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twg_000000033700 | take away toil, but to redistribute it. My industrial plan is the largest of history--it is also the most simple. I look down over the world, as a master upon his men. My work is not to found an earthly kingdom, as some have thought; it is not primarily to set up industrial establishments, or syndicates, or ways of transport | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033701 | and trade. My work is to build up in the universe a spiritual kingdom of energy, power, and progress. To this kingdom all material things are accessory. In My hand are all abilities, as well as all knowledge. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without My notice. Not a lily blooms without My delight. Not a brick is laid, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033702 | not a stone is set, not an axe is swung, except beneath My eye. I provide for My own. To each man I assign his work, his task. If he takes upon him only what I give him to do, he will never be under-paid, or over-tired. Hence the first step towards an industrial millennium is to arise and do | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033703 | what Jesus bids. Heaven is heaven because no one is unruly there, or idle, or lazy, or vicious, or morose. Each soul is at true and happy work. Each energy is absorbed; each hour is alive with interest, and there are no oppressive thoughts or ways. If each heart and soul responded to the call of Jesus, there would be | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033704 | a new heaven and a new earth--a Utopia such as More never dreamed of, nor Plato, nor Bellamy, nor Campanella in his _City of the Sun_. Each hand would be at its own work; each eye would be upon its own task; each foot would be in the right path. All the fear, the weariness, the squalor, and the unrest | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033705 | of life would be done away. The life of each man would be a life of contentment, and of economic advance. . Jesus calls us by the scourging of our sins. Flagellation is not of the body--it is of the soul. Remorse is as a scorpion-whip, and memory beats us with many stripes. The first sin that besets us is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033706 | forgetfulness of God. Apathy creeps over the spirit, and sloth winds itself about our deeds. Nothing is more pathetic than the decline of the merely forgetful soul. "Be sleepless in the things of the spirit," says Pythagoras, "for sleep in them is akin to death." Sin lifts bars against success: the root of failure lies in irreligion. Pride, conceit, disobedience, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033707 | malice, evil-speaking, covetousness, idolatry, vice, oppression, injustice, and lack of truth and honor fight more strongly against one's career than any other foe. No sin is without its lash; no experience of evil but has its rebound. To expect a higher moral insight in middle age because of a larger experience of sin in youth, is as reasonable as to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033708 | look for sanity of judgment in middle age because in youth a man had fits! Looking at ourselves in a mirror, do we not sometimes think how we would fashion ourselves if we could create a new self, in the image of some ideal which is before us? Would we not make ourselves wholly beautiful if we could make ourselves? | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033709 | Even so, looking out upon our own spirits, do we not some day rouse to the distortion and deformity of sin? Do we wish to retain these grimacing phases of ourselves? Do we not yearn eagerly for the dignity and beauty of high virtue? Do we not long for the graces and perfections which make up a radiant and happy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033710 | life? If we could be born again, would we not be born a more spiritual being? It is to this new birth that Jesus calls our souls. All around the babe, hid in its mother's womb, there lies a world of which it has neither sight nor knowledge. The fact that the babe is ignorant does not change the fact | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033711 | that the world is there. So about our souls there lies the invisible world of God, which, until born of the Spirit, we do not see or understand. It is a world in which God is everywhere; in which there is no First Cause, except God; in which there is no will, except the will of God; in which there | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033712 | is no true and perfect love, except from God; no truth, except revealed by God; no power, except from Him. Conversion is the outlook over a world which is arranged, not for our own glory, but for the good of God's creatures; in which what we do is necessary, fundamental, permanent--not because we ourselves have done it well, nor, in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033713 | truth, because we have done it at all--but because what we have done is a part of the universe which God is building. We change from a self-centre to a God-centre; from the thought of whether the world applauds to whether God approves; from the thought of keeping our own life to the thought of preserving our own integrity; from | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033714 | isolation from all other souls to a sympathy with them, an understanding of their needs, and a desire to help their lives. It is a turning from a delight in sin, or an indifference to sin, or merely a moral aversion to it, to a deep-rooted hatred of every thought and act of sin, to penitence, and to an earnest | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033715 | desire to pattern after God. . Jesus calls us by our sorrows, Jesus calls us by our dreams. He thrills us by each high aim that life inspires. His voice is one of understanding, of tenderness, of human appeal. How could we love Jesus if He did not sympathize with our ideals? But here is a Divine One in whose | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033716 | sight we are not visionary; who lovingly guards our least hope; who welcomes our faintest spiritual insight; who takes an interest in our social plans, and points out to us the great kingdom that is to be. Christ lays hold of the divine that is in us, and will not let us go. . Jesus calls us by our latent | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033717 | gifts and powers. Which of us has ever exhausted his possibilities? Which of us is all that he might be? It is an impressive thought, that nothing in the universe ever gets used up. It changes form, motion, semblance,--but the force, the energy, neither wastes nor dies away. Air--it is as fresh as the air that blew over the Pharaohs. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033718 | Sun--it is as undimmed as the sun that looked down on the completion of Cheops. Earth--it is as unworn as the earth that was trodden by the cavemen. No generation can ever bequeath to us a single new material atom. The race is ever in old clothes. Nor can we hand down to others one atom which was not long | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033719 | ere we were born. Yet the vitality of the universe is being constantly increased, and this increase is also permanent. God has a great deal more to work with now than a thousand years ago. For not all energy is material. With each birth there comes a new force into the world, and its influence never dies. The body is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033720 | born of ages past, of the material stores of centuries; but the soul, in its living, thinking, working power, is a new phase of energy added to the energy of the race. This fact confers on each individual man a strange impressiveness and power. It gives a new significance to the fact that I am. I am something different from | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033721 | what has been, or ever shall be. In the great whirling myriads, I am distinguished and apart. I am an appreciable factor in universal development and a being of elemental power. By every true thought of mine the race becomes wiser. By every right deed, its inheritance of tradition is uplifted; by every high affection, its horizon of love is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033722 | enlarged. We can bequeath to others this new spiritual energy of our lives. This thought gives us a new zest for life. There is an appetite which is of the soul. It is this wish for growth, for the development of our powers, for a larger life for ourselves and for those who shall come after us. Is there any | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033723 | one who wishes to stay always where he is to-day?--to be always what he is this morning? Beyond the hill-top lies our dream. Not all the voices that call men from place to place are audible ones. We hear whispers from a far-off leader; we are beckoned by an unseen guide. Out of ancestry, tradition, talent, and training each departs | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033724 | to his own way. What calls is not largeness of place--it is largeness of ideal. To each of us, thinking of this one and that one who has taken a large part in the shaping of the world, there comes a feeling: Beside all these I am in a narrow way! What can I think that shall be worth the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033725 | consideration of the race? What can I do that shall be a stepping-stone to progress? What can I hope that shall unseal other eyes to the universal glory, comfort others in the universal pain? We say: I do not want to be mewed up here, while others are out where thrones and empires are sweeping by! I do not want | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033726 | to parse verbs, add fractions, and mark ledgers, while others are the poets, the singers, the statesmen, the rulers, and the wealth-controllers of the world! We wish to step out of the trivial experience into that which is significant. Each day brings uneasiness of soul. "Man's unhappiness," says Carlyle, "as I construe it, comes of his greatness; it is because | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033727 | there is an infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the finite." Says Tennyson: "_It is not death for which we pant, But life, more life, and fuller, that we want_." These aspirations are prophetic. Does a clod-hopper dream? We move toward our desires. The wish for growth is but the call of Jesus | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033728 | to our souls. We sometimes hear of the "limitations of life." What are they? Who set them? Man himself, not God. The call of Jesus urges the soul of man to possibilities which are infinite. A large life is the fulfilment of God's ideal of our lives--the life which, from all eternity, He has looked upon as possible for us. