V 
 
 APR 20 1918 
 
 BV 660 
 
 .H6 
 
 
 
 Hobart, 
 
 Alvah 
 
 Sabin, 
 
 1847- 
 
 1930. 
 
 
 
 
 Pedagogy for 
 
 ministers 
 
PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
PEDAGOGY FOR 
 MINISTERS 
 
 AN APPLICATION OF PEDAGOGICAL 
 PRINCIPLES TO THE PREACHING AND 
 OTHER WORK OF THE PASTOR 
 
 BY 
 
 ALVAH SABIN HOBART 
 
 Professor New Testament Interpretation in Crozer Theological Seminary 
 
 Author of "Seed Thoughts for Right Living," " Transplanted Truths from 
 
 Ephesians," "The Holy Spirit, Our Silent Partner," Etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 191 7, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 N. Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
PREFACE 
 
 QOME years ago a school-teacher friend of 
 ^ mine led me to make a study of pedagogy. 
 As a science it was all new to me. In my col- 
 lege days there was no such study in the cur- 
 riculum. I found the science so full of interest 
 and practical usefulness in my preaching that 
 when I took my place as a teacher of young 
 ministers I, on my own initiative, undertook to 
 give as an elective some lectures upon it. So 
 many expressions came to me appreciative of 
 the study that I have been led to put a condensa- 
 tion of those lectures into this form for the 
 benefit of the hundreds of men in our corre- 
 spondence course, and for such other men as have 
 not had the benefit of such study. It is, as will 
 be seen, not technical. It is suggestive only. If 
 the " seed catches,'* as the farmers say, it will 
 make the lawn green. 
 
 A. S. H. 
 
 Crozer Theological Seminary. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Pastor an Educator 
 
 11. What Is Pedagogy? 
 
 III. Attention 
 
 IV. Words as Symbols 
 V. Metaphors and Similes 
 
 VI. Illustration . 
 
 VII. Reasoning 
 
 VIII. The Point of Contact 
 
 IX. Ideals 
 
 X. Self-Activity 
 
 XI. Motives . 
 
 XII. Motives (Continued) 
 
 XIII. Exposition 
 
 XIV. Doctrinal Teaching 
 XV. Creeds and Liturgies 
 
 XVI. Pedagogy in the Management 
 
 OF the Church . 
 
 XVII. Evangelistic Pedagogy 
 
 9 
 
 23 
 
 33 
 
 45 
 
 58 
 
 65 
 
 78 
 
 90 
 
 102 
 
 116 
 
 124 
 
 134 
 
 144 
 
 153 
 161 
 
 170 
 
 178 
 
Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all na- 
 tions; baptising them into the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. — 
 Matt. 28:19. 
 
 THE PASTOR AN EDUCATOR 
 
 TtyrR. SPXJRGEON once said that he could not 
 '■'^-*' talk on any public occasion without a text. 
 If he did not have one stated he had one in mind. 
 The text controlling my thought in these chapters 
 reads as follows: 
 
 Go ye, therefore, 
 
 Disciple all nations. 
 
 Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
 I commanded you. 
 
 And lo, I am with you always even unto the end 
 of the world. 
 This commission, whether it was given at that 
 time or gathered after the ascension, as some 
 think, from the tenor of his teachings and summed 
 up in this form, is the most important of Chris- 
 tian teaching next to the promise of salvation by 
 faith in Jesus. 
 
 It not only was necessary for their guidance, 
 9 
 
10 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 since he left the whole cause for which he came 
 into the world in their hands, but it was neces- 
 sary for their encouragement in the arduous 
 undertaking. If they had not done what this 
 directed them to do the message and the teaching 
 of Jesus would have evaporated from men's minds 
 in a generation or two and made no considerable 
 mark upon the world's life. 
 
 But because they sought to obey the command, 
 and to pass it on to others, and because the 
 churches also have ever since taken it as their com- 
 mission, the Gospel has been preached, and the 
 truth has been taught to a great portion of the 
 world. 
 
 And since the pastors are the natural inheritors 
 of the commission it is in an especial degree in- 
 cumbent on them to give attention to the full 
 import of the commission. 
 
 It has four consecutive steps. 
 
 '' Go" It is not " stay and give the gospel to 
 all that come,'' but go to all. "Disciple" all 
 nations. That included what Paul said he was 
 especially told to do. (Rom. 1:5, 10:14, i5; 
 Gal. 1:16.) 
 
 It was what the twelve did not attempt to do 
 very enthusiastically. Peter needed to be taught 
 it again when he was sent to Cornelius. (Acts 
 10: 1-48.) The whole church in Jerusalem needed 
 to have it pressed upon them after Peter had been 
 taught it. Nearly all Jerusalem Christians had 
 
THE PASTOR AN EDUCATOR 11 
 
 failed to see the full import of it, and it took per- 
 secution to scatter them before they were able tcP 
 see it as a duty to " speak the word to the Gen- 
 tiles also" (Acts II : 19-21) and persuade them 
 to enroll in the school of Jesus as " disciples " or 
 students. 
 
 "" Baptise." That is lead them out into a public 
 confession in the appointed way. 
 
 '' Teach " them. After they are enrolled in the 
 school of Jesus do not think that all is now done; 
 that now they are " saved "; as if salvation meant 
 only some sort of insurance against future punish- 
 ment, but give them the enlightenment and disci- 
 pline of life that will lead them to do what Jesus 
 had taught that men ought to do to '" observe 
 whatsoever I have commanded you.'^ 
 
 This ''teaching them to observe" is to crown 
 your endeavors. It is to be the goal to which you 
 are to try and bring them all. It is the dominat- 
 ing purpose that should regulate and infuse itself 
 into all your other work. 
 
 We do not have the record of the actual work 
 of those twelve. But we have the record which 
 makes it certain that they learned well the mean- 
 ing of the commission, for they and the first gen- 
 eration of believers preserved in the gospels the 
 teaching of Jesus. Both by recorded word and 
 by the example of the Lord himself we are freed 
 from doubt concerning what sort of lives he de- 
 sires us to live. 
 
12 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 Consider then the importance that is attached 
 to teaching. 
 
 In the Old Testament Moses was a great 
 teacher. (Deut. 4:1.) "And now O Israel 
 hearken unto the statutes and unto the ordinances 
 that I teach you, to do them; that ye may live, 
 and go in and possess the land which Jehovah, 
 the God of your fathers, giveth you." This 
 Moses has been the most influential of all the men 
 of history except the Man of Nazareth. Mosaic 
 ideas of justice and mercy, of truth and fidelity 
 to duty, of courage and patience saturate the prac- 
 tices of all the Christian and Mohammedan world. 
 
 When Samuel came to the leadership of Israel 
 he said to them : " Far be it from me that I should 
 sin against Jehovah in ceasing to pray for you, 
 but I will instruct you in the good and right way.*' 
 
 Elisha appears to have been at the head of a 
 school for the prophets. (II Kings 2 : 3-7; 4:1; 
 5:22; 9:1.) 
 
 Job said of God, Who is a teacher like unto 
 him? (36:22.) See also 35: II. 
 
 The Psalms abound in allusions to the teaching 
 of truth. 
 
 " Jehovah will instruct sinners in the way." 
 (25:8.) "Come ye children hearken unto me, I 
 will teach you the fear of the Lord." (Ps. 
 
 34:11.) 
 
 " Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation 
 then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sin- 
 
THE PASTOR AN EDUCATOR 13 
 
 ners shall be converted unto thee." (Ps. 51 : 13.)' 
 " So teach us to number our days that we may 
 get a heart of wisdom." (Ps. 90: 12.) (See also 
 94:12.) 
 
 A study of the Psalms shows that all the fun- 
 damental principles of education were employed 
 by those who arranged the liturgical services of 
 the temple. There is a rich amount of song in 
 which the character of God is declared. There 
 are songs of praise from the men of great faith. 
 There are warnings against wickedness. The 
 grandest metaphors and the finest of similes are 
 used to express good men's ideas of God. Then 
 there are the historical psalms like the 104-106, 
 in which the history of the nation as God had 
 guided it was taught by oft repetition. In all 
 this the purpose was not simply to tell the story 
 of the nation but to show that God's hand was in 
 it all. Merle d'Aubigne wrote in the preface of 
 his history of the Reformation, ** The history of 
 the world should be set forth as the annals of the 
 Sovereign king." . . . " I have gone down the 
 lists whither the recitals of our historians have 
 invited me. There I have witnessed the actions 
 of men, and of nations, developing themselves 
 with energy, and contending in violent collision. 
 I have heard a strange din of arms, but I have 
 nowhere seen the majestic countenance of the pre- 
 siding Judge." 
 
 That could not be said of the Bible. It sketches 
 
14 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 the path along which the nation of Israel stum- 
 bled; but the hand of God is in every leading 
 event, and the guidance of God in every great 
 man's life. The historical books and the devo- 
 tional books alike are books that teach the things 
 of God and the duties of man. Even the out- 
 bursts of praise from joyous souls, and the mourn- 
 ful cries of men in great trial, v^ere sought out 
 and inserted in the book to teach the way of God 
 with men. The charge of d'Aubigne against 
 modern historians cannot be brought against the 
 men who wrote or the men who sorted out from 
 the writings the books that make our Bible. In 
 that Book the " majestic countenance of the 
 judge " always shines upon the path of the peo- 
 ple who worship him. 
 
 In the New Testament. Here the record shows 
 that Jesus' great work was teaching. (Matt. 
 7 : 29. ) We read that he " taught them as one 
 having authority." (Mark 10:1.) *' The mul- 
 titudes came together and as he was accustomed 
 he taught them." 
 
 (John 7:14) "He went into the temple and 
 taught." 
 
 (John 3:2) When Nicodemus came to talk 
 with him he said, ** We know that thou art a 
 teacher come from God." 
 
 And these verbal designations are only indica- 
 tions of what is in the heart of all his ministry. 
 He was always teaching men the things of God. 
 
THE PASTOR AN EDUCATOR 15 
 
 All Jerusalem and all Galilee thought of him not 
 as some great, fiery orator, like John the Bap- 
 tist, nor like the prophet Elijah, but as a man 
 who was stirring ujp the country by his teaching. 
 He set men to thinking. When he rebuked he 
 showed them why they deserved his rebukes. 
 When he exhorted he gave them reasons for his 
 exhortation. When he would inspire them to 
 courage and endurance he gave the truth which 
 was back of his encouragement. (John 18:37.) 
 When he stood before Pilate and was asked if he 
 were a king he replied, " I came into the world 
 to bear witness to the truth." 
 
 After he was gone his disciples became teach- 
 ers. The complaint made about them was (Acts 
 3:42): "These men, whom you had in prison, 
 are * standing and teaching the people.' "... 
 " And every day they ceased not to teach and 
 preach Jesus as the Christ." When the church 
 was started at Antioch, Barnabas came and 
 hunted up Saul who was then getting a great 
 name as a teacher and " for a whole year taught 
 much people." (Acts 11 : 26.) 
 
 Apollos was said to have " taught accurately 
 the things concerning Jesus " but he was not fully 
 informed. Then Aquila and Priscilla took him 
 and " instructed him more perfectly." This seems 
 to have been the first theological school after 
 Jesus' ascension and a woman was one of the 
 professors. 
 
16 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 The nature of the work. Beyond all these ex- 
 emplifications of the teaching habit of great lead- 
 ers, and beyond all the suggestions that may come 
 from the word "teacher" or "teaching," there 
 lies in the very nature of the pastor's work the 
 necessity for teaching. The pastor's work is to 
 lead men to high moral and spiritual life. But 
 that can only be done by enabling them to see and 
 feel the truth that moral and spiritual life rest 
 upon. Men may be scared into an outward con- 
 formity, but they are not transformed by it. 
 Break a man's sense of fear and he will go back 
 to his sins "as a sow to her wallowing in the 
 mire." (James.) Men may be coaxed into join- 
 ing a church to please friends or to gain some 
 social end, but they are not lifted in their life. 
 Men may be hired to join the procession of the 
 Christian world by promises of heaven or some- 
 thing that they value more than heaven. Such 
 are only a higher kind of " rice Christians.'* 
 
 All these fail when the times of trial come. 
 But the man who has been made to see the truth 
 that underlies all the Christian life is as sure to 
 go the way of truth as water is to run down hill. 
 Men cannot commit themselves, and they ought 
 not to commit themselves, as the Christian must 
 commit himself, either to a system of ethics or to 
 a theory of life or to the man Jesus as Savior, 
 unless they know enough about them to justify 
 their faith, li they know but little they can trust 
 
THE PASTOR AN EDUCATOR 17 
 
 but little. If they begin their discipleship upon 
 an erroneous idea of what it means they will 
 desert the cause when they discover their error. 
 They must be taught the principles correctly. 
 
 It is the men who are convinced that stay in the 
 line of duty. When men have begun correctly 
 they must still be taught the truths adapted to 
 maturer experience. If they have been mistaught 
 they are to be corrected. As Paul wrote to Titus, 
 they must be "convinced by sound doctrine." 
 An incorrect doctrine will deflect a man's con- 
 duct as surely as a load of steel will deflect the 
 needle of the ship's compass. One cannot hold a 
 philosophy that is against the Christian teaching 
 without his life being gradually deflected from the 
 Christian path. A Utilitarian will find his esti- 
 mate of conduct out of harmony with the estimate 
 made by a man who is an Idealist. A Calvinistic 
 theology will impart a tone to a man's life dif- 
 ferent from that which an Armenian theology 
 will give. This is why Paul in his attempts to 
 correct the life of the disciples began his letters 
 with a doctrinal section and then from the doc- 
 trine he proceeded with his " Theref ores " to 
 specific lines of duty. 
 
 (Rom. 5:1) Therefore we have peace with 
 God. 
 
 (Gal. 6:1) Stand fast therefore in the liberty 
 wherewith Christ hath set us free. 
 
 (Eph. 4:1) I therefore beseech you to walk 
 
18 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 worthy of the calling. Note the first words o£ 
 nearly every chapter of Hebrews and see how the 
 logical inference from the preceding truth is 
 made toward a practical duty. Thus it appears 
 that the teaching function of the pastor is not an 
 incident but an essential element in his proper ful- 
 filment of his high calling. 
 
 The pastor is a man who has been up into the 
 high mountain of truth and seen the far-reaching 
 landscape. He has found the path by which he 
 can climb again. Then he comes down and leads 
 his people up to where he has been. And when 
 they have seen the vision from that viewpoint, 
 they will never be the same people again. Some 
 of the details will fade from the mind but there 
 will be a residuum. The world will never be so 
 small again. Life will never appear so short or 
 so unimportant. The emotion may die out, the 
 ambition of the hour may be satisfied, but the soul 
 itself will remain larger and purer for the vision. 
 
 Teaching is the nearest to miracle-working of 
 anything we can do. To give a man a clear idea 
 of a great truth is to put something into his mind 
 that will remake the whole man. History is full 
 of instances in which a new view of the facts of 
 life changed men so much that the words of the 
 apostle are suitable, " They are begotten again by 
 the word of truth." 
 
 Elijah's work was spectacular. His deeds seem 
 like ancient marks of high water that we look at 
 
THE PASTOR AN EDUCATOR 19 
 
 and wonder if the water ever was so high, and if it 
 ever will be again. The Psalms are rippling 
 streams of sparkling water inviting us to drink. 
 Ezra no doubt did some good exhortation, but 
 the work of which he has most reason to rejoice 
 now is that he organized the temple services on a 
 teaching basis, and wrought to secure a bible for 
 the instruction of Israel. 
 
 The liturgies of the church are not only vehicles 
 for the worshipping soul to express itself, but 
 they are schools of instruction. Looking at the 
 churches that we call strong churches — not large 
 churches always — and we see that they have been 
 the care of educational pastors. The men who 
 are honored most among us all are men who have 
 the teaching gift. I do not mean to say that 
 " house going " pastors and " ingathering " pas- 
 tors have little usefulness, for they are both use- 
 ful and necessary; but I mean that the more 
 permanent results are from the labors of those 
 who have the teaching gift well exercised and 
 developed. 
 
 Evangelism has a great place in the work of 
 the kingdom. Mr. Moody, Elder Knapp, " Sam " 
 Small, and " Sam " Jones, Dr. Finney, Gipsy 
 Smith, Mr. Chapman, are names that will be re- 
 membered. But their work is scattered about 
 and they cannot stay to conserve it. But F. W. 
 Robertson, for example, had a work that remains. 
 It has been written of him that " on those whose 
 
20 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 tendencies were toward skepticism the effect of 
 his sermons was remarkable. " I never hear 
 him," said one, " without some doubt being re- 
 moved, or some difficulty being solved. Young 
 men who had boasted publicly of doubts which 
 were an inward terror to them could not resist 
 the attractive power of his teaching, and fled to 
 him to disclose the history of their hearts, and 
 find sympathy and guidance." *' The most visible 
 part of his work was among working men. He 
 tound fifteen hundred of them together in a bond 
 of mutual helpfulness." '' Dissenting preachers 
 spoke of his sermons with praise. Business men 
 wrote to say that they felt that Christianity was 
 a power in life. Men whose intellect had been 
 wearied with pulpit sameness read them with in- 
 terest. Fourteen editions of his sermons have 
 been printed and are yet read by many with 
 profit." 
 
 Mr. Spurgeon was a great educator. Not only 
 in his preaching did the teaching element abound 
 but in his pastoral work and plans his college and 
 his preachers' school were central. His work all 
 has the earmarks of true pedagogy. 
 
 Mr. Beecher taught, but in his own peculiar 
 way. He was so much of a student of psychology 
 that he was an interpreter of men to themselves. 
 He always based his sermons and his appeals on 
 some common and familiar experience, and then 
 started from that to practical inferences from the 
 
THE PASTOR AN EDUCATOR 21 
 
 experience. His congregations were religiously 
 well trained. And when he died, although they 
 were thus made orphans, yet without a quaver 
 the church went on with the work he had begun. 
 
 On the contrary Mr. Talmadge in the same city, 
 at the same time, gathered great congregations 
 and was a great pulpiteer. But when he was 
 gone it took only a few weeks to disband the 
 church. They had been accustomed to stare at 
 his great stereopticon metaphors; they had revelled 
 in his poetic fancies; but they had done no think- 
 ing on great problems and had no power to solve 
 them.* 
 
 As a more recent instance we may name J. 
 Campbell Morgan. Perhaps no man of equal 
 ability in preaching mingles so much of the true 
 teaching quality as he. Some of his views and of 
 his interpretations may not meet with your ap- 
 proval, but his ability to impress them on his 
 audiences is hardly equalled by any one. 
 
 * After writing the above the following editorial ap- 
 peared in the Watchman-Examiner: 
 
 Dr. Talmadge was a pulpit orator of the flamboyant, 
 sensational type. His sermons were not intended primarily 
 for the edification or the comfort of a local congrega- 
 tion and were quite as applicable to the people of Kam- 
 chatka as to the people of Brooklyn. He had no personal 
 touch with people of his congregation and no intimate 
 knowledge of their needs or their aspirations. When the 
 great Tabernacle went up in flames the church collapsed. 
 In the great heterogeneous congregation there was not 
 enough of energy and spiritual life to enable it to get 
 together to erect a new house of worship; so the church 
 went out of existence, and the members scattered to other 
 congregations. 
 
22 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 " The foremost thought of the ministry is re- 
 sponsibility for the oversight of souls, although 
 that is blent, so that the two can hardly be kept 
 apart, with the further task of religious instruc- 
 tion. . . . The idea of stewardship in connection 
 with the minister has special reference to providing 
 the household with supplies of divine truth." 
 (Oswald Dykes.) 
 
 " Commending ourselves in the sight of every 
 man by the manifestation of the truth." (Paul.) 
 
 The teaching pastor, therefore, is in the best of 
 company and has the surest, brightest prospects of 
 long and unfailing usefulness. 
 
 I urge you to cultivate with all possible en- 
 thusiasm, care, and patience the teaching quality 
 of your preaching. It will be the people whom 
 you have " convinced by sound doctrine " who 
 will stand by when the strain comes. Those 
 whom you only please without edifying will hide 
 when the storm arises. The young whom you 
 educate will recall with gratitude your ministry. 
 They will tell the children, " He is the man that 
 showed me the truth. All that came afterwards 
 only watered the flowers that he planted." 
 
II. 
 
 The Bishop must he apt to teach. Take charge 
 of the Hock over which the Holy Spirit hath 
 made you overseer. — Paul. 
 
 WHAT IS PEDAGOGY? 
 
 IF we are to be teachers it will be well for us to 
 think over the content of that word "teach- 
 ing." We use it in the broad sense as the equiva- 
 lent of " educating." And the science of educat- 
 ing is called the science of pedagogy. Primarily 
 the word meant to lead the young. In the old 
 Roman world the well-to-do sent a servant along 
 with their young children to the school as a 
 guard and guide. He was called a pedagogue. In 
 the King James version of the Bible (Gal. 3 : 24) 
 we read that " the law was a schoolmaster " — 
 (in the Greek it is pedagogue) — "to lead us to 
 Christ." But now we call pedagogy the science 
 of teaching in any and in all grades. There is 
 a branch of it in the primary and another in the 
 intermediate departments. I am applying the 
 word to some part of the preacher's activities. 
 
 General pedagogy is the science of leading out. 
 Powers of body or mind that are latent are to be 
 led out into full activity. For example, a man 
 has by nature the gift of speech. But if it be 
 
 33 
 
24 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 not led out — e-ducated — it will be a small affair. 
 It was said of Bismarck that he could be silent in 
 seven languages. Unless the gift of possible 
 speech with which we are endowed be cultivated 
 we shall practically be silent in every language. 
 Many a man comes into our classes who has ideas 
 and thinking powers of unusual value, but whose 
 power of speech is so poorly developed that his 
 ideas are shut up in his mind. He cannot give 
 them any adequate expression. They are of not 
 much more use in the world than the possible 
 statue of a great man that is contained in a block 
 of fine marble but not yet cut out. 
 
 All men have some imagination. But unless it 
 be developed a great part of the world's wisdom 
 and beauty will be — so far as such undeveloped 
 minds are concerned — as if they did not exist. 
 Men have reasoning powers, but how feeble they 
 are until they have been brought into fullness by 
 use. When they have been brought out into ma- 
 turity man is put upon the throne that makes him 
 preeminent in creation. The animate and inani- 
 mate worlds submit to his dominance. So with 
 the moral powers. Reverence for God, respect for 
 one's self, love of truth for truth's sake, kindness 
 to our fellow men are embryonically present in 
 all, but they must be e-ducated imtil we are in 
 character Christ-like. 
 
 Take the case of men, we will say, who have 
 come into the church from some great evangelistic 
 
WHAT IS PEDAGOGY? 25 
 
 meeting. They are real converts to Christ, but 
 how embryonic they are! Their idea of God is 
 that he is a great king. The words of the Psalm 
 are suitable for them : " Jehovah is a God of 
 gods." '* Greatly to be feared is Jehovah in the 
 assembhes of the saints." When they pray their 
 prayers are a cross between children asking of 
 their fathers and men begging favor of a tyrant. 
 They are like Solomon at the dedication of the 
 temple. He prayed repeatedly that Jehovah would 
 hear the prayers of his people and when they 
 turned from evil ways forgive them. One would 
 think that Jehovah's readiness to forgive was a 
 doubtful matter, and therefore Solomon needed to 
 remind him of his duty in the case. But after 
 a time these same men will have so far developed 
 their sense of Jehovah's goodness that they al- 
 most cease to ask but only praise. As Dr. W. N. 
 Clarke expressed it " such men do not think the 
 Church is a widow but a bride, her Lord always 
 at hand." 
 
 Here is a man with a large amount of good 
 in him but only a little of the leaven of truth. 
 After a time the leaven, under the influence of 
 good teaching, works its wonderful changes so 
 that he lives for great purposes and in great 
 joyfulness. 
 
 This boy, just opening his eyes to the world, 
 with every sensibility alert, making his life choices 
 of companions and occupations and principles—' 
 
26 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 the teacher is to so direct him in these formative 
 years that his future course will be one of wis- 
 dom and loyalty to Christ. 
 
 To educate, then, is much more than telling 
 people something they did not know before you 
 told them. That is only a small part of educat- 
 ing them. It must seek to give them power to 
 find out things for themselves. To explain the 
 Bible is good, but to give them power to explain 
 it themselves is better. 
 
 It is more than to train men to certain lines 
 of action. Dogs can be trained to do some things. 
 I have seen statements that even fleas can be 
 trained to do things. And one man has trained 
 flies to perform tricks. Even pigs have been 
 taught to pick out letters. And it is possible to 
 train people to do what are called religious acts 
 with about as much real intelligence about them 
 as these other trained animals have in their doings. 
 There are no thought processes set into motion. 
 It is habit or memory or association only. These 
 are all parts of education but they are only pre- 
 liminary activities looking toward maturer de- 
 velopments. 
 
 Some pastors do a great amount of this train- 
 ing work. I knew of one who succeeded in get- 
 ting more than fifty of his members to stand up 
 and repeat the first eight chapters of Romans. 
 That was a great success. But they may have 
 gained only a very little idea of Paul's teaching 
 
WHAT IS PEDAGOGY? 27 
 
 after all. I knew a girl in the Sunday School who 
 repeated several chapters from the book of John. 
 But she was too young to have the faintest idea 
 of what it was all about. That was good memory 
 drill but it was not moral or religious education. 
 One good man used to say he did not think he 
 knew a passage of scripture until he had prac- 
 ticed it. 
 
 In the pastor's task therefore there is more 
 than getting people to know the story of the 
 Bible and the Creed and the Catechism. More 
 than to secure an habitual attendance on the 
 services of the church. He must bring out into 
 full strength the latent spiritual forces and get 
 them into action. 
 
 In religious matters it is more than mastering 
 some of the problems of theology, important as 
 those are. It is a sad fact that many who are 
 experts in theology are perverts in practical life. 
 We might at some time send a man from our 
 school with a degree, of whom his fellow stu- 
 dents think that another, whose scholarship 
 scarcely warrants a diploma, is better educated 
 in religion than he. 
 
 It is bringing social virtues to maturity. I do 
 not mean the power of conversation, but I mean 
 the ability and disposition to live in company with 
 one's fellow men and do his part, carry his share 
 of the burden, trust his fellows and be trusted 
 by them. To put it concretely it means to be 
 
28 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 a neighborly, law-obeying citizen who votes and 
 votes on the right side of great moral questions; 
 who pays his debts as promptly as he is able; 
 who pays his taxes without grumbling; who helps 
 others to do their duty. It means readiness to 
 do his part and pay his proportion in the church, 
 and not to be a crank. 
 
 It is making the spiritual part of men to be- 
 come dominant. They are to be led into such 
 an estimate of values that things of affection and 
 character are considered to be worth more than 
 things that can be eaten, or things that can be 
 counted and weighed. They are to be led to see 
 that things that have their beginning and end in 
 this world are of less importance than things of 
 eternity. And this means that what is called 
 spiritual life be not misunderstood. In my school 
 days I used, as students do now, go out here and 
 there to supply vacant pulpits. I thus had oppor- 
 tunity to hear many estimates of other preachers. 
 I found that in very many cases if a man preached 
 the severer side of the truth he was called an 
 " old-fashioned preacher." If he reasoned of right- 
 eousness in a modern way he was called a " doc- 
 trinal preacher " — " smart but not very pious." 
 If he was a teaching preacher they said, *' That 
 man fed me. I can go like Elijah on the strength 
 of that meat forty days." But if he stirred the 
 emotions and made the congregation weep, they 
 said he was a " spiritual preacher." Each of 
 
WHAT IS PEDAGOGY? 29 
 
 these characterizations contain a truth, but the 
 really spiritual life is one that recognizes that God 
 is a great person analogous to ourselves. And 
 that we have a kind of intercourse with him. 
 
 Spiritual life is that set of feelings and activi- 
 ties that are produced in us by the thought that 
 we are in the presence and under the care of that 
 Great Person who is over all and is the Father of 
 all. To think of ourselves in the presence of such 
 a Person is to fill us with the noblest ambitions 
 and inspire us with the greatest zeal for doing 
 the things that are pleasing to him. All other 
 activities are contributory to doing, feeling, and 
 thinking his wishes for us. 
 
