" ' . ■ IP — n i Qass —P V il I Book !U.-S & ~ is UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY CITY OF NEW YORK INAUGURATION Rev. Thomas S. Hastings, D.D. PROFESSOR OF SACRED RHETORIC Thursday, September 22, 1881 PUBLISHED FOR THE DIRECTORS NEW YORK ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY 1° \«" NEW YORK PUBL. £Mr, IN EXCHANGS, INTRODUCTORY. By the death of the Rev. William Adams, D.D., LL.D., on the last day of August, 1880, the Union Theological Seminary, which he helped to found, and had done so much to adorn and strengthen, lost one of its oldest Directors, its President, and its Professor of Sacred Rhetoric. The last two of these three offices he had held for seven years, rendering services of inestimable value. On the 9th day of November, 1880, the first two vacancies were filled by the. election of the Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D., who had been for twenty-five years Professor of Church History, and who retains his Chair of instruction, the Presidency having no prescribed connection with any particular Professorship. The Chair of Sacred Rhetoric was left vacant, Professor James M. Hoppin, D.D., of Yale College, assuming temporary charge of the department. On the nth of January, 1 88 1, choice was made of the Rev. Thomas Samuel Hastings, D.D., an alumnus of the Seminary, who graduated in 1851, and, for five and twenty years, had been the pastor of the West Presby- terian Church in New York City. The inauguration of Dr. Hastings took place in the Chapel of the Seminary, on Thursday afternoon, September 22d, 1881, Dr. Hitchcock presiding. Service began with the singing of the hymn, " I love Thy Kingdom, Lord," and the reading of select portions of Scripture suited to the occasion. Prayer was offered by the Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D. Dr. Hitchcock spoke briefly of the great national affliction (the death of President 4 Introductory. Garfield), in the shadow of which the term was opening. Ten- der reference was also made to the shadow cast upon the Semi- nary by the death of its President the year before. An unex- pectedly large accession of students was reported ; the alumni and other friends of the Seminary were congratulated on its hope- ful condition, and the new Professor was welcomed cordially to his Chair. The required doctrinal declaration was read and subscribed in the presence of the assembly which filled the Chapel. The usual charge, on behalf of the Board of Directors, was given by the Rev. Marvin R. Vincent, D.D., pastor of the Church of the Covenant in New York City. Dr. Hastings then delivered his Inaugural Address. The Benediction was pro- nounced by the Rev. Alexander T. McGill, D.D., LL.D., Senior Professor in the Theological Seminary at -Princeton, N. J. CHARGE ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. Rev. MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D. CHARGE, My Dear Brother: In the attempt to discharge the duty assigned me by the Board of Directors, I find myself between two currents of feeling. As a director of the Seminary I share the satisfaction and pleasure of the entire Board at your decision to accept their call to this important post, and their high expectations of the results of its occupancy by you. On the other hand, I am a pastor. You are passing out of the pastoral circle where you have filled so large and so honorable a place, where we pastors have worked with you, have leaned upon your judgment and experience, and have loved you as a friend and brother. We shall sorely miss you there, and we can comfort ourselves only with the thought that you will not be entirely removed from our councils, and that, in a different way, you will still be co-operating with us for the advancement of the work to which you have given your life. You assume this position by the unanimous and hearty vote of the Board of Directors. You are no compromise candidate. The Board has been a unit in its desire, no less than its vote. You come with our unreserved confidence. There is no lurking suspicion, no secret misgiving as regards your orthodoxy or your fitness for the duties of this chair. While you thus command our confidence, we, on the other hand, are pledged to stand by you in the discharge of your duties, and in the development of your department of instruction ; to hear with respectful attention your sugges- tions for its increased efficiency, and to furnish you, so far 8 Charge. as in us lies, whatever may be necessary to carry out your plans. Alike as laymen and as ministers, holding by the old and high Presbyterian estimate of the relative position and importance of the pulpit among Gospel agencies, our prayers, our sympathies, and our practical aid shall be with you, as you shall teach the ministers of the future how to wield in the pulpit the weapons of exegesis, theology, and history forged in the lecture-rooms of your colleagues. You do not need to be reminded that associations and memories of no ordinary kind are linked with your position here. The sense of loss which is yet fresh in your heart as in ours, is its own reminder of him who, by his broad and elegant culture, no less than by his delightful personal qualities, and his long, brilliant, and legitimate success as preacher, pastor, and teacher, gave to this chair a dignity and a meaning which none will be readier to recognize, or more