Chapter 8
All these things mean, not that a minister must grow discouraged, but that he must set his teeth, and with pluck and endurance rise strong and masterful and say, This shall not be! Let him not listen to the barking and baying: let him hearken to the great primal voices of man and nature. Love lies deeper than discord. The constructive forces of humanity are stronger than the disintegrative. The right attraction binds.
There are some men who by the sheer force of their personality subdue their church difficulties. They hold the captious in awe. By a sort of magnetic persuasion and lively sense of humor they soothe this one and that, win the regard of the outlying community, attach many new members to the organization, and build up, out of discordant and erstwhile discontented elements, a harmonious and active church. This is the man for these martial times! If there are born leaders in every other department of the world's work, men who quietly but firmly assert their authority and supremacy in the tasks in which they hold, by free election or legitimate appointment, a place at the head--it ought to be so in the Church of God! I long to see arise in the ministry _a race of iron!_
There are other difficulties, seldom spoken of, of which one must write frankly, though with the keenest sympathy, if one is to look deeply into the modern church problem. First: Is a minister's environment favorable to his best personal development? Does he not miss much from the lack of the world's hearty give-and-take? He gets criticism, but not of a just or all-round kind. Small things may be pecked at, trifles may be made mountains of by the disgruntled, but where does he get a clear-sighted, whole-hearted estimate of himself and his work? Who tells him of his real virtues, his real faults? Among all his friends, who is there, man or woman, who is brave enough to be true?
Other men are soon shaken into place. Their personal traits continually undergo a process of chiselling and adjustment. They are told uncomfortable things how quickly! At the club, in the university, in the market, the ploughing-field, the counting-room, they rub up against each other, and no mercy is shown by man to man until primary signs of crudeness are worn off. Let a conceited professor get in a college chair! Watch a hundred students begin their delightful and salutary process of "taking him down" by the sort of mirth in which college boys excel! Their unkindness is not right, but the result is, they never molest a man who is merely eccentric.
Watch a scientific association jump with all fours upon a man who has just read a paper before their body! How unsparingly they analyze and criticise! He has to meet questions, opposition, comments, shafts of wit and envy, jovial teasing and correction. He goes out from the meeting with a keener love of truth and exactness, and a less exalted idea of his own powers. Watch the rivalry and sparring that go on in any business. Men meet men who attack them; they fight and overcome them, or are themselves overcome.
Human friction is not always harmful. A minister should not be hurt or angered by disagreement and discussion. No one's ideas are final. Let him expect to stand in the very midst of a high-strung, spirited, and hard-working generation. Let him be turned out of doors. Let him travel, look, learn, meet men and women, and conquer in the arena of manhood. Then, by means of this undaunted manhood, he may the better guide the fiery enthusiasms of men, inspire their higher ambitions, and comfort them in their bitter human sorrows!
Again, too often a minister is spoiled in his first charge by flattery, polite lies, and gushing women. He is sadly overpraised. A bright young fellow comes from the seminary. He can preach; that is, he can prepare interesting essays, chiefly of a literary sort, which are pleasant to listen to, though, in the nature of things, they can have scarcely a word in them of that deep, life-giving experience and counsel which come from the hearts of men and women who have lived, and know the truth of life. He is told that these sermons are "lovely," "beautiful," "_so_ inspiring," and he believes every word of praise. No one says to him, "When you know more, you will preach better," and his standard of excellence does not advance. This man, who might have become a great preacher, remains, as years go on, alas! an intellectual potterer.
He is also socially made too much of, being one of the very few men available for golf and afternoon teas, suppers, picnics, tennis, charity-bazaars. Other men are frankly too busy for much of these things, except for healthful recreation; and not infrequently one finds stray ministers absolutely the only men at some function to which men have been invited.
A minister is not a parlor-pet. How many a time an energetic man, society-bound, must long to kick over a few afternoon tea-tables, and smash his way out through bric-à-brac and chit-chat to freedom and power!
I should think that a real Man in the ministry would get so very tired of women! They tell him all their complaints and difficulties, from headaches, servants, and unruly children, to their sentimental experiences and their spiritual problems. Men tell him almost nothing. Watch any group of men talking, as the minister comes in. A moment before they were eager, alert, argumentative. Now they are polite or mildly bored. He is not of their world. Some assert that he is not even of their sex! Hence the lips of men are too often sealed to the minister. He must find some way not only to meet them as brother to brother, but he must capture their inmost hearts. The shy confidence of an honorable man once won, his friendship never fails.
