To My Younger Brethren Part 7

Surely few Christian men have wider and n.o.bler opportunity than Curates have for the practice of "that lost grace, humility," in its form of unselfish dutifulness, "good fidelity in all things." [t.i.t. ii. 10.] My Brethren know the sort of humility I mean; no artificial mannerism, nothing in the least degree unworthy of the "adult in Christ." What I do mean is that thing so scarce in our days, the n.o.ble opposite to that individualistic spirit than which nothing is more narrow, more low, more hostile to all true, genial development and greatness. I mean the generous modesty which delights to recognize the claims of an elder, of a leader; which loves the idea of trustworthy service, taking as its motto a more than princely _Ich Dien_. I mean the temper of mind which sees the happiness of siding against ourselves, of judging not others but ourselves; the spirit which is much more anxious to vindicate a superior's reputation than our own, more alert to ward criticism off from him than to shield our own head from its arrow. I mean the life which shows that so far from being ashamed of the idea of subjection, the man has learnt at the feet of Jesus to think true service the truest freedom.

Another day, very probably, the Curate will find himself an Inc.u.mbent, and will have his own helping brother at his side. It will be a happy thing then for both parties if he has thoroughly learnt that great qualification for command, the experience of obedience; and has cultivated the exercise of sympathy with his subordinate by having first striven in honest loyalty to take his chief's part against himself.

TAKE PART AGAINST YOURSELF.

Few, very few, are the cases where a man who has accepted a Curacy _with his eyes reasonably open_ finds that such is the friction of the position that his first duty is to seek a release. There are such cases, I am afraid. But, I say it again, they are very few; and in every case which looks as if it were one of them, the Curate should _first_ exercise the severest scrutiny upon himself, trying honestly to find, in some magnifying mirror, "the beam in his own eye." [Matt. vii. 3.] And even where such scrutiny still leaves it plain, after consultation not only with sensible friends (if necessary) but of course with the Lord Himself, that it is best to seek a change, let it be remembered that, up to the very last day of connexion, the Curate is still the Curate, bound to all possible loyalty and good faith.

"SUFFER THE WORD."

It is with some misgivings of feeling that I have dwelt thus at length on difficulties and anxieties incident to the relationship of Curate and Inc.u.mbent. But I do not think after all that I shall be misunderstood.

In the nature of the case, the bright sides of the matter have hardly needed comment. The Curate who finds himself the favoured and advantaged helper of some true-hearted leader needs little counsel from me, unless it be in face of the fact, on which we have touched, that the n.o.blest leaders in the Lord in the whole English Church are not above parochial criticism, or even parochial slander. But I do know that there are Curates whose circ.u.mstances are less favourable; and I long to impress it upon them that few Christians have a larger and more fruitful field than they for the cultivation of some of the crowning graces of the Gospel. It is for them to make no common proof of the power of the Indwelling Lord to subdue the iniquities of His people, to hallow their inmost spirits, to set before their lips the watch and ward of His blessed Presence, to drive utterly away from their pastoral souls the wretched spirit of sarcasm, to enable them for an unselfish faithfulness when no eye but the unseen Master's oversees.

INDEPENDENCE AND LOYALTY.

It is no part of the system of the Church of England, as it is of that of the Church of Rome, to put a man (or a woman) under the "spiritual direction" of a fellow-sinner, who is to be, for the "directed," the organ and representative of the will of G.o.d. For such a method is no part of the apostolic Gospel, which never for a moment bids us surrender conscience into the keeping of another. "Who art thou that judgest _Another's_ servant? To his _own Master_ he standeth or falleth" [Rom. xiv. 4.]; words which deeply and decisively contradict the root-ideas of spiritual despotism, for they teach us to think of our fellow-Christians, as if--for purposes of the conscience--He who is their Master and ours was, for them, _another_ Master than ours.[14] Yet the ideas of spiritual despotism are only the distortion or parody of ideas which are as true and sacred as the Gospel can make them; the ideas of self-abnegation for the good of others, and of resolute denial of the miserable spirit which prefers self to others and talks about rights when we should be intent on duties. The Christian man, and _a fortiori_ the Minister of Christ, is called (as we have seen in earlier pages) to nothing less than a life in which, while conscience is inviolable, self is surrendered to Christ, in that practical sense of the words which means surrender, for His sake, _to others_, in all things which concern not right and wrong but our self-will.

[14] I owe this remark to my friend the Rev. H.E. Brooke.