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033729 | Could any career be grander than the one that God has planned for us? God does not think petty thoughts: He longs for grandeur for us all. . Jesus calls us by the spirit of the times. There is a growing recognition of the affinity between God and the human soul. Religion has changed in spirit as well as in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033730 | form. It used to be considered a tract in one's experience, and now it is perceived to be all of life--its impetus, its central moving force, the reason for being, activity, development, for ethical conduct, and for unselfish and joyous helpfulness. Religion is more and more perceived to be, not a thing of feeble sentiment, of restraint, of exaction, of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033731 | meek subordination and resignation, but the unfolding of the free human spirit to the realization of its highest possibilities and its allegiance to that which is eternal and supreme. The nineteenth century closes with the thinker who is also a man of meditation and devotion. We offer to Heaven the incense of aspiration, hope, research, talent, and imagination. The chief | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033732 | thing toward which we are moving is, I believe, the Enthronement of the Christ. Christ has always been, in the hearts of the few, enthroned and enshrined. Even in the dark years of mediaeval superstition and unrest, there were the cloistered ones who maintained traditions of faith and did works of mercy, as there were knightly ones who upheld the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033733 | ministry of chivalry, and followed, though afar, the tender shining of the Holy Grail. But now all the signs point to a great and general recognition of the Christ--Christ to be lifted high on the hands of the nations, to His throne above the stars! A new spiritual note is to be heard in modern subjects of study, is noticeable | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033734 | in all paths of intellectual prestige. History is no more looked upon as the story of the trophies of warriors, conquerors, and kings. History, rising out of dim mists, is seen to be the marching and the countermarching of nations in the throes of progress and of social change. It is not the story of princes alone, but of peasants | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033735 | as well; the result of myriads of small, obscure lives; of changing conditions; of the movements of great economic, psychologic, and spiritual forces. Looking backward over the moving processional of the nations of the earth, we may see how, without rest, without pause, through countless ages, the myriad legions of men have been passing across the scene of life--passing, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033736 | fading away! "_All that tread The globe are but a handful of the tribes That slumber in its bosom_." Empires have risen, and empires have decayed; dynasties have been buried, and long lines of kings, wrapping stately robes about them, have lain down to die. Thrones have been overturned, armies and navies have been mustered and scattered, land and sea | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033737 | have been peopled and made desolate, as the thronging tribes and races have lived their little life and passed away. Babylon and Assyria, India and Arabia, Egypt and Persia, Rome and Greece,--each of these has had its lands and conquests, its song and story, its wars and tumults, its wrath and praise. Under all the tides of conquest and endeavor | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033738 | but one fact shines supreme: the steady progress of the Cross. One principle of growth and development is being slowly revealed,--an approach to symmetry and civic form, which is seen in freedom, justice, popular education, the rise of masses, the power of public opinion, and a general regard for life, health, peace, national prosperity, and the individual weal. The day | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033739 | has passed when men merely lived, slept, ate, fought; they are now involved in an intricate and progressive civilization. Sociology, ethics, and politics are newly blazed pathways for its development, its guidance, and its ideals. We are moving on to new dreams of patriotism, of statesmanship, and of civil rule. Literature, instead of being considered as merely an expression of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033740 | the primitive experiences of a race in its sagas, glees, ballads, dramas, and larger works and songs, is more and more revealing itself as an appeal to the Highest in the supreme moments of life. It is the unfolding panorama of the concepts of the soul in regard to duty, conduct, love, and hope. Literature asks: What do I live | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033741 | for? as well as, How shall I speak forth beauty? How ought the soul of man to act in an emergency? What is the best solution of the great human problems of duty, love, and fate? The voices of Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Browning sweep the soul upward to spiritual heights, and answer some of the deepest questionings of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033742 | the soul of man. And hence literature is no longer merely a thing of vocabulary, of phrase, of rhythm, of assonance, of alliteration, or of metrical and philosophical form. It is a revelation of the progress of the soul, of its standards, of its triumphs, its defeats, and its desires. It is the unfolding of one's intellectual helplessness before the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033743 | unmoved, calm passing of years; of one's emotional inadequacy without God for adjudicator. It is a direct search for God. One finds wrapped within it the mystery, aspiration, and spiritual passion of the soul. Science, no longer a dry assembling of facts and figures, is an increasing revelation of the imagination, the exactness, the thoroughness, and the great progressive plans | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033744 | of God. Evolution has become a spiritual formula. The scientist looks out over the earth and sky and sun and star. Against his little years are meted out vast prehistoric spans; against his mastery of a few forms of life, stands Life itself. Back of all, there looms up the great Figure of the Originator of life, and of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033745 | forms of life; the Maker and Ruler of them all. Each scientific fact helps exegesis and evidence. Each new aspiration after truth becomes a form of prayer. Yes, the whole world is being subtly and powerfully drawn to the worship of the Christ. Never before was there so deep, genuine, and widespread a Revival of Religion. It has not come | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033746 | heralded with great outcries, with flame and wind, and revolution and upheaval; it has come as the great changes that are most permanent come, in stillness and strength. Throughout the world there is being turned to the service of religion the highest training, the most intellectual power. Wars are being wrought for freedom; the Church and the university are joining | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033747 | hands; the rich and the poor are drawing near together for mutual help and understanding; industry is growing to be, not only a crude force, brutal and disregarding, but a high ministry to human needs; the home is becoming more and more the guardian of faith and the shrine of peace; business houses are taking upon them a religious significance; | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033748 | commerce and trade are perceiving ethical duties. Armies are marching in the name of Jehovah, and a great poet has this one message: "Lest we forget!" . Jesus calls us by the future of the race. Life proceeds to life. Eternity is what is just before. Immortality is a native concept for the soul. Beyond this hampered half-existence, the soul | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033749 | demands life, freedom, growth, and power. We stand between two worlds. Behind us is the engulfed Past, wherein generations vanish, as the wake of ships at sea. Before us is the Future, in the dawn-mist of hovering glory, and surprise. Looking out over eternity, that billowy expanse, do we not see rising, clear though shadowy, a vast Permanence, Completion, Realization, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033750 | in which the soul of man shall have endless progress and delight? This is the Promise held out by all the ages, and the future toward which all the thoughts and dreams of man converge. It is glorious to be a living soul, and to know that this great race--life is yet to be! At the threshold of each new | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033751 | century stands Jesus, star-encircled, with a voice above the ages and a crown above the spheres,--Jesus, saying, FOLLOW ME! III. PROCESSIONAL: THE CHURCH OF GOD [AURELIA] _The Church's one foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord; She is His new creation By water and the Word: From heaven He came and sought her To be His Holy Bride; With His own | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033752 | blood He bought her And for her life He died. Though with a scornful wonder Men see her sore opprest, By schisms rent asunder, By heresies distrest; Yet saints their watch are keeping, Their cry goes up, "How long?" And soon the night of weeping Shall be the morn of song. 'Mid toil and tribulation, And tumult of her war, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033753 | She waits the consummation Of peace for evermore; Till with the vision glorious Her longing eyes are blest, And the great Church victorious Shall be the Church at rest._ SAMUEL JOHN STONE FIRST: RECONSTRUCTION The subject that is being carefully considered by many thinking men and women to-day is this: the place and prospects of the Christian Church. All about | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033754 | us we hear the cry that the Church is declining, and may eventually pass away; that it does not gain new members in proportion to its need, nor hold the attention and allegiance of those already enrolled. Are these things true? If so, how may better things be brought to pass? To share in the civilization that has come from | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033755 | nineteen hundred years of the work of the Church, and to be unwilling to lift a pound's weight of the present burden, in order to pass on to others our precious heritage, is certainly a selfish and unworthy course. It is better to ask, What is my work in the upbuilding of the Church? What can I do to further | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033756 | the Royal Progress of the Church of God? The root-failure of the organized Church to-day is its failure to share in the growing life of the world. A growing life is one that is full of new ideas, new experiences, new emotions, a new outlook over life--that works in new ways, and that is full of seething and tumultuous energy, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033757 | enthusiasm, and hope. If we look out over the colleges, business enterprises, periodicals, agriculture, manufacturing, and shipping of the world, we find everywhere one story--growth, impetus, courage, resources, vigorous and bounding life. Beside these things the average church services to-day are both stupid and poky. The forces of religion are neither guided nor wielded well. There is in most churches, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033758 | however we may dislike to own the fact, a decrease