THE PASTOR. (continued 2)

IV. Meeting for Examination of Candidates for the Church.

No candidate should ordinarily come before the church without a previous examination by the pastor; and notice, therefore, should be given when and where he will meet persons desiring to unite with the church.

Hints.—1. The time should be sufficiently early to give ample opportunity for making inquiries respecting an applicant, where the circumstances and character of the individual are not known. In the case of minors, consult the parents or guardians when practicable; it is a courtesy due to them, whatever their religious character or relations, and is often desirable in order to a full understanding of the character of the candidate. 2. Let the examination be thorough and faithful. The purity of the church, as well as the welfare of the candidate, demands this. It is far easier to arrest an application at this point than after it comes to the church. The absence of knowledge even of the fundamental principles of the Christian religion, on the part of many who are hurried into the church, is one of the alarming features of our time. Certainly, Christian experience is not a matter of mere blind emotion; and we have no ground for supposing its existence apart from distinct convictions respecting God and Christ and the foundation-truths of the Gospel. We are “born again by the Word of God;” and there can be no “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” without some definite idea of sin, of repentance, of faith, of God, and of Christ. It is never proper, therefore, to assume the fact of a Christian experience where there is no definite Christian knowledge. The duty in such cases is to instruct, not to baptize. 3. See that the candidate understands not only the general principles of Christianity, but also the distinctive doctrines and usages of the church and the specific obligations assumed in becoming a church member, so that his profession may be made intelligently. For this purpose, have your Articles of Faith and Covenant in printed form, and place a copy in the hands of every candidate. This will often prevent misunderstanding and subsequent difficulty; and the intelligence with which the step is taken will add much to the value of the profession. 4. It is well, when practicable, and especially when any considerable number are to be examined, to associate the officers of the church or some experienced brethren with you in this preliminary examination, that the responsibility may not all fall on you. For this, though informal, is ordinarily the decisive examination; the church very rarely rejects a candidate understood to be approved by the pastor. In some churches, whenever a name is proposed, a committee is appointed to hear the experience of the candidate and make necessary inquiries, and the candidate comes before the church only after their favorable report. This has the disadvantage of making public the name of an applicant and thus embarrassing the rejection, should that be desirable; but it has also the advantage of dividing the responsibility of the examination and relieving the pastor. If a committee is appointed, however, I think it should be a standing one, with the pastor at its head, and the names of candidates should be presented to it before being presented publicly to the church. 5. Beware of an ambition for mere numbers: a small body of well-instructed, earnest disciples is worth far more to the cause of Christ than a heterogeneous multitude undistinguished in spirit and life from the world. Seek in this, not newspaper publicity and laudation, but the approval of Christ, building the temple of God, not with perishable material, “wood, hay, and stubble,” but with imperishable, “gold, silver, precious stones,” which shall endure when the “fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

V. The Officers’ Meeting.

The officers of the church are the cabinet of the pastor, and the responsibilities and labors of the spiritual watch-care should be shared with them. A wise use of these assistants will relieve him of many a burden which otherwise he would needlessly bear and will secure a much more general and effective supervision of the spiritual interests of the church. For no pastor can accomplish all that needs to be done; and if left to the church generally, very little effective watch-care is exercised. Such consultation with the officers will often save the pastor from mistakes, while the division of labor greatly simplifies and relieves his work. It affords, also, a sphere of real usefulness for the deacons, and serves to develop their gifts and augment their religious power.

Hints.—1. Have a regular meeting at convenient intervals—say once a month or once in two months—and let each officer be invited and made to share equally in the counsels and responsibility, thus avoiding jealousies. Prepare thoroughly the business to be brought before them, so that there may be no delay. 2. After the opening season of prayer, read carefully the list of church members, and let each member needing special care be definitely assigned to some one or more of the officers to give at once the necessary attention. By this means any member requiring a kindly suggestion or whose position is not understood may be at once quietly reached; and, if in danger, may be saved before the case has gone so far as to be beyond help. If this is faithfully done, nearly all public discipline may be avoided and the tone of church-life may be kept high and vigorous. 3. Let the general condition and welfare of the church and plans for Christian labor and church extension be here carefully considered; for here methods for advancing Christ’s cause through the church most naturally originate and may be most wisely matured. Great care should be taken, however, that the meeting does not lose its religious tone and degenerate into a mere clique for church management. It may be made, by right guidance, a center of religious interest and power in the congregation, while to the pastor it secures the hearty confidence and co-operation of the trusted counsellors and leaders of the church.

VI. Church Meetings for Business.

These are properly classed among devotional meetings, because the transaction of church business should always be done in a devotional spirit and be connected with devotional exercises.

Hints.—1. The pastor is, ex officio, the presiding officer in all meetings of the church, and should ordinarily preside. Ruling, presiding, is a function distinctly assigned in the New Testament to the pastoral office (1 Thess. v. 12; 1 Tim. iii. 4, 5; Heb. xiii. 17)—a function which would seem clearly to include that of presiding in the assemblies of the body. He should be familiar with the established rules of order in deliberative bodies; but in applying them he should not make a parade of parliamentary rules nor ordinarily put them in the form of law. An easy, quiet, prompt manner in presiding should be carefully cultivated: it makes great difference in the effectiveness and despatch of business and the comfort of the church. 2. Unanimity is to be earnestly sought; but when it cannot be attained it is usual to accept the decision of the majority. The reception of members, however, should be unanimous—certainly so far as the question relates to Christian character; otherwise, members would enter whom a part of the church do not fellowship. Ordinarily, objections to an applicant may be avoided by proper care in previous inquiries respecting him; but if made, the case should be deferred, and a committee appointed to receive and examine the objections. If the objections are evidently made in a wrong spirit, the church should overrule them, and the objectors, persisting, should be put under discipline. It is evident that the careful pastor, foreseeing such a result, would dissuade, if possible, the applicant from presenting himself, and thus avoid discord in the church, unless this course would inflict injury on the candidate and cover up wrong in the church. 3. Secure, if possible, a full attendance of members, and make the meeting thoroughly religious in its tone and spirit. The contempt into which church disciplinary action sometimes falls is often due to the fact that few members are present, and the moral power, therefore, of the church is not behind their action, and that the manner, if not the spirit, of their proceedings befits rather the secular character of a political gathering than the seriousness and dignity of a church of Christ. Especially should the reception, the discipline, the exclusion of a member, or the election of a deacon or a pastor be an act of solemnity, and, as far as possible, be done by the whole body.

SECTION V.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE ORDINANCES.

The nature of the ordinances, as well as the obligation of them, should be often and carefully explained to the people. This is the more necessary, since in the popular mind superstitious ideas so largely enter into the conception of them. In doing this, several different methods have been adopted. Some have a preparatory lecture in the course of the week preceding the administration: others preach on the subject either on the previous Lord’s Day or just before the ordinance; and others depend mainly on addresses on the occasion. Whatever be the method, instruction should be carefully given, that true views of the ordinances may prevail. For want of this many church members never derive much benefit from these sacred institutions, while some, doubtless, are injured by them.

The principles respecting the ordinances which we, as distinguished from other denominations, hold as biblical should not be ignored or kept in the background. The restoration of these Divine symbols to their primitive significance and form is a matter of the highest moment, and the pastor who is silent neglects duty. So far as my observation extends, the spiritual success which has attended the Baptists has always been connected with their fidelity to the mission God has given in respect to His truth concerning the church and the ordinances. The most signal manifestations of the Spirit in our churches, whether at home or abroad, have been made where the great principles Christ has committed to us have been most faithfully proclaimed. But in presenting these controverted subjects, statements should always be made with care. Whatever the provocation, we should be careful to maintain a Christian spirit and uniform courtesy; to be just and candid to those who differ; and to avoid all imputation of evil motives. Indeed, it is usually better to avoid the controversial form in presenting the biblical view of the ordinances, especially at the time of administration; but if controversy is necessary, let it rather be presented in sermons on other occasions. A distinct course of sermons on the ordinances, carefully prepared, is sometimes of great value for the instruction of the church and the diffusion of right views in the community.

I. Administration of Baptism.

As the act is a symbol, the correctness of its form is essential to the representation of the truth symbolized. The greatest care, therefore, should be used to bring out distinctly the symbol and fix all thought on that; any defect in the administration which mars the symbol is to be deprecated. The vital spiritual fact of regeneration, or a death to sin and the rising to a new life in Christ, is most vividly set forth before men by the impressiveness of the symbol when properly rendered.