earnest to perpetuate, than yourself. Nevertheless, you will be expected to do more than merely to keep the track laid by any man, however good, or great, or honored. We have not summoned you to reproduce mechanically the methods of your predecessor. The traditions attaching to your chair are not thongs to fetter you, but only inspirations to stimulate you. You are not as an engine set to a certain gauge, and condemned to keep to it on penalty of confusion and disaster. A department like yours, which deals with the contact of the living teacher and the living hearer, must be informed with a life, and not propelled by a machine. If there is to go forth from your lecture-room power that shall be felt in the pulpit of the future, it must pass to your students through your individual life, taking tone from your own character, and from the truth wrought up into it. You will not be content, therefore, with filling a place, however well ; you will make a place of your own ; you will inaugu- rate a growth as well as dress, and keep the garden. The science of preaching, like all science, is open to the progress of ideas. The substance of it, Christ and Him crucified, is Charge. 9 the same always ; but the wisdom of God as displayed in the preached word, proves itself to be what Paul calls it, manifold, or many tinted, in that its methods are always open to the improvements and modifications suggested by the new conditions of successive ages. It is no reflection upon the ability and fidelity of your predecessors to say that there is yet much to be taught about preaching, not only on its spiritual and intellectual, but also on its physical side. While, therefore, your department shall stand as a bulwark of the faith, it is to have windows opening east and west, through which the flashing radiance of the new wisdom, and the mellower light of the old, shall alike have access. You will remember that the charge of a department in a denominational seminary, involves more than the daily instruction of successive classes. Your position is one which may fairly be expected to carry authority on the questions with which it is called specially to deal. A larger public than that of your lecture-room must be kept in view; and while the routine duties of the professorship must needs be exacting, yet the ideal, at least, of the professorship implies a margin both of attainment and of opportunity for independent study, out of which ought to grow, in due time, some contribution of permanent value to the students and teachers of sacred rhetoric everywhere. I need scarcely remind you that you will sustain towards the students a relation besides that of an instructor. These young men, while they will be taught by your lectures, will also be helped and stimulated by your personal friendship, and insensibly moulded by the char- acter of the Christian gentleman which shall reveal itself in your more familiar intercourse with them. They will be unlike most theological students, unlike most young men, for that matter, if they do not often need and crave the counsel and sympathy of a wise friend, even more than the io Charge. instructions of an accomplished teacher. You do not abandon the cure of souls in retiring from the pastorate, and you have only to be true to your own instincts and to the life-long habit of your ministry, to fill out this side of your professorship in a way which shall make many a future pastor call you blessed. I would not trench on the province of an inaugural discourse, yet I may be allowed a word as to the character of your instruction growing out of the peculiar juncture at which you assume these duties. You come to your chair at a time when the claims of the pulpit are squarely and defiantly challenged ; when preaching is regarded by not a few as an obsolete and superfluous thing ; when its leading position among gospel agencies is menaced by ceremonialism on the one hand, and by a cultured indifferentism on the other. We believe you will vindicate to your students the rightfulness of the claim which our Church has always made for the preaching of the Word as first among the means by which men are to be won to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. Granting that the foolishness of preaching is a fact now, as in Paul's time ; it is also a fact now, as in Paul's time, that God is pleased by the foolish- ness of preaching to save them that believe. As opposed to the affected contempt of modern culture for the pulpit, our knowledge of you leads us to expect that you will give no uncertain sound as to the preacher's right to take the position of an instructor in his specialty — the Word of God, — a right as well-grounded as that of a scientific specialist to instruct in chemistry or in physics. You will not be long in dispelling any possible false impressions growing out of the words " Sacred Rhetoric," to the effect that your department deals mainly with those tricks of oratory and graces of diction which command popular applause. In emphasizing the right of the trained preacher to instruct, you will equally emphasize instruction as especially a means to salvation and to holy living, and not as a sop to the philosophic intellect, or as an answer to the Charge. t i demand for literary and scientific novelties. You will vindicate the claim for accurate and extensive knowledge 'and thorough training in the pulpit, but