed prayer _is_ a power with God. And it is a power withman too. To be dealing with one for whom you know you have prayed isalready to have a foothold there. Perhaps you may have an opportunity to_say_, quite naturally, that you have been praying for him; and this mayvery possibly be a direct vehicle of blessing. 

You will go out then, as directly as possible, from the secret place ofheavenly intercourse. That is a bracing atmosphere:

 "Fresh airs and heavenly odours breathe around The throne of grace;"

and those airs can quicken the young Pastor's spirit for the heaviesthours of a sultry afternoon or evening, till he comes back weary to hisrooms, "tired in the Lord's work, but not tired of it, " as dyingWhitefield said. 

So you go forth with real prayer. It is your wonderful privilege, thusgoing to carry nothing less than the blessed "Fulness of the Holy Ghost"for your inmost equipment. I say deliberately, nothing less than theheavenly Fulness--a far different thing from a mere stir and lift of theemotions. That most divine gift is a "calm excess" of tranquil power, received humbly by the prayer of faith. It is not meant to be a rareluxury; it is a daily and hourly offer, a provided _viaticum_ for everystage of walk and duty. Can we work aright for God while any corner ofour being has no room for God, and is not possessed by Him?

METHOD. 

Then, for true prayer and true practicality are the closest and mostharmonious friends, you will of course aim with forethought andpersistency at _method_ in the pastoral work. The visits will bearranged as far as possible with economy of _space_; no difficult taskin most town parishes, while in the country, of course, the matter isoften much less easy. And you will study also economy of _time_. Yourround is a work of sacred _business_. The minutes, the quarters of anhour, are never to run loose and unobserved. Who that has ever visitedin a parish does not know the need of remembering that point, so easilyforgotten? Here we visit a pleasant, welcoming neighbour, and it is alltoo easy to stay on, perhaps to little real purpose, with the secretsatisfaction of knowing that the next and much less attractive call mustbe shortened in proportion. Here, less willingly, we are detained byone of those ingenious tongues which make it so difficult to get in aword, or to stop the unprofitable continuity of topics. All these cases, and endless kindred ones, need a little foresight and firmness, and alittle of the skill which is soon learnt by open heart and open eyes. 

ECONOMY OF TIME. 

Obviously this line of caution is more needed by some men than byothers. But it is needed by not a few; particularly in respect of thetemptation to lengthen out unduly the visits that are pleasant to thevisitor. One young Clergyman known to me, an indefatigable and devotedvisitor, needed a strong reminder in this direction in the early days ofhis ministry. He would visit a sick person, who proved more or lessresponsive to his efforts, and would allow himself to _over_-visit, toan unwise extent, going often more than once a day, and long after thestate of the invalid made such attentions urgent. And other work ofcourse suffered in proportion. Wesley's precept to his workers needs ourremembrance often; "Go not where you are wanted, but where you arewanted most. "

BUT AVOID HURRY. 

But a risk on the other hand must be remembered. Economy of time mustnever mean hurry of manner, a thing which is nearly if not quite fatalto the usefulness of a visit. It is perfectly possible to combinepromptitude with quiet; to come manifestly on business, and yet not in abustle. We Clergymen may learn many valuable lessons in this, as in someother parts of our work, from our medical friends. Observe how a wiseand kindly doctor visits _his_ parishioners. He knows exactly why hecomes; he knows that other patients are wanting him, in long succession;he knows that he must observe and advise as promptly and as much to thepoint as possible; and he knows that all must be done with a quiet, strong, untroubled manner, if it is to be done aright. 

I spoke in a previous chapter about the sacred duty of watching andregulating manner. This is to be done at all times of intercourse, butabove all in pastoral visits. To speak only of this point of hurry orcalm of manner; it is most important. The right manner will make a visitof five minutes practically longer than a twenty minutes' visit whichgives all through it the impression that the Clergyman must be off. Oneof the most admirable Pastors I have ever known, the late Rev. CharlesClayton, of Cambridge, [16] did much of his work by five-minute visits. But they were always visits in which the whole thought was given to thecase before him, and the word in season came from full knowledge of hisflock and from an unmistakably pastoral heart. 

[16] Afterwards Rector of Stanhope and Canon of Ripon. 

IMPARTIAL COURTESY. 

A duty which you will carefully remember throughout your round is thatof quiet Christian courtesy; impartially shown to rich, to middling, andto poor. I say impartially, with a view to _both_ ends of the scale. Some men (perhaps not many, but some) seem to think that ministerialcourage and fidelity in dealing with well-to-do parishioners demand acertain dropping of the courtesies of life; a very great mistake. Manymore men are tempted to forget that their visits to the poorest shouldbe, in the essence of the matter, as courteous as when they go to theportal which carries a brass knocker. At the door of the dingiestcottage, or dingier lodging, never forget that you _ask_ for entrance;it is your neighbour's castle-door; and you are not a sanitaryinspector. If you happen to come in at the meal-time of the roughest anddirtiest, apologize as naturally and honestly as you would if youintruded on the wealthy churchwarden's well-set luncheon. Among the verylowest, do all you can to honour parents before their children (I knowit is nearly impossible in some sad cases); and always honour old age. 

BE NATURAL. 

Surely one good maxim on manner with our poorer neighbours is to aim toaddress them very much as we would address our neighbours of our ownclass. A patronizing manner is most certainly a very great pity, andalmost sure to be resented. But so, too, is the ostentatious"hail-and-well-met" manner which is sometimes assumed; an over-drawnimitation, perhaps, of the workman's manner with his fellows. This is amistake, because it is almost always unnatural. Few gentlemen get betterat others by ceasing to act and speak as gentlemen. Let us talk quitequietly and pleasantly, as just what we are, and as those who mostunaffectedly "honour all men, " [1 Pet. Ii. 17. ] and we shall not go farastray; always supposing that the matter of our talk is sensible, true, and to the purpose. 

THE SICK-ROOM. 

To turn aside for a moment to the special and sacred work of Visitationof the Sick. It is not to be lightly done, as if it were an easy part ofour duty, quite obvious in its aims and methods. The greatest judgmentis often needed in the sick-room. We need quickness to perceive how muchconversation the invalid can bear, if the case is one of great pain, or(what often makes undue length even more irksome) great weakness. Weneed an insight into the best side of approach to conscience, or towill. We need the skill which knows how to question enough, but not toomuch, not as the inquisitor but as the helper. Many another matter willcall for sanctified common-sense in the sick-room; a restful _voice_, easy, quiet _movements_, and the like. And let me say that where you arevisiting a chronic case, and need to call again and again, if a day andhour for the next visit is mentioned it should be _kept to_ withjealous punctuality. Nothing is more trying to the suffering and wearythan uncertainty and suspense. I have known of much harm done to goodmen's influence by their neglect of punctuality with sick people. 

PUNCTUALITY. 

Of punctuality generally I can (and surely need) speak only in passing. It is a primary duty of the busy but patient work of the pastorate. Tobe neglectful of it is to set up and keep up a needless and mischievousfriction in our intercourse with others, and indefinitely to injure ourinfluence in many ways. "No man ever waited five minutes for me in mylife, unless for reasons quite beyond my power;" such was a remark ofCharles Simeon's in his last days. _We_ may be for ever unable to saythis of our own past. But if so, shall it not be true for us also _fromthis day forward_?

USE OF THE BIBLE IN VISITING. 

Thus prepared by secret and special intercourse with God, andrecollecting some simple maxims about practical points, you go out intothe parish. But no; let me suggest one other preliminary, which, beforemost rounds of pastoral visiting, cannot be out of place. You will takein your pocket _two books_, if not more; one, your visiting register anddiary, the other--your Bible. Of the use to be made of the note-book Ineed not speak. About that to be made of the Book of God let me say avery few words. 

I do not mean at all that you will make the reading of the HolyScriptures a matter of form or routine; a thing which _must_ be done, asan _opus operandum_, wherever there is a chance. But I do mean that youshould have the Book always ready for use, and be prompt to sow the"incorruptible seed" [1 Pet. I. 23. ] from house to house as God givesopportunity. Remember, it is a Book sadly little known by the very largemajority of your people; so that every natural and naturally-takenoccasion to "let it speak, " in private as well as in public, is acontribution to that urgent need of our modern world, Bible-knowledge. Remember again that, despite all the wretched unsettlements of beliefamongst us, the Bible is still the Bible, for untold multitudes; it isowned by them, whether or no it is used, as the Oracle of God. Let uslet the Book speak at the open ear of such a conviction, however dimlythe conviction is entertained. And then remember that the Bible, whatever be the state of current opinion about it, _is_ as a fact theOracle of God, and its immortal and life-conveying words have amysterious fitness all their own to be the vehicle of the Spirit's voiceto the human heart. Offer it, as often as you can, to be that vehicle. 

CHOOSE A PASSAGE BEFOREHAND. 

Two simple expedients for effective use of the Scriptures in a parishround are presented to me by my own past experience, gathered fromseveral years of regular parochial work. One is, the choice of someshort pregnant passage which shall be, for that round, _the_ passage tobe read not once only but in house after house, unless, of course, thereis special reason to the contrary. Such a reiteration, so I have oftenfound, is a great help to the visitor, who probably feels on each newoccasion that a new power and point appear in the passage, and that itseems each time easier to speak from it, however briefly, to the soul. The other expedient which my experience recommends is to be prepared, whenever a hopeful opportunity occurs, to leave a Scripture messagevisibly behind you as you go. I used to carry with me a little sheaf ofslips of paper, on each of which was printed the request, _Please readthis passage, and think about it_. A short message from the heavenlyWord would be written on the slip in pencil as I was about to go; andthis visible and personal invitation to "read and think" proved often areal remembrance from the Lord. 

THE VISITING PASTOR AT WORK. 

But now you are actively engaged from door to door. If you are anew-comer, and particularly if it is also a district (in the great Cityperhaps) where visitation has been an unwonted thing, you must beprepared of course for very various sorts of reception. But assuredly inmost districts by far, and at most doors, the man who exercises commontact and courtesy, and is plainly trying to do his duty in a loving andearnest spirit, and is known already, or now introduces himself, as theClergyman, will be civilly and often gladly met. 

*OUR ADVANTAGE AS MINISTERS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 

Let me pause for a moment to remind you of one great and valuableadvantage which is ours as the Ministers of the National Church and theservants of the parochial system. All honour to devoted servants of Godin the Ministry of other denominations; in numberless instances theyhave done in the past, and are doing now, work which the National Churchhas either neglected, or has been unable to overtake; and the power ofthe Lord has been and is present with them to bless. But nevertheless Ifor one thank God for a National Church, and recognize in that Church'shistorical and practical position a unique opportunity and an immenseadvantage, so it be used faithfully and in loyalty to the Lord and HisWord. And one feature of that position of opportunity is this, that itis the popularly (and rightly) recognized _duty_ of the Church ofEngland Clergyman to ask admission at every door, so far as he can go toevery door, within his portion of the national vineyard. To a largedegree this is understood to be our duty, our business, as it is notunderstood to be that of other Ministers of religion; and this is a factwhich for the man who will use it with good sense and unobtrusivediligence is an invaluable introduction. A "younger Brother" of my own, whose work began in a Liverpool Curacy, told me of his experience inthis matter. His district contained a very miscellaneous population;almost all the great dissenting Churches were represented, and therewere many Roman Catholics, and not a few Jews. But the Curate went toevery door, as in duty bound; as a friend, a neighbour, a Christian, butdistinctly as one of the Clergy of the parish. And with one solitaryexception, an instance in which a Jew repulsed him, he was not onlyadmitted but welcomed everywhere in his character as the Clergyman. 

Of course there are, as I have said just above, streets and lanes whereit is not quite so. Another friend of mine, labouring in East London, found that his black coat and white tie suggested to some of the peopleonly the guess that he was--the undertaker; so strange to them was thepresence of a Clergyman, or the idea of his duty. The same friend, bythe way, found that there was one sure prescription for securing awelcome on a second visit--to make the people _laugh_ before the firstvisit was over. He was no careless Pastor, who forgot that he was inquest of souls, and that the message of the Lord is no jest. But hisexperience was that in that strange "lapsed" population the _rapport_between man and man set up by an honest laugh was important as the firststep to something very different which was to follow. 

COME TO THE POINT. 

In the ordinary pastoral round no such ingenious merriment will benecessary; though you will of course aim not only to be but to be seento be _happy_ in your work, and in your Master; _bright_ with a lightwhich is as natural in its influence as it is divine in its origin. Inthe ordinary round one great principle to be remembered, if I am right, is that you should _come to the point_ as soon as possible. Some earnestmen greatly shrink from this, and aim at the souls of their people byvery circuitous routes. As a rule, I am sure, there is little need to doso; we are "expected" to be about our Master's business, and to deliverHis messages without needless delay. I would not counsel the generalverbal adoption of one good country Parson's salutation, who alwaysopened the cottage door with, "_How are you? How is your soul?_" But Ihave no doubt it was a good greeting for many a parishioner of his; andthe _principle_ of it is good for almost every pastoral visit. Yes, weshall do well to take people very much for granted, coming before themas we do (unless we quite forget our true character) as the Lord JesusChrist's messengers and delegates, whatever else we are. 

KEEP IT ALWAYS IN VIEW. 

Most certainly and obviously the Pastor will often allude to commonhuman interests, and should indeed know something and have something tosay and do about temporal problems, things of body and estate. But thenI do hold that he should "draw all things this" supremely important"way. " All his pastoral intercourse should bear somehow upon thequestion of the state before God of the person or persons visited; uponconviction of sin, or comfort in grace, or Christian conduct; uponChrist and the soul, upon holiness and immortality, as the Gospel"brings them out into the light. " [2 Tim. I. 10. ]

A DIFFICULT CASE WELL MET. 

There are cases most certainly where this has to be done with peculiartact and caution unless quite obvious mischief is to be done instead ofgood. But let the man be always _lying in wait_, and he will very seldomdo so quite in vain. An instance occurs to me, in the work of a mosthonoured veteran in the Ministry. He called on a new parishioner, a ladyof his own class, and soon found out that she was politely butresolutely arranging to keep Jesus Christ out of the conversation; socleverly that he fairly failed to break the fence. Just as he wasleaving, for he could not go without one mention of his Master, he said, as the last word of his courteous farewell, "_The Lord bless you_. " Thatwas all; but it was enough to carry in it the Spirit's message. Theutterance stayed in the parishioner's soul, sounding solemnly on. It wasimpossible to be offended; it was impossible not to think. And the issuewas, in God's time, a real and deep conversion. 

A HAPPY REBUKE TO COWARDICE. 

But, I repeat it, such difficulties in "the daily round" need not bevery frequent, if we do not create them for ourselves. How often thevery persons to whom we think it wiser not to speak openly about theLord Jesus Christ (remember, it is about HIM, even more than aboutthemselves, we are to speak) are longing to hear us do so! In the earlydays of my ordination I remember visiting an invalid gentleman, who hadknown me (for it was my Father's parish) all my life; and I was verycowardly in his case about coming to the point of Christ and the soul. Several visits, let me confess it with shame, were paid before I foundmyself able to propose that we should open the Bible together, and thenpray. I was moved to the inmost heart by the actual tears of delightwith which the proposal was welcomed. 

And not seldom, if we do not come to the point, our people will bring usto it. A very dear friend of mine, a few years ago, was going his firstcircuits in a large London parish, and paid one among many first visits. He allowed it to be a mere visit of introductory civilities; but he neednot have been so cautious. As he rose to go the good woman on whom hehad called said to him, "You will have a word of prayer with me, willyou not? The Vicar always does. "

 "_Go, labour on, spend and be spent; Thy joy to do the Father's will; It is the way the Master went; Should not the servant tread it still?_

 "_Go, labour on while it is day, The world's dark night is hastening on; Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away; It is not thus that souls are won. _"

 BONAR. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

_PASTOR IN PARISH_ (ii. ). 

 _Work on in hope; the plough, the sickle wield; Thy Master is the harvest's Master too; He gives the golden seed, He owns the field, And does Himself what His true servants do. _

I take up again the all-important subject of Pastoral Visitation, forthe same sort of informal and fragmentary treatment as that attempted inthe last chapter, and with the same feeling that the subject ispractically inexhaustible. 

