THE PERSONAL HABITS OF THE

MINISTER.

"TAKE heed to thyself," was the injunction of St. Paul to his beloved disciple, Timothy. If he needed such admonition— educated, trained, and in the active ministry-so do we. The work rises before us in grandeur; the voice of God calls us; but much depends on our devotion to the work. The minister is unlike other teachers. They simply teach art or science, without reference to moral character. The painter may be an excellent workman, may teach his art thoroughly, and yet be a very bad man. The college professor may teach clearly the highest problems in physics, and yet may be grossly immoral. But the minister is blended with the truth which he teaches. He may expound the doctrines of the Bible intellectually; but he cannot preach properly without a personal realization of the truth.

I congratulate you, young gentlemen, on your devotion to this high and holy calling. I have spoken strongly and solemnly of the responsibility of the office, and of the devotion necessary in order that you might rest on solid foundations. Having done that, I rejoice that God has counted you worthy, putting you into the ministry. Your work associates you with the purest and best minds on earth; with the men who have done and are doing the greatest work in the purification and elevation of society. For your greatest usefulness in it you need decision of character. You should feel that the whole course of your life is settled; that you have been taken out of the mass of men for one special duty. All your powers of body and spirit, your head, hands, and heart, should be consecrated to this one work.

Your motto should be: "This one thing I do." Where there is singleness of purpose there is usually great success. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Mr. Wesley once said of a young minister of only average talent and culture: "Other men may do good; this man must do good, for he thinks of nothing else." You will make but little progress if you look at the ministry as a stepping-stone to anything else, or as a work in which you can spend part of your time, and have a large margin for other duties. In his early ministry, before he had received the holy baptism, Dr. Chalmers once said that a minister should discharge all his duties to his people, and yet have five days in the week for other business. When he felt the greatness of the work and his soul had fully entered into it, he publicly retracted this statement, saying that he neglected to estimate two magnitudes-the littleness of time, and the greatness of eternity. Do not think of being a minister and something else. Archangels' powers are too feeble for the conversion of the world. You must have a holy ambition to produce the greatest possible result; not merely for to-day, but for the entire period of your ministerial career.

The young minister is frequently perplexed to know what model he should set before him. He admires some of his professors, some leading men in the pulpit to whom he is listening, or in whose steps he desires to tread. To him they are heroes; and unconsciously he is a kind of hero worshipper. But the selection of any model is a dangerous matter. No man is perfect, and we are much more likely to imitate defects than excellencies. We do well to follow glorious examples of holy living and earnest devotion to the ministry; but imitation of manner, whether personal or professional, is decidedly injurious. God has not made the spears of grass precisely alike; much less two human beings. He has impressed individuality on the mind, as well as on the features. I is not His law to duplicate copies. His wisdom is shown, too, in using a vast variety of instruments, and in blending a vast variety of persons into the image of the one great Saviour.

Avoid, then, all desire for imitation. Be yourselves. Conse

The meaning

copy no man.

crate yourselves, not imitations of others, to the service of Christ. Your great aim should be to place before you the only true model, the Lord Jesus Christ. I suppose that you, as well as myself, have often wished for a description of Christ's person and of His appearance. Is it not remarkable that among the four evangelists there is not a single allusion to His height or size or temperament, to the colour of His eyes or hair, the form of His features, or the intonation of His voice. Had there been such a record, what feelings of exultation would those have enjoyed who most resemble Him! And what fears would have perplexed those unlike Him as to their acceptance by Him or their power of doing good! Nor have we any description of the apostles, with the exception, possibly, of an allusion to St. Paul. We have their mental characteristics and their moral features; but not one hint as to their countenance, size, strength, or voice. of all this, as I understand it, is that we should Our likeness to Christ should be a moral likeness, and our imitation of Him should be in always doing good. Is it not also a little singular that not one word is said about the dress of the disciples; or that not a direction should be given as to what colour they should wear, or what the shape of their coats or cloaks should be? It is not even intimated that Peter's dress was different from that of the other disciples? And is it not still more remarkable that, when Christ sent out the disciples, He should charge them not to provide two coats, or, as Mark has it, "not put on two coats"? Is it not strange that they were not allowed to have one coat for travelling and for common work, and another for the pulpit? Does it not seem as though they were to be perfectly like another man, to preach in the same garb in which they travelled, and to show themselves to be members of the common humanity? How much like the present successors of the apostles they must have been!