you will, at the same time, ever keep it before your students that, from the very confines of human knowledge on all sides, the lines converge to the Cross. You will stand as a bulwark against the popular demand upon the pulpit for entertainment, concession to which is treachery to our sacred calling, and makes mountebanks out of those whose hands touch the sacred mysteries of the Cross. The fact that you now pass, in some degree, out of the glare of publicity in which a city pastor's life is led, implies no diminution of responsibility, nor of the delicacy and importance of your work. The Church gives you the highest mark of her confidence in choosing you to assist in educating her teachers. Your. place now is at the springs of her power ; your influence upon her masses, though less direct, is to be wider ; you are to preach to scores of congregations where you have preached to one ; you will be none the less felt, now that you are to be in the persons and words of other teachers rather than in your own person and word ; you are to be heard in many a church yet unorganized, in many a pulpit where you will never stand, by many a soul who will be indebted to you for instruction and comfort and spiritual quickening, but who will never see your face, or perhaps know your name. It would not be strange if some sense of personal sacrifice attached for the time to this change of position. You have gloried in preaching, and have been knit to the pastorate by ties such as bind few men to that work. It implies no vanity that a man should be kindled and inspired by his weekly contact with a great congregation. Some one once said that a mark of a born preacher was that he never saw a pulpit without aching to get into it ; and such a preacher does not willingly abandon it. Yet, my brother, in this quieter sphere you will not be without inspirations. You will feel them as your special studies 1 2 Charge. shall give you new and grander views of the scope of your work. They will come to you in the daily contact with consecrated youthful enthusiasm, as it shall seek your guidance along the lines of Christian thought and work. They will stir your deepest heart, as, year by year, you shall see the men whom you have helped to mould, going out to carry the Cross to the islands of the sea, beneath the palm shadows, to the frontiers of our civilization, to the quiet villages among the hills, and to the crowded cities : and they will be renewed again and again, as your faithful work shall come back to you in tidings of souls redeemed, Christian enterprise stimulated, solid character developed : as you shall see your pupils stepping to the front, girded with the power of the Spirit, good soldiers of Christ, and wise leaders in the Church of the living God. Dear brother, need I say that this opening vista of labor and of reward is a call to personal consecration, to holy living, to close walking with God, to the most earnest devotion, and to the strictest fidelity to your trust ? In the name of Christ and of His Church, then, we com- mit to you this solemn charge, with confidence that He who has enabled you to bless and honor the Church in the work of the pastorate, will make this last stage of your career the best and the most richly fruitful of all. We commend you to God and to the Word of His grace. We ask for you the gift of the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. " That good thing which is committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things which thou hast heard among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth;" and "may the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever." INAUGURAL ADDRESS. THOMAS S. HASTINGS, D.D. MINISTER AND HIS WORK. The chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology is between learning and life — to reconcile and harmon- ize the two. The tendency of learning is to isolate, and to disqualify for practical sympathy with common life. In the curriculum, both of the college and of the seminary, there is always the danger that the scholastic will absorb the human, so that in proporr tion to the gain in knowledge will be the loss in wis- dom and in practical facility and force. Never was the demand so great as now for the highest order of learning in the Christian ministry, and therefore never was the danger so great as now that the manhood of the students will not be levelled with their learning. There may be as much of real avarice in the getting of knowledge as there ever was in the getting of money ; and the blight and curse will be the same in. the one case as in the other. It is greed, not gold, that kills souls. It matters little what is the object of greed, whether it be wealth, honor, or knowledge, it is the selfishness in it that makes it corrosive and 1 6 The* Minister and his Work. deadly. The more some men know, the less they are ; they bend and stagger under the load they carry, and cannot move or walk with manly freedom and spirit. Of one of the non-jurists Lord Macaulay wrote : " He had perused innumerable volumes in various languages, and had indeed acquired more learning than his slender faculties were able to bear. The small intellectual spark which he possessed was put out by the fuel." Knowledge should equip and not burden. It depends on the motive with which it is sought, and on the use to which it is put, whether scholarship shall