THE MAKING OF THE MODERN 
 
 MINISTER 
 
 AN INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 TOGETHER WITH THE^^g" ^^;^ 
 
 ADDRESS OF PRESENTATION 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN 
 
 MINISTER 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 EZRA SQUIER TIPPLE, Ph.D., D.D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF DREW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 TOGETHER WITH THE 
 
 ADDRESS OF WELCOME AND PRESENTATION 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY ANSON BUTTZ, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 PRESIDENT-EMERITUS AND PROFESSOR 
 OF NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS 
 
 FOUNDERS DAY 
 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1912 
 MADISON, NEW JERSEY 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME AND PRESENTATION 
 
 BY PRESIDENT-EMERITUS BUTTZ 
 
 Mr. President^ Honored Guests and Delegates^ Trustees and 
 
 Alumnt_, Friends of the Seminary, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 The Faculty of Drew Theological Seminary have assigned to 
 me the honor and the pleasure of extending to you all a most 
 cordial welcome to the Seminary and to all the exercises of this 
 Founders Day. Your presence and interest are a benediction, 
 and the inspiration of your visit to us will long be felt and ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 Forty-five years have passed since Drew Theological Semi- 
 nary opened its doors to students. They have been years of 
 struggle and of victory, and we look back upon her history with 
 pardonable pride. It is not my province at this time to dwell 
 upon her past achievements or her present position, nor to speak 
 of her Founders and Benefactors, the noble men and women who 
 by their sacrifices and gifts have made the Seminary what it is. 
 Their names are written on the imperishable records of our hearts. 
 The Seminai*y is their monumeut. Nor will I speak of the future 
 of the Seminary, which is full of promise, and we believe will 
 receive a new impulse from this occasion. 
 
 To every department of our Seminary life and activities we 
 welcome you from our hearts. 
 
 I have also the honor and the pleasure on behalf of the 
 Faculty to welcome the Rev. Ezra Squier Tipple, Doctor of Phi- 
 losophy, Doctor of Divinity, as the President of Drew Theologi- 
 cal Seminary. President Tipple does not come to us as a 
 stranger. He is at home here. We know him well as our friend 
 and colaborer. A graduate of Syracuse University, he is also an 
 alumnus of this Seminary, in which he maintained high rank as 
 a student, graduating with honor in the class of 1887 with the 
 
 3 
 
ADDKESS OF WELCOME AND PEESENTATION 
 
 degree of Bachelor of Divinity. Other honorary degrees and 
 positions of honor have been conferred upon him of which I may 
 not speak to-day. He has made valuable contributions to our 
 Christian literature. His whole ministerial life as a pastor was 
 passed in the city of New York, where he secured wide experience 
 and made full proof of his ministry. His call to be the Executive 
 Secretary of the Metropolitan Thank-Offering Movement in the 
 city of New' York enabled him to render signal service in that 
 important position. Keturning to the pastorate of a large 
 church, he continued until 1905, when he was elected to the Pro- 
 fessorship of Practical Theology in this Seminary. Having filled 
 successfully that important chair, he has now been called to be 
 the President of the Seminary with which he has been so long 
 identified. He has an honorable record for faithful and success- 
 ful service, in which we rejoice and bid him welcome. 
 
 President Tipple: In this presence and surrounded by so 
 many who are familiar with the great educational problems of 
 the times, it would be presumptuous for me to speak of the re- 
 sponsible position to which you have been called. 
 
 To guide the policies of the Seminary; to enlarge the vision 
 of the young men who seek their theological education in this 
 place; to promote in our rising ministry the richest experience 
 and the noblest life; to be the exemplar and the mouthpiece of 
 the school in its relation to the church of our fellowship and the 
 whole Church of Christ may well tax the coolest head, the pro- 
 foundest Christian experience, the amplest learning, and the 
 gentlest and stoutest heart. In full confidence that you will 
 meet these responsibilities in a manner worthy of the institution 
 and the church, we, as a Faculty, at the very entrance upon your 
 office, bid you welcome and assure you of our cordial sympathy 
 w'ith your labors and of our hearty and united support. 
 
 We realize that this occasion and this hour are a call to 
 fresh consecration to the service of the Seminary which demands 
 of us sacrifice and service, and these we will freely give. 
 
 There are things on which I wish to congratulate you. You 
 
 4 
 
ADDRESS OF ^yELCO]kIE AND PRESENTATION 
 
 euter upon your ofiice at a time wlieu great questions concerning 
 ministerial education are under discussion and require solution. 
 You have, no doubt, studied these problems which are so vitally 
 related to our future development and prosperity, and will help 
 in deciding them wisely. 
 
 Y'ou enter upon your office also with a scholarly, able, and 
 devoted Faculty, which has never throughout the history of the 
 Seminary known division or discord. They have always been 
 loyal to their president, to the Seminary, and to each other. I 
 know whereof I speak, for I have been the constant recipient of 
 their kindness and support. You know them too, and can rely 
 upon them in every emergency that requires their aid. 
 
 You come into your office with a Board of Trustees, I be- 
 lieve, unsurpassed by any Board in any institution of learning. 
 They are a Board composed of wise men united in the purpose of 
 making this Seminary one of the foremost institutions for the 
 promotion of high ministerial training. They have been proved 
 in the crises in the Seminary’s history, and I know from personal 
 experience that they will give your administration their united 
 and earnest support. 
 
 You enter upon your duties with a large, noble, and influ- 
 ential body of Alumni, who are filling with success all the varied 
 activities of our church life, in her episcopacy, in her pastorates 
 and mission fields and administrative offices, and whose labors 
 for Christ are belting the world. I know their loyalty and devo- 
 tion to the Seminary. You can rely upon them. 
 
 The large and choice body of students who are now here, 
 gathered from our own land and the mission fields of the church, 
 who with eager eyes are looking forward to their lifework, give 
 you their warm hearts and have already learned to appreciate 
 your interest and care. 
 
 The dear friends everywhere associated in love and sym- 
 pathy with the Seminary, whose names you know, many of whom 
 are here to-day, join in the welcome and in interest in this oc- 
 
 casion. 
 
<VDDIIESS OP WELCOME AND PRESENTATION 
 
 In this new position to which j'ou have been called you will 
 maintain the traditions of Drew Theological Seminai’y. Al- 
 though her history is a brief one compared with many 
 theological schools, she has her traditions, and they are precious 
 to her Faculty, Students, and Alumni. I know you will preserve 
 them. She has a spirit which has pervaded her from the begin- 
 ning. It is indefinable, but you have experienced it and will 
 cherish it. This Seminary represents high ministerial scholar- 
 ship in her Faculty and in her purpose and plans. We are confi- 
 dent that you will advance it by encouraging the scholarly spirit 
 and by enlarging its facilities, material and intellectual and 
 spiritual. 
 
 Drew Theological Seminary accepts God’s Word as the only 
 infallible rule of faith and practice for the Church of Christ. 
 You will be loyal to it. She is in harmony with the great evan- 
 gelical and missionary and philanthropic movements of our age; 
 you share in the great vision of a world redeemed and saved 
 through the gospel of Christ. We join in loving fellowship with 
 all branches of the Church of Christ and with all sister educa- 
 tional institutions, and you, I know, share in the hope of a united 
 Christendom. 
 
 A personal word. It was my privilege to welcome you to 
 this Seminary as a student ; again it was my privilege to welcome 
 you as a professor, and now it is my privilege to Avelcome you 
 as our President. May God bless you. 
 
 President Tipple, with confidence in your leadership, with 
 all good wishes and prayers for the great success of your admin- 
 istration, on behalf of the Faculty of Drew Theological Semi- 
 nary, I salute you, I welcome you. 
 