 It is a whole and not a fractional undertaking. 
 The Evangelist is to do one kind of work. The 
 Visitor another. But the Educator is charged 
 with all these. He is the Captain-of-spiritual- 
 industry. He is Commander-in-chief of the latent 
 forces. He calls out all the reserves of the soul 
 and directs them toward the welfare of the whole 
 man. He is the Superintendent of a school. 
 
 My purpose is to apply these principles to all 
 the work over which the pastor has oversight. 
 
 It will be considered first as pulpit pedagogy 
 and then as administrative pedagogy. 
 
 Pulpit pedagogy. The principles are the same 
 in pulpit pedagogy as those underlying all school 
 work; but the circumstances make the application 
 of them more complex. In school the teacher can 
 
30 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 ask questions, and can encourage questions; and 
 thus be able to know the needs of the student. 
 But in the pulpit work, there is no opportunity 
 for questions and answers. The sermon must in 
 some way meet the needs, and answer the ques- 
 tions that are not asked. It must be in many 
 cases a one-sided dialogue answering in the ser- 
 mon the questions that are only in the hearer's 
 mind. It must also touch the springs of action 
 so that the hearer will put into life what the 
 preacher has put into the sermon. The study 
 and the use of methods by which to accomplish 
 these things is what may be called Pulpit peda- 
 gogy. 
 
 To be able to profit by such a study one needs 
 to have some familiarity with the primary prin- 
 ciples of psychology, and to be fairly well in- 
 formed in school pedagogy for the principles are 
 the same to considerable extent. 
 
 Great help can be gained by frequent visits to 
 the public schools, or by acquaintance and con- 
 versation with public school teachers. 
 
 Valuable suggestions can also be gained by the 
 study of the methods of those denominations that 
 emphasize the teaching of the church more than 
 the evangelistic duty. In that line their experi- 
 ence is a subject of profitable consideration. We 
 may adopt without compunction the saying of 
 Cromwell to his soldiers — (but we think in a 
 much better cause and better spirit) : " The earth 
 
WHAT IS PEDAGOGY? 31 
 
 is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. We are 
 the Lord's people. Therefore help yourselves." 
 
 Administrative pedagogy. In the application 
 of pedagogy to the larger part of the pastoral 
 field the need for invention, and for the more 
 subtle influence of pedagogy, is greatly felt. All 
 the various departments of the pastor's activity 
 require the guidance of this teaching purpose. In 
 the Sunday School he will seek to foster the best 
 grade of teaching. All his wit and wisdom will 
 be needed. All his resources will be called upon 
 there. Good teaching has to compete in the 
 Sunday School with a whole battalion of brave 
 competitors. They include the social demands of 
 the day, class distinctions, the ties of good fel- 
 lowship that bind the classes together, the craze 
 for entertainment, the Boy Scout and the Camp- 
 fire Girls' themes, not to mention the mission les- 
 sons, the lawn festivals, and, lately, the Red 
 Cross gatherings; all of which seek discussion in 
 the classes. 
 
 Each one of these is useful but the ability to 
 conserve their good and to so direct them that 
 they will work together toward true education 
 along true pedagogical lines is a gift greatly to 
 be desired and almost imperatively demanded. 
 
 In pastoral visitation the necessity to be so 
 entertaining as to be welcome, and yet make visits 
 to the family both welcome and useful, taxes the 
 best powers of the pastor. 
 
32 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 In the liturgical part of the services he has to 
 struggle with titanic forces in the people who do 
 not know what they come to church for, and with 
 those who come for pious entertainment on a 
 semi-pious holiday, and with the choir who want 
 to make a good showing of their musical abilities, 
 and with his own subtle ambition to commend 
 himself as an " elegant sermonizer " — a maker of 
 sermons having " artistic perfectness." 
 
 In the liturgical churches such as the Roman 
 Catholic, Episcopalian, or Lutheran, the pastors 
 are relieved in large measure of the responsibility 
 of arranging the liturgy. It has all been arranged 
 for them by councils of men who gave the best 
 wisdom to its arrangement. But in the Baptist, 
 Congregational, and in lesser degree the Presby- 
 terian and Methodist churches the weight of re- 
 sponsibility is thrown upon the pastor. And he, 
 in a great majority of cases, never has had any 
 teaching or any study of the pedagogical intent 
 or value of the liturgical part of the services. 
 
 As Dr. Oswald Dykes has said: ''But where 
 everything is left, as in Congregational and mod- 
 ern Presbyterian worship, to the minister as sole 
 leader, his training for this high function has been 
 notoriously and unaccountably neglected." 
 
 But in all these departments of his work there 
 is both an opportunity and consequently an obli- 
 gation to regulate all that is done by the best peda- 
 gogical principles and highest educational aims. 
 
III. 
 
 Paul standing on the stairs beckoned with his 
 hand unto the people: and when there was a 
 great silence he spake unto them in the He- 
 brew language saying, Brethren and fathers 
 hear ye the defence which I now make unto 
 you. And when they heard that he spake unto 
 them in the Hebrew language they were the 
 more quiet. — Acts 21 :40. 
 
 ATTENTION 
 
 TN selecting from the principles of pedagogy 
 •■■ those that are usable in the pulpit we come 
 first to the matter of attention on the part of the 
 congregation. No considerable influence can be 
 exerted by a sermon that does not have the atten- 
 tion of the hearers. Here, as in teaching, that is 
 first in time as well as in importance. 
 
 The preacher has difficulties in this connection 
 that the teacher does not have. The parents send 
 the children to school and to Sunday School, 
 but they do not require them to attend church. 
 The rewards for attendance and the cards for 
 good lessons are not available for the preacher. 
 He must both create, to some extent, the appetite 
 and then furnish the food. In the class there is 
 the opportunity to address a question to an inat- 
 tentive scholar, and perhaps the teacher may even 
 rebuke inattention. There is also the restraining 
 
34j pedagogy for MINISTERS 
 
 and compelling influence of the teacher's nearness 
 to each scholar in the class. These the preacher 
 lacks. 
 
 On the other hand, there are avenues of ap- 
 proach open for the preacher that are closed to 
 the teacher. The general atmosphere in the 
 preacher's audience is one of quiet and attention, 
 outward at least. And that is favorable. Then 
 attention is based upon interests of many kinds. 
 There are many avenues to interest open to the 
 preacher that are not open to the teacher. And 
 some of them will reach some of the hearers. 
 
 An incident in business, political, or social life 
 is always an opening to interest. Just as most 
 people want to have some human figure in the 
 painting of a landscape, and feel that the picture 
 is lonesome without it, so a sermon or a discus- 
 sion of abstract truth is far less likely to interest 
 than something that connects with people. If a 
 preacher says, " There was a man," or, " We 
 read yesterday such an such an incident," or, *' If 
 a man does so and so," at once he has the atten- 
 tion of every one. He may lose it if his story is 
 not good, but he has interest at the start. Dr. 
 John A. Broadus, the " prince of preachers," in 
 the South once had a congregation of men who 
 were in the habit of staying outside until after he 
 had begun his sermon, and then come clumping 
 along in over the uncarpeted floor with squeaky 
 boots. He could not rebuke them nor ask them 
 
ATTENTION 35 
 
 to do otherwise for they were of the extra inde- 
 pendent breed of Baptist. But he took up the 
 practice of beginning each sermon with a story 
 of some sort. And in a Httle while they had the 
 habit of coming in before the sermon began. 
 
 Attention may be gained by beauty of expres- 
 sion. A good woman once said to me : " Make 
 your sermons beautiful. The truth is worthy of 
 it." The cultivation of good rhetorical speech is 
 a source of power. A young rhetorician in Milan, 
 Italy, used to go to church to hear the preacher 
 Ambrose. He did not care for the doctrine, but 
 he was so delighted with the beautiful language of 
 the preacher that he went with regularity. But 
 in so doing he came to accept the Gospel, and be- 
 came the great theologian Augustine. 
 
 A fine voice has great power to interest 
 people. This is a resource that has not been 
 given the attention it ought to have. A full 
 sweet, clear voice that responds to every wave of 
 emotion in the thought holds men, and they get 
 the message thus spoken. It was the habit of 
 Gerritt Smith to speak forty minutes every day, 
 when he did not have an address to make, in order 
 not to lose control of his voice. Men who at 
 first were not disposed to agree with what he said 
 would go long distances to hear him. 
 
 The appeal to curiosity is of great value. It 
 has great value in other matters of which more 
 will be said in a later chapter. But in this mat- 
 
36 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 ter it has great utility. This may be invoked by 
 the use of the question form. In the sermon one 
 can describe a situation and then ask, What is the 
 outcome of this. Taking things as we know them to 
 be what is the right way to act under such circum- 
 stances? Or one may state a problem and ask, 
 What is the word of Paul or of Jesus on this? 
 Sometimes a pause before a statement will at- 
 tract attention as they wait for the word. To 
 delay the final statement by any process awakens 
 curiosity and thus holds attention. 
 
 Some men gain attention by using unique and 
 grotesque metaphors, and somewhat startling 
 phrases. " Billy " Sunday has that power to the 
 utmost limit. If he did not have he could not 
 hold his audiences. A large part of them go to 
 hear his vivid, and often ludicrous characteriza- 
 tions of men and things. It is a great power. 
 One need not attempt imitation of his phrases, but 
 it is worth while to cultivate striking ways of 
 saying things; and to state all religious truths 
 in phrases that are transparent to the hearers. 
 To preach in the vernacular may crucify a man's 
 literary pride, but sermons of that sort will not 
 crucify so much the time and feelings of the 
 hearers as those sermons do that are so elegant as 
 to lose their pungency. Mr. Spurgeon used to 
 say, " Polish your sword but do not round the 
 edge in doing so." 
 
 Illustrations are a great source of interest. If 
 
ATTENTION 37 
 
 they are really illustrations and not mere stories, 
 they do a double duty. They fix attention and 
 they convey truth to the heart. 
 
 A great inclusive requirement is that the 
 preacher have a message which he wants to give 
 the congregation for their benefit, and is dead in 
 earnest about it. Earnestness is a contagious 
 thing. We often hear men approve a preacher 
 because '' he is so earnest." " He seems to be 
 so sincere," they say. 
 
 Margaret Slattery says, "Given well-prepared 
 material, in which one is interested heart and 
 soul, and the problem of gaining attention is half 
 solved." 
 
 The man behind the sermon speaks through the 
 sermon. " The real power of your oratory," 
 said Bishop Brooks, " must be your own intelli- 
 gent delight in what you are doing." " To be 
 dead in earnest is to be eloquent." " The preach- 
 er's personal interest is the buoyant air that fills 
 the mass and lifts it." 
 
 These things of which I have been speaking are 
 important details of the work but not its central, 
 vital part. As the painter must have the technique 
 of his art or he cannot give expression to his 
 ideals, so the preacher may not be ignorant nor 
 careless in matters of technique, although it re- 
 mains true that "a living dog is better than a 
 dead lion." A sermon full of life and blunders 
 is better than one empty of both. 
 
38 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 Art is for the sake of the sermon, not the ser- 
 mon for the sake of the art. 
 
 But there are some elements for the lack of 
 which none of these things I have mentioned can 
 make amends. 
 
 In the heart of all these things there must be 
 some truth worth knowing. Henry Ward Beecher's 
 father was once asked how he got the attention 
 of his audience. He replied, " Give them some- 
 thing to attend to." That is a vital element. Ser- 
 mons must have some real worthy content. It 
 need not be information or reasoning. It may be 
 exhortation or evangelism. But it must have 
 some worthy thing in mind or no sort of approach 
 to men's minds will hold attention long. 
 
 The hearer has a right to expect some return for 
 his time and attention. If his return is not satis- 
 factory he will mentally be away on other errands 
 of thought. A school superintendent once said 
 to a preacher, " You disturb my thoughts. I am 
 accustomed to have my own thoughts when the 
 sermon is going on." Thoughts ought to be 
 "disturbed." There is no good reason for men 
 to sit through a sermon just as a matter of respect 
 for the preacher. 
 
 One must have a purpose and be moving toward 
 its accomplishment. 
 
 It is easier to get attention than to hold it. The 
 minds of a congregation of common people are 
 not used to continued attention. The speaker can 
 
ATTENTION 39 
 
 hold them for a few minutes around one idea, 
 then he will find them becoming less attentive. If 
 he can now pass to some other phase of the sub- 
 ject he gets a new point of interest and they will 
 concentrate upon that for a time. So by chang- 
 ing the viewpoint he can hold their minds during 
 the whole discourse. But these separate points 
 must have a connection with each other such that 
 they are parts of a whole. When one is dropped 
 the mind should be left at the very door of the 
 next one. But there must be something more than 
 a series of points all on a level, and unconnected. 
 These points must have a forward and an upward 
 movement. 
 
 A New England deacon said about his pastor, 
 " His sermons are like the clouds in June. They 
 are always moving on." If a sermon only chases 
 itself around like a dog chasing its tail one may 
 smile at it for a little but interest soon evaporates. 
 Try and accomplish something in a sermon and 
 make everything bend toward that aim, and it will 
 be recognized and listened to. 
 
 And what is true of the progressive arrange- 
 ment is true also of the persuasive element. To 
 give the best persuasives and the most emotional 
 at the first makes the sermon an anticlimax. All 
 the latter part will be a disappointment. Both the 
 persuasive and the pedagogical parts should move 
 upward as well as onward. There should be a 
 sort of transfiguration effect such that men will 
 
40 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 feel when they go from church that they have 
 come down from a mountain. Though the im- 
 mediate sense of glory will lessen, the effect will 
 not evaporate. 
 
 ^A ''skeleton'' is important; that is, an or- 
 derly and logical arrangement of the several 
 parts. I am not intending to belittle the preach- 
 ers who have little if any analytical ability. Some 
 of them have a good spirit and say many good 
 things. They get large congregations. They are 
 magnetic speakers who call men together, and it 
 does men good to get together even if they only 
 get a pious entertainment. They do get much 
 more. But as educators these men must take a 
 second place in comparison with those men who 
 have the logical and analytical faculty better 
 developed. 
 
 Without knowing it, all men have a logical 
 sense. All men think logically if they think at 
 all. Indeed Logic is not a set of rules imposed 
 on men for their thinking. Logic is only an 
 orderly exposition of the way that men do think. 
 If a man's sermon follows the truly natural order 
 most of his hearers will follow and find help with- 
 out discovering that there was any logic about it. 
 But there are some who are logical consciously. 
 They test a man's sermons by rules. They detect 
 any failure to make his conclusions clear or cer- 
 tain. For such the preacher must try to fit his 
 discourse. If he has a *' skeleton " and follows it 
 
ATTENTION 41 
 
 he will hold their attention and gain their respect 
 for his teaching. 
 
 To make this " skeleton " requires care and 
 study. Phillips Brooks used to sketch in brief the 
 suggestions for the various points of his sermon. 
 He assigned about so many pages for one point 
 and so many for another. Then he arranged them 
 in logical order. After that he wrote out in full, 
 being careful not to have more than thirty pages 
 of manuscript. The " Life and Letters," prepared 
 by Professor Allen, gives many quotations from 
 the notes of Mr. Brooks that shov/ how sys- 
 tematic he was in his sermon preparation. 
 
 This " skeleton " should be written out in such 
 a way that if a man should find it and nothing 
 more he would have a fair knowledge of the line 
 of thought the sermon followed and the content 
 of it. " The sermon is a proposition developed, 
 and a proposition is a sermon condensed." 
 
 For example, a sermon on Psalm 90: i, " Lord, 
 thou hast been our dwelling place in all genera- 
 tions," had this " skeleton." To have God for a 
 dwelling place saves us, at first, from the sense 
 of utter chaos in human history. Secondly, it 
 saves us from the sense of unendurable chaos in 
 the individual life. Thirdly, it saves our ethical 
 life from weakness and degeneration. It gives 
 moral backbone. 
 
 This outline crystallizes the whole sermon. It 
 would guide a man's thoughts in meditating on the 
 
42 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 text, and it moves toward the higher interests of 
 rehgious life. 
 
 Men differ about the prominence they will give 
 to this " skeleton." Mr. Spurgeon used fre- 
 quently to give it at the first of the sermon. For 
 example, he, in preaching on Hebrews 12 : 24, 
 said, " We have two things in the text. First, 
 we have a comparison between the blood of 
 sprinkling and the blood of Jesus; and, secondly, 
 we have a certain condition mentioned." This 
 concentrated attention on what he was saying in 
 the first part, and created what the pedagogical 
 writers call *' expectant attention " for the second 
 part. 
 
 At another time, speaking about the blood of 
 Jesus, he pictures a sinner seeing it and he says, 
 " The blood spoke to him of * Love.' And the 
 second thing it said was * Mercy.' The third thing 
 was * Pardon.' The next thing was * Acceptance.' 
 The next was ' Adoption.' The next thing was 
 
 * Security ' and the last thing it whispered was 
 
 * Heaven.' " That order was itself attention- 
 commanding, and led thought over the whole 
 journey of a pilgrim — from the city of Destruc- 
 tion to Emmanuel's Palace. How incongruous 
 and powerless it would be if the order of the 
 parts were reversed so that the sermon begun with 
 " heaven " ! 
 
 South, the great English preacher, quite gen- 
 erally stated his line of thought at the first as a 
 
ATTENTION 43 
 
 lawyer states his proposed line of argument. Os- 
 wald Dykes rather approves this. 
 
 Mr. Beecher did not do this. He said that it 
 was not a good thing to throw away the power 
 of curiosity. It was better to have both the 
 anticipation of good things to come combined 
 with the surprise when they did come. 
 
 But he always knew what his line of thought 
 was and how he was to follow it. He knew what 
 he was trying to do, and knew he meant to do it. 
 
 A series of sermons on connected topics is 
 useful. A common purpose running through the 
 series brings men to church with an interest pre- 
 liminary to the sermon. Attention is thus both 
 involuntary because of their general interest in 
 the thread of the series, and voluntary because of 
 their desire to hear your teaching about it. This 
 expedient has great pedagogical value because it 
 contributes to larger views of truth than the 
 single sermon on a topic once in a while. This 
 may require the advertisement of the topics in 
 advance. But advertisement is not necessary ex- 
 cept from Sunday to Sunday. 
 
 These suggestions by no means exhaust the 
 expedients that are both effective and high- 
 toned. 
 
 There is a caution to be exercised lest in the 
 effort to gain and hold attention expedients be 
 resorted to that take so strong a hold upon the 
 attention that the purpose of the sermon is for- 
 
U PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 gotten. The illustration, for example, may be 
 such that it at once diverts the mind so thoroughly 
 as to make it difficult to call it back. It becomes 
 a dangerous rival of the topic of the sermon. It 
 sets up in the mind a competitive establishment 
 hard to deal with. This *' playing to the gal- 
 leries" is a political expedient for holding the 
 evanescent attention of a crowd but it defeats the 
 purpose of an educational discourse. Probably 
 the striking phrases of Mr. Sunday, and to some 
 extent those of his feeble imitators, stay in the 
 mind longer and more vividly by far than the 
 truths of religion they were intended to plant in 
 the minds of the hearers. To the extent that such 
 is the case they are a damage rather than a source 
 of strength or usefulness and should be avoided. 
 Crowning all and infusing all with life and 
 power is what we call '^ personality!* That inner 
 sense of being in the right, and a force of will that 
 makes a man's voice thrill with a mysterious 
 something, gather up all that I have mentioned 
 and so unite them in a sort of personal appeal 
 that on almost any religious topic, and to nearly 
 every kind of a congregation, the preacher hav- 
 ing it will gain and hold attention, and thus have 
 the first requirement for teaching — educating, 
 leading out, the hearts and wills of men to better 
 things. 
 
IV. 
 
 // the trumpet give an uncertain voice, who 
 shall prepare himself for war? So also ye, un- 
 less ye utter by the tongue speech easy to be 
 u^iderstood, how shall it be known what iA 
 spoken? for ye will be speaking into the air. — 
 I Cor. 14 : 8. 
 
 WORDS AS SYMBOLS 
 
 Tn HE pedagogical principle concerning " sym- 
 -*• bols" Paul seems to have understood. 
 Jesus also knew its value for it is said that the 
 common people heard him gladly. 
 
 My own observation as I hear men preach, and 
 as I read the printed sermons, confirms me in the 
 belief that many of our ministers have not pon- 
 dered deeply on the injunction that Paul gives us 
 in the verse quoted above. 
 
 There is a reason for their delinquency very 
 close at hand. They read books about religious 
 things more than they talk with folks about them. 
 They get a vocabulary from books, and they 
 understand it, but their congregations, not being 
 in the habit of reading such books, do not under- 
 stand their words. For example, I suppose every 
 studious minister knows what idea the word 
 " functioning " is intended to convey. If he were 
 to ask ten of the common men in the congrega- 
 
 45 
 
46 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 tion what it means he would find nine of them 
 do not know. 
 
 I read this morning this sentence, " From a 
 cosmic point of view." I do not underestimate 
 the intelHgence of the common man when I say 
 that nine out of ten will stop to think what that 
 word *' cosmic '* means, and then will not be cer- 
 tain about it. In both these cases the speaker 
 would, for nine-tenths of his audience, be " speak- 
 ing into the air." In a somewhat lesser measure 
 the use of theological terms leaves the hearer, if 
 not in actual ignorance of the truth, at least with 
 confused, and perhaps erroneous ideas. 
 
 There is a responsibility upon all cultured men 
 and all educators to help the people to the use of 
 the riches of language. But as teachers of re- 
 ligious truth from the pulpit this responsibility 
 dwindles into almost no importance in the pres- 
 ence of the great desire of every good minister to 
 press home a truth of great value upon the minds 
 and the hearts of his congregation. We could not 
 forgive Paul if he had said, " I greatly desire to 
 make you Corinthians know Christ and him cruci- 
 fied, but I must first give you an example of fine 
 writing and an elegant diction." And it would 
 raise a great presumption against the genuineness 
 of a passage of the gospels if it read : " the learned 
 scribes heard Jesus gladly." 
 
 The man who desires to teach truth must give 
 great attention to the simplicity and clearness of 
 
WORDS AS SYMBOLS 47 
 
 his language. I once gave an address to a com- 
 pany of young folks. It was on a somewhat 
 technical theme. I tried to be clear. But I failed 
 in some cases. As I went along the street after 
 the address I overheard some one say to his com- 
 panion, " I suppose that was a good address but 
 it was too educated for me." If I had cherished 
 any self-gratulation before, it was very decidedly 
 checked by that remark. It will never do for 
 the minister to have such comment made about 
 his sermons by any considerable portion of his 
 congregation. 
 
 But how shall we guard ourselves from the 
 error ? 
 
 Consider first the origin of language. There is 
 great diversity of opinion among students of this 
 subject. 
 
 The older view was that Adam was given a 
 language full grown when he was created. Very 
 little of that idea remains. Others think that 
 language in its embryonic stage consists of some 
 simple sounds by which the soul seeks to express 
 its own emotions, as the crying of an infant. 
 Men " shout for joy." We hear people singing 
 at their work, when they are alone. It is an in- 
 voluntary, solitary language of a heart full of 
 contentment. It has no reference to other folks 
 and no desire to communicate ideas. No opinion 
 can be sustained which denies the fact of such 
 soul language. 
 
48 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 Another theory is that man was, and always 
 has been, a social being. He never could be con- 
 tented, like the eagle, to live by himself. He con- 
 gregates. He is hungry for his kind. A woman 
 was sent out from the city by some charitably 
 inclined friends to have a home in the country. 
 She had food and air and shelter. But she soon 
 came back to the single room and the poor air 
 and the scanty living. When asked why she left 
 the paradise of the country and came back to the 
 Gehenna of the city, she replied, " The air is 
 good, and the food is good, but stumps are poor 
 company.'' It has always been true that " stumps 
 are poor company" for men and women. But 
 company is not much company if there be no 
 language in which to " swap ideas." So men hav- 
 ing this hunger for mankind, and an intelligence 
 suited to their situation, had furnished for them 
 some language. It was primitive. It had few 
 words. Its gramniar was simple. With increas- 
 ing experience, and with accumulated ideas it be- 
 came richer and is still growing richer.* 
 
 The changes and additions result from new 
 words and new senses of old words. The new 
 words come from dialects of various places, from 
 
 *The English language, for example, shows that when, 
 in 1846, Worcester made his dictionary, he added to former 
 works 27,000 words. In 1857 he added 19,000 more, mak- 
 ing 104,000 in all. Webster's dictionary of 1828 had had 
 70,000 words. His ''Unabridged" of 1864 had 114,000. 
 The " International " of 1900 has 400,000. The Century 
 contains 450,000 words. 
 
:WORDS AS SYMBOLS 49 
 
 slang, from trade, and in greatly increased pro- 
 portion from the scientific world. Every new in- 
 vention demands a word to symbolize it. 
 
 The vocabulary of religious life has grown by 
 the addition of those things which Jesus added to 
 the thought of men. The Hebrew had his 
 vocabulary. And it was rich. We find transla- 
 tions of it in the Psalms and the Prophets. When 
 Jesus came, and the church was enriched by his 
 teachings, religious experience became richer. 
 There were no words to express it fully. Then 
 the old Hebrew words were attached to new ideas. 
 For example, " Church '' was enlarged from the 
 old conception; "sacrifice" became not so much 
 a thing to make God favorable to us as to show 
 our devotion to him ; " kingdom of God " changed 
 from a racial affair, having Jerusalem as a center 
 and Jews as the blooded aristocracy, to a company 
 of folks from every nation and tribe, but all rec- 
 ognizing God as King and Jesus as Leader and 
 Friend; "forgiveness" took a broader mean- 
 ing; " salvation " changed from a matter of out- 
 ward conditions to an inward attitude toward 
 God. 
 
 Then as the church grew and became an or- 
 ganized body it had its new terms. As theology 
 developed it made its own nomenclature. 
 
 Thus the vocabulary of religious speech grew 
 to its present size. 
 
 The function of words. It may be said of 
 
50 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 nearly all words that they are arbitrary signs or 
 symbols. Why or how they were chosen we do 
 not know. They are here as signs only. Take 
 the word " sin," for example. The eye sees a 
 certain set of marks. We call them letters. That 
 combination of marks we have been taught tells us 
 that in reading it we are to make certain sounds. 
 These marks might have been used to suggest dif- 
 ferent sounds. 
 
 Those sounds we associate with a certain idea. 
 When a man says " sin " in the pulpit men asso- 
 ciate with it certain notions of conduct that is 
 below this standard. But his idea is the result 
 of teaching. I once had a young woman of 
 limited education come to me for examination 
 preparatory to entrance to the church. I asked 
 her if she had felt herself to be a " sinner." She 
 replied with great indignation, " No, sir ! " See- 
 ing that she misunderstood me I said, " Do you 
 never feel that you have done wrong?" "Oh, 
 yes," she replied. " Very often." She had as- 
 sociated with the word " sinner " the wrongdoing 
 that is ascribed to the woman of Luke 7 : 37. 
 Take the word " baptism." It consists of some 
 marks of peculiar shape. They are the represen- 
 tatives of some other marks in the Greek lan- 
 guage. What idea do these marks suggest? It is 
 entirely dependent on what men have been taught 
 to associate with them. A Baptist at once thinks 
 of an immersion. Others think only of the cere- 
 
WORDS AS SYMBOLS 51 
 
 mony connected with the consecration of an in- 
 fant. The whole meaning of the word is depend- 
 ent on the teaching that has been given, and the 
 use with which the hearers are famiHar. 
 
 So is it with all words. I, when a lad, used 
 to hear the hymn, " I Love to Steal Awhile Away." 
 I never could understand why any Christian 
 should love to steal anything. And just what it 
 was to steal " awhile " went beyond me. Another 
 line was " spend the hours of setting day." That 
 meant to me Sunday — the day in which we used 
 to " set around " — as the poor grammar of our 
 boyhood called it. 
 
 It is astonishing how many people have similar 
 misconceptions of very common words. The 
 words raise imaginations and suggest ideas of 
 many different sorts. The terms " communion," 
 "church," ''hell," "inspiration," "infallibility," 
 "soul," "spirit," "Pharisee," "hypocrite," and 
 hundreds more are liable to be spoken by one man 
 to convey certain ideas, but when they get to the 
 other man's mind they are loaded with a very 
 different sort of freight. 
 
 They may well claim the epithet that a promi- 
 nent man applied to the words of his opponent: 
 namely, " weasel words." 
 