LET THE VISITOR BE A TEACHER, WATCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES. 

One object which the visitor will do well to keep steadily before himis, to be a _teacher_ as he goes. I have said something of this already, in recommending my Brethren to seize every good occasion for bringing inthe Bible, and words about the Bible. But the whole work of instructionneeds remembrance in our private intercourse with parishioners. Ofcourse we shall avoid with watchful and willing care the magisterialmanner, the too didactic tone. And only when obvious occasions presentthemselves shall we even seem to _set ourselves_ to teach; as when weare distinctly asked what is the meaning of this doctrine, or thatpassage of Scripture, or that phrase of the Prayer Book, or how to meetthat difficulty of belief. Such moments do come; in some pastoral livesthey come frequently; and whether the inquiry is made in a friendlyspirit, with a real wish for information, or whether, as sometimes, itis the question of a critic or a caviller, it is an opportunity forwhich, in the Lord's grace, we should stand quite ready. To be sure wemay have sometimes to remember that sensible precept of the Rabbis, "_Teach thy tongue to say, I do not know_"; the answer, often, of thetruest and deepest-sighted wisdom. But even when answering so, instruction may be given, as we state the reasons for the answer. And weshall at least have the opportunity while so doing to bring in thatother maxim, which we owe, I think, to the late Archbishop Whately, "_Never allow what you do know to be disturbed by what you do notknow_"; a principle of very wide application. 

But I am thinking now rather of the every-day sort of pastoral call andconversation, in which perhaps the parishioner visited may be anythingbut a caviller, and anything but even a questioner; much too ready, perhaps, to take everything about Christian truths for granted, which, alas, means too often to take them as understood, to take them asbelieved, when there is little understanding of the matter, or eventhought about it. Now it is a great thing when a pastoral visitor hasthe art (which needs to be considered, and to be acquired) of puttinghere and there into a quiet and friendly talk, best of all towards theclose, some sentence which sets out a great truth clearly, strongly, andin a shape which may wake attention and help remembrance. That is thekind of didactic work which I earnestly recommend. 

*THE PASTORAL TEACHER'S TOPICS. 

If possible, let no visit close without some such utterance, if onlyone. It may be about the very foundations of all Christian truth; aboutthe certainty of Christian facts, the Resurrection above all; about thePerson of the Lord Jesus; about His finished work of Atonement; aboutfaith, and our acceptance as believers in Him, and our victory anddeliverance in temptation by the power of the Holy Ghost through faith;about sin, its true nature, its guilt, its end. Or it may be about theholy practicalities of Christian conduct; about the Lord's call to us tobreak with everything that is against His will; about that deep, far-reaching truth of the Gospel that, while the sinner is saved byfaith only, he is saved on purpose that he may serve, on purpose that hemay "walk and please God, " [1 Thess. Iv. 1. ] and that he may do thisabove all in "the duty that lies near, " in the plain things of the home, the business, the handicraft, the social circle. Or it may be about themighty claims of the Missionary cause, about the strangely forgottenfact that the Christian Church exists mainly in order to evangelize thenon-Christian world. Or it may be about the principles and duties ofChurch membership and Christian ordinances; the true nature of worship;the sacred duty of united worship; the call to hallow the Lord's Day;the precious benefits of the Sacraments of Christ, explained with theholy reverence and equally holy simplicity and moderation of theCatechism and the Articles. 

NEED FOR SUCH WORK. 

I need not fill my pages with numberless details. For my plea is that weshould rather hold ourselves ready for the natural rise of such or suchtopics, and for a clear instructive word in season upon them, than thatwe should propose a theme and deliver a discourse. But I cannot tooearnestly remind my Brethren how great _the need_ of instruction isamong many of our kindly neighbours, even among our neighbours who goregularly to Church and are constantly to be seen at the Table of theLord. 

CHRIST "A BLESSED ANGEL. "

Let me take one pre-eminent subject as my illustration: thefoundation-truth of the Godhead of our Blessed Redeemer. Are you at allaware how widely spread is ignorance and error on that subject, farbeyond the limits of the "Unitarian"[17] community? I remember apastoral visit long ago to a slowly dying parishioner, a labouring mansomewhat stricken in years, who had been a church-goer, though not acommunicant. I soon fell into a conversation with my friend which took asort of catechetical shape; my aim was to see where the soul's hopes foreternity really rested. Who and What was JESUS, whose name I know hehumbly reverenced? Was He a good Man? Yes. But anything more? There wasa long hesitation, and then the dear man expressed a falteringpersuasion that the Lord could not be less than "a blessed angel. " Thatcase, I am well convinced, is very much more representative than some ofus may think. At a recent Church Congress I heard some remarks in justthis direction from Bishop Walsham How, who speaks from a large pastoralexperience; his anxiety about the immense extent of popular ignorance ormisbelief about the Saviour's Person was at least as great as mine. 

[17] A term which I use under protest. If a Unitarian means a believerin the Unity of the Godhead, every orthodox Christian is a trueUnitarian. Only, he is a Trinitarian also, from another side. I mayventure to refer on this subject to a small book of my own, _Outlines ofChristian Doctrine_, p. 20. 

"ALL MY SUFFERMENT HERE. "

And so too is ignorance and misbelief about the work of His Cross, andof His Holy Spirit. "I hope I shall have all my sufferment here, " saidone poor invalid to me in old days, speaking indeed from a verycomfortless bed, in the slow pains of a dire disease. She had been longwithin sound of clear, bright Christian teaching. But deep in the soul, unmoved and ah, so difficult to dislodge, lay that notion of an atoningvalue in our own pains which is a radical contradiction to the gloriousparadox of the perfect and unique work of Calvary:--

 "Thy pains, not mine, O Christ, Upon the shameful tree Have paid the law's full price, And purchased peace for me. 

 "Thy Cross, not mine, O Christ, Has borne the awful load Of sins that none in heaven Or earth could bear but God. "[18]

[18] Bonar, _Hymns of Faith and Hope_ (First Series). 

THE TRUTH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

As regards the Person and the Work of the blessed Spirit, great andgeneral is the oblivion, and manifold are the mistakes. I fear that evenin the best instructed congregations, under the clearest publicteaching, there are all too many who, practically, "have not so much asheard whether there be any Holy Ghost. " [Acts xix. 2. ] The belief in Hisglorious Personality is faint and vague. The confusion of His Presenceand Power with our "better feelings" is very, very common. The solemnquestions which the Scripture bids us put to ourselves, [Rom. Viii. 9. ] whether _or not_ we "have the Spirit of Christ"--not merely "aChristian spirit" in the sense of tone and temper, but the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Son, and uniting the true believer to Him--arelittle understood, and rarely used upon the man by himself. And the verythought of such a presence and such a power of the Lord the Life-Giveras shall "_fill us with_ the Spirit" [Eph. V. 18. ] is not yet existent, I fear, in the minds of many even earnest Christians. 

Here are fields, large and fruitful, for the teaching visitor'scultivation. And so are the other possible subjects indicated above;such as the claims of the Lord upon our personal consistency in littlethings; His solemn call to all His people to be, directly or indirectly, the evangelists of the world; and the nature of His blessed sacramentalInstitutions. 

THE TRUTH OF THE SACRAMENTS. 

On that last subject it is not my intention to enter at any length. Buta few words I may take this occasion to say, and I will assume that Iam speaking to a younger Brother who in the main agrees with me in whatare commonly called Evangelical Church principles. Let me first thencounsel you to take care that no one shall be able, lawfully, to chargeyou with making light of the Sacraments, [19] or with leaving uncertainyour belief as to their divine purpose and function. A ministry which issilent about them, and indistinct in its teaching on them, cannot inthis respect be fully true to either the Prayer Book or the Bible. Letyour instructions on this great subject, in public and in private, bedefinite, reverent, and full of thankfulness and praise for those greatgifts of God. Then on the other hand, do not, if I may speak freely, while with all respect, think to honour the Sacraments by exaggeration, by speaking more of them than of that far greater thing, the blessedGrace of God in Christ, of which they are the "sure _witnesses_ andeffectual _signs_. "[20] If I do not mistake, one of the most prevalenttendencies of current thought in the Church now is the tendency toinvert, in a certain way, the relations between Sacrament and Grace; todevelop a doctrine of the Sacrament such that the doctrine of Grace canbe seen only, as it were, through it. And the result is, very often, soat least it seems to me to be, a very poor and attenuated presentationof the glorious things said in Scripture about "the grace of God whichbringeth salvation, " [Tit. Ii. 11. ] and about the work of pure andsimple, but mysteriously mighty, faith in our appropriation of Christ'smerits and our reception of Christ's living power by the Holy Ghost. Letno such inversion mark your teaching. And if I may give one furthersuggestion, I would say, remind yourself frequently of the very words ofthe Prayer Book (including the Catechism) and the Articles on thesegreat subjects. And inform yourself to some extent, at first hand, ofthe views of the men who cast our Services and our Articles into theirpractically present shape; the views of Cranmer, of Ridley, of Jewell, and, just after them, of Hooker; not forgetting one great foreigntheologian, Henry Bullinger, who exercised a special influence on theEnglish divines of Edward and Elizabeth's time in the matter ofsacramental doctrine. [21] You will find in him a full measure of holyreverence, and at the same time a luminous clearness and definiteness ofexposition. The central idea of his teaching is the idea of the CovenantSeal, the "instrument" of solemn, valid, legal "conveyance. "

[19] I mean of course Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, which _alone_the Church of England recognizes as Christian Sacraments, _SacramentaEvangelica_, "Sacraments of the Gospel" (see Art. Xxv. , par. 2). 

[20] _Certa testimonia, efficacia signa_ (Art. Xxv. ). It is worth thewhile to point out that a "_sign_" is "_effectual_" when it _effectuallydoes the work of a sign_, not some quite different work. A seal is aneffectual seal, not because, conceivably, its matter could be used as apowerful medicine, but because, _attached to its document_, iteffectually seals the document's validity. A seal is in this respect aspecial sort of "effectual sign. " And so are the Sacraments. 

[21] See the Parker Society's collection of authors for Bullinger's_Decades_, or Doctrinal Sermons; officially recognized as a body ofdivinity by the Church of England in Elizabeth's reign. 

MISTAKES ABOUT CHURCH DOCTRINE. 

While on the subject of Church Doctrine, I may go a little further, andremind you how very likely you are to discover in your rounds manymistakes about both the doctrine and the government of the Church ofEngland. I have had considerable experience of such questions in the wayof private pastoral ministry; I have found pious dissenters, orchurch-people whom they had influenced, fully persuaded that the Churchof England teaches unconditional regeneration in the hour of Baptism, that she teaches at least a near approach to Transubstantiation, thatshe entrusts to her priests the power of conferring or withholding thedivine forgiveness, and that, officially and in set terms, she"unchurches" all communities not episcopally organized. [22] It is wellto be quite sure that these beliefs about the Church are mistakes, provably such, in the light of the Prayer Book and Articles, and ofhistory. It has been my happiness to bring some such questioners as Ihave described to "sincere and conscientious communion with" the Churchof England, in a loyalty which leaves ample room for loving sympathywith all true Christians. And the chief means has been the production ofproof that the Church herself, as distinguished from particular teachersand leaders in the Church, does not teach the tenets alleged. 

[22] As regards the Scottish and Continental Protestant Churches it isnot too much to say that, with the very rarest exceptions, EnglishChurch writers _of all schools_ regarded them as "Sister Churches of theReformation"--_till about 1830_. 

DEFECTIVE VIEWS OF SIN. 

But to come back to matters more primary than even these; I must remindmy younger Brother that there is, all around him, in the average circlesof even church-going people, a sorrowfully faint insight into thesinfulness of SIN; into the terrible realities of its _guilt_ before God(a point too often absent from even earnest modern teaching), and of its_power_; yes, and into its true _nature_, as it comes out, not inoutbursts of word or deed, or in practices which public opinioncondemns, but in imagination, in desire, in tone. It may surprise us(when we think how very elementary are the spiritual principlesinvolved), but I fear it is a fact, that sin is regarded by vast numbersof church-people (I am not thinking at all of "the lapsed masses" now)as a matter of little importance if it does not come out in some verypositive form. Multitudes among us are quite insensible to the spiritualpenetration of the law of God, and have never given a thought to thequestion of a heart-surrender to His will in everything, and the sin ofmerely withholding that surrender. 

Then, to take another primary subject of a different class; there is awide and general ignorance of the great lines of Christian Evidence, anda large open door accordingly for the active attacks of shallow, orsubtle, unbelief. Few have ever been taught in any definite way thesupreme significance in this respect of the fact of the Lord'sResurrection, and its mighty walls of proof; and the reasons for ourbelief that the Bible is indeed not of man but of God; the witness ofhistory to prophecy; and so on. 

LET US DROP SEEDS OF TEACHING. 

I owe an almost apology for this long talk about subjects of doctrine, and practice, and evidence. But I have kept all along the purpose ofthis chapter in view. I wish to remind my Brethren how very much theymay do, in the course of visitation, to _drop seeds_ of fact, of truth, of principle, in careful, thoughtful words, the product of privatereading and reflection, called out by some natural occasion. Undoubtedly, the subjects I have outlined are themes for the pulpit, andfor the Bible class, as well as for the visit. But my feeling is thatthe visit gives opportunities quite of its own for didactic work. Weought to be "natural" everywhere; but we are sometimes suspected, orimagined, to be less so in public than in private; and besides, inprivate we give and take; we are open to question and answer; and thismay give quite special advantage to the word spoken, quietly andpleasantly, but pointedly, in the pastoral interview. 

"PURCHASE THE OPPORTUNITY. "

"The priest's lips should keep knowledge. " [Mal. Ii. 7. ] The Clergymanshould be ready everywhere to be the teacher on the great subjects whichhe is supposed to make his own. He will never intrude instruction, orparade it; but he will everywhere be on the watch for the occasion forit, [Greek: exagorazomenos ton kairon], "purchasing the opportunity, "[Eph. V. 10. ] at the cost of care. 

VISITATION OF THE SICK. 

And here I may come again to that important branch of visitation, thevisitation of the sick. The Church, as we well know, provides a Form ofVisitation; most helpful and suggestive in its principles and outlinefor all. But it is, as you are aware, _imposed_ by the Canon (lxvii. )only on such Clergymen (very scarce personages) as have no licence topreach. As a fact, we Presbyters are left to our own discretion in thissacred part of our work; and that discretion we should seek prayerfullyto cultivate. How different are the circumstances in each one of anaverage series of sick-visits! As I write the words, such a series frommy own past days rises up before me; and I transcribe a fewrecollections from the book of memory. 

A SERIES OF VISITS. 

W. S. Is a retired tradesman, a thoughtful and rather reticent man;brought up a Socinian, and professedly such still. I am trying to laysiege to him, not without merciful tokens of hope from the Lord. And thesimple plan is, not to open the controversy between Socinus andScripture, but to arrange that each visit shall have its short Scripturereading, its friendly talk, and its prayer, all bearing mainly on thedeadliness of sin and the wonder and glory of salvation. I happen toknow that the married daughter of W. S. , a very intelligent woman, wasbrought from heresy to a divine Saviour's feet by means of a sermon, noton Christ's Godhead, but on the sinfulness of sin. 

T. H. Is a sturdy old blacksmith, old enough to have been bred in theinfidel school of Carlile (quite another person than Carlyle), andsteeped in old-fashioned Chartism. He always has the newspaper on hisnow helpless knees, never the Bible; but he almost always has some Bibledifficulty ready for me. It is pleasant to be able this afternoon toshow him, holding the page up before his eyes, that his laststumbling-block is one of his own (or his friends') bold invention. Hemeets civility always civilly, and never resents a natural transitionfrom the last bit of politics to the Gospel. But it is a hard, sad case. The Lord only knows how the apparently motionless conscience fares. 

T. G. Is a fine, manly artizan, a coach-painter, scarcely yet in middlelife; lately the somewhat bitter and very self-satisfied critic of hisgood and devoted wife's simple faith. I have had rather discouragingtalks with T. G. Before to-day; but now he is very ill, and a few Sundayafternoons ago he sent across the road for the Curate, who to his ownsolemn joy found him broken down in unmistakable conviction of sin, asking what he must do to be saved. It is a blessed thing to visit himnow, for already the rays of the eternal sun are shining between theclouds of a deeply genuine repentance; and the visitor's task isplain, --

 "To teach him all the mercy, while he shows him all the sin. "

Soon it will be my happiness, I hope, to administer to him, as apenitent believer, with his now happy wife and a faithful friend, theprecious Communion; and I look forward to see him depart in due time inthe peace of God, to be with Christ, for whom already he has learnt totestify. 