The question of a minister's relation to the women of his congregation and the community is not only curious and complex--it is a perpetual comedy. How do other men in public life deal with this problem? They have a genial but indifferent dignity, quite compatible with courtesy and friendly ways. They shoulder responsibility; they do not flirt; they sort out cranks; they flee from simpers; they put down presumption. If married, they laugh heartily with their wives over any letter or episode that is comical or sentimental. If not married, they get out of things the best way they know how, with a sort of plain, manly directness. If a minister would arrogate to himself his free-born privilege of being a thorough-going man, many of his troubles would disappear.
Let him hold himself firmly aloof both from nonsense and from enervating praise. Let him dream of great themes, and work for great things! Let him rely on more quiet friends who watch loyally, hope, encourage, inspire. By and by the scales drop from his eyes; he sees himself, not as one who has already achieved, but as one to whom the radiant gates of life are opening, so that he, too, can one day speak to human souls as the masters have done! He discovers that out of the heart's depths is great work born! This is a memorable day, both for this man and for his church. From that hour he has vision and power.
Another error in ministerial education and outlook is that too often ministers forget that they compete with other men: they are not an isolated class of humanity. Competition underlies the energy and efficiency of the world's work. When men do not consciously compete with others, they inevitably drop behind. What a minister was intended for, was to stand head and shoulders above other men. God seems to have planned the universe in such a way that everywhere the spiritual shall be supreme. He was meant to be a towering leader. Who, in other realms, has excelled Moses, Joshua, Elijah, David, Paul?
But if we consider the responsibilities which are now being laid upon different classes of people, and carried by them, I think that we must acknowledge that the statesman is looming up as the most influential and upbuilding man to-day. He is the one who is adjusting the new world-powers and the new world-relations, over-seeing the development of our country, and planning for its laws and commerce. Close to him comes the physician, who is laying his hand on world-plagues, and is studying the conditions and the forms of disease, with a view to striking disease at its root. The hand of the doctor is laid upon consumption, malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, typhoid fever, and bubonic plague, and the advance in medical research is marvellous.
The lawyer and the capitalist are together adjusting the industrial relations of the country. We have trusts, syndicates, and corporation-problems handled with a firm intellectual grasp and a wide outlook over human affairs.
The reading of the world is in the hands of editors of enterprise and sagacity. They daily bring wars, statecraft, business plans, political situations, trade openings, scientific discoveries, forms of church-work and philanthropy, accidents, murders, and marriages, to our breakfast-table. The press of to-day has a tremendous scope. When some of the magazines come to hand, one feels that he is in touch with the affairs of the universe and has reading of a cosmic order.
The day-laborer is discovering that to ingenuity, talent, and manliness, the whole world swings open. Carnegie's Thirty Partners, most of whom have come from the working-ranks, demonstrate that a man can rise from the pick, the spade, the foreman's duties, to the control of great industrial interests.
Bankers are thinking out the financial problems--currency, legal tender, the best forms of money and authority; the whole monetary system of the world is under consideration and analysis. The farmer is learning, through chemistry and other forms of science, new ways of making his farm productive, and the educated agriculturist is rising to be an intellectual factor in the development of our country. Everywhere we see Life awakening--a great renaissance!
Has the minister, as a thinker and active force of regeneration, kept pace with this advance? Do many sermons thrill us in this large way? Where does he rank among the world-masters of energy and power?
The ministry is supposed to be a work of saving souls. But if we could know the direct effect of preaching, and the conversions which are really due to preaching, I think we should find them comparatively few. What touched the boy or girl, man or woman, and led him or her to Christ was not the sermon, or pastoral talk, though this one or another may have united with the Church after a special sermon, revival, or personal appeal. It was the memory and influence of a mother's prayers; of early associations; of a teacher, a lover, a friend. The conversion came direct from God--the soul was acted upon by some special moving of the Holy Spirit. Or it was the death of a friend, an illness, an accident, a disappointment, which turned the thoughts to heavenly things. Or it was a book that searched the soul's depths, or some quickening human experience. Is this quite as it should be? Is not professional pride aroused?
Suppose that New York City should suddenly be invaded by the bubonic plague or yellow fever. Would any one be to blame? Certainly! Such an outcry would go up as would echo across the country. Where were the quarantine officers? Where was the port physician? Where were the specialists who attend to sanitation and disinfection?
We say that divorce and Sabbath-breaking are sweeping over our country--gambling, social drinking, and many other ills; a sensational press, a corrupt politics, a materialistic greed.
All the ministers under heaven cannot take sin out of the world, nor uproot sin altogether from the heart of man: the plague conies in at birth. Neither can all the doctors living remove disease, so that no one will get sick or die. But just as the doctor can, by study, by training, by counsel, by practice, and by the direction of wise law-making, protect the health interests of his country or community, so the minister should stand, yet more largely than to-day, as a break-water between the world and the tides of sin! He should not only be able to keep alive in a country an atmosphere of prayer, devotion, and unselfish service--he should, by God's help, make piety the general estate of the land; he should not only be intellectually able to show the great advantage of the upright Christian life, he should straight-way lead all classes into that life; he should be able to lay a hand on the moral maladies of mankind, personal and national, and prescribe effectual remedies; take lame, halt, sinning souls, and by God's grace and Spirit, lift not only individuals, but whole communities, to a more spiritual plane.