Dismissing, then, from your thoughts all allusion to human models, take as your spiritual exemplar only the Lord Jesus Christ, and the apostles only so far as they were inspired, and as they perfectly followed Him. You first duty will be to get such a conception of Christ in all His glorious offices as will enable you

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The Preacher's One Work.

to present Him vividly before the people. You must study the record of every utterance which He made, of every act which He performed. You must enter into the spirit of His compassion, His condescension, His diligence, and His love. To do this fully, you will need the light of prophecy concentrated upon Him, and you must view Him in all the circumstances of the people among whom He dwelt. You must study not only the style of Christ's teaching, and the methods of His work, but you must Study Him personally, until you have taken into yourselves the stamp of His character and the impress of His own image. You must then translate His Spirit into all your circumstances. In your association with others you must think: What would Christ have said? What would have been His Spirit? Amidst opposition you encounter, how would Christ have borne it? Amidst work to be done, how would Christ have performed it? And so, in all your intermingling in society, you are to manifest the Spirit of Christ. To manifest it successfully, you must have it. You must realize the full meaning of these words: "Christ in you the hope of glory."

With this image of Christ in your minds, and with His Spirit in your hearts, you will survey the work to be accomplished, bearing in mind that neither argument nor rhetoric of your own can save the people; and yet that the best powers of these which you can possibly gain may be wielded by the Holy Spirit for the salvation of men. Your one work must be to hold up Christ before men, and so present Him that the people shall see Him through your life, as well as through your representation. People judge not so much of truth in its abstract as in its embodied form. You may speak of the meekness and love of Christ; but you stand in Christ's stead before their eyes, and they look for that meekness and love in you, and you dishonour your Master when you exhibit a spirit different from His. You must realize, with the Apostle: "For me to live is Christ." Your life must be hid in Him.

Paul said to Timothy : "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." You stand before your

congregations to show them how a Christian should live, how he should converse, how he should mingle in society, how gentle, loving, and patient he should be. If the fugleman who stands before the undrilled soldier to show him by his example what the word of command means commits an error, his example is copied, and the drill is imperfect.

So you are to stand as fuglemen before your churches. If your spirit is wrong, theirs will be also.

That you may gain this high condition, daily reading of the Holy Scriptures is necessary. The soul needs food more than the body. Jesus says: "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." Your object in thus reading should be not to gain matter for sermons, nor for the proof of favourite doctrines, nor for the purposes of controversy; but to sustain your own spiritual strength. You should discipline yourself to read personally, not alone professionally. In his reading the young minister is too liable to apply passages to those around him, and thus he fails to realize the spiritual needs of himself. He is like a certain maiden lady who always cast glances on those around her when she joined in the response: Have mercy upon us miserable sinners!"

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So also is it essential to be a man of prayer. While the minister prays for his people, he must pray especially for himself. He must bear upon his bosom, as did the old high priest, the names and wants of the people. But first of all he must bring his own sacrifice to the altar. Successful ministers have been always men of prayer. You remember how Luther and Calvin used to spend whole nights in prayer before their sermons.

In this they copied the great Master. See Luther wrestling on the floor all night in agony of prayer on the eve before the Diet of Worms, and you will not be surprised at his noble answer the next day, nor at his subsequent declaration: "Bene orasse est bene studuisse."

Another element of success is faith-personal faith in the atoning merits of Christ, our only sacrifice and our only mediator. Through it we enjoy the consciousness of the forgiveness of sin, andthe assurance of our acceptance with God. We also need