The people went to hear him even after they had ceased to believe in him. They applauded, laughed, or were silent as he pleased. But they were being entertained--nothing more. His art was still perfect, but his power over the minds and souls of men which made men believe and do was gone forever.
Believe what you say, therefore. Say what you believe. Say it simply, earnestly, as though you were pleading for all that is dearest to you on earth. For, after all, that is what you are speaking for--truth.
And if the truth for which you are speaking is not dear to you, go about your other business and remain silent.
Let your brother who has "the call" utter that message which your faith is not strong enough to voice; for he, having "the call," will "speak as one having authority," and therefore "the common people will hear him gladly."
To effect anything; to achieve a result; to make your words deeds, as the old Scotch thinker declared they should be or else not be uttered, you must teach. And in your teaching you must teach "as one having authority."
To the Master we must go, after all, even for our methods of utterance, and at His feet learn that oratory is the utterance of the truth by one who knows it to be the truth. And so will your words be words of fire, and your speech have weight among your fellow men.
VII
THE YOUNG MAN AND THE PULPIT
All who do their best, and in doing their best do a good piece of work, deserve equal credit whether the work be little or big. The architect who builds a house has wrought for humanity as truly as the statesman who builds a government. One man can make bricks well and another lead armies to victory; yet each one has fulfilled his destiny if his achievement was what he was fitted for and if he has done his best.
From one point of view all occupations that help one"s fellow men are important. Who shall say that the hod-carrier has not done as much for humanity as orator or poet. The cook is as necessary as the philosopher. Compare the blacksmith and the sculptor. The point is, that all useful labor is equally n.o.ble. It all has its place. Each of the workers of the world is required in the human cosmos.
It may not be that the worker himself sees that he is essential. It may not be that