Here I suggest: 1. Care should be taken that all necessary arrangements be made for the ordinance, in the preparation for the place for the baptism, and the appointment of judicious committees to attend the candidates. This should be done in ample season, so that there be no haste or confusion at the administration. The pastor should be promptly prepared for the service, using garments appropriate to baptizing, so as to be undisturbed by the water. 2. In administering, be deliberate in movement, leading the candidate slowly into the water with the solemnity becoming so holy an ordinance. Special care should be taken that the water be of such depth as to make immersion easy and effective. Pronounce the formula reverently, then immerse, taking care that the whole person is covered. Beyond the formula, it is often best to say nothing during the administration; the ordinance itself is speaking to the conscience and the heart in a voice more eloquent and impressive than human speech. 3. Above all, as you pray for wisdom and power in the right use of words to set forth regeneration by the sermon, so ask for wisdom and power in the use of the symbol to set forth that vital truth in the ordinance, and that Divine Helper whose presence you feel in the pulpit will be equally present with you in the baptismal act.

II. Administration of the Lord’s Supper.

In some churches it is customary to preach what is termed “an action sermon,” designed to bring vividly before the mind, just previous to the Supper, the events connected with the sufferings and death of our Lord; and it often proves a service of great power and value. With us the ordinance is more commonly preceded by a simple address designed to fix thought upon the great event symbolized. Whatever the method adopted, all subjects should be excluded which may divert the mind from the one great thought of the occasion. The Lord’s Table, therefore, is not the place to bring up items of business, or to reprove the church for special derelictions in duty, or even to consider plans for church work. The pastor is often tempted to use it for such purposes, because then the members are more generally together and are alone. But I think it is rarely done without loss, for in this sacred service the Lord designed that the thoughts of every soul should center on Him.

The necessary acts in their order are these: 1. Take the bread, give thanks, break, give to the disciples, pronouncing the words of institution. 2. Take the cup, pouring the wine, give thanks, give to the disciples, pronouncing the words of institution. The service is usually closed with singing, but whether it was originally a part of the Lord’s Supper, or only one of the hymns prescribed in the Passover service, we have no means of determining. The question is not important, but a closing hymn is certainly appropriate, and it is better to observe the custom. Observe the scriptural order of the acts carefully, for any deviation will divert attention and is always painful. In prayer avoid forms of expression that may convey false ideas of the ordinances. Thus, we sometimes hear: “Bless so much of this bread,” or “so much of this wine,” “as may be used,” as if blessing made a change in the elements, and the administrator feared too much would be changed and the blessed elements might thus be wasted. Such phrases, which have come down from the ages of superstition, are adapted to foster among the people false ideas of the ordinance. Do not talk much during the administration but leave silent moments in which each heart may commune with itself and with Christ. Too much talking is the common fault. When God is speaking through the symbol, let man keep silence. This will be the more obvious if we remember that the ordinance consists of two essential parts—the presentation of the symbols of Christ’s body and blood by the administration, and the act of partaking as the symbol of an inward act of faith on the part of the partaker. If the attention, therefore, is held by remarks of the administrator, the value of the ordinance may be lost to the participant from lack of opportunity for silent communion between his soul and Christ. Above all, enter yourself as fully as possible into the great idea of the ordinance, and use all means to fix thought on that to the exclusion of all else. Rightly administered, the Lord’s Supper is one of the mightiest forces God has given to inspire and purify the heart and elevate the life of the church.

SECTION VI.

THE PASTOR AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL.

No pastor can be permanently successful if not in sympathy with the young. He must be the pastor of the children, accessible and attractive to youth, and must give a cordial recognition and a kindly word as he meets them. As an aid in this, make a register of their names and a careful study of their faces, so as readily to recognize them; and carry with you cards with Scripture mottoes or other little souvenirs of a pastor’s love and interest to leave with them. The most successful ministers of the present age are, as a rule, active Sunday-school workers. Of several eminent pastors it was written some years ago: “The venerable Dr. Tyng, as is well known, attributes his great success largely to his long-continued and unwearied personal attention to his Sunday-school. He is never absent from his home school. Rev. S. H. Tyng, Jr., uniformly conducts the closing exercises of his home school, and also the Friday-evening meetings of the teachers of all his four schools, thus by indirection reaching the twelve hundred children who in turn are taught by these teachers. Dr. Howard Crosby takes up the lesson on Wednesday evening, and preaches regularly to the children on Sunday afternoons. Dr. Richard Newton, who has an almost world-wide reputation as a children’s preacher, takes up the Sunday-school lesson at his weekly service, attends his teachers’ meeting, and preaches regularly to the children of the parish. Dr. John Hall goes each Sunday morning into his home school and believing in ‘hand-shaking as a means of grace,’ takes each teacher and scholar cordially by the hand. He lectures each Wednesday evening on the Sunday-school lesson to a well-filled church, the audience having long since outgrown the lecture-room. He conducts in person a monthly review in his home school, questioning each class on the lessons of the preceding month. He presides at the monthly or bi-monthly sociable of the teachers of his four schools and conducts on Saturday afternoon a ladies’ Bible class which the lecture-room is too small comfortably to hold.” These are, indeed, rare men, but they show the wonderful power that pastors may wield by sympathy with the young, and by wisely-directed Bible study among them. Indeed, the preparation of a Sunday-school sermon, by compelling simplicity of statement and aptness of illustration, is a valuable discipline for the preparation of ordinary services.

Hints.—1. In public address or prayer let your appreciation of the Sunday-school as a sphere of church work and religious power be always manifest. Make it prominent among the subjects of prayer both in the pulpit and in the prayer-room. Exhort and instruct the church respecting the necessity of securing for it cheerful, attractive rooms and an ample apparatus in music, library, papers, maps, etc. The interest and liberality of a congregation in this depend greatly on the interest manifested in the pulpit. 2. Use careful effort to form the adult members of the congregation into Bible classes, and thus connect them personally with the school. This can be done to a much larger extent than is supposed, and the results are of the highest value. It enlarges the biblical knowledge and enriches the experience of the adult part of the church. It brings to the school the moral support and influence of this class. It is a means of holding the young as they become men and women and preventing their abandonment of the school as having become too old for it. And it secures a permanent, living sympathy between the church and the school, thus avoiding that isolation of the school which, in many instances, makes it practically a separate interest outside of the church rather than within it. 3. The pastor should let his presence and personal influence be constantly felt in the school; but if he have two sermons on the Lord’s Day, he should neither superintend it nor, if possible to avoid, consent to take a class in it. It will exhaust him often before the second sermon, and in the end may destroy his nervous power. But he should be often present in the school, talk to it occasionally, and make the personal acquaintance of teachers and scholars, moving among them as a friend and helper. 4. The pastor should, if possible, meet the teachers weekly for instruction and counsel, carefully studying with them the lesson for the Lord’s Day. The teachers’ meeting will afford opportunity for the consideration, not of the lesson only, but also of all the interests of the school. As a preparation for this he should make himself familiar with the best methods of Sunday-school work, that he may wisely inspire and direct improvement. Or if it be thought that the helps for the study of the lesson given in papers accessible to the teachers are sufficient, the pastor’s instruction in the teachers’ meeting might take a wider range, embracing courses of lectures on the Christian Evidences, the Introduction to the Books of the Bible, the Scripture Doctrines, Sacred Geography, and kindred subjects. In this case the sphere of the meeting might be enlarged, making it also a normal class, in which the more advanced scholars, as well as the teachers, might be prepared for the teacher’s work. 5. Great care is to be exercised respecting the books introduced into the library; for, while much advance has been made in the style and adaptation of books for the young, there are many which are not merely trashy but are positively pernicious. The Sunday-school library is an instrument of great power in forming the tastes, the opinions, and the habits of the people, and it is of the utmost moment that the books be pure in doctrine and healthful in moral and religious tone. 6. The Sunday-school concert, in which the exercises are prepared chiefly by the school itself, will be of great value if wisely conducted; but care is needed to exclude exercises introduced for sensational effect which may not befit the Lord’s Day. Indeed, it is all-important that the exercise should not be degraded into a mere exhibition, awakening on the part of teachers and scholars only a desire to produce a popular sensation and draw the crowd, and on the part of the people a desire to be amused. The devotional spirit should always be dominant. But in addition to such exercises, it will be profitable to preach a sermon statedly—once a month, or at least once in three months—expressly to the Sunday-school, adapting the whole service to the young. It brings the pastor and school together publicly and directly and recognizes the relation of the pastor to it as its chief instructor and guide. But in the sermon, as in every Sunday-school address, he should be careful that in attempting to be simple he does not become childish; the former is necessary to success, the latter is a common and fatal mistake.

Finally, the hearty co-operation and sympathy, above suggested, of pastor and people with the school will ordinarily avert all difficulty on the question of the relation of the Sunday-school to the church; for any school, whether home or mission, which finds itself thus enclosed within the living sympathies of the church will instinctively recognize its position as belonging to the church and under its watch-care and guidance. Nor will the other evil, so widespread and unfortunate, of the non-attendance of the school on public worship be likely to be experienced; for the scholars, won by the pastor’s personal interest in them, will be attracted to him and to his ministrations in the pulpit.