Then comes another visit, to one of our "bettermost" neighbours; thisdoor bears, or ought to bear, the proverbial brass knocker. But be thedoor what it may be, there is great need and great mercy inside it. Thedear man, W. T. , lately in active professional life in the homecivil-service, is sinking under the most agonizing of human maladies, and it is very near the close; this is the second visit to-day, in hisurgent need. But, blessed be God, grace, once absent, has found its waythrough the terrible obstacle of pain, and his scarcely articulateutterance--intelligible to his visitor only because now sofamiliar--speaks of the joy and rest of the Lord Jesus Christ, and ofthe sufferer's longing for the salvation of another soul, a soul verydear to him. [23]

[23] Wonderful to say (it is to me very wonderful), I have known morethan one bright conversion take place amidst the untold pangs of such anillness. 

Such visits tell upon the heart, and upon the head, and perhaps theround among the suffering has been long enough to-day. To-morrow we willtry to get a quiet half-hour with W. R. , a shopkeeper, sinking inconsumption; a man of no common natural refinement and thoughtfulness, but long troubled with that sort of scepticism which is generated (whoknows in how many cases?) by the mysteries, not of God's revelation, butof His providence. For him, too, the visitor's business is to lay agentle siege, "here a little, and there a little, " trying never to losepatience with objections and difficulties, but rather to sympathize withthem _as to their pains_, and then to suggest the answer in JesusChrist. And oh joy, the Lord is finding the way in, through His Word, and the clouds are passing away from the man's mind, and soul, andforehead, as he is getting to "know WHOM he believes. "[24]

[24] I possess a beautiful little Bible given me by dear W. R. , who hasnow been many years with Christ. Such a gift is a very sacred treasureto a Pastor. 

Then we can walk round the corner--how the beloved streets and lanesrise up in memory before me as I write!--to see J. F. , a young printer, dying in the brightest joy and peace, won from carelessness to a solidfaith by the work and witness of earnest dissenting Christians, but gladand thankful to receive the Communion of the Lord from his dear Vicar, or his Vicar's son. And then five minutes' walk takes us to a tiny alleyin the denser part of the widespread parish, where a poor life-longcripple, W. G. , lies day and year upon his _little_ bed--little, becausethough the head is full-sized, and the brain within it is an adultbrain, the body has never grown since childhood. Here is a case forsteady sympathy, and also for gentle and steady aiming at instruction aswell as comfort. And then, not far off, we will take the privilege of aquiet visit to an aged Christian woman, J. N. In long past years lovingsaints found her pining in extreme poverty, and sunk in a dull, despairing indifference. Now it is a great spiritual help to sit in herlittle attic beside her, and draw her on to speak (she is no loquaciousperson by nature, and needs drawing on) about the needs of the soul, andthe glorious fulness of the Son of God. She is no common Christian; notonly in life but in thought this appears. At the time of her conversion, she could not read a letter. Since then, she has repeatedly read withgreat spiritual insight and enjoyment Archbishop Leighton's Commentaryon St Peter. Here is a room in which the visitor learns quite as much ashe teaches. And so he does in a still smaller and much darker room, three minutes' distant from J. N. 's. There lies blind R. W. , in his strongdays the head-servant of an old farmer of our village, and to allappearance as little capable of spiritual interests as the animals hefed. But on his sick-bed, the comfortless couch of many declining years, a loving visitor, a devoted lady-worker, has found him out, and the Lordhas found him out through her. He never knew A from B in his life, andnever will. But do you want proof of the power of grace to quicken mind, as well as to convert soul? Come with me up the stairs into dear oldR. W. 's darksome room, and in the course of our talk you shall hear hisquavering voice saying things, quite humbly and naturally, about theglory of his Saviour, and the way of salvation, and the joy and peace ofhis heart in God, which are not only loving ascriptions but clear andsound divinity. It is good to be with him. 

I have spoken mainly, though not only, of cases of warm interest andencouragement. Of course there are sorrowful and heart-trying visits tothe sick. One such, to poor old T. H. , I have described. And we might seethe much older A. C. , a woman of near ninety years, who seemsimpenetrable to the true light, though grateful and kindly towards thevisitor; and B. F. , older still, ninety-six, so vain of her age that itis difficult to get her off the beloved theme; and J. G. , a steady, self-righteous man; and C. W. , clever, and disposed to scoff; and T. B. , known to be leading a very evil life, civil, but immovable. 

RESOLVE TO BE A VISITOR. 

The work is very various, very interesting, and full of the call for"long patience, " while full, too, of blessed encouragements andsurprises. But "the time would fail me. " Ah, let me not close withoutsaying to my younger Brother how deeply humbling to me are the memoriesof those pastoral days, and humbling above all as I look back and wishnow, in vain for ever, that I had _visited more_, among both the sickand the whole. "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord"; "ToThee only it appertaineth to forgive sins. "

My dear younger Brother, resolve that by the grace of God you will be avisitor, whatever else you are, or are not. And be a visitor whorespects his neighbours, who feels with them, whose heart lives withthem, and who on the other hand watches over his call to instruct them, to clear up and deepen their thoughts of self, and God, and life, anddeath, and salvation, and duty, and eternity. 

A CONVERSION AT EIGHTY-SIX. 

"Go, labour on; spend and be spent. " There is a sure reward, seen or notseen as yet; and often the most unlikely quarter shall prove the quarterof blessing, and the last shall be first. One recollection, drawn outof my earliest childhood, shall close this wandering talk. It is of dearold Mrs E. , then aged quite eighty-six. She must have been born underthe rule of King George the Second. A farmer's widow, she had beenabsolutely and perfectly respectable all her life, and was entirelysatisfied with her state and her prospects for the next world. My dearFather, and his devoted Curate of those days, the Rev. W. D. , not seldomsaw her, but without leaving any apparent impression on her conscience. At last that conscience woke. The Curate read a chapter, in her hearing, to her pious invalid daughter, who had sought her mother's conversionfor years in prayer, and had _lived_ true Christianity all the while inher mother's home. And on a sudden, something in that chapter (it wasthe third of Romans) said to the old lady, "You have lived eighty yearsin the world, and never done a single thing for the love of God. " Theconviction was tremendous in its depth and quality, and it lasted long. But a very bright light followed, and shone with holy fulness throughwhat proved to be several remaining years of beautiful old age. Sherejoiced in her adorable Saviour with joy unspeakable, a joy meanwhileperfectly sober and full of the good fruits of loving righteousness. Shedied at last, singing, or rather musically murmuring, _Rock ofAges_. [25] And my recollection, across seven-and-forty years, is of thatdear old lady of the past, sitting upright in her parlour, as my Motherled me in to see her, and wearing a look upon her face which I can onlynow describe as a remembered ray of light. 

[25] My dear Father, many years ago, published a full narrative of MrsE. 's last days, in a little volume of pastoral recollections, _Pardonand Peace_. 

 "_I love, I love my Master; I will not go out free; For He is my Redeemer, He paid the price for me. _

 "_I would not leave His service, It is so sweet and blest, And in the weariest moments He gives the truest rest. _"

 MISS F. R. HAVERGAL. 

CHAPTER IX. 

_THE CLERGYMAN AND THE PRAYER BOOK. _

 _Dear pages of ancestral prayer, Illumined all with Scripture gold, In you we seem the faith to share Of saints and seers of old. 

 Whene'er in worship's blissful hour The Pastor lends your heart a voice, Let his own spirit feel your power, And answer, and rejoice. _

In the present chapter I deal a little with the spirit and work of theClergyman in his ministration of the ordered Services of the Church, reserving the work of the Pulpit for later treatment. 

THE PRAYER BOOK NOT PERFECT BUT INESTIMABLE. 

Let me begin by a brief reminder of the greatness of the spiritualtreasure which we possess in the Book by which we minister. How shall Ispeak of it as I would? "The Prayer Book isn't inspired, I know, " saidan old coast-guardsman some years ago to a friend of mine, "but, sureand certain, _'tis as bad as inspired_!" "I find the Liturgy, " saidanother veteran, Charles Simeon, "as superior to all modern compositionsas the work of a philosopher on any deep subject is to that of aschoolboy who understands scarcely anything about it. " "All that theChurch of England needs to make her the glory of all Churches, " saidSimeon's friend, the late Rev. William Marsh, "is the spirit of her ownservices. "

I am not so blind as to maintain that our Book is ideally perfect, andthat its every sentence is infallible. It is not quite literally "as badas inspired. " After using it in ministration for nearly five-and-twentyyears I own to the wish that here and there the wording, or thearrangement, or the rubrical direction, had been otherwise in somedetail, perhaps in some important detail. I do certainly wish veryearnestly indeed that the Revisers of 1661-2 had expressed themselvesmore happily in that Rubric about "Ornaments" which within recent yearshas proved--little as they expected it, or intended it, to do so--such afertile field of discord. But for all this, my five-and-twenty years'ministerial use of the Prayer Book has only deepened my sense of itsinestimable general value and greatness. 

If a temperate and equitable revision were possible at the present timeI should welcome the prospect on most accounts. But it seems to meplain that it is _not_ at present possible. And meanwhile I thank Godfrom my inmost heart for the actual Prayer Book as a whole. 

Let me point out a very few of the claims of the Book on our love andgratitude; and now specially in view of what we may sometimes hear saidabout it by Christians not of our own Church. 

i. Observe its profound and searching _spirituality_. It is quite truethat in a certain sense the Book takes all who use it for granted; itassumes them to be worshippers in spirit and in truth; it does not prayfor them, or lead them in public worship to pray for themselves, as forthose who do not know and love God, who have not come to Christ. Butthen what form of public, common prayer can well do this? And meantimethe Book does, especially in the service of the Communion, andparticularly in that too often omitted part of it, the "longerExhortation, " beginning _Dearly beloved in the Lord_, throw theworshipper back upon himself for self-examination. This is just themethod of St Paul in his addresses to the Christian community. Hewrites to all as "saints, " "faithful, " "elect, " "sanctified. " What doeshe mean? Does he mean that those glorious terms are satisfied by thefact that all have been baptized, or even that all are communicants atthe sacred Table? Not at all. He takes all for granted as being whatthey profess to be, when he greets the community. [Rom. Viii. 9; 1 Cor. Xvi. 22; 2 Cor. Xiii. 5; Gal. V. 6. ] But he says also, "If any man havenot the Spirit of Christ he is none of His"; "If any man love not theLord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema"; "Examine yourselves, whether yebe in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not that Jesus Christ isin you--except ye be [Greek: adokimoi], counterfeits?" "In Jesus Christneither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faithwhich worketh by love. " Such sentences throw a flood of holy andsearching light on the sense in which St Paul "took them all forgranted. " And the Prayer Book is in true harmony with both parts of theApostle's method. 

WHAT IT TAKES FOR GRANTED IN THE WORSHIPPER. 

And then, think what the Book _does_ thus searchingly and helpfully"take for granted. " It assumes a deep sense of sin, such a sense as isindeed "grievous unto us. " It takes for granted our deep desire both forpardon and for spiritual victory. It assumes our desire to be "kept thisday without sin"; to "follow the only God with pure hearts and minds";to "be continually given to all good works"; to "be enabled by the Lordto live according to His will"; to have "all our doings ordered by Hisgovernance"; to have "such love to Him poured into our hearts that wemay love Him above all things. " It assumes our desire to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest all the Holy Scriptures. " It assumes ourreadiness to "suffer on earth for the testimony of the truth, looking upsteadfastly to heaven, and by faith beholding the glory that shall berevealed. " It assumes our adoring devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ, andthat we present "ourselves, our souls and bodies, a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice, " to our God. 

I heard a few years ago of a remarkable case of secession from theChurch of England. A thoughtful and conscientious man left us because, as he said, he could no longer seem to concur in such words of intensespiritual reality and surrender _while he did not fully mean them_. Onhis principles, I fear there ought to be a large exodus from our Church. But that is not the fault of the Church, or of the Church's Book. It isthe fault of the worshippers, and it is a solemn call to us not so muchto criticize the Liturgy as to "examine _ourselves_. "

THE PRAYER BOOK AS A WEAPON. 

In this connexion I am reminded of a characteristic saying of anhonoured friend of mine, now at rest with the Lord after a long andfaithful ministry. He was one of those men who instinctively speakstrongly, perhaps sometimes roughly; but such roughness is often useful. "The Prayer Book, " said he, "is always handy to throw at people'sheads"; figuratively, of course, not literally. He slung it out invigorous quotations from his pulpit, point blank at the unreality, andformalism, and pharisaism, and love of this present evil world, whichtoo often underlies the most precise "churchmanship" and the mostpunctual church-going. 

My old friend's strong word may carry a suggestion to some of my youngerBrethren; though I would advise their deferring a _projectile_ use ofthe Book till they are seniors in the Church. But the youngest Ministerof Christ, in all loving modesty, may reach many a conscience (beginningwith his own) by well-timed words from the Prayer Book, showing what theBook takes for granted in the worshipper. 

SCRIPTURALITY OF THE BOOK. 

ii. Next I point to the abundant and loyal _Scripturality_ of the PrayerBook. I venture to say that no Service Book in the world is quite likeours in this. This characteristic lies on the surface; in the wealth ofScripture poured out in every service before the people; Psalms, Lessons, Canticles, Epistle, Gospel, Introductory Sentences, Decalogue, Comfortable Words. At the Font, in the Marriage Ordinance, at the Grave, it is still the same; Scripture, in our mother tongue, full and free, runs everywhere. And below the surface it is the same. Take almost anyset of responses, or any single prayer, and see the strong warp of theBible in it all. 

*"THE PREFACE" ON THE BIBLE. 

And then go for a moment from the Services to the Preface of the Book, and see what the Fathers of our English Liturgy thought and intendedabout the place of the Holy Scriptures in worship. I hope my Brethrenhave all read that "Preface" with care; I mean, of course, the wholelength of introductory matter which precedes the Tables of Lessons;nothing of it later than 1662, most of it (indeed all but the firstsection, written by Sanderson) dating in substance from 1549. [26] I hopeit has all been read by you; but I am not quite certain of it, so littleattention is at present called to those important and authoritativestatements of principle. But however well you may already know them, they will repay another reading; and so you will be reminded again thatthe really first thought in the minds of the men who gave us our PrayerBook in English was to let "_the Word of God_ have free course and beglorified" in all the worship of the people. [2 Thess. Iii. 1. ] Thosemen were learned in the past, and they reverenced history andcontinuity. But they reverenced still more the heavenly Word, and wherethey found the ample reading and hearing of it impeded by evenimmemorial usage, the usage had to give way, without reserve, to theBible. 

[26] I do not forget that some modifications in detail, as to theLectionary, are quite recent. 

Yes, the Prayer Book is, whatever else it is, searchingly, overflowinglyScriptural; full of the Bible, full of Christ. Let us drink itsprinciples and its manner in, that they may come out in our life and ourpreaching. 

And now for a few simple practical suggestions on our ministerial use ofthe Book. 

USE THE BOOK WITH DILIGENCE. 

i. First, I would entreat my younger Brother to resolve in the Lord'sname that his own use of the Prayer Book in his ministration be to him athing of sacred importance and personal reality. We _need_ to form sucha resolve deliberately, and to watch and pray over it. Do we not knowwhat strong temptations lie in the other direction? We have to use theseforms over and over again; before many years are over perhaps we could"take" a whole service, except the appointed Scriptures, without lookingat the book: is it not too easy under such conditions to read as thosewho read not, and to pray as those who pray not? And all too often theClergyman, younger or older, allows himself almost consciously, almoston principle, to form an inadequate estimate of his Prayer-Book work. Perhaps he regards the prayers as in such a sense "the voice of theChurch" that he is willing to be little more than a machine throughwhich the Church offers them. Or perhaps on the other hand he letshimself forget their immense importance, under a strong, and just, senseof the sacred importance of the Sermon. He is alive and awake in thepulpit, and seeks his Lord's presence there, and realizes it as sought;but in the desk--he goes by himself, and much of his precious time thereis spent in thought which wanders to the ends of the earth while hisvoice does its decent but somnambulatory part alone. 