 And now. Bishop Wilson, President of the Board of Trustees 
 of Drew Theological Seminary, I have the additional pleasant 
 duty of presenting to you the Rev. Ezra Squier Tipple, Doctor 
 of Philosophy, Doctor of Divinity, to be inaugurated President of 
 Drew Theological Seminary. 
 
 6 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 BY PRESIDENT TIPPLE 
 
 Mb. Chairman^ President-Emeritus Buttz^ and Friends: 
 
 Ou a high day like this, the chief festival of the Seminary 
 calendar, dedicated to the founders of this school, one’s thoughts 
 turn instinctively and gratefully to the men and women who 
 dreamed and prayed, who gave and toiled, and out of whose faith 
 and zeal and sacrifice has come this honorable institution of 
 theological education. And as we think of the noble company of 
 benefactors of Drew Theological Seminary, and see again the 
 splendor of their purpose, the majesty of their faith, and their 
 fidelity to worthy ideals, just as intuitively do we pray that we 
 of a newer day may have a like measure of courage and energy 
 and steadfastness. 
 
 The history of this Seminary is much the same as that of 
 other institutions of learning. There may be nothing more of 
 romance in its founding, or of sacrifice in its building, or of de- 
 votedness in its development, than in many another school repre- 
 sented here to-day, but somehow to us who know more intimately 
 the history, traditions, and spirit of the place, the story of its 
 beginnings has a peculiar charm and the names of those who 
 dared the enterprise and conquered the difficulties are enshrined 
 as no others in our hearts, and we may be pardoned, therefore, 
 if on such an occasion as this we linger for a moment beside the 
 graves of our sainted dead, and, like old soldiers, tell of their 
 deeds of prowess and boast of their virtues. There are great 
 names and great deeds in our Book of Annals. The roll of the 
 founders of this Seminary and the record of their achievements 
 read like another eleventh chapter of Hebrews : Janes, sagacious, 
 with rare knowledge of men, saintly in look and life, a master of 
 assemblies; McClintock, cultured, versatile, the foremost scholar 
 
THE FLAKING OF THE MODEEN MINISTEK 
 
 of American Methodism, learned but without arrogance, catholic, 
 persuasively eloquent; Simpson, surpassing preacher, prophet of 
 democracy, patriot; Judge Fancher, courtly, keen, erudite; Dur- 
 bin, professor, editor, college president, missionary secretary, 
 matchless orator; Morris D’C. Crawford, that ecclesiastical 
 statesman; and Charles C. North, Christian gentleman and lover 
 of mankind; George E. Crooks, scholarly, with a passion for 
 knowledge, intense, rugged, a kind of ecclesiastical Thomas Car- 
 lyle; Daniel Drew, self-taught and self-made, shrewd, simple- 
 hearted, and with divinely generous impulses; and many other 
 devoted, knightly men w’ho in that formative period through faith 
 subdued kingdoms and worked miracles. To these men we are 
 debtors, and to others also who then or during the nearly half 
 centurj' since have put into this place brain and heart and con- 
 fidence and coin of the realm. We are debtors to Foster, the 
 embodiment of genius, the lordly preacher, defender of the faith ; 
 to Nadal, winsome, enthusiastic as a teacher, and almost without 
 a peer as a writer; to Hurst, scholarly, energetic, contemplative, 
 self-contained, a lover of books, savior of the school in the dark 
 days of its adversity; to Kidder, precise, painstaking, brotherly, 
 a hater of shams ; to Strong, the white-bearded patriarch, a veri- 
 table encyclopedia of knowledge; to Miley, theologian, unfailing 
 friend; to Upham, genial, abounding in good sense, with an un- 
 surpassed knowledge of Methodist traditions and history; to 
 George T. Cobb, Andrew V. Stout, Ezra B. Tuttle, Mark Hoyt, 
 George J. Ferry, Charles Scott, Clinton B. Fisk, John B. Cornell, 
 Archer Brown, Stephen Greene, William Hoyt, Anderson Fowler, 
 James W. Pearsall, Bishop John P. Newman, Townsend Wandell, 
 John S. McLean, John S. Huyler, and Samuel W. Bowne, great 
 men and good men, all princely benefactors; and to that other 
 and larger company of men and women who in less notable, hut 
 not less infiuential wa^’s have wrought the fabric of this institu- 
 tion and have contributed to its life. To-day we humbly ac- 
 knowledge our imperishable obligation to all these, and to one 
 other, scholar, exegete, preacher, writer, administrator, whose 
 
 8 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 beneficent relations with this Seminary began with the opening 
 of its doors, and whose godly life has radiated blessings upon 
 every student who has crossed its threshold; forty-five years a 
 teacher here, thirty-two years the universally revered Presi- 
 dent of this Seminary, now and always to all who have ever been 
 in this school friend, counselor, father — Henry Anson Buttz. 
 As the years were multiplying to Queen Elizabeth, men, looking 
 at her white hair, whispered, ‘‘When that snow melteth, there 
 will be a flood.” It is likewise true that when the snoAvs which 
 crown the brow of this kingly man melt, there Avill be rivers of 
 tears in every land, and lamentations in every place Avhere his 
 sons in the gospel are working under the stimulus of his mighty 
 spirit to bring in the kingdom of God and striving with stead- 
 fastness to reach the goal he set before them. May he be spared 
 yet many years to declare here the counsels of Jehovah and to ex- 
 pound the Word of our God! 
 
 The Christian ministry is a divine institution. Both in 
 origin and constitution it is divine. When George Whitefield 
 began to feel the pull of divine forces toward the ministry, and 
 was in an agony of concern whether he must heed the call, he 
 turned to the New Testament to ascertain what manner of man 
 he would have to be in case he should find himself, against his 
 will even, compelled to preach. There are other books which 
 essay to set forth the characteristics of a minister of God. 
 Chaucer has drawn an exquisitely beautiful picture of the parish 
 priest who 
 
 This noble ensample to his sheep he gaA'e, 
 
 That first he wrought, and afterward he taught.' 
 
 George Herbert, with fine feeling, has etched the “Country Par- 
 son,” and Richard Baxter, in his “Reformed Pastor,” has given 
 the world an unapproached delineation of a faithful shepherd of 
 souls. But the perfect description of the ideal minister is to be 
 found in the Epistle to the Romans. I do not knoAv in litera- 
 ture a nobler conception of the kind of a minister this age and 
 
 9 
 
THE MAKING OP THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 every age needs: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an 
 apostle, separated unto the gospel of Christ.” But great as was 
 I*aul,.he was second to a Greater, — Teacher, Preacher, Wonder- 
 Worker, Shepherd, Comforter, Kingdom-Builder, who for the car- 
 rying on of the work which he had begun, for the establishment of 
 his kingdom on the earth, chose men to act for him and by his 
 power. The apostles were summoned by Jesus Christ, commis- 
 sioned by him, inspirited by him, and anointed by him for a di- 
 vine task. They were his ministers, the heralds of a new order, 
 the prophets of a new society, by his choice and determination. 
 Pentecost was God’s seal ui)on this divinely instituted ministry 
 of the apostolic church. Henceforth, “No man can say that 
 Jesus is the Lord, but in the Holy Ghost.” The centuries have 
 come and gone since that day, but the kingdom remains — the 
 one kingdom alone which can claim to have unbroken, historic, 
 and vital continuity. And the ministry which was divinely insti- 
 tuted by our Lord remains. There may be fashions in ministers, 
 as in clothes. Cardinal Borromeo, a beautiful and blessed 
 laborer among the poor, once said: “A parish priest should be 
 like a French milliner, ahvays bringing out new inodes in order 
 to keep up the interest and stimulate a languishing taste.” But 
 the office is not new. The Christian ministry is not only a divine 
 institution, but it must also be regarded as a permanent insti- 
 tution. 
 
