The Strongest Element of Power.

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Word of God and to prayer. They laboured night and day, publicly and privately, in season and out of season, warning even with tears. So must be the minister of to-day. A man of one work, he studies how to concentrate all possible power to produce one result. As the burning-glass concentrates the rays of light until they form a point of consuming power, so thoughts gathered from all sources, illustrations from all departments, all pass through his mind, and are focussed on one point-the destruction of sin, and the substitution of holiness. It was said by the great Psalmist: "The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up." The prophet says: "His Word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones."

The strongest element of power is love for humanity. Christ loved men so much that He gave Himself to die for them. The true minister must also exhibit an intensity of love. When the sick came to Jesus, He asked no questions as to race, parentage, or birth; no questions as to their conceptions of Him or whether their parents or friends were His friends. He simply healed them all. He showed them His kindness by His cleansing touch, and sparks of grace coming from Him electrified their souls. So the minister must be doing good to those around him. They may dislike him and avoid him; but that does not diminish his obligation to do them good. We must follow with a spirit of love those who repel us and would flee away. The Apostle had so much of this spirit that we hear him saying: "I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved." So intense was this affection that he exclaimed: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh." The same intense agony of spirit was manifested by Moses, when he pleaded for the Israelites: "Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sins; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy Book, which Thou hast written." The same spirit dwells in the bosom of all earnest and successful ministers. "Give me souls, or I die!" has been the exclamation of many a devoted servant of God. This longing earnestness will manifest itself in the spirit of the minister, will be breathed into his sermons, and

48

Hindrances to Usefulness.

will actuate him in all his duties. Men will see that he is in the ministry not simply as a means for getting a livelihood, but that his mission is to save and bless humanity.

In his intercourse with society the preacher is to avoid a spirit of dogmatism. The things connected with the pulpit naturally lead in this direction. The pulpit is the theme of the preacher. He utters his message authoritatively, and he is very liable to utter his own thoughts in the same manner. The attorney has his antagonistic counsel watching him every moment, questioning his authorities, denying the correctness of his statements, showing the fallacy of his arguments, and the irrelevancy of his illustrations. He has got to be perpetually on his guard. Attorneys treat this as a necessary incident in professional life, and, while excited this hour, they are genial and pleasant the next. But the minister, unused to contradiction or reply, thinks himself insulted if one calls in question the correctness of his views or the accuracy of his statements. It would be a good thing for you if you could have some true friend who would carefully show you the weakness of your arguments, the defects in your statements, or any errors, either of speech or manner, into which you may have fallen. Such a man would be your greatest friend. And yet how few are willing to receive kindly such admonition!

Sometimes a morbid sensitiveness, almost amounting to irritability and peevishness, impairs a minister's usefulness. This does not arrive directly from his work. The spirit of the Gospel is one of patience and love; but his irritability springs out of a constitutional tendency. The minister is generally of an active temperament, and frequently of fine taste and æsthetic culture. His whole training develops nervous sensibility. Poets and sculptors, painters and singers, are proverbially irritable. Whatever is incongruous or inharmonious shocks them. Musical connoisseurs are sometimes in terrible agony while others are enjoying a plain evening song. Every minister knows, or will know, the troubles that arise among singers, and the difficulties of keeping large choirs together. It is the result of their peculiarly sensitive organism. Preachers are liable to the same influences. They may not be

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either fine singers or renowned pocts or painters; but they live in a realm of nervous excitement. They have a poetic outlook. They see images of grandeur and conceptions of purity and glory. The realities of life, the hard knocks of the world, the discords of society, affect most unfavourably such constitutions. But the minister should remember that he is sent to exhibit the beauty of the Christian life and a spirit of gentleness and patience in the midst of an agitated world.

One great source of the minister's annoyance is connected with his pecuniary support. In nine cases out of ten this will be quite limited. He has been well educated, associated with respectable society, admires the beautiful in paintings, and feels the absolute necessity of books. But he has not a fortune at his command. His salary, though oftentimes meagre, is not promptly paid, and many a sad heartache comes from inability to meet pressing wants and demands. The true remedy can be found only in economy. In college life he studied political economy; but in ministerial life his studies will be protracted and severe in personal and domestic economy. An inflexible resolution should be formed never to get in debt. "Owe no man anything," is an apostolic injunction. John Randolph is reported to have said in Congress: "I have found the philosopher's stone. It is: Pay as you go."

