To My Younger Brethren Part 1

To My Younger Brethren.

by Handley C. G. Moule.

PREFACE.

The following pages do not appear to need any extended preface; their topic is set forth in the first lines of the first chapter. With what success it has been handled is another matter.

But as a writer reviews his own words, it is inevitable that some sort of _envoi_ should present itself to his mind. In this case the _envoi_ seems to me to be the vital necessity of personal holiness in the Christian Minister, in order to the right working of the Christian Ministry; a personal holiness which shall be no mere form moulded from without but a life developed into manifestation and action from within.

Never did the Church of Christ more need to remember this than at the present day. The strongest surface currents of the age are against it; alike that of unregulated, hurrying, indiscriminate enterprize, and that of an exaggerated ecclesiasticism. In the one case the worker's communion with G.o.d tends to be sacrificed to the work, the fountain choked for the sake of the stream. In the other case there is a serious risk that "the Church" may come to be regarded as an almost subst.i.tute for the Lord in matters affecting the life and growth of the Christian man, and of course of the Christian Minister. Sacred are the claims of order and cohesion, but more sacred and more vital still is the call to the individual const.i.tuent of the community to come to the living Personal Christ, "nothing between," and to abide in innermost intercourse with Him, and to draw every hour by faith on His great grace.

If these simple pages may at all, in His most merciful hands, promote the holy cause of such a hidden life and its fruitful issues, it will indeed be happiness to the writer. In these days of stifling materialism in philosophy, and withering naturalism in theology, but in which also the Holy Spirit, far and wide, is breathing upon us in special mercy from above, there is no duty more pressing on the Christian than to seek, in the world of work, after that life which is "lived in the flesh by faith in the Son of G.o.d," and which is manifested in the strong and patient "meekness of wisdom."

RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE, _April 22nd, 1892_.

"_Servant of G.o.d, be fill'd With Jesu's love alone; Upon a sure foundation build, On Christ the corner-stone; By faith in Him abide, Rejoicing with His saints; To Him with confidence, when tried, Make known all thy complaints._"

MORAVIAN HYMN-BOOK.

_"What contradictions meet In Ministers' employ!

It is a bitter sweet, A sorrow full of joy; No other post affords a place For equal honour or disgrace"_

OLNEY HYMNS.

"_The Interpreter had Christian into a private Room, and bid his Man open a Door; the which when he had done, Christian saw a Picture of a very grave Person hang up against the Wall, and this was the fashion of it: It had eyes lift up to Heaven, the best of Books was in its hand, the Law of Truth was written upon its lips, the World was behind his back; it stood as if it Pleaded with Men, and a Crown of gold did hang over its head._"

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

CHAPTER I.

_THE SECRET WALK WITH G.o.d_ (i.).

_Pastor, for the round of toil See the toiling soul is fed; Shut the chamber, light the oil, Break and eat the Spirit's bread; Life to others would'st thou bring?

Live thyself upon thy King._

Let me explain in this first sentence that when in these pages I address "my Younger Brethren," I mean brethren in the Christian Ministry in the Church of England. Let me limit my reference still further, by premising that very much of what I say will be said as to brethren who have lately taken holy Orders, and are engaged in the work of a.s.sistant Curacies.

AIM OF THE BOOK.

Day by day, for many years past, my life has lain among men preparing themselves for just that work. As a matter of course my thoughts have run incessantly in that direction. Many a lecture in the library where we work together, and many a conversation in dining-hall, or by study fire, or in college garden, or on country road, has given point to those thoughts and enabled me, I trust, better to understand my younger Brethren, and with more sympathy to make myself, as an elder brother, understood by them. What I here seek to do, with the gracious aid of our blessed Master, is somewhat to extend the range of such talks, and to ask a friendly hearing from younger Brethren in the holy Ministry with whom I have never had the opportunity of speaking personally.

I have not the least intention of writing a treatise on the Christian Pastorate. To talk to young Christian Ministers about some important details of pastoral life and work, but above all of life, inward and outward--this is my simple purpose.

THREE LINES OF PRAYER.

