THE

ANDOVER REVIEW:

A RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY.

VOL. I.-APRIL, 1884.-No. IV.

THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY AS A PROFESSION AND A SACRED CALLING.

A FEW THOUGHTS FOR STUDENTS IN OUR COLLEGES, AND THEIR FRIENDS.

I AM assured that at the present time there are special and urgent reasons for considering the claims of the clerical profession upon the students and recent graduates of our colleges, and also upon their friends. I address my argument to both with equal directness, forasmuch as the opinions and wishes of relatives and other friends have very much to do with the determination of their profession with the majority of young men.

I write for those who believe in the supernatural origin and authority of Christianity, in the permanence of the Christian Church, in the certain growth and final triumph of the kingdom of God, and in the existence of the ministry as an essential condition to the rapid progress and ultimate triumph of this kingdom. While I would give prominence to the ministry as a sacred calling, with its special responsibilities and its spiritual attractions, I shall also treat of it as a profession which, notwithstanding its sacred character, is beset by many human conditions, and involves the possibility of failure or success. Much has been lost, in the view of the writer, in looking at this profession exclusively upon its spiritual side. It certainly has an earthly side which is sometimes painfully conspicuous, and it is not wise to leave this out of view, or to thrust it into the background, by giving almost exclusive prominence to its higher relations, or investing its sober prose with the glamour of exaggerated representations.

Some fifty years ago and more, earnest and special efforts were made to increase the number of students for the ministry. In

Copyright, 1884, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co.

view of the then newly awakened spirit of religious enterprise, as manifested in missionary movements in foreign countries and at home, the opinion prevailed that every college student who had publicly taken Christian vows was seriously bound to consider the question whether these vows did not bind him to select the ministry as his life-work. It was almost unanimously taught that every such person was bound to furnish some decisive reason why he should be exempted from responding to the universal summons. In the generations previous, the consciousness of a divine call in some form of impulsive feeling or constraining obligation or spiritual communication had been held by many to be an essential prerequisite for the office. But with the enlarged views of men in respect to the multiplied and expanded spheres of Christian activity, and their more enlightened interpretations of the voice of God's providence, it was urged by very many that the call of God to the ministry, and even to the missionary field, was sounded in the ear of every college student; or at least that he was bound to show some good reason why it was not addressed to himself before he could be justified in declining the sacred office.

It was also fervently believed by very many leaders in the Church that there were special reasons for believing that the kingdom of God was at hand. A great variety of new religious instrumentalities had been put into operation. Sunday-schools were instituted, and other elaborate arrangements for the instruction of the young, which it was hoped would bring many very early into the Church. Special movements were set on foot for the reformation. and recovery of the vicious and neglected classes. Revivals of religion, with their concentrated glow and social excitements, were accepted as likely to be the normal and oft-repeated experiences of the Christian Church. In the prospect of the anticipated enlargement and the speedy triumphs of the kingdom of God, it seemed not only clear that every educated man ought to give the best of reasons why he should not listen to and obey the call to the ministry which was in all probability addressed to himself, but that special provision should be made for selecting young men for a course of special education and assisting them with special pecuniary aid. Education societies and beneficiary foundations were provided, and every pastor and zealous layman deemed it his constant duty to seek out gifted young men and induce them to enter upon academic studies with a special reference to the ministry as their future profession. Instead of the old-fashioned doctrine that a special divine call must be waited for as a still small

voice within the recesses of each individual soul, it was practically held that the call could be heard as the sound of a trumpet proclaiming from every hill-top to every Christian youth, "Whom shall we send and who will go for us."

As the result of these strong convictions and these ardent feelings, the number of students for the ministry was suddenly increased. Some observers and critics would say that there was an over supply. This could hardly be asserted, in view of two things, -the great increase of the demand by reason of the sudden and widespread increase of population who rushed into our vacant territory from the older States and foreign countries, and the rapid growth of the country in wealth. It would be no more than candid, however, to say that under the pressure described, not a few persons were urged into the clerical ranks who had no special adaptation to its special duties, and who would have rendered a more useful service to the kingdom of God had they never aspired to teach from the pulpit.