"CLOTHED WITH HUMILITY."

"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder." [1 Pet. v. 5.]

I never forget how the Apostle finishes the pa.s.sage; "Yea, _all of you_, be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility," [Greek: egkoubosasthe ten tapeinophosynen], "tie humility round you" as the servant ties on his ap.r.o.n. Most characteristic of the Bible is the impartiality of the precept, so given; the Elders in the Church of G.o.d will not forget it on their side. But nevertheless the stress of the precept bears upon the younger man. He, in the Lord's order, is especially to recollect the sacred duty of a willing, loyal, and open-eyed humility.

A n.o.bLE SUBORDINATION.

All the instincts of our time are against this. But for the true disciple of Jesus Christ there is something stronger than any spirit of the age; it is the Spirit of G.o.d, dwelling in the inmost soul. By that wonderful power the Christian Curate, who walks with the Lord in secret, and finds in Him his way of purity and consistency in the more general aspects of his "walk with others," will daily be enabled for a bright and glad consistency in the path of ministerial subordination. He will not cease to be a man, who must observe and think; nor will he necessarily hold it his duty never, in all loyalty and respect, to express to his Vicar a differing wish or opinion. But his bias will be against himself, and for his chief, if he indeed lets the Spirit of G.o.d lead him, and rule him, and fill him. For the Lord's sake, [Greek: dia tou Kyrion], and by the Lord's power, [Greek: dia tou Kyriou], he will carry the principle of a watchful "submission" not only into greater things, but even into the smaller preferences of his elder and leader, if they in the least degree affect the duties of the parish and the church.

A LETTER ON CURATES' GRIEVANCES.

I close this chapter with a quotation. It is a letter written to the Editor of the _Record_, in the spring of 1885, after the perusal of a correspondence in that paper in which some "grievances of Evangelical Curates" had been set forth, and in which it had been implied that such grievances might give some sufferers occasion to transfer their sympathies to another "school."

"After reading the recent correspondence, I cannot forbear a few words expressive of the sad impression left upon my mind. Far be it from me to say that Inc.u.mbents have no lessons to learn from this correspondence.

All Inc.u.mbents who have, by grace, 'the mind that was in Christ Jesus'

will surely embrace every suggestion, however painful in form, which can stimulate them to larger manifestations of holy and self-forgetting sympathy, perfectly compatible with the firm att.i.tude (which is also their duty) of responsible direction. But this thought leaves unaltered the mournful impression taken from the tone of the letters of my aggrieved Brethren. In one form or another one thought seemed to breathe in all;--the thought of _my_ rights, _my_ position, _my_ gifts and opportunities, and what was due from others in regard of them; the complaint that others were not humble, when the Christian's first concern with humility is to derive it for himself from his Lord. Such a spirit is not easily compatible with a true secret hourly walk with G.o.d and abiding in Christ, the _sine qua non_ of fruit-bearing. And fruit-bearing is the supreme inner aim of the true pastoral life, fruit-bearing in the devoted doing of the Master's present will.

"In one letter I read with pain that 'it is no marvel' if men who cannot secure justice and happiness in one party should transfer their allegiance to another. Is it indeed 'no marvel'? Is it to be expected, then, in the holy Ministry, that convictions about divine truth should be modified by the personal claims and comfort of the holder, if the word 'hold' may be used without severe irony in such a connexion? Can a saint and servant of G.o.d, young or old, Vicar or Curate, walk closely with Him all day, truly given to Him, wholly submissive to His word and will, and yet find it possible to deal with convictions so? What are personal rights and exterior happiness weighed against the claims of what we have really grasped as truth in the presence of the Lord? It is well for us that martyrs and confessors, and their worthy successors, our Evangelical ancestors of a century ago, knew how to answer that question.

CONVICTION SACRED, SELF NOWHERE.

"I aim to speak with all humility and sympathy. But I cannot but thus earnestly express the unalterable conviction that the only ministerial life which can be 'sanctified and meet for the Master's use' is the life in which conviction is sacred, in which Christ is all, and in which self is nowhere."

CHAPTER VII.

_PASTOR IN PARISH_ (i.).

_Master, to the flock I speed, In Thy presence, in Thy name; Show me how to guide, to feed, How aright to cheer and blame; With me knock at every door; Enter with me, I implore._

We have talked together about the young Clergyman's secret life, and private life, and his life in (so to speak) non-clerical intercourse with others, and now lastly of his life as it stands related to his immediate leader in the Ministry. In this latter topic we have already touched the great matter which comes now at once before us, the man's work amongst his neighbours as he approaches them in his proper character, as a Pastor.