be to the student power or paralysis. There can not be too much knowledge — the more- the better ; but there may be too little life. To level and assimilate the two, learning and life — that is the difficulty ; yet that is the necessity. The heart and the brain are peers ; and the throb of the one must keep time with that of the other, only, — the throb of the heart must be warmer and stronger than that of the brain. To guide and stimulate the students in the acquisi- tion of knowledge, is the work of my honored col- leagues. To instruct in the art of bringing that knowl- edge to bear in its full force on human life, is the work to which I have been called. It is a great work, and difficult, and one in which the teacher must, first of all, lose himself, that he may find the individuality of each student, and aid in securing to each separately the development of his best possibilities. The stu- The Minister and his Work. ly dents must be separated as well as classified, that the teacher may know and cultivate in each that which to him is natural. But what is it to be natural ? The ready and com- mon answer is, — "It is to be yourself." But that necessitates another question, " What is it to be your- self ?" This brings us directly to my theme : "Self — Its Meanings, and its Relations to the Character and to the Work of the Christian Minister." i. Self — What are its meanings ? Let us go back to the question just now asked, "What is it to be yourself ? " The word is ambiguous, and is often used without intelligent discrimination. There are two selves — the one hereditary and initial, the other ideal and ultimate. " Be yourself " — that must refer to the ideal self ; otherwise it enjoins inertia and for- bids progress. When Bourdaloue was probing the conscience of Louis XIV., applying to him the words of St. Paul, and intending to paraphrase them, " For the good that I would, I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do " — " I find two men in me " — the King interrupted the great preacher with the memorable exclamation, " Ah ! these two men — I know them well." Bourdaloue answered : " It is already something to know them, Sire ; but it is not enough — one of the two must perish." Now between these two selves — the one primary, the other ultimate — are all the aspiration and study, all the toil and battle of true and noble living. We start from and 1 8 The Minister and his Work. with the one self, and move toward the other : — -from, because escape from self is the only salvation ; with, because in the primary self is, in part at least, the cap- ital upon which the business of life is conducted ; in it are the materials and implements and weapons for the work and the warfare. There is often confusion of mind in thinking and speaking of self, because this distinction is not made. To be natural — that may mean either to be your primary or your ultimate self. If the former, then it implies that original de- pravity shall have full sway : all the black drops in the blood shall be dominant ; it means that the original self, with its inherited and acquired tendencies, shall refuse culture, reject discipline, and defy rules. It \s> assumed that art and nature are antagonists, but really they are coadjutors. Art confronts nature dis- ordered and distracted by the deep inworking of sin. In nature, thus deranged, Art seeks to find the key- note whereto the lost harmonies may be readjusted. Discipline and rules aim at the natural, not at the artificial. But is the natural the real? or is it the ideal ? Our theology answers the question, and an- swers it peremptorily : The natural is the ideal, the ultimate;; it is not that which we have and are, but that which we pray and hope to have and to become. Individuality is sacred, but then it includes the possi- bilities, and not merely the actualities. No two nat- ures are alike, and yet all have a common origin and a common end. Made in the image of God, — be- The Minister and his Work. 19 tvveen that beginning and the end stands God made in the image of man, requiring of each believing soul, and promising to each, a fuller image of God, and a more- complete likeness to God, as the only true con- summation of redeemed life. There are two ways of looking at the Christ, one of which is full of discour- agement, and the other full of lofty cheer and noblest hope. Castillo long ranked as the finest of Spanish artists. In his later years, when he first saw a Murillo, he studied the marvellous canvas long and earnestly, and then exclaimed, " Castillo is no more ! " That was the despair of egotism. When Corregio first looked upon a Raphael, thrilled with a sense of the high possibilities of his art, he exclaimed, " And I, too, am an artist ! " So you may look at the Christ, the superlative Man, and be overwhelmed with despair ; or you may see in Him not only what you ought to be, but rather what you shall be, and in sublime hope and with deepest meaning you may exclaim, — " And I, too, am a man ! " Not merely the imperative in the Christ, but also the promissive, our manhood needs to feel. And this points us forward, and calls us from the natural egotism of introspection to that outreaching of the soul, which finds hope and inspiration in the Great Object of our faith. I am already touching the boundaries of the second part of my subject. The needed discriminations have been made with reference to the meanings of 20 The Mifiister arid his Work. self, so that the word will not be misunderstood in our further use of it ; and now we are to consider : 2. The relatio?zs of self thus understood, to the character of the Christian minister . Personal character is the basis of power, influence, and success in the ministry. Quintilian gives this as Cato's significant definition: "An orator is a good man, skilled in speaking." Goodness is the vital thing ; it is the necessary foundation of sacred elo- quence. Spiritual power ultimates in character. What you are, limits what you say. An old mediaeval proverb puts this tersely : " If a man's life is light- ning, his words will be thunders."