of interest and proportionate membership, a waning prestige, a general air of discouragement, and a tale of baffled efforts and of disappointed hopes. The Church--and by this word I here mean the organized body of both clergymen and laymen--is meant to be the supreme spiritual leader of the world. It | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033759 | is meant to possess vigor, decision, insight, hope, and intellectual power. But before it can accomplish its high and holy work, a great reconstruction must begin. To help in this reconstruction, to aid in vivifying, cordinating, and ruling the varied processes of organized religion, is your work and mine. . The Church must rouse to a sense of its noble | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033760 | duties and exalted powers. We underrate the Church. We are looking elsewhere for our highest ideals, instead of claiming from the Church that spiritual guidance and inspiration which should be its right to give. One of the things that is a monumental astonishment to me, is that when we need supplication, intercession, prayer for the averting of great personal or | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033761 | national calamity, we flee to the Church, but we seldom think of the Church when we need brains! The Church should lead, and not follow, the great dreams of the world. In the midst of our new national life we are sending all over the country for the best-trained help and thought in every department of government influence and control. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033762 | Our problems of the day are preminently spiritual ones. Colonial control is not a question of material ascendancy--it is a rule over the minds, hearts, and ideals of men. Its moral significance is patent. We are called upon, not only to import provisions, clothing, and household and industrial goods into our new possessions; we are called upon to develop a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033763 | higher sense of honor, truth, honesty, and every-day morality. Scholars, working-men, business men, farmers, and merchants are being consulted in regard to different phases of our national advance, and every idea which their insight and experience furnish is seized upon. But who is consulting the Church in these concerns, except in reference to mere technical points? Who is looking to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033764 | the intellectual, moral, and spiritual standards of the Church for guidance? We are to-day ruled spiritually, as well as intellectually, by laymen, and in a way which is quite outside the organized work of the Church. . The Church needs a more business-like organization and way of work. It needs a more military spirit and discipline. The Church is diffuse | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033765 | and loosely strung. There are in the United States alone about two hundred and fifty-six kinds of religious bodies. There is no centralized interest or work; there is no economic adjustment of funds; there is no internal agreement as to practical methods. The result is a most wasteful expenditure of force. Movements are not only duplicated, but reproduced a hundred | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033766 | times in miniature, in one denomination after another; special talent is restricted to a narrow field; buildings and church-plants are multiplied, but lie largely disused; sects and communities are at loggerheads on unessential points; all this--and the world is not being saved! The Church fails to see openings for aggressive work; it fails to seize strategic points; it does not | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033767 | carry a well-knit local organization, with a husbanding of economic force; it does not front the world in dead-earnest; it is not proud and honorable in meeting its local debts; it loses progressive force, from lack of knowledge as to how to judge men, and train them, and set them to work. It also lacks greatly in office-force and in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033768 | supplies. The gospel itself is without price, but in the nature of things it cannot be proclaimed, nor church-work efficiently carried on, without financial outlay. There should be a more adequate equipment for this work. All other enterprises need, without question, stationery, stenographers, literature for distribution, office-rooms, office-hours, and a general arrangement looking toward enlargement and progress. A busy pastor | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033769 | should have an office-equipment just as much as a business man, and it should be supported, as a business office is, out of the funds of the business organization, _i.e._ the local church. There should be, first of all, a united spirit, and a general reorganization throughout the whole of evangelical Christendom, not necessarily destroying denominational lines, with a view | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033770 | to quick mobilization of energy in any direction most needed. What would a general do, who, in looking over his troops, should find two hundred and fifty-six provincial armies, not at ease or at peace with each other, and yet expected to make war upon a common foe? Shall we not endeavor to share in some broadly planned, magnificently executed | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033771 | scheme of world-advance? The Church has reached a point where a vast constructive work is to be done. Its scattered parts must be knit into a powerful and aggressive whole, to turn a solid front upon the evil of the world. The times are ripe for a successor of Peter