*USE IT WITH LIVING REALITY. 

I can only appeal with all my heart to my younger Brother not to let itbe thus with him. And the only effective recipe against the trouble isfaith, exercised in prayer and watching, with a full recollection of theurgent importance of the matter. For indeed it _is_ all-important thatthe servant of God should be "given wholly to" his work, at the readingdesk, at the lectern, at the Table, at the Font. 

PRAY THE PRAYERS. 

It is easy to say, as it is often said, that we "must not preach theprayers, " must not obtrude our personality in leading the devotions ofthe congregation; that our part is to be regular and audible, andotherwise to "efface ourselves. " Most certainly we ought not to _preach_the prayers, in public any more than in private. But then, we ought to_pray_ them. Most certainly we ought not to obtrude our personality uponthe thought of the worshippers. But then, we ought to serve them withour personality, and we can best do this, surely, by a spirit and amanner which is unmistakably that of the fellow-worshipper, who feels_himself_ to be in the presence of the King, and knows that thepetitions and the promises are for him at least a holy reality. I amperfectly well aware that it is not _easy_ to steer between a more orless mechanical manner and a demonstrative one, and that perhaps of twoevils the former is the less. But I am sure it is _possible_ to steerthe right line, by using sanctified common-sense, and asking for alittle candid counsel from those who hear us, and above all by beingwhat we seek to seem--true worshippers, spiritually awake and humblyreverent. 

As long as man is man, so long will the law of sympathy hold good. Andby that law it is certain that the way to promote, so far as we can, aspirit and tone of true worship in our people is to possess--and toshow--that spirit ourselves, as we lead, and also join, their worship. Never declaim the prayers, but always pray them, from the soul and withthe voice. 

"GIVE ATTENDANCE TO THE READING" OF THE LESSONS. 

ii. I spoke just now of what we should do at the lectern. Let meearnestly press upon my Brethren the great duty of rightly reading theLessons. Do you want to carry out the will and purpose of the Church ofEngland? As we have seen, that purpose is above everything to glorifythe Word of God. See then that the Lesson, as read by you, is asaudible, as intelligible, as impressive as you can make it. Take carebeforehand that you understand its points, its arguments, its emphasis. Take counsel with yourself, and perhaps with others, about ways andmeans for bringing these things out in your public reading. Rememberthat for very many of your people (I fear I am right in saying so) theChurch Lessons are the most solid pieces of Scripture they ever hear, or ever read. Many years ago it was not uncommonly said that in "thesedays of universal reading" we might perhaps abbreviate our ChurchLessons. But since that time it has been more fully and sadly realized, by very many of us at least, that universal reading does not meanuniversal Bible reading by any means, but much rather universalnewspaper and novel reading. The heavenly Book is _terribly unfamiliar_to multitudes of churchgoers, as you will find, if you ask, when you goabout your parish; of this we have already thought. Therefore, make allyou can of the reading of the Lessons in public worship. [Greek:Proseche tê anagnôsei], says the Apostle to Timothy, "Give attention tothe reading" [1 Tim. Iv. 13. ]; does he not mean, be diligent in readingthe Scripture to the people? The precept is as much as ever in point inour day. 

OPPORTUNITIES OFFERED BY THE OCCASIONAL SERVICES. 

iii. As regards the occasional services, Public and Private Baptism, Marriage, Burial, I would earnestly counsel my Brother to putpersonality into his reading in them all, in the moderate senseindicated above. The fact that such occasions are necessarily more orless _special_ in their interest for some at least of those presentshould never be forgotten; bring the power of a sympathetic interest andearnestness to bear upon it. In administering Public Baptism I haveoften realized this to a very peculiar degree. Who can feel the leastfondness for little children, and have the slightest insight into aparent's heart, and not do so? Our service is undoubtedly long; verylong indeed when accompanied by a chorus of perhaps several littlecrying voices. But let the servant of God "be in it, " and he will findhimself much more touched than troubled by the babies' lamentations ashe speaks to the sponsors about the young helpless souls, and turns tothe Lord of all grace to dedicate them to Him and to invoke His blessingon them for time and eternity, and then applies the watery Seal of allthe promises to their small foreheads. I have always found it very hardto get through that service with a perfectly steady voice; and afterall, why should we be so careful to do so?

_Private_ Baptism is indeed a special occasion. There are reasons, nodoubt, why it must not be too readily administered; in some parishesparents, for one reason or another, too often try to secure "achristening" in private, on insufficient grounds, with no intention of apublic dedication afterwards. But when the case is clear, and you are atthe little suffering one's side, perhaps with a distressed mother closebeside it and you, see to it that you so minister the rite, so read thefew precious words, as both to sympathize and to teach. Let me add thatPrivate Baptism often brings the Clergyman into a house where religionis utterly neglected; and the opportunity may be a priceless one, if thepower of love and spiritual reality is with you in the work. 

And when you officiate at a Wedding, different as the conditions arefrom those just remembered, still do not forget that for at least somethere present the hour is a deeply moving one. And is not the MarriageService a noble one to read, to interpret, with its peculiar mingling ofimmemorial and archaic simplicity with a searching depth of scripturalexhortation, and a bright wealth of divine benedictions? Throw thepower of a true man's solemnized sympathy into your reading of thatservice. 

PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH THE USE OF THE BURIAL SERVICE. 

Of the ritual of the Grave I hardly need to speak. I know only too wellthat there are funerals and funerals. There are occasions of unrelievedsadness. There are occasions when the Minister's heart is chilled by amanifest and utter indifference. But the saddest, dreariest of burialsis an opportunity for the Lord. Whether or no you see your way to givean address, let it be seen that you are dealing with God in the prayers, and read the Lessons "as one that pleadeth with men. "

A brief word in passing on the problem raised by some of the phrases ofour Burial Service. Let me call attention to the studied generality ofthe words, _In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternallife_. Before 1662 this ran "in sure . . . Hope _of resurrection_, etc. , "which, as you will observe, expressly applied the "hope" to _that_ caseof burial; the change was evidently made on purpose to relieveconscience in the matter. Then remember that the whole service isconstructed, like all our services, for the member of the Christiancommunity taken on his profession; and that assumption, unless flagrantfacts withstand it, is to be made, in public ordinance, as much at thegrave as elsewhere. And do not forget that _hope_, be it ever so"trembling, " is _never_ forbidden at a grave-side. I am no advocate ofwhat is called "the larger hope"; I dare not be. But I am deeplyconvinced that mercies of the Lord, in cases quite beyond our possibleknowledge, are experienced in the very act of departure. 

 "Betwixt the stirrup and the ground Mercy I sought, mercy I found. "

That instance has many parallels; and God only knows their limits. Nevershould we say, whatever we may awfully fear, that such and such a soulis _to our knowledge_ lost. 

As regards the practical management of extreme cases, the youngClergyman will of course act altogether under his Incumbent. And theyoung Incumbent will remember that he can have recourse to his Bishopfor counsel. 

THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

iv. Let me say one special word on our administration of the preciousritual of the Table of the Lord. I am not attempting here anydiscussion of its doctrinal aspects in detail. For myself, as I havesaid elsewhere, I make no secret of long-settled "Evangelical"convictions. I regard the Holy Eucharist as above all things else theLord's way of sealing to His true Israel the unutterable benefits of theNew and Everlasting Covenant, rather than an occasion on which Heinfuses into them His glorified Manhood. His sacred Body and Blood are, for me, the Body and the Blood _as they were_, once for all, at Calvary, and as they are not therefore literally now; and my participation inthem is accordingly my participation in the virtues of the AtoningSacrifice, there once and for ever wrought and offered. But this is bythe way. I speak now of our spirit and manner in the administration, inrespect of some principles which are little if at all affected, it seemsto me, by even grave differences of doctrinal theory. Alas, at thepresent day it is too often the case that the communicant is fairlybewildered by the varieties of Communion ritual, or by the complicationsof it. Ought this to be so, on _any_ theory of the Eucharist? Did I forone believe our adorable and beloved LORD to be locally present (I usethe words not technically but practically) on the Holy Table as nowhereelse here on earth, I think that all my instinct would go towards areverence whose depth was manifested not by an elaborate ceremonial butby the most solemn possible simplicity of act. A ritual whose detailsmust be matter of careful practice, and which suggests almost the needof a Spanish master-of-the-ceremonies--ought _that_ to be the naturaleffect of an, as it were, invisible Presence?

SIMPLICITY AND REVERENCE. 

But probably I write for readers whose inclinations or risks lie littlein that direction. And for them I say, let your administration of theblessed Communion always combine a manifest reverence and a restfulsimplicity. The Lord _is_ there, the Master of His own Table, the Princeof His own Covenant, ready to give His people His royal Seal by yourhands. And His people are there, to have their sacred interview withHim. Do not obstruct their view, their colloquy; humbly aid it. Be theirservant, as in HIS presence; obtrude yourself as little as you possiblycan. 

ADDRESSES ON THE PRAYER BOOK. 

As I draw the chapter to a close, I make one practical recommendation tomy younger Brethren. It is, to do what they can to interest their peoplein the Prayer Book, and to promote its intelligent use, by taking whatopportunities they can to talk to them about it. Many a private occasionfor this will no doubt present itself. But if now and then a simplelecture on the history of the Prayer Book can be given, and if possiblewell illustrated, it will be very useful; and so will be a series ofweek-night devotional addresses on the teaching of the Prayer Book. Andlet not the need of plain matter-of-fact explanation of obsolete termsand technical phrases be forgotten on such occasions. Of course theCurate will carefully consult his Incumbent on the whole matter. But fewof my elder Brethren will not feel with me that such "talks upon thePrayer Book, " carefully considered and conducted, whether by Incumbentor by Curate, may be of the greatest use, under our Master's blessing. 

"MORE CEREMONIAL, LESS WORSHIP. "

One last word, and I have done with these suggestions. An English Bishoponce told me that he had lately met a gentleman who, after ten years'residence abroad, returned to England, and to his place as a worshipperin our Churches. "Do you remark particularly any change or advance inwhat you see there?" "I observe on the one hand much more ceremonial, onthe other hand, apparently, much less worship. Fewer kneel, fewerrespond, fewer around me seem devoutly attentive. " Less worship! Is itso indeed? Let the very opposite be the case, so far as our influenceand teaching can have effect, with our fathers' Prayer Book in ourhands, and in our hearts. 

 "_Lo, God is here; Him day and night Th' united quires of angels sing; To Him, enthron'd above all height, Heaven's hosts their noblest praises bring; Disdain not, Lord, our meaner song, Who praise Thee with a stammering tongue. 

 "Being of beings, may our praise Thy courts with grateful fragrance fill; Still may we stand before Thy face, Still hear and do Thy sovereign will; To Thee may all our thoughts arise, Ceaseless, accepted sacrifice. _"

 J. WESLEY, from TERSTEEGEN

CHAPTER X. 

_PREACHING_ (i. ). 

 _Earthen vessels, frail and slight, Yet the golden Lamp we bear; Master, break us, that the light So may fire the murky air; Skill and wisdom none we claim, Only seek to lift Thy Name. _

I have on purpose reserved the subject of Preaching for our closingpages. Preaching is, from many points of view, the goal and summing upof all other parts and works of the Ministry. What we have said alreadyabout the Clergyman's life and labour, in secret, in society, in theparish; what we have said about his study and use of the Book of CommonPrayer; all, so far as it has been true, ought to contribute itssuggestions as we approach this great theme. 

THE PULPIT THE CENTRAL POINT. 

For, indeed, "the Pulpit" (I use the word in its widest application, wide enough to cover the mission-room desk, or the preaching place inthe open air) is no mere isolated item in the midst of other matterswhich call for a Clergyman's attention. If the man is working, andordering his work, aright, the Pulpit will not be a something which hasto be taken by the way, a link in a long chain in which committees, clubs, and social gatherings, and the like, are other and co-ordinatelinks. It will be a sacred central point, the living heart of the busylife, to which everything will bear relation. To the Pulpit everythingwill somehow converge, and from the Pulpit everything will beinfluenced. As the Pastor moves about amongst his people, he will begathering incessantly, from all parochial places and seasons, materialwhich will tell upon his sermons; he will be getting to know hispeople's minds and lives with an intimacy which will give his preachingto them a point which otherwise it could not have. And when he stands inthe Pulpit, this continually accumulating knowledge will come out, notindeed in the way of diluting or distorting his Gospel, but so as togive its eternal and holy message a point and closeness of applicationwhich will ensure its "coming home, " as God gives the blessing. 

TEMPTATIONS TO FORGET THIS. 

It needs thought and care to keep the parish and the sermon thus _enrapport_. But such thought and care is infinitely well worth taking. The Clergyman who longs to be useful for his Lord in the highest degreehe can be, cannot possibly think lightly of his sermons. Yet he may betempted, half unconsciously, to treat them too lightly in practices, particularly if he is beset with a consciousness that he is not "a bornpreacher, " or if he stands in the opposite danger of having a "fatal"facility of speech. Let the Clergyman only remember that his sermon, hispublic delivery of instruction, of exhortation, in the Lord's name, isnot to be an exhibition of his own powers of thought or utterance, but afaithful message-bearing to his own flock, in the light of what he knowsof Christ and the Word on the one side, and of the needs of the flock onthe other, and he will find a most useful encouragement, or a mostuseful corrective, as the need may be. "O my Lord, I am not eloquent, "[Exod. Iv. 10. ] will be no disheartening thought, as he carries to thepulpit the ever-growing weight of pastoral experience, all giving pointand freshness to the unalterable message. And the secret temptation tothink the sermon a light thing because mere words come easy, will bepowerfully counteracted in the other case not only by contact with therealities of life in the daily work, but by remembering that the sermonwill have to do with not an abstract audience but _these particular_souls and lives thus laid on the man's conscience and affections. 

THE PASTOR PREACHES TO THOSE PARTICULAR HEARERS. 

Let me repeat it as earnestly as I can. The sermon, if it is to be whatit should be, should be affected at every point by the facts of thepreacher's own inner life, and by those of his intercourse with hispeople. Those facts must, of course, be thoughtfully weighed andhandled. The tact which is so important in a Pastor, and which is bestlearned and developed in the school of Christ's love, will seeinstinctively how to apply in preaching the experience gained in prayer, in conversation, in every branch of ministering life. We shall rememberthat indefinite harm, not good, may be done when a man, particularly ayoung man, unwisely preaches what may fairly seem to be personalities; Ihave known some sad instances in point here. But taking that forgranted, assuming the good sense and sympathy of the preacher, I amquite sure that the most eloquent sermon, adapted to _any_ audience, isfar less likely to be blessed and used by our Lord than the sermon whichis penetrated with the Pastor's personal intimacy with _that particular_audience, and which goes therefore straight from him to them. 

It has been well said that preaching may be described as "truth throughpersonality"; not merely the presentation somehow of so many facts andthoughts, but the presentation of them through the medium of a livingman, who brings into the pulpit his heart, his character, hisexperience, and so gives out his message. We may add to this suggestivedictum that the true pastoral sermon is also "truth _to_ personalities";the living man's delivery of the message to living men and women whoselife, more or less, he knows. And so it presupposes some real amount ofpastoral intercourse, intelligently brought to bear on pulpit work. 

PREPARE SERMON IN THE PARISH. 

I linger a little over these thoughts, though they are little more thanintroductory. For experience tells me how easily, in these days, theClergyman is tempted to dislocate his "parish work" from his sermons, tothe great loss of one or both parts of his duty. And if once he beginsto think of his sermons as a thing really apart, which must be gotthrough somehow, but rather as a mere duty than as a vital ministerialfunction, the results will be sad for the sermons. So I lay stress onthe thought that the sermon-preparation ought to go on not only in thestudy, over the Word, but in the parish, over the hearers of it. Themore constantly this is recollected, and put in practice, the less fearwill there be that the sermon will be a weariness either to people or topreacher. 