* Piety varies in quality quite as much as in degree. It may be hard, cold, formal, and dark, or it may be bright, warm, fresh, full of hope and joy, and so of all elements that are most persuasive and magnetic. If a man walk in the shadow of himself, it is because he walks with his back to the sun. If the life is mainly a communion with self, then it must be meagre and dark, for the true light is not in self, but in Christ. The vision of the soul must not turn in upon itself to study the size and quality of its own " spiritual retina " ; vision is not for introspection. Carlyle says, " Gaze steadily into your candle-light, and the sun himself will be invisi- ble." All the glory of power, of inspiration, of prom- ise is, not in self, but in the Christ. The primal self * "Cujus vita fulgor, verba tonitrua.' The Minister and his Work. 21 is that one burden which no man can carry ; it must be utterly surrendered, or the soul be crushed with the awful load. But if self be surrendered for the Christ to carry, then the unburdened spirit will have liberty and elasticity, peace and power in the Lord. The piety of the ministry needs this elimination of self, and this full substitution of the Christ, in order to be of that fine and high quality which will be elo- quent and persuasive beyond any words which human lips can utter. We need manly piety in the ministry, free from the cringing and the groaning and the cant which come mainly of the intrusiveness of self ; not such piety, to borrow another's phrase, as is " always sending one to his mirror, that he may examine his moral toilet." We need such manhood — brave, broad, rich, strong, and tender — as can be had only by high fellowship with the one perfect manhood. In the true minister self is out of sight, and God and man fill the horizon ; God and man — God as motive, man as ob- ject. We are told of Phidias that "he carved like one who had seen Zeus ! " And we know that the one secret of the sublimity of Moses' manhood is, that " He endured as seeing Him who is invisible." It is noticeable that in all relations where the Divine and the human come together, the tendency of the former times was, so to bring the Divine to the front as almost to hide the human ; while the reaction of our times shows a tendency so to bring the human to the front as to hide the Divine. This is seen not 22 The Minister and his Work. only in the treatment the Bible and the Christ have received, but also in the way in which the Christian ministry has been regarded. A just balance between the Divine and the human is that which is needed. The human writers may be recognized in the Holy Scriptures without making them less holy, — without imperilling their supreme authority as the infallible Word of God. The full and beautiful humanity in Jesus Christ maybe owned and felt without lessening our deep sense of His true Godhood. So in the min- istry, we may and should maintain its Divine author- ity ; and yet the minister should be most human in his attitude toward his fellow-men. This fine tribute, which Lowell paid to his friend Agassiz, one could wish might be fairly earned by every minister : " He was so human ! whether strong or weak, Far from his kind he neither sank nor soared, » But sate an equal guest at every board ; No beggar ever felt him condescend ; No prince presume ; for still himself he bare At manhood's simple level, and where'er He met a stranger, there he left a friend." The human and the Divine should so interblend in the ministerial character as to make it in the highest sense Christly. We must understand that self-culture means not only self-discipline, but also and equally self-denial ; not only self-development, but also and equally self-conquest. Pagan and classic wisdom culminated in the familiar Delphic motto, rvtidi (xeavrov ; but Christian wisdom started and continues The Minister and his Work. 23 and conquers with this motto, TvtiQi Xpiarov. The difference between the two is radical and vital, and has to do with the very foundations of Christian character, determining alike its quality and its degree. Against "this saying of Juvenal, " E coelo descendit, rvtidt ffeavTov," Coleridge recorded his protest in these striking lines : Tvudi aeavrov — and is this the prime And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time ? Say, canst thou make thyself? Learn first that trade, Haply thou may'st know what thyself hast made. What hast thou, man, that thou dar'st call thine own ? What is there in thee, man, that can be known ? Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought, A phantom dim of past and future wrought, Vain sister of the worm, life, death, soul, clod, Ignore thyself and strive to know thy God. If here it be objected that true humility, that radical virtue, can be cultivated only by self-knowl- edge ; the answer is easy. Humility comes not by introspection, but by that aspiration in which self is lost and " God is all and in all." In' Christian biography those are the best and humblest souls that have most looked up, and been most absorbed in God. The knowledge of self is the knowledge of the sinful and the fragmentary ; the knowledge of God is the knowledge of the perfect and the ultimate. Model, motive, inspiration, and power are all in God, and not in self. Character must root itself in the infinite ; its growth can not be self-fed or self-sustained. Self- lifting is out of the question as much spiritually as it is 24 The Minister and his Work. physically ; we must lay hold on that which is outside and above us, if we would rise higher. Goethe says, " Die and become ; for so long as this is not accom- plished, thou art but a troubled guest upon an earth of gloom." St. Paul puts the matter in the most forcible way : " Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Egotism, self-seeking, self- consciousness, and all subtle shades of selfism are fatal to ministerial power. Above all men, the Christian minister needs that high and fine quality of character which comes only to the brain and heart that are freed of self and filled and fascinated with Christ. 3. What has been said of the character of the Christian minister, leads us on to speak of the rela- tions of my theme to the ministerial work. The Christian minister — there are these elements in the composition : the man, the student, the preacher, the pastor. I have spoken of the man in treating of the character of the minister ; but there is one pre- liminary thing that belongs here. Enthusiasm — not merely emotional and fitful, but deep, principled enthusiasm — is necessary to all good and great work ; and no one needs it more than the minister, as student, preacher, and pastor. One must hide himself in Christ to find and feel the true enthusiasm for humanity ; you cannot find it by inlook, nor by out- look, but only by uplook. It comes not by the pathos of the appeal of man's deep want and woe ; The Minister and his Work. 25 it comes not by the cold process of logic, or by the slow, calm method of thought ; no, no, this high enthusiasm comes only as you stand by the Cross of Jesus Christ ; for of all summits Calvary is the highest ; it is the most commanding and the most in- spiring view-point this side of heaven. There you see the two infinities, divine love and human need. There God is realized, and there man is realized ; God in His holiness, His condescension and com- passion — man in his awful guilt and peril. No humanitarian sentimentalism is thus induced, but a settled principled enthusiasm. And such enthusiasm will never burn out ; but it will consume all selfish ambitions, and give perpetual light and warmth and power. The soul thus kindled cannot hide behind ramparts nor cower in trenches ; it will go forth free, brave, and glad, and find that in Christian living the true defence is aggression. It has been remarked concerning the life of Jesus that " He was never guarding Himself, but alway invading the lives of others with His holiness. The force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream that keeps the sea from flowing into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea."* That covers a great ' Sermons," Phillips Brooks, p. 182. 26 The Minister a7id his Work. deal. Thus the personality of the minister can be a power only as it is not projected, but sunk and hidden by the earnestness with which he sees God and man. But the minister is not only a man, he is also a student ; he must be this, or he is nothing. The minister who is indolent, unstudious, and unscholarly, dishonors God, discredits the ministry, and destroys himself. But with what purpose and spirit should the minister study ? The knowledge we need is not all in books, in men, or in things ; but it is primarily in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Truth. St. Paul had behind him all the treasures of classic literature ; behind him were the Academy and the Porch ; behind him were Socrates and Plato and Aristotle ; while he himself was rich in the spoils of the splendid schools of Tarsus ; and yet, hear him : " I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord." More to me, in depth of significance, than all his noble scholarship, is the fact that when Hermann Witsius entered upon his pro- fessorship in Ley den in 1698, the theme of his inaugural was " De Theologo Modesto." The preacher must be a student, not to satisfy a scholarly appetite, not to gain for the sake of gain, not to secure for himself respect and admiration, not to serve the Church, the school, the system, but to honor God in the salvation and service of man. The Bible must have the first place among the preacher's books. It must be not only harvested and The Minister and his Work. 27 gleaned on its surface, but mined in its depths. The student must be saturated with its spirit, equipped with its tools, and armed with its weapons. He must find in God's Word the word for the people, that he may come before them, and go among them so rich in Divine treasures that he may be alway giving to the hungry Immortality around him which is ever