SECTION VII.

PASTORAL VISITATION.

The care of souls is the radical idea of the pastor’s office. He is a shepherd to whom a flock has been committed to guide, to feed, to defend; and the Divine command enjoins: “Take heed to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers” (Acts xx. 28). He is to be the personal religious guide, the confidential Christian friend, of his charge. Our Lord, in His description of the Good Shepherd, said: “The sheep hear His voice; and He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him; for they know His voice” (John x. 3, 4). Each member of his flock is a soul entrusted to his care by the Lord; and if true to his trust, he is one of those who “watch for souls as they that must give account.” Paul, when in Ephesus, taught not only publicly, but “from house to house;” and in his farewell charge to the elders of that city he said: “Watch, and remember that, by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every man night and day with tears” (Acts xx. 31). Dr. Cuyler, one of the busiest and most effective pastors in Brooklyn, says: “Young brethren, aim from the start to be thorough pastors. During the week go to those whom you expect to come to you on the Lord’s Day. In the morning of each day study books; in the afternoon study door-plates and human nature. Your people will give you material for your best practical sermons. After an effective Sunday work go around among your flock, as Napoleon rode over the field after a battle—to see where the shot struck and who were among the wounded.”

Dr. Taylor, of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, addressing theological students, says: “You will make a great mistake if you undervalue the visitation of your people. The pulpit is your throne, no doubt; but then a throne is stable as it rests on the affections of the people, and to get their affections you must visit them in their dwellings. I used to look upon my visitation as a dreadful drudgery, but it has now become my joy, so that whenever I am tempted to despond I sally forth to visit my flock; and as I look back upon those early years in which I had no such gladness, I am earnestly desirous to save you from blundering as I did.”

Dr. John Hall, of New York, speaking to a similar audience, said: “Pains should be taken that nothing prevents your making pastoral visits. It is very necessary for you to know the people in their homes, and for the people to know you. The little children and the young people should know you. The men should know you. It is only in this way that you can get a distinct idea of the wants of your people, and so be enabled to adapt your preaching to them. Do not begrudge the time thus spent. In freely conversing with humble people you will get side-lights, or particular testimony, that will make you a stronger man and a better minister for many a day to come.”

Bishop Simpson, alluding to the timidity often felt by young men in regard to pastoral visitation, gives this bit of experience: “I had much of this timidity when I entered the ministry. The palms of my hands sometimes burned at the very thought of going out to visit. But I felt I must go; the church bade me go; I had promised God I would go; and as the soldier in the army walks forward timidly, yet determinedly, into the thickest of the fight, so I went in my Master’s name. If I could, I took with me some experienced Christian friend. I spoke to the people kindly; drew out of them their religious condition and experience; found many a wandering one and tried to comfort many a sorrowing heart. Such visits made me better, taught me to feel for the people, and to break for them the bread of life with more fitness. In a revival which followed, out of nearly three hundred who came to the altar for prayer there were very few with whom I had not previously conversed, and I knew how to enter into their sympathies and to point them to the Lamb of God.”

The late eminent President Francis Wayland, in closing an earnest plea to pastors on this subject, said: “If, at last, it be said that all this is beneath the dignity of our profession, and that we cannot expect an educated man to spend his time in visiting mechanics in their shops and in sitting down with women engaged in their domestic labor to converse with them on the subject of religion, to this objection I have no reply to offer. Let the objector present his case in its full force to Him who, on His journey to Galilee, ‘sat thus on the well’ and held a memorable conversation with a woman of Samaria.”

Pastoral visitation, therefore—this personal care of souls—is an essential part of the pastor’s work; and no minister meets the responsibilities of the sacred office who neglects direct individual religious contact with his flock. For the performance of this duty, however, it is obvious no rules of universal application can be given. Men differ in their characteristics and modes of working, and each pastor will ordinarily succeed best with his own method. Churches differ in their circumstances and modes of life, and a method adapted to one field may not be at all feasible in another. The main points here to be kept in view are that the pastor in some way come into personal religious relations with his flock, and that this be done by a fixed plan. The suggestions made, therefore, will be of only a general character, and will relate to the limits of this duty, the method of performing it, and the advantages of its faithful discharge.

I. Its Limits.

In the pastor’s plan of work, how large a place should be given to pastoral visitation?

The pulpit, without doubt, has the highest claim. The pastor is there surrounded by his whole flock, and stands forth before the world as God’s ambassador, the accredited expositor and defender of the Gospel. No private duty can rise to the dignity and responsibility of this great public work, and no plea of pastoral exigencies or pastoral usefulness can excuse an habitual neglect of thorough preparation for the sacred desk. This is primary and essential.

But in the pastor’s plan he should also aim to secure the visitation of every family and, as far as possible, every person in his congregation. In most churches this could be done at least as often as once a year; in some, doubtless, more frequently than this. By employing system, laying out the work carefully, and rigidly devoting fixed seasons for its prosecution, a large congregation can be readily visited. Suppose that, in addition to those made in cases of sickness and special urgency, six visits in regular course are made every week, even this, small as the number is, in half a year would reach more than a hundred and fifty families—a number above the average of households in our congregations. For this two or three afternoons each week would ordinarily be ample, and the pastor, by thus placing himself in living sympathy with the life of his people, would gain far more than that for his study by the increased facility with which his sermons would be prepared and their individual adaptation to the needs of the congregation. Dr. John Hall says: “I think a minister in good health, and doing his work easily and naturally, should visit some on at least five days in the week. I have done that for months together. . . . A few hours a day spent in visiting gives exercise, bodily, intellectual, and moral. One studies better for it.”

There are, indeed, positions in the ministry in which, from the extent of the church and the pressure of outside duties, the pastor can do little in this department beyond the visitation of the sick and cases of special religious perplexity. But these instances are rare and exceptional, and in such churches provision ought always to be made to supply the lack of pastoral visitation either by an assistant to the pastor, devoted to this work, or by delegating it to competent committees charged with its accomplishment. When the Baptist Tabernacle of New York, then worshipping in Mulberry street, numbered over a thousand members, widely scattered over that large city, the late venerated Deacon William Colgate organized a plan by which the congregation was divided into convenient districts, each placed under the care of a competent brother, and it long proved a most effective organization for church watch-care and visitation.

There is here a further inquiry: Does the pastor’s duty of visitation extend beyond the limits of his own congregation? The answer to this must depend on the number of his flock, his special aptitudes, and the amount of his own strength. The Lord does not require impossibilities. But whoever carefully considers that even in the rural districts of New York more than one-half the population attend no evangelical church, I think, will anxiously ask how this mass of neglecters of the Gospel shall be reached; and the pastor who looks down Sunday after Sunday on a half-filled church may well inquire whether it might not be crowded if, instead of waiting for these careless souls to come to him, he should go to them and carry the message of the Gospel, with the urgencies of an earnest, prayerful heart, into the bosom of their families. Or if this is not possible for him, ought he not to train and organize Christian workers in his church to make this aggressive movement on the mass of indifferentism around him? The inspiring and organizing of such aggressive Christian labor as faithful visitation from house to house are among the most important duties of the pastor, and no form of Christian activity is more fruitful in blessed results, both in the higher Christian development of the visitors and in the awakening and conversion of those who are visited.

II. The Method.

Here no single method can be suggested that will be adapted to all positions in the ministry, but the following general views may be considered.

The pastor’s visits should be distinctly understood as designed for religious conversation. There are other occasions for visits of mere courtesy and personal friendship, but here his object is to place himself in religious contact with his people—to learn their experiences, to remove their perplexities, to comfort their sorrows, to stimulate their religious activities—and thus, as one entrusted with the care of souls, to help them heavenward. The minister who passes from house to house conversing only on topics of mere secular interest neglects the great business of his life, and in the eye of the Master fails in the care of souls committed to his charge.

The visit should be religious, but it ought to be divested as far as possible of stiffness, formality, sameness. A sour visage and a formal style are not necessary to religious conversation. The pastor comes as a Christian friend deeply, tenderly interested in the religious welfare of the family, and while dealing with their souls in all fidelity, he should use a natural, genial, winning manner such as to put them at ease and invite their confidence. He is to study character, and to employ his utmost tact and judgment in adapting his words to those addressed. Some pastors have a few stereotyped questions and exhortations which recur in every visit. A process so stiff and unnatural lacks all moral power; it is soon felt to be mere formal professionalism. No duty is more delicate or tasks more fully the minister’s resources than the successful management of a pastoral visit, so as to leave a strong religious impression, and yet secure from old and young a hearty welcome for its repetition.