"LABOUR IN THE WORD. "

But let me, however, entreat my younger Brother, by any and every means, to watch and pray against a slack or low view of his function as apreacher. From very many quarters at the present day we are invited toslight our sermon-labour. Sometimes it is "work, " organization, committees, which is set against the sermon; sometimes it is thereading-desk and the Communion Table--the liturgical functions of theMinistry. Let pastoral activities and holy rites alike have ample placein our thoughts and work; but for Christ's sake, my Brother in theministry of the Word and Sacraments, do not forget the Word. A ChristianChurch where preaching sinks to a low ebb, where the labour of publicteaching and exhortation is neglected, in favour either of machinery orritual, cannot possibly--I dare to say it deliberately--be in a trulyhealthy state now, and most assuredly is not laying up health andstrength for years to come. For the very life of our flocks, and of ourChurch, and for the dear glory of our Master, let us "labour in the Wordand teaching. " [1 Tim. V. 17. ]

"LITHO SERMONS. "

Is it necessary, in the case of any reader of these pages, that I shouldnot only appeal thus in general, but add one special entreaty--always topreach _your own_ sermons? Probably it is not necessary; but it may be"safe" [Phil. Iii. 2. ] nevertheless. Not long ago I was distressed toread, in the advertisement columns of an excellent Church newspaper, aconspicuous announcement of a series of "_litho sermons_, " that is, Isuppose, sermons so printed as to look like manuscript. If suchliterature has a sale, it is a miserable fact. Can these discoursespossibly be either written by a "man of the Spirit, " or used by such aman? I say, No. The production of them (in order to be lithographed), and the use of them in their "litho" state, are untruthful acts, untruthful in the very sanctuary of truth. The Lord pardon--and the Lordforbid!

Better the most stammering and incoherent utterances of a man who lovesthe Lord, and the Word, and the flock, and who in Christ's Name does hisbest, than the unhallowed, and usually, I think, vapid glibness of suchacted as well as spoken falsehoods. [27] And surely, the more theClergyman keeps his pulpit and his parish in living relation, the lesswill he be tempted, be it ever so remotely, by any exigencies, to dreamof expedients such as these. 

[27] I am far from saying that the preacher should never get help fromother men's sermons. This may be done honestly and usefully, in manyways. But to let another man's sermon pass as one's own is a sin. 

"DR SOUTH IN THE AFTERNOON. "

Quite conceivably, there may be rare occasions when another man's sermonmay be rightly used by you. But then, of course, you will do ithonestly and above-board, telling your people whose it is. In Addison's_Sir Roger de Coverley_ there is a pleasant scene, where the venerableKnight asks the Parson who the preacher for next Sunday is to be. "TheBishop of St Asaph in the morning, " replies the good man, "and Dr Southin the afternoon. "[28] That is, he was about to read, openly andhonestly, a sermon of Beveridge's, and then a sermon of South's;neither, certainly, in lithograph. I do not say he did the best for hispeople in so doing; most certainly he could not "speak home" to thedetails of their village life, and its temptations, if he spoke only inthe phrase of the two classical pulpit-masters. That _rapport_ of parishand pulpit of which I have spoken could not have been much felt, atleast on that coming Sunday. But the good Parson was honest, however. The practice of which I speak is not honest. 

[28] "He then shewed us his list of preachers for the whole year, whereI saw with a great deal of pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, BishopSanderson, Dr Barrow, Dr Calamy, with several living authors. "(_Spectator_, No. 106, July 2nd, 1711. ) Calamy by the way was aPresbyterian, made one of the King's chaplains at the Restoration. 

WE MUST PREACH ATTRACTIVELY. 

Let me come now to a closer view of the preacher's work, and I will beas practical as possible. I have besought my Brother to let nothingtempt him to push his preaching into a neglectful corner. Let me nowbeseech him to remember that he must not only be a diligent preacher, but do his very best to commend his preaching to his people, --to be, ina right sense, _attractive_. 

I deliberately say, attractive. That word, of course, suggests some veryundesirable applications. It is only too possible to aim atattractiveness by bad methods. We may tone down the Gospel-message, leaving out unpopular and man-humbling truths, and try to "attract"people so. We may strive to "attract" them to hear us by doubtfulexternal accessories (of very different kinds), which, after all, willrather attract attention--for a season--to themselves, than to themessage, and the Lord. But none the less it is every Clergyman's plainduty to make his preaching, so far as he can, lawfully attractive. It ishis duty to see that he preaches Christ Crucified; and "the offence ofthe Cross" [Gal. V. 11. ] will always occur, sooner or later, in suchpreaching; but it is his duty to see that there is no other "offence" init, so far as he can help it. If he so speaks of sin, and righteousness, and judgment, that the unregenerate heart does not like it, though thepreacher has spoken wisely and in love, that is not the preacher'sfault. If he has so magnified Christ, and the glory and fulness of Hissalvation, that it sounds like exaggeration to the unspiritual hearer, though the words have been said in all reverent reality, that is not thepreacher's fault. But it _is_ his fault if he has repelled his hearersfrom his message by what is not the message, but his own setting of it;his spirit, manner, his delivery, his neglect of some plain precautionsagainst prejudice and weariness. Of a few such precautions I come now tospeak; and first, of what I may call the most external amongst them. 

NEEDFUL AND NEEDLESS OFFENCES. 

Beginning, then, with physical precautions against needless "offences, "[Greek: skandala], in our preaching I say first, let us do our best tobe _audible_. 

AUDIBILITY: MEANS TO IT. 

The word sounds almost amusingly commonplace. But it must be said. Manymore of us Clergymen than know it, or think about it, are not audible. The lack of training for the bodily work of the pulpit, in our Church, is serious; far more is done in this way among our Nonconformistbrethren. [29] And accordingly there are numbers of young EnglishClergymen who read and speak without a thought of methodical audibility. They do not articulate distinctly. They do not remember that the _pace_and _force_ of utterance, fit for a private room, are quite unfit for alarge building. They do not know, perhaps, how extremely important isthe articulation of consonants, and of final syllables of words, and ofclosing words in a sentence. They do not know that a certain equability(not monotony) of voice is necessary, if the utterance is to "carry" tothe end of a long church, or a church of many pillars. 

[29] Let me cordially commend the Rev. J. P. Sandlands' book, _The Voiceand Public Speaking_. Mr Sandlands has done, and is doing, admirablework as an oral teacher of clerical elocution, in the intervals of hisparochial labours. 

PLEASANT AUDIBILITY. 

Or again, they do not know, or do not remember, that audibility is notsecured by mere loudness and bigness of voice, nor again by raising thevoice to a high pitch. "People tell you to speak up, " said thatexcellent elocutionist, Mr Simeon; "but I say, speak down, " down asregards the musical scale. Again, the larger the building the moreaccentuated must be the articulation, and the more limited the variationof pitch; but too often this is not thought of by the preacher. 

Further, it has to be remembered, but it is frequently forgotten, thatthe audibility we should aim at is a pleasant and attractive audibility. It is a great thing to be easily heard; which of us does not know thecombined physical and mental labour of listening to a sermon, or aspeech, which only reaches us indistinctly? But it is a greater thing tobe pleasantly heard; heard so that the listener finds nothing to tireand repel in the utterance. Here, of course, different voices give verydifferent advantages; but there are some common secrets, so to speak, which all--who will make a sacred business of it--may profitably andeffectively use. Above all, there is the secret of quiet naturalness;the watchful avoidance (do not forget this) of tricks and mannerisms indelivery;[30] the watchful cultivation of the sort of utterance which weshould use in an earnest conversation on grave subjects, with only suchdifferences as are suggested by _the size_ of the place in which wespeak. Of some other "common secrets" I shall speak when I come to thequestion of style and phrase. 

[30] I have known a sermon which in matter and style were reallyexcellent made, to some hearers at least, almost unendurable by theaccident that the preacher had got the habit of (needlessly) _clearinghis throat_ at the end of almost every sentence. 

FIND A CANDID FRIEND. 

How shall we best work upon such hints? Very largely, by the use of theplainest common-sense and every-day observation on our own part. Butlargely also by trying to find some friend, equally kind and candid, whowill help us "to hear ourselves as others hear us. " For myself, aftertwenty-five years, I welcome more and more gratefully every suchcriticism as the occasion presents itself. Let the Curate ask his Vicarto tell him without mercy if his utterance, his articulation, is clear;if his manner is natural; if his preaching is or is not easy to listento in these respects. And let friend ask friend; let pastor askparishioner; let husband ask wife!

GOOD ENGLISH. 

There are other directions in which we must cultivate attractiveness. There is English style. Here, again, gifts differ widely in detail, yetthere are common secrets open to common use. It is open to every one toavoid, on the one hand, an ambitious, long-worded style; on the other, astyle which many young men of our time are in more danger ofpatronizing--the slovenly, shapeless style, in which the Queen's Englishis very "freely handled, " and into which the broken English of anever-growing _slang_ not seldom makes its way. These defects have onlyto be recognized, surely, to be avoided, by keeping our eyes open as weread and our ears as we hear, and by remembering that the sacred messageof the King, while it is too great to be tricked out with falserhetoric, is also too great to be slighted, not to say insulted, by areally careless phraseology. 

A GOOD STYLE IS A PRACTICAL POWER. 

Pains will be needed, of course, as we pursue the object of a goodstyle. We must watch and think. We must read and observe good models, the written words of men who have proved themselves powerful preachersto the people, and indeed of men generally who are known masters ofEnglish. We shall have, again, to consult candid friends. But my pointis, that all this is abundantly worth our while. A neat, straight, well-worded sentence is not a mere literary luxury. It is a practicalpower. It is far easier to listen to than a careless, formless sentenceis, and it is far easier to remember. The truth which it conveys is muchmore likely, therefore, to find its way securely into the mind, and tolie there ready for the vivifying touch of the Spirit of God. 

I emphasize this matter of style, for in many quarters it is muchneglected, and some of my younger Brethren do, if I mistake not, entertain the thought that the simplicity of the Gospel is best setforth, and God most honoured, where plans and methods of language areneglected. To speak about "a good style" to those who think so, may seemperhaps little else than a recommendation to bid for human applause inthe line of literature. But my intention is far enough from this. Mereliterary ambition, the quest of the glory of self in this as in everyother line, is a forbidden thing to the true bondservant of the Lord. But it is by no means forbidden him, for his Lord's sake, to aim atclearness, point, force of expression, that the message may be thebetter taken in. God is as little glorified by a bad style as by a badvoice, or bad handwriting, or bad reasoning. And by a good style I meannot a style polished and elaborated to please fastidious tastes (thebest taste, by the way, is best pleased with correct simplicity), but astyle which shall be both pure and plain in word and phrase, "understandable of the people" yet such as not to vex those who care fortheir native tongue, and just enough formed and pointed to makeattention pleasant to the ear. For average audiences, I know no stylemore perfectly answering my idea than that of Mr Spurgeon, [31] in hisprinted sermons of recent years. And I happen to know that Mr Spurgeonhas always taken great and systematic pains with his English. 

[31] Since these words were written this great Christian and preacherhas passed away to his Master's presence. 

FRENCH HEARERS OF ENGLISH. 

Some preachers need much more than others a hint to keep their sentences_straight_, and to avoid the tangle of parentheses, long or short. Here, again, Mr Spurgeon gives me an admirable illustration. His sentences, never thin or weak in matter, are always straight. If any of my youngerBrethren are tempted, as I confess I am, in the digressive direction, Iwould recommend them (if they usually preach without writing) to _write_a sermon now and then, and rigorously to exclude, or re-write, allsentences which transgress. It occurred to me recently, when acting as asummer chaplain in Switzerland, to find the benefit of a differentcorrective. On one particular Sunday I had among my hearers in themorning a French Presbyterian, in the afternoon a French Roman Catholic, each understanding a little English; and in each case I had specialreasons for hope and longing that the sermon might bring some spiritualhelp. Instinctively, I avoided every expression which could in the leastcomplicate my English and thus obscure the message to my foreignfriends. And so thankful was I for the pruning of periods that resulted, that I am much disposed, in all future preaching, to put mentallybefore me those same two hearers. 

"WRITTEN OR EXTEMPORE?"

On that great question, Shall I preach from writing, or not? I say verylittle. Speaking quite generally, and thinking now only of the regularchurch congregation, not of the mission-room or open air, I would advisemy younger Brethren to write for some while, but usually with anultimate view to speech without writing. No hard rule can be laid down. One man is so gifted that from the first he can express himselfcorrectly and well without any manuscript before him. Another finds, allhis life through, that he speaks best, and his people listen best, whenhe reads (vividly and naturally) from his prayerfully-preparedmanuscript. But on the whole, I repeat it, writing is the bestdiscipline for a man in his early days of Ministry, while beyond doubtthe freely-spoken sermon, like the freely-spoken speech, (carefullyenough prepared as to matter and order, ) is usually best to listen to, and therefore should be the preacher's goal. Some men write theirsermons and then learn them by heart for delivery. For myself, I ownthis would be a severe ordeal to nerve; and in very few cases, if I amright, does it produce a perfectly natural effect. Not long ago, if notnow, it was a frequent custom in Scotland; and one amusing story comesto my mind. A good minister, known to a near relative of mine, alwaysthus "mandated" his sermon, and punctually delivered it word for word. One day a tremendous hailstorm assailed the church windows, and not onlydid his parishioners fail to hear him, but literally he lost the soundof his own voice. Yet he _dared not stop_, lest memory should play himfalse; and when the storm ceased, "I found myself, " he said, "with somesurprise, in a quite distant part of the sermon. "

ORDER AND DIVISION. 

Another important aid to attractiveness is order and division, simplyand sensibly managed. Nothing is much more repellent, at least to modernhearers, than an excess of arrangement; headings and subdivisionsoverdone. But nothing is more helpful to attention than a simple, natural, luminous division, present in the preacher's mind, announced tothe audience, and faithfully carried out. Remember this, among manyother things, in the choosing of the text; _ceteris paribus_, that textis best which best lends itself to natural division. 

PAINS AND FAITH. 

There are many other points, more or less of the exterior kind, so tospeak, which concern the attractiveness of our preaching. There is thequestion of length, which can only be settled by careful and prayerfulconsideration of special circumstances, with recollection of the generalprinciples that the morning sermon should be short compared with that ofthe evening, and that he who would reach the hearts of the poor must notgive them "sermonettes, " but sermons. There is the question of action, alarge subject. All that I can say is, that _some_ action is almostalways a help to attention, but that it proves the very opposite as soonas it seems uneasy, or a mannerism. 

I have yet to deal with some thoughts about the preacher's message, andthe inmost secrets of his power. Meanwhile, may our Lord and Masterenable us so to "labour in the Word" that we shall think no means toohumble which will really help us to make His message plain, and nodependence on Him too absolute for the longed-for spiritual results. 

 "_Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own, Paul should himself direct me. I would trace His master-strokes, and draw from his design. I would express him simple, grave, sincere, In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men. _"

 COWPER. 

CHAPTER XI. 

_PREACHING_ (ii. ). 

 _For Thy sake, beloved Lord, I will labour in Thy Word; On the knees, in patient prayer; At the desk, with studious care; In the pulpit, seeking still There to utter all Thy will. _

I pursue the subject of attractive preaching, taking still the wordattractive in its worthiest sense, and again laying stress on the_necessity_ of attractiveness of the right sort. We have looked a littlealready at some of the external requisites to this end; now let usapproach some which have to do with matter more than manner. 

CONSIDERATENESS. 

