"Good And Bad Ministers"

"GOOD & BAD MINISTERS"

An address delivered at the closing of the Spring session of Brooklyn Lay College, by Dr. T. De Witt Talmage.

This is a good read, and well worth the effort !

"Hundreds of students all over the land are, at this season of the year, going out from our Christian schools to preach Christ. Tonight, we add to the host of those who have gone forth in these blossoming weeks of the spring-time to buckle on the Gospel armour......
I want to-night to speak of some of the different kinds of Ministers, that our young men may be induced to avoid the undesirable and emulate that which is holy and right. First, there is :

The Foppish Minister :

He has a handsome foot or hand, or thinks he has. It is evident from his gait and appearance that he has received most of his inspiration from his tailor. His glove fits so well, that it seems to have grown; on his boot, as if made on a last of the last fashion. His hair twists as though it had been under curling tongs. From his gesticulations you know that he has practised them before a mirror. He prides himself on being a lady's man, and looks so sweet, and has the appearance of one of Godey's fashion plates. As he takes out his handkerchief to wipe away a tear in the midst of his sermon, the fabric drops musk, and patchouli, a "balm of a thousand flowers", and a "new-mown hay", and "kiss-me-quick". He is a stick of ecclesiastical candy - a moral peppermint - a religious chocolate drop. He takes his text from the most luscious part of Solomon's song and lithpth in a manner thweet beyond dethcription ! He has a diamond ring on two fingers, and a glittering stud in his shirt bosom. He sucks a sugar plum while the collection is taken up, and, though not short sighted at all, has his glasses astride his nose, lifts the hymn-book fantastically and reads.....
After hearing such a young man preach, an old clergyman arose in the pulpit to make the concluding prayer and said - "O Lord, bless this young man, and make his heart as soft as his head".

The Scolding Minister :

On stormy days he berates the people who are in Church for the neglect of those who have stayed at home. He expects to bring up flowers of Christian character under the blow of a north-east storm. Now, there are times when a Minister ought to be indignant and denunciatory; but, learn this, young men : you can never scold people out of their sins, nor scold them into regularity of Church attendance, nor scold them into heaven...... It takes honey to catch flies and men. Never go fishing with a crab-apple for bait. In order to avoid this keep your digestion good. You want not a sanctified heart but a sound liver. Eat no lobster salad Saturday night. Take gymnastics, split wood, ride horseback, row a boat, keep the pores open with a cold water bath and a coarse towel. Get good, sound, robust health, and it will be almost impossible for you to scold. Now we come to :

The Blundering Minister :

Through lack of culture of a deliberate spirit he easily loses his equipoise, gets in a fluster, knocks the psalm-book off the pulpit, tumbles up the stairs, drops the baby that he is trying to baptise, or closes his sermon as a friend of mine did, by saying, "Be not like Esau, who sold his birthright for a pot of message !" There are some people born to blunder. They blunder in their conversation, they blunder in their associations, they blunder in their civilities, as did the man on a very hot day when he came up to a woman who had lost her Father; and he, the gentleman coming up, did not know of the decease of the Father; and said to the lady ; "Madam, how does your Father stand the heat now ?" However much your audience may be excited, keep a bit on your own feelings. I don't care how fast you let your horse go if you are only sure that when you want to rein him in you can do it...... Ah, be sure in your preaching that through the excitement of the occasion you do not get run away with. Depend upon it, that while your audience will be in sympathy with you when you do well, they will have no mercy on you when you blunder..... Remember, my young friends, that when you are preaching on the Sabbath, and in a consecrated place, and the surroundings are solemnised, that any slip you make will cause mirthfulness ! It requires but very little on the Sabbath-day and amid a hushed assembly, to rouse up a merriment you do not desire...... be willing sometimes to be made sport of. If others laugh at you, remember that often you have laughed at others, and it is a poor rule that works both ways. We come now to :

The Awfully Profound Minister :

He deals in metaphysics - talks about the laws of perception, the system of consequences, hypothosis, peripatetic doctrines, and apologetics until the audience can hardly see their hand before their face. He has a learned way of pushing back his spectacles, a learned way of employing his pocket-handkerchief. I have heard him cough until I could hear the echo of the ages. The audience does not know what he is talking about, and he does not know either. The only cheerful part of his sermon is when he gets through. Now when men are genuinely learned, they are simple in phraseology and manner. I never knew an exception to that. But a little learning will often make a man swell beyond all reasonable proportions. O, drop your sesquipedalian phraseology, and use short, sharp, plain words..... And what a relief it is, after hearing some men talk in learned technicalities, foreign to our capacity, to suddenly hear something the plainest people can understand. I know only of one use for words, and that is to let men know what you mean.

The Earnest, Consecrated, Useful, Christian Minister :

There is no sham in his reading, no sham in his prayers, no sham in his preaching. He comes into the pulpit to make men and women better - to make himself better. He wastes no time. His first step is into the middle of the subject. He hears in the air the sighing of a cross and the muttering thunders of a judgement. He feels on his heart the pressure of the hand of the Lord God Almighty. He says - "Here I have an hour and a half in which to do the work which must last for ten million ages. Lord, help me". Such a Minister may have arms as awkward as a flail, and have a hand with fingers tied in hard knots, and a foot large enough to cover up half the pulpit, but he will be irresistible, he will be respected and loved......

Tonight, I say to you who are to preach the Gospel. look at these five pictures and choose which you are to be like; but whether you are to be ordained, or go out as lay preachers, or city missionaries, or Sabbath-school workers, resolve upon something that will stand the test of your dying pillow, and the inspection of that great assize where you and I must answer for what we have done, as well as for what we have neglected to do. I strike hands with you to-night in Christian farewell. We separate now to meet when the heavens are no more......"

(Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage, c.1880)

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