BY C. H. SPURGEON.
IN these days our churches cannot afford to maintain a single unserviceable minister. the hive needs more working-bees; but it has room for none who are inefficient. the commissariat is straitened, so that no man is welcome at the mess who is not worthily forward in the battle. the times are hard with most of our churches: there may be plenty of worldly goods in the hands of the Lord’s stewards, but they are not excessively eager to lay them out.
Economy is therefore incumbent upon us, and we are bound to husband our resources for the Lord’s sake, and the work’s sake. Many struggling churches, especially in the rural districts, are unable to support a man whose time is wholly given to the ministry. they recognize the value of such a worker, and acknowledge the duty of maintaining him; but they have not the means to do so. there are also many districts in our large cities which are left almost to absolute heathendom, because there are no funds forthcoming for the support of missionary pastors.
The most practicable remedy is to find volunteer laborers who will not need maintenance from the people. this admirable remedy is already largely used, but not so largely as it might be. We have among us numbers of brethren engaged in handicrafts and professions who are endowed with gifts at least sufficient for the gathering of moderate congregations; and some of them display ability equal if not superior to the average of
stipendiary pastors. It is an exceedingly great gain to the community when these brethren addict themselves to the ministry of the saints. Attending to a store, or an office; driving a plane, or forging a bar; visiting patients, or building houses ; — they are also intent upon soul-winning, and abundantly successful in it. Some of these gather around them a band of earnest
workers, whom they lead on to holy enterprises, while they themselves, so far from being weak:, and needing to be supported, are strong enough to
support the weak. theirs is an exceedingly high style and order of Christian :ministry: we know of none superior to it. Paul the apostle accounted it his glory that he earned his own bread, and was chargeable to no man. He would by no means come down from his elevation to the lower level of being supported by the gifts of his fellow-Christians. He did not teach that all preachers should belong to this honorable order; on the contrary, he claimed for the giver of spirituals that he should be a receiver of temporals;
but he himself personally resolved to belong to the Great Unpaid. He rejoiced that he could say, “Mine own hands have ministered unto my necessities.”
With devout thankfulness we remember many brethren who have taken and still hold high rank among the free lances of Christ’s army: all honor to them; may their shadows never grow lesslInstead of being in the least looked down upon because they do not belong to “the regular clergy,” but are miscalled “laymen,” they are deserving of double honor, for to them the church is under special obligation.
We have too frequently noticed a great unrest among this class of brethren;
it is evident that many of them think that they are not “wholly in the ministry,” and they are not easy in what they conceive to be their
amphibious condition. this unrest is not so noticeable among the better sort of them as among the feebier. those whom we would invite to the paid ministry are usually shy of it, and those whom we would dissuade are the most eager for it. the man has been a tower of strength in the village where he lives; he has preached the word, administered gospel Ordinances, managed a church, and been looked upon as a father by all around him; but he cannot let well alone, nothing will do but he must undermine his own standing, and ruin his own usefulness, by quitting his secular calling, leaving those who esteem him, and casting himself on some church which knows nothing :about him, for he is well aware that he could not find a support sufficient among his present people. He comes to ask our advice as to whether he had not better give up his grocery, and become what is called a “regular minister ;” as if he had been irregular before. We devoutly wish that the craze had never touched the good man’s brain.
A man is earning a living for his wife and family in a town, and having his evenings to spare, he zealously devotes them to the service of the Lord.
His pastor looks upon him as invaluable, and his brethren. esteem him highly; he has taken up a neglected district, and worked it well, nobody
could do it better: he is a godsend to the region. Suddenly he, too, is bitten with the clerical disease, he looks upon shop-keeping as degradation, he loathes the white apron and longs for the white cravat, — which said white cravat he has already donned, but the apron detracts from its starchiness.
With or without the advice of others, this brother persists in casting himself upon the churches; and now, instead of a boon he is a burden, and the godsend is a hindrance. When it turns out that the brother has not sufficient ability or grace to be the leader of a people who have to support him, the support itself scarcely reaches starvation point, and the man becomes disheartened, and useless. It is wonderful what a difference it makes in the estimate of service whether it is remunerated or not; but another thing is by no means astonishing, namely, the different feeling of a man who is giving his work, and to another who is dependent upon the people. It is fine walking when you have a horse at hand, and it is splendid to be a pastor, and yet to feel that you can fall back upon your own resources. Many a man who has parted with his horse has found it rough walking all the rest of his days.