 In the educational training of men for this divinely insti- 
 tuted ministry, the theological seminary, which is a vocational 
 school, has its place, just as other professional schools, such as 
 law or medical schools, which have been established to Hain men 
 to be lawyers or doctors. The question, then, is not. Has the 
 theological school a legitimate place in the making of the min- 
 ister? but. What kind of a place? not. Is it essential? but. Does 
 it serve its vocational purpose? It may have done so a genera- 
 tion ago, but is it Avisely, completely fulfilling its growingly 
 important mission of to-day? Is it educationally producing min- 
 isters properly trained for the imperious demands of this modern 
 
 10 
 
THE MAKING OP THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 age? Men say that it is not. Perhaps it is just at this point that 
 the sharpest criticism is urged against theological seminaries, 
 and there is criticism a plenty. Heckling schools of theology is 
 not one of the lost arts. Criticism of other schools, such as our 
 public schools and colleges, has been abundant and sharp during 
 recent years; but the theological schools have been even more 
 vigorously assailed, and there are many who are beginning to 
 feel “that the chorus of criticism on the historic theological cur- 
 riculum is sufficiently loud to make pertinent the question 
 whether, as a universal curriculum for all ministerial training, 
 it meets the real needs of the present, or equips men adequately 
 for contact with the problems by which they are sure to be con- 
 fronted when they pass from the walls of the seminary to the 
 great needy world outside,” and also to inquire what kind of 
 training is needed for the making of the modern minister. In 
 attempting to answer this question, I do not need to remind you 
 that I speak as a denominationalist, or to apologize for so doing. 
 Most theological schools are denominational schools, and ought 
 to be. Drew Theological Seminary is a school of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. It was established by the church, being one 
 of the fruits of the Centenary of American Methodism in 1866. 
 Its founders were Methodists. Its trustees are named by the 
 General Conference of the Church. Its teachers are nominated 
 by the Board of Bishops. In a peculiar sense, therefore, it be- 
 longs to the denomination. It was created, too, for a denomina- 
 tional purpose, namely, to train men for the ministry of the 
 Church founded by John Wesley, and I shall have this in mind 
 throughout my consideration of this matter of the preparation of 
 the modern minister, for the nature of the training must be de- 
 termined by the nature of the task. The nature of the work of 
 the physician determines the character of the training he receives 
 in preparation for his vocation. What is the work of the theo- 
 logical school? It is not to make scholars, in the technical sense 
 of the term. The seminary is a place for the cultivation of 
 scholarly ideals and tastes, for the confirming of scholarly habits 
 
 11 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODEEN MINISTEE 
 
 of thought and life, and for the awakening now and then of such 
 scholarly ambitions in a man that he will go through fire and 
 fiood to be a scholar; bnt spirituality, for instance, demands a 
 stronger emphasis in the modern seminary than scholarship. 
 
 The life of the modern college hardly tends to moral self- 
 denials. The customs of college life are exacting. The appeal 
 of college spirit, the influence of the college atmosphere, is well- 
 nigh irresistible. And when a man enters the Seminary, he 
 brings with him the college attitude, the college practices, and, 
 too often, the college non-observance of the ‘‘means of grace,” and 
 sometimes, alas, even antagonisms to spiritual influences and an 
 aversion to a life hid with God in Christ. Now, the call to the 
 ministry is a call to spiritual enterprises, to see bushes which 
 burn and are not consumed, to walk in the highways of life, amid 
 boisterons noises, and yet be able to discern above “the tumult 
 and the shouting” the still, small voice; to stand upon some 
 Syrian monntain, and, looking up, behold a thousand thousand 
 wheeling chariots and horsemen of Jehovah. Such experiences 
 are of far vaster moment to a minister of God than facts which 
 have been written down in books. To know the history of doc- 
 trines, or the literary aspects of the Bible, or the Christian solu- 
 tion of social problems, or the results of the last questionnaire in 
 the realm of scientific inquiry, invaluable as all these are, is not 
 to be ranked for one moment with the deeper knowledge of the 
 things of the Spirit ; and the seminary which does not stress spirit- 
 ual power above intellectual powder as a regenerative force in 
 the world does not know values. 
 
 In a letter to the students at Harvard and Yale who had 
 come under his influence during one of his evangelistic tours, 
 George Whitefield wrote: “Henceforward, therefore, I hope you 
 will enter into yonr studies not to get a parish, nor to be polite 
 preachers, but to be great saints.” However much people value 
 scholarship, they value saintliness more. While they may be 
 glad to have the latest information concerning the Bible, they are 
 far more moved by a life built according to the Bible plan. 
 
 12 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 Theories of inspiration do not influence them a tithe as much as 
 a Christ-inspired life. Speculations as to the new birth, the na- 
 ture of conversion, are far afield when one is in the presence of 
 a converted man, Arthur Christopher Benson, in a biographical 
 study of Bishop Wilkinson, after saying that it was always told 
 of Wilkinson that he was converted by his own first sermon, says : 
 “Conversion was a word which carried great weight in Cornwall. 
 I don’t know what test exactly was applied, but the Celtic tem- 
 perament was able to decide from the look, the utterance, the 
 gestures of a preacher, whether the change had taken place. 
 It made a great difference to the effectiveness of my father’s 
 ministrations when it was realized and freely stated that he was 
 a converted man.” 
 
 For more than a century and a half conversion has been a 
 word of large import to Methodism. It must not be lost from our 
 vocabulary if our preachers are to be persuasive preachers. 
 There may be differences of opinion as to its significance, 
 especially as to the spiritual experience which it designates, but 
 to one who has passed from death unto life there can be no ques- 
 tion as to the great fact, A minister of God must be a man of 
 God, and the men who come here must learn beyond all else the 
 secrets of the Almighty; and while this Seminary stands for a 
 learned ministry, it will not have been Avorth while for a man to 
 come here provided he takes with him when he leaves only a zeal 
 for scholarship, for when the Christian religion ceases to be an 
 enthusiasm, it ceases to be a reality. And there must ever be 
 room in the ministry of our Church at least, and room here, 
 for the man who, handicapped in ways he cannot overcome, finds it 
 impossible to make as complete preparation before coming here 
 as we might desire, or who, converted late in life, feels that he 
 cannot afford the time for long years of training. Some of God’s 
 most effective servants have not had even a seminary training; 
 siome did not have any training whatever. There haA^e been 
 mighty preachers who Avere not trained in schools. They might 
 have been more effective than they were, they would have been, 
 
 13 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 had they been so trained ; but there will always he a hearing for 
 the Spurgeons, and the Beechers, and the Simpsons, educated 
 men, all of them, though not taught in schools. The chief busi- 
 ness of the modern theological seminary is not to produce schol- 
 ars, though we pray God that for the good of his church now and 
 again a great scholar may be born here. 
 
 Nor is it the primary purpose of the theological school to 
 train men for other forms of Christian work. It is a function 
 of the seminary to inspire and educate some men to be teachers, 
 and some other men for special forms of religious activity, and 
 this more and more as young men are looking upon such forms of 
 service as apparently worthier of their ability. During the past 
 decade some of the strong young men of our colleges have been 
 drawn to work among young men, to settlement work, and vari- 
 ous other organized forms of philanthropy and of social activity, 
 and there is much in all such appeals. But while I have the full- 
 est sympathy with every form of religious work, I still believe 
 that “the ministry offers the opportunity of the richest, most 
 enduring, most fruitful influence,” that “it presents more chances 
 for life than any other profession.” Yet there are men who will 
 feel called of God to other forms of service, and who will con- 
 tribute their full share, as large a share as if in the ministry, to 
 the progress of God’s kingdom in the world. And it is, and will 
 be, one of the provinces of the theological seminary to teach such 
 men for their God-given tasks. But this is not the first business 
 of the theological seminary. 
 