 Great evils may come from this dubious and 
 unenlightened understanding of words. Not long 
 ago a prominent religious teacher wrote a paper 
 on the " deification of Jesus." He meant by that 
 
52 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 word the process by which the disciples discovered 
 the divinity of Jesus, and called him, therefore, 
 " The Christ.'* But the audience — and they were 
 ministers — and the editors whose fears were 
 aroused, took the word to mean the ascription of 
 divinity to Jesus which he did not deserve, as the 
 Romans deified Nero. Some were really trou- 
 bled to think that a good man was thus losing 
 his Savior. And others — especially among those 
 editors who think themselves appointed of God to 
 flay the slightest departure of any man from the 
 ideas which the editors inherited from childhood 
 and have not since investigated — pilloried the 
 writer in the weekly religious (?) press. 
 
 That man used the word in a correct sense. 
 But it was not the common use of it. The un- 
 learned misinterpreted it and did him injustice. 
 At another time a man spoke of the Bible as 
 *' archaic." He used it correctly but in an unusual 
 sense, meaning that it was ancient and hence 
 needed interpretation into modern thought. His 
 hearers understood him to mean that it was out- 
 grown and worthless, hence to be laid upon the 
 shelf. So another injustice was done. 
 
 These things show us that the minister has a 
 double duty in this situation. He must find sym- 
 bols that convey the ideas he wishes to put into 
 the minds of his hearers. That is the first task 
 he has on hand. He has a second and subsidiary 
 task to enrich and correct the language of his 
 
WORDS AS SYMBOLS 53 
 
 hearers. How can he do this ? The 'first require- 
 ment is that we preachers have a clear idea our- 
 selves. That is, that we have an idea outside of 
 and independent of any words we may commonly 
 use to express it or convey it to others. Words 
 are only the dress of ideas, and they should have 
 more than one suit to wear. We may clothe them 
 in another suit when we wish. Once secure a 
 clear idea and we can make effective search for 
 expressions. It will not do to be like the muddled 
 preacher who said, " To make it clearer to you 
 and to me, let us take an illustration.'' Clear 
 thought must exist before it can be clearly 
 uttered. 
 
 One of the best of practices is to paraphrase 
 passages of scripture. That is, express the 
 thought in your own language, using none of the 
 words of the passage. If you can do this you 
 may be sure you have the soul of its meaning. 
 So also in seeking expression to an idea — espe- 
 cially a somewhat unusual one — try to tell it in 
 several ways. If you can, think of it as it rrfight 
 be spoken to a cultured audience. And then think 
 of it as it could be understood by the unlearned. 
 It is said of Thorwaldsen, the great Norwegian 
 sculptor, that he was at work on a statue of Jesus. 
 One day he called in a child and asked her who 
 it looked like. She told him it looked like some 
 of the neighbors. He called her again after a 
 few days and showed her the same with his modi- 
 
64 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 iications and with the same result. He was much 
 discouraged, but worked on. After a time he 
 called her again and this time she said, " Why 
 that is Jesus." Then he knew he had succeeded. 
 When a man has tried to express his idea until 
 he finds the common man can understand it he is 
 succeeding in some measure as the Savior did. 
 Jhe common people will hear him gladly. 
 
 The next important discipline is to learn the 
 language of the people to whom we speak. 
 
 I have spoken about words being audible signs. 
 If a man does not understand the signs he will 
 be like a man trying to read messages written in 
 cipher. 
 
 People have some language for religious ideals 
 but it is limited and often peculiar. It is a dia- 
 lect. The preacher must learn to speak it well. 
 This can come only by conversation with people 
 on the subject of religion. Many a man reads 
 intelligently books about religion, but they are in 
 the technical or the cultured language of the 
 day. He tries to preach in that language and he 
 is " a barbarian unto them," as Paul expressed it. 
 In pastoral visitation, when it is really such, the 
 conversation turns to religious things and that 
 becomes a school of language for the minister. 
 He finds how they struggle to express their expe- 
 riences. Often they have found an expression of 
 great force which tells the story beautifully. 
 
 Another source of help is the study of the 
 
WORDS AS SYMBOLS 55 
 
 Psalms. They were the expression of experiences 
 very much Hke those of this later day. So force- 
 ful and so appropriate were they that we find 
 ourselves using the words for ourselves more 
 often than the words of any other writings. How 
 perfectly fitting are the words, " The Lord is my 
 Shepherd, I shall not want." Or, "Jehovah is 
 my rock and my refuge.'' " Out of the depths 
 have I cried unto thee, O God." " Bless the Lord, 
 
 my soul, and forget not all his benefits." " I 
 was shapen in iniquity." " O wretched man that 
 
 1 am who shall deliver me 1 " 
 
 People who read the Bible much always respond 
 to the use of it in the sermon. It carries its own 
 meaning to them easily. 
 
 Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " is a valuable 
 book in learning the expressions of the common 
 people. It is true that some of the ideas that lie 
 back of the allegory are now out of date, yet most 
 of it is still suitable for us. We are still pil- 
 grims seeking a better country even if we are 
 not leaving a city of Destruction. We still have 
 our difficulties though we are not so deep in the 
 "slough of Despond" as Pilgrim. Doubting 
 Castle is not in ruins yet. Interpreter still awaits 
 the coming of the unlearned. Beulah sometimes 
 cheers our weary hearts. The river of Jordan 
 awaits us all. And it is to be hoped that, as we 
 cross it, we shall have the help that Pilgrim had. 
 To read the story gives us words and figures that 
 
56 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 are useful in formulating our own thoughts as 
 well as helping us to teach others. 
 
 Some books of synonyms should be frequently 
 consulted and words always used with fine dis- 
 crimination. But at all costs of beauty, and all 
 sacrifice of rhetoric, and all disregard of elegance, 
 speak in a language that is " understanded of the 
 people" as the prayer book puts it. Otherwise 
 it will be " speaking into the air." 
 
 I do not forget that ministers have a duty to 
 promote Culture. But it is subordinate to the 
 duty of being understood. It is not necessary 
 nor desirable to be coarse or uncouth. In my 
 judgment the modern apostle of slang does not 
 gain as much in making himself understood as 
 he loses by the destruction of proper reverence. 
 There are some things that are so refined in their 
 nature that they lose by any coarse way of de- 
 scribing them. The packages in which fine goods 
 are sent us enhances their beauty. The way a 
 dinner is served gives flavor to food. The min- 
 ister has a very useful opportunity to seek and 
 impart expressions as beautiful as the ideas he 
 expresses. By studied and frequent use he may 
 lead his people into the possession of language 
 itself harmonious with the best ideas. 
 
 It was said of a writer of poetry in England 
 that " he just failed of being the artist in words 
 that is able to make the same appeal in all ages." 
 "An artist in words." That is an art worth 
 
WORDS AS SYMBOLS 57 
 
 while. A member of the choir in a large Phila- 
 delphia church said to me about the pastor, " Oh, 
 he is an artist." The subjects about which the 
 preacher speaks are worthy the best of literary art 
 subordinate to utility. Or rather the finest art is 
 to make art useful. This speech will be " like 
 apples of gold in pictures of silver." 
 
/ have spoken unto the prophets and I have 
 multiplied visions and by the ministry of the 
 prophets have I used similitudes. — Hosea 
 12:10. 
 
 METAPHORS AND SIMILES 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have considered the 
 importance and character of words as symbols 
 of ideas: and noticed how it is essential to good 
 teaching that the words be understood by the 
 hearers. Following upon that we naturally come 
 to the use of words to suggest ideas that they 
 do not in their first and ordinary sense actually 
 represent. When thus employed they are said to 
 have a figurative use. And the figures are chiefly 
 Metaphors and Similes. The Metaphor is a 
 word used to convey an idea through a second- 
 hand process. There is no good word to convey 
 the idea directly. E.g., Jesus had an idea about 
 the relation of his disciples to the world. He 
 expected that they would make the community in 
 which they lived pleasanter to live in, and would 
 keep it from drifting into immoral conditions. In 
 looking around for something to represent his 
 idea he thought of salt. He knew that salt makes 
 food pleasant to the taste, and keeps food from 
 spoiling; so he said, "Ye are the salt of the 
 
 68 
 
METAPHORS AND SIMILES 59 
 
 earth." That was the symbol that represents 
 their duty and influence in the world. The salt 
 itself is the "basis" of the metaphor. The 
 " point of likeness " is its savoring and preserv- 
 ing power. 
 
 He speaks about the salt, but he is thinking 
 about his disciples. He calls them the " salt/' and 
 talks as if they were " salt." 
 
 Uses of metaphors. Metaphors have several 
 lines of usefulness. They convey ideas other- 
 wise difficult to express. No one fails to know 
 what was meant when Jesus said, " Ye are 
 the light of the world." It might not be easy 
 for all to tell what they understand by it, but 
 they know. The idea is conveyed swiftly and 
 accurately. I have heard some very odd meta- 
 phors which, though not elegant, accompHshed 
 their mission. The colored woman wanted some 
 soda water. She called for " that water that 
 tastes like your foot's asleep." The deacon who 
 was pleased with a candidate for the pastorate 
 
 said to me, " Mr. S is the man who struck 
 
 oil with me." A homespun man of noble spirit 
 and easy manner in prayer prayed for the min- 
 isters: "O Lord bless them today. Teach them 
 how to do the trick." Paul said, " We do not han- 
 dle words of God ' with sleight of hand.' " Job 
 said, " I am escaped by the skin of my teeth." 
 But metaphors need not be thus semi-comic or 
 grotesque; they may be elegant and grand. " The 
 
60 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 Lord is my Shepherd." " The Lord is my light 
 and my salvation." "Be thou my rock for a 
 house of defence to save me." "Let them be 
 chaff before the wind." "Thou hast been our 
 dwelling place in all generations." "I will say 
 of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress." 
 Each one of these conveys an idea about God 
 which like the brush lines in a portrait adds some- 
 thing to the expression — the mental picture of 
 God. Without these we could not convey our 
 thoughts. 
 
 They enliven the sermon. Monotony in tone 
 puts folks to sleep; and sameness of phrase does 
 the same thing. Metaphors are like changing 
 tones in conversation that vary with the sentiment 
 of the speaker as the ripples on the lake change 
 with the changing breezes. Each one calls for a 
 kind of alertness of mind, a grasping for the idea, 
 and a kind of satisfaction at having caught it. 
 This is the charm of literature. And there is 
 room for the literary gift to use itself in the 
 sermon. Indeed the literary element in sermons, 
 while it must be simpler, and more modest than 
 in books, is nevertheless like the seasoning of 
 food. It gratifies the appetite and helps the men- 
 tal digestion. It is worth while to study — to 
 angle — for good metaphors. 
 
 They fix ideas in memory. One must use his 
 imagination in listening to the man who speaks 
 in metaphors and this use is what helps us to re- 
 
METAPHORS AND SIMILES 61 
 
 member. The mind acts in two ways, and is 
 therefore more active and hence has more records 
 of what is said. No man having read the story 
 of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 forgot it. 
 
 They furnish completeness by variety of expreS' 
 sion. They are like the different views of friends 
 that are given us in photographs. Combined they 
 make complete pictures. Thus in seeking to con- 
 vey the idea of the completeness of satisfaction 
 that Christ furnishes for the soul of man and the 
 welfare of society. "Jesus is the Iamb of God, 
 the great high priest, the image of God, the Elder 
 brother, the fullness of God bodily, the Head of 
 the church, the all in all for humanity." 
 
 Speaking of the Bible, Dr. Ferris of Phila- 
 delphia said, " It has been the slave's book. It 
 has been the poet's book. It has been the child's 
 book. It has been the creator of countless Good 
 Samaritans. It has been the hope and guide of 
 the reformer. It has done more by the words 
 * Father, forgive them ' to breathe peace into the 
 jangling and warring forces of human ambition 
 and strife than all the systems of philosophy. 
 Not until the human heart no longer aches with 
 sorrow: not until the time comes when there re- 
 mains no more a prodigal to be brought back to 
 the Father's house; not until the time comes when 
 the despairing and desolate call no more for help; 
 until tears cease to flow, until love has no task to 
 perform, until the cup of cold water is no longer 
 
62 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 needed to refresh the parched wanderer on the 
 highway of life, — not until then will the Bible 
 lose its power and beauty, and cease to be en- 
 throned in the heart of our humanity." These 
 repetitions add greatly to the effectiveness of the 
 already beautiful descriptions of value to the 
 Book of books. 
 
 Similes, Very much less imaginative, but more 
 easy to grasp the meaning of, are Similes. They 
 are comparisons expressed by the word " like/' 
 or, " as " — " the kingdom of heaven is like 
 leaven." " As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is 
 good news from a far country." "As the door 
 turneth upon his hinges so doth the slothful upon 
 his bed." "As a madman who casteth fire- 
 brands, arrows, and death, so is the man that de- 
 ceiveth his neighbor and saith. Am I not in 
 sport? " The book of Proverbs is a mine of such 
 figures. These, like the metaphors, furnish count- 
 less expressions with which to convey the myriad 
 shades of truth. They turn the whole world 
 about us into a word-factory, an armory, a the- 
 saurus, a living list of analogies ready for use in 
 teaching truth, in conveying ideas from preacher 
 to congregation, from teacher to pupil, in reveal- 
 ing the beauty of the Gospel. 
 
 One important rule is that such terms be 
 used as the hearers are familiar with. To say 
 that the pastor is the " fugleman " of the church, 
 or the teacher the ^' fugleman " of the class, 
 
METAPHORS AND SIMILES 63 
 
 means nothing to those who are ignorant of the 
 word's meaning. To say that the teachings of 
 Paul are like the poems of Robert Browning is 
 obscure and useless to all but thoughtful students 
 of that writer's works. Similes from history are, 
 to the non-reading part of the congregation, with- 
 out value unless they are given with sufficient 
 fullness to be self-interpreting. Dr. Jowett has 
 an instructive, exemplary, and suggestive passage, 
 " Can our language easily say all we have got to 
 say, or does it fail to carry the glory we would fain 
 express. Is it not true that our language is often 
 too big for our thought, and our thought like a 
 spoonful of sad wine rattling about in a very 
 ornate and distinguished bottle. . . . When Paul, 
 in Romans 12, begins to be hortatory, preceptive, 
 practical, it is because he has already prepared the 
 rich bed in which these strong and winsome 
 graces may be grown. Every precept in the 
 twelfth chapter sends its roots down through all 
 the previous chapters, through the rich fat soil 
 of sanctification and justification and the mys- 
 terious agency of redeeming grace." This pas- 
 sage exemplifies two of the strong qualities of Dr. 
 Jowett's preaching — namely, his easy familiar 
 metaphors, and his three and four fold repetitions 
 of his thought under differing metaphors. They 
 are like the blows of the hammer, one after 
 another, until the nail is in and the head set. 
 To do this well requires thought and the exer- 
 
64 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 cise of the imagination. One must learn to 
 " see " the relations of life and the functions that 
 material things perform. Then he will find mate- 
 rial always at hand. An earnest purpose, un- 
 selfish, and, — except to be an effective preacher, — 
 without ambitions, will be to his powers of mind 
 and heart like the sun upon the fields, — it quickens 
 all and makes all fruitful. 
 
VI. 
 
 Without a parable spake he not unto them. — 
 Matt. 13 : 14. 
 
 ILLUSTRATION 
 
 THERE are some essential parts of the Chris- 
 tian truth that we are commissioned to 
 teach which are very difficult to impart by use of 
 words only. With our best efforts, and with the 
 most carefully chosen phrases, people see the 
 truths like those who look at mountains through 
 the smoky atmosphere of an August day. Noth- 
 ing is clear. The truth about forgiveness — how 
 shall we make an audience '' see '* it with the 
 mind's eye? Or the truth about the grace of 
 God — by what words alone can we make it any- 
 thing more than an abstract, and hence an indefi- 
 nite, thing for most people? The truth about the 
 strange work of the spirit of God in human 
 hearts — what vocabulary is sufficient to convey 
 the meaning of it? These and other truths that 
 are fundamental in Christian truth are never lit 
 up by the sun of clear apprehension when we only 
 use words. 
 
 But we are not left powerless before our task 
 as teachers. We have what is commonly called 
 " power of illustration," upon which we can de- 
 
 65 
 
66 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 pend for the most difficult problems in the impar- 
 tation of truth. This power is at the first an act 
 of our own imagination and second an appeal to 
 the imaginations of the hearers. Professor John 
 Tyndall, the great English scientist, used to say 
 to his hearers when he lectured upon physical 
 sciences, " I must ask you to try and visualize the 
 invisible." Something of that sort is the purpose 
 of illustration. To visualize the invisible helps us. 
 
 But the subject that is commonly called the 
 " power of illustration " is almost necessarily di- 
 vided into two sections. These appear at first 
 much alike, but closer examination shows that 
 they are quite dissimilar. We may call the parts 
 Illustration and Exemplification. 
 
 Illustration proper, as the word signifies, is a 
 means of throwing light on a subject. It has its 
 real basis in analogy. It compares things in one 
 sphere of thought with things in another sphere. 
 It differs from simple comparison in that particu- 
 lar. Comparison puts one thing alongside another 
 of the same class, but illustration puts one thing of 
 one sort alongside a thing of another sort, but 
 these have one or two points in common. Thus 
 parables are illustrations. They have been called 
 earthly stories with heavenly meanings. For 
 example, consider the parable of the bad steward. 
 There the conduct of the steward in his relation 
 to his master is called wise conduct only in this 
 one particular: he made use of his present oppor- 
 
ILLUSTRATION 67 
 
 tunity to provide for future needs. There are 
 other points of interest but they are all left out 
 of account. He was dishonest. He was negli- 
 gent. He deserved some sort of punishment. 
 But none of these points were used. What the 
 Savior was seeking to teach was that men should 
 take the future into account. He wanted to make 
 the wisdom of that very evident. And so he 
 throws light on the matter by giving this story. 
 He made his point so plain that no thoughtful one 
 need misunderstand him. 
 
 Or take another passage. Jesus wanted to im- 
 press upon his readers the two ideas that are 
 central in the Gospel, namely, that salvation is 
 offered to all, but on condition of their faith. He 
 could say it, and he did say it, in various ways. 
 But to make it more clear he took a story from 
 the Old Testament with which his readers were 
 very familiar: "As Moses lifted up the serpent 
 in the wilderness even so must the Son of man 
 be lifted up that whosoever believeth on him shall 
 not perish." The only point of importance was 
 the lifting up into sight. That was used to show 
 that as the serpent was lifted up to men's eyes, so 
 Jesus must be lifted up to the view of men's 
 minds. And as all who believed God enough to 
 accept his way of deliverance from the bites of 
 the serpents were delivered from them, so all who 
 have been made to know of the Son of man and 
 who will accept him as God's way of life will 
 
68 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 surely find it. If we read this illustration in con- 
 nection with the story as told in the Old Testa- 
 ment the thought of the Savior cannot fail to 
 reach our minds. 
 
 In using illustration it is very important that 
 the point of comparison is made clear and promi- 
 nent; otherwise minor things in the illustration 
 will steal away the minds of the hearers. 
 
 Illustrations also have great value in awakening 
 other activities of the soul than intellectual ones. 
 Knowledge reaches the mind through the senses.* 
 Men hear, see, and then think. But there is a 
 kind of knowledge that comes from the emotions, 
 and from the sensibilities. When truth comes in 
 at more than one window of the soul, knowledge 
 is made clearer. Illustrations open windows. 
 They stir emotions. They fix attention. The 
 story of the Prodigal Son at once sets several sets 
 of function at work. We are interested to know 
 what came to the young man. Curiosity awakens. 
 The imagination is awake as it seeks to picture 
 the conditions of the young wanderer. We feel 
 sorrow at his misfortune and pity for his hunger. 
 Then a new gleam of hope for him as we hear 
 him say, "I will arise and go to my father." 
 Solicitous expectation arises as we see him ap- 
 proach the old home ; then a great gladness as we 
 see the father come out to greet him with tokens 
 of glad forgiveness. All that sets the whole 
 choir of the soul a-§inging. The whole orchestra 
 
ILLUSTRATION 69 
 
 of sympathetic gladness unites to fill the measure 
 of joy that comes to us. And then the mind be- 
 gins to think out the lesson of it all — God's 
 readiness to forgive the repentant sinner. Thus 
 by a dozen sources the truth about God comes into 
 the soul ; a dozen of its activities are set in motion. 
 This permanently fastens the truth in mind. 
 
 Illustration is valuable in arresting the minds of 
 hearers. It is not easy for an audience to hold 
 attention to one monotonous line of thought any 
 more than it is pleasurable to hear men speak in 
 monotony of voice. The illustration varies the 
 action of the mind, and enlists the whole set of 
 its functions one at a time. 
 
 Illustrations should he from familiar things. 
 The guiding principle in their use is that which 
 directs all pedagogy, namely, " from the known to 
 the unknown." If we take an illustration from 
 things unfamiliar we only confuse the minds. 
 The danger in using facts from the physical 
 science is that the facts are unfamiliar. The 
 minister who is reading as he ought will have 
 many such within his reach but his audience is 
 not acquainted with them. If he will use such 
 it is necessary to explain the illustration so that 
 its point is clearly seen. For example, if one uses 
 the habit of some animal as an illustration of 
 parental care and affection it will be necessary to 
 state the habit of the animal if it is not a familiar 
 one. If the illustration is from the habit of elec- 
 
70 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 tricity it will be necessary to show the habit to 
 those who are unfamiliar with that strange force. 
 If it be from some Bible record it may be best to 
 relate the instance for the sake of some who have 
 not recently read it. 
 
 A recent writer says of modern religion, " It 
 is appearing simultaneously around and about the 
 world exactly as a crystallizing substance appears 
 here and there in supersaturated solution." To 
 the primary student of chemistry that is a very 
 apt illustration, but to the uninformed it is mean- 
 ingless. 
 
 The associations of an illustration are very 
 important. Every story has its environment of 
 association. And the environment may be the 
 most effective part of the illustration. When 
 President E. G. Robinson was pastor of a church 
 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the question of slavery was 
 a living issue. The church had a resolution that 
 it should not be discussed in that pulpit for it 
 created division among the members. Dr. Rob- 
 inson was an enemy to slavery, and it was not 
 easy for him to be muzzled. But he was also a 
 prudent man and did not think best, by being rash 
 in his dealings, to deprive himself of an oppor- 
 tunity to influence the public mind. He, therefore, 
 adopted the policy that when he wanted an illus- 
 tration showing any of the Christian graces in 
 full measure he would take the case of some 
 negro, some deeply pious slave. In that way he 
 
ILLUSTRATION 71 
 
 would create both a sympathy with the negro and 
 at the same time show that God is no respecter 
 of persons but gives his grace richly to all that 
 believe in him without regard to their condition 
 of servitude. 
 
 This power of association is a subtle and swift 
 agency. A minister once used as an illustration 
 something about a horse in the stable. One of his 
 thoughtful men said to him the next day, " Pas- 
 tor, your story was a good one but it took us out 
 of church to the barn and that was not a good 
 thing to do." 
 
 If we should at this time use the Kaiser as an 
 illustration of any virtue, the associations of bar- 
 barous cruelty and deepest-dyed savagery that go 
 with his name would neutralize the illustration 
 though it might in itself be perfectly just and 
 correct. 
 
 Saloon-keepers may have qualities that are 
 good, but to use them as illustrations would be 
 futile because of the unmitigated wickedness of 
 their business. The associations are all so bad 
 that no amount of good in them personally can 
 sweeten the atmosphere that surrounds the thought 
 of them. Barrels of skunk cannot be sweetened 
 by vials of cologne. 
 
 Mr. Beecher once used as an illustration of the 
 reaction of selfishness in Wall Street the habits of 
 a drove of hogs in the western farms. He pic- 
 tured them as huddling together in cold weathef 
 
72 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 to keep warm. The big ones in the middle and 
 the little ones in the cold outside circle. Some- 
 times, he said, the pressure for the middle becomes 
 so great that the big ones in the middle are 
 crowded up on top of others and are thus set 
 forth a prey for cold winds from every quarter. 
 So he said the big dealers who are in the ring 
 may get where all the greed of the Street con- 
 verges upon them. This illustration, while it was 
 perfectly fitted to show the one idea of the reac- 
 tion of selfishness, carried with it such an asso- 
 ciation of these big dealers with hogs that the 
 stigma has not left my mind in all these many 
 years since he used it. 
 
 Illustration must not be taken for argument. 
 This is a common danger to those easily given 
 to illustration. It must be remembered that rea- 
 soning from analogy rests upon the fact that the 
 things in the analogy are of the same class. It 
 cannot be argued that human mothers will forget 
 their offspring because birds and cattle do. 
 
 Nor may we say that because cattle are polyg- 
 amous therefore humans should be. There is a 
 great difference between the logical and the ana- 
 logical. 
 
 Exemplification. The other part of what is 
 called " illustration '* rests on a basis quite dif- 
 ferent from that of illustration as we have been 
 considering it. There is no analogy here. The 
 imagination is not so fully awake as in the other. 
 
ILLUSTRATION 73 
 
 It is rather based on comparison and induction. 
 As comparison it puts a single case up to view 
 as a sample of others. Suppose, for example, we 
 wish to show what faith is. It is almost impos- 
 sible to make the idea clear without examples. The 
 scripture says faith is " believing that God is and 
 that he is the rewarder of those that diligently 
 seek him." But immediately the writer begins a 
 long list of examples of faith to show more fully 
 what he means. He cites Abel and Enoch and 
 Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and 
 many others. 
 
 Suppose we desire to define forgiveness. How 
 difficult it is ! We say it is the " restoration of 
 relations that have been broken by wrongdoing." 
 But that is very abstract. One could say that 
 many times and leave his audience in the fog. 
 But when we say it is that which took place when 
 Jesus spoke peace to the woman who was a sin- 
 ner; or when Peter met his Savior after the 
 denial; or when Paul was made an apostle of the 
 gospel he had sought to smother, these give a 
 definition that is unmistakable, and at the same 
 time kindles a desire to have the experiences 
 which are used to show it. 
 
 It thus becomes a persuasive as well as an 
 example. Suppose we wish to show the action of 
 God's spirit in the human heart. What shall we 
 say? What phrase is able to describe so subtle 
 an operation ? We may talk about " regenera- 
 
74 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 tion" or the "new birth" or the "birth from 
 above." But how elusive is the idea! But sup- 
 pose we relate the case of a man who was hostile 
 to religious people and to religious conversation 
 and to all religious meetings. By some mighty 
 agency he becomes a regular attendant of the 
 church, a student of the scriptures, a man of glad 
 testimony at proper times concerning the grace of 
 God. That makes the idea concrete and there- 
 fore reaches the minds of the congregation. All 
 the more if the case is one of which they have 
 some personal knowledge. 
 
 Suppose we wish to show the wide activity of 
 the grace of God, and we tell of the woman in a 
 heathen country who in the natural hunger of her 
 heart for God bows before her idol, and with 
 plaintive soul pours out her longing for divine 
 help or comfort. The soul of every one who 
 hears will feel, in spite of some theological dogma 
 to the contrary, that God is not wholly indifferent 
 to such of his creatures. 
 
 If we desire to tell something about ** inspira- 
 tion," we can tell how the desire to tell the good 
 news of Christ pressed itself upon Judson until 
 it took him to India. Or we may tell how the 
 strange something kept working in our own 
 hearts until we 
 
 "Came to Jesus as we were, 
 Weary and lone and sad. 
 We found in him a resting place, 
 And he has made us glad." 
 
ILLUSTRATION 75 
 
 We may say that every grace and every virtue 
 that is worth seeking has examples to commend 
 it to us all. 
 
 This use of examples has also the very soul of 
 the scientific method. It calls to the witness stand, 
 as it were, the record of single cases and from 
 these makes the verdict. It is induction from 
 facts; it reasons from the particular to general 
 principles. Thus it combines the value of the 
 illustration with the value of evidence. It both 
 convinces and encourages, or rebukes, as the case 
 may be. 
 
 But here also we must be careful. No induc- 
 tion is safe unless in the points involved in the 
 argument the circumstances are alike. 
 
 If two men are in like circumstances we may 
 infer that what one will do the other will do. 
 Since Jacob and ourselves are in very different 
 circumstances we may not infer that because 
 Jacob dickered with God and promised him a 
 tenth, therefore the Christian should give a tenth 
 to missions. The circumstances are so different 
 that no inference of that kind can be made. But 
 we may say that since Jacob was a man of re- 
 ligious mind he desired to make some return to 
 God for his blessings, therefore we may expect 
 that all religiously minded men will have a similar 
 desire. 
 