This is a Titanic intellectual task, as well as a spiritual one. When a doctor wishes to keep plague out of America, he goes to Asia, to see what plague is! He takes microscopes, instruments, and drugs; he buries himself in a laboratory, and gives his whole mind to the problem, until one day he can come forth and tell how to heal and help. More than this, he risks his life. For every great discovery in medical practice, doctors and nurses have died martyrs to their faithful work.
Moral evil must be studied in an energetic and intellectual way. The variations of humanity from righteousness must be deeply understood. Look at Booker T. Washington, or at Jacob A. Riis! What daring, what indefatigable toil, what insight, patience, and swerveless hope have been put into their task! Edison is said to have spent six months hissing S into his phonograph to make it repeat that letter, and many days he worked seventeen hours a day. Have many ministers ever bent themselves in this way to solve a special moral problem--that of, say, a disobedient child in the congregation? Have they spent six months, hours and hours a day, to make the law of God, the word Obedience, ring in that child's ears? Spiritual guidance is definitely and positively a scientific task. The mastery of one fact may lead to the correlation of a psychic law. When a minister can help a soul to overcome temptation, and a parent to bring up a child, he is in touch with two final human problems. As he gradually enlarges his careful and illuminating work, his church becomes in time a body of spiritually well-educated communicants, thoroughly grounded in doctrinal, ethical, and social ideals, well taught in public and in private duties. It is not self-centred or wholly denominational in spirit, but recognizes itself to be a part of a catholic body of believers, reaches out with friendly coöperation to near-by churches, extends its missionary efforts to other neighborhoods or lands, and partakes of a world-life, a world-love!
Ruling religious thinkers should also, by and by, become leaders of national thought and life. Great public questions should be open to their judgment and appeal; they should be moral arbiters, and spiritual guides in national crises. By a word they should be able to rouse the prayers of the country, and by a word to still widespread anger and uprising. If accredited spiritual leaders cannot help, who can?
There are a few men living who seem to hold, for the whole world, the temporal balance. They control mines and shipping, banks and trade. Who, to-day, holds the spiritual destiny of the world in his hand? I long to see men appear upon whom the eyes of the world shall be fastened, in recognition of their spiritual preeminence, as they are now fastened on these industrial giants.
Rise! Let some man, earnest and endowed, look forward into the future, and with the courage that comes from inborn power, assert himself among the nations! Allay, O World-Evangelist, not only neighborhood disputes, but international dissensions; project a creed that shall be profound and universal; sweep sects together, unite energy and endeavor, baptize with fire, bring repentance, quicken the race-conscience, uplift the World-Hope! Erect and elemental, hold CHRIST before the race!
IV. THE WORLD-MARCH: OF SAGES
[ADESTE FIDELES]
_Our Father in Heaven, Creator of all, O source of all wisdom, On Thee we would call! Thou only canst teach us, And show us our need, And give to Thy children True knowledge indeed.
But vain our instruction, And blind we must be, Unless with our learning Be knowledge of Thee. Then pour forth Thy Spirit And open our eyes, And fill with the knowledge That only makes wise.
From pride and presumption, O Lord, keep us free, And make our hearts humble, And loyal to Thee, That living or dying, In Thee we may rest, And prove to the scornful Thy statutes are best._
THOMAS WISTAR
If we should be told that at birth a strange and wonderful gift had been bestowed upon us, one such that by means of it, in after life, we could accomplish almost anything we wished, how we should guard it! With what delight we would make it work, to see what it would do! We should never be tired of such a toy, because every day it would reveal new possibilities of power and delight.
Such a gift God has given us in our power to think. What a mysterious and deep-hid gift it is! Nerves and sensations, a few convolutions in the brain, acts of attention and observation, certain reactions following certain stimuli: the result, a world of worlds spread out before us; unlimited intellectual possibilities within our grasp!
What is thinking? Thinking is an attempt to express infinite thoughts, affections, relations, and events, in finite terms. The child strings buttons. The philosopher strings God, angels, devils, brutes, men, and their appurtenances and deeds. Hence no real thought will quite go into words. Out beyond the word hangs the infinite remainder of our idea. The search for a vocabulary is the search for a clearer articulation of ideas.