In visitation the pastor should overlook none. Domestics and children, as well as the heads of the family, should share his attention and be made to feel that he cares for their souls. Nor should any family or person be overlooked or passed by, but the visit should be strictly impartial, made alike to the rich and the poor, the converted and the unconverted. For this reason, it is better to have a regular course in visitation. Then all know that there is no favoritism, and in their turn, they will alike share the regards of their pastor.

Ordinarily, the visit should be short. Circumstances will necessarily to some extent control this, but long visits almost inevitably lead to the introduction of secular topics and weaken or destroy the religious impression. Thoughtless persons will often importune the pastor for a half-day visit, to be followed by a festal dinner or supper. But let him beware of yielding to such importunities; it is fatal to his work in the study, and fatal to the religious force of the visit. No earnest minister will waste his time and powers in the gossip of such a visit. As a rule, a brief visit—genial, but to the point—followed, when practicable, by a brief prayer specifically bearing the individual needs of the household before the Throne, is the most effective, and it leaves time to visit the whole congregation without distracting from thorough pulpit preparation.

A pastoral visit should be confidential. No minister has the right to invite disclosures of the religious state of his people in the privacy of their families, and then go forth to retail these conversations through the community. It is the violation of a sacred trust. Many a pastor has thus destroyed his influence and barred against himself access to the confidence of his people. If he would be trusted as the confidential adviser and friend of his charge, let him be true to the trusts reposed in him in these visits.

Above all, the pastor must remember the injunction, “Instant in season, out of season.” He should make the most of opportunities. In the store, the office, and the shop, on the farm, the roadside, and the car—everywhere—he is to seek to lead men to Christ. Wisely, indeed, he will observe the proprieties of time and place, but he should neglect no real opportunity of conversing on vital personal religion. The care of souls is his life-work, his solemn charge, and concern for their salvation ought continually to reveal itself in his conversation. Especially must he seize on opportunities to speak the earnest, kindly word to the unconverted. Ordinarily, this is better done when alone with them, as they are then more accessible, and the appeal comes with greater power. The lack of this personal dealing with souls is one of the saddest defects than can mar the life of a minister.

III. The Advantages.

The personal religious growth of the pastor is greatly aided by this direct contact with the souls of his charge. In a minister’s life the danger is that he may degenerate into mere professionalism. He may come to study God’s Word and its great truths, not with personal application, but with respect only to the preparation of his sermons and their application to the people. He may lose a vivid consciousness of his personal relations to God and read and think and pray with reference only to others. Many a pastor actually advancing in general knowledge of the Bible and in professional power as to the composition and delivery and mental richness of his sermons is, after all, only retrograding in his inner personal life as a Christian.

But the direct contact with individual souls in pastoral visitation brings religion before him less as a theory, more as a living, personal reality. He deals here with religion in the concrete rather than the abstract. He is the witness of its actual power to comfort in sorrow, to strengthen in temptation, to guide in perplexity, to triumph in danger, and his own soul thus enters into a more full realization of it as a living fact. How often when seeking to guide another to Christ does he himself find new access to Him, or when administering consolation to a dejected, afflicted spirit do new courage and hope spring up in his own heart! It develops within him broader, purer sympathies and makes him a truer, nobler Christian.

Visitation also affords the best means of studying the people in their actual life, their characters, opinions, temptations, afflictions and sins. The successful preacher must be a student of men, especially a student of his own congregation. Many a recluse pastor wastes the greater part of his force because his preaching lacks adaptation and practicalness. His sermon, it may be, is faultless in its rhetoric and logic and learning and orthodoxy, but it fails to move the people, because it does not come within the range of their experiences. It removes none of their perplexities; it touches none of their special sins; it discusses no questions vital in their life; it is not Ithuriel’s spear, to touch and expose the masked tempter charming and deluding their ears. The preacher is not in sympathy with the actual life of the congregation, and the sermon, however abstractly true and beautiful, does not move and bless them. It is with the actual life the minister has to deal; and the study of it in all its manifold phases, as developed under the power of sin and grace, is essential to the highest power in the pulpit. An old Divine used to say: “The preacher has three books to study—the Bible, himself, and the people.”

Nor should I omit to say here that pastoral visitation is a mentally enriching process. In the study of life and experience, as a pastor meets them in passing from house to house, he is ever gaining new insight into character. In these conversations, new vistas of truth open before him, and from these visits he comes back to his study with new texts and subjects for sermons and new illustrations of experience and doctrine.

These pastoral visits, moreover, establish personal religious relations between the minister and the congregation, and thus greatly add to their interest in his sermons. They alter the standpoint of the hearer in reference to the preacher. The man with whom you have wisely and tenderly conversed on vital, personal religion cannot turn a cold, critical ear toward you on the Lord’s Day; nor does he—what is equally fatal to spiritual benefit—listen as a mere admirer of your pulpit performances. He has a deeper feeling. He turns to you, not merely his critical and intellectual, but his religious, nature, and the words you speak, as the utterances of one sincerely seeking his eternal welfare, come to him with a religious power. This is, without doubt, the secret of many a successful pastorate, even where there has not been the aid of brilliant pulpit eloquence. The pastor has established personal religious relations with his hearers, and to them even his least elaborate sermons are clothed with sacred power. Brilliant sermonizing may secure popularity, but only this personal religious contact between pastor and people secures confidence; and a pastor’s real power in producing spiritual, eternal results is dependent on the religious confidence of the people in him.

These visits also enable him to meet many whom the pulpit could never reach. In every community there are the aged, requiring the supports of religion in their declining life; the sick and sorrowing, craving the words of Christian consolation and hope; and the careless, needing the kindly invitation and warning. The pastor is God’s commissioned messenger to such, and in these personal interviews he may adapt instruction, encouragement, comfort, and admonition to each.

Finally, pastoral visitation is a chief means of blessing and cementing the pastoral relation. Of late years pastorates have become of short duration. Hardly is a minister settled and fairly at work before the question of a change begins to be agitated. May not the decline of pastoral visitation, so faithfully done by many of our fathers in the ministry, be in part an explanation of this? The pastor’s personal religious life is not brought into contact with his people; as the result, their religious confidence is not won, and his ministry is not in sympathy with their needs. The only bond between them is the pulpit; and when the novelty of his voice and manner and modes of thought has passed away, they are tired of him and seek a change.

Besides, when the pastor is not faithful to the souls of his people in private, they instinctively feel that he is not sincere—at least, not thoroughly in earnest—in his public preaching. On the Lord’s Day he comes before them proclaiming the most solemn truths and pressing these truths with the strongest urgency, but in the week, he meets them and has no words of kindly invitation and warning. He solemnly warns the impenitent from the pulpit of their imminent peril of everlasting burnings but meets them in their homes or on the street, perhaps year after year, without one word expressive of his interest for their eternal welfare. Such inconsistency makes religious confidence impossible, and there is no adequate bond to bind pastor and people together.

But the relation of pastor and people, as God ordained it, is most sacred and enduring. Charged with the care of souls, he is to move among his flock as their spiritual guide and friend. The confessional, terrible as its power for evil is, was after all in its origin only a perversion of the pastoral institution, based on a real and universal need—the longing of troubled souls for guidance, help in getting back to God. This need the pastor must meet as the confidential counsellor and helper of the individual members of his flock; and if true to this sacred trust, his resources of power are ever increasing, and new bonds of sympathy hold him more firmly year by year in the hearts of his church.

IV. Visitation of the Sick.

This is one of the most responsible and difficult duties of the pastor, for it often devolves on him the spiritual guidance of souls on the verge of eternity, when what is said must be said at once and words fitly spoken are of supreme moment. I have, therefore, reserved this subject for special suggestions.

1. The people should be instructed to notify the pastor when cases of sickness occur, for he is often blamed for neglect in visiting the sick when in fact he did not know of the sickness. He should make public request, therefore, that notice be sent to him of such cases, with the fullest assurance of readiness on his part to respond to such a call at all hours and in all places. Of course, in cases of known sickness among his own people, a pastor will not wait to be invited, but will call as an understood part of his pastoral duty.