"THE PULSE OF THE MACHINE."

How shall I speak of "parish-work"? It would be a boundless subject if treated in detail and in the style of a directory of methods. But such a treatment is far from my purpose. To undertake it, I should not only need to be a widely experienced Pastor, which I cannot claim to be, for my life for many years has been mainly devoted to academic teaching; I should need to be several widely experienced Pastors bound up into one living volume. So let no one expect to find here a prescription for the right plans and right practice of the many departments of the rural pastorate, or of the urban, or suburban; directions how to organize work, and how to develop it; how to deal with the Sunday School, or the Day School, or the Inst.i.tute, or the Guild, or the Visitors' Meeting, or the Missionary a.s.sociation. My hope is rather to get behind all these things to the pulse of the busy machinery; to offer a few hints to my younger Brethren "how to do it," from the point of view of their personal and inner preparedness for the multifold work, and to state some plain general principles which may run through all the doing.

VISITING.

I set before me then the Curate, and the Parish, with its demands for pastoral labour, and particularly for _Visitation_. Well do I know how immense the differences are between place and place in this same matter of visitation; how the parish of a few hundreds, or even of two or three thousand, is one thing, and the parish of ten, or eighteen, or twenty thousand is another. I know that there are parishes, in London for example, where all the efforts of a staff of devoted Clergy seem to fail to do more than touch the edges of the work of domestic visitation.

Yet surely even in such cases that work must not, and will not, be quite given up as hopeless. A little, where only a little is possible, is vastly better than none; even if it be only the visitation of the sick, and of those who immediately surround them, and with whom the sick-visit gives the Clergyman an opportunity. Such efforts, where nothing more of the kind is possible, if only done in an unmistakable spirit of love and self-sacrifice, must carry good to the people. And do not forget that they must, quite as necessarily, carry good to the Clergyman. For they are a means, for which nothing else can be quite the subst.i.tute, of bringing him into contact with the people's thoughts and lives in ways which will tell usefully (as we have seen in an earlier page) upon his whole ministry, particularly upon his work in the pulpit, and at the mission-room desk, and in the open air.

But, to be as practical as possible, I will a.s.sume that the Curacy is of a more normal kind than that just supposed. The parish, whether in country or in town, is not so large as to make visitation from house to house impossible. And the Curate has had his work of this kind a.s.signed him, and is setting out upon it. A good portion of every day (though I hope it is possible to give a part of one day each week to some sort of wisely managed holiday) is devoted to "the district"; now for a steady round of calls, door by door; now, in an irregularity not without method, for visits to special cases of sickness, or sorrow, or other need.

PREPARE FOR VISITATION WITH PRAYER.

What shall be my first suggestion? It shall point to the Throne of Grace. Preface the pastoral round with special secret prayer. Sermons are usually (I wish it were always so now) prefaced with prayer in the pulpit that the heavenly blessing may rest upon the ordinance. Is it less fitting, less necessary, to prepare for the afternoon's or evening's visitation with a secret pet.i.tion in your own room that the apostolic ordinance of domestic visitation [Acts xx. 20, 21.], to be administered now by you, may have the special grace of G.o.d in it? Pray for yourself, my younger Brother.

*PRAY FOR SPIRITUAL READINESS AND SPIRITUAL FULNESS.

Ask that you may go out well furnished with the peace, and patience, and wisdom laid up for you in your Lord; that you may have "by the Holy Spirit a right judgment in all things"; that you may have "the tongue of the taught,[15] to speak a word in season to them that are weary"; whatever sort of weariness it is. Pray for that secret skill of discernment which can see the difference of spiritual states, and allot warning or comfort not at random but "in due season." Pray for that readiness for the unexpected which is best secured and best maintained in a close and conscious intimacy with your Saviour. The man "found in Him" will be found ready _in spirit_ (and that is after all the essential in spiritual work) for the sudden question, whether anxious or captious, for the sudden rudeness of ignorance or opposition, and again for the chronic and so to speak pa.s.sive difficulty of indifference. "The tongue of the taught," while the "taught" man is found in Christ, will ever be sweet, wise, and truthful, as the owner of it goes his round.

But we must seek for it; "He will be enquired of for this thing." [SN: Ezek. x.x.xvi. 37.]