One day in each week, at Ridley Hall, we unite in special prayer, without liturgical form, for those members of the Hall who have gone out into actual ministry. As I lead my dear younger Brethren in that supplication, the heart feels itself full of many, very many, well-remembered faces, characters, lives. It seems to see those many old friends scattered abroad in the Lord's work-field; and it sees, of course, a very large variety among them, in the way of both character and circ.u.mstances. But, with all this consciousness of differences, my thoughts and my pet.i.tions always, by a deep necessity, run for all alike along three main paths. The first prayer is for the young Clergyman's inner and secret Life and Walk with G.o.d. The second is for his daily and hourly general Intercourse with Men. The third is for his official Ministrations of the Word and Ordinances of the Gospel. And in all these directions, after all, one desire, one prayer, has to be offered, the prayer that everywhere and always, from the inmost recesses of life to its largest and most public circ.u.mference, the Lord and Master may take, and keep, full possession of the servant. I pray that in secret devotion, and in secret habits, Jesus Christ may be intensely present with the man; and that in common intercourse, in all its parts, He may be the constant and all-influencing Companion, to stimulate, to control, to chasten, to gladden, to empower; and that in the preaching of the Word the servant may really and manifestly speak from, and for, and in, his Lord; and that in ministration of the sacramental and other Ordinances he may truly and unmistakably walk before Him in holy simplicity, holy reverence, and full spiritual reality, "serving the Lord," and serving the flock, "with all humility of mind." [Acts xx.

19.]

My present talks on paper will take very much the lines of these prayers. Secret walk with G.o.d, common and general walk with men, special ministrations--I desire to say a little on each and all of these points, and more or less in this order, though without attempting too rigid an arrangement, where one subject must often run over into another.

SECRET WALK WITH G.o.d.

Let me take up the first great topic of the three for a few preliminary words in this chapter: THE SECRET WALK WITH G.o.d of the young Pastor of Christ's flock.

HINDRANCES: WORK.

My brotherly reader will not need any long explanation or careful apology from me here. He knows as well as I do, on the one hand, that a close secret walk with G.o.d is unspeakably important in pastoral life, and, on the other hand, that pastoral life, and not least in its early days, is often allowed to hinder or minimize the real, diligent work (for it is a work indeed in its way) of that close secret walk. He finds all too many possible interferences with the inner working on the part of the outer. Such interferences come from very different quarters. The new Curacy, the new duties and opportunities, if the man has his heart in his ministry, will prove intensely interesting, and at first, very possibly, encouragement and acceptance may predominate over experiences of difficulty and trial. Services, sermons, visits to homes and to schools, with all the miscellanies that attend an active and well-ordered parochial organization--these things are sure to have a special and exciting interest for most young men who have taken Orders in earnest. And it will be almost inevitable that the Curate, under even the most wise, considerate, and unselfish of Inc.u.mbents, should find "work" threatening rapidly to absorb so much, not of time only but thought and heart, that the temptation is to abridge and relax very seriously indeed secret devotion, secret study of Scripture, and generally secret discipline of habits, that all-important thing.

*HINDRANCES: SOLITUDE.

Then, on the other hand, there is a risk and trial from a region quite opposite. The Curate comes to his new work, and takes up his abode in lodgings--alone. Only a few months ago, perhaps only a few weeks ago, he was in rooms at College, amidst all the social as well as mental interests of University life, and (so it is, thank G.o.d, for many University men now) feeling on every side the help of Christian friendship and fellowship of the warmest and truest sort. And now, socially and as to fellowship in Christ, he is, to speak comparatively, alone. I say, _comparatively_. Very likely he has found in his Inc.u.mbent a friend and elder brother, perhaps a friend and loving father, in the Lord. And most probably he will find among his people, and that very soon if he is on the watch, friends in Christ, gentle or simple. He may be a.s.sociated with a brother Curate or Curates; and if so, the inmost aim of both or all ought to be, and in most cases will be, not only to work in the same parish but to work heart to heart as "in Him."

Nevertheless, the Vicar or Rector, though a friend, is a very busy friend; and so is the brother Curate; and the Christian friend in the parish is after all only one of the many souls to whom the man has to minister, and he must not forget those who perhaps need him most just because they are least congenial to him.