2. It is always prudent to visit the sick in a rested rather than wearied state of body, and with a full rather than an empty stomach; the liability to contract disease is thereby lessened. In contagious diseases a medical adviser should be consulted as to the best means of avoiding danger, and disinfectants should be carefully used after the visit to avoid endangering others. Whether in such cases it is duty to visit no rule can be given; the decision must be left to the convictions of the pastor and the relations and circumstances of each. The words of Van Oosterzee, in his Practical Theology, deserve here, however, careful consideration: “The negative answer, favored by the theory and practice of some, finds an apparent justification in the natural desire for self-preservation and in the teacher’s relation to his own family. In opposition to this, however, stands the consideration that even the Christian is bound to lay down his life for the brethren, how much more the shepherd of the sheep! and that, in this sphere also, loss of life in the service of the Lord is the way to the preservation of life. Without doubt, fulfilment of duty in this case may cost a painful sacrifice. . . . Nevertheless, the Lord and his congregation have unquestionably the right to demand that duty take precedence of everything; as accordingly Luther, in 1527, during the prevalence of the plague, remained with Pomeranus and two deacons at Wittenberg, and in this way answers the question formally raised by him in his tractate, ‘Whether we may flee before death?’ When, in 1574, the question here put was expressly deliberated at the Synod of Dort, the answer was given, ‘that they should go, being called, and even uncalled, inasmuch as they know that there will be need of them.’ With what right shall the physician of souls withdraw from a task from which even the unbelieving medical man does not too greatly shrink? . . . The risk incurred on that occasion finds its abundant compensation in the gratitude of the flock, the approval of our own conscience, and the ever-renewed experience that the Lord supports His servants in this school of exercise also, and not seldom manifestly preserves them. Of course, belief in His power and faithfulness can release no one from the duty of taking those measures of precaution prescribed under such circumstances by experience and science.” The question is sometimes one of the most difficult in a pastor’s life, and without doubt there is much danger that he may take counsel of timidity rather than of that faith which becomes a servant of God.

3. Careful preparation should be made for such visits by previous study and prayer. In this he is to seek a spiritual frame of mind, to select and familiarize Scripture passages adapted to the different spiritual conditions and needs of the sick, to elaborate fitting trains of thought, and to acquire brief, simple, and apt illustrations of the way of salvation, thus fitting himself for the different phases of spiritual condition in the sick. I hardly need add that at the basis, as underlying all preparation, there must be a sound judgment and a heart in genuine sympathy with the afflicted, so that the pastor comes into the sick-chamber as a wise and sympathizing friend and is felt as such.

4. In manner it is important to be self-possessed and natural, sympathetic and cheerful, putting the sick at ease and inspiring confidence. The voice should be tender and subdued, but not falsely keyed and whining. The visit, except in unusual circumstances, should be brief. A neglect of these things will destroy the advantage of the interview, and in some cases will exclude the pastor from the sick.

5. In regard to conversation with the sick, no fixed rules can be given, since the cases present phases so varied; the good sense and tact of the pastor will suggest the best method in each case. Plainly, the matter of first moment is a clear, thorough, and accurate understanding of the spiritual condition of the patient, for without this the pastor’s words may be misdirected, or may even be wholly misleading. He may administer consolation where the heart is in rebellion against God and needs rather kindly warning, or he may encourage hope where the heart is self-deceived, and God has spoken only condemnation. An interview alone, if it can be arranged, will sometimes secure from the sick a more full disclosure of the heart, and will enable the pastor to speak with greater directness and freedom. If the sick person is a Christian, the question then becomes, Is he at peace, submissively, restfully trusting all in God’s hand? If not, ascertain what is preventing this, and if possible, help the soul back to God. If he is not a Christian, seek to know what prevents him from becoming one, and lead him if possible to Christ. But use a careful discrimination, distinguishing clearly between the true and false in religious experience, and avoid mere loose exhortations to come to Christ, which leave unexplained what Christ is, and what He has done, and what it is to come to Him. In all cases, whether to saint or sinner, Christ is to be presented in His fulness of grace and power as the one Hope and the one Helper for the humble, penitent soul, and the thought of the sick is to be lifted and turned to Him as a living, present Savior and an almighty Friend.

6. Prayer, when practicable, should always be offered in the sick-room. In severe illness it is sometimes advisable to do nothing more than offer prayer, and in such a case, where the sufferer may be near eternity, how fitting and weighty ought to be these words of petition! How tender, earnest, direct, should be the prayer, bearing the case with all its priceless interests into the presence of God! Vinet strikingly says: “Expect much from prayer—I mean not only from its power with God, but from its immediate effects on the sick. We may say everything in prayer; under the form of prayer we may make everything acceptable; with it we may make hearts the most firmly closed open themselves to us. There is a true charm in prayer; and this charm has also its effect on us, whom it renders more confident, more gentle, more patient, and whom it puts into affecting fellowship with the sick man, whoever he may be, by making God present to us both.”

These seasons of affliction furnish a pastor the surest access to the homes and hearts of his flock; and rightly improved they greatly add, not only to his pastoral usefulness, but also to his personal hold on the affection and confidence of the families of his charge. Neglect of the sick and sorrowing on the part of a pastor, or a heartless, perfunctory manner in performing his duties to them, violates the most sacred obligations, and is justly felt alike by the religious and the irreligious as a reproach to him: it must in the end destroy the power of his work in the pulpit. He should use great care, therefore, to keep himself informed as to the sick and afflicted, to visit them promptly and frequently, and to come to their homes, in the spirit of his Master, with the tender, earnest sympathy of a Christian friend, and with the rich resources for Christian help and consolation with which he is entrusted by God as a minister of the Gospel.

SECTION VIII.

REVIVALS OF RELIGION.

The history of Christianity is a history of revivals by which the work of redemption has been advanced among men; there is all reason to suppose that it will be so to the end. Men dream of the Gospel advancing with even, steady pace to its triumph, without the vicissitudes of decline and revival but the thought finds ground neither in the Bible nor in church history. The great revivals in the past have been epochs in which the Christian world has risen to clearer apprehensions of Divine truth and a higher elevation of Christian life. They have constituted the Divine process by which the Gospel has burst through the errors and sins of men and has found a more complete development in the consciousness and life of the churches of Christ.

No careful student of church history will undervalue revivals of religion. By it no means follows that a pastor is to seek success only, or chiefly, in these special manifestations of spiritual power. For a revival ordinarily supposes a previous declension, which it was the design of the ministry to prevent; for they are given “for the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. iv. 12). Fidelity and wisdom in the pastor may keep the spiritual forces in a church so inspired and organized that its life will not decline, but develop and strengthen, and its condition consequently be one of continual growth and progress. Such is the fact in Mr. Spurgeon’s church. As one mingles in its assemblies and observes its manifold and thoroughly organized activities, the preaching and devotion, the spirit and life, resemble what is seen in a powerful revival of religion. The Holy Spirit is continually present, and there is no cessation in the work of conversion. Toward this ideal a true pastor will be always working; and where it is attained a revival will mean, not a recovery from declension, but an acceleration in spiritual advancement and a mightier display of the Spirit’s power in the conversion of men.

But in the ordinary manifestations of Christian life religious declension is often a marked and painful fact, and the pastor should seek the best methods for promoting a revival.

Here it is of primary moment to remember that a genuine revival is the result of the presence of the Holy Spirit: without Him there may be excitement, but there can be no spiritual movement. It is “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord” (Zech. iv. 6). A deep sense of this is essential, and all thought and feeling should be turned to the invocation of His presence; but the Spirit works through human agencies and according to the laws of the human mind. The use of appropriate means, therefore, is also essential.

Here I suggest: 1. Christian life in the people will seldom rise above the spiritual level of the pastor; it is, therefore, of primary moment that the minister’s own soul be “in the Spirit”—humble, fervent, and believing. Noise and zeal and declamation and management can be no substitute for the Holy Spirit in the soul. 2. As a revival of life in the church is ordinarily the condition of an awakening among the unconverted, the preaching at first should be specially adapted to search the experience and life of Christians, and lead to increase in personal holiness and personal activity. The church is “the light of the world” (Matt. v. 14), and the power of the Gospel on the world depends on the clearness with which this light shines. 3. Seek to promote faithful personal conversation on the part of Christians with their unconverted kindred and friends. It is sometimes useful to organize committees to visit religiously from house to house in the congregation. It is obvious, however, that great care should be taken both as to the personnel of such committees and as to the method of their work. 4. Meetings should be multiplied as the interest manifested will justify. Continuous meetings concentrate attention on the subject of religion, fix impressions which otherwise might be evanescent, and lead to religious decision. The block may seem unaffected by a single blow, but a succession of blows on the same point cleaves it. 5. The mode of conducting special meetings must be determined by the existing indications of the Spirit and providence of God. If gifts abound in the church, it is often better not to have additional preaching, but to continue social meetings, taking care to give variety, in their tone and form. If preaching is necessary, the question whether an evangelist is to be sought, or help obtained from neighboring pastors, or the pastor himself should preach, must be determined by the circumstances. All these methods have proved useful. If assistance is sought, care should be used to secure a man of right spirit and practical wisdom.