[15] Isai. l. 4. Obviously the word "learned" in our Version is there used in its old English sense, "instructed, taught." No slight on "book-learning" is ever conveyed in the Scriptures. But the man in view here is not the highly-educated person, but the believer who has listened with _the ear_ "of the taught" (see the end of the verse), as a disciple at the Master's feet; and so goes forth to speak with "_the tongue_ of the taught," as a messenger who has learned sympathy, insight, holy tact and truthfulness, from the Master's heart. The whole pa.s.sage is full of the blessed Messiah Himself, I know. But it has its reflected reference for all His true followers, and above all for all His true Ministers. May He give us, in His mercy, for every act of our messenger-work, both the ear and the tongue of His "taught" ones.

Then, as you pray for yourself, you will pray also for the people you are about to visit. Perhaps they are as yet strange to you, and you can ask for them only in general. But if you know anything at all about them it will be worth while to individualize your prayer, however briefly.

Special, detailed prayer _is_ a power with G.o.d. And it is a power with man too. To be dealing with one for whom you know you have prayed is already to have a foothold there. Perhaps you may have an opportunity to _say_, quite naturally, that you have been praying for him; and this may very possibly be a direct vehicle of blessing.

You will go out then, as directly as possible, from the secret place of heavenly intercourse. That is a bracing atmosphere:

"Fresh airs and heavenly odours breathe around The throne of grace;"

and those airs can quicken the young Pastor's spirit for the heaviest hours of a sultry afternoon or evening, till he comes back weary to his rooms, "tired in the Lord's work, but not tired of it," as dying Whitefield said.

So you go forth with real prayer. It is your wonderful privilege, thus going to carry nothing less than the blessed "Fulness of the Holy Ghost"

for your inmost equipment. I say deliberately, nothing less than the heavenly Fulness--a far different thing from a mere stir and lift of the emotions. That most divine gift is a "calm excess" of tranquil power, received humbly by the prayer of faith. It is not meant to be a rare luxury; it is a daily and hourly offer, a provided _viatic.u.m_ for every stage of walk and duty. Can we work aright for G.o.d while any corner of our being has no room for G.o.d, and is not possessed by Him?

METHOD.

Then, for true prayer and true practicality are the closest and most harmonious friends, you will of course aim with forethought and persistency at _method_ in the pastoral work. The visits will be arranged as far as possible with economy of _s.p.a.ce_; no difficult task in most town parishes, while in the country, of course, the matter is often much less easy. And you will study also economy of _time_. Your round is a work of sacred _business_. The minutes, the quarters of an hour, are never to run loose and un.o.bserved. Who that has ever visited in a parish does not know the need of remembering that point, so easily forgotten? Here we visit a pleasant, welcoming neighbour, and it is all too easy to stay on, perhaps to little real purpose, with the secret satisfaction of knowing that the next and much less attractive call must be shortened in proportion. Here, less willingly, we are detained by one of those ingenious tongues which make it so difficult to get in a word, or to stop the unprofitable continuity of topics. All these cases, and endless kindred ones, need a little foresight and firmness, and a little of the skill which is soon learnt by open heart and open eyes.

ECONOMY OF TIME.

Obviously this line of caution is more needed by some men than by others. But it is needed by not a few; particularly in respect of the temptation to lengthen out unduly the visits that are pleasant to the visitor. One young Clergyman known to me, an indefatigable and devoted visitor, needed a strong reminder in this direction in the early days of his ministry. He would visit a sick person, who proved more or less responsive to his efforts, and would allow himself to _over_-visit, to an unwise extent, going often more than once a day, and long after the state of the invalid made such attentions urgent. And other work of course suffered in proportion. Wesley's precept to his workers needs our remembrance often; "Go not where you are wanted, but where you are wanted most."

BUT AVOID HURRY.

But a risk on the other hand must be remembered. Economy of time must never mean hurry of manner, a thing which is nearly if not quite fatal to the usefulness of a visit. It is perfectly possible to combine prompt.i.tude with quiet; to come manifestly on business, and yet not in a bustle. We Clergymen may learn many valuable lessons in this, as in some other parts of our work, from our medical friends. Observe how a wise and kindly doctor visits _his_ parishioners. He knows exactly why he comes; he knows that other patients are wanting him, in long succession; he knows that he must observe and advise as promptly and as much to the point as possible; and he knows that all must be done with a quiet, strong, untroubled manner, if it is to be done aright.