 Nor is it the chief objective of the theological seminary to 
 train leaders. I do not forget that leadership is the shibboleth 
 of this modern age. It is the cry heard on every hand, and par- 
 ticularly from the advocates of a socialized Christianity. The 
 Church does need leaders. This is a contention beyond dispute. 
 The minister of to-day has to be conspicuously a leader, especially 
 in country parishes. As Robert South once said, “A blind man 
 sitting in the chimney corner is pardonable enough, but sitting 
 at the helm is intolerable.” But it would be an unfortunate 
 
 14 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 day for the Church if our preachers should get the notion that 
 they are to be chiefly business managers of ecclesiastical garages, 
 where machines come for repairs or to replenish the supply of 
 gasoline, or directors of clubs and social enterprises, or heads of 
 department stores. There must be training for leadership, more 
 than ever training for Christian leadership in church and com- 
 munity life, but the chief objective of the seminary is something 
 else. 
 
 The supreme business of the theological school must be to 
 discipline men to preach; to take the average man and prepare 
 him to be an etfective preacher. The pulpit may be no longer the 
 only fulcrum of the Church’s power, hut it is still the greatest 
 fulcrum of the Church’s power. There may be other organiza- 
 tions and societies, and the administration of charities and 
 the like, which are leverages that are lifting society, but 
 the greatest lever of to-day, in spite of all its weak- 
 nesses and faults, is the pulpit. This Seminary was established 
 to train men for a ministry of preaching, and especially for a 
 ministry of extemporaneous preaching. Of what large im- 
 portance this was deemed, this article of its Constitution will 
 indicate: 
 
 As the object of this Seminary is to train men for the 
 ‘‘preaching of the Gospel,” it is required of all professors and 
 tutors, both by their instructions and their personal example, to 
 aid the students to form habits of ready and effective expression 
 extempore to the exclusion of the use of Avritten discourses. 
 
 And to-day, as neA^er before, the Church needs a ministry skilled 
 in the most difficult of all arts, the effective and popular pre- 
 sentation of the gospel without notes and with a thrill of per- 
 sonal conviction and suffused with what Guizot called “the di- 
 vine passion for souls.” 
 
 But the fact that this Seminary Avas founded to prepare men 
 to preach the gospel is not of itself a sufficient reason for laying 
 the stress to-day upon training for preaching. There are numer- 
 ous other reasons. 
 
 15 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 1. Preaching is a distinct and large function of the Protes- 
 tant Church, and especially of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 In Catholic countries one may see churches and cathedrals with 
 two or three organs and numerous altars, and without a pulpit. 
 But there can be no Protestant Church without a pulpit. Preach- 
 ing best expresses the genius of Protestantism. It was Martin 
 Luther who held that there could he no true worship where there 
 Avas no true preaching. And the surpassing testimony to the ef- 
 fectiveness of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century 
 w'as that wherever the doctrines of the Reformation spread, pul- 
 pits were set up, and wherever pulpits were set up, the cause 
 advanced by leaps and bounds. 
 
 Moreover, the ministry which Christ instituted was largely 
 a ministry of preaching. Jesus was a preacher. 
 
 Across the sea, along the shore. 
 
 In numbers more and ever more, 
 
 From lonely hut and busy town. 
 
 The valley through, the mountain doAvn, 
 
 What was it ye went out to see. 
 
 Ye silly folk of Galilee? 
 
 The reed that in the wind doth shake? 
 
 The weed that washes in the lake? 
 
 The reed that waves? the weeds that float? — 
 
 A young man preaching in a boat. 
 
 The apostles were preachers. That was their business, preaching. 
 The conquests of the Christian Church have been largely through 
 preaching. It is the witness of history that when the pulpit de- 
 clines, Christian living is less vital; that when the pulpit ceases 
 its prophetic utterances and divine Avarnings, and its ‘‘thus saith 
 the Lord,” gives way to the droning of platitudes; that when its 
 voice is no longer a summons to battle or a divine comfort, then 
 men grow indifferent and their consciences become seared. All the 
 great revivals of the centuries have been brought about through 
 preaching. In the thirteenth century, when the Church was in 
 extremis, men were saying, as some men are saying now, that 
 
 16 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODEKN MINISTER 
 
 the day of preaching had passed, and while the words were still 
 hot on their lips, there suddenly appeared on the smiling Umbrian 
 plain a man of diminutive stature, of delicate health, like Robert 
 Hall, yet practicing the severest austerities, with an indomitable 
 will, yet tender and sympathetic, who by the miracle of preach- 
 ing, almost before men realized it, reestablished the old faith in 
 all its medieval power. Saint Francis, this wonder-worker, 
 was a preacher. So also was Savonarola, who in the fifteenth 
 century brought the Florentines, far gone in wickedness, to their 
 knees in penitence. The Evangelical Revival in the eighteenth 
 century, in which Methodism had its birth and which remade 
 England and helped to determine the ethical, moral, and religious 
 standards of the new-world republic, was brought about by 
 preaching. John Wesley had, it is true, a genius for organiza- 
 tion. He was hospitable to every agency for doing good. He 
 established schools and started dispensaries, and in other ways 
 ministered to the poor and needy. But neither his skill as an 
 administrator nor his interest in the social questions of the day 
 will account for his success. His chief instrument in the evan- 
 gelizing of England and America was preaching. 
 
 2. There is no sufficient substitute as yet proposed for the 
 pulpit. True, there are said to be serious and successful rivals 
 of the pulpit. We hear of the ‘^artist who preaches,” and of 
 the poet with a message, and of the militant voice of the press, 
 as if these were the chosen prophets of this generation, and they 
 are, indeed, potent voices, but they are not substitutes for the 
 Christian preacher. Preaching is divine business. It is a work 
 of God. The preacher is a voice of God. The sermon is a word 
 of God. The man in the pulpit is an ambassador of God, speak- 
 ing in Christ’s stead. He is a herald of news from God, the 
 bearer of a message from the Lord of hosts. The word of the 
 preacher is the final word in the realm in which he speaks. 
 Christianity has the last word in matters of conduct. For the 
 preacher who receives his message from God and delivers it un- 
 corrupted there is no supreme court. If the influence of the pul- 
 
 17 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 pit is waning, as some seem to think it is, then the pulpit must 
 reestablish itself in the only way by which it can regain its 
 power, namely, by preaching. Scholarship alone will not do it. 
 There are more scholars ont of the pulpit than in it. Simple 
 devotion to lofty ideals will not accomplish it. Even zealous 
 loyalty to a holy cause will not restore the power of the pulpit. 
 Nor is the remedy for a decadent i^nlpit to be found in ritualism, 
 but in preaching, more preaching and better preaching. The 
 altar has qnite a different meaning in Christian history from the 
 pnlpit, and can never be a substitute for it. Nor can anything 
 else. Preaching, like the ministry, is a permanent institntion. 
 