crying out for the bread of heaven. In many ways, and most absolutely, does the level of the study determine the level of the pulpit. As water will not rise higher than its source, so is it with the spiritual power of the preacher ; its source, under God, is in his study ; and that must be not a library only, but also a sanctuary, with its pulpit, its altar, and its Shekinah alway invisible, but alway real and dominant. In the minister, both as a man and as a student, there must be transparent simplicity and purity, unmixed with earthliness and selfism, so that the light which is from above, may penetrate the depths of his soul, to be reflected to the minds and hearts of men. Mr. Ruskin,* by an elaborate and convincing argument, shows that on clear water near the eye there are and can be no shadows, — no shadows of cloud, mountain, or forest, but only reflections. Upon turbid and muddy waters, like those of the Rhine, because there is so much earthy matter in them, there are indeed shadows ; but never upon waters that are clear. How * "Arrows of the Chase," p. 191 sq. 2 8 The Minister and his Work. true that is of men ! There are no shadows on child- like and transparent souls, they only reflect the glories of heaven ; but turbid souls, full of self and earthliness, they, like muddy waters, are always darkly shadowed. Now let us follow the student to the pulpit and think of him as a preacher. Even before he begins to speak, unconscious influence exhales from his look, his attitude, his whole manner. At once he concili- ates and attracts, or provokes antagonism. If he show in his look a modest respect for his hearers, and a becoming sense of the solemnity and responsibility of his position, the hearts of the people will open toward him ; but any sign of self-confidence or of self-consciousness will break the spell. The people will hear all and bear anything when they see that the preacher has not come before them to dogmatize or to display himself, but is intent only on their good. I have tried to show that the personal character of the preaching should have this two-foldness — God so realized, and man so realized, that self is lost in their absorbing claims and interests. I need not fur- ther urge that the preacher should come to the pulpit with a sermon carefully and studiously prepared, the best fruit of his prayers and studies. I shall presume that enough has been said with reference to the mat- ter of discourse to admit of my speaking only of the manner. It is due to Christ, in whose name we preach ; it is due to the truth ; it is due to the people The Minister and his Work. 29 that the Word should lose nothing, but gain as much as possible by the manner of its presentation. It is said of the times of the Rennaissance that " Falsehood in a Ciceronian dialect had no opposers, truth in patois no listeners."* It is saddening to the last de- gree to see so many in the ministry who, though ex- cellent and scholarly men, fail utterly to command the attention of the people, simply because, though they know what to say, they do not know how to say it ; they have absolutely no culture of voice or manner. The common neglect of such culture is marvellous and unaccountable. Now and then, but very rarely, one hears preaching which is nothing but rhetoric and elocution. It is needless to say that such preaching is beneath contempt. Nothing but rhetoric and elocution ! It reminds me of this withering sarcasm with which Thackeray disposes of George IV. : — " I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a coat with frogs, and a fur collar, a star and blue ribbon, a pocket-handkerchief prodigi- ously scented, one of Truefitt's nutty brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth, a huge, black stock, underwaistcoats, more underwaistcoats, and then — nothing."f But on that point I need say no more in this pres- ence and in this scholarly atmosphere. * "Stones of Venice," III. 61. t " The Four Georges," p. 90. 30 The Minister and his Work. In general, as it has been well and often declared, the preacher's manner should always be such that the hearers will not think of it or of him, but only of the truth. Yet in order to this, which is certainly the perfection of manner, there must be the most careful and judicious culture. Mr. Emerson says : " The poet Saadi tells us that a person with a disagreeable voice was reading the Koran aloud, when a holy man, passing by, asked what was his monthly stipend. He answered, ' Nothing at all.' ' But, then, why do you take so much trouble ? ' He replied, ' I read for the sake of God.' The other rejoined, ' For God's sake do not read, for if you read the Koran in this manner you will destroy the splendors of Islamism ! ' " * How much have the Bible and the Hymn-Book and Chris- tian truth suffered from men who neither know how to read or speak ! But when, in the same connection, Mr. Emerson says : " In the Church I call him only a good reader who can read sense and poetry into any hymn in the Hymn-Book," we may well question the fairness of such a test under the existing condition of our Hymnology. How much there is in the voice that betrays, like the countenance, the character, and the degree of refinement and culture ! Socrates said to a youth distinguished for personal beauty, " Speak, that I may see thee ! " There are voices that grate and grind and rasp the sensibilities ; and there are * " Letters and Social Aims," p. 108. The Minister and his Work. 31 those that court and caress the ear, and are sweet as Apollo's lute. There may be smiles or tears in a voice. One need not go far to detect what Haw- thorne calls "The chronic croak, the voice dyed black."