 Because the Lord^s Supper was first observed 
 in the night does not teach that it ought always to 
 
ye PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 be so observed. The common thing is that it be 
 observed and its symbolism be understood. 
 
 Baptism was first given in the river Jordan, 
 but we may not infer that all baptisms must be 
 in the Jordan or any other river. But since it 
 was given to all believers upon their confession of 
 faith in Jesus we may infer that it is obligatory 
 on all such now. 
 
 Because churches did not in the New Testa- 
 ment times have settled pastors we may not infer 
 that they should not have them now. 
 
 And, coming out from the New Testament, we 
 may not infer that because there have been great 
 revivals in which many were brought to see Jesus 
 the Savior with great mental struggle, therefore 
 all men must have such struggles. We must 
 know that the mental conditions are the same be- 
 fore we can make any inference on that point. 
 
 These are sufficient to show that Exemplifica- 
 tion properly used is a great aid to the teacher 
 in making plain and impressive the truths of the 
 religion we try to teach. But it should be used 
 with care and discrimination. 
 
 Before leaving this subject it will be helpful to 
 some who think they have not the aptitude for 
 illustration to say that the root of it is in all peo- 
 ple. And it can be remarkably developed by care. 
 I know of several men who had as they thought 
 a very deficient power of that kind. They were 
 
ILLUSTRATION 77 
 
 mathematical in their mental make-up. But by 
 patient endeavor they became exceptionally good 
 in this matter. And the very logical, mathe- 
 matical turn of mind which made them doubtful 
 of their own power as illustrators did, under the 
 training, make them free from the dangers of be- 
 coming mere story-tellers. They became most 
 interesting, teaching preachers. Their illustra- 
 tions, instead of confusing and confounding, eluci- 
 dated and edified. 
 
VII. 
 
 'And Paul reasoned in the synagogue every 
 Sabbath and persuaded both Jesus and Greeks. 
 — Acts i8 : 4. 
 
 Being ready always to give an answer to 
 every man asking you for a reason of the hope 
 that is in you, yet with meekness and fear. 
 ^1 Pet. 3 : 15. 
 
 REASONING 
 
 T HAVE said in a previous discussion that 
 ■■' logic is not a set of rules for thinking imposed 
 upon people, but is a statement of the way that 
 all people do think. It is a chart of the road by 
 which the mind travels from uncertainty to cer- 
 tainty about any subject of thought. It is a map 
 that shows the way to some fountain of truth as 
 it was learned by some one who found the spring 
 and blazed the trail so that others may find it. It 
 is useful for those who seek the spring, but are 
 not able for themselves to find it. 
 
 Logic does not invent any truth, it only un- 
 covers it. It is by some asserted that Logic does 
 not add to our knowledge at all, but only adds to 
 our certainty. But with the speculations of 
 logicians we are not now concerned. Our desire 
 is only to make use of so much of the subject as 
 
 78 
 
REASONING 79 
 
 will help us to be more effective educators in re- 
 ligious matters. 
 
 Reasoning may, for our purposes, be classified 
 as Deductive, Inductive, Analogical, and Intuitive. 
 
 Deductive reasoning makes simple propositions 
 that express single truths, and by comparison of 
 one proposition with others makes evident the 
 truth of other propositions. For example, to use 
 the old formula. All men are mortal; John Smith 
 is a man; therefore he is mortal. Or this. All 
 inspired scripture is profitable; this book is a 
 part of scripture; therefore it is profitable. Or, 
 God cannot lie; God said the soul that sinneth 
 shall die; therefore the sinner will die. 
 
 Sometimes a series of propositions is used as, 
 for example, Paul in his letter to the Romans, 
 10 : 13, says, " Whoever calls on the Lord shall be 
 saved." How can they call on him of whom they 
 have not heard? How can they hear without a 
 preacher? How can they preach unless they are 
 sent? Each step in that series presents a truth 
 that is evident to the reader, — self-evident we 
 may say, — and each one is a stepping-stone to the 
 next. So the mind climbs up that stairway to its 
 concluding statement that in order for all to have 
 the great promise of salvation preachers must be 
 sent to them with the message. 
 
 Or take the letter to Romans. In the first two 
 chapters he shows by various witnesses, whose 
 testimony the Jewish readers would not deny, 
 
80 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 that all men come short of the things that God 
 desires for them. That every one fails to fulfil 
 the law, and of course all are condemned by the 
 law. But men do not want to be under condem- 
 nation of God's law. How can they escape if they 
 are under the law? Then he goes on to say: 
 But there is a righteousness of another kind even 
 the righteousness that is by faith in Jesus. 
 (Rom. 3:21.) 
 
 In our preaching there are some truths that will 
 be made clear and emphatic if we use this formal 
 way of presenting them. If it is well done it 
 interests common hearers. It is not as dry as it 
 is commonly supposed to be. It is at least a frame- 
 work for our buildings. But for the most part 
 the frame will need to be well covered to make it 
 acceptable. 
 
 Inductive reasoning is examining a series of in- 
 dividual cases, and from their testimony inferring 
 a general principle for guidance in life. This is 
 the so-called " scientific " way. But it has always 
 been the way of the thoughtful. When the 
 Psalmist wrote, " Walk about Zion and go round 
 about her. . . . Mark well her bulwarks, con- 
 sider the palaces, that ye may tell it to the gen- 
 eration following," he used the inductive process. 
 He examined the various defences — her towers, 
 her bulwarks, her palaces, and from these con- 
 cluded that she was strong and prosperous and 
 able to continue. When the Syrian rab-shakeh 
 
REASONING 81 
 
 called to the Jews in Jerusalem '(II Kings i8: 33), 
 *' Hath any of the gods of the nations ever deliv- 
 ered his land out of the hand of the king of 
 Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and 
 of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, 
 Hena, and Iva ? Have they delivered Samaria out 
 of my hand ? " he was invoking the inductive way 
 of reasoning. When Gamaliel spoke in the Coun- 
 cil as recorded in Acts 5 : 33-39, he reasoned in- 
 ductively. 
 
 This is the method when we summon various 
 witnesses to confirm the statements we are led to 
 make about the Christian life and faith. It has 
 great effect on really inquiring minds. It piles up 
 testimony. It accumulates force as it goes on. It 
 raises a probability and then confirms it by re- 
 peated instances. For example, see the second 
 chapter of Hebrews. 
 
 Analogical reasoning. In this, truth is only 
 partly expressed. If, for example, one says, 
 Abraham did so and so, the unexpressed idea is, 
 Then we ought to do so. Your heavenly Father 
 sends the rain without partiality; therefore we 
 ought to be impartial in our interest in our fellow 
 men. Gabriel did not bring railing accusations 
 against Satan; therefore we ought to be restrained 
 in our speech even against wicked persons. 
 
 This analogical process underlies the allegorical 
 interpretation of scripture — a system that has 
 more things to condemn it and more to sustain 
 
82 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 it than can easily be enumerated. The basis o? 
 it is the belief that events in the Israelite history 
 and great persons of the Jewish race were inten- 
 tionally set forth by divine purpose to teach 
 spiritual truth by analogy. It is so full of uncer- 
 tainties, and so susceptible to misapplication, that 
 no careful preacher will attempt to build any doc- 
 trine upon it. It answers very well to illustrate 
 with, but as argument it is almost always weak. 
 But there is a limited field in which it has value. 
 For example, if the Israelites got safely across 
 the Red Sea, yet because of their sins did not get 
 into Canaan, it may be safely inferred that men 
 who begin the Christian life and then fall back 
 into sinfulness will not reach the kingdom of 
 heaven. Or, if an earthly owner will take away 
 the vineyard from the servants who fail to return 
 its fruits to him, we may infer that God will take 
 away from unfaithful churches their opportunities 
 and privileges. 
 
 Men with good imagination development make 
 a large use of this kind of reasoning. 
 
 Intuitive reasoning (so called for want of a 
 better term). That is, it comes to conclusions 
 without any conscious process of thought. It is 
 swift and pretty sure. A closer examination of 
 it shows that there is a process, however, but it 
 is subtle. Almost any sermon of Jesus is a good 
 example of this method. It is like this: Some 
 generally accepted truth or some intuitive moral 
 
REASONING 83 
 
 principle is quietly assumed. It is not mentioned, 
 but the conclusions are based upon it and in- 
 tuitively felt to be true. For example, Jesus said : 
 If an earthly father will not give his son a stone 
 when he asks for bread, will God do less when 
 his children ask him? The answer is of course 
 he will not do less. That assumes that men are 
 made in the image of God and that goodness is 
 the same in God that it is in men. 
 
 In the Beatitudes Jesus said, " Blessed are the 
 poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
 We ask why are they blessed? and the answer is, 
 the kingdom of heaven in the Old Testament is 
 said to be one in which all those who enter it will 
 be happy in all things. That teaching all Jews 
 believed. It was assumed to be accepted by all 
 his hearers. And when he said the poor in spirit 
 would enter it, it was evident they are blessed. 
 So in all his teaching there is this undercurrent 
 of assumed ideas and beliefs to which Jesus ap- 
 peals without notice as the basis of his arguments 
 and exhortations. 
 
 The logic of exhortation. It is common to 
 speak of exhortation as if it were of less logical 
 import than other forms of address. The ex- 
 horter in the Methodist church, for example, is 
 regarded as a man of less mental training than 
 the ordained preacher. But I think that is an 
 erroneous idea. Paul did not exhort by teasing 
 men to be good. It is not real exhortation to 
 
84 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 plead with men on the emotional side mainly. 
 Those who fall into any line of conduct under the 
 appeals to mere emotion will not stay in line. 
 There are many men who have the gift of ora- 
 tory and emotional influence. It is a mysterious 
 gift of great value. But unless it is mingled well 
 with the logical gift its results will be like morn- 
 ing dew in June. It will be gone — evaporated by 
 noon. It was said by a man who heard the great 
 oration about the " cross of gold " that he be- 
 lieved the orator — until he got home, and then 
 he was ashamed of himself. I know of a min- 
 ister who has some of the most ill-founded 
 doctrines. He has a large congregation of white- 
 headed saints. One of his parishioners in a for- 
 mer church went to hear him in a new field. His 
 friend asked him if he could believe what tha^ 
 man preached. He replied, ''I do while I am 
 hearing it." To educate a congregation requires 
 that men should believe what is taught after they 
 get done hearing it. It must have the allegiance 
 of their quiet judgment in their quiet hours. To 
 exhort men in an effective way is to give them 
 truth convincing to the minds, but after that, or 
 during it, make the appeal that is filled with sin- 
 cere desire for their welfare. Paul's exhortations 
 are at the end of his letters. He begins with argu- 
 ment usually, and then come the appeals : " I be- 
 seech you, therefore, by the mercies of God," is 
 his formula. 
 
REASONING 85 
 
 The logical discipline. In order to use the 
 processes of logic it will be necessary that we have 
 the processes so familiar that we, as a sort of 
 second nature, think and speak in a logical way. 
 One feels as he reads the Pauline letters that Paul 
 was thus familiar. 
 
 And in order to gain that kind of familiarity 
 it will be necessary to study the rules of Logic. 
 Many of the readers of this chapter have long 
 since — it may be — laid their text book on the 
 upper back shelf of the library. It will pay well 
 to clean it from the dust of years and read it 
 again. 
 
 One must think clearly himself. This means 
 careful scrutiny of one's own thoughts. He must 
 know the exact process by which he came to his 
 conclusions. He must know the real reasons that 
 control his actions. Many times he will discover 
 that the real reason is not the one he at first would 
 give nor the one he is actually controlled by. It 
 will lead him to open his own processes to the 
 light of inspection. It may surprise him, but it 
 will strengthen him. 
 
 Then when he has examined them he will need 
 to test them. Let him take the place of a hearer 
 who is critical and unwilling, and see if he can 
 find a flaw in his own arguments. It has been 
 said of the Swiss that they fight better on retreat 
 than on advance. The Germans take much pains 
 in preparing for what would happen if in any 
 
86 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 battle the enemy should drive back the front line. 
 So it will be well to consider what will be the 
 reply we make to one who finds a flaw in our 
 reasons. We need to remember that a perfectly 
 sound conclusion may be stated that does not at 
 all come from the reasons given. For example, 
 one might say we ought to believe the Old Testa- 
 ment because the Jews did. That has no force 
 because the Jews might have been mistaken. 
 
 It might still be true that we are justified in 
 believing the Old Testament record, and having 
 confidence in its teachings. One might say we 
 ought to keep the feet-washing ceremony in the 
 church because Jesus gave it at the last supper. 
 That conclusion may be wrong though the state- 
 ment about Jesus is true. 
 
 It may be good and necessary to keep the Sab- 
 bath or a Sabbath, and yet that practice be not 
 founded on the custom of the Jews in Jesus' time. 
 
 It may be true that, for a Jew, tithing was com- 
 manded. It may be true that one-tenth is the 
 least that Christians should give to the work of 
 the church. But it is not true that the Christian 
 ought to give a tenth because the Lord required 
 it of the Jews. The conclusion to give is, or may 
 be, correct; but the argument is without value. 
 It may be true that churches should have deacons. 
 And it is true that the church at Jerusalem did 
 have some men whom they called deacons. But 
 it does not follow at all that because they had 
 
REASONING 87 
 
 seven deacons every little church in the country 
 must have seven, or that they have any. If 
 deacons are needed we may of course have them 
 and base the case on the need, not on the example 
 of the church in Jerusalem. 
 
 Before presenting any argumentative discourses 
 test the arguments v^ith care, for if you appear 
 to be incorrect in your processes it will lose you 
 the confidence of the best men in your con- 
 gregation. 
 
 Id study of process. Another element in our 
 preparation for argumentative discourse :"s a study 
 of the processes by which others come to their 
 conclusions. All men have reasons for their con- 
 duct. More often than otherwise they are not 
 very clear in their own minds as to what those 
 reasons are. It may need the expositions of the 
 pulpit to discover to them their own minds. 
 They need to be interpreted to themselves. Men 
 say they stand by their church because they think 
 it is right. It may be that it is because their 
 fathers stood by it and family pride is the real 
 reason. Men sometimes say they are desirous to 
 unite all churches because they think that churches 
 ought to be one. The real reason may be that they 
 think others will come to them, or that it will be 
 cheaper for them to maintain union churches than 
 to have separate ones. Some man may hold to 
 opinions with great tenacity because he thinks that 
 if he does not the truth will suffer. One man 
 
88 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 becomes fairly hysterical because he hears that 
 some one discredits the story of the virgin birth. 
 He thinks the divine character of the Lord is in 
 danger of being denied. If that be his fear it is 
 important to show him that if Jesus was ever 
 divine it was long before that birth. That was 
 only the door by which a divine one came into 
 human history. His argument is: Jesus is divine 
 because he had no earthly father. To deny the 
 virgin birth is to assert that he had an earthly 
 father. Therefore to deny the virgin birth is to 
 deny his divine character. If you could show him 
 that his first premise is not true then his fears 
 are gone. Many people think in this fashion: 
 " True Christians do not often go wrong; I regret 
 that I so often do so; therefore, I am not a 
 Christian." If you can show them that a true 
 Christian is one who is trying to follow Jesus 
 though he often fails, his fears will vanish and 
 he will become happy in his hopeful endeavors to 
 improve. Many ministers in their desire to con- 
 demn wrongdoing say, " If a man does so and so 
 he is not a Christian." That means to the com- 
 mon hearer that to be a Christian is to have at- 
 tained already a very high grade of life. That 
 is not the scripture idea at all. It reads, " The 
 bruised reed he will not break nor the smoking 
 flax he will not quench." Our Lord's teaching is 
 that we need to become disciples and take our 
 place among his scholars; and if we do that we 
 
REASONING 89 
 
 shall not perish but shall have eternal life. In 
 another place he said, " He that hath the Son hath 
 life.'* It is already flowing through his soul. 
 
 It is a great but most useful study to find out 
 the erroneous reason of people and correct their 
 premises, thus securing a correction of their fun- 
 damental reasonings. 
 
VIIL 
 
 We speak that we do know, and testify that we 
 have seen. — ^John 3:11. 
 
 We were eyewitnesses of his majesty.^' 
 II Peter i : 16. 
 
 THE POINT OF CONTACT 
 
 ONE of the great things insisted upon in all 
 works that deal with teaching is called ** get- 
 ting the point of contact.'* That is, finding some- 
 thing in the mind of the pupil in which he is in- 
 terested that can be made a stepping-stone to the 
 thought that the teacher wishes to awaken in the 
 pupil's mind. 
 
 This requires some knowledge of the pupil's 
 interests, and some ability to couple it with the 
 lesson to be impressed. The study of the child 
 is therefore a preparatory stage in the process of 
 educating the child. 
 
 The same sort of necessity exists for the 
 preacher in his educational endeavors but it finds 
 expression in various ways. In writing about 
 " symbols *' I have said that we must use those 
 the meaning of which is known. That is, in the 
 matter of words the "point of contact" is in 
 words that are familiar. Likewise an illustration 
 
 90 
 
THE POINT OF CONTACT 91 
 
 must be understood or the point of likeness must 
 be made plain before applying it. 
 
 I want to speak now about the "point of con- 
 tact *' in larger matters. There must also be this 
 contact in the ideas we seek to impress. 
 
 We must find a contact in thought foundations 
 previously laid. No thoughts can be valuable 
 which have no roots in past knowledge. Ideas, 
 ideals, and resolutions grow out of things that 
 preceded them. Rivers are the combination of lit- 
 tle streamlets. If one were to seek the fountain- 
 head of the Delaware River he would go up past 
 Philadelphia, Trenton, Port Jervis, Walton, and 
 Delhi, and out into the springs and marshes west 
 of the Catskill Mountains. Christian faith is like 
 the river. It starts in a thousand bits of inquiry, 
 and many crumbs of information. The mind, act- 
 ing under what is called " apperception," sorts, 
 combines, absorbs, assimilates, until the Christian 
 idea of life flows full and controlling. No " con- 
 versions " to Christian life are sudden. They 
 may appear to the outsider as such. But the man 
 himself knows that the impulses and resolutions 
 date back. St. Paul stands out as the popular ex- 
 ample of " sudden conversion." If his were such 
 a case it is the only one given in the scriptures. 
 And he said of himself that he was an extreme 
 case, so that extreme sinners could find hope. All 
 other cases are evidently the culmination of pre- 
 vious mental and moral experiences. 
 
92 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 But even Paul was exceptional only in the in- 
 tensity of his emotions, not in the vital elements 
 of it. Long afterward he said that at the time 
 he had what is called his " conversion " he heard 
 a voice saying, " It is hard for thee to kick 
 against the goads." But long before this crucial 
 hour the foundation had been laid. He said in 
 Philippians that he was of the best family stock 
 among his people. He was among the best stu- 
 dents in his theological class at the school of 
 Gamaliel. He was so zealous for what he thought 
 was right that he persecuted those whom he 
 thought were wrong. In Romans he said that 
 he fought evil in himself with great energy, but he 
 found a law within him warning against the law 
 of his mind that brought him into daily sense of 
 being a captive. This acceptance of Jesus was 
 then not a turning from irreligion to piety. It 
 was only the sudden ripening of experiences long 
 in the ripening. 
 
 To return then to the purpose of this chapter, 
 we ask what is the relation of this to our preach- 
 ing? Our answer is, We must find in the lives 
 of our hearers some real foundation and build 
 upon that. We must get down to some experi- 
 mental things and in some way connect our ideas 
 with them. As examples from the scripture, take 
 the story of the first disciples as given in John. 
 Andrew first findeth his own brother Simon and 
 says, '* We have found the Messiah." That could 
 
THE POINT OF CONTACT 93 
 
 have had no meaning unless Simon had been 
 before interested in the Messianic hope. They had 
 both been looking for him. As soon as Andrew 
 mentioned it, Simon was awakened with interest. 
 It was the point of contact with him. 
 
 When Philip went after Nathanael he said, 
 *' We have found him of whom Moses in the law 
 and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the 
 Son of Joseph." Nathanael had evidently talked 
 with Philip about that before. He was interested 
 in the subject at once. That was their " point of 
 contact." 
 
 When Paul spoke to the people of Antioch-in- 
 Psidia he was a stranger to them. But there was 
 a " point of contact " in the fact that they were 
 in a synagogue. That meant that they were re- 
 ligious. And being in a Jewish synagogue it was 
 evident that they were interested in the prophe- 
 cies. So he began, " Men of Israel and ye that 
 worship Jehovah," and then he went on outlining 
 the history of Israel. 
 
 This same principle, which these men followed, 
 though perhaps never having formulated it to 
 themselves, must be our guiding principle. There 
 is no use in wasting time on things that merely 
 interest. It is not difficult to get attention to such 
 things for a little. The important thing is to get 
 attention to the kind of thing that can be made 
 a stepping-stone to what we are trying to do. For 
 example, it might be of interest if we were to 
 
94 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 speak of the history of some book of the Bible. 
 In these days of inquiry this would have an inter- 
 est for many. But if our purpose at that time 
 was to advance men a little toward Christ Jesus 
 that subject would not be a good stepping-stone 
 for that object. Or suppose we were wishing to 
 lead men to see their need of the Christian faith, 
 it would not be helpful to tell them, " Paul says, 
 all men are sinners." They would not accept that 
 on his statement. No man can make another sen- 
 sible of his sin by telling him he is a sinner. He 
 will probably reply, " You are another." It 
 angers men to tell them that. It may be ever so 
 true, but they will not take it from you nor from 
 me. We must find some other *' point of con- 
 tact." That is a point of antagonism and repul- 
 sion. We might say, " The best of us are sin- 
 ners in that we fail to be all we desire to be. 
 We often do what we know is not right. There 
 is not a day with the best of us at whose close 
 we do not have some note of disappointment 
 about ourselves." That lays the foundation for 
 the question, "What can we do about it?" It is 
 a stepping-stone to what we are trying to impress. 
 Suppose we desire to give men a better confi- 
 dence in the scriptures. It will do no good to 
 insist that, " That all scripture is inspired of God 
 and is therefore authoritative." In these days 
 they will say, " How do you know it is inspired? " 
 But we may call attention to some of our com- 
 
THE POINT OF CONTACT 95 
 
 mon experiences, and then show how they are 
 beautifully expressed in the words of those who 
 in the past had the same. We can show how the 
 evil consequences of wrongdoing are portrayed in 
 the Bible. We can refer to those who in great 
 stress of heart have found faith in God as taught 
 in scriptures a comfort and a stay. Thus they 
 may come to feel that the scriptures tell the truth 
 about our relations to God and our duty to men. 
 
 If men are in doubt whether the teaching of 
 Jesus is true we may say to them as Jesus did to 
 the same sort of men in his day, " If any man 
 will do his will he shall know whether the doc- 
 trine comes from God." Ask them whether any 
 teaching of Jesus which they have fairly tried has 
 been a disappointment to them. The Psalmist 
 learned that way a long time ago when he said, 
 "O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed 
 is the man that trusteth in him." 
 
 The great problem of the preacher is, "How 
 can I get the grappling hooks of my thought to 
 take hold of theirs? How can I get down below 
 the mere traditional beliefs which are already los- 
 ing their hold upon men and get a foundation in 
 experience ? " Unless we can do that we shall 
 have poor success in leading men to better things. 
 
 A genuine interest in men for their oivn sake 
 is one line of influence, one " point of contact " 
 which is always effective. Such an interest gives 
 a tone and a potency to a speaker's words which 
 
96 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 is a meeting-place at once. Men all appreciate 
 sympathy and are all interested in their own wel- 
 fare. The man who evidently seeks that has a 
 foundation upon which to build. The results are 
 not always immediately apparent, but they are 
 sure. Henry Ward Beecher in one of his lectures 
 told of a man who, under the preaching of the 
 elder Beecher, Henry's father, withstood all his 
 appeals so far as making a public confession was 
 concerned. But when Mr. Beecher moved to the 
 West he left the grave of a little child alone in 
 the East. This man took up the little body and 
 made a grave for it between the lots he had pro- 
 vided for himself and his wife, saying that Mr. 
 Beecher's child should not be left alone. That 
 was the delayed result of a genuine influence of 
 the preacher on that man. I take it that real sym- 
 pathy is never wasted, never uneffective. It is 
 always a meeting-place, always a "point of con- 
 tact " from which real influence can proceed. 
 
 The '' point of contact " must he thai which is 
 useful for the purpose of the particular sermon. 
 What would be a good one for some sermons 
 would fail in others. What is foundation for one 
 kind of an address may not fit another. It would 
 not have been effective if Paul when in Athens 
 had begun by referring to Moses. They would 
 have asked, " Who is Moses that we should hear 
 him?" 
 
 There are introductory remarks that are useful 
 
THE POINT OF CONTACT 97 
 
 in conciliating a hostile audience. Such were 
 Paul's remarks on the steps of the tower when he 
 was arrested in Jerusalem. But these are not 
 really foundations for teaching. The real point 
 is something that can become a part of the build- 
 ing of thought we are seeking to have them con- 
 struct so that what they are led to think will be 
 an outgrowth of what they have experienced. 
 More and more we are coming to see that the real 
 faith of the Christian man is founded on expe- 
 riences. No second-hand faith will satisfy us. 
 And we are coming to see that no truth is valuable 
 that cannot be transmuted into experience by 
 adopting it heartily. Hopes for the future are 
 really without solid underpinning unless they are 
 built upon experiences in this world. 
 
 Doctrinal " points of contact/' In a somewhat 
 different field this principle is even more vital to 
 a Christian life. There must needs be something 
 in the nature of a '' system of doctrine." Made 
 up as we are, we need standards with which to 
 compare our judgments in individual cases. In 
 Ethics, for example, we instinctively decide each 
 judgment by comparing our first impressions or 
 our desires with our standard of right. So in 
 thinking about religious truth we need what we 
 may call a " standard of orthodoxy." This stand- 
 ard may be one of our own making, or it may 
 be one that we have accepted from the church or 
 from public opinion. No small part of the pas- 
 
98 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 tor's duty is to secure in the minds of his con- 
 gregation a correct standard of truth. This is 
 especially true in those churches like Baptist and 
 Congregational where authoritative or ecclesias- 
 tical standards do not figure very largely but in- 
 dividual freedom is exercised. But no man has 
 a real right to be inconsistent in his thinking. Nor 
 has he a right to be erroneous in his opinions. 
 And no pastor can be indifferent to the intellectual 
 views of religious matters in his congregation. It 
 becomes a part of his duty, therefore, to help in 
 building up in the minds of his hearers a correct, 
 consistent set of opinions on the fundamental 
 principles of their faith. 
 
 What I wish to emphasize just now is this: 
 All opinions and all doctrines to be valuable must 
 rest on facts. They must be gained by an induc- 
 tive study of experiences. The point of beginning 
 in any system is in what some one experienced. 
 The scripture is all of that sort. David expe- 
 rienced a great trust in God based upon his ex- 
 perience. He wrote out his feeling of trust in 
 the Twenty-third Psalm. Peter experienced great 
 change in his life by reason of his faith in Jesus. 
 And he wrote because of it that, We are made 
 partakers of the divine nature by great and pre- 
 cious promises. John wrote about the things we 
 have seen and handled of the word of life. Paul 
 began his new theology when he had a call from 
 Jesus on the way to Damascus. From such facts 
 
THE POINT OF CONTACT 99 
 
 in the writers' lives their doctrines were devel- 
 oped. Each year of life added something to the 
 extent and the certainty of their faith. 
 
 The pastor, therefore, in his instruction must 
 build on experience. To thunder out his own 
 anathemas, or to quote to the modern man with 
 pompous tone the words of creed or confession 
 as if they were the bottom stones of all opinion 
 is to waste time. Creeds may be used as con- 
 firmation of views tentatively gathered from ex- 
 perience. They combine a vast amount of expe- 
 rience from other lives. But as authority they 
 are not acceptable. For a pastor to read men of 
 any sort out of the kingdom of God and doom 
 them all to hell as if he was a divinely appointed 
 judge, as some of the modern evangelists do, is 
 not only powerless to lead any one in the path 
 of truth but is disgusting to all quietly thinking 
 men. 
 