We have just received a letter from a pious but weak person, asking’ us to give careful attention to a very important and importunate case. A dear man (they are always dear men), engaged in business, is the object of solicitude; he is such a dear man that he is bringing up his dear family in a most extraordinary and exemplary manner; but the dear man feels that his calling injures his spirituality, and he wants to get out of it. He is not sure that he has gifts for the ministry, but he had a liking for it when he was a boy in petticoats, and he is quite sure that he would like to have a living in one church or another, he is not particular as to which. If we could give him support for his dear wife and family for a couple of years, the probability is that the dear man would become a burning and a shining light; but it is necessary, first of all, that we should guarantee that a stipend should be found for the dear man sufficient for the future education of his dear, amiable, and numerous children. He would then feel that he was called in providence to take the important step of” selling off at a great reduction.” We had no difficulty in pronouncing upon the case. So far as we are concerned, this dear man, as valuable as he is unknown, will remain at his unspiritual counter. We have no doubt that the same application will be made to a dozen other ministers, and it is barely possible that some simple brother will consider the dear man’s case, but we shall not, for it needs no considering.
If this worthy person thinks that God has called him to preach, let him do so; if the church wants him to give it all his time, let him consider the request; but he had better wait till that request comes. When God’s call and the request of a church unitedly press upon a man to renounce his means of livelihood, let him do so in full faith that the Lord will provide. this is a very different case from seeking guarantees, and proposing “to enter the church,” and all that nonsense.
Upon this subject it is our fate to be frequently Consulted, and upon no point are we less eager to give advice. As a general rule, the brother has made up his mind long beforehand, and only wants our opinion to back up his own. We have gone down to zero in the judgment of those whose foregone conclusion we have questioned, and we have learned the truth of that little verse-
“Determined beforehand, we gravely pretend to seek the advice and the thoughts of a friend.
Should he differ from us upon any pretense, We blush for his want both of judgment and sense.
But should he fall in with and flatter our plan, Why, really, we think him a sensible man.”
It is said that a certain village cure was waited upon by a young gentleman upon the matter of marriage. the priest, knowing the uselessness of all advice on this tender subject, bade him go and listen to the bells, and to do whatever they said. When the youth came out into the open air, the!bells were ringing out as distinctly as possible the words, “Make haste and get married! Make haste and get married!” Capital counsel! Admirable cure!
the wedding was not long delayed. After a brief season of married bliss, the young man repented at his leisure, and at length called upon the good cure a second time to tell him of the ill result of obeying his paternal directions.
Alas! Marguerite was not the pearl she once seemed to be. the cure replied, “I gave you good advice. I told you to listen to the bells, and you :must have mistaken what they said. If you had listened more carefully, this would not have happened. Go out of doors now, and lend your ear to them, and learn their true teaching.” to the great astonishment of the distressed husband, the bells were, with manifest emphasis, declaring the following warning : — “ Never get married! Never get married!” In nine cases out of ten it would be wise for us also to transfer our responsibility to the bells, or to any other oracle
A good man once wrote to us that he felt bound to preach, but that his pastor and the deacons of the church, and all the friends around him were cold, unspiritual persons, who had not the least sympathy with him; what did we think? for our judgment would be sure to be weighty and powerful.
We sent a laconic reply upon a post-card to this effect, Dear brother, if God has opened your mouth, the devil cannot shut it; but if the devil has opened your mouth, may God shut it at once.” We chanced to meet that brother soon after, when he shook our hand with much enthusiasm, and declared that he had never derived more encouragement from anything than from our post-card: he had gone: on preaching, and, despite his
minister and the devil, his mouth was not shut. We asked him if he had read the second of our two sentences, but he seemed to have forgotten what it was. the honors of the Delphic oracle were ours, but we did not put the wreath upon our brow, for we knew the tendency of sanguine natures to accept every word of encouragement and to overlook every form of warning.
In the faint hope of deterring here and there one from what is often an act of mental suicide we have jotted down a few thoughts, leaving it to each wise man to use them or reject them as he sees fit.
As a rule it is bad] for a man to change his calling — at least, in England;
we do not know what it may be in America. By frequent changes a man becomes Jack-of all-trades and master of none. transplanted trees never make much growth. Before their roots have well searched the soil of one spot they have to begin upon another, and when they are getting pretty nearly at home in the second garden they have to migrate again. the tree is usually stunted, and the fruit is scanty. A man may be everything and yet be nothing. If among his changes he in-dudes the ministry it is most likely that.
this is the feeblest part he has played, and the church may be felicitated when he quits the stage and appears in another character.