The young minister will need to guard against self-conceit. He may have been successful in preaching, and fancies he has already overcome all difficulties, and will take his place as one of the leaders of the land. He has scarcely descended from the pulpit when someone is silly enough to tell him—and he is foolish enough to believe-that he has preached a fine sermon. He compares himself with some able and aged minister, and fancies that he is already more popular; and he lays aside his sermon with the conviction that it is as nearly perfect as a human production can be, and he has little more need for study or care, because his fame is already sealed.

It cannot be denied that there is a tendency among churches to seek for young men, rather than for the old; and, I believe, this is one of the great errors of Christian congregations. It is

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constant

study

not so in other professions. The older a physician is, and the more cases he has successfully treated, the greater is the confidence placed in him. The attorney, as he grows in years, is supposed to increase in knowledge and skill; and, whilst clients are willing that the younger members of the firm should draw up papers and prepare the case, they desire the counsel and advice of the senior members to guide the case through its intricacies. A statesman never grows too old to be appreciated and sought for. Russell, Brougham, Palmerston, Webster, and Clay were leaders as long as they lived. To-day Gladstone, Disraeli, Bismarck, and Gortschakoff are the men who control in great measure the destinies of Europe. Why should it not be so in the ministry? Why is it that men turn, in the most important interests of life affecting themselves and their families, from the counsels of age and experience to those of youth and less skill?

I may not be able to answer this question satisfactorily either to you or to myself. One reason is, I believe, the neglect of study on the part of many aged ministers. They lose that stimulus which belongs to other professions. To the physician every case is a new study. New remedies are discovered and recommended. He must keep abreast of the times, or some intruder will take away his practice. The attorney finds some new element in almost every case. New decisions are given by the Supreme Court, and he must study them. In statesmanship new complications are constantly arising. The connections of nations are so numerous, the questions involved are so various and sometimes so vast, as to require the utmost comprehension to grasp them, and the closest attention to the least minutiæ and detail. The statesman has no old sermon that he can pick up and apply. He must think and study and write, and thus keep his mind ever active and fresh. There is no time for him to nod or sleep. But the old minister sits down under his vine or fig tree, and there is no one to molest him or to make him afraid. He hurls thunderbolts at the heads of scientists who are a thousand miles away, and who will never hear his thunder; he descants upon the sins of the Egyptians, who have been mummies for thousands of years; or he discourses upon the pride of Babylon or Nineveh, which have

been swept away for ages. He is pressed for time, and brings before his congregation of to-day a discourse which he had made twenty years ago, on an issue then living, but now almost forgotten. His thoughts are of the past; his sermons are of the past; and the generation of to-day feels that he is scarcely one of them.

But, independent of this, society loves to be stirred or excited. Youth has greater power in rousing it; has more enthusiasm and zeal. Whether it be more earnest in heart or not, it exhibits greater earnestness in action. The eye sparkles more brightly, the utterance is more rapid, the gesticulation more excited, and the whole bearing more impassioned. There is no need of age losing its keenness of thought, though it may somewhat its energy of manner. I think the latter is almost inevitable.

I must not touch much on metaphysics; yet I may say that minds differ generically in two things: First, in the rapidity with which thought succeeds thought. I can fancy it quite possible that some men may think two or three times as fast as I can. In the image cast from the camera you have sometimes seen how slowly a shadow may pass across the curtain, and then again how rapidly one chases another. It may be so across the field of mind. Where thoughts move most rapidly in succession, conclusions are more rapidly reached; and if, as some philosophers fancy, the origin of the idea of duration is from the flow of thought, one man may seem to live longer in a month than another in a year. Now, as the pulse, in the same person, beats more rapidly in youth and more slowly in age, so is it true in regard to the succession of thought.

The second element in which minds differ is in the number of thoughts which troop across the field. I have no faith in the theory sometimes advanced that we can have only one idea in the mind at a time. If that were so, there could be no comparison and no reasoning; there would be no fancy, no imagination. Some minds are very narrow; they are your severely logical minds. Their whole strength is spent in examining how one link of thought is fastened into another, and how strong and unbroken is the chain. The chief motion of their minds is in a