The question may arise: Ought a series of meetings to be commenced when there is no special religious interest apparent? I reply: It seems to me that certainly equal reasons exist for the appointment of continuous meetings to awaken interest in the subject of religion, as for the appointment of such meetings to awaken interest in temperance, politics, or science. The same mental law is invoked in all such cases—viz., that continuous attention to a subject causes the mind to become interested and absorbed in it and rouses the will to act respecting it. Now, as the Holy Spirit works in the soul, not contrary to the constitution God has given to the mind, but in accordance with it, the interest thus awakened by continuous attention to the religion of Christ would seem to furnish the natural conditions for the Spirit’s work. And as the Gospel of Christ is the most important subject to which the attention of men can be called, there would seem to be the highest reason for the application of this mental law by appointing continuous meetings in order to fix men’s attention upon it.

In protracted meetings, however, there are sometimes serious evils, which a pastor should carefully avoid. Of these I mention: 1. A mere man-made excitement, in which the effort is rather to inflame the religious feelings than to enlighten and strengthen religious conviction. Such an appeal to the emotional, apart from the rational, nature results ordinarily in a disastrous reaction in the direction of indifferentism and skepticism. Many a field has been burnt over by these pseudo-revivals, and they constitute the most difficult fields for Christian labor, because religion has thereby been put under contempt. 2. A protracted meeting entered on for secondary ends, as to pay off a church debt or to strengthen the position of an unpopular pastor. Where a revival is sought without dominant regard to the glory of God and the salvation of souls, the effort is a failure. 3. A tendency to dependence upon protracted meetings to the disparagement of the ordinary means of grace. Great care is needed to guard against this, as it is destructive to the tone and effectiveness of church-life. The pastor, in prayer and sermon, should be careful to keep prominent before the people, not the revival as the great hope of Christian life and progress, but the right us of the usual, constant means of grace. Some ministers habitually speak as if the work of God in conversion and sanctification were restricted to seasons of revivals, and the effect is pernicious. To avoid this false reliance on special services, it is well not to appoint them at any stated intervals, or to push them in any way into special prominence. 4. In the reaction which occurs after the extreme nervous tension of a protracted meeting, guard against relapse in the converts. In the life of a plant the period of greatest peril is when it is transferred from the hot-bed to the ground, for, missing the warmth and protection of the bed, and exposed to the cold and storms of the open field, it will inevitably droop and wither and die, unless carefully tended. The most difficult and arduous work of a pastor is after a revival in the care and instruction of converts, when the unusual stimulus to Christian activity is withdrawn; and it is just here that the evils exist which are commonly charged on revivals and evangelists, but which in reality result from remissness in the pastor and church. The converts should be introduced at once into the Sunday-school or Bible class, and should be made personally acquainted, as far as possible, with the members of the church. Where the number of converts is large, the pastor might privately request some judicious experienced members to give them special attention, quietly handing to each a list of those thus specially commended to his or her friendly notice and care. A place and a work for each of the converts should also be sought; this is very important to their comfort and development.

SECTION IX.

CULTIVATION OF SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CHURCH.

The development of a true Christian life in the church depends much on the social influences which, like an atmosphere, pervade and envelop it. These, therefore, the pastor should seek to inspire and control. As far as possible, the membership should find their society within the church—not in a spirit of clannish exclusiveness, but on the principle that the higher bond of spiritual affinity, which binds them as a church to one another and to Christ, involves, as a natural consequence, the lower bond of social affinity, so that the church is the natural sphere of the soul’s activities, social as well as spiritual. To make the social life of the church strong, healthful, enriching, such as render it a magnet to attract other souls, is of primary moment in a pastor’s work. I suggest two ways in which this may be done.

1. Personal effort to promote mutual acquaintance in the congregation by introducing strangers, and by securing for them those attentions which will naturally draw them to the church as a home. See that they meet a cordial welcome at the public meeting, and also socially by the calling of members at their homes, and by extending to them social courtesies and kindnesses. A watchful pastor may do much to secure this by personal suggestion.

2. Social gatherings in the church, in which the people shall have opportunity for acquaintance and for the exercise of the social feelings. These differ in plan. (1.) They are sometimes purely social, in which the object is conversation, music, and such forms of recreation as may be innocent and healthful. The tact of the pastor will here be required to give the right tone and spirit to the gathering, to promote general acquaintance and sociability, and to guard against doubtful forms of amusement. (2.) They sometimes add to the social the literary element, and a part of the time is occupied with readings, recitations, essays, poems, and the discussion of subjects in history, biography, general literature, and science. These, when carefully managed, are often of great value in advancing the general culture and intelligence, and in calling out, especially in the young, talents which would otherwise be undeveloped. The successful working of such an organization of course presupposes broad intelligence in the pastor and not a little careful thought and labor. (3.) Sometimes the object is not only social and literary, but also missionary, and the exercises consist in part of reports on missionary work, home and foreign, correspondence with missionaries, and essays on the lives of eminent missionary characters and topics relating to the missionary enterprise. The organization might also engage in different forms of actual mission work, such as mission Sunday-schools, religious meetings at destitute points, and personal labor, young men among young men, young women among young women, to bring them to church and otherwise help them in entering and prosecuting a Christian life.

The social element is so mighty a force that no pastor can afford to ignore it; nor should he imagine that it will take care of itself, for, left unguided, it will almost certainly take a false direction and destroy much of his work. His true position is as its inspiring leader, thus linking its power to those forces which shall ensure his success.

Hints.—1. The pastor, I think, should ordinarily hold no official position in these organizations, but should stand related to them simply as pastor, and as thus the general head of all church organization; and he should be felt not so much (if at all) in the assertion of his authority as in the way of quiet suggestion and inspiration. 2. In all social life there will necessarily be different social centers, caused by naturally differing social affinities, and it is unwise to attempt to break this up. But care should be taken that these social centers do not take on the exclusiveness of cliques with party spirit and jealousies, and that the aristocratic element does not develop itself to the discomfort or exclusion of the poorer classes. These tendencies, always present, should be carefully held in check. 3. Every house of worship should have a church parlor, or some room which can readily be converted into one. This should be furnished attractively, and supplied with musical instruments, pictures, and other means of culture. If a reading-room and library can also be connected, it adds much value in the increase of intelligence among the people. A church will readily furnish funds for this purpose if properly instructed; for parents, aside from the advantage they personally derive from such an arrangement, will feel the advantage to their families of a church social life so strong and attractive as to draw and hold the children to the associations of the church in preference to the associations of the world.

SECTION X.

THE PASTOR AS AN ORGANIZER.

One chief function of a pastor is to develop and utilize the spiritual, mental, and social forces of the church. There is in every congregation much latent force, which needs to be developed, alike for the growth and usefulness of those who possess it and for the results it might secure for the church and the world. The minister is, in this respect, a general to whom troops are entrusted; his work is to train and organize and lead. The troops are to fight: he is to inspire and direct the battle. Some hardworking pastors take on themselves burdens which it were far better to lay on the people—better for the pastor, in leaving him free for other work, and better for the members, in calling out their gifts. Indeed, one of the strongest bonds which bind a church together is the consciousness of being mutual workers, each having a post of duty and a share of responsibility. No member should be left in a purely receptive attitude—a mere attendant and listener—but each should have a place and a work assigned him. That church attains the truest and highest growth in which every member is a worker under the stimulus of a consciousness of responsibility and of a useful sphere of activity. Much of the imperfection of church-life is due either to the fact that this latent force is undeveloped, or, if developed, is misdirected. Here I suggest:

1. A pastor should carefully study his people with the view of ascertaining and utilizing their special aptitudes and gifts. The prayer-room, the Sunday-school, the teachers’ meeting, and the pastoral visit all afford constant opportunities for this. One may show aptitude for teaching and may be entrusted with a Sunday-school class. Another has the weight of character and the tact of leadership which fit him for conducting a neighborhood prayer-meeting. Another has the solid judgment and clear discernment of character which will make him useful on a committee of discipline or finance. Another, though possibly not marked in exhortation or prayer, may have social qualities such as admirably qualify him for managing the details and arrangements of the social gatherings of the congregation. A pastor who will constantly act on the motto, A place and a work for every member, and will press this motto on those who conduct the different departments of work in his church, will soon find himself at the head of an active, living, and ordinarily happy people while yet he is not personally overburdened with the details of church-work. In some instances of eminent pastoral success, the chief secret has been in this power of developing and utilizing the gifts of the church.