*ITS DANGERS.

So the sense of change, of solitude, in such part of his life as is spent indoors, may be, and, as I know, very often is, real and deep, sad and sorrowful, and in itself not wholesome, to the young Minister of Christ. Possibly my reader knows nothing of all this; but I think it more likely that at least he knows something of it. And it needs his prompt and watchful dealing if it is not to hurt him greatly. Solitude will not _by itself_, if I judge rightly, help him to secret intercourse with G.o.d. A feeling of solitude, under most circ.u.mstances, much more tends, by itself, to drive a man unhealthily inward, in unprofitable questionings and broodings, or in still less happy exercises of thought.

Or it drives him unhealthily outward, quickening the wish for mere stimulants and excitements of mind and interest. Aye, let me not shrink from saying it, it sometimes quickens a wish for "stimulants" in the most literal sense of the word. Exhausting and multifarious parochial work, and the lonely bachelor quarters at the day's end, have brought to many a young man sore temptations of that sort, and sometimes they have won the battle, to the wreck and ruin of the work and of the worker.

HINDRANCES ARE OCCASIONS.

Well, all these facts or possibilities are just so many reminders that the new Curate's life will not, of itself, greatly help him to maintain and quicken his Secret Walk with G.o.d, that vital necessity for his work.

It certainly will _not_ do so directly; it will, directly, be a problem, not an aid. But on that very account, dear Brother and reader, your new conditions of life may prove indirectly a most powerful aid, by being a constant and urgent _occasion_. As you are a Minister of Christ, your life and work will, in the Lord's sight, be a failure, yes, I repeat it, a failure, be the outside and the reputation what they may, if you do not walk with G.o.d in secret. But therefore your life and work are a daily and hourly occasion for the positive resolve, in His Name, that walk with Him you will. Recognize the risks, right and left, the risks brought by pastoral activities and interests, and those brought by pastoral loneliness and uncheerfulness. Remember the vital necessity amidst those risks. And then you will the more deliberately purpose and plan how to guard your secret devotions, and how to order your secret hours even when devotion is not your direct duty, so that your Lord shall be indeed there, at the centre, "a living, bright Reality" to you.

SECRET DEVOTION.

Let me plunge into the midst at once, with a few simple suggestions on SECRET DEVOTION.

LET IT BE DELIBERATE.

I ask my younger Brother, then, to keep sacred, with all his heart and will, an unhurried time alone with the Lord, night and morning at the least. I do not intrusively prescribe a length of time. But I do most earnestly say that the time, shorter or longer, must be _deliberately spent_; and even ten minutes can be spent deliberately, while mismanagement may give a feeling of haste to a much longer season. Do not, I beseech you, minimize the minutes; seek for such a fulness of "the Spirit of grace and of supplications," [Zech. xii. 10.] as shall draw you quite the other way. But if the time, any given night or morning, _must_ be short, let it nevertheless be a time of quiet, reverent, collected worship and confession and pet.i.tion. One thing a.s.suredly you can do: you can, if you will, secure a real "Morning Watch" before your day's work begins. I do not say it is easy. Young men very commonly sleep sounder and longer than we seniors do; they are not always easy to rouse in a moment. But they can direct some of their energy to contrive against themselves, or rather _for_ themselves, how to secure a regular early rising to meet their Lord. Most ingenious, not to say amusing, are some of the devices which friends of mine have confided to me; schemes and stratagems to get themselves well awake in good time. But after all, in most lodging-houses surely it must be possible to be called early, and to instruct the caller to show no mercy at the chamber door. Anyhow, I do say that the fresh first interview with the all-blessed Master must at all costs be secured. Do not be beguiled into thinking it can be arranged by a half-slumbering prayer in bed. Rise up--if but in loving deference to Him. Appear in the presence chamber as the servant should who is now ready for the day's bondservice in all things but in this, that he has yet to take the day's oath of obedience, and to ask the day's "grace sufficient," and to read the day's promises and commands, at the Master's holy feet.