 To follow this principle will sift out much of 
 so-called theology from the common mind. It 
 will re-examine the premises, and soon mark with 
 the brand of uncertainty some statements of wide 
 circulation. For example, it is not uncommonly 
 said that all men are hopeless sinners, having no 
 power to choose good and little power to see it 
 when it is before them. Therefore, it is of no 
 use to urge men to accept a savior whom they 
 cannot appreciate. That is a perfectly sound con- 
 clusion if the premise is true. But the premise is 
 
100 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 not true. Every man knows that he is not power- 
 less. He does see and does reject. He might 
 choose. No man as he looks back on any action 
 but knows that he might have done the other 
 thing. All theories of total depravity to the con- 
 trary he knows better than to say he could not 
 have done otherwise. To build any set of ideas, 
 therefore, on an assumed premise which experi- 
 ence and consciousness disputes is to build on the 
 sand. No man condemns himself in any act with- 
 out in that very condemnation admitting that he 
 might have done the other thing. And no man 
 can have any self-approval if he does not know 
 that he chose the way he went for himself. 
 
 This starting in the facts is the point of con- 
 tact with thinking men from which and upon 
 which the doctrinal buildings can be satisfactorily 
 established and permanently remain. 
 
 " Our fathers talked a great deal about ' ex- 
 periencing religion.' The phrase has died out in 
 our vocabulary. I wonder why. Can it be be- 
 cause religion has ceased to be an ' experience ' 
 to us, and has become a mere theory? Perhaps 
 it is what Leslie Stephen so caustically calls a 
 'fine art* What is Christianity? A song, 
 whose rhythmic cadence soothes the imagination, 
 and satisfies the esthetic sense! A picture, dra- 
 matic or pathetic, that leaves a lingering senti- 
 ment in the soul! A doctrine, to be studied and 
 discussed and argued, until the mind grasps its 
 
THE POINT OF CONTACT 101 
 
 significance! A dream of old Galilee, that tells 
 of the glory and beauty of One who lived under 
 Syrian skies! No, Christianity is more than 
 these. It is a life" * 
 
 ♦George Hooper Ferris, Philadelphia. 
 
IX. 
 
 Christ suffered for you, leaving you an exam- 
 ple that ye should follow in his steps. — 
 I Peter 2:21. 
 
 IDEALS 
 
 THERE is a great difference between an ideal 
 life and an ideal "in'' life. That little 
 word " in " changes the meaning of the sentence 
 from a general standard of Hfe to the very mo- 
 tive of life; from the goal toward which the 
 runners are all to look as they run to the runner 
 himself; from an idea of good health to the care 
 with which we seek it. A man may have a very 
 high ideal of Hfe and be a very low man in life. 
 He may have a deficient ideal and be very high 
 in the quality of his life. With the Christian 
 Jesus is the ideal man — the man we know we 
 ought to be like. Our ideal is the man we really 
 try to be like. 
 
 The ideal is the mainspring of life. Whether 
 it be high or low it controls in the most subtle 
 way the course we run and the way we run it. 
 A minister reads about the kind of minister the 
 writers think he ought to be and assents to it 
 verbally. At the same time he tries to be some 
 other sort of a preacher. He may imitate the 
 102 
 
IDEALS 103 
 
 slang of a Billy Sunday or, swinging to the other 
 extreme, he may try to preach in the dignified 
 style of a Webster. This is, on the surface, a 
 mystery. We may see great icebergs moving 
 south in the Atlantic, going against wind and 
 Gulf Stream. It looks mysterious, almost un- 
 canny. But to the informed it is simple. Six- 
 sevenths of the bulk is under water. It reaches 
 down into the cold currents that run south toward 
 the equator and the bulk of its substance is con- 
 trolled by that current. So men go with the 
 deepest current of their desires. While they are 
 evidently facing one way, in their hearts they 
 are going another way. Some went to California 
 in the gold times of '49 and became thugs. 
 Some go from the East where they have been 
 members of churches and forget the church and 
 join the world. When they were at home they 
 belonged to one denomination. After they got 
 away from the home influences they joined 
 another. It was in their hearts all the time. The 
 law of the ideal works as surely the other way. 
 Many a man has remained in bad company from 
 force of circumstances. When he could he broke 
 with them entirely. We remember how Vice- 
 President Arthur was called a political trimmer 
 who leaned toward all sorts of machine politics. 
 The whole nation was afraid of him when he 
 came by a stroke of a murderer to be President. 
 But the training of a godly father and mother 
 
104 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 was the deepest current and he swung out Into 
 it when he could and won the respect of all. Mr. 
 Cleveland was at one time anything but a man 
 controlled by good ideals. But it came to pass 
 that the deep current of a godly father's and moth- 
 er's influence asserted itself, and he became an 
 active member of the Christian church and was 
 no dishonor to it. Many men have lived in poor 
 houses because they had no better. But with 
 prosperity they built homes of beauty. They had 
 the desire all the time. 
 
 This mighty force determines the direction of 
 men's courses. It measures their value. It de- 
 termines their future destiny, for, as Jesus said, 
 " Out of the heart are the issues of life." If 
 we ministers can affect it we touch the helm of 
 life. 
 
 It will be helpful for us to analyze this power- 
 ful element and find if we can the process of 
 choosing the ideal. 
 
 Individuation. In the study of the psychology 
 of youth we find a strong tendency amounting at 
 times to a conscious and determined purpose to 
 have an individual life. They want to sit by 
 themselves in church; to choose their own com- 
 pany; to select their own amusements; in other 
 words, they " want to do as they are a mind to." 
 That same tendency, modified by experience, and 
 by the demands of society, is the foundation of 
 democracy in politics, of Protestantism in religion. 
 
IDEALS 105 
 
 It has its great nourishment in the New Testa- 
 ment doctrine of an individual judgment. " Every 
 one shall give account of himself to God"; and 
 in the doctrine of Providence, " Not a sparrow 
 falls to the ground without your Father." If 
 men are sons of God who is commissioned to be 
 their ruler? No preaching can be of influence 
 if it ignores this tendency — this process of 
 individuation. A further study of this tendency 
 shows us that it is the determining factor in the 
 choice of our ideals. We want to '' do as we are 
 a mind to" But what are '' we a mind to do " 
 and why are we " a mind to do so ? " Jesus said 
 to some Jewish people who did not accept him, 
 " Ye will not come to me because ye are not of 
 God." That is, there was a reason back of their 
 rejection of him. It was their great unlikeness to 
 God. So now there are great deep undercurrents 
 of Hkes and dislikes that determine what we are 
 " a mind to do." If we follow the stream back 
 we come to some as yet unexplored wilderness 
 where the stream of life has its beginnings. The 
 " mind to do " is a complex affair. Family in- 
 heritance, environment, early training, later in- 
 struction, social demands, the Holy Spirit — eacK 
 and all have a share in the work of creating the 
 "mind to do." 
 
 But there is always a " mind to do " some- 
 thing, and that something is to attain our ideal 
 in life. 
 
106 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 Choice rests upon estimate of values. We make 
 our choices in life by that which at the time we 
 deem of most importance to us. We choose 
 that which for us at the time is worth most or 
 which will, we think, in the long run, be of most 
 service. If a man thinks that money is of more 
 value to him than good character he will choose 
 as his ideal a man successful in getting wealth by 
 any means. His motto will be, *' Put money 
 in thy purse." 
 
 If to him good character is of greatest value 
 he will be sure to take a righteous man as his 
 ideal. In all cases it is a question of valuation. 
 
 But why does he value one thing more than 
 another? That question reaches toward depths 
 greater than we can fathom. But we can sound 
 a part of the depths. If a man or a child has' 
 found pleasure in any action it is the natural 
 thing to want it again. If it gives repeated 
 pleasure it becomes a constant object of pursuit. 
 He chooses the course that will secure it. If a 
 child never heard music he never would choose 
 to be a musician. If he never had the pleasure 
 of doing things he would not try to do them. If 
 he never knew the comfort of forgiving he would 
 not seek to have a forgiving spirit. If he does 
 know the pleasure and the profit of being always 
 truthful he will make truthfulness one part of his 
 ideal in life. If he knows the pleasure of helping 
 others he will put a wholesome altruism into his 
 
IDEALS 107 
 
 ideal. So, all the way through the list, experience 
 in the pleasure or the profit of right actions or 
 harm and discomfort from wrong actions deter- 
 mine the lines of the portrait they make for them- 
 selves of the men they will seek to be. 
 
 There follows from this that the parents are 
 the first who have the opportunity and the power 
 to give them a taste of what is good and a taste 
 of what is bad. Thus the appetite so to speak 
 will be formed and that appetite will later deter- 
 mine the choice of ideal. 
 
 A pious old minister with a keen insight was 
 deeply concerned in the welfare of a fatherless 
 grandson. He took him with him when visiting 
 the poor of his parish in the valleys of the Alps. 
 When they entered the poverty-stricken houses of 
 the poor the boy said, " When I am a man I mean 
 to take the side of the poor." That boy was 
 Henry Pestalozzi, a father to orphans and the 
 founder of universal elementary education. He 
 tasted the joy of helping others. 
 
 The motive that underlies the efforts of parents 
 to have their children give of their own little 
 funds to mission work is to give them a taste of 
 its joy, so that they will afterward choose to be 
 generous. All the great features of a good ideal 
 may thus, by wise parents, be in large measure 
 predetermined. 
 
 The ideal changes with experience. A liking 
 thus germinal in youth may become controlling in 
 
108 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 later years. The ideal may become more com- 
 plete and decided as experience increases. If a 
 man upon mature reflection decides that to be 
 strictly honest is best for him he may come to 
 see more clearly the excellency of his choice. 
 He may be instructed by many agencies concern- 
 ing the demands of honesty. Thus his ideal will 
 become richer and more commanding. He will 
 fight more earnestly against whatever may be 
 contrary to it. 
 
 It may be that a man has deliberately chosen 
 to be a mature Christian man. He has settled that 
 primary element in his ideal. He may have said 
 with a man of old, " As for me and my house 
 we will serve the Lord." He does not know all 
 that is implied in that decision but he has made 
 it. Later years will make it more evident that he 
 chose wisely. His ideal will remain but will grow 
 into larger proportions and more beauty of 
 holiness. 
 
 When are ideals formed? A large proportion 
 of them are formed early in life. Two leading 
 historians of America, — Prescott and Parkman, — 
 made the choice of their life work as historians 
 while in college. They followed the choice. It 
 was their great contribution to the knowledge of 
 the history of America's early days. Nearly all 
 ministers have had the first movements of their 
 heart's toward the ministry when they were in 
 their teens. In the matter of the Christian life 
 
IDEALS 109 
 
 it not infrequently occurs that the true estimate 
 of values is delayed to later years. By some 
 mighty presentation of the character of Christian 
 life men are — the spirit of God co-operating — 
 made to see what they had not seen. Their esti- 
 mate is changed and therefore their ideal changes. 
 They adopt in later life what many others adopt 
 earlier. But the process is the same. 
 
 From these considerations we see that the pas- 
 tor can be of great service by presenting to the 
 congregation the attractive side of the Christian 
 life. All the ability we have can find use in this. 
 To tell in words the excellence and the beauty of 
 holiness is a task worthy our most careful study. 
 Many of its beauties are unspeakable. But all 
 may be made agreeable. It will be helpful if you 
 often try to think out what are the excellencies 
 and beauties of the Christian life. Try to see its 
 beauty for yourselves>. Then read the expres- 
 sions that others have used to impart their con- 
 ceptions of it. Afterward carefully seek words 
 and illustration to convey your own thoughts 
 about it. If the ancient preacher, " because he 
 was wise still taught the people knowledge and 
 sought to find out acceptable words" (Eccles. 
 12:9) when he had so meager a tale to tell of 
 God's goodness, much more may we spare 
 no pains to tell the goodness of God and 
 the comfort of serving him in an attractive 
 way. 
 
110 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 I can but think that in our day there is more 
 endeavor to scold people for their shortcomings 
 than to win them by attractive presentation of the 
 Christian life. The Psalmist wrote, " 1 will 
 bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall con- 
 tinually be in my mouth. . . . O magnify the 
 Lord with me and let us exalt his name together." 
 (Ps. 34.) A young man of whom I knew, 
 brought up in a good family and at heart disposed 
 to be right, declined to go to church as he said 
 " to be lectured to all the time." An old Chris- 
 tian once said to me, '' Molasses catches more 
 flies than vinegar." Men are not made better by 
 scolding them. It is said by teachers that boys 
 are sometimes made to dislike Arithmetic because 
 their first lessons in it are made disagreeable by 
 poor teaching. In times of great discouragement 
 the minister needs to visit the throne of grace 
 until he can see through the clouds and be trium- 
 phant himself. To be all the time telling people 
 what they are not to do, and what things they do 
 that are not right, makes the course of the Chris- 
 tian look forbidding to the young and the old. 
 The " common people heard Jesus gladly." And 
 it was because he told them that the poor in 
 spirit would have the kingdom, and that God 
 would accept the sinners who came to him, and 
 that there would be plenty of harvest even if the 
 birds and the tares destroyed some of the good 
 seed, and the leaven would make the meal to be 
 
IDEALS 111 
 
 leavened in time, and said Come unto me and find 
 rest unto your souls. 
 
 He went about all Galilee preaching the glad 
 tidings — not the doleful ones — of the kingdom. 
 I do not mean to suggest that there are no serious 
 and sad and awe-inspiring things to be spoken, 
 but the prevailing tone must be joyous and tri- 
 umphant. Our weekly papers do us great harm 
 by frequently printing the records of the incom- 
 petency of churches and their earth-mindedness. 
 More often they tell about the failure of the 
 churches, and the losing of power over the com- 
 mon people. All this is first erroneous. It is not 
 true to the whole situation. And second it is poor 
 policy to be telling all the world and all the young 
 Christians the family frictions and personal weak- 
 nesses that are after all only specks on the picture. 
 
 Present the finer lines of a good ideal. Most 
 people have a sort of charcoal sketch of what they 
 want to be, but the details are not put in. To 
 show them the application of Christian principles 
 in the various circumstances of life is to show 
 them the exceeding great value of the Christian 
 religion. Their estimate will grow, and thus their 
 devotion to the ideal will increase. 
 
 This is done mainly by the presentation of the 
 lives of others who have taken the same ideal. 
 In this the records of the Bible characters are rich 
 in value. A pastorate that has made the congre- 
 gation to be familiar with what underlies the 
 
112 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 stories of Abraham and Moses, Samuel and Elisha, 
 of Ruth and Boaz, of Isaiah and Hezekiah in the 
 Old Testament; and of Matthew and John and 
 Peter among the Apostles of the New Testament, 
 has done a great work for the ideals of his peo- 
 ple. But Christian biography is a continuation of 
 the list quite as rich and useful as the biblical list. 
 Piety did not die out when the last chapter of the 
 New Testament was finished. As good men live 
 now as then. And in their comprehension of the 
 Christian life those who live now have a much 
 broader and finer ideal than the Apostles them- 
 selves. Paul said, " I have only laid a founda- 
 tion; others must build thereon." Others have 
 been building ever since. At times the work has 
 gone slowly; but this generation is far richer in 
 its ideals for society and far more efficient in the 
 earthly side of the kingdom than any one was in 
 Paul's time. They had the germinal idea. In 
 their day the blade, later the ear, and some time 
 the full corn in the ear will appear. Let me not 
 be understood to say that the ideals of the indi- 
 vidual life were incorrect, or that they were not 
 fully in sympathy with the spirit of the kingdom. 
 They were. But they did not know, and could 
 not know, the sweep of the Christian gospel 
 through the world, nor the subtle power it would 
 have in leavening not only the church but the 
 whole world in which the church would live. The 
 light of the world it has been; the salt of the 
 
IDEALS 113 
 
 earth it always will be. Christian biography, I 
 repeat, is a mine of wealth for ideal-making ma- 
 terial. And we include not only martyrs, who 
 died for the truth, but men and women who lived 
 for it; who put the best brains and the greatest 
 wisdom into the work of preaching, teaching, 
 organizing on large scale human activities for the 
 good of men. The founders of charities, the 
 establishers of hospitals, the investigators of 
 science for the prevention of diseases, the conse- 
 cration of wealth for the common good; the stu- 
 dents of history to discover the best way to 
 govern men; the musicians who have sought to 
 uplift our hearts in great oratorios; the architects 
 who have sung their " hymns to God in obedient 
 stone" — all these are diamonds from the mines 
 of history to enrich our ideal of life. Culture, 
 broad and careful, finds its field of usefulness in 
 this work of ideal making by showing the value 
 of the Christian life to single souls and to 
 society. 
 
 A neglected Afield of study for this work is the 
 lives of women. Once a request was made of a 
 large section of the public school teachers of New 
 York City that they secure from their scholars 
 the name of the person they would rather be if 
 they were to be some one else than themselves. 
 The reply was wide in its scope, but the astonish- 
 ing thing was that not a scholar even among the 
 girls expressed the desire to be like some woman. 
 
114. PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 The superintendents regarded that as a serious 
 comment on the teachers. They had not taught 
 their girls concerning the lives and characters of 
 great women. It was not really a fair criticism, 
 for the school books did not furnish such mate- 
 rial. The biographies of noted women, especially 
 of mothers who brought up families in the nur- 
 ture and admonition of the Lord, ought to be a 
 theme often treated in the pulpit and used in il- 
 lustration. The young women need the material 
 of that sort in the choosing of their own ideals. 
 The Bible itself is not abundant in such material, 
 but Ruth and Hannah and Jael and Elizabeth and 
 Mary and Dorcas and Timothy's mother and 
 grandmother and Priscilla and Lydia furnish sug- 
 gestions for good thoughts about good women. 
 
 But our modern life is as full of noble women 
 as the heavens are of stars. Let the records of 
 missionaries and teachers and Red Cross leaders 
 be consulted and there will be no dearth of mate- 
 rial suitable to enthuse girls with noble ideals. 
 
 The pasfor^s largest opportunity is in presenting 
 the value of the Christian life in its larger aspects, 
 Paul wrote that he determined to know nothing 
 but Christ and him crucified. That is very far 
 from saying that he would know nothing but a 
 crucified Christ. He would know nothing hut 
 Christ. What a knowledge that would be! He 
 must tell men all that he could about him. He 
 told of his resurrection, of his exaltation, of his 
 
IDEALS lis 
 
 kingship, of his sitting at God's right hand until 
 he became conqueror, of his return to take his 
 people, of his being judge of the quick and the 
 dead. It is written in the gospel of John that as 
 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so 
 the Son of man must be lifted up before the 
 world. To preach and to teach about Christ so 
 that one can have a definite idea of what he is 
 to do, and how it is to be done — that gives a 
 value to the Christian ideal which will lead men 
 who are seeking goodly pearls to sell all they have 
 and secure it. He will be to them the " chief est 
 among ten thousand and the one altogether 
 lovely." They will "behold as in a glass the 
 glory of the Lord," and thus be "changed into 
 his image from glory to glory even as by the 
 spirit of the Lord." 
 
X. 
 
 // any one is a hearer of the word and not a 
 doer he is like unto a man beholding his nat- 
 ural face in a mirror; for he beholdeth him- 
 self and goeth away, and straightway for- 
 getteth what manner of man he is. — ^James 
 1 :23. 
 
 SELF-ACTIVITY 
 
 AN indispensable result of all true educational 
 ' processes is the exercise of the pupil's own 
 powers. No one can become a musician by simply 
 studying the theory of music. His own fingers 
 must strike the keys of the piano; his arm draw 
 the bow of the violin; his lips fit the mouthpiece 
 of the cornet before the first elements of a musi- 
 cian can be found in him. 
 
 Books of physiology may be mastered, theories 
 of gymnastic cultivation be understood, but no 
 half inch of measurement to his muscles, and no 
 half ounce of new strength to their power can be 
 gained unless they are made to act. The boy must 
 lift or he will never be strong; the runner 
 must run, the thinker must think, the preacher 
 must preach if there is to be any gain in their 
 efficiency. So the educators must study the art 
 of getting pupils to act. Self-activity is a ''sine 
 qua non " — a " without which nothing.'* 
 116 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY ll'T 
 
 In the musical field it is not difficult to secure 
 it. Every pupil expects to " practice " from one 
 to five hours a day. 
 
 Athletic ambitions lead the boys to run and 
 jump for prizes. If they work at muscular oc- 
 cupations they get the activity incidentally in their 
 tasks. 
 
 But when the teacher is imparting ideas and 
 cultivating character, the work of securing the 
 exercise of whatever function the teacher desires 
 to improve is complex. 
 
 For example, if a teacher is seeking (.o impress 
 the value of honesty how, in a class, can he call 
 out self-activity? If a minister is preaching 
 about the virtue of forgiveness, how is he to in- 
 duce men to forgive? If he wants them to have 
 a high estimate of their church, he will need to 
 make heavy drafts upon his reserves of ingenuity 
 to find a way to do it. 
 
 But he will find some ways at hand if he re- 
 members that some of the functions of mind and 
 heart can be exercised very much by the im- 
 agination. 
 
 I once had a boy in my church who stabbed 
 another boy without any great provocation. I 
 went to see him to try to find out the secret cause of 
 it. He told me that he was accustomed to read 
 all the records of fights in the daily papers. He 
 had been " putting himself in the place " of the 
 criminals until he was like a good actor, possessed 
 
118 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 by the criminal of whom he read. Thus his mind 
 had become trained to " think stab " and his hand 
 almost practiced in the art of stabbing. Thus on 
 the slightest provocation his " will to stab " went 
 off like an explosive at the tiniest spark of fire. 
 
 If you study your own consciousness you will 
 very probably find that in these times when you 
 read the tales of war atrocities you are already 
 half prepared to take vengeance on those who do 
 them. One of the moral damages of war is this 
 blunting of the soul to the influences of mercy 
 and forgiveness. It is easy to explain. The will 
 to do warlike things is half exercised in the im- 
 agination. All the feelings of revenge and hate 
 are awakened and called out like scholars in a 
 fire-drill, and thus become experts in getting 
 ready for a real action. 
 
 This principle, so effective in evil, is our great 
 ally in good. Self-activity can be very closely 
 approached by the exercise of the imagination in 
 the lines of action desired. Thus a preacher that 
 much of the time presents the faults of people, 
 their shortcomings, their inconsistencies, their 
 semi-hypocrisies, their unsocial conduct, will pro- 
 duce a querulous, hypercritical condition in the 
 congregation. 
 
 On the other hand, the sweet and sunny and 
 hopeful preacher will have a congregation with 
 whom it is pleasant and helpful to worship and 
 work. 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 119 
 
 Coupled with this we must seek to discover 
 ways that will commit the people by an act of the 
 will. To be specific: suppose we are in an evan- 
 gelistic meeting, or campaign, we need, in addition 
 to awakening the desire to be a Christian, some 
 a£t by which the will is committed. This is the 
 value of the old-fashioned "mourners' bench," 
 or the " stand up," or the " strike the trail '* 
 devices. 
 
 Many an evangelistic sermon has been success- 
 ful in creating a readiness to accept the Savior, 
 but the custom of the church does not provide for 
 any action at the time, and so the man goes home 
 and the impression cools off. He has heated the 
 iron to workable heat and then plunged it into 
 cold water and it is hardened. It will pay well 
 to have some always-at-hand method of getting 
 the will at work every Sunday, to secure action 
 on the part of serious-minded people which will 
 commit them to the Christian life. It may be an 
 opportunity to meet the pastor, or to write their 
 names in a book for that purpose, or to come 
 forward at the close of the service — any way to 
 conserve the impression the sermon has made and 
 not send men home to forget it. 
 
 Suppose you have a missionary sermon. Of 
 course, you are not satisfied to have the people 
 know about missions. You seek to have them be- 
 come partners in the great enterprise ; — to " take 
 some of the stock." Some provision must be 
 
120 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 made to " secure the money for the stock/' I 
 once was asked to preach a missionary sermon in 
 a strange church. I did so, and it was said by 
 some that the appeal was *' very effective." But 
 I learned that the church was under the law of a 
 few men who said " we never take a collection." 
 " Our people are all poor folks." And so a col- 
 lection was not taken. That was not only waste 
 of my time, — just burning powder in fireworks 
 for display, — but it was hardening the hearts of 
 the congregation. It accustomed them to emotion 
 without action so that they would sleep under it 
 as men who sleep on the cars get accustomed to 
 noise. There should always be some sort of pro- 
 vision for the pledge or the actual contribution, 
 or some identification in heart with a specific, con- 
 crete mission. 
 
 Suppose you are seeking to secure more faithful 
 attendance at the church. You will of course try 
 to show the advantages to be gained by it. But 
 you will do the important thing if you say, " Now 
 will you not promise yourself to come for the 
 next four Sundays or Wednesday nights?" 
 
 But some one may say, " We do not always 
 have these concrete things in mind; we are aim- 
 ing at what we may call general spiritual culture. 
 We are instructing in theology or in the graces 
 of the Christian life." 
 
 It is true that such aims do not furnish ways 
 for physical self -activity. But there are ways in 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 121 
 
 abundance for the mental activities you seek to 
 secure. 
 
 In the case of the reasoning faculties, all rea- 
 soning processes followed in your sermon call for 
 the activity of their minds as they follow your 
 thought. This is the great value in the skeleton 
 of a sermon. It furnishes a track for the mind 
 to follow. If a hearer is kept running around for 
 your main purpose like a hound snuffing for the 
 trail of a fox, not much educational good comes; 
 but if there is a line of thought he will exercise 
 his mind in following it. 
 
 Suppose you seek to develop the moral judg- 
 ment. You can do it by stating problems. You 
 may say, " In such and such a case, what is the 
 right thing to do? " " Will a man under such and 
 such conditions be justified in doing so and so ? " 
 " What will the effect be upon a man who does 
 so and so?'* *' Mr. So-and-So did this or that, 
 he was not popular. Why so ? " " What are the 
 ripened fruits of untruthfulness or hatred?" 
 Thus you will lead them on to the right conclu- 
 sion only after they have been thinking out for 
 themselves the proper reply. To tell them dog- 
 matically " this is wrong " is not as profitable as 
 to ask them *' is this right ? " Such methods set 
 the minds of the congregation at work. They do 
 not open their mouths like young robins to be 
 fed; they sally out under your guidance to find 
 their own food and thus grow into maturity of 
 
122 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 thought. The question method is a very efifective 
 one for inducing self -activity of mind. 
 
 In the matter of church support, as I have sug- 
 gested in the chapter on church management, it 
 is important that the young be enrolled as con- 
 tributors, thus giving them weekly action and 
 weekly thought about the church. 
 
 If one seeks to develop the grace of forgive- 
 ness, the most that seems practicable is to present 
 the duty of forgiveness; to portray and exem- 
 plify by illustration until it is made to appear de- 
 sirable, and then suggest with great definiteness 
 that if any feel estranged toward others they 
 should at the earliest opportunity begin some acts 
 of kindness toward them. Words of forgiveness 
 are good, but acts are also good. Forgiveness 
 means the restoration of broken relations. This 
 is accomplished by resuming the relations. To 
 stand off and be " willing to forgive " is no for- 
 giveness at all. Horace Greeley used to say, " The 
 way to resume is to resume " ; and the way to 
 resume kindly relations is to resume them. 
 
 Suppose you wish to increase the Bible-reading 
 practice; then provide some plan to unite all in 
 Bible-reading on some subject and have a meet- 
 ing soon to hear what they have learned. 'A 
 paper now and then by some one, read in the mid- 
 week meeting on a Bible character, or a Bible doc- 
 trine, enlists and interests the writer and the 
 hearers. If you are wishing to have your people 
 
SELF-ACTIVITY 123 
 
 take more interest in community betterment, de- 
 vise some work within their reach that they can 
 begin to do and the taste for it will lead on to 
 more skill, and better success and larger plans. 
 
 In these ways you will find your people will 
 come into the habit of thinking in practical lines 
 and you will be made glad to see that they are 
 being truly educated in the Christian life. 
 
XL 
 
 The love of Christ constraineth us. — II Cor. 
 5:14. 
 