On the way, I pause to say a word in general on one of the reasons whywe should do our best to speak so that our hearers shall care to hear. The supreme reason is manifest; it is the glory of our Master and thegood of souls. For His sake, and for the flock's sake, we long and muststrive to speak so as to draw their attention to His message and toHimself. But subordinate to this great motive, and in fullest harmonywith it, there is another; and this is a motive which, once clearlyapprehended, will affect not our preaching only, but all parts of ourministry--our conduct of public worship, our pastoral visitation, ourwhole intercourse with our neighbours. I mean, the simple motive of aloyal and faithful _considerateness for others_, as we are on the onehand Christian men and English gentlemen, and on the other handservants, not masters, of the Church and parish. Possibly this aspect ofthe Pastor's public and official ministry may not have presented itselfdistinctively as yet to my younger Brother; but it cannot be recognizedand acted upon too early. Some things in our clerical position andfunctions tend in their own nature to make us forget it, if we are notdefinitely awake to it beforehand. In some respects the Clergyman, eventhe youngest Curate, has dangerous opportunities for _in_ consideratepublic action. Take the management of divine Service in illustration. Inhis manner of reading, his tone, his pace, the Clergyman may allowhimself, only too easily, to think of himself alone. In thereading-desk, or at the Table of the Lord, he may consult only his ownlikes and dislikes in attitude, gesture, and air. But if so, he isgreatly failing in the homely duty of loyal considerateness. What willbe most for the happiness and edification of the congregation? What willleast disturb and most assist true devotion? How shall the Minister bestsecure that the worshippers shall remember the Master and not beuncomfortably conscious of the servant? The answers to such questionswill of course vary considerably under varying conditions; but it is_the principle_ of the questions which I press home. Our office, and thecommon consent and usage of the Christian people, give us a position ofindependence in such matters which has its advantages, but also its verygreat risks; and it is for us accordingly to handle that independencewith the utmost possible _considerateness_. 

This thought was much upon my own mind lately during the interestingexperiences of a Continental summer chaplaincy, to which I referred inthe last chapter. As usual in a health resort abroad, the Englishresidents represented many different shades of Church opinion andpractice. By the convictions of many long years, I am an EvangelicalChurchman, in the well-understood sense of the term; and of thoseconvictions I am not at all ashamed. My manner of conducting publicworship, especially in the Communion Office, would probably make itplain at once to most worshippers where I stand as a Churchman. But thatdoes not mean, I trust, that I am to allow myself to be inconsiderate ofthe feelings of others in the matter; and on the occasions referred toit was my earnest and anxious aim to remember this with regard toworshippers, and particularly communicants, whose beliefs, or howeverwhose sympathies, were what is called "higher" than my own. On theiraccount I sought to make it plain that no rubrical direction wasneglectfully treated by me, and that reverence of manner and action wasa sacred thing in my eyes--a reverence not elaborated, but attentive. Ihope I should have been reverently careful whatever the composition ofthe congregation was; but under the circumstances the duty of thisobvious sort of ministerial _considerateness_ was laid on my heart withspecial weight. That duty bears in many directions. It is, I venture tosay, inconsiderate, on the one hand, when the Clergyman conducts theservices of the Church with a disturbing artificiality of performance. It is inconsiderate, on the other hand, when he conducts them with any, even the least, real slovenliness and inattention. 

TEMPTATIONS TO FORGET IT. 

But if all this is true of the desk and of the blessed Table, it is truealso, and in a high degree, of the pulpit. Singularly independent, up toa certain point, is the position of the preacher. He chooses his owntext; he assigns himself (at least in theory) his own length ofdiscourse; he is entitled, under the ægis of the law of the land, tospeak on to the end without interruption; he is bound, within the limitsof a sanctified common-sense, to speak with the authority of hiscommission. Here are powerful temptations to an inconsiderate man, perhaps especially to an inconsiderate young man, to show muchinconsideration. And therefore, here is a pre-eminent occasion for thetrue Pastor, who thinks, prays, loves, and is humble, to practise thebeautiful opposite. Shall you and I seek grace to do so?

RESPECT ELDER HEARERS. 

Put yourself often, my dear Brother, while I do the same, into theposition--which we once occupied always, and often do still--of thehearer. You, the Curate, or the young Incumbent, have recently come intothe parish, and you are full of a young man's energy and enterprize, anda little infected perhaps with a common and natural belief of your timeof life, but a belief not quite true to facts, that the world is madefor young men. And among your hearers, week by week, as you preach fromthat pulpit, sit men and women who were working, and thinking, andperhaps believing, literally long before you were born. Put yourself intheir place. Into many of their experiences, and their sympathies bornof experience, you cannot possibly enter personally. You cannot _feelpersonally_ how this or that innovation of language or manner, this orthat too crude statement of your message, this or that baldly new andperhaps by no means true theory, aired as if it were all obvious and ofcourse, must look and sound to them. You cannot _feel_ it all; but youcan think about it. Perhaps these are educated and refined people, andaccustomed all their lives to value clear thought and pure diction, inany case accustomed to carefulness in the matter and manner of thesermon. You cannot enter into all their mental habits in your own mentalworkings; but you can take account of them, and in a loyal andthoughtful _considerateness_ you can remember them in practice, andhonestly aim so to prepare and to preach as to conciliate the thoughtfuland the elders. 

Such considerateness will not mean the stifling of prayerful conviction, or the failure to be faithful as the messenger of the Lord. But it willmean a severity upon yourself as regards the tone and spirit of yourthoughts, and also as the manner of your utterance. You will take pains, even at a heavy cost to self (and such costs are always gains in theend), so to minister as to attract the attention of the flock, not toyourself, but to your blessed Master and His Word; preaching "notyourself, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and _yourself their servant_ forJesus' sake. " [2 Cor. Iv. 5. ]

With this aim of Attractiveness, then, in our minds, and with thismotive of Considerateness beside it, let us come to some thoughts indetail about the matter of preaching. 

And here first I must bring in another word to meet the word"attractive. " That word is "faithful. "

WRONG KINDS OF ATTRACTIVENESS. 

As a matter of most obvious fact (we noticed it in the previouschapter), there is a false and useless attractiveness, as well as atrue. There is the poor and miserable attractiveness--it draws a certainclass of modern hearers--of mere brevity; the "ten-minute sermon. " Thereare no doubt exceptional occasions when ten minutes, or even five, maybe the right limit to our utterance; but there is something wrong withboth sermon and audience if in the regular ministration of God's holyWord the preacher must at once begin to stop. There is again thespecious and spurious attractiveness of excitement and froth of manner, or of a merely emotional appeal to perhaps not the deepest emotions, anattraction which has little in it of that divine magnet which draws thewill and lifts the soul in regenerate faith and surrender. There is theattraction, tempting, but futile for the true purposes of the pulpit, of the sermon which is after all only a lecture, or a leading article;full of the topics of the day, of the hour; full perhaps of somecelebrated name just immortalized by death[32]; but not full of theeternal message for which the pulpit exists. Most certainly there is nodivine rule which excludes from the sermon all allusions to politics, tosociety, to science, to great men; but there _is_ a divine rule, runningthrough the whole precept and example of the New Testament, which keepssuch things always subordinate to the supreme work of preaching JesusChrist. 

[32] "I went longing to hear about Christ, and it was only Newman frombeginning to end. " This was the actual lament of an anxious soul, oneSunday in 1890. 

FAITHFULNESS. 

Across all our thoughts how to secure attractiveness, as a co-ordinateline which fixes attention to the true point, runs the word"Faithfulness. " The preacher is to be attractive while faithful, faithful while attractive. And he is to be attractive not for the sakeof so being, but in order that he may win an entrance for the words offaithfulness, to his Master's praise. 

WE ARE MESSENGERS. 

Yes, this is what we are to be as preachers. We are to seek "mercy ofthe Lord to be faithful. " [1 Cor. Vii. 25. ] We are not popular leaders, looking for a cry, or passing one on. We are not speculative thinkers, feeling out a philosophy, communicating our guesses at truth to acompany of friends who happen to be interested in the investigation. Weare "messengers, watchmen, and stewards of the Lord. " We are incommissioned charge of a divine, authentic, and unalterable message. Weare the expounders of a "Word which liveth and abideth for ever, " [1Pet. I. 23. ] a Word which man is always trying to judge and todisparage, but which will judge man at the last day. [Joh. Xii. 48. ] Weare the bondservants of an absolute Master, who is at once our Senderand our Message, and who overhears our every word in its delivery. 

It is a grave mistake, as we saw in our last chapter, to think thatfaithfulness means a repellent utterance of "the faithful Word. " [Tit. I. 9. ] But it is at least an equal mistake to think that attractivenessmeans a modification of that Word, which to the end of our world's daywill still be a "folly" and a "stumbling-block, " [1 Cor. I. 23. ] insome respects, to the unconverted soul, and will always have itssearching point and edge for the converted soul also. 

But this consideration here is only by the way. I return from it to thematter of a right and faithful attractiveness and some of its higherconditions. 

SECRETS FOR TRUE ATTRACTIVENESS. 

"_Preach the Gospel--earnestly, interestingly, fully. _" Such, I believe, is the prescription given, by the great preacher whom I cited in thelast chapter, to the Pastor who would fill his church, and keep it full. In the first instance, no doubt, Mr Spurgeon gives it as a prescriptionto the Nonconformist Pastor; but it is quite as much to the purpose forthe Conformist, so far as he is a Minister of the Word. [33] What I haveto say in these present pages shall run on the lines of that sentence ofgood counsel. 

[33] And let it never be forgotten that this is his _primary_ functionin the mind of the Church of England. See the Priest's Ordination, particularly its Exhortations, its Commission, and its final Collect. 

"PREACH THE GOSPEL. "

i. "_Preach the Gospel_, " that is to say Jesus Christ, in His Person, His Work, His Offices, His Teaching, all applied to the souls and livesof men. Would you truly and permanently attract, with an attractionwhich God will bless? Let that be your first condition. I do not dilateupon it here, but with all the earnestness possible I lay it upon myyounger Brother's heart as we pass on. Preach the Gospel, that is to saythe Lord, in all He is for man as man is a sinner, a mortal, a mourner, a worker. Do not let Christ be one subject among others. As little canthe sun be one among the planets. He is _the_ Subject; all others gettheir reality and importance for us preachers by their relation to Him. In particular I venture to say, do not let occasional, temporal, localtopics, even very important ones, dislodge Christ, the Lord Jesus Christof the whole Bible, from His royal place in your preaching; and do notforget continually (though not monotonously) to keep to the front thefact that He is _the sinner's Saviour_. More will be said later aboutthat point of view, but I state it at once. Speak indeed of Christ asExemplar, Ideal, Friend, Man of Men; but do not let your brethren forgetthat, "_first of all, Christ died for our sins_, according to theScriptures, " [1 Cor. Xv. 3. ] and that His primary practical relation tous is always that of Saviour to sinner. That truth is not altogether infashion now. But it is eternal; it is deep as the human soul, and as theLaw of God, and as such it is a mighty condition to attractiveness, wisely and truly handled. It corresponds to the inmost facts of thehearers' being, whether they are aware of it yet or not; and is therenot here the most powerful of magnets, at least _in posse_?

"PREACH IT EARNESTLY. "

ii. "Preach the Gospel _earnestly_. " This does not mean necessarilywith vehemence, or even with fervour, of manner. Some men's delivery isfervent, or even vehement, in the most natural way possible; and letsuch men preach so, if they will do it thoughtfully and to the purpose. But the slightest artificial cultivation of such qualities, or of thesemblance of them, is a great practical mistake. And earnestness is atonce a wider and a simpler matter all the while. The man who preachesearnestly is the man who is altogether in earnest, and speaks out hisconviction and his purpose. 

*PREACH IT AS A WITNESS. 

He is the man who has the Lord's message deep in his own soul, and isconscious of its vast importance for the souls of others. He is the manwho does not merely discuss, or explain, or even expound, howeversoundly and luminously, but whose words--well chosen, well weighed, wellordered--are _also_ the living words of one who "testifieth that he hathseen. " [Joh. Iii. 11. ] Yes, the essence of the right sort of earnestnessis the witness-character of the preacher. What is a witness? One who haspersonal knowledge of the matter of his words [2 Tim. I. 12. ]--"_I knowwhom I have believed. _" Is there not a great need at this time, in ourdear Church, of more such witness-preaching? I do not mean preachingthat advertises the preacher as a remarkable Christian, certainly notpreaching that puts for one moment our "testimony" on a level with theinfallible Word once written. But I do mean the preaching which, by oneof the surest laws of our nature, attracts attention to that Word in aliving way by the preacher's manifest confession that its message is amighty reality and certainty to himself. 

Some years ago I heard an account of the peculiarly impressive preachingof a young Mission-clergyman. It was described to me as remarkable notfor energy of manner, or warmth of diction, but for the impression lefton all hearers that the truths handled by the man were for himselfabsolute and present facts. He stated them with a directness andquietness which was emphatically matter-_of-fact_. This sort ofpreaching is earnest indeed. 

"PREACH IT INTERESTINGLY. "

iii. "Preach the Gospel _interestingly_. " How shall we secure this? Somerecipes for interest are familiar. There is the method of illustration;there is the method of anecdote: both excellent, and almostindispensable. Only, they are methods which have their risks, and mustbe used with care. Illustrations are apt to overwhelm the thingillustrated, the moment much detail is allowed; and they are apt to goon three feet, or even upon one, instead of upon four; and they may bedrawn from quarters too remote to strike the hearers with effect. Anecdotes have the same risks; and, besides, they need, if they are tobe used aright, to be carefully sifted and verified. I say this not todisparage what in some preachers' hands is a most powerful and also amost delicate weapon; yet the caution is certainly needed, especially byyounger men. 

INTEREST OF EXPLANATION. 

But the surest secrets of interesting preaching lie deeper than anecdoteand illustration. One of them, a very simple one to state, is clearnessof thought, and of the expression and explanation of thought. I entreatmy Brother to be an _explanatory_ preacher, by which I mean, not that heshould treat his _brethren_ as if they were his _children_ (unlessindeed it is a children's sermon), but that he should handle familiarreligious terms with the resolve to make them _live and speak_ to theordinary hearer. Nothing is more opiate-like than a sentence which isunreal to the hearer because it is mere phraseology. Nothing can be mademore interesting than familiar phraseology (supposing it to be true andimportant) so treated as to speak its meaning out fresh and living inmodern ears. 

INTEREST OF EXPOSITION. 

Another deep and unfailing secret of interest, so that it be usedintelligently and prayerfully, is close akin to this last. It lies inthe right sort of _expository_ preaching. I have in my mind suchexposition as will be found in Dr Vaughan's sermons on the PhilippianEpistle. The charm and power of those sermons lie, I know, very much inthe extraordinary excellence, the _curiosa simplicitas_, of theirliterary style, so unpretentious and so masterly. But it lies also inthe fact that the preacher takes us over a familiar Scripture passage, verse by verse, phrase by phrase, and translates it into the dialect ofpresent circumstances. Let me heartily commend this sort of preachingfrom my own parochial experience in past days. In a congregationconsisting chiefly of the poor, I found that the most intelligent andsustained interest was excited by a series of Sunday evening sermons ona selected chapter or paragraph, in which the aim was first toparaphrase the sacred phrases, as it were, into modern shapes, and thenat the close to enforce some main message of the portion. The method isas old as the Homilies of Chrysostom, and older. 

INTEREST OF PRACTICALITY. 

Another secret of interest, permanent and effectual, is _practicality_in preaching. I protest, whenever I can, and I hope to do so to thelast, against the common but unhappy fallacy of an outcry againstdoctrine: "_Give us not a creed, but a life_. " The whole New Testament, the whole Bible, protests against such a sentence. There, a divine creedis always seen as necessary for a divine life. Supernatural facts, livingly apprehended, are necessary for supernatural peace and power inthis formidable natural world. But then, on the other side, it is afallacy almost as fatal to preach the supernatural fact and truthwithout a constant and practical application of them to the crude andstern realities of life. A young pastoral preacher was once, in myhearing, warmly and lovingly thanked for his pulpit-work, on the eve ofhis quitting his Curacy; and the point on which his humble friends dweltwas that he had always preached Christ, _and_ always showed them how tomake use of His presence and power in the actual circumstances of theirlives. Eloquent words, aye and true words, spoken _in vacuo_, will bedull to most hearers; eternal truths laid alongside the weekday work andtemptation will always be interesting. 

"PREACH THE GOSPEL FULLY. "

iv. "Preach the Gospel _fully_. " Here is our great Nonconformist's lastadverb, in his recipe for attractive preaching. Its point is not soobvious perhaps as that of the other words, but it is nobly true. "TheGospel" is, as I have said, and as we know, nothing less than JesusChrist the Lord, in His whole harmonious glory of Person, Work, andWord. It is deeply true that in that mighty and manifold theme there arepoints which must be always prominent and ruling; and most surely theman-humbling and soul-blessing truths of the Atoning Sacrifice are suchpoints. "First of all" (we have recalled that all-significant sentencealready), "first of all, Christ died for our sins. " [1 Cor. Xv. 3. ] Alasfor the Church, for the congregation, for the pulpit, where that isforgotten, obscured, or put into a secondary, or perhaps a tertiaryplace! One thing is certain; that pulpit cannot be bearing its rightwitness meanwhile to the "exceeding sinfulness" of sin--not merely thedeformity of sin, but the awful evil and condemnable guilt of sin. [SN:Rom. Vii. 13. ] But then it is a thing to be regretted (and corrected)when the Pastor's preaching is _always and only_ concerned with theurgent need, and wonderful provision, for the pardon and acceptance ofthe believing sinner. I dare to say it is impossible that such preachingshould be permanently, or even long, interesting and attractive, andthis because of the nature of the case. 