Thinking is the power to take up life where the race has left off attainment, and to lead the race one step farther on, by a new concept or idea. It is a curious thing, this little turn in the brain, a thought. We cannot see it, or touch it, or handle it. Yet we can give it, one to another, or one man to the race. It has an infinite leverage. One great thought moves millions onward. Plant the word _steam_, and globe-transport changes. Plant _electricity_, and a hundred new industries spring up. Plant _liberty_, tyrants fall. Plant _love_, chaotic angers disappear.
If we refuse to learn to think, we refuse to do our share of the world's work. We are like a horse that balks and will not pull. While we sulk the universe is at a standstill.
Spelling and arithmetic, history, etymology, and geography, are not tasks set over school-children by a hard taskmaster, who keeps them from sunshine and out-of-door play. They are catch-words of the universe. They are the implements by which each brain is to be trained to do great work for the one in whom it lives. What every earnest soul asks is not gold, fame, or pleasure. It is: Let me not die till I have brought millions farther on.
We cannot deliberately make thoughts. Thought is like life itself: science has not found a formula which will produce it. But just as marriage produces new lives, though we cannot say how, so study and meditation produce thoughts. Something new appears: a concept which was not with the race before.
The work of sages has been to rule the thinking of the race. They receive the inspired ideas and spend their lives in teaching them to others: in setting up intellectual vibrations throughout the world.
Some day, I hope Sargent will paint a March of Sages, as gloriously as he has painted the panels of the Prophets. Then we shall gaze upon the train of heavy-browed, noble-eyed, wise, gentle-mannered men, who have been the enduring teachers of the race,--thinkers, leaders, seers. Confucius, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, the mediaeval philosophers, the Egyptian, Persian, and Arabian thinkers, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Eckhart, William of Occam, Bede, Thomas à Kempis, Francis Bacon, Kant, John Stuart Mill, Spencer,--with what dignity the processional moves down the years! The sum of human knowledge is vast; but how much more vast seem the achievements of each of these men, when we realize how few his years, and how many the obstacles and impediments of his all too short career! There is ever a pathos in the life of the wise.
By thinking, we pass from the gossip of the neighborhood into the conversation of the years. We do not know what Alcibiades said to his man-servant about the care of his clothes, baths, perfumes,--nor what his man-servant retailed to other retainers of the eccentricities and vanities of his master. But we know what Pericles and Plato said to the race. Here is the advantage of a thinking mind--that at any moment one may enter into eternal subjects of thought, and have converse with those who of all times have been the most profound.
Nothing teases the soul like the thought of the unfinished, the imperfect, the incomplete. And yet, when we have thought and planned a really great and abiding work, whether we ever finish it or not--for many things in life may intervene between conception and completion--to have thought of it is to have had in our lives a pleasure that can never die. For one blessed hour or year we have been lifted to the thoughts of God and have entered into the great original Design. Hence it is that the life of the real Thinker, however broken or disturbed, is at heart a life of serenity and joy. What matters a conflagration, a disappointment, to him whose thoughts are set upon the race?
Thinking is a form of vital growth. We all wish for growth. Is there any one who wishes to stay always just where he is to-day? To be always what he is this morning? The tree grows, the flower grows, the ideals of the race grow--shall not I?
We are born to a destiny which has no limit of grandeur save the limit of the thought of God, The wish for growth is the wish to enter into the spiritual ideals of the universe,--to become one with its advancement, one with its decrees.
But do not the secular look upon growth as a sort of chase--a chase for more learning, more money, a bigger business, a higher degree, a better position, a brilliant marriage,--a struggle for wealth, renown, acclaim? These things are not in themselves growth, nor its real index. Growth is not a form of avarice. Growth is a vital state of being. Growth is the assimilation of experience. Growth is development in the line of eternal purpose. Growth is the combination of our souls with the things that are, in such a way as to make a perpetual progress toward the things that are to be.
We lose much because we lose avidity out of our lives, the eagerness to grasp what spiritually belongs to us,--to share the universal enthusiasm, the universal hope. Day by day the world wheels about us--sunset and moonrise, wind, hail, frost, snow, vapor, care, anxiety, temptation, trial, joy, fear. Whatever touches the sense or the soul is something by which, rightly used, we may grow. There is nothing we need fear to take into our lives, if it receives the right assimilation. Each experience is meant to be a vital accession. We narrow our lives and enfeeble our powers when we try to reject any of these things, or unlawfully escape them, or are yet indifferent to them. Prejudice, cowardice, and apathy are death.
Experience is what the race has been through. Each of us has his personal variant of this common life. Thought is the power by which we make it available for our own better living, and the future life of the race.
To the early man, there existed earth, air, water, fire, heat, cold, tempest, and the growth of living things. He lived, ate, fought, but his thoughts were primitive and personal. Have _I_ had enough dinner? he asked, not, Is the race fed?