 MOTIVES 
 
 I HAVE spoken in the former discussion about 
 the forming of ideals and shown how they are 
 chosen because of a liking for them. Then I 
 pointed out that all learn to like good things by 
 tasting of their results. This led us to the place 
 where we are to ask how can we get people to 
 try good things? How can we get them to what 
 is called self-activity along these lines? This 
 brings us to the subject of motives. That is, to 
 the question, what means can we use, what 
 springs of action can we touch, what influences 
 can we bring to bear to get people into motion? 
 iThe following is from a daily paper concerning 
 Mr. Sunday's methods : " There can be no doubt 
 that Mr. Sunday's methods, frequently attacked 
 but almost invariably successful, are worked out 
 to the last word or action, and that they have 
 been reduced to a science long ago. He leads up 
 to a climax with a series of ' hell-roaring cries,' 
 as he describes them, and then begs his auditors 
 to *' come to God." It is then, when there is a 
 pause waiting for the advent of the "trail hit- 
 
 124 
 
MOTIVES 125 
 
 ters," that the evangelist's musical director begins 
 playing a plaintive, appealing old hymn. Usually 
 three or four women, sobbing, rise and start 
 down the aisle. They are " trail hitting," and as 
 they walk along the voices of the choir rise and 
 men start down the aisle. To those who sit back, 
 half fascinated, Mr. Sunday shouts, " Are you 
 coming? Jesus is here; come to him!" Others 
 stand and start toward the evangelist, and before 
 many moments those who are still in their seats 
 are conspicuous. It is apparent that they are de- 
 termined to be wicked, come what may, and in 
 a few moments they — most of them — join the 
 throng on the trail. That is an appeal to the 
 emotions of various kinds. First, fear of future 
 punishment is invoked; then the emotions awak- 
 ened by plaintive music and a tender hymn; then 
 comes that mysterious influence of sympathy witB 
 the sobbing women, while the music continues to 
 influence the heart. Finally there is the appeal 
 by the contagion of his own earnestness coupled 
 with the unwillingness of men to have their un- 
 belief made conspicuously public. They prefer to 
 mislead him rather than be labeled '' hardened 
 sinners." 
 
 Turning now to the counsel of a man long 
 honored as a " pastor and teacher " : * " The spir- 
 ituality of the Christian religion implies that the 
 worshipper is brought into communion with God 
 '''Oswald Dykes, "Dufe of a Minister," p. 191. 
 
126 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 ' in spirit and in truth ' — ^not, that is to say, by the 
 aid of sensuous or material symbols ,. ,. . but 
 through the word addressed to the reason and the 
 conscience. In harmony with this must the 
 preacher also commend himself by the manifesta- 
 tion of the truth to every man's conscience. In 
 other words it is on the naked force of religious 
 and moral truth that he must rely. Efforts to play 
 upon the passions except through the understand- 
 ing are unworthy of the Gospel. Even appeals to 
 the imagination through the senses merely are out 
 of keeping with it. For ecstasies and tumultuous 
 conditions of the soul, created by a heated fancy 
 under the excitement of numbers, have merely a 
 momentary effect and do not produce those per- 
 manent ethical results at which the Gospel aims 
 :. . . the preacher may agitate the soul of the 
 sinner ;. . . but the means to be employed must 
 always be moral and spiritual truth, not adven- 
 titious nor meretricious aid from harrowing pic- 
 tures of physical torment, the exhibition of a 
 crucifix to the eye, even sensuous details of the 
 Passion, or the mere influence of the falsetto 
 voice." 
 
 With two so diverse ideas from two so promi- 
 nent preachers it will not be unimportant to give 
 some careful thought to the general subject of 
 motives. It may be better at the outset for me 
 to say that in my own judgment neither of these 
 views has the whole truth nor is destitute of truth. 
 
MOTIVES 127 
 
 There is truth in both — and error in both — 
 whether I justify my view you must judge after 
 you have learned my reasons. 
 
 What is a motive f All action is directly pro- 
 duced in response to the command of the soul. 
 What we call the ** will to do " originates in the 
 soul's '' feeling.'* Some emotipnal awakening goes 
 before the doing or saying. Some kind of feel- 
 ing, in some degree, is back of every conscious 
 movement of the body, or every word thought- 
 fully spoken, or every determination to do. This 
 feeling is always the soul seeking its own comple- 
 tion or defending its own possessions. If, there- 
 fore, one man would cause another to act he must 
 by some agency awaken an interest — stir the feel- 
 ing-life by some appeal to the self-interest. 
 
 When there is presented to the soul any object 
 that, if it were possessed, would add to comfort 
 or self-completion, there arises at once a desire to 
 get it. That desire is the " moving force " which 
 lies back of all action — that is the ''motive" 
 Note that " motive " does not mean the thing de- 
 sired, but the awakened desire. Thus money is 
 not a " motive." In some men it awakens " mo- 
 tive," in others it does not. Reputation is not a 
 " motive," but in some men reputation awakens a 
 "motive." If a man seriously desires money, 
 then showing him a way to get money will stir 
 all his activities. If he hungers for reputation, 
 show him how to become famous and he will do 
 
128 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 almost anything to get his name in the papers. 
 Thus we see that only those objects that are con- 
 gruous with a man's nature or character awaken 
 any " motive." 
 
 Application of this definition. If you can pre- 
 sent any object or any truth, or show any path 
 of life that will add to what one likes and desires, 
 a motive will at once arise. E.g., if a man feels 
 himself a great sinner and is troubled about it, 
 and you present to his mind a gospel that will 
 promise him forgiveness and victory, he will seek 
 to get it. But if he has no sense of sin he will 
 say, as a young man once said to me when I ap- 
 proached him about the Christian faith, " I appre- 
 ciate your interest in me but really I have no need 
 of it." The Savior said, " They that are well 
 have no need of a physician." His preaching 
 about salvation found no response in the self- 
 righteous Pharisee. But the common people, con- 
 scious of their need, heard him gladly. So in 
 trying to persuade men to accept the Christian 
 way of action, thought and hope, the minister 
 must be a student of their desires. Some com- 
 mon meeting ground where to the hungerings 
 of their souls can be offered the ''bread of 
 lifer 
 
 Good and had motives. It is very generally 
 agreed that there are both good and bad motives. 
 But it is not so generally agreed what ones are 
 good and what ones are bad. Some are satisfied 
 
MOTIVES 129 
 
 to say that any motive that sets men in motion 
 to do some good thing is a good motive. " The 
 end," they say, " justifies the means/' " If you 
 v^ant to get men to * strike the trail,' whatever 
 gets them to thus commit themselves to the 
 Christian life and join the procession of Chris- 
 tians is a legitimate motive." Carried to the ex- 
 treme this leads to the Jesuit doctrine that even 
 a lie in a good cause loses its taint of sin if it aims 
 at a good result. Paul expressed his view on this 
 when he said of such teachers, " Their damnation 
 is just" This " Gospel of Expediency " has a 
 very wide following. I am concerned just now 
 only with it as it comes into view in preach- 
 ing. Can we say with wisdom that any appeal to 
 any motive is good if its aim is to lead men to 
 do good? Is it best to do as Mr. Sunday is said 
 above to do, provided it gets men to " strike the 
 trail " ? Does the minister need fumigating for 
 wickedness after he has made an appeal to a low 
 motive if his appeal secured a large missionary 
 collection? Are members of churches unworthy 
 if they are induced to " come in " by personal af- 
 fection for the minister ? It is evident from what 
 has been quoted above that on this there is great 
 divergence of view. The Jansenists * followed the 
 principle that in teaching no appeal could legiti- 
 mately be made to any motive except that which 
 
 *The managers of a school about 1650 at Port Royal, a 
 village about eighteen miles from Paris. 
 
130 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 arises from the desire to conform to a holy stand- 
 ard of right — to do right just because it is right. 
 No good result would, in their judgment, modify 
 or hide a bad quality in a motive, but on the con- 
 trary a result otherwise good is tainted, if not 
 utterly condemned, if it was secured by appeals 
 to a motive other than a sense of duty. Under 
 this idea no appeal can be made except to men's 
 sense of duty to God. " You ought to be a Chris- 
 tian because God wants you to be one." " You 
 ought to do this or that because it is right for you 
 to do so." All other motives are to greater or 
 less degree improper and, in some sense, bad mo- 
 tives. The " naked truth " as quoted above must 
 be the persuading thing. The " sword of the 
 spirit which is the word of God" must be the 
 only weapon. This question is well worthy great 
 consideration. As I have said my own view lies 
 between these — and drawing from each important 
 principles. 
 
 The fundamental principle. I should assume 
 that my work as a minister is in the last analysis 
 to build up in men Christian character, and in 
 society the natural application of Christian char- 
 acter to the community life. The individual is 
 first in importance, as the single dollar is the basis 
 of commercial values. A '' fiat " Christian is no 
 better than a " fiat " dollar. If the dollar is de- 
 preciated all values shrink. If the Christian man 
 shrinks the Christian community shrinks. It is 
 
MOTIVES 131 
 
 not so much to get good things done as it is to get 
 the doers to be good. 
 
 Let me dwell upon that for a moment. When 
 a young man is learning a trade his instructor has 
 an interest in every piece of work done, but the 
 dominant interest is that the apprentice should 
 learn to do good work. The music teacher is 
 pleased when the pupil sings well, but he is not 
 so much concerned that the music be good as that 
 the pupil become a good singer. The Christian 
 is learning the trade and the minister is a *' laborer 
 with God " in teaching him the trade — ^he wants 
 him to attend church, to give to missions, to be 
 peaceable and honest for the sake of these things, 
 but chiefly he wants him to know the trade of 
 being a good Christian and working at it cheer- 
 fully. The Christian is learning the music of the 
 kingdom, but the great aim of the pastor is not to 
 hear some kingdom tunes but to make him a 
 kingdom singer. This I assume is the dominant 
 purpose of the minister. 
 
 The good motive. Every intelligent act leaves 
 a residuum of character in the actor. As leaves, 
 that come and then fall, all leave behind them a 
 contribution to the growth of the tree, making its 
 limbs longer and its trunk larger, so every exer- 
 cise of the will and every movement of the emo- 
 tions makes its contribution to the upbuilding of 
 the soul in some direction. If, therefore, lower 
 motives are more often or more thoroughly 
 
132 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 aroused than the higher ones, the soul becomes 
 more full in that direction. If these appeals for 
 good aims are made to the lower and inferior 
 motives, the residuum is low; the increment to the 
 soul is second-class, and the result on the main 
 purpose of preaching is second-class. In deter- 
 mining, therefore, which motives we may wisely 
 enlist, we see that the decision rests on the basis 
 of its residuum of character. Those being the 
 good motives that leave the doer of actions a bet- 
 ter Christian for having done them; the sayer of 
 good things a better person for having said them ; 
 the donor of money a better man for the giving; 
 and a bad motive being one that while it may 
 secure a desirable result leaves the doer with a 
 greater balance of low elements in his character. 
 The resultant judgment. You will see here 
 that while one set of men value the objective 
 results of actions and care little for the means by 
 which they are procured and another set value 
 only the motives that prompt to the action, the 
 view that I should take is that both motives and 
 results are valuable and should be considered in 
 determining the course for the minister to follow. 
 Our Creator made us susceptible to these various 
 motives. Each one has its value at times. Life 
 is completest when the whole man is involved. It 
 would be good to secure a large missionary col- 
 lection by an appeal simply to the sense of obHga- 
 tion to give. But how much better it would be 
 
MOTIVES 133 
 
 if in getting the collection the donors were led to 
 give from intelligent interest in the world's uplift, 
 and from a feeling of delight in being partners 
 with God and with other men in carrying the 
 gospel to those living in darkness. 
 
 Bearing upon this matter it will be of interest 
 to learn the judgment of a leading writer upon 
 ethics. Professor John Dewey, speaking of mo- 
 tives, says : '' The first quality which is the object 
 of judgment primarily resides in intention; in the 
 consequences which are foreseen and desired. 
 ■Ultimately it resides in the disposition or char- 
 acteristics of a person which are responsible for 
 his foreseeing and desiring just such consequences 
 rather than others." This being true, the min- 
 ister's task is to reach the disposition and char- 
 acteristics that determine the act, and so shape 
 them that the results will be worthy of approval. 
 
XII. 
 
 / beseech you by the mercies_ of God. — Rom. 
 12:1. 
 
 MOTIVES (Continued) 
 
 SINCE we have seen that motives of various 
 kinds are legitimate if along with good results 
 the net residuum of good in the character is con- 
 served, we are to consider some of the available 
 motives to which we may appeal. 
 
 These motives with all their varied possibilities 
 of power lie asleep until some bugle call awakens 
 them to action. It is our task to awaken and use 
 them. A studious examination of ourselves shows 
 that truth in some way presented to the mind is 
 the bugle call to which they each respond with 
 alacrity. 
 
 Fear. Perhaps, owing to the history of preach- 
 ing, the first one that comes into mind is fear of 
 various sorts. There are three kinds of fear that 
 have a close relation to religious life. The fear 
 of future punishment is one. In the past that 
 has been the most prominent. Very early the 
 church developed that to the utmost. The paint- 
 ings of " great masters '' presented physical tor- 
 ments with such a seeming relish that it suggests 
 they were fit candidates for it themselves. Mr. 
 134 
 
MOTIVES 135 
 
 Beecher once said, '^ Any one who is willing to be 
 damned for Adam's sin ought to be/' And those 
 who can revel in the imaginations of such things 
 as figure in early church paintings and are threat- 
 ened in " orthodox " teachings of past centuries 
 are either devilish in their dispositions or hypo- 
 critical in their statements. But at the same time, 
 both the apostles and their great teacher appealed 
 to the fear of some future punishment. Paul 
 wrote that, " Every one must give account of him- 
 self to God "; and that, " God will render to every 
 man according to his works . . . tribulation and 
 anguish upon every soul of man that worketh 
 evil." (Rom. 2:9.) Peter wrote, " If God spared 
 not the angels ... he knows how to keep 
 the unrighteous under punishment." (II Peter 
 2:2, 9.) And Jesus said that the Judge will 
 say, " Depart ye cursed into the eternal fire which 
 is prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt. 
 25:41.) No Bible-believing man can read these 
 things and deny the inevitable sorrow in the 
 future for some of mankind. And if a minister 
 feels this danger threatens any of his congrega- 
 tion he is justified in using this appeal in the 
 earnest and tender spirit that it must beget in a 
 Christ-like man. Godly fear can be aroused only 
 by such a presentation of the danger that lies in 
 the path of wrongdoing as will convince men of 
 its reality. Dogmatic statements about it have lit- 
 tle weight. If one can somehow get a foothold in 
 
136 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 men's own experience from which, to show the 
 present results of wrong, he may find it possible 
 to lead the mind on toward the conviction that its 
 penalties are not exhausted here. 
 
 But it is a difficult task. The greater part of 
 our work in this direction lies in keeping the posi- 
 tive teaching of Jesus on the subject always in 
 mind. Mr. Beecher used to say that he always 
 preached with a background of judgment. We 
 must faithfully present the '' whole counsel of 
 God/' and trust that the Spirit will use it to con- 
 vince men of their needs. 
 
 But to pour forth, as some do, condemnations 
 to " hell " with an unction that seems to indicate 
 that they enjoy doing so not only does no good to 
 others but is a sure sign that such speakers are 
 in great danger of it themselves. No good man 
 can joke about it nor revel in it. 
 
 Another kind of fear is that which comes from 
 the idea that " judgments " come upon men here 
 when they do wrong. It is true that if Jesus has 
 undertaken to " present his people without spot 
 or wrinkle*' he will do so. If it takes sorrows 
 and disappointments to attain the result they will 
 be sent. But the minister is not wise enough to 
 discriminate between " judgments " and " chasten- 
 ing." His appeals must be general. 
 
 Another fear is that which arises from the 
 dread of self-condemnation. To stand before the 
 glass and look ourselves in the eye and know that 
 
MOTIVES 137 
 
 we are following lower ideals than we might is, to 
 most of us, a great fear. For myself, I did not 
 have any fear of '' hell " or of temporal " judg- 
 ments " when I committed myself to the Christian 
 life. But I did awake to the fact that with the 
 best of Christian influences around me from my 
 youth, and the full blaze of knowledge shining 
 upon me from the Bible and the pulpit and the 
 Christian people, I was following too low ideals — 
 and that moved me. I think that motive is more 
 worthy than the fears of which I have spoken 
 above. 
 
 Gratitude. Gratitude is a sense of obligation to 
 make return for blessings. It awakens when the 
 mercies of God have been shown or called to 
 remembrance. Thus Paul wrote, after having 
 shown by careful argument the gracious plan of 
 salvation, "I beseech you, therefore, by the 
 mercies of God (which I have just shown you), 
 present your bodies living sacrifices, holy, accept- 
 able to God, which is your reasonable service." 
 (Rom. 12:1.) The Psalmist understood this 
 when he wrote, " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and 
 all that is within me bless his holy name; bless 
 the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his 
 benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who 
 healeth all thy diseases; who crowneth thee with 
 lovingkindness and tender mercies." The Psalm- 
 ist said, " What shall I render unto the Lord for 
 all his benefits toward me ? I will take the cup of 
 
138 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 salvation and call upon the name of the Lord/* 
 (Ps. ii6: 13.) It awakens this motive to relate 
 and exalt the " benefits toward us." To do that 
 is a most worthy appeal. A college mate of mine 
 was the son of a most worthy woman, who became 
 a widow when my friend was a small boy. He 
 was brought up wisely by his mother. He was 
 industrious, clean, kind, honest, capable. The 
 neighbors said, " Why, he is as good as any 
 church member. Why should he be a Chris- 
 tian?" and what was quite different, he thought 
 so himself. But in the good pleasure of him who 
 sent his spirit to show us truth this young man 
 who thought so highly of himself came one day 
 to see himself in a different light. He said to 
 me, " I saw that all my excellence of reputation 
 was due to Christ whose word I had been taught, 
 whose people had surrounded me with holy influ- 
 ences; whose saint, my mother, had taught me by 
 precept and example ; and I had done nothing but 
 receive all this with not a thrill of gratitude to 
 him; and I seemed to myself to be the most 
 unworthy of all the young men in Lowell, Mass." 
 Gratitude arose in him and moved him to a very 
 consecrated Christian life. This motive is one 
 that exalts a man. To give money or time or 
 effort to any good cause from that motive leaves 
 a residuum in the character of rare value. 
 
 Self-respect Whatever others may think of us 
 we must think well of ourselves. Every man has 
 
MOTIVES 139 
 
 that in him, and to show him that any actions will 
 give him just ground to respect himself is a great 
 and worthy appeal. To tell men in a dictatorial 
 way that they are only *' unworthy worms of the 
 dirt "; that they are " born in sin and conceived in 
 iniquity/' and that only the great mercy of God 
 can afford them any ground of hope, — while they 
 may themselves often feel that to be their case, it 
 is never good nor wise for others in an appeal for 
 a better life to tell them so. It is the business of 
 the Spirit of God to convict of sin. He will 
 wound. We must bind up. He may plough the 
 heart; we must sow the seed and cultivate it. 
 Most men know their sins. Many do not know the 
 remedy. John wrote, " Beloved now are we the 
 Sons of God and it is not yet made manifest what 
 we shall be. We know that if he shall be mani- 
 fested we shall be like him; for we shall see him 
 even as he is." And Paul said, " Walk worthy of 
 your calling." In school no good teacher allows 
 a pupil to think he is belittled by his teacher. 
 Many pupils who are oppressed at home by pov- 
 erty, or unwise parents, have been quickened into 
 studious scholars by teachers who had the wisdom 
 to appeal to the self-respect. This appeal is almost 
 wholly lacking in some of our pulpits. It is fault- 
 finding most of the time. One hears scolding and 
 pessimism. The minister means well but he lacks 
 the pedagogical tact to make his appeal to the 
 motive of self-respect. Jesus taught, not that we 
 
140 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 are the offscouring of the world, but the ''light 
 of the world," set up on a candlestick to give 
 light unto all that are in the house. Therefore, 
 do not let your light be of the wrong sort, but 
 of the sort that leads men to glorify God. 
 
 The Psalmist said, " When I behold the heav- 
 ens, the work of thy hands, what a wondrous 
 being is man that thou art mindful of him." * 
 
 Shame to fail in duty. President Wilson gives 
 us an illustration of this in his communication of 
 July 12, 1 91 7. Seeking to check speculation in 
 food, and getting rich out of the war while men 
 were giving their lives to help Europe, he did 
 not scourge the public as though he dealt with 
 slaves. He did not, Kaiser fashion, assume that 
 he and God jointly owned them. He did not call 
 them "my people" nor Satan's people; but ad- 
 dressed them, " My fellow countrymen. . . . 
 " In these days when we are sending hundreds of 
 thousands of our young men across the seas to 
 serve a great cause, no true man who stays behind 
 to work for them and sustain them by his labor 
 will ask himself what he is going to make out of 
 that labor. ... He will give as freely and with 
 as unstinted sacrifice as they. ... I take it for 
 granted that those who argue otherwise do not 
 stop to think what that means. Do they mean 
 that you must be paid, must be bribed to make 
 
 *Read in line with this the book, "The Passing of the 
 Third Floor Back" (J. K. Jerome), and "The Gospel 
 of Good Will" (Pres. W. D. Hyde). 
 
MOTIVES 141 
 
 your contribution — that costs you neither a drop 
 of blood nor a tear when the whole world is in 
 travail? . . . Do you mean that you will exact 
 a price and drive a bargain with the men who are 
 enduring the agony of this war on the battle- 
 field . . . before you will come forward and do 
 your duty and give some part of your life . . . 
 for the things we are fighting for? . . . You 
 know, and I know what response you will make 
 . . . not that I have any fear as to the result." 
 
 Material advantage. It is not wrong to teach 
 men the importance of prosperity in business — 
 but to promise money profit for the exercise of 
 Christian charity is to belie the cause. Jacob 
 sought to dicker with God. He said, " If you 
 will prosper me I will give you a tithe.** That 
 is, *' If you give me a dollar's worth of prosperity 
 I will give you ten per cent." To make a plea 
 now for gifts to Christian work on the promise 
 that you will be prospered in business is to 
 Jacobize men — from which good Lord deliver us 
 all. The cause of missions and of religion is 
 worthy a better plea. Response to such would 
 only leave a residuum of covetousness. 
 
 But I need not continue. It would prolong the 
 discussion to mention love of country, love of 
 the church, love of the brethren, desire for 
 heaven, love of Christ. The great principle of 
 control is, Motives that secure desirable results 
 and leave a residuum of good in the character 
 
142 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 are always worthy, all others are not. It is true 
 that the prophet Malachi wrote, " Bring ye all 
 the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be 
 meat in my house, and prove me, saith the Lord 
 of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven 
 and pour you out a blessing, that there is not 
 room enough to receive it/' (Mai. 3:10.) But 
 that was rather as a test of their faithfulness than 
 an appeal to their greed. And even that is not 
 without the inquiry whether the tithing system 
 did not lie at the root of the selfish covetousness 
 that has marked and damaged the Jewish race ever 
 since. A rich man once told me that tithing made 
 him stingy. He was always figuring how much he 
 could give and not trench on his own nine-tenths. 
 Usefulness. This appeals to those who have 
 already some culture in the Christian life. Moses 
 asked his father-in-law to join the Israelites. He 
 said, " Come with us and we will do you good." 
 But Hobab replied, ** O I am very contented 
 where I am." Then Moses said, " We need you 
 for our guide in the wilderness." " Well, then, 
 I will go." It would be unwise to say to men 
 that the cause of Christ "needs" them, but it 
 touches some of the best springs of action to 
 show people how they can be useful. To say to 
 a young man, " You have the gift of leadership 
 and can bring others with you " ; or to a woman, 
 " If you will do so and so it will carry this move- 
 ment to success "; or this man of means, " If you 
 
MOTIVES 143 
 
 will lead off this debt can be paid; or this new 
 activity of the church can be launched." These 
 and many similar appeals are not only legitimate 
 but very effective with the better sort of people. 
 
 Authority. Some teachers insist that an appeal 
 to authority is not a worthy one. It is said that 
 the integrity of our own personality is endangered 
 when we say to men, '* You are under obligation 
 to do this because God says you are to do it. It 
 is not for you to ask why, but to obey, and the 
 scripture is quoted : " To obey is better than 
 sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams." 
 These say : " That only is truly ethical which a 
 man does because his own mind and heart so 
 approve it that he acts from his own center. His 
 will coalesces with the divine will as two drops of 
 water melt into one. There is no doubt that such 
 harmony of will existed between Jesus and his 
 Father. But as a matter of fact it does not so 
 exist between us and the Father, 
 
 To me the appeal to authority of God as a 
 reason why we should do any act is the first and 
 natural appeal to make to those who are immature 
 in knowledge and experience. I think that to 
 obey God just because he is God is to learn the 
 excellencies of his ways and ultimately come to do 
 his will from spontaneous desire. Ruskin some- 
 where said that we learn to love the right by 
 doing it, and until we do love it we are not in a 
 mature ethical state. 
 
XIII. 
 
 Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he 
 expounded in all the scriptures the things con- 
 cerning himself. — Luke 24:33. 
 
 EXPOSITION 
 
 npHE Bible is the great source of knowledge 
 -*• and instruction in the Christian religion. 
 iWe do not by any means say the only source. 
 Nor is it the most reliable source in all religious 
 matters. Nature and history are sources that 
 antedate and outrank the Bible in fundamental 
 things. There was longing for God before there 
 were any altars or temples. 
 
 " The groves were God's first temples.'* There 
 was revelation, and faith in it, long before any 
 book of our Bible was written. Abraham came 
 out from Ur guided, we do not know how. 
 Human hearts now have their longings and their 
 faith where there is no Bible. But nevertheless 
 the Christian faith and the Christian hope grow 
 in the soil of Bible knowledge. The foundations 
 precede them, but the building is from teaching 
 found only in the New Testament. There is 
 " religion " in abundance where there is no 
 "gospel," but the hearts of men are not satisfied 
 until the gospel message reaches them. 
 144 
 
EXPOSITION 145 
 
 " Exposition " is bringing to men^s view what 
 is inside of that book. Since the Bible is the 
 standard by which our teaching is measured, and 
 the real source of our knowledge of the distinc- 
 tively Christian truth, it is of first importance that 
 the contents of that book be made known to the 
 people. The pastor's privilege and duty is to 
 search for its doctrine and its promises and its 
 ideals; and, having found them, to bring them to 
 the people. The spies were sent up to examine 
 the land of Canaan, and report back to Moses and 
 Israel their discoveries, so that the people might 
 be encouraged to face the journey to that prom- 
 ised and longed-for land. They brought back 
 specimens of the fruit. They said, " It is a 
 goodly land: it has many and strong inhabitants 
 but we shall be able to overcome them.'* 
 
 So the pastor is to explore the chapters of 
 bibHcal history and survey the blessings promised 
 to the faithful; he is to study the routes of life 
 along which the good have travelled, and bring to 
 his people not only the story of the country but 
 some of its fruits. To do that is what is meant 
 by " exposition." 
 
 The scripture thus opened is the great source of 
 many things. Paul said, " It is profitable for 
 teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
 tion which is in righteousness; that the man of 
 God may be complete, furnished completely unto 
 every good work." (II Tim. 3: 16.) 
 
im PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 In educating a community no single agency is 
 equal in value to a sympathetic, intelligent unfold- 
 ing of the scripture. 
 
 A great danger. 1 have said in another place 
 that the allegorical interpretation has more to be 
 said for it and more against it than can well be 
 enumerated. In exposition this method finds its 
 field. The idea of that method is that the words, 
 the events, the persons of the Old Testament, and 
 to a large extent the same in the New Testament, 
 carry a double sense. They are " earthly stories 
 with heavenly meanings." People with active im- 
 aginations see almost anything in the scripture 
 when they skillfully use that sort of a glass to 
 look through. And like a kaleidoscope the mean- 
 ing changes every time the glass passes to a new 
 beholder. 
 