 3. The most effective leadership in the Chnrch is leadership 
 throngh preaching. There was a time when Beecher was the 
 greatest opinion-maker in Brooklyn and when Spurgeon was the 
 eqnal of any two members in Parliament. It was from the pnl- 
 pit that they wielded their power and by their preaching that 
 they gained their inflnence. Let me give a further illustration 
 of what I mean by leadership through preaching. We are draw- 
 ing near a Presidential election. These are serious days, but 
 they do not approach in importance the momentous days before 
 the election of 18G4, for those were days of gravest national peril. 
 It looked as if the election would result in the defeat of one of the 
 divinest men ever set to the task of saving a nation, and in this 
 crisis it was decided to hold jnst previous to the fateful day a 
 meeting in the Academy of Mnsic in New York, to be addressed 
 by one whose words it was thought would carry an irresistible 
 appeal. Mr. Mark Hoyt, one of the best friends this Seminan^ 
 ever had, who was in charge of the preparation for the meeting, 
 wrote to the desired speaker as follows : “All your friends agree 
 that you should speak before the election. Speaking at that time, 
 with the full report promised in the Tribune, Times, Herald, and 
 Evening Post, is equivalent to speaking to the nation.” And who 
 was this man, summoned to the solemn and Aveighty task of ad- 
 dressing the nation at the time of the nation’s greatest peril? 
 It was a preacher by the name of Matthew Simpson. And what 
 
 18 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 voice in all the land could be more potent when the destiny of 
 the nation was in the balance? From one end of the continent to 
 the other Matthew Simpson was known. In every section of this 
 wide land he had lifted up his honest voice. He had preached 
 hy the Pacific Sea, and men had said it was the voice of God ; he 
 had preached on the shores of LaJ^e Michigan, and had carried 
 men away from themselves; he had preached in New England, 
 and Father Taylor, the sailor-preacher, had said, “He has swal- 
 lowed me up”; he had preached in Indiana, and his voice had 
 been with unparalleled power. Everywhere he was honored; 
 everywhere he was beloved. In the mountain cabin in Kentucky, 
 in miners’ shacks among the Rockies, in the farm houses on the 
 prairies, in the homes of toilers in every State, in the palaces of 
 the rich in the cities of the East — everywhere he was a welcome 
 guest. Lincoln knew him, loved him, had confidence in his judg- 
 ment, and leaned upon him as upon a strong arm. Stanton sent 
 for him again and again, and it is said that their long conferences 
 Avere ended oftentimes, at Stanton’s request, with earnest prayer. 
 It was Simpson who suggested that there should he some recogni- 
 tion of God in the Emancipation Proclamation. And who better 
 than this man could cry aloud in such a crisis and be listened to 
 by such a \mst multitude of men about to pass judgment upon 
 Lincoln’s administration? No man can say what part his speech 
 in the Academy of jMusic played in the final result of the election, 
 hut as on the wings of the wind his throbbing, burning words 
 were carried to hamlet and toAATi the country oA-er, and there was 
 only one thing that men who believed in Matthew Simpson could 
 do when they heard or read those stirring words in which pulsated 
 his sublime faith in God and in them, and that one thing they 
 did. They reelected Lincoln, and the end of rebellion and dis- 
 union drew near. Wherein was the power of this high priest of 
 patriotism? Whence his genius for leadership? It was abso- 
 lutely and solely leadership through preaching. And preaching 
 will ever he an essential element in ministerial leadership. 
 
 4. The Church to-day needs preachers more than anything 
 
 19 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 else. One of the charges against our theological seminaries, made 
 with painful iteration, is that they are making biblical scholars, 
 and philosophers, and ecclesiastical organizers, and sociological 
 diagnosticians, but that only now and then do they deliver to the 
 Churches preachers, and that they are not therefore supplying 
 the Church’s greatest need. The Church of to-day must have 
 men of varied gifts. The modern minister must be pastor, 
 teacher, administrator, social engineer, leader, let this not be 
 forgotten, but the Church’s supremest need is for effective preach- 
 ers. And because of this need Churches are asking for preachers. 
 When committees of vacant Churches go on a search for a min- 
 ister, they invariably try to get on the trail of a man who can 
 preach. ‘‘No man who knows hoAV to preach with grace and 
 power need stand idle in the market place a single hour.” “It 
 is surprising,” said a prominent churchman recently, “how 
 stoutly and stubbornly the Churches insist upon preachers know- 
 ing how to preach. They will forgive almost anything else, but 
 they will not forgive inability to preach. They have a wholesome 
 reverence for learning, but they would rather have a man with 
 no diploma who can preach than a man with two diplomas who 
 cannot preach. They believe in experience and acknowledge its 
 value, but they would rather have a man with no experience who 
 can preach than a man with years of experience Avho has lost the 
 gift of presenting the truth in ways which lift and strengthen. 
 In all this the Churches may be stiff-necked and unreasonable, 
 but it is a frame of mind which is not likely to be changed. 
 And if I were the president of a theological seminary, I should 
 listen to what the Spirit is saying through the Churches, and 
 should set my house in order for the training of preachers.” If 
 the Churches need preachers and want preachers, they ought to 
 have what they want, for have not the Churches certain inalien- 
 able rights? May they not say to a man, “You hold that you are 
 called to preach; then we insist that you learn how to preach.” 
 May they not say to a theological school, “You were established 
 to train men for the work we want them to do. We want preach- 
 
 20 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 ers, and we ask, therefore, that you turn out preachers”? And 
 the Church may insist, too, that the seminary train men to preach 
 interestingly. I think I was annoyed this summer when, after a 
 service, one of my hearers thanked me for having “entertained” 
 her. Perhaps she used the wrong word. But why should I have 
 been offended? The sermon had at least interested her. Joseph 
 Jefferson once said to an eager novice: “My child, you are like 
 all young actresses and actors — you play to the orchestra. 
 Sometimes you include the first balcony. But there is something 
 3"Ou must never forget — there is a second balcony.” It is not 
 “learned” sermons, so called, that people are eager to hear. They 
 do not go to church as to a country fair, to see prize “exhibits.” 
 The average congregation cares not a w^hit for Greek or Sanskrit, 
 or Biblical criticism. But they do relish hearing the Word 
 preached in simple, direct, picturesque Anglo-Saxon. More 
 than likely many of our hearers are in the second gallery. And 
 it is to them that we must preach. We must give them a glimpse 
 of some Palestinian landscape, show them the man of Galilee, 
 and the uplifted cross on Calvary’s hill, and make it all so real 
 that they will leave God’s house with the spell of the hour upon 
 them and the fires of God in their souls rekindled. The sort of 
 sermon people want to hear is not the kind that is artistically 
 perfect, but the kind they feel, and the kind that touches the 
 hearts of the men and women in the gallery wdll warm the hearts 
 of the men and w^omen w^ho occupy the most expensive seats in the 
 synagogue. Why this modern horror of emotionalism? The 
 jesting references to the “Amen corner” of another and earlier 
 generation are poor liumor and poorer sense. “With multitudes 
 to-day the emotional life is not getting fair play; w'e are guilty 
 of a Avanton suppression of its natural and proper manifesta- 
 tions ; w^e are deliberately starving one w'hole side of our natures ; 
 and the cool-blooded pedantry w’hich affects to look down upon all 
 religious excitement as vulgar rant is being suffered to inflict the 
 gravest injury upon the whole life and work of the Church, and 
 not least upon the life and w^ork of the preacher.” Christianity 
 
 21 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 at its best is not logic, but passion, and tbe preaching which is 
 most effective is that which leaps from hearts aflame. Men want 
 to hear preachers who are so possessed by their theme that they 
 cannot be mild-manered men in the pulpit. The Church covets 
 preachers ‘‘whose hearts glow while their intellects shine; who 
 feel deeply, as well as think profoundly; men whose hearts and 
 minds quiver with the earnestness of the age and sympathize with 
 the all-pervading excitement moving the world around them ; who 
 come forth to the people, like Moses from the mount, glowing 
 with inspirations and burning with messages; who, when they 
 speak, cause the people to cover their faces and say, ‘Lo, God 
 hath spoken.’ ” 
 
 The Church also has a right to demand that the preacher 
 of this age preach with the courage which the times require. 
 This is no era for opportunists in the pulpit. There never was 
 an age when a coward Avas not out of place in a Christian pulpit. 
 But no generation of preachers ever faced a more glorious oppor- 
 tunity for moral heroism. Channing once Avrote to a young 
 preacher: “Preach Avhat jmu count great truths frankly, strongly, 
 boldly. Put faith in truth as mightier than error, prejudice, or 
 passion, and be ready to take a place among its martyrs.” Truth 
 is seldom committed to the keeping of the crowd. It must not be 
 sought there. The popular side of a question is not always the 
 right side, nor the place where the minister should be found. 
 LoAA'ell, in one of his attacks upon the Church for its apparent 
 lack of sympathy with the anti-slavery movement, says that it 
 should not wait until the abolitionists, by working a change in 
 the sentiment of the people, have convinced it that it is more 
 politic to sympathize with the slave than Avith the slave-owner 
 before it ventures to lisp the alphabet of anti-slavery. The glori- 
 ous privilege of leading the forlorn hope of truth, of facing the 
 desperate waves of prejudice, of making itself vile in the eyes of 
 men by choosing the humblest means of serving the despised 
 cause of the Master it professes to worship — all these belong to it 
 in the right of the position it assumes. And then he calls upon 
 