the Hermit, of Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli, Savonarola, Whitefield, Finney, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033772 | Moody. Whether a great preacher, theologian, or evangelist, he will certainly be a business man, a man of vast energy and executive capacity, who shall perform this miracle of organization of which many dream, and who shall set the progress of the Church for a full century to come! This united spirit should prevail, not only through the smaller bodies, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033773 | but between the Roman Catholic and Protestant communions. There has been a distinct division between these two bodies, much mutual suspicion, jealousy, and antagonism: it is only quite lately that Protestant and Catholic leaders have been willing to work amicably together for great common causes. A new situation has arisen. In our new possessions we are confronted with a large | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033774 | population who, whatever may be the reason, are unquestionably not, as a whole, progressive, enlightened, educated, or highly moral. The problem now is, not for Catholic and Protestant to waste energy and spiritual strength in contending for mastery over each other, but for them to unite in changing and bettering the condition of our island peoples. What is past is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033775 | past. Our present duty is to bring peace, industry, intelligence, high ideals, and spiritual living to our new countrymen. This is a work to fill the hands and heart of both churches, and perhaps, in a common task, each may learn to understand and regard the other as those should understand and regard each other who have one Lord, one | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033776 | hope, one heaven. . The Church needs stronger and more gifted leaders. In every business or intellectual enterprise to-day, there is an effort to place at the head of each organization the most powerful and resourceful man whose services can be obtained. Nothing in this age works, or is expected to work, without the leadership of brains. A primary step, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033777 | in a far-reaching ecclesiastical policy, is to endeavor to draw into both ministry and membership the most active and intellectual class. All earnest souls can work, but not all can work equally effectively. Particularly in the ministry, north, south, east, and west, men are needed who are really _men_. This does not necessarily mean the men with the longest string | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033778 | of academic degrees, the men who can write the best poems or make the best speeches on public occasions; it means the thinking men who are brave, talented, spiritual, and warm-hearted. In the Report of one of the missionary Boards, I have recently read the following stirring words. They refer to the work of missionaries in the far north, one | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033779 | of whom has lately travelled a thousand miles over the snow in a dog-sled: "He who follows that mining crowd must be more than the minister, who would do well for towns in the west or elsewhere in Alaska. He must be a man who, when night overtakes him, will be thankful if he can find a bunk and a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033780 | plate in a miner's cabin; he must travel much, and therefore cannot be cumbered with extra trappings--must dress as the miners do, and accept their food and fare. He must be no less in earnest in his search for souls than they in search for gold. He must be so 'furnished' that, without recourse to books or study-table, he can | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033781 | minister acceptably to men who under the guise of a miner's garb hide the social and mental culture of life in Eastern colleges and professional days." It is far from that land of frost and snow to the beautiful island of Porto Rico, washed by tropical seas, through the streets of whose capital there passes every day the carriage of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033782 | the Governor, with its white-covered upholstery and its livery of white. But I add this word: The missionary sent to Porto Rico, be he Catholic or Protestant, must be a man who can stand among statesmen and society men and women, as well as one who can live and work among the humblest folk who lodge in leaf-thatched huts along | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033783 | the roadside or far on lonely hills. Representative men of ability, health, culture, and courage are being chosen to carry on governmental work: it is idle to send provincial men to the Church. What is locally true of the Church in Porto Rico is fundamentally true all over the world, at home and abroad. Each ministerial post to-day requires an | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033784 | imperial man. Not every post requires the same sort of man, either in regard to general heredity or education. Men are needed of the Peter-type, of the John-type, of the Paul-type; it suffices that, they be men of unusual power, and well fitted to their individual work. . The Church needs a better system for the proper placing of men. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033785 | No phase of the world's work can be carried on merely and simply because a man is pious. In every phase of life, there is a constant shifting of men according to temperament, ability, and general influence and power. In the Church we must have a quick and decisive recognition of a man's ability, and he must be set where | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033786 | that talent can work easily and effectively. Churches are not all alike. There are no two alike. When we think of it, what a ghoulish business "candidating" is! No scheme for the right placing of men can be devised which does not place a great deal of power in the hand of a few leading men. This power may be | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033787 | abused, but ought not to be, if it were really looked upon as under divine direction and inspiration. Cannot a great leader be inspired to the choice of a man, as well as a great author to the choice of a word, a rhyme? Comparatively few men thoroughly understand how to rate other men, and to these few men, as | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033788 | in all other great enterprises, must be given the power and authority to select and adjust. By this I do not mean that a set of ecclesiastics will alone be adequate. Ecclesiastical vision, like all other highly specialized vision, is partial, and does not always see quite straight. There should also be called into play the business ability and discernment | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033789 | of men of large business interests or administrative gifts. Sooner or later the various religious organizations will have to meet, in some better way than any thus far formulated, this growing need. . We need a release of pressure on the abler men. Many a minister to-day is a sort of community lackey. What other men are frankly too busy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033790 | to do, he is supposed to be cheerfully ready to do. The list of odd jobs which fall to his lot would be ridiculous, were not their influence upon his life and work so retrogressive and so sad. He lives to serve others, but this vow of service is greatly imposed upon. If he is to lead in intellectual and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033791 | spiritual matters, he must be given fewer errands to run, the financial burden of his church must be taken absolutely from his shoulders, he must have a suitable salary, and his time must be at least as carefully guarded as that of the average man. Some calls he is bound to obey, at whatever cost of time or strength,--illness, certain | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033792 | public duties, and real spiritual needs,--but his life must not be at the mercy of cranks, or of idle persons' whims. . We need a reorganization of preaching traditions. It is a tradition that a minister must, in general, preach two set sermons every week, give one informal week-day lecture, and be prepared to deliver, at any moment, funeral addresses, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033793 | anniversary speeches, "remarks," or to perform other utterly impossible intellectual feats. Anyone who writes, or who speaks in public, knows that the preparation of a half-hour address which is worth anything requires a great deal of time. It cannot ordinarily be "tossed off," and help men's souls. Only an occasional inspiration, the result of a lifetime of thought and experience, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033794 | is born in this sudden way. Usually excellence is the result of long and careful labor. The way to help this would seem to be a constant interchange of preachers, not only in one denomination, but among the various denominations, so that a really fine sermon would be heard by many people, and fewer sermons would require to be written. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033795 | This is easily done in a large city or its vicinity. What congregations need most is not altogether formal sermons, but thoughtful, helpful talks containing a fresh, uplifting, and spiritual outlook over life, with a practical bearing on the occasions and duties of life. The work of both Frederick Robertson and Horace Bushnell has this direct and vital tone. Ministers | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033796 | must study more. If they are freed from many tasks now put upon them, it is not unreasonable to ask that this time be put on more careful thinking. Too many a minister of to-day is, intellectually, something of a flibbertigibbet. His sermons do not take hold, because they have not the roots to take hold with. How many ministers | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033797 | possess, for instance, a scholarly knowledge of human nature or of the deeper aspects of redemption? Yet these things he ought to know. There is a large amount of intensely interesting, though spiritually undigested, material for a minister in a ke William James's _Varieties of Religious Experience_. . Greater care must be taken of the rural church. Any one interested | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033798 | in a great ecclesiastical polity must surely recognize the ultimate possibilities of our rural regions. Here are growing up the leading men and women of to-morrow. Ideals and inspirations set upon their hearts will bear fruit a thousand-fold. Hence there should be a definite arrangement by which a certain portion of the preaching time of the really able preachers shall | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000033799 | be placed each year in some small and remote place. Several scattered country churches might unite for these services. Let such a man also make helpful suggestions for neighborhood social and intellectual life. While he is in the village, let the country pastor go to town, browse in libraries, art-collections, hear music, and get a general quickening of interest and | 60 | gutenberg |
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