 As one has said, " The Bible has been treated 
 as a magazine of curious and mystical analogies; 
 as a work on geology, anticipating the labors of 
 Hitchcock and Dana and Agassiz; as a dictionary 
 of moral precepts, all of which were of equal and 
 uniform validity; as a sort of a divine puzzle, 
 whose parts could be put together to spell out 
 some theurgic symbol of salvation. Lyric meta- 
 phors have been made over into studies in science. 
 Inspiring poems have been treated as prosaic 
 biographies. Parables and visions have been 
 boiled down into accounts of historical occur- 
 rences. Figures and allusions to seven horns and 
 
EXPOSITION 147 
 
 seven eyes have been made to refer to events like 
 an eclipse of the sun in Germany, or the election 
 of a President in the United States. The fusion 
 of two metals in the temple has taught the hu- 
 manity and divinity of Christ. The five stones in 
 David's sling have been made to spell J-E S^U-S. 
 A scarlet cloth on the walls of Jericho has been a 
 prophecy of the blood of the New Covenant. 
 Coverings of the tabernacle have taught the doc- 
 trine of imputed righteousness. Riddles, conun- 
 drums, recondite and strained interpretations have 
 been found on all its pages. Like a child's box 
 of letters, it has furnished amusement to re- 
 nowned scholars who have tried to see how much 
 they could " spell out *' by means of its verses." * 
 
 On the other hand, what a wonderful adapta- 
 tion the book has for such uses. The New Testa- 
 ment itself has some passages that suggest the alle- 
 gorical character of parts of the Old Testament, 
 so that in spite of the fanciful things said by some 
 to be taught by it, we cannot say it is all fancy. 
 
 Whatever the preacher may do with texts, the 
 teacher J the true pastor, will want to avoid fancies, 
 but he will also want to utilize the book. There 
 are several principles to guide us. First, the 
 purpose of the writer or speaker of any passage 
 must he found. For example, when the Psalmist 
 wrote his hymn — say the 105th Psalm — was he 
 teaching the details of history? Certainly not. 
 * Rev. George H. Ferris, Philadelphia. 
 
148 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 He was showing the guidance that God had given 
 to Israel. He was concerned with making Israel 
 know that God was their God, and that he wanted 
 them to " keep his laws." He wrote not to pre- 
 serve history but to promote holiness. 
 
 The author of the " Gospel of Matthew " was 
 not writing a life of Christ, nor the writer of Acts 
 a life of Peter or of Paul. The first was giving 
 a summary of Jesus' teaching and the saving 
 deeds of his life. The other was showing how 
 the gospel spread over the world, and how its 
 simple message to some Jewish peasants was ex- 
 panded to take in the philosophers of Athens, and 
 the politicians of Rome, and the rest of the world. 
 Paul's letters were not written primarily for the 
 instruction of Americans but for the comfort and 
 help of his own generation. 
 
 If you are to teach thoughtful people you must 
 have that conception underneath all your exposi- 
 tion. Other folks have found that out, and you 
 must accept that point of view. 
 
 The second principle is: Seek the purpose of 
 those who put these particular hooks of the Bible 
 into the collection of sacred hooks. 
 
 Why, for example, are Paul's letters written to 
 some one else put in here? Why, out of all the 
 things that Jesus did, were these preserved? In 
 answer to these questions we may say that the 
 dominating purpose was to show us the path of 
 life and help us walk in it, by showing us the 
 
EXPOSITION 149 
 
 inner life of those who did walk in it and of those 
 who did not walk in it. It was not to make us 
 know the facts of David's life that his story was 
 told so much as to show us the spirit he had. It 
 was not to tell us how bad a woman Jezebel was — 
 we have bad women now — but to show us how 
 God defeated her. The story of Israel's journey 
 through the wilderness has no value in its de- 
 tails — no one goes over that route now — but it 
 shows how God guides us through a longer wil- 
 derness to a better Canaan. Therefore, in teach- 
 ing truth from this book, we are to look for the 
 moral situation back of the events and set that 
 forth. The Twenty-third Psalm shows how a 
 godly man feels toward his God. The story of 
 Peter's denial shows how a sensitive spirit may 
 flinch at the reproach of men, and yet under the 
 love of Christ may recover great courage. The 
 story of Lazarus is not important in its details. 
 Whether he died again or what he said about his 
 four days in the grave has no spiritual value, but 
 it shows how Jesus can call back our ** buried 
 selves." How 
 
 Down in the human heart, 
 Crushed by the tempter. 
 
 Feelings lie buried 
 That grace can restore." 
 
 The story of Paul's conversion is not important 
 except that it gives us the key to all Christian 
 
150 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 life. Paul said, " I was not disobedient to the 
 heavenly vision." All the rest followed naturally. 
 It does not matter whether the Prodigal Son went 
 to Egypt or Rome in his wanderings; but it is 
 of great value to know that his father loved him 
 and forgave him; and that Jesus made that father 
 the miniature of Our Father in Heaven. The 
 mysterious figures that act in the drama of The 
 Revelation are forever useless to us, but the story 
 of battle between Christ's kingdom and its ene- 
 mies, followed by victory and peace — not " peace 
 without victory " — is a great comfort to us all. 
 So through all the book the faith, the courage, the 
 patience of men are the elements of value for the 
 teaching of which the books have been exalted 
 and preserved. 
 
 The third principle is : We must interpret by the 
 same rules as any other writing dealing with the 
 same subjects. There is no " sacred rhetoric " 
 any more than there is sacred arithmetic. The 
 rules of rhetoric are the same whether we read a 
 poem by Milton or David. The rules of logic are 
 the same whether we follow Paul in Romans or 
 Socrates. This is too often ignored or forgotten. 
 Some of the Bible is poetry and must be read as 
 such, some of it is commandment and must be 
 obeyed as such. 
 
 To teach as the language of prophecy what was 
 only the language of desire or faith is to mis- 
 interpret the word. Foresight is very different 
 
EXPOSITION 151 
 
 from faith. When Isaiah wrote Chapter 2 : 3-4, 
 he was not seeing the future; he was describing 
 the sure result that would follow when men 
 should go up to the house of the Lord to learn 
 his ways and be willing to walk in his paths. 
 They have not all done this yet; otherwise we 
 should not have the war which grieves the heart 
 of all but the German '* war lords " who make a 
 living by it. All this requires familiarity with the 
 historical situation and with the religious needs of 
 that time. It will be no small part of preparation 
 for exposition to be able to sketch the situation 
 morally and historically in swift clear way, so that 
 you may introduce the audience to the circum- 
 stances that give character to the passage. There 
 are some passages that are like diamonds, beauti- 
 ful in themselves. But many more that depend 
 upon their setting. 
 
 You can teach and educate a people in more 
 ways and on more subjects and with greater 
 profit to all by expositions of Bible passages than 
 by any other method. It will require study but it 
 will pay for the study. There are occasions when 
 you will need to discuss themes that belong to the 
 civil conditions of your people; but this book con- 
 tains even for such themes the richest mines of 
 the truth needed for such occasions. 
 
 The story of Boaz and his laborers has its les- 
 son for the employer. 
 
 The story of Nebuchadnezzar tells rulers not to 
 
162 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 be lifted up in their successes. The story in 
 II Kings 12: 4-12 tells us the unwisdom of com- 
 mitting great works to officials without oversight 
 and reports of their stewardship. The rebellion 
 against Solomon because of his severity and ex- 
 travagancies recalls the saying of Mr. Lincoln, 
 "You cannot fool all the people all the time." 
 Indignation may be dammed up for a time, but it 
 will accumulate to the overthrow of the wicked. 
 We are seeing now how at last — at last, after gen- 
 erations of patient delay — the rum-seller class is 
 to be overthrown as thoroughly as it has been for 
 a long time despised. 
 
 A broad study of the sociology of the biblical 
 history gives us a view of underlying principles 
 that must come sooner or later into control of our 
 community life. These principles had only fitful 
 expression in that old-time history, but they are 
 there. The prophecies of Amos and Isaiah and 
 Malachi are rich in warnings against the evils of 
 trusts that are selfish, and of ecclesiastical domi- 
 nance and religious indifference. One cannot 
 read those prophecies without being impressed 
 with the vital relation between ethical conduct in 
 social affairs and religious healthfulness. Cere- 
 monialism has no honor before the denunciations 
 of those men of God. 
 
XIV. 
 
 Exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 
 II Tim. 4: 2. 
 
 / cease not to pray that ye may know what is 
 the hope of his calling; what the riches of the 
 glory of his inheritance in the Saints, and 
 what the exceeding greatness of his power 
 toward us. — Eph. i : 18, 19. 
 
 DOCTRINAL TEACHING 
 
 NO full-orbed education can be secured with- 
 out doctrinal knowledge. Paul in his 
 prayers for the Ephesians asked that they might 
 come to know the " hope of their calling," the 
 " glory of their inheritance," and the " power of 
 God toward them." Those were the great doc- 
 trines or teachings. Doctrines are not specula- 
 tions of the philosophic minds, nor the fancies of 
 the imaginative, nor the discussions of petty de- 
 nominational matters. Doctrines are the orderly 
 statement of facts. They are lists of what God 
 has done, is doing, and proposes to do for those 
 who commit themselves to his care and guidance. 
 Doctrines describe the glorious privileges and pos- 
 sibilities that lie before the Christian as a country 
 to be possessed — a fair Canaan " where their pos- 
 sessions lie." Doctrine teaches what resources 
 of divine help we have in our journey to those 
 
 153 
 
154 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 possessions. The prayer of Paul was comprehen- 
 sive and orderly. When he asked that the Ephe- 
 sians might know the hope, the glory, and the 
 power, he covered all the doctrinal field. 
 
 All men have "" doctrine " of some sort. If you 
 ask any thoughtful Christian why he faces the 
 world so bravely and meets trouble so trium- 
 phantly, he will tell you it is because of the antici- 
 pation of "things to come." He is "saved by 
 hope " and " hope that is seen is not hope. But 
 if we hope for that which is not seen, then do 
 we with patience wait for it.*' 
 
 If you ask him why he loves the company of 
 the Christian people more than others, and why he 
 is willing, if need be, to " suffer affliction with the 
 people of God,'* he replies that the glory of the 
 church, which is the Lord's " inheritance," is 
 greater to him than " all the treasures of Egypt." 
 And if you tell him he will not be able to main- 
 tain himself in the Christian life, but that his 
 own moral weakness will prevent his final victory, 
 he will tell you that the power of God is his 
 re-enforcement, and " he who has begun a good 
 work in him will carry it on until the day of 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 All these confidences which give him strength 
 and gladness are the results of his doctrine of 
 Christ. That is, knowing the facts about God's 
 interest in him and readiness to help him, he is 
 buoyed up by these great truths, taught in the 
 
DOCTRINAL TEACHING 155 
 
 Bible progressively from the simple faith of Abel 
 and Abraham on to the maturer knowledge given 
 us in the New Testament. 
 
 This fact if well considered will help you to 
 get past the stumbling blocks that acrimonious 
 discussions of mysterious or unimportant things 
 have put in the path. It will strip doctrinal 
 preaching of the disfiguring and sometimes poi- 
 sonous vines that have overrun it, and reveal to 
 you the unsuspected beauty of the architecture. 
 Doctrine will be to your people like the rains of 
 summer which, in cold climates, soak into the 
 deep ground and supply the springs in winter 
 when rains do not come. These doctrinal instruc- 
 tions must be fundamental. Paul's prayer well 
 indicates the general divisions; namely, what 
 things has the Christian a right to hope for? 
 What are the glories that belong to the church? 
 What help is available in the conflict with sin and 
 death? You will find your own spirit will be 
 refreshed by the search for the reply to these ques- 
 tions, and as you tell to others what you have 
 found you will be entrenching them in their 
 faith. 
 
 How shall we proceed? If you can make or 
 buy a true doctrinal catechism for your families 
 and Sunday School teachers to use do so. It will 
 lay the "bottom courses" of their future faith 
 deep and solid. 
 
 Do not get one that deals with the "secret 
 
156 PEDAGOGY FOR lillNISTERS 
 
 decrees " of God. If they are *' secret '* it is 
 ill-mannered as well as useless to pry into 
 them. 
 
 Do not get one that attempts to explain all the 
 ways of God. For Jesus said some of the great 
 things are like the wind that bloweth. We can- 
 not tell whence they come, nor whither they go. 
 We know them by their results. 
 
 Get one that classifies the teachings of the 
 book in orderly fashion and confines itself to 
 what is capable of being wrought into our daily 
 life, such as will promote ** love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, tem- 
 perance, faith." 
 
 Have a system in your work. The " Christian 
 year " gives a good framework. This covers the 
 ground of Jesus' life, work, and teachings. I 
 have followed that some years without any an- 
 nouncements to the congregation. This guards 
 against keeping in a doctrinal rut. 
 
 A friend of mine tells me he has been follow- 
 ing for several months the theme, " What Christ 
 is to the world." He has had sermons on Christ's 
 value to the sinful, and to the struggling, and to 
 governments, and to literature, and to ethical cul- 
 ture, and to parents, and to the dying. In this 
 way his congregation must have unconsciously 
 been enriched by large veins of Christ, and that 
 is always the fertilization of the soil in which the 
 fruits of the Spirit grow. 
 
DOCTRINAL TEACHING 157 
 
 Once in my early ministry, while I was study- 
 ing theology for myself apart from the seminary 
 training, I followed the line followed in the book 
 I was trying to master. I have reason to think 
 that those sermons given forty years ago are 
 bearing fruit in that community now. A great 
 doctrinal truth once implanted never exhausts its 
 influence on the life. 
 
 But especially fill yourself with contemplation 
 of large themes. To become a mere picker-out of 
 details is not inspiring. You will have some folk 
 that will want you to give them codes to live by 
 instead of principles. They will want you to tell 
 them how to regulate their family matters and 
 their family devotions instead of seeking Christ's 
 idea. They do not want to think, or perhaps they 
 do not know how to do so. At any rate they 
 want you to think for them. Sometimes you will 
 need to do so but as far as possible keep to large 
 themes. My college president used to say to us, 
 " Do not have a small study, it will cramp your 
 thought." We have all had the experience of 
 being cramped in thought, perplexed about some 
 question of duty, and then we took up a book of 
 large things, like Paul's letter to the Ephesians, 
 and it took us up into the mountains from which 
 we could get our bearings and untangle our minds 
 from the devious ways through the lowlands of 
 our thinking. 
 
 Paul, before he ventured to mention details 
 
158 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 of duty, took his readers up into the moun- 
 tains. For example, in Ephesians he has given 
 us the inventory of the Christian's wealth in 
 chapter i : 1-14. Then he has told them of the 
 " exceeding greatness of his power toward us,** 
 in that he raised Christ from the dead (i: 19). 
 Then he reminded them how when they were 
 "dead" Christ had "quickened them" (2:5), 
 and that now they were all " builded together for 
 an habitation of God" (2:22), Then, and not 
 until then, he turns to details, "Therefore, I 
 beseech you to walk worthy of the vocation where- 
 with ye are called" (4: i). 
 
 In Galatians he tells them how he who had 
 all there is in family birth and in ceremonial 
 excellence was blind to the glory of Jesus (i : 13). 
 But God revealed his son in him (1:16) and 
 taught him that the way of life is never closed 
 to people of faith, but that like Abraham we " all 
 are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus'* 
 (3:26) and are redeemed from the bondage of 
 ceremony. Then, and not until then, he says, 
 '' Therefore stand fast in the liberty wherewith 
 Christ has set us free** (5:1). Thus he goes 
 on to tell us about the " fruit of the spirit '* 
 (5:22). 
 
 So the great preachers whose work has shaped 
 the current of thought and life in great com- 
 munities have been those whose doctrinal teach- 
 ing has been large and high and commanding. 
 
DOCTRINAL TEACHING 159 
 
 " Go thou and do likewise." 
 
 This at once raises the questions, What doc- 
 trines shall we teach? It is not my purpose here 
 to discuss disputed subjects. Nor to prescribe a 
 set of doctrines for any one. What I want to 
 impress on every one is that he have some well- 
 digested system of doctrines which he has veri- 
 fied, to some extent at least, in his own experience, 
 or that are verifiable in experience; doctrines 
 that have a real worth in making men better 
 men; and that he teach these with great care 
 and ardor. Personally — and I may not be wise 
 in this — there is no value in discussing the time 
 when Christ is to return or the condition of the 
 world when he comes. Either view can be 
 made to appear correct by manipulation of the 
 scripture. The earliest Christians were not only 
 ignorant about it but some of them were in 
 error. Paul himself did not make it so evident 
 that good men can agree concerning his view. 
 What we are sure of is that we are to teach men 
 everywhere to commit themselves to Christ, to 
 do his will, to love their fellow men, and God 
 supremely. Of these there is no question. I 
 should leave the other themes out of the doc- 
 trinal scheme for general instruction. Even what 
 are called denominational discussions profit but 
 little and convert few. There are times when 
 such should be taught to the people but never 
 controversially. But as I have said this may be 
 
160 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 due only to my personal lack of interest in such 
 semi-speculative matters. 
 
 When men asked Jesus whether few are to be 
 saved he replied, Strive to enter the narrow gate. 
 When people were disturbed about the time of 
 Jesus' return, Paul said, Be not disturbed about it 
 for it will come without warning. And Jesus 
 himself said he did not know; but that only his 
 Father knows. Just how the death of Jesus 
 affected things at the upper end of God's ladder 
 of salvation no one knows. We only know that, 
 as Jacob knew the ladder he saw had God at the 
 upper end, so the work of Jesus met all the 
 requirement, and now the way is open for help 
 and salvation to every one that will believe on 
 him. 
 
 The atonement is now and always has been a 
 mysterious fact. The substitutionary view was 
 preached for centuries with great results for good. 
 The moral influence view has been accepted by 
 thousands of sincere and self-sacrificing men. 
 Some of the best culture of the age has been influ- 
 enced by such teachers. It would be a grievous 
 error to deny to either set of teachers their place 
 in the Christian fold or the Christian ministry. 
 But one must have his own conviction and must 
 preach, then, with positiveness. It is not neces- 
 sary that he be uncharitable or controversial in 
 his presentation. Every one must give account of 
 himself, and that account not to men but to God. 
 
XV. 
 
 CREEDS AND LITURGIES 
 
 IN former chapters we have noticed how the 
 great agency for moving the will of men is 
 a knowledge of the truth. The didatic sermon, 
 however, does not go directly to the audience 
 chamber of the soul but must go around by way 
 of the emotional entrance. But when Truth is 
 clearly seen it moves the deepest emotions, and 
 holds its influence longer than any other agency. 
 Once convince a man of a great truth that affects 
 his life for the better and you have " stirred a 
 fountain whose waters never more will rest." For 
 such a man the helm is lashed so that no storms 
 can wrench it from its place. The course is set 
 not by the compass of immediate desire, that may 
 be deflected by passing temptations, but by the 
 stars of heaven. In this chapter I wish to speak 
 of Creeds and Liturgies in their relation to teach- 
 ing of the truth. At the outset we must clear 
 up the definition of these words " creed " and 
 " liturgy." 
 
 By " creed '' we mean the formal statement of 
 fundamental religious truth. We do not mean 
 something that by believing it or assenting to it, 
 a man becomes a member of the kingdom of 
 
 161 
 
162 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 heaven, a sort of password that admits him with- 
 out further inquiry to the company of the " elect." 
 It is only a statement of what we think is the 
 truth. An opening up to the public of our inner 
 convictions, both for their good and for the con- 
 tinual correction of our own faith. In the early 
 centuries — between the third and the sixteenth — 
 the dominant church taught, and probably most 
 people believed, that there was a mystical power 
 in the sacraments by which those who received 
 them became children of God and thus of the 
 kingdom of heaven. But that was very defi- 
 cient both in theory and results. The Reforma- 
 tion, while keeping much of the sacramental idea, 
 gave an important emphasis to the intellectual 
 requirements. The knowledge of the truth and 
 acceptance of it was made the more important 
 thing. This placed great value upon the careful 
 statement of the truth. For if a man does really 
 accept any great truth — he is, therefore, com- 
 pelled by his own thinking processes to accept the 
 necessary inferences from it. For example, if a 
 man is thoroughly convinced that Paul was an 
 inspired, authoritative teacher, he must feel bound 
 by all that Paul taught. If a man really .believes 
 that God orders all things from the beginning he 
 cannot, if he would, escape the conclusions that 
 Calvin drew from that great promise. Thus the 
 fundamental statements must be carefully drawn, 
 or erroneous inferences will be made. But it soon 
 
CREEDS AND LITURGIES 163 
 
 became evident that a verbal assent was inade- 
 quate. Many who assented to the doctrine of the 
 cross in the creed were strangers to the cross in 
 their lives. Men who swore to the creed would 
 swear at everything else. Like those Jews to 
 whom Paul wrote, " The very name of Christ was 
 blasphemed among the Gentiles because of them.'* 
 They said the '' Credo " and lived the '' didholor 
 But by " creed " we mean the statements, for 
 pedagogical reasons and uses only, of what we 
 think are fundamental and commonly accepted 
 truths. 
 
 Liturgy. Many people who have not given the 
 matter much thought and have not been used to 
 its practical meaning confound " liturgy " with 
 " rite " or " canon." This confounds the subject. 
 By " liturgy " we mean an established order of 
 services in public worships including prayers, 
 hymns, scripture readings. Among the non- 
 liturgical people they are rather loosely called, 
 ** order of services " or " preliminaries.** For 
 us — as I write to the non-liturgical pastors 
 chiefly — liturgical services are rather underesti- 
 mated. We have them. They are very solidly 
 established — not by ecclesiastical authority, but 
 by custom of long standing, widely followed. 
 
 We have an " Order of Service '* chiefly be- 
 cause congregations do not like surprises. They 
 dislike to sing where they are expecting to listen. 
 But the pedagogical value is too important to be 
 
164 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 thus underestimated. Liturgies for educational 
 purposes are no modern invention. The great pur- 
 pose of the Jewish tabernacle was to teach. It 
 stood in the center of the camp, to show that 
 Jehovah was among them, and they were to guard 
 his shrine. Chosen representatives of the people 
 could approach Jehovah in worship; but the wash- 
 ings and the white garments and the incense all 
 told the simplest mind that those who came to 
 God must have clean hands and pure hearts. 
 Thus the fundamental facts were daily taught 
 through the senses of sight and sound. Later the 
 temple magnified this feature. So that when the 
 queen of Sheba came to visit King Solomon and 
 saw the liturgy she said, " Blessed are thou, and 
 blessed be thy God." The Psalms were used as 
 a part of the liturgy. They were sung by the 
 congregation and by choirs. They praised and 
 prayed; they confessed and they consecrated in 
 these psalms. One who is familiar with them 
 now can find most apt expression for nearly all 
 religious exercises and hopes, except those im- 
 mediately dependent upon the resurrection of 
 Jesus. The churches' history was drilled into all 
 the nation by the historical psalms like the 
 104-5-6. They all knew it as Boston knows about 
 Bunker Hill or Philadelphia about the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. I can but think that we 
 of the more congregational habit might gain in 
 educational power if we would get together and 
 
CREEDS AND LITURGIES 165 
 
 draw upon the combined wisdom of our laymen 
 and ministers to provide a liturgy — not to be 
 imposed upon any church but to be available 
 voluntarily for all. I believe it would so com- 
 mend itself to the good sense and the heart needs 
 that it would soon become quite general. It 
 would represent thus the need of all, rather than 
 the notions of one, and would help toward the 
 ultimate union of Christians. But whether this 
 be done or not, the "order of services" sur- 
 renders its chief value if it is not made to teach 
 with elegant repetition the great facts on which 
 our common faith rests, and to furnish suitable 
 forms of expression for our common approaches 
 to God. 
 
 The value of common elements in the prayer 
 and praise is seen not only in the use of hymns 
 for the congregation but in the " responsive read- 
 ings," and in the united utterance of the " Lord's 
 Prayer." I can but think the desire for these is 
 very poorly met in all churches today. The Epis- 
 copal service was made in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. Some of its prayers are not in harmony 
 with our thoughts nor suitable to our needs. 
 There is an element of cringing fear of God in 
 parts of it, and a very great lack of interest in 
 specific missionary objects in others. We of this 
 day give the cause of missions and education and 
 Sunday Schools and Evangelism and social service 
 such large place in our prayers that the Prayer 
 
166 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 Book is very inadequate indeed. The new Pres- 
 byterian liturgy has prayers much more up-to- 
 date. But one feels that while in substance they 
 are adequate they are rather more rhetorical than 
 the " common prayer " should be. 
 
 Probably one difficulty in securing any new 
 liturgy grows out of the notion that the " inspired 
 scriptures " are the only safe source of phrases in 
 tvhich to approach our Father in heaven. With- 
 out wishing to impeach in the least the " reputa- 
 tion '' of the Bible, I think there is no reason to 
 suppose that it was intended for our use in pub- 
 lic worship. Men of today are as well able to 
 express their own prayers or praises as they are 
 to select phrases from the Bible and make them 
 into a sort of mosaic that has for its recommenda- 
 tion the fact that its material is all taken from the 
 verses of ancient writings as the huts of natives 
 are built from the stones of ancient Rome. There 
 is, so far as I know, no evidence that Jehovah or 
 Jesus is particular to be addressed in the English 
 language of 1611. And certainly David was not 
 writing his psalms with the idea that they would 
 fit our need. If it were not done with perfectly 
 serious and reverent intent it would seem to be 
 a most foolish exercise to read a psalm that has 
 no connection with our needs; and then make it 
 doubly empty by reading it responsively. There 
 can be no educational value in such reading and 
 certainly there is no worship in it. 
 
CREEDS AND LITURGIES 167 
 
 The value of a creed in the liturgy. When we 
 seek for some statement that is common to the 
 great majority of the congregation the task is 
 more complex. If we have one it has great value. 
 To repeat it in unison many Sundays in a year 
 fixes it in the minds of the young and refreshens 
 it in the minds of others. It ought in these days 
 to be possible to agree on one. One that has been 
 used with satisfaction is here given: 
 
 "We believe in the goodness of God Our 
 Father, maker of heaven and earth, in whose 
 moral image we are made. 
 
 " And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, who in our 
 form and nature truly lived and taught among 
 men the things of God; who died for our sins, 
 and was buried; who was raised from the dead 
 by the power of God; who is now exalted as Head 
 over the church, and the One to whom every knee 
 should gladly bow, and whom every tongue should 
 gratefully confess as Lord. 
 
 " We believe in the helpful influences of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 ^' We believe in the forgiveness of sin, in the 
 resurrection of the dead, and in the life ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 " We believe in the teachings of the Bible as 
 the safe guide of religious life and the basis of 
 heavenly hopes. 
 
 " We believe in the fellowship of Christians in 
 religious work and worship, and in our common 
 
168 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 duty to preach the gospel to all mankind. And 
 to promote the kingdom of God on earth." 
 
 Conclusion of the whole matter. In so com- 
 plex a matter none of us can be dogmatic; but 
 I am sure that the non-liturgical churches would 
 profit if they would recognize more fully the 
 educational value of liturgy and creed; and set 
 some agency at work to secure, for improving the 
 services in each church, the combined wisdom and 
 skill of all denominations. Meanwhile, the pas- 
 tor can give consideration to the matter and make 
 the so-called " preliminary services " richer in 
 instruction than they usually are, and more 
 suitable to the aspirations of the church. 
 
 Let none of us allow the choir or the fashion 
 of the hour to prevent the fruitful use of the 
 liturgical part of the Sunday worship. 
 
 A SUGGESTION FOR AN " ORDER OF SERVICES " 
 
 The People's Service (or Service of Worship) 
 
 Organ. 
 
 A suitable passage of scripture read 
 Call to worship. by the pastor or leader of the 
 
 service. 
 Invocation This should not be a prayer for 
 
 or anything except for ,God's blessing 
 
 The Lord's Prayer. in the worship of the hour. 
 A hymn of praise. All standing. 
 A prayer printed in the hymn book in which all join. 
 The choir. 
 
 A confession of faith. All standing, 
 A hymn of praise. " " 
 
 The pastoral prayer. 
 
CREEDS AND LITURGIES 169 
 
 Notices and collection prefaced by suitable words about the 
 object of it. 
 
 The Pastoral Service (or Service of Instruction) 
 
 Scripture Lesson. 
 The Sermon. 
 Prayer and Hymn. 
 Benediction. 
 
 This service, it will be seen, has two parts quite 
 distinct. The first should be complete in itself. 
 It should prepare the way but should not antici- 
 pate the sermon. 
 
 The second part should have a central idea in 
 both scripture and sermon. 
 
XVI. 
 
 These things I write unto thee that thou 
 mayest know how thou oughtest to behave 
 thyself in the house of God. — I Tim. 3 : 15. 
 