2. The organization of associations within the congregation for different departments of work is another means of developing and utilizing the spiritual forces in the church. I have spoken in another place of literary and missionary organizations, but I may here add that an association for Christian work composed of young men in a church, and a similar one for young ladies, may often prove of great value—the one to act among young men, to attract and hold them to the church; the other for like service among young women. To such associations might be entrusted also mission Sunday-schools and distinct spheres of missionary effort. In a large congregation it is often desirable to organize committees for the care of the sick and the poor, and the visitation of strangers needing to be invited and welcomed to the congregation, and of erring and sinning ones needing to be won back to holiness and the church of God. In most places it is useful to have committees for the general visitation of the field occupied by the church, each committee being entrusted with a distinct district in it and made responsible for its cultivation. In neighborhoods remote from the church much good is often secured in local prayer-meetings placed under the supervision of some judicious person. A thoughtful pastor, thoroughly supervising his field, will find constant work, and manifold forms of it, in which he can utilize either individuals or organizations in his church; and in doing this there is a double blessing—that which comes to the workers, in making them larger and happier Christians, and that which comes to those for whom they labor. Two things, however, are here to be observed: (1.) Organizations should not be so multiplied as to conflict with the general meetings of the church or with each other. Each should subordinate its arrangements to those of the church, and each should have its own separate, distinctly-marked sphere. (2.) They should be kept under the pastor’s supervision and subject to his guidance. It will be readily seen that this supposes care and tact on the part of the minister.

3. It is important that in this development of the forces in a church the pastor should mark those cases among the young in which special promise of intellectual ability appears and should inspire and direct them toward a higher education. Intellect is a gift of God: it is criminal to leave it undeveloped. Be thoroughly alive to this fact and impress it on the people. You will see young men and young women in your congregation who might, with adequate intellectual culture, occupy positions of power in life, and carrying into those positions a Christian character as well as a cultivated intellect might exert a wide and beneficent influence for Christ in the world. It seems to me one of the highest duties of a pastor to foster in such minds a desire and purpose for an education, and to facilitate in every possible way the attainment of that end. He should perpetually stimulate the people to a larger and higher intelligence, and never be satisfied unless numbers of the youth of his church are in higher institutions of learning. A failure to develop his people intellectually is a discredit to any minister.

4. Another important end to be secured is the development of ministerial gifts. The prayer-meeting, the Sunday-school, and the general work of the church will commonly, but not always, make these manifest. Sometimes a very diffident young man may possess them, but only encouragement will develop them. A pastor should be on the watch and should take occasion to call out the latent power. A few kindly words of encouragement have often developed a man of ultimately wide usefulness. Besides this class, there is much talent in the church that could be utilized in lay-preaching, where men of good speaking and spiritual knowledge, without relinquishing business pursuits, might be employed at destitute points to proclaim the Gospel. A pastor’s care is needed in seeking out and setting at work these gifts for lay-preaching, and thus multiplying the agencies for evangelization around him.

SECTION XI.

FUNERAL SERVICES.

Funeral services bring the pastor into most tender and influential relations to the families of his congregation, but they are also among the most perplexing and difficult parts of his work. Warm sympathy must here be combined with wise discretion, or he may destroy at the funeral the effect of his most faithful teaching in the pulpit. Here I suggest:

1. Ordinarily, it is better to avoid a formal sermon at funerals. It unnecessarily protracts the service, often to the serious discomfort of the people, while it overtasks the minister both in the preparation required and in the performance of the duty. In case of the death of some person occupying public station or official position in the church a sermon may be proper, but even then, it is usually better to deliver it on the following Sunday in the church. Sometimes also, in districts remote from the place of worship, where the people seldom hear preaching, there may be an advantage in a full sermon. But commonly a service at the house, brief, simple, tender, will secure the best results. This usually consists of the reading of a selection of Scriptures, an address, and a prayer. Singing is added, if desired by the bereaved family and singers are available.

2. Eulogies of the dead should be very sparingly indulged and should in no case be made a prominent feature. For much eulogy, even of confessedly good qualities in the deceased, will almost always provoke remembrance of any opposite qualities he may have had, and will thus fail of its object. Besides, if eulogy forms a marked feature in a minister’s funeral addresses, the omission of it, when ministering at the funeral of one whom he cannot conscientiously eulogize, will be embarrassing to him, and will often give offense to the friends. An analysis of the character of the deceased at such a time is a very delicate and difficult task, and it should not be undertaken except in those comparatively rare cases where the character has been so conspicuous for its high qualities that the moral judgment of the community instinctively recognizes it as a fitting model. Great care should be exercised, also, in regard to expressing, in the address or prayer, an opinion as to the spiritual character and destiny of the deceased. A minister, in the fervid sympathy evoked by the occasion, is sometimes betrayed into forms of expression such as only Omniscience may rightfully use. It is, indeed, his right, at the interment of one whose Christian character has been well attested, to assume that God’s promises have been fulfilled, and to speak gratefully and joyfully of the blessedness of the pious dead; but in so doing he should speak rather with the confidence of hope than with the assumption of an absolute knowledge of the secrets of the heart.

3. The subject-matter of the address will often be suggested by the special circumstances connected with the deceased or the occasion. Apart from these, many general lines of thought will suggest themselves to the thoughtful pastor. Of these the following may serve as hints: The fulness of power in the Gospel to prepare for death, in its renewing, justifying, and sanctifying grace; The blessedness of the Christian beyond death, as admitted into the immediate presence of Christ and into the purity and associations of that holy place where He dwelleth; The glorious resurrection of the dead as the completing act of redeeming power and the ultimate goal of the Christian course; The certainty of the Christian’s hope, as based on the promises of an unchanging God, contrasted with the uncertainty of all earthly expectations. Or special phases of truth and sources of consolation may be presented in the informal development of some passage of Scripture. Thus: The sympathy of Christ with the sorrowing, as seen at the grave of Lazarus and on other occasions; The certainty that affliction is not accidental but is ordered in the infinite love and wisdom of God; The compassion and tenderness of God, as seen in that He doth not afflict willingly; The high and blessed results He intends in affliction; The brevity of earthly sorrow and the eternity of heavenly joy. Subjects adapted to such occasions will continually suggest themselves to a pastor who is in living, personal sympathy with his congregation; and it is wise to note them down as they occur and carefully preserve them. At the funeral of an unconverted person the selection of a subject is sometimes difficult; for here the minister, while he must needs be a “son of consolation” to the bereaved, is also under obligation to be faithful to the Gospel and to the souls of men. He may not suggest, even by implication, a hope respecting the deceased which neither his sober judgment nor the truths he preaches allow him to feel; nor may he pursue a line of remark adapted to weaken a conviction of the solemn truth that a personal acceptance of Christ and a humble following of Him in this life are absolutely essential to salvation; for in so doing he would be inconsistent and untruthful. It is equally evident, also, that in such a service, where he stands as a minister of consolation, it is not his duty to aggravate the sorrow of the bereaved by specially emphasizing the fearful doom of the unbeliever. Perhaps the general course of thought for such occasions would be found in topics which relate to the brevity and uncertainty of life; the way of salvation in the Gospel; the rectitude and tenderness of God’s providence; the refuge for the afflicted in the sympathy and salvation of Christ—topics which, while necessitating no allusion to the spiritual character and state of the deceased, yet afford ample scope for presenting the nature and urgencies of the Gospel and the true sources of consolation for the bereaved. Whatever the topic, the spirit and manner should be dictated and pervaded by a genuine sympathy for the sorrowing, and a hearty appreciation of whatever was excellent in the character and life of the deceased. Though not a Christian, he may have been a valuable citizen, a just and generous man, a true and unselfish friend, a good husband and father. If any personal remarks are made, such characteristics may properly be recognized on such an occasion as honoring his memory and rendering his death a loss to the world.

4. The service at the grave should ordinarily be brief, as the people are standing, and the circumstances of the place render an extended service undesirable. Some pastors use here some one of the printed manuals of burial services, others read from Scripture, or repeat from memory, a selection of passages relating to death, the grave, and the resurrection, and others make a brief address. Whatever the method adopted, the service should be carefully prepared, and should vary in its form, in order to secure in this, as in all services, variety and adaptation to the occasion. The service is closed by the apostolic benediction, prefaced sometimes by a few words of prayer.

5. It is desirable to visit the family in which death has occurred before the funeral services, both to express your sympathy in the affliction and to learn any facts respecting the deceased and the arrangements for the funeral that may be necessary for you to know. The pastor should here have the character of an adviser and friend. In all arrangements for the funeral it is better, in general, to conform to the customs of the community; but so far as he may use influence in regard to these, it should be in favor of inexpensive simplicity and against ostentatious display. Costliness and display at funerals constitute in many communities an evil of such serious proportions and consequences that the ministry should decidedly set their face against it; for, established as an inexorable custom, it often augments and perpetuates the sorrow of a death in the family by creating debt and pecuniary embarrassment which remain for years to come. It is also important to visit the family soon after the funeral to administer further consolation, and to follow up any good impressions which affliction has made. This is often one of the pastor’s best opportunities, as the heart is then tender and susceptible to religious influences. It is in these dark hours of adversity that the Gospel is felt in its saving, consoling, helping power in the soul, and the pastor here should work with Providence, carefully improving the opportunity.