 22 
 
THE MAKING OP THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 the ministers and priests of the Chnrch to produce certificates of 
 martyrdom before he will accept the claims which they set up 
 for themselves or respect the rights which they arrogate to them- 
 selves. Men now are asking for similar certificates. And unless 
 our prophets are willing, if need be, to suffer for the sake of 
 Christ, they are out of place in the Christian pulpit. When 
 Robertson of Brighton was warned by a woman that his doctrine 
 would expose him to ostracism by the authorities of the Church 
 of England, he replied with calmness, “I do not care.” “But, 
 Dr. Robertson,” was the ominous warning, “do you remember 
 where ‘don’t care’ brought the man?” “Yes,” he replied with 
 great seriousness, “to a cross.” Ah, but that is the chance which 
 the modern preacher must be willing to take for the gospel’s sake, 
 that the road he must he willing to travel for the sake of his Lord. 
 
 Who fails to strike when man’s assailed. 
 
 For fear of selfish pain or loss; 
 
 Who weakly cowers when right is nailed 
 Upon the proud world’s heavy cross; 
 
 Who fails to speak the splendid word 
 Of bold defiance to a lie; 
 
 Mdiose voice for truth is faintly heard 
 When party passions mount on high ; 
 
 Who dares no struggling cause espouse, 
 
 ■Who loves no paths by martyrs trod; 
 
 AVhose timorous soul no call can rouse 
 To dare to stand alone with God — 
 
 That man is coward, and no deeds 
 Of valor done, on fields of strife 
 
 Can prove his courage. Battle meeds 
 Are naught beside a wasted life. 
 
 Who dallies with temptation’s lure. 
 
 Nor hurls his tempter to the ground; 
 
 Who champions not the weak, the poor. 
 
 Whom power and strength with cords have bound ; 
 
 Who bows obsequious to the strong. 
 
 And crushes Avhat he knows is Aveak ; 
 
 Who palters with a deadly wrong. 
 
 And dares no vengeance on it Avreak ; 
 
 23 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 Who crouches ’neath opinion’s lash, 
 
 Nor dares his own true thought proclaim; 
 
 Who never with an impulse rash 
 Ran on before his time — is tame, 
 
 Is coward, and no work uprears 
 Which lasts. God’s edict from on high 
 Says courage shall outlast the years. 
 
 But every coward soul shall die. 
 
 The Church has a right to demand even more than this. It 
 may say to a man who aspires to preach, as a prerequisite to 
 effective preaching, ‘‘You must be reasonably sure that the pul- 
 pit is your place, that you come to it by divine summons.” I 
 want just here “to put in an energetic testimony,” using the 
 strong words of Nathaniel J. Burton, “in behalf of God’s direct 
 and explicit part in the calling of his servants and ambassadors.” 
 I do this because there is a growing tendency to decry the neces- 
 sity of a “call” to preach. Some religious leaders are saying that 
 there is no justification for divorcing the call to the Christian 
 ministry from the other calls that come to men, no warrant for 
 requiring as a condition of entering upon the ministry a call 
 different in quality or in quantity from that with which men are 
 content to take up, under the will of God, any other duty to his 
 glory. It may be. I have no desire to debate the matter at this 
 time, or even to consider the nature of the call beyond this, that 
 in general it is a persuasion wrought by the Holy Spirit in the 
 mind of an individual that it is his duty to become a preacher of 
 the gospel, a profound and persistent conviction of duty, such as 
 John Bunyan felt, “a secret pricking forward,” so insistent, so 
 relentless, that he “could not be content nnless he was found in 
 the exercise of his gift.” So long as the “call” to the ministry is 
 a call to self-abandonment for the sake of others, and not to 
 money-making, so long as it is a call to tasks the emoluments of 
 which are not equal to the fruits of toil no more exacting in other 
 fields, so long will the call to the Christian ministry differ from 
 calls to other vocations. It is not that the office is a “sacred 
 office,” but that the task is a “high calling in Christ Jesus,” judged 
 
 24 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODEKN MINISTER 
 
 by world standards at least. If the world’s conception of a call- 
 ing is the opportunity which it affords for accumulating wealth, 
 and men deliberately turn from all such open doors and enter 
 upon a life of self-renunciation, forswearing all thoughts of ade- 
 quate remuneration and hope of overflowing barns, then the call 
 which alarms their souls to the point of ‘‘Woe is me, if I preach 
 not,” is somehow different from the thousand luring voices which 
 draw other men into commercial life and other remunerative ac- 
 tivities. The call to preach need not be miraculous, it probably 
 will not be, but it must be divine. The pulpit is no place for a 
 man who has not a profound conviction that he has been sepa- 
 rated unto the gospel of God. 
 
 The Church is wise also in requiring that the preacher have 
 knowledge of the age to which he would speak. The age is a new 
 age. Every age is a new age. Does the preacher know his age? 
 What will be his attitude toward it? Will it be mediaeval or 
 modern? The most commonplace objection urged against semi- 
 nary training is that the training is cloistral. Of all jests the most 
 threadbare is that designation of the theological seminary as 
 the theological “cemetery,” as if it were a place of the dead, a 
 valley of dry bones, worn-out theories, lifeless instruction, a 
 veritable charnel-house of dead things. There may have been some 
 ground in the past for the feeling that theological professors have 
 lacked a necessary contact with life, and that students have 
 dwelt apart from the world. Paul Sabatier says that in France 
 all the education a boy destined for the priesthood receives seems 
 to have for its aim the setting up of a wall of separation between 
 him and his fellow men; that the young priests in Paris, when 
 they come out of Saint Sulpice, have never had a single news- 
 paper at their disposal, and that the men who are called to evan- 
 gelize the France of to-day are wholly ignorant of her. That must 
 not be true of men here who are preparing for a modern ministry. 
 
 Every age has its peculiar temptations, its own errors, its 
 regnant sins; is marked by its own atmosphere, its own intel- 
 lectual moods, and its own habits of thought. These the preacher 
 
 25 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 must kuow, if he would preach a gospel to which men will listen. 
 And it ought not to be difficult to know the world of to-day : ‘‘a 
 world filled with a passion for knowledge, insistent upon facts, 
 seeking laws and the control of powers; a world reduced to a 
 neighborhood, with huddled aggregations, close intimacies, in- 
 creasing interdependencies, bewildering complexities; a world of 
 new economic, industrial, and social relations, with complicated 
 ethics, and withal so much to be thought about and done that in 
 the very moment science would make all clear and orderly, there 
 is distressing confusion and bewilderment.” All the currents of 
 daily life and thought in the world to-day flow past our door 
 here. The location of this Seminary is superb. It could not well 
 be surpassed, placed as it is here on the uplands, in the midst of 
 these glorious trees, where one can look out upon long stretches 
 of fair landscapes, on to the far northern hills, and west to the 
 edge of sunset; near enough to the metropolis to see the glare of 
 its lights on the evening sky, and yet far enough away from th(i 
 blazing signs of its thoroughfares to permit one to look at the 
 shining stars; near enough to enjoy its royal opportunities for 
 investigation and culture, far enough removed not to be harassed 
 and thwarted by its myriads of imperious diversions ; near enough 
 to share in all its desirable benefits, but far enough away not to 
 be mastered by its thousand baneful influences; near enough 
 to hear the wail of misery and the cry of the oppressed, to see 
 the degradation of poverty and the appalling menace of evil, and 
 to feel the city’s manifold manifestations of life and power, an<l 
 just beyond the gripping reach of its clangor and confusion, its 
 turbulence and haste, its foment and depression; near enough 
 to share in the labors of God’s people for the relief of suffering 
 and the cure of sin, and far enough away to enable one to pray 
 in quietness and meditate in peace. Situated as this Seminary 
 is, it has the advantages of both city and country, with oppor- 
 tunities for the study of the distinct problems, alike important, 
 of urban, suburban, and country life, and of gaining experience 
 in these several fields. There is no reason Avhy from such a center 
 
 26 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN :MINISTER 
 
 as this students may not keej) in closest touch with the activities 
 of modern life and the currents of modern thought. And unless 
 the preacher does know his age, the essential element of timeli- 
 ness in preaching will be lacking. Eveiw generation is unique 
 and must have its own sympathetic interpreter. The acceptable 
 preacher must know his age. 
 