Next, it is. evidently unwise to leave a work which we do understand for one which is totally new to us. What becomes of all those years of
apprenticeship to any one profession? A thoroughly good tailor may make a very moderate carpenter; and a first-rate carpenter may be hardly at home in setting bones and administering boluses. What becomes of the
adaptation to the sphere which it takes so many years to acquire? New yokes are not so fitted to the shoulder as the old ones.
A man may glorify God in his calling, and have money to give and time to spare for the cause of truth; but if he enters the paid ministry he may not glorify God, he may have no money to give, and his time may not be worth a brass farthing to anybody. there is a fancy among men to be other than themselves, — a fancy also to be what they were never meant to be.
Several ancient rulers did not find the management of their dominions sufficiently burdensome, and so one of them became a fiddler, another a poet, and another an orator. the world never had, a worse fiddler than Nero, nor a more wearisome poet than Dionysius, nor a more blundering orator than Caligula; and we might fearlessly assert also that the world never had worse princes than these three. Such instances are exceedingly instructive, and remind us of the sculptor’s advice to the cobbler to stick to his last. Each tub had better stand on its own bottom; for when tubs take to rolling about they spill all that they contain, be it either wine or water.
Would that all men had such a holy dread of the sacred office of pastor as to cry from their inmost hearts, Nolo episcopari : — I am unwilling to assume the bishopric.
Do all our eager brethren really know the pressure of mind, and the strain of soul which are involved in preaching to one set of people year after year? Have they any notion of the heart-pangs, and the soul-travail, and the bitterness of disappointment involved in the care of souls? I)o they judge it to be so mean an employment that slender gifts and graces will suffice for it? Or do they think that a minister means simply a black coat and a white choker? No doubt many raw country lads think that soldiering means a red coat, a stripe down the legs, and evenings with nothing to do; but when they get enlisted, and war time comes on, they find that powder does not smell half so well as Eau de Cologne, and that an ugly hole in one’s breast is hardly repaid by the medal which may afterwards be hung over the orifice. We recommend to many an aspirant for pulpit honors the example of the young recruit who was thus addressed: “You need not have run away during the :first five minutes of the battle.” “Well,” said he, “I had rather be a coward for five minutes than be a corpse all the rest of my life.” ‘We think we know some brethren who have been not very unlike corpses ever since their ordination.
The ministry is a high and honorable calling when a man is really fitted for it; but without the necessary qualifications it must be little better than sheer slavery with a fine name to it. We are overdone with mediocrity, and the grades below that poor level. We feel sure that many have mistaken their
calling: we should not have so many preachers and so little good preaching if the divine call had been waited for. Oh that men could foresee the misery of non-success, and could recognize the possibility that it will be their portion.
A man who is established in life, with a family about him, usually has many duties incumbent upon him. there are aged relatives to support, and, at any rate, the wife of his bosom and the olive-branches round about his table need looking after. May he make any remove which would unfit him for the fulfillment of these evident claims? We think not. It is always an evil thing to offer to God one duty stained with the blood of another. It is always a pity to leave a certain obligation for an uncertain one. It is always suspicious when the pursuit to which we aspire appears to be more
honorable than that which we would relinquish. there is such a thing as giving one’s self up to the service of God and our own benefit; and when the two things rather evidently come together a few questions may always be suggested to the thoughtful man by the singular fact. We feel a little jealous of a man’s proposal to glorify God by that. which falls in with his own inclination and conduces to his own comfort. We all too readily insinuate self’ into our desire for the divine honor, and yet we may not be conscious of it. Our prayers are not quite so honest as the grace which is used by the Grocers; Company before their feasts, — “ God preserve the Church, the Queen, and the Worshipful Company of Grocers.” Yes — that’s the point: the worshipful Company of Grocers :must come in somehow, and so must our worshipful selves.
We have frequently said to a young man making application for admission to the College: “Do not be a minister if you can help it.” that “if you can help it” is the hinge of the matter. He who gives himself up, heart and soul, unreservedly, to the work of the ministry, because woe is unto him if he preach not the gospel, will enter upon his labors from a heavenly
compulsion, which it is altogether beyond his power to resist. then, with confidence in God, he may face poverty, shame, discomfort, anything and everything; but without the call, where can be the faith? Without the impulse, where is the warrant? that preaching which is inspired by vain glory must necessarily be in vain. If a man gets where God did not place him he may take care of himself. Many a boy has clambered up a rock and has wished himself down again a thousand times; ere long broken bones have proven the wisdom of his wish. We do not doubt that there are hundreds of men, half-starved in the Christian ministry, who would act