*PREACH PARDON, BUT MORE ALSO. 

Man's fallen and sinful soul needs pardon unspeakably, and always, butit needs it as a means to an end; and that end is nearness to God, conformity to Him, power to do His blessed will as His servant for ever. For this same great end the soul needs, even in the range of truthswhich are of the order of means, to learn more than the glorious_rudiments_ of forgiveness. It needs to know something of the heavenlyOffices of the once Crucified One: His Mediation, Suretyship, andIntercession; His Priesthood; His Royalty; His Headship. In Him liestored the divine treasures with which our _whole_ extent of need is tobe met. And the preacher who would permanently attract his people, bybringing out of his storehouse things eternally old and new, must seekand pray to preach Christ fully. 

CHRIST FOR US AND IN US. 

To some devoted men it seems impossible not to be always preaching theglory of "Christ _for_ us"; others can never leave the precious theme of"Christ _in_ us. " But if they are not missioners, but pastors, they willassuredly find that a _permanent_ attraction can only be secured bydoing what the Word of God does--setting forth _both_ glorious sets oftruths in fulness, in harmony, and in application to the realities ofsin and of life. 

So we have thought awhile about attractive preaching. Need I say againwhat the sort of attractiveness is which I have in view? It is indeed, on the surface, attraction to the church, attraction to the sermon; butits whole inner purpose is an attraction which neither church nor sermoncan in the least degree cause, but which the Eternal Spirit, sovereignand loving, can cause through them--an attraction to Jesus Christ, intrue repentance, living faith, genuine surrender, and patient, happyservice. 

 "_Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim, And publish abroad His wonderful Name; The Name all victorious of Jesus extol, His kingdom is glorious and rules over all. _

 "_Then let us adore and give Him His right, All glory and power, all wisdom and might, All honour and blessing with angels above, And thanks never ceasing, and infinite love. _"

 C. WESLEY. 

CHAPTER XII. 

_PREACHING_ (iii. ). 

 _Eternal Fulness, overflow to me Till I, Thy vessel, overflow for Thee; For sure the streams that make Thy garden grow Are never fed but by an overflow: Not till Thy prophets with Thyself run o'er Are Israel's watercourses full once more. _

Again I treat of the sermon. We have looked, my younger Brother and I, at some main secrets and prescriptions for attractive preaching. Whatshall I more say on the subject of the pulpit? In the first place I willoffer a few miscellaneous suggestions, and then come in closing to thedeepest theme of the whole matter--Spiritual Power in Preaching. 

NOTES FOR A SERMON-LECTURE. 

I address myself to write, soon after delivering to my students, in thelibrary adjoining my study, a lecture on Preaching. Let me call itrather, a talk on Sermons, which is a term less grandiose and much moretrue; for in fact the discourse has been a most informal series ofremarks and suggestions on topics suggested by a collection of sermonswritten for me, and which I now came to give back, annotated, to theirwriters. It occurs to me to offer my kind reader a written version ofsome of these remarks just made _vivâ voce_ to my friends. They happento touch on a variety of points which are not unimportant in themselvesand also typical of very many more. 

For the purposes of the lecture, they have been divided between mattersof form and matters of substance; and I report them, or rather some ofthem, in that order. 

I. _Remarks on Diction, Style, etc. _

(_a_) Take care to "pull the sentences together, " to avoid loose andredundant phrases and words. Why write "_grief and sorrow_, " "_fatiguedand tired out_, " "_attacks and assaults_"? A subtle intellect may seedistinctions here, but it is too much for me, and, I am sure, for mostplain people in church. 

(_b_) Respect the Queen's English. "_The one_ who lives a Christianlife" is scarcely English; say "the man, " not "the one. " "_Like_ Adamand Eve walked in Paradise"! This is a serious, though common, piece ofbad grammar. Say, "_Like Adam_, when he walked, " but "_As_ Adam_walked_. "

(_c_) Remember that the genius of English eschews a large use of_connecting words_, particularly in spoken discourse. Not often is asentence the better for an "_and_" at the beginning. Many a"_therefore_" and "_because_" are well away, if you would speak withfreedom and vigour. 

AVOID RHETORICAL DICTION. 

(_d_) Avoid altogether such touches of expression as characterise verse, or rhetorical prose. I find in one sermon the sentence, "_Think you_ StPaul trembled at the prospect?" Please re-write this, and say, "_Do youthink_ St Paul was afraid?" For you certainly would not say, speakinghowever gravely, to your friend, "Think you that we shall have a fineday to-morrow?" Rhetorical phrases rarely give an impression ofpractical reality. 

(_e_) Do not speak in the pulpit as if you were writing notes for anedition of the Epistles. What does the labourer (and what do manyhearers more highly educated than he) think when you say, on Rom. V. 1, that "_weighty manuscript authority gives another reading_"? And whatdoes he think you mean when you talk about "_Sheôl_"? By the way, whenyou quote Scripture in the pulpit, passingly, to a generalcongregation, I would advise you to quote not the Revised Version, butthe Authorized, which will surely be "_the_ English Bible" for many longdays yet. Unless you have before you some special difference between thetwo Versions, on which you can _stop to speak explicitly_, quote thefamiliar (and inimitable) diction of 1611. 

PREACH WHAT CAN BE REPORTED. 

(_f_) Prepare your sermon, and preach it, so that it shall be _easy toreport_. One sermon here before me would be as hard as possible toretail at home. It is on Rom. V. 1, and it says some excellent thingsupon it. But it brings in holiness of heart where the text speaks onlyof acceptance of person, and it mingles the two topics so ingeniouslytogether that the impression is seriously complicated. Think of thepious daughter yonder in church, going home to her infirm old mother, and trying to answer the question, "What did the gentleman preach aboutto-night?" Let us do our best to preach sermons which are not onlysound, but portable. 

(_g_) Take care to keep the sermon in _tune with the text_. Here is amanuscript on Psal. V. 12, a verse of exultant joy; but the lastpassage of the sermon, the passage which ought to concentrate the wholemessage, is full of solemn _warning_. Warn by all means; do not forgetto sound the watchman's trumpet. [Ezek. Xxxiii. ] But sound it in theright place. 

CUT THE PREFACE SHORT. 

(_h_) Here is a sermon sadly spoiled by a _long introduction_. It tellsus much about the circumstances of the inspired writer, but so as tothrow little light on the message of the text. Here is another, on thewonderfully definite hope of blessedness after death given us in Phil. I. 21. This also is ruined by its introduction, which truly begins _abovo_, discussing the genesis of man's belief in immortality! Thatpreface would leave, in the actual delivery of the sermon, about fiveminutes for the handling of the precious words, "To depart and to bewith Christ, which is far better. " Generally, be shy of muchintroduction and preface in the pulpit. I do not mean that we are neverto elucidate connexions and contexts. But, remember limits. Your minutesare few, ah, so few, for such a Message, --Christ Jesus in His fulness, for man's need in its depth. Pass quickly through the porch into thatChurch. 

BE ACCURATE IN STATEMENT. 

(_i_) When you refer to _Scripture facts_, be accurate; a slip-shodhabit there may fatally prejudice a not quite friendly hearer who knowssomething of the Bible; and it will certainly do no good to _any_hearer. Here is a sermon on Phil. I. 21, and it speaks of St Paul aswriting to Philippi from his "_dark cell_. " But St Luke says that he was"in his own hired house, " [Acts xxviii. 30. ] or at worst, "his own hiredrooms. " Here again I read of David as returning to "Jerusalem, _the cityof his fathers_. " But his fathers had lived and died at Bethlehem; andJerusalem was in heathen hands till David himself took it!

2. _Remarks on Points in the Substance of the Sermons. _

(_a_) Are you quite sure that the Patriarchs had no anticipation of alife eternal? Many lecturers, and many editors, now say so. But theEpistle to the Hebrews says that "they desired a better country, that isan heavenly" [Heb. Xi. 16. ]; and that is better evidence for thispurpose than any inferences (or beliefs) of modern "scholarship. " True, the old saints say little explicitly about their hope. But many thingslie deep in a man's faith, and in his experience too, about which, forvarious reasons, he may say very little. 

REVELATION WAS NOT INTUITION. 

(_b_) I do not like this sentence, which says that the later Prophetshad a "_fuller perception_ of" the eternal future than theirpredecessors. Not that I blame the phrase in itself; but I dislike itsassociations. There runs a strong drift in modern theology, as we allknow, towards the explanation of Scripture by "perception" rather thanby revelation. "The Lord appeared unto me"; "The Lord spake unto me";say the Prophets, and they appeal occasionally to supernaturalattestation of their assertions. But the modern expository savant, wiserto be sure than the Prophet, assures us that they arrived at theirmessages by observation, by meditation, by development of thought andcharacter, and practically by nothing different from these things. Accordingly, their "inspiration" was strictly speaking the same in kindas that of a Chrysostom, or a Luther, or a Shakespeare. Do not you sayso, or imply that it is so. Do not go for mere company's sake with thecurrent of naturalistic thought. Sure I am that you are most unlikely, if you do, to be the instrument of _super_natural _effects_ in yourpreaching. 

"WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION?"

(_c_) "What is Justification? It is, _the making man just_. " Is itindeed? I should read that sentence with alarm, if I did not know thewriter! Its sentiment is practically Roman Catholic. Moreover, it puts ameaning on the word in question, contradicted by the common usages oflanguage; an important consideration when we study a Scripturaltheological term. When I "justify my opinion" I do not _make it right_, but vindicate it as already right. When the Hebrew judge "justified therighteous, " [Deut. Xxv. 1] he did not improve him, but pronounced himsatisfactory to the law. And when God, for Christ's sake, justifies youwho believe in Jesus, He does not in that act make you good; Hepronounces you, for His Son's sake, to be satisfactory to His Law, forpurposes of your personal acceptance. 

"WHY DOES FAITH JUSTIFY?"

(_d_) "Why has faith such power to justify? Because, _carried out to itsfullest extent, it implies assimilation_ to its Object. " Here again Ishould be alarmed, if I did not know the writer's general convictions, which are sound enough. But this particular sentence again is in fullharmony with Romanist doctrine. And, as a fact, with the Bible open, andwith usages of common language before us, it can easily be exposed as aconfusion of words and thought. Faith, carried out ever so fully, isjust faith still; personal reliance, personal confidence on God in HisWord. That reliance is His appointed (and divinely natural) way for ourreception of Jesus Christ. For our Justification, it receives Christ inHis merits; it does _that_, and that only, and always. For ourSanctification, it receives Christ in His inward power, by the HolyGhost. But faith is just faith, to the end. 

(_e_) "We are not _forced_ to receive salvation. " Most true. "Heenforceth not the will. " But do not forget on the other hand to magnifythe necessity of grace, "preventing grace, " [Act. X. ] that is to say, God Himself "working in us _to will_" to receive our salvation. The twosides of truth are both divine. [Phil. Ii. 13. ] Do not neglect either, whether you can harmonize them or not here below. 

 * * * * *

END OF THE LECTURE. 

Such are some specimens of a Saturday morning's talk in our library. They are taken, just as they come, from notes constructed after thestudy of a set of some twenty sermons, written, and then commented upon, without the slightest thought that any public or permanent use would bemade of the materials thus given. But perhaps the remarks may be inpoint to some of my readers all the more because of the unstudied natureof the materials. 

Let me say, before I quite leave this part of my subject, that adversecriticism was by no means my only work this morning in the lecture-room. It was my happiness, on the other hand, to commend thankfully many aclear setting of living truth, and many a sentence of forcible point andof true beauty, happy omens for future years, in which, if it pleaseGod, "the torch shall be carried on, " bright and clear, when we eldersshall be heard no more. [34]

[34] Ungracious as it may seem, I must betray one less pleasantconfidence of such occasions. Sometimes I have had to note in sermonMSS. A strange neglect of punctuation, and, here and there, a littleaberration from received usages of spelling! No Clergyman ought to thinksuch matters beneath his notice. His people, some, if not many of them, will from time to time receive letters or other written messages fromhim; these ought to be unmistakably the writing of the educatedgentleman. Is it too much to say also that _the handwriting_ ought to beclear and easy? It is distressing, certainly to one who has many lettersto read daily, to see how _rare_ such handwriting is now. 

"MY CASES OF OLD SERMONS. "

But now let me return from this discursive report of a sermon-lecture tosome more central thoughts about the Preaching of the Word. Sacred, solemn theme! I was made to realize its character in a peculiar wayquite lately, when reading a heart-searching and most instructive essay, by the Rev. R. Glover, Vicar of St Luke's, West Holloway, entitled, _MyCases of Old Sermons_. [35] The essay was simply an experiencedpreacher's review of many years of pulpit labour, in the light of thecollected and ordered manuscripts which silently represented it. Thewriter had much to say, to my great profit, about his methods ofpreparation and delivery, and about the pains taken to distribute thechoice of texts widely and impartially over the field of Scripture. Then he went on to speak of the ascertained spiritual history of some ofthose many sermons; the messages to souls which in this or that instancethey had carried; the savour of life unto life, or perhaps, alas, ofdeath unto death, which had to his knowledge breathed from them. Theimpressions left on my mind were, above all others, two; first, the callto thorough diligence in preparation, if the preacher is to give hisaccount with joy; and then, the indescribable solemnity and greatness ofthe work of a true pastor-preacher. 

[35] In _The Churchman_ of August, 1891. 

*BE A PREACHER INDEED. 

I may seem to reiterate too much, but I _must_ say again, with newemphasis, to my younger Brother, resolve to be a preacher indeed, by thegrace of God. Do not let secondary things, however good, distort yourattention from that supremely sacred commission, "Preach the Word; beinstant, in season, out of season[36] [2 Tim. Iv. 2. ]; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. _For_, " the Apostlesignificantly proceeds, "the time will come when they will not enduresound doctrine. " Therefore, an age impatient of thorough Scripturalpreaching is the very age in which to seek, in wisdom and courage, tomake much of it. Do not let organization spoil your preaching-work. Donot let current events spoil it. Do not let elaboration of ritual spoilit. Do not let organist and choir rule over you, and claim for music theprecious moments called for by the Word. 

[36] That is, irrespective of _your own_ convenience. 

 * * * * *

"THE DIRECTORY. "

Let me present to my reader, in this last chapter, an extract from anold book which however may be new to him. The book is not one which as awhole I greatly love; how could I? It is that sternly-imposed substitutefor the Book of Common Prayer, commonly known as the ParliamentaryDirectory of 1645; the exact title is, _A Directory for the PubliqueWorship of God in the Three Kingdomes_. [37] Its associations arealtogether with an unhappy time, in which it was a seriously penaloffence, at least in theory, to use the Prayer Book even at a sickfriend's bedside. Yet great men of God had a hand in the making of theDirectory; and their words are well worth the reading. In particular, Ifind in the volume one passage, full of golden wisdom, a preciousmessage to all Christian preachers. It is the section which I now quoteexactly as it first appeared, and which is entitled

[37] It is printed in W. K. Clay's _Book of Common Prayer Illustrated_. Parker, 1841. 

"OF THE PREACHING OF THE WORD. 

*THE DIRECTORY ON PREACHING. 

"Preaching of the Word, being the power of God unto Salvation, and oneof the greatest and most excellent Works belonging to the Ministry ofthe Gospell, should bee so performed, that the Workman need not beeashamed, but may save himself, and those that heare him. 