* Fine speaking is the broadest and finest of the fine-arts ; it is architecture, music, statuary, and painting, all in one. It is architecture, for it has con- struction, form, proportion, symmetry, perspective ; it is music that thrills and lifts souls like a noble sym- phony ; it is statuary, for it has pose, attitude, gesture, which the cold marble might well envy ; it is paint- ing, for it pictures with every variety of color, and every delicacy of touch, what pencil and canvas can never at their best portray. Surely this broadest and finest of the fine-arts deserves much of that patient study and laborious devotion which are so readily and gener- ously conceded to all the other arts. I know well the common objection which has been so decisive, and has wrought such wide-spread mischief in the past. We are told that all culture which has respect to manner in the pulpit, will make only artificial speakers ; and the preacher above all things should be himself, and should be natural. The utter folly of that objection will at once be apparent, if you will here recall and apply the distinctions made in the early part of this address. "To be yourself," in the sense of this objection, is to be certainly and entirely ' House of the Seven Gables," p. 146. 32 The Minister and his Work. wrong, i. e., as already indicated, it is to be just what your native depravity may make you; "to be your- self " in the true and higher sense, as I tried to show, is to work and to struggle from your primal self toward your ideal self. So also to "be natural " you must reach a high and distant goal. It is very true that, at the first, rules produce constraint and arti- ficiality, but with labor and patience they settle into principles and form habits, and so are merged into what seem like intuitions. Rules are rounds of the ladder by which one climbs ; when he has reached the height, he leaves the ladder, but keeps the elevation. Rules are masters until by obedience of them they are converted into servants. And that transformation is accomplished only when you have so wrought them into your own nature that you conform to them un- consciously. And then, and so, you are at length yourself and have become at last natural. The old Latin saying is here abundantly true, " Summa ars artem superare." * A minister is to be not only a preacher, but a pastor. In order to this he should never be a place- seeker. The world is alway full of open doors for honest and self-sacrificing workers ; doors which Christ opens for such workers, and which no man can shut. There is a quaint old proverb that is pertinent and suggestive here, "A stone that is fit for * This is better than the kindred saying : " Artis est celare artem." The Minister and his Work, 33 the wall will not be left in the roadway." The self- seeker may find a place, but he cannot fill or keep it. Let the place find you, and you will both fit and fill it. There is wisdom in this saying of Confucius, " I am not concerned that I have no place ; I am con- cerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known ; I seek to be worthy to be known." The pastoral relation is one of the most delicate, beautiful, and delightful, as it is one of the most difficult, laborious, and responsible among all the relations of life. It is fruitful only of pain and bitter disappointment to the self-seeker ; but to him who, in self-abnegation, seeks Christ and souls, it is fruitful of the purest joys and of the finest and highest rewards. How true in all these relations we have been considering is the Master's word, " He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." In conclusion I cannot resist the temptation to repeat the words of the gifted Robertson, in one of his last published sermons : " The minister of Christ is but a herald to prepare His coming ; and then, and only then, has he done his work when he has en- deavored to detach trust and admiration from himself and to fasten them upon Jesus Christ ; and when he feels that he is becoming every day less and less necessary to those whom he has taught, because he has imparted to them all he knows and led them to the everlasting fountain which shall never be exhausted. L 2* & 34 The Minister and his Work. The very spirit of the Christian ministry consists in these blessed words, ' He must increase, but I must decrease ' ; I fulfil my course ; it will soon be done ; I point to Christ."* Suffer me a few words of personal allusion. To be associated with such honored men as my col- leagues, so widely known, revered, and loved ; to occupy a chair which the rare and symmetrical, the gifted and graceful spirit of Dr. William Adams dignified and adorned, is a responsibility before which one might well shrink. If it did not seem to be the call of God that has summoned me hither, I would dare to be afraid, and to refuse the 'high task which is before me. God help me to seek not myself, but His glory in the good of those He may aid me to teach. "The Human Race, and other Sermons," p. 113. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township. PA 16066 (724)779-2111 ;- :V I-