SECTION XII.

CULTIVATION OF THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT.

The importance of a deep, all-pervading missionary spirit in the church can hardly be overrated. Its value is not to be estimated only in the work done and the money raised for the spread of the Gospel, but also in the enlarged and enriched life of the church itself, and the higher and nobler type of Christian character it thus presents to the world. A pastor who fails in this is failing at once to make his church a power for Christ in the world, and to secure within it the fulness of life which Christ intended it should possess.

To develop and foster a missionary spirit in the church requires, as a first necessity, the presence of such a spirit in the pastor himself. Without this no method, however excellent, will be likely to succeed; but with it the spirit of missions will not appear merely on special missionary occasions, but will pervade all his public utterances in the pulpit and the prayer-room. It will diffuse itself as an atmosphere of life through the whole congregation, and, inbreathed, it will impart vitality and power to the whole body. But, added to this general influence, a fixed method of labor for this is desirable, and in regard to this I make the following suggestions:

1. A regular system of contribution for benevolent objects, taken either by subscription paper or by public collection or in boxes conveniently placed for receiving the funds. It is the custom of many churches to divide the year into four or six periods, devoting two or three months, as the case may be, to each of the benevolent objects; and this has often proved successful. Whatever plan is adopted, it should secure regularity of contribution, and should reach the whole congregation, old and young, rich and poor; otherwise, only the few will contribute, and the blessing connected with self-denying giving will be lost by the mass of the people.

2. A missionary sermon at least as often as the recurrence of these periods. In these sermons the great principles of benevolence should be developed and enforced, and the leading facts in the different departments of Christian work spread before the people. It is not necessary or desirable to preach a “begging sermon” with sensational incitements to give. In fact, our Lord’s great principle, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts xx. 35), suggests that giving should be presented, not as a duty chiefly, but rather as an exalted privilege whose reward is in itself. Properly prepared, “the missionary sermon” may be made a most attractive feature in the pastor’s public work; and if steadily kept in view and materials carefully preserved for it as they occur in his reading and reflection, the preparation will not be difficult. A special note-book, preserving thoughts and illustrations for missionary sermons, will rapidly fill up with a pastor who reads with method and care.

3. The monthly missionary concert of prayer. This is of vital importance, because here the missionary spirit of the church finds devotional expression. The pastor makes a serious mistake who fails to maintain this or allows it to be regarded as of minor moment. No meeting is capable of being made more effective for his home work than the monthly concert, properly conducted. In regard to this I offer the following hints: (1.) It is not necessary to restrict the sphere of the meeting to foreign missions, but there are important advantages in allowing it to embrace all departments of evangelization, home and foreign, through the different branches of work—in the pulpit, the school, and the press. Thus one evening might be devoted to the condition of the freedmen at the South and the work in progress among them, educational and missionary; another to the work of home missions on the frontiers of civilization at the West, developing the leading facts respecting the vast immigration into those new regions, the needs of Christian workers there, and the kind of work there to be performed; and another to the Karens or Assamese or Chinese, or other division of the foreign work. The meeting would thus be highly educative by the whole range of its information, and would promote a broad intelligence in the membership, while the breadth of the field would afford an unfailing variety of vital subjects to interest and hold the people. (2.) In opening, the pastor might present a brief survey of the whole field, selecting only events of special interest and incidents adapted to impress them. This might be followed by one or more papers or statements, from selected members of the church or congregation, on the special field chosen for the evening, or on some prominent laborer in it, the time of the speaker or reader being carefully limited. This would leave ample time for prayer, which is the main purpose of the meeting, and for such spontaneous utterances as might be made by the assembly.

The hints above suggested are necessarily imperfect and general, for every church has its peculiarities, and the pastor must often adapt his methods to theirs. But the object to be attained, the missionary development of the church, is of the highest moment, and he should study methods with the fixed purpose of reaching, in some way, that end.

SECTION XIII.

THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS.

In the olden time the Bible formed the chief reading of Christian congregations, and the pulpit occupied the place of power in popular instruction. This is now changed. The newspaper, the magazine, the popular novel, the multitudinous products of the press, crowd the Bible from its former place even in religious families, and the platform and the press rival the pulpit as vital educative forces in guiding and controlling popular thought. It is useless to declaim against this; it is one of the great facts of providence connected with our age and life; but the wise pastor will carefully consider what he can do to control this inevitably potent force of the press, and make it a help instead of a hindrance to his work; for with proper supervision this vast power may be made a most beneficent auxiliary to the pulpit. Here I suggest:

1. The pastor should aim to secure in every family a good religious newspaper. This is a matter of primary moment, for such a paper is an ever-present force, educating religious thought and feeling and enriching and elevating practical life. Most pastors would be startled, on making the inquiry, to find how few families in their congregation take a religious paper, and how many are taking only trashy and often morally poisonous publications, the habitual reading of which must utterly neutralize the instruction and influence of the pulpit. The magazine and newspaper are the habitual reading of the family circle; and the pastor who fails to exercise watchful care in regard to the character of this reading will often find it one of the most destructive forces at work among his people.

2. The intelligent and thoughtful minister, in his public and private work, will often call the attention of his people to good books, and use his influence to introduce them. His people, pressed under secular care and toil, are most of them not in a position to judge of the value and tendency of the literature offered to them; and they rightfully look to him, as an intelligent and studious man, to guide their judgment in the selection of reading. The Sunday-school library also should be carefully selected under his eye and secured a wide circulation. In a large congregation it may sometimes be of advantage to have a reading-room and a circulating library, placed under the care of some association; and over this also the pastor’s watchful supervision will be required. He should also provide himself with tracts—brief, simple, pungent, clearly setting forth sin, redemption, repentance, faith, and Christian duties—such as may awaken the careless, guide the inquirer, and press to duty the hesitant Christian. These little winged evangels are most valuable auxiliaries in his pastoral work and should be kept for judicious circulation in the inquiry meeting, in pastoral visitation, and in seasons of revival. As issued by our Publication Society, they are now of such wide variety and high value, and of such slight cost, that no pastor should allow himself to neglect a means so important to his success.[1]

3. The subject of reading and books should also be presented in the pulpit that the great importance of care in this may be felt, and the purity of the homes of the people be guarded against a pernicious influence of a poisoned literature. Many a Christian parent has never been aroused to the real peril in which he is placing his family by the reading he thoughtlessly admits to the home circle.

4. A pastor should also seek to inspire and elevate the public sentiment of the community where he is located in regard to schools, lyceums, libraries, and public lectures, so as to secure pure and Christian influences at these important fountains of public opinion and character. As an educated man and a Christian minister, this duty naturally devolves on him; and his influence, rightly and quietly used, may often determine the question whether the schools shall be under Christian or non-Christian instruction, or whether the lecture-course shall be filled by men who revere God’s Word or by those who hate and traduce it. No minister ought to be indifferent to the public sentiment around him; for it is the intellectual and moral atmosphere in which his people live, and which must needs tend either to poison or to purify their souls.

FOOTNOTES:

SECTION XIV.

RELATIONS TO OTHER DENOMINATIONS.

The pastor’s position and work bring him into contact with other ministers and churches in the community, and his comfort and usefulness will to some extent depend on the esteem and confidence with which he is regarded by evangelical Christians outside of his own church. He will find many of the noblest Christian men and women in churches differing in name from his own, and he should seek to maintain with them the most frank and cordial relations. This is especially important as regards the pastors, since, when relations of mutual affection and confidence exist, the ministry in any community can be eminently helpful to each other, and by combining their counsels and influence can often greatly advance the religious interests of the whole people. I suggest, therefore:

1. Do not isolate yourself, standing aloof from the general Christian community, but seek the acquaintance of all good men. Show a friendly, cordial spirit and a readiness for all offices of kindness, alike in the relations of social life and on those public occasions when all Christians gather for united counsel and worship. In such a course you will find the love and sympathy of the Christian community attracted to you, greatly augmenting your comfort and influence, and giving added power to your public work.

2. Such friendly relations among Christians of differing views involve of necessity a full recognition of their common Christian character and a hearty accord, each to the other, of sincerity and purity of motive in their church position. This a just self-respect requires you to insist on for yourself, and this, in the spirit of genuine charity, you should freely accord to others; such a position is consistent with the most full and free expression of your denominational sentiments and the most earnest defense of them. It simply requires that amidst the different opinions of Christian men there should be a charitable judgment of each other’s character, and a careful abstinence from language that might reflect on the motives of those who differ. It is, I think, the common fact that the genuine respect and confidence of any Christian community are most fully secured by that pastor who, while always decided and earnest in the expression and defense of his denominational convictions, is also always careful, in the spirit of true charity, to recognize the sincerity and integrity of those whose convictions may be opposed.