The fact cannot be overlooked nor denied, that at the present time, there are very many young men who are solidly and ardently Christian who shrink from the Christian ministry, if indeed they are not positively averse to it, and their distaste or aversion is accepted by themselves and their friends as a decisive reason why they should not enter the ministry. The opinion also prevails, more or less extensively, that, as between the two, the active Christian layman is more likely to be the happier and the more useful, other things being equal, than the equally zealous clergyman, and that spiritually considered a conscientious layman is more free from the constraint and criticism of his fellow-men in respect to his opinions and character, while, in respect to his private affairs, he is immeasurably more free from that intermeddling which every man resents as officious and unwelcome. A clergyman, it is also reasoned, has a very slender chance of acquiring wealth, and a tolerably certain chance of being poor, or, at least, of being shut up to a frugal life. The obligation of getting on in the world, in the attractive form of acquiring a comfortable independence, is more distinctly recognized as a duty than in other times, while the dazzling possibility of being rich presents irresistible attractions to many sanguine saints who would fondly make "the best of both worlds" by being rich in this world's goods and also rich in faith. The special duty of abandoning the prospect of a competence or a fortune, for Christ's sake, is not accepted as one of those prizes of the Christian life which are so clearly commanded by a divine

call, especially when it is urged by those who do not accept it for themselves or for their children. "The shady side" of the pastor's life is minutely portrayed and painfully emphasized, even by the sons and daughters of clergymen, in their conversations, if not in tales which are expressly written to enforce the humiliations and hardships of a clergyman's life. The bondage of the pulpit to the pews is not infrequently set forth in eloquent satire. The ingratitude and parsimony of here and there a parish to a pastor, who had served it for more than a generation, is accepted as the rule rather than the exception. Last, but not least of all, the limitations to freedom of thought, the bondage to creeds, the weakening of faith in an articulated and abstract theology, the tyranny and capriciousness of ecclesiastical courts, the narrowness of church feeling and opinion, are matters of free disquisition in many circles, and felt to be, if not spoken of, decisive reasons why a young man of an inquiring yet conscientious spirit and honest mind should hesitate to embark in a profession the entrance to which may possibly be made very narrow by the scruples of bigoted deacons, elders, clergymen, bishops, committees, councils, and synods. These difficulties often seem most formidable to some of those who seem most likely to attain the highest usefulness and eminence in the clerical profession, and to bring to it the most ardent devotion and self-denying activity. The evil of the case is aggravated by the circumstance that of late the opportunities for distinguished activity and eminent usefulness on the part of laymen have seemed especially abundant and promising. It would seem to be the deliberate opinion of not a few, that a layman with practical good sense and evangelistic zeal, especially if he comes into the field with the prestige of wealth and social position, or the reputation of high professional or business ability, can be more useful than if he were a clergyman. Hence it is concluded, by parents and sons, that it is on the whole wiser and safer that the son should avoid the manifold chances and perils of clerical life, and seek to carry the consecrated spirit into the manifold public activities for which the layman, without question, has always a divine call and inviting opportunities.

The number of students with religious purposes, in the mean time, is rather increased than diminished. Their assent to the obligations of personal religious activity and supreme consecration is possibly more universal and hearty than ever before. The duty of active Christian work on the part of every educated man is fervently assented to. And yet it is observed that the number of

those who propose to enter the Christian ministry has steadily fallen off within the last twenty-five years. At this moment there may be a slight reaction, but it is most manifest that the whole subject needs to be reconsidered in the light of the present times, and the obligations and privileges of the Christian ministry need to be represented to students and their friends from new points of view. To do this is the object of the following essay, in which the writer proposes to consider the Christian ministry as a secular profession and a sacred calling or special form of Christian service. He designs to bring into view its human and divine sides, and the attractions and repulsions which pertain to each.

The first point to which he would direct especial attention is that the ministry is a profession requiring special tastes and capacities, a peculiar training of learning and discipline. To furnish this training special schools are useful, if indeed in the present state of civilization they are not absolutely necessary, with special courses of study involving the mastery of a considerable variety of subjects, as, the critical knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek languages, a study of the art of interpretation, the history of the Hebrew people and the Christian Church, with its creeds and institutions and its inner and outer life, the study of philosophical and biblical theology, and the scientific and metaphysical relations which these several studies involve. To this should be added as indispensable to practical success, the mastery of the power to use written and spoken discourse, of skill in pastoral care and the practical ministrations which are required in the beginning and progress of the Christian life.

The studies involved in this training, when it is prosecuted with any considerable thoroughness, are largely philosophical, and if philosophical they are logical and psychological. The so-called argument for the Being and Moral Government of God implies profound reflection upon the profoundest and most subtle of all themes. Here is room and demand for the most refined distinctions and the most vigorous logic. The themes themselves have fascinated thoughtful men in all ages. The interest in them is in our days by no means limited to clergymen or Christian believers. The scientific world has taken them up into its discussions and has popularized them in our most evanescent literature. The Physicist, the Evolutionist, and the Agnostic of the present day are all Theologians, speculating, affirming, and denying concerning matter and mind, duty and sin, the mystery of the universe, its origin, its end, and its signification. Is there anything beyond the