 Again, the Church has a right to say to the Seminary, ‘‘The 
 preacher you train for us must know his theme.” There is a 
 theme for the Christian pulpit. “The gospel which was preached 
 of me,” wrote Paul, “is not after man, for I neither received it 
 of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus 
 Christ.” And again, “It pleased God, avIio . . . called me by 
 his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among 
 the heathen.” Christianity has to do with a Name. 
 
 Jesus, the name high over all. 
 
 In hell, or earth, or sky; 
 
 Angels and men before it fall. 
 
 And devils fear and fly. 
 
 This is alike the preacher’s theme and the source of the preacher’s 
 power. 
 
 Happy, if with my latest breath 
 I may but gasp his name; 
 
 Preach him to all, and cry in death. 
 
 Behold, behold the Lamb ! 
 
 This is the true preacher’s hope and prayer. Tenn^'son, absent 
 on a journey, wrote in one of his letters to dear Emily Sellwood, 
 whom he afterward married : “I am housed with a Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wildman, old friends of mine in these parts, two good Methodists. 
 When I came in and asked, ‘What’s the news?’ Mrs. Wildman 
 answered, ‘I know of but one piece of news, iMr. Tennyson, and that 
 is that Jesus Christ died for all men.’ And I replied, ‘That is old 
 news and good news and new news.’ ” And it is new news and 
 good news to every generation. It is the heart of the gospel. Jesus 
 Christ a personal Saviour, a world redeemer, is the living heart of 
 
 27 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 the Bible, xind here in Drew Theological Seminary we believe in 
 the Bible as a valid revelation of God’s purpose in history and 
 redemption and in Jesus Christ as the incarnate Word, very God 
 and veiy man. Methodism from the beginning has been a con- 
 viction. It was the “faith” of the fathers which gave them their 
 power. Methodism has afhrmed, but not more than Christianity 
 has affirmed. Its affirmations have been, not of dogma, but of 
 truths personally experienced. After his Aldersgate experience, 
 John Wesley wrote; “I soon began to see that true religion was 
 seated in the heart.” This is not unlike Jeremy Taylor’s con- 
 clusion, as given in his “Holy Living and Holy Dying” ; “Theology 
 is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge.” Methodism was 
 not a new theologj', though its preaching was in a very real sense 
 doctrinal. The early itinerants announced a few truths, drawn 
 directly from the Scriptures; personally experienced, and there- 
 fore mightily believed. I make no contention that these doctrines 
 were preached in a scholastic or scientific manner. Birrell is 
 careful to say that “as a writer Wesley has not achieved distinc- 
 tion. He was no Athanasius, no Augustine; he was ever a 
 preacher.” Granted. Wesley’s business was not to define or 
 systematize metaphysical theology. Yet there were certain doc- 
 trinal teachings which he believed, and believed tremendously, 
 and these convictions he declared with all the earnestness and 
 energy of his wonderful personality. And when preaching ceases 
 to be an announcement, it ceases to be preaching. Archbishop 
 Leighton was once reprimanded “for not preaching up the times.” 
 “Who,” he asked, “does preach up the times?” “All the breth- 
 ren,” was the reply. “Then,” remarked he, “if all of you preach 
 up the times, you may surely allow one poor brother to preach 
 up Jesus Christ and eternity.” But Archbishop Leighton lived 
 in the seventeenth century, and not in the twentieth. Y^et even in 
 this latest century it must not be forgotten that the preacher 
 “is not first a prophet of social righteousness, but an apostle of 
 the gospel. He is not merely an agent of the ethical kingdom. 
 Every Christian is that.” But when he enters upon the ministry 
 
 28 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 of Jesus Christ as his lifework, it is with the understanding that 
 he is to be the herald of a great eternal fact, and that this is the 
 purpose of his ministry. 
 
 Much is being said these days about a new theology. Pro- 
 gressiveness is the cry of the hour, and I do not hesitate to say 
 that I am in fullest sympathy with the spirit of the term. I may 
 not be willing to accept every definition of it made by political 
 leaders or religious teachers. It is a term capable alike of wan- 
 ton misuse and of endless colorings. Dean Swift would have 
 found in it in concentrated form another “Tale of a Tub.” You 
 can read into it about what you like and then take from it the 
 same sort or another substance. Vaguely defined and with even 
 more indefinite limitations, nevertheless as an attitude of mind 
 and as a method of procedure it deserves our heartiest assent. 
 More than this, I have a profound conviction that there are 
 changes of modes and habits of thought and methods of work 
 which are imperative. The curriculum of a generation ago will 
 not answer the needs of this present time. Some of the phrases 
 of yesterday are already obsolete, just as most of the books of 
 yesterday are unread. Truth is not made falsehood by restate- 
 ment in terms intelligible to a new generation, nor is an enlarged 
 vision inevitably destructive of former ideas. A change of view- 
 point does not necessarily mean a change of opinion. An open 
 mind is quite as likely to result in stronger convictions as it is 
 to loosen one’s hold of a judgment earlier formed. Nothing is 
 gained through aversion to new facts. Moreover, there is a dis- 
 tinct loss. Many a man has failed of a new joy through the in- 
 flexibility of routine or of habitual processes of thought. Stand- 
 ing one day on the bridge of an ocean steamer, talking with the 
 first officer concerning the men in the lookout, he told me that 
 every morning before the day dawned one of them would invari- 
 ably cry, “Light on the starboard.” It was Venus, the morning 
 star, rising, and the man thought it only the light of another 
 ship. Habit was strong with him. No generation has the final 
 truth concerning all things. 
 
 29 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 The last word has not yet been spoken concerning God, or 
 Christ, or immortality, or life, or the Bible. We know full well 
 that theology is no exception to the universal law that each age 
 must express its own acceptance of its whole inheritance of the 
 past in terms which it can understand and can bring others to 
 understand. We must interpret to this age the message and the 
 mission of Jesus Christ, and to do this demands of us adequate 
 knowledge not only of the message and of the mission, but, as 
 I have said, adequate knowledge of and sympathy with the age. 
 Nothing that the world has learned of the Holy Scriptures 
 through the application of any of the newer tools or methods is 
 foreign to us, and I have no fears that any new explorations will 
 undermine our faith. This Seminary faces forward, and not 
 backward, and is hopefully committed to a policy which shall not 
 only do full justice to the learning of this present age, but 
 shall also seek to contribute to its advance through the papers 
 and books of its professors. But of the fidelity of this Seminary 
 to its Lord and Master in his person, and to his gospel of salva- 
 tion, no man has doubted, no man can doubt. Years ago it was 
 baptized into a spirit of loyalty to Jesus Christ, of obedience to 
 his implicit command to disciple all nations, of a zealous evangel- 
 ism for all peoples and all lands. The traditions and associations 
 of this Seminary are those of an evangelical past. We must not 
 break with them. We will not break with them. We will be 
 unfailingly true to the faith of our fathers as they were true to 
 the faith of their fathers. In his preface to the life of John Mc- 
 Clintock, the first president of this school, and the organizer of its 
 course of instruction, George R. Crooks said ; ‘‘With all his grow- 
 ing, Dr. McClintock never outgrew the creed which he inherited 
 from his fathers. His highest aspiration was to be a Bible Chris- 
 tian. For him the announcement that Jesus Christ came into 
 the world to save sinners had a meaning which neither philosophy 
 nor improved theology could for a moment obscure.” And men 
 must be able to say this of us also. If we preach or teach any 
 other gospel than that God was in Christ reconciling the world 
 
 30 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 unto himself, if we glory other than in the wondrous cross on 
 which Jesus, our Lord, died, may we be anathema. 
 