 PEDAGOGY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF 
 THE CHXJRCH 
 
 I HAVE said that there is an educational ele- 
 ment in all the pastoral oversight. Not only 
 is he an educator when he preaches, but in all the 
 general affairs there is an influence that goes out 
 from the way things are organized and directed 
 that shapes the thought of the young and fits them 
 to carry the responsibilities of life in a worthy 
 way. 
 
 It is said that the framers of the Bill of Rights 
 in Virginia got their germinal ideas from church 
 government in some New England church. 
 Whether that be true or not, young men learn in 
 the churches where they belong how to live to- 
 gether in the civil relations of life. There is busi- 
 ness of a simple sort going on in all churches. 
 Pastors are called, officers elected, delegates 
 chosen, resolutions passed, plans for raising money 
 devised, members received and dismissed, etc., etc. 
 All this implies discussion and votes. It puts 
 upon the church the problem of living together 
 170 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 171 
 
 and unifying ideas, submitting to majorities, and 
 keeping the atmosphere of the church sweet and 
 wholesome in it all. Some of the principles that 
 are essential to this are : 
 
 The spiritual welfare of the church is of first 
 importance. No special method of work, no per- 
 sonal ambitions, no pet schemes of pastor or of 
 people should outweigh the peaceable, spiritual 
 prosperity of the church. Better be without a 
 ne^ parsonage than have one that costs a split or 
 a seam in the church. Better have the old meeting 
 house and harmony than a fine one with a fuss. 
 It will require the pastor to be himself patient, 
 and ready to heed the counsel of delay rather 
 than hasten his project and divide his flock. If 
 you are the one who is ready to set the example 
 of yielding and putting the peace of the church 
 above your own personal schemes you will not 
 only contribute to the general atmosphere of 
 peace, but it will give you a leverage in your 
 exhortations to others to do the same thing. In 
 this way your younger members will learn the 
 lesson of true community life, the lesson of ** give 
 and take,'* without which people of different 
 tastes cannot live together. 
 
 This is especially important because the churcJi 
 is like a city set on a hill. A musical society, a 
 Masonic lodge, a social club, have selected mem- 
 bership and single aims, but a church must take 
 rich and poor, the learned and the unlettered, the 
 
172 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 old and the young, the male and the female. No 
 such diversity exists in any other organization. 
 But yet it must stand, and it does stand, as the 
 pattern of social management. When you lead 
 your church in such wise and peaceable way, you 
 are not only securing the welfare of the church 
 but you are making a valuable contribution to 
 public education in civil conduct needed for the 
 welfare of our government. 
 
 But there are times when one must take a staiid 
 against stubborn and narrow-minded men, those 
 who mistake their wish for church welfare and 
 who mistake backbone for conscience and willful- 
 ness for wisdom. That will try your mettle. 
 Pray for a loving spirit yourself and remember 
 that you are not the church. Others must share 
 the task and the responsibility of deciding impor- 
 tant questions. 
 
 Another principle is that the whole church 
 stand on a common level of membership. That 
 is, every man and woman of mature age has a 
 right to be heard in all questions of importance, 
 but in the appointed way. There is no aristocracy 
 that may exclude from notice the opinion of hum- 
 blest man or woman from a fair consideration. 
 To recognize this at all times is a great educating 
 influence in emphasizing the brotherhood of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 This does not imply that all are equal in 
 wisdom or efficiency. The old idea is still 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 173 
 
 the true one — " Thou shalt provide out of all 
 the people able men, such as fear God, men 
 of truth, hating covetousness ; and place such 
 over them." (Ex. 18:20.) This was confirmed 
 in the New Testament times by those who 
 knew the value of the Old Testament principle. 
 ** Look ye out from among you seven men of 
 honest report, full of the Holy Spirit and wis- 
 dom whom we may appoint over this business.'* 
 (Acts 7:3.) 
 
 This is the republican form of government. It 
 puts responsibility upon such as are competent. It 
 requires them to have the sanction of the church, 
 and inferentially the hearty support and respect of 
 the church. No good influence goes out from 
 "passing honors around." Positions in the 
 church are not " honors," though they are honor- 
 able. They are trusts committed, responsibilities 
 imposed. At the same time it is well to have recur- 
 ring periods when new men may be asked to take 
 the work. This gives opportunity to develop new 
 men and to relieve some of work they have 
 carried a long time. This is an educative measure 
 for it not only uses new men but it teaches that 
 office is not a class distinction. Indeed, the term 
 " office " is best honored by not using it. Better 
 say a man is asked to do a certain " work " than 
 to say he is elected to an " office." An ** office " 
 may become nothing but an ''honorary degree" 
 like D.D. on the pastor; which may signify vari- 
 
174 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 ous degrees of honor between a *' Dead Dog " 
 and real " Doctor of Divinity." 
 
 Another principle is that each member he taught 
 to do his part financially. Paul wrote, " Let 
 every one of you lay by in store as God has pros- 
 pered him." (I Cor. i6.) "No idlers in the 
 church " is the motto. Mr. Spurgeon used to say, 
 " All at it, and at it all the time." It is not left to 
 the pastor to control the financial matters of the 
 church, but he can do his part toward securing a 
 method of support that is both correct in spirit and 
 educational in effect. The " pew renting " system 
 has one good influence. It gathers the family in 
 one place and emphasizes the family as a center of 
 religious life. Any system is deficient that leaves 
 the congregation to scatter promiscuously about 
 the house. But the fixing of prices on the pews 
 and putting them in public places is bad all the 
 way through. The evil begins when a stranger 
 enters the vestibule. He sees there what amounts 
 to a plutocratic chart of the congregation. Here 
 in those center pews, not too far front, are the 
 " nabobs," up there in the corner are the " bobs " 
 of the church, and over on the sides and rear are 
 the " common folk." 
 
 Then the people are tempted to draw the line 
 of wealth, and classify the congregation accord- 
 ing to the size of the pew rentals. That hurts 
 the good nature of the church. 
 
 Further than this, the system is seldom success- 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 175 
 
 ful. It is the most popular failure in the world. 
 It is nearly always supplemented by an appeal in 
 some way to the voluntary contributions of the 
 people, the final resort at the end of the year 
 being to that appeal. As a business affair, if there 
 was no other reason, it should for this be sup- 
 planted by the voluntary system. 
 
 This latter method should first be constantly 
 attended to by yearly every-member canvass if 
 necessary. Every new member should be expected 
 to make a subscription and pay it. It may be 
 weekly, monthly, or quarterly, but it should be 
 reliable and generous. 
 
 This enables the church to know how well its 
 needs are provided for, and to "cut their coat 
 according to the cloth." But the most important 
 thing about it is the educative influence. The 
 young folks, and even the children, should be 
 taught by precept, by explanation, and by the 
 example of their parents that churches must be 
 supported; that ministers' families live on victuals, 
 not on visions; that preachers' boys want coats, 
 hats, and shoes; and preachers' girls want dresses 
 and bonnets and gaiters. Children should never 
 be allowed to hear complaints about the " cost of 
 the church." But Sunday morning should be the 
 time to " bring an offering " and " enter into his 
 gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with 
 praise." 
 
 I have in my own pastorate seen little boys 
 
176 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 begin their contributions, a few cents a week, 
 delighted to be reckoned among the helpers; in- 
 crease their amounts as their wages grew in size; 
 then enter business for themselves, become pros- 
 perous, and give hundreds of dollars yearly, be- 
 cause the system itself, independent of any 
 extraneous pressure, had educated them in 
 their " reasonable service." The pew-renting 
 system leaves it all with the father and he pays 
 by check with no educational influence what- 
 ever. When he does this his sons are non- 
 contributors. 
 
 I cannot speak too emphatically in urging the 
 value of a system that educates the young for 
 their work and responsibility. What is true of 
 the support of the church at home applies with 
 equal force to the system of providing for the 
 missionary work. This should be a constant, not 
 fluctuating system. But as we have seen in the 
 chapter on motives it should have intelligent inter- 
 est in the work of missionaries. That implies 
 some sort of regular, interesting information to 
 all the church about the Mission fields. The col- 
 lection plate with no information makes a very 
 feeble appeal to anybody. If we degenerate to the 
 plane of simply " making the budget " it will soon 
 rob us of any true partnership in the great under- 
 taking of Christ. 
 
 Since these aifxiirs are necessary to the spiritual 
 interests of the church they are to he undertaken 
 
MANAGEMENT OF THE CHURCH 177 
 
 with prayer, and carried on with as fine an ethical 
 spirit as the affairs of a revival meeting. 
 
 You will be asking how to bring about these 
 conditions where they do not already exist. 
 
 A wise maxim is, ''Never launch a ship until 
 you have sounded the water to see if it is deep 
 enough. Never try to cross a bar until you know 
 the tide is fidl enough to carry your ship safely 
 over!' 
 
 Preach about your plan before you make any 
 definite steps toward it. Turn conversation toward 
 that subject when with your most loyal men. 
 When the tide is high enough let your Advisory 
 Committee, if you have one, talk it over. Avoid 
 committing yourself to it so strongly that it will 
 appear as a defeat of your wish if it does not meet 
 with immediate approval. Be patient. Truth will 
 win if it has time. Christian people see alike 
 after they have thought things through. Thus 
 your church will be a self -perpetuating school of 
 method and munificence as well as a successful 
 preaching platform. 
 
XVII 
 
 Front a babe thou hast known the sacred 
 writings, which are able to make thee wise 
 unto salvation, through faith which is in 
 Christ Jesus.— II Tim. 3 : 15. 
 
 EVANGELISTIC PEDAGOGY 
 
 THERE is a use of this word *' evangelism " 
 to describe what has no relation to educa- 
 tion. In that use it means sermons and agencies 
 that are immediately effective in getting people to 
 submit themselves to the Savior, and to openly 
 confess their faith. Such endeavors obtain results 
 with some people that never could be attained by 
 any other methods. For some people are so made 
 up that they cannot of themselves come to a 
 decision. They are like loaded guns, needing 
 something to fire them off; some percussion cap 
 to ignite their powder. Blessed is the man who 
 can be the cap for that service. I am not to dis- 
 cuss that kind of evangelism here. 
 
 But there is another use of the word to describe 
 in one word all the varied agencies and methods 
 that unite to bring people to a personal faith in 
 Jesus, but with special emphasis on the intellectual 
 element. It includes all forms of teaching Chris- 
 tian truth. 
 
 178 
 
EVANGELISTIC PEDAGOGY 179 
 
 This part of the ministers' work is the more 
 important for the reason that by far the greater 
 part of all those who, in the past centuries as well 
 as those in this present age, have come to their 
 place in the church have come in a much less spec- 
 tacular way than that which accompanies the first 
 agency mentioned in this chapter. 
 
 This method to bring men to faith implies 
 that truth is to reach the mind by the same chan- 
 nels that it comes in other departments of life. 
 That is by gradual approaches, and finally by the 
 compelling power of conviction as to duty and 
 privilege. People cannot be educated into faith, 
 but they can and must be educated up to it. The 
 parable of the " Sower," as it is called as given in 
 'Matthew 13 reflects this truth. The seed is the 
 word of the gospel; the soil is the human mind; 
 the harvest is dependent on the condition of the 
 soil. The minister now has a twofold work. He 
 sows the seed, but he must also prepare the 
 soil. 
 
 In this preparation of the soil some great facts 
 must be recognized. First, there is a stage in the 
 lives of all young folks in which they are simply 
 taking in what is given them in unquestioning 
 confidence. The lowest foundation-stones of their 
 religion are laid at that time. The beginnings of 
 an effective evangelism are made then. If a child 
 gets an idea of God at that time which is chiefly 
 characterized by his omniscience, and his holiness, 
 
180 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 and his severity; if he is one to stand afar off 
 from and worship; if he inspires awe and per- 
 haps fear it will affect their whole attitude toward 
 religion in after years. One little girl sent her 
 pet puppy back into the house when she was 
 going out with the remark, *' It is enough to have 
 God tagging me around all the time without hav- 
 ing you along." She had been made to think 
 that omnipresence was the main characteristic of 
 God. Another child had seen in the Sunday 
 School room a great human eye painted on the 
 wall above the teacher's desk. It was to him the 
 chief characteristic of God that he could see all 
 that is going on, and it was not agreeable to a 
 boy who sometimes wanted to do things not 
 right. 
 
 If there is one thing that is important for the 
 minister to guard it is the influence he may be 
 exerting on the minds of the young concerning 
 the character of God and of Jesus. This is espe- 
 cially true in his prayers and his selections of 
 hymns in public worship. To pray with a sense 
 of awe, and with great high-sounding phrases, as 
 if prayer was an exercise in rhetoric or an ex- 
 amination in theology, is almost sure to make the 
 young afraid of God. The Roman Catholic sys- 
 tem has that great weakness. The invocations of 
 saints have the effect to make people think that 
 Jesus is unapproachable directly. Some views of 
 the atonement have the same effect in respect to 
 
EVANGELISTIC PEDAGOGY 181 
 
 God. Some hymns would scare an angel away 
 from the throne. 
 
 Jesus was not unapproachable. The children 
 were not afraid of him. The mothers brought 
 their children to him. And if he was thus ap- 
 proachable then we have no reason to think that 
 now he has taken on so much dignity that we must 
 come tremblingly to him. The writer of Hebrews 
 said, " Come boldly to a throne of grace, that we 
 may find mercy and grace to help in time of 
 need." 
 
 And Jesus' presentation of God is not under the 
 name of king or ruler or captain but Our Father 
 in heaven. That word gathers up in one the 
 largest and loveliest conceptions of God that our 
 language can contain. And that is the color of 
 the glass through which we are to look at him. 
 
 I am not saying that we are to talk to all chil- 
 dren as "Jesus' little lambs" for they are not. 
 But we are to talk about him as the Good Shep- 
 herd of all his flock. 
 
 Secondly. There comes another stage in child- 
 life when they begin to ask Why? They are 
 animated interrogation marks. Before we are 
 aware of it they are asking the great questions 
 of theology. And they are quietly obtaining 
 their answers from what they hear in the pulpit. 
 There is a swift logic in the child's mind. It is 
 said of a Chinese boy who was being taught Logic 
 that the teacher gave him these propositions and 
 
182 PEDAGOGY FOR MINISTERS 
 
 asked him to give the conclusion: "All men are 
 mortal." " The Emperor is a man/' The boy 
 replied, *' Then he ought to repent right away." 
 He jumped over the logical conclusion and went 
 on in his own mind to another one drawn from 
 the whole series. 
 
 The minister must make his sermons in some 
 sense like the talk at one end of a telephone. It 
 is one-sided to a listener. He must answer the 
 questions his auditors are inwardly asking. 
 
 He must lead their minds over the course they 
 need to follow in their thinking to a just conclu- 
 sion. And especially lead them to a knowledge 
 of those truths that are fundamental to any deci- 
 sion to become followers of Jesus. It will not 
 do for him to dogmatize. He must indirectly 
 reason. He must habitually give reasons for his 
 statements. If you examine Paul's letters you 
 will be greatly impressed by the frequency of the 
 words "for" and "therefore." "For" gener- 
 ally gives the reason of a statement just preced- 
 ing. An inquiring young man if he asked for the 
 reasons of Paul's most positive statements would 
 find them in the connection. 
 
 Thirdly, Then there comes a stage when the 
 young will be asserting their individual independ- 
 ence — " individuating " — themselves. That is the 
 time when they sit apart from the family pew, 
 choose new companions, differ from their parents 
 in many things, and especially decline to confer 
 
EVANGELISTIC PEDAGOGY 183 
 
 with the pastor about their religious thoughts. 
 They are brooding over great things. It need 
 give no great anxiety if the work has been well 
 done before. This stage is a necessity. Faith 
 must be personal. There is no second-hand faith 
 possible. It is the greatest honor and the 
 greatest responsibility that every individual soul 
 has a place and a standing before God. " Every 
 one must give account of himself to God." And 
 hence every one must have his own faith toward 
 God and toward him whom God hath sent. 
 
 There is a passage in John (8:47) that has a 
 very deep suggestion : "He that is of God 
 heareth the words of God. For this cause ye hear 
 them not, because ye are not of God." 
 
 What does he mean when he says, " Ye are not 
 of God ? " I think he means that they did not 
 have any desire to know about God or to do as 
 he wishes. Not having any such desire they 
 would not see any worth in Jesus nor care about 
 his words. But if there had been a deep desire 
 to know God, a hunger in soul for his truth and 
 his way of life, then Jesus* word would have 
 been bread to them. 
 
 Therefore, giving people the right and winning 
 idea of God so that they have a desire to know 
 more of him is predetermining their reception of 
 Jesus. It is so to speak loading the scales before 
 they know it so that when the time comes for 
 them to make their life choice of leadership they 
 
184 PEDAGOGY FOR INIINISTERS 
 
 will not need to unlearn things they have imbibed 
 about the Father in heaven before they can accept 
 his Son. The minister v^ho is thus teaching the 
 young — the very young — and is encouraging the 
 parents to thus teach, is doing the first things in 
 true evangelism. 
 
 In this period when choice is to be made it will 
 be made in accord with the deepest interests and 
 moral tastes. But these tastes have been pre- 
 determined by the earliest teachings about God, 
 and about his Son. Such teaching is then a large 
 part of the world's evangelism. And he who does 
 it need not feel himself left out of the list of 
 real harvesters in the Lord's field. 
 
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 fluence is one of the great formative forces of religious life 
 In America. The material here brought together has already 
 been "tried-out" by Dr. Speer at some important student con- 
 ferences with conspicuous success. 
 
 G. CAMPBELL MORGAN 
 
 Living Messages of the Books of the 
 
 Bible, Vol. I. Old Testament— Genesis to Malachi 
 
 Living Messages of the Books of the 
 
 Bible, Vol. 11. New Testament— Matthew-Re\ elation 
 
 8vo, cloth, each net $1.25. 
 
 This popular four volume set is now published in two, each 
 volume containing twice the amount previously included. 
 This work is quite distinct from the author's "Analyzed 
 Bible." "EJach book is treated as a unit, having a message or 
 messages for our own times." — The United Presbyterian. 
 
 MARCUS POPS, P.P. 
 
 The Parables of Our Lord 
 
 A new edition. In one volume. International 
 Leaders' Library. Net 50c ; postage extra. 
 
 "The author occupies a foremost place among evangelical 
 writers of our times. His writings, while scholarly, are at tha 
 •ame time simple in statement, practical in purpose, and de- 
 vout in spirit." — Religious Telescope. 
 
 W. O. E. OESTERLEY, P.P. Warden of the society tf 
 
 ■' the Aptcrapha 
 
 The Books of the Apocrypha 
 
 Their Origin, Teaching and Contents. Net $3.00. 
 
 The author has presented a highly satisfactory^ piece of 
 work. Besides what would be naturally looked for in a work 
 of this sort — an introduction to the books of the Apocrypha, 
 account of their contents, date of writing, etc., — this book con- 
 tains an astonishing mass of useful and interesting matter of 
 •cientific value. 
 
PRAYER, DEVOTIONAL, Etc. 
 
 /. STUART HOLDEN, M.A. Auth,rof^'Th*Lif,,fFuU*rPur- 
 ' fust" « Tht Prici •f Ftwtr," stu 
 
 The Confidence of Faith 
 
 I2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 A choice body of sermonic material, the general trend and 
 theme of which is the necessity that has arisen in these later 
 days, for a steady, deeply-rooted confidence in things that are 
 eternal. The troublous days through which the world is now 
 passing, has brought perplexity and sorrow to many loving 
 hearts. For all such, as well as for believers everywhere, Mr. 
 Holden's new book breathes a message of solace and enheart- 
 enment. 
 
 IV. H. GRIFFITH THOMAS, P.P. Wycliffe CoUezt 
 
 — ^■^■~'~""— "— — — '^-^— — — Toranto, Canada 
 
 Grace and Power 
 
 Some Aspects of the Spiritual I^if e. Cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "A thoughtful, well written body of devotional writing. 
 The ground covered is that of the possibilities of the Chris- 
 tian life, of the provision made for their realization, and of 
 the protective grace flung around the believer, enabling one 
 to hold fast to his ideals. — Christian Work, 
 
 AUGUSTA ALBERTSON 
 
 Through Gates of Pearl 
 
 A Vision of the Heaven Life. Cloth, net $1.15. 
 
 "A fountain of fresh spiritual strength. It is -a book big 
 with promise, large with the foundation of a great hope; it 
 appeals to the reason as well as to the heart, and it interprets 
 Scripture in a satisfying way accomplished by few books writ- 
 ten by lay-writers." — Book News. 
 
 J. M. CAMPBELL, P.P. Author of" Grow OU AUne with Me" 
 ^— — — — — — — — — ^— — ^ "Tht Heart of tht Gospel," etc. 
 
 Prayer in Its Present-Day Aspects 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 Here is a book written to meet a situation tinparalled in 
 history, to restate certain aspects of an eternal truth in the 
 light of the conditions and demands of these perilous times. 
 Prayer as related to the conception of God, the conception of 
 man, bodily healing, spiritual force, natural phenomena and 
 war, are some of the issues dealt with by Dr. Campbell. A 
 timely and valuable treatise on the highest function of the soul. 
 
 JAMES G. K. McCLURE, P.P. 
 
 Intercessory Prayer a mighty mrans(» 
 
 New Edition. i2mo, cloth, net 50c. 
 
 A new edition of this helpful work of glowing faith whidi 
 shows the power and potency of prayer, furnishing examples 
 of Christian experience and convictions. "Above all, it is 
 *»ue, practical, useful and inspiring." — Christian Work. 
 
QUESTIONS OF THE FAITH 
 
 JAMES H. SNOWDEN, D.D, 
 
 The Psychology of Religion 
 
 8vo, cloth, net $1.50. 
 
 Psychology is one of the most rapidly advancing of modern 
 sciences, and Dr. Snowden's book will find a ready welcome. 
 While especially adapted for the use of ministers and teach- 
 ers, it is not in any sense an ultra-academic work. This is 
 evidenced by the fact that the material forming it has been 
 delivered not only as a successful Summer School course, but 
 in the form of popular lectures, open to the general public. 
 
 WILLIAM HALLOCK JOHNSON, Ph.D., D.D. 
 
 Prof*ss»r of Greek and New Testament Literature in Lincoln University, Fa. 
 
 The Christian Faith under Modern 
 Searchlight 
 
 The L. P. Stone I^ectures, Princeton. Intro- 
 duction by Francis I^. Patton, D.D. Cloth, net $1.25. 
 
 The faith which is to survive must mot only be a traditional 
 but an intelligent faith which has its roots in reason and ex- 
 perience and its blossom and fruit in character and good 
 works. To this end, the author examines the fundamentals 
 of the Christian belief in the light of to-day and reaches the 
 conclusion that every advance in knowledge establishes its 
 sovereign claim to be from heaven and not from men, 
 
 ANDREW W. ARCHIBALD, D.D. 
 
 Author of ^^The Bible Verified," ^^The Trend of the Centuries," etc. 
 
 The Modern Man Facing the Old 
 Problems 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 A thoughtful, ably-conducted study in which those prob- 
 lems of human life, experience and destiny, which, in one 
 form or another, seem recurrent in every age, are examined 
 from what may be called a Biblical viewpoint. That is to szy, 
 the author by its illuminating rays, endeavors to find eluci- 
 dation and solution for the difficulties, which in more or less 
 degree, perplex believer and unbeliever alike. 
 
 NOLAN RICE BEST Editor of « The Continent" 
 
 Applied Religion for Everyman 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Nolan Rice Best has earned a well-deserved reputation in 
 the religious press of America, as a writer of virile, trench- 
 antly-phrased editorials. The selection here brought together 
 represent his best efforts, and contains an experienced edi- 
 tor's suggestions for the ever-recurrent problems confronting 
 Church members as a body, and as individual Christians. Mr. 
 Best wields a facile pen, and a sudden gleam of beauty,^ a 
 difficult thought set in a perfect phrase, or an old idea in- 
 vested with new meaning and grace, meets one at every turn 
 of the page."— r;^^ Record Herald. 
 
INSPIRATION FOR MEN 
 
 ROBERT W. BOIWEIL 
 
 After College—What? 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net 75c. 
 
 A protest, in the form of autobiographical chapters, against 
 'dawdling through college. The author is sprightly and read- 
 able, — anything but preachy — but does put some very whole- 
 some and helpful facts in such form as to grip the reader, 
 
 HALFORD E. LUCCOCK 
 
 Five-Minute Shop-Talks 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 One of the best things of its kind yet issued. In each 
 of these thirty or more brief addresses, Mr. I^uccock em- 
 ploys terse, epigrammatic language and contrives to compress 
 into a five-minute talk the wisdom and counsel of a fifty- 
 minute sermon. Every word is made to tell — to tell some- 
 thing worth hearing and heeding. 
 
 CHARLES CARROLL ALBERTSON 
 
 Chapel Talks 
 
 A Collection of Sermons to College Students. 
 l2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Practical discourses on essential subjects delivered in vari- 
 ous colleges and universities, including Columbia, Cornell, 
 Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, and Virginia. No one of these 
 sermons required more than twenty-five minutes to deliver. 
 They are characterized by earnest argument, familiar illus- 
 trations and forceful appeal. 
 
 CORTLANDT MYERS, D. D. Author of » Real Prayer." 
 ■ <' The Real Holy Spirit," etc. 
 
 The Man Inside 
 
 A Study of One's Self. By Minister at Tremont 
 .Temple, Boston. i2mo, cloth, net 50c. 
 
 A four-fold study of the inner life of a man, in which the 
 popular pastor of Tremont Temple, discusses the forces that 
 make him, lift him, save him, and move him. The book is 
 prepared in bright, interesting fashion, and abundantly fur- 
 nished with suitable and forceful illustration. 
 
 JOHN T. PARIS PoPtilar-Price Editions 
 
 The "Success Books" 
 
 Three Vols, each, formerly $1.25 net. Now each 
 6oc.net (postage extra). 
 Seeking Success 
 Men Who Made Good 
 Making Good 
 
 Dr. J. R. Miller says: "Bright and short and full of illus- 
 trations from actual life, they are just the sort that will help 
 young men in the home in. school among associates and in 
 business." 
 
SERMONS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 /. H. JOWETT. D.D. Fifth Av*nut Prt,byUrian Chunh 
 
 Niw York 
 
 The Whole Armour of God 
 
 i2mo, cloth, net $1.35. 
 
 "This popular preacher is, not only by his own people, but 
 also by large numbers of others, considered the very greatest 
 preacher. He is possessed of a rare and perhaps unequalled 
 combination of the very qualities which captivate. His 
 thoughts are always expressed in the simplest possible diction, 
 so that their crystalline clearness makes them at once appre- 
 hended." — Christian Evangelist. 
 
 EDGAR DE WITT JONES Author of "Th* Inn*r Circh" 
 
 The Wisdom of God's Fools 
 
 And Other Sermons. i2mo, cloth, net $1.15. 
 
 A volume of discourses, displaying the same facility for the 
 right word and fitting phrase which marked the author's pre- 
 vious work. Mr. Jones preaches sermons that read well — a 
 not at all common quality. He is a thinker too; and brings 
 to his thinking a lucidity and attractiveness which make his 
 presentation of great truths an artistic, as well as an inspiring 
 achievement. A note of deep spirituality is everywhere mani- 
 fest. 
 
 FREDERICK F. SHANNON Pastor of the Reformed- Chunh-n- 
 • the- Heights, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 The Enchanted Universe 
 
 And Other Sermons. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 Mr. Shannon's reputation as an eloquent and forceful 
 preacher is still further enhanced by his new volume of ser- 
 mons. The fervid, glowing character of the popular Brooklyn 
 pastor's appeals, make the reading of his latest book, not only 
 an inspiring, but a fascinating exercise. 
 
 GEORGE fr. TRUETT, D.D. Pastor Firs/ Baptist 
 
 ' — ——————————— Church, Dallas, Tex. 
 
 We Would See Jesus and Other Sermons 
 
 Compiled and edited by J. B. Cranfill. Net $1.15. 
 
 "One of the greatest — many would say the greatest — of all 
 the world's preachers to-day. It ranks high among the ex- 
 tant books of sermons, past and present, and deserves a place 
 in millions of homes." — Biblical Recorder. 
 
 BISHOP CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 
 
 A Neglected Power 
 
 And Other Sermons. i2mo, cloth, net $1.00. 
 
 "Thoroughly evangelical in spirit, refreshing in Biblical 
 truth and abounding in helpful ministrations for every day 
 life." — Evangelical Mes^enger^ 
 

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