"It is presupposed (according to the Rules for Ordination) that theMinister of Christ is in some good measure gifted for so weighty aservice, by his skill in the Originall Languages, and in such Arts andSciences as are handmaids unto Divinity, by his knowledge in the wholeBody of Theology, but most of all in the holy Scriptures, having hissenses and heart exercised in them above the common sort of Beleevers;and by the illumination of Gods Spirit, and other gifts of edification, which (together with reading and studying of the Word) he ought still toseek by Prayer, and an humble heart, resolving to admit and receive anytruth not yet attained, when ever God shall make it known unto him. Allwhich hee is to make use of, and improve, in his private preparations, before hee deliver in publike what he hath provided. 

CHOICE OF THE TEXT. 

"Ordinarily, the subject of his Sermon is to be some Text of Scripture, holding forth some principle or head of Religion; or suitable to somespeciall occasion emergent; or hee may goe on in some Chapter, Psalme, or Booke of the holy Scripture, as hee shall see fit. 

"Let the Introduction to his Text be brief and perspicuous, drawn fromthe Text itself, or context, or some parallel place, or generallsentence of Scripture. 

"If the Text be long (as in Histories and Parables it sometimes must be)let him give a briefe summe of it; if short, a Paraphrase thereof, ifneed be: In both, looking diligently to the scope of the Text, andpointing at the chief heads and grounds of Doctrine, which he is toraise from it. 

HOW THE TEXT IS TO BE HANDLED. 

"In Analysing and dividing his Text, he is to regard more the order ofmatter, then of words; and neither to burden the memory of the hearersin the beginning with too many members of Division, nor to trouble theirminds with obscure terms of Art. 

"In raising Doctrines from the Text, his care ought to bee, First, thatthe matter be the truth of God. Secondly, that it be a truth containedin or grounded on that Text, that the hearers may discern how Godteacheth it from thence. Thirdly, that he chiefly insist upon thoseDoctrines which are principally intended, and make most for theedification of the hearers. 

"The Doctrine is to be expressed in plaine termes; or if any thing in itneed explication, is to bee opened, and the consequence also from theText cleared. The parallel places of Scripture confirming the Doctrineare rather to bee plaine and pertinent, then many, and (if need bee)somewhat insisted upon, and applyed to the purpose in hand. 

"The Arguments or Reasons are to bee solid; and, as much as may bee, convincing. The illustrations, of what kind soever, ought to bee full oflight, and such as may convey the truth into the Hearers heart withspirituall delight. 

"If any doubt, obvious from Scripture, Reason, or Prejudice of theHearers, seem to arise, it is very requisite to remove it, byreconciling the seeming differences, answering the reasons, anddiscovering and taking away the causes of prejudice and mistake. Otherwise, it is not fit to detain the hearers with propounding oranswering vaine or wicked Cavils, which as they are endlesse, so thepropounding and answering of them doth more hinder than promoteedification. 

"Hee is not to rest in generall Doctrine, although never so much clearedand confirmed, but to bring it home to speciall use, by application tohis hearers: Which albeit it prove a worke of great difficulty tohimselfe, requiring much prudence, zeale, and meditation, and to thenaturall and corrupt man will bee very unpleasant; yet hee is toendeavour to perform it in such a manner that his auditors may feelethe Word of God to be quick and powerfull, and a discerner of thethoughts and intents of the heart; and that if any unbeleever orignorant person bee present, hee may have the secrets of his heart mademanifest, and give glory to God. 

HOW THE MESSAGE IS TO BE APPLIED. 

"In the Use of Instruction or information in the knowledge of sometruth, which is a consequence from his Doctrine, he may (whenconvenient) confirm it by a few firm arguments from the Text in hand, and other places in Scripture, or from the nature of that Common placein Divinity, whereof that truth is a branch. 

"In Confutation of false Doctrines, he is neither to raise an oldHeresie from the grave, nor to mention a blasphemous opinionunnecessarily; but if the people be in danger of an errour, he is toconfute it soundly, and endeavour to satisfie their judgements andconsciences against all objections. 

"In exhorting to Duties, he is, as he seeth cause, to teach also themeanes that help to the performance of them. 

"In Dehortation, Reprehension, and publique Admonition (which requirespeciall wisdome) let him, as there shall be cause, not only discoverthe nature and greatnesse of the sin, with the misery attending it, butalso shew the danger his hearers are in to be overtaken and surprised byit, together with the remedies and best way to avoyd it. 

"In applying Comfort, whether generall against all tentations, orparticular against some speciall troubles or terrours, he is carefullyto answer such objections, as a troubled heart and afflicted spirit maysuggest to the contrary. 

"It is also sometimes requisite to give some Notes of tryal (which isvery profitable, especially when performed by able and experiencedMinisters, with circumspection and prudence, and the Signes cleerelygrounded on the Holy Scripture) whereby the Hearers may be able toexamine themselves, whether they have attained those Graces, andperformed those duties to which he Exhorteth, or be guilty of the sinReprehended, and in danger of the judgments Threatened, or are such towhom the Consolations propounded doe belong; that accordingly they maybe quickened and excited to Duty, humbled for their Wants and Sins, affected with their Danger, and strengthened with Comfort, as theircondition upon examination shall require. 

"And, as he needeth not alwayes to prosecute every Doctrine which liesin his Text, so is he wisely to make choice of such Uses, as by hisresidence and conversing with his flocke, he findeth most needfull andseasonable: and, amongst these, such as may most draw their soules toChrist, the Fountaine of light, holinesse and comfort. 

"This method is not prescribed as necessary for every man, or upon everyText; but only recommended, as being found by experience to be very muchblessed of God, and very helpful for the people's understandings andmemories. 

IN WHAT SPIRIT THE PREACHER IS TO WORK. 

"But the Servant of Christ, whatever his Method be, is to perform hiswhole Ministery;

"1. _Painfully_, not doing the work of the Lord negligently. 

"2. _Plainly_, that the meanest may understand, delivering the truth, not in the entising words of mans wisdome, but in demonstration of theSpirit and of power, least the Crosse of Christ should be made of noneeffect: abstaining also from an unprofitable use of unknown Tongues, strange phrases, and cadences of sounds and words, sparingly citingsentences of Ecclesiasticall, or other humane Writers, ancient ormoderne, be they never so elegant. 

"3. _Faithfully_, looking at the honour of Christ, the conversion, edification and salvation of the people, not at his own gains or glory:keeping nothing back which may promote those holy ends, giving to everyone his own portion, and bearing indifferent respect unto all, withoutneglecting the meanest, or sparing the greatest in their sins. 

"4. _Wisely_, framing all his Doctrines, Exhortations, and especiallyhis Reproofs, in such a manner as may be most likely to prevaile, shewing all due respect to each mans person and place, and not mixinghis own passion or bitternesse. 

"5. _Gravely_, as becometh the Word of God, shunning all such gesture, voice and expressions as may occasion the corruptions of men to despisehim and his Ministry. 

"6. _With loving affection_, that the people may see all coming from hisGodly zeale, and hearty desire to doe them good. And

DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 

"7. _As taught of God_, and perswaded in his own heart, that all that heteacheth, is the truth of Christ; and walking before his flock as anexample to them in it; earnestly, both in private and publique, recommending his labours to the blessing of God, and watchfully lookingto himselfe and the flock whereof the Lord hath made him overseer. Soshall the Doctrine of truth be preserved uncorrupt, many soulesconverted, and built up, and himselfe receive manifold comforts of hislabours even in this life, and afterward the Crown of Glory laid up forhim in the world to come. 

"Where there are more Ministers in a Congregation than one, and they ofdifferent guifts, each may more especially apply himselfe to Doctrine orExhortation, according to the guift wherein he most excelleth, and asthey agree between themselves. "

SPIRITUAL POWER IN PREACHING. 

I have little to say after the recitation of this passage of pregnantand solemn counsel. That little shall be given to a supreme aspect ofthe whole subject; I mean, Spiritual Power in Preaching. Who that knowsthe Lord, and contemplates the preacher's work, does not long forSpiritual Power? By that longing he means no ambitious wish to beremarkable, nor any unwholesome craving to be a leader in scenes ofreligious excitement. He means the deep desire to be an effectualmessenger of his Master; to be the living channel of the Holy Spirit'senergy in His converting, sanctifying, strengthening, perfecting work. He knows that it is possible to be truly orthodox, and yet not to bethis; to be eloquent, to be impressive, to be impassioned, and yet notto be this; to be unimpeachably truthful, reasonable, intellectuallyconvincing, and yet all the while not to be this. How shall he be avehicle of spiritual power?

THE OPEN SECRET. 

The Scriptural answer is very simple, but it goes deep. If a man wouldhave spiritual power with men, and prevail, he must be real with hisLord. What he says, he must first know, he must first live. As regardsHIM who is at once his Master and his Gospel, he must indeed "_know_whom he has believed, " [2 Tim. I. 10. ] and, in calm but entiresimplicity, "_submit himself_ under His hands. " Granted a true creed, and a humble faith in its Subject, he must, in quiet reality, "yieldhimself unto God, " if he would be used by Him. Observe the Apostle'sphrase; "Yield yourselves, " [Greek: parastêsate heautous]: not, "yieldto God" (though that is implied), but, "yield _yourselves_, handyourselves over, to God, " as you would hand over a tool, a weapon [Rom. Vi. 13. ]. And another aspect of the same thing appears in the sameApostle's later words: "_If a man_ _purge himself_ of these, he _shallbe a vessel_ unto honour, sanctified (to), and meet for, the Master'suse, " [Greek: hêgiasmenon euchrêston tô Despotê]. [2 Tim. Ii. 21. ]

The deepest secret of spiritual power, in God's sense of the phrase, lies there. Let the man be watchful over his Scriptural creed, and lethim discipline his life, and let him toil in his study, and among hispeople. None of these things can be spared; they are all vital. But thecentral secret, which they as it were enclose and protect, lies in thewords _Surrender in faith_. And the Christian man's heart must be itsown inquisitor, before God, in the inquiry after the point, or points, where you, where I, need to make that surrender for ourselves. 

In the void thus left, in the chasm thus cut deep into our ambitions, into our self-love, the mighty Spirit in His tranquil fulness willspring up. And then, whether we know it or not, we Ministers of the Wordshall assuredly be vehicles of spiritual power, to our Lord's praise. 

 * * * * *

FAREWELL. 

So let me close these fragmentary words spoken "to my younger Brethren. "May God's mercy be upon the writer. Upon the readers, whom he loves inthe Lord, may grace and peace come every hour and day, in secret, insociety, in holy ministration of Word and Ordinance. And in due time, when they are no longer juniors but, if the Lord will, veterans andleaders in the work, may they in turn pass on the message to those whofollow, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

 "CHRISTIANITY is so great and surprising in its nature that, in preaching it to others, I have no encouragement but in the belief of a continued divine operation. It is no difficult thing to change a man's opinions. It is no difficult thing to attach a man to my person and notions. It is no difficult thing to convert a proud man to spiritual pride, or a passionate man to passionate zeal for some religious party. But to bring a man to love God, to love the law of God while it condemns him, to loathe himself before God, to tread the earth under his feet, to hunger and thirst after God in Christ, and after the mind that was in Christ, this is impossible. But God has said it shall be done; and bids me go forth and preach, that by me, as His instrument, He may effect these great ends; and therefore I go. "

 CECIL. 

FORDINGTON PULPIT:

A PREACHER'S WEEKDAY THOUGHTS, _Written, in 1878, in the Church of the Author's Baptism, and where hefirst Ministered as his Father's Curate. _

 Many voices yester-even Made these walls and arches ring With their high-sung hopes of Heaven, And the glories of its King; Now my footfall sounds alone On the aisle's long path of stone, Save that yonder from the loft, With a solemn tone and soft, Beating on with muffled shock, Conscience-waking, speaks the clock. Holy scene, and dear as holy, Let me ponder thee this hour, Not in aimless melancholy, But in quest of Heaven-given power; Seeking here to win anew Contrite love and purpose true; Near the Font whose dew-drops cold Fell upon my brow of old, Near the well-remember'd seat Set beside my Mother's feet; Near the Table where I bent At that earliest Sacrament. Let me, through this narrow door, Climb the Pulpit's steps once more. Blessed place! the Master's Word, Child and man, I hence have heard; Awful place! for hence, in turn, I have taught, so slow to learn. To the silence now to hearken Here I mount and stand alone, While the spaces round me darken And the Church is all my own; While the sun's last glories fall From the window of the tower, Tracing slow their parting hour On the stones of floor and wall. Seems a secret Voice to thrill All the dusky air so still; Turns a soul-compelling gaze On me from the sunset haze: Sure the eternal Shepherd's hand Beckons me awhile apart, Bids me in His presence stand While He looks me through the heart. Sinful preacher, ask again In this nearness of thy Lord, How to HIM has rung thy strain, When it seem'd to speak His Word. 'Midst thy brethren's listening numbers Hast thou felt, with heart sincere, How, in thought that never slumbers, This great Listener stood more near?-- Listening to His own high Name Spoken by His creature's breath; How from out the Heavens He came, How He pour'd His soul in death, How He triumph'd o'er the grave, How He lives on high to save, How He yet again shall come, Lord of glory and of doom. Has He found thy message true? Truth, and truly spoken too? Utter'd with a purpose whole, From a self-forgetful soul, Bent on nothing save the fame Of the dear redeeming Name, And the pardon, life, and bliss Of the souls He bought for His? Think!--But ah, from thoughts like these Hasten, sinner, to thy knees. 

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, La. , London and Aylesbury. _

 * * * * *

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR. _

 THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 7s. 6d. 

 COLOSSIAN STUDIES. Crown 8vo. , cloth, 5s. 

 TO MY YOUNGER BRETHREN ON PASTORAL LIFE AND WORK. 5s. 

 OUTLINES OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 2s. 6d. (In the _Theological Educator_ Series. )

 VENI CREATOR: THOUGHTS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT OF PROMISE. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s. , cloth. 

 LIFE IN CHRIST AND FOR CHRIST. 32mo, 1s. , cloth. 

 "NEED AND FULNESS. " 1s. , cloth. 

 "PATIENCE AND COMFORT. " 1s. , cloth. 

 THOUGHTS ON CHRISTIAN SANCTITY. 1s. , cloth. 30th Thousand. 

 THOUGHTS ON UNION WITH CHRIST. 1s. , cloth. 22nd Thousand. 

 THOUGHTS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 1s. , cloth. 12th Thousand. 

 SECRET PRAYER. 1s. , cloth, 11th Thousand. 

 "AT THE HOLY COMMUNION. " Thoughts for Preparation and Communion. 1s. , cloth. 

 "THE PLEDGE OF HIS LOVE. " Thoughts on the Lord's Supper, 1s. , cloth. 

 THE NEW BIRTH. A Brief Enquiry and Statement. 2d. 

 THE CLEANSING BLOOD. A Study of 1 John i. 7. 2d. 

 JUSTIFYING RIGHTEOUSNESS. 4d. 

 THE CHRISTIAN AND THE WORLD. 2d. 

 THE NET AND THE DELIVERANCE. 1d. 

 A MORNING ACT OF FAITH. 3d. Per dozen. 

 THE CHRISTIAN'S OWN CALENDAR OF PERSONAL AND FAMILY EVENTS. 1s. 6d. With an Introduction by Rev. H. C. G. MOULE. 

 PRAYERS FOR THE HOME. 2s. 6d. 

 THE CHRISTIAN'S VICTORY OVER SIN. 2d. 

 "GRACE AND GODLINESS. " Chapters on Ephesians. 2s. 6d. 

 "CHRIST IS ALL. " Sermons. 2s. 6d. 

 COMMENTARIES ON THE ROMANS (3s. 6d. ); EPHESIANS (2s. 6d. ); PHILIPPIANS (2s. 6d. ); COLOSSIANS (2s. 6d. ) in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges_; and on the PHILIPPIANS in the _Cambridge Greek Testament_. Also on the ROMANS in the _Expositor's Bible_ (7s. 6d. ). 

 "BETWEEN MY LORD AND ME. " A Card containing Morning and Evening Acts of Faith and Devotion. 2d. 

 CHARLES SIMEON. (In _English Leaders of Religion_. ) 2s. 6d. 

 BISHOP RIDLEY ON THE LORD'S SUPPER. A Reprint from the Original Edition, with Life of Ridley, Notes, Appendices, etc. , and Illustrations. 5s. 

 "IN THE HOUSE OF THE PILGRIMAGE. " Hymns and Sacred Songs, 2s. 6d.