 I have tried thus to indicate what I regard as our task and 
 to make plain what I consider the chief objective of seminary 
 training. But it is not the only objective. The men w^ho come 
 here must have training in business methods, in church finance, 
 in organization of committees and societies, instruction in the 
 principles of religious education, in religious psychology", in so- 
 ciology, and the history and philosophy of Christian missions, 
 in music and hygiene, in apologetics and comparative religion, 
 in the precepts of the pastoral life, and in the daily practice of the 
 presence of God, and in all other matters which will make them 
 acceptable and successful ministers of Christ. But as the su- 
 preme business of the minister is to preach, the entire curriculum 
 must be arranged to this end. Doubtless our views of the possi- 
 bilities and duties of the school will have to undergo modifica- 
 tions. Then this will be done. If the ideals of training for the 
 ministry which were adequate when the Seminary was founded 
 are not sufficiently broad to-day, then they must be broadened. It 
 is inevitable that there should be readjustments of the curricu- 
 lum. An attempt has already been made to relate the courses 
 offered to the new conditions of modern society, but there are 
 yet many problems of theological training, problems of instruc- 
 tion — for instance, whatever our own feeling may be as to Hebrew 
 and Greek and some other branches of theological science, it is 
 certain there must be here provision for a choice between courses 
 of study. Some men have no genius for languages. They will 
 gain nothing from Hebrew and Greek beyond the grim satisfac- 
 tion of drudgery lived through without complaint and of pain 
 nobly borne. For all such there must be optional courses. There 
 are problems of student supply work. Ought not such experience 
 be made a part of the education rather than merely the means of 
 maintaining oneself while in the Seminary? And there are ever 
 menacing problems of support, support of the men and main- 
 tenance of the school. Most of the candidates for the ministry in all 
 
 31 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 denominations are recruited from among the poor. Not many rich 
 are called. The necessity of assistance during the 3'ears of scho- 
 lastic preparation is increasingly great. How it can be given with- 
 out working injury is a question on which good men differ. That 
 money should be given at all, wdthout some compensatory return, 
 is hostile to my opinion. I would much prefer to offer scholar- 
 ships, the recipients of which would be required as a condition of 
 holding them to give regular time and labor to designated fields 
 in towm or country. Such scholarships would be valuable alike 
 for the practical experience gained and for the preservation of 
 self-respect. Then there is the problem of a larger income, more 
 annual contributions, a worthier endowment, to make possible a 
 vaster school. Bricks cannot yet be made without straw. Schools 
 cannot offer increased facilities, or in other ways meet modern 
 demands for enlargement, without greater resources. What finan- 
 cial chance has theological education had the last quarter of a 
 century? How many people have been interested in the modern 
 development of theological schools? When have you heard in any 
 Methodist Church, or on any platform, a specific appeal for bet- 
 ter support for our theological seminaries? Who has established 
 a fund anywhere for the pensioning of the teachers of schools of 
 theology? Colleges have been endowed during the past decade. 
 Vast sums have been given to universities. Other technical 
 schools have been made rich by lavish gifts. But theological 
 schools, with few exceptions, have been left almost to grind at 
 the mills of poverty. Is it not about time that theological eduai- 
 tion be given its chance? There ought to be no vexing problem of 
 finance here. What my colleagues feel should be done in this 
 school for the better training of the ministers of this new day 
 we ought to be able to do in the largest possible way, unhampered 
 by lack of funds, and without harassing fear. And I have every 
 confidence that the friends of this institution, who have never 
 yet failed it, will not fail it noAV when we need larger resources 
 for a larger work. 
 
 And we must do an increasingly greater and farther-reach- 
 
THE ^ilAKING OE THE iMODEKN MINISTER 
 
 ing work. The spirit of tlie place, one of its largest assets, sub- 
 tle, intangible, indefinable, must bless not only the men in resi- 
 dence, but those who are in the vineyard at work. What influ- 
 ence shall this seminary exert upon that little church out there 
 in the mining region of the far West, or upon the country parishes 
 of a half hundred States? It belongs to them all, it must have 
 some ministry of help for them all. What of our relation to our 
 Alumni in every Conference of the Church and in every land? 
 Did our obligation to them cease when they were handed their 
 diplomas? As I conceive it, this school ought still to be a large 
 factor in the life and activities of its sons in the gospel, and has 
 a distinct mission to the hundreds of untrained men now in the 
 ministry of the Church, for we have not yet what many leaders 
 through many years have pleaded for, a thoroughly trained min- 
 istry, as I could easily show. One or two items, however, will 
 suffice. Last year a large Conference in New York State received 
 eleven men on trial, one of whom had graduated from college, 
 and no one of whom had had any seminary training whatever. 
 An Ohio Conference admitted nine, a Pennsylvania Conference 
 eight, a Colorado Conference seven, and not one of them a col- 
 lege or seminary graduate, and two great Conferences in Illinois 
 received thirty-four men, and but one a college man and one other 
 a graduate in both college and theological courses. Such ap- 
 palling facts incline me to feel that this great institution has an 
 important mission to the probationers of our Conferences and 
 to the hundreds of other young preachers who for one reason or 
 another have been deprived of educational privileges. We ought 
 from this center to do both continuation and extension work, and 
 we will. 
 
 And now this last word. Creditable as have been the achieve- 
 ments of this school in the past, and here have been trained 
 notable preachers, not a few of whom are now occupying the con- 
 spicuous pulpits of the denomination. Here also have been 
 trained great scholars, and great ecclesiastics. From these halls 
 have gone men who are in the forefront of the missionary ven- 
 
 33 
 
THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MINISTER 
 
 tures of the Church at home and abroad, and if there be one thing 
 of which we have a right to he proud, it is of the men who have 
 gone with swift, eager feet to the far lands, India, Japan, Korea, 
 China, Italj^, Africa, South America, Burma, France, Russia, 
 everywhere, in Christ’s name and for his glory. Here, too, have 
 been trained leaders of religious education movements of large 
 significance, distinguished editors of denominational papers and 
 other publications, and countless loyal ministers in country 
 parishes who are doing the work of strong men in difficult places. 
 The record of this school is a glorious one, but noteworthy as has 
 been our history, it is not as though we have already attained, 
 but by God’s good grace we press forward, and to-day, by the 
 memory of McClintock, and Nadal, and Foster, and Hurst, and 
 Kidder, and Strong, and Miley, and Crooks, and Upham, and by 
 the example and career of the Saint John of the Church, Henry 
 Anson Buttz, and on behalf of myself and my colleagues, I pledge 
 you and the Church absolute loyalty to Jesus Christ for all 
 worthy enterprises in theological education and for the redemp- 
 tion of men, the regeneration of society, and the conquest of the 
 world. And may the great Teacher teach us, that we may teach 
 and inspire the men who will lead the hosts of God on the field 
 to-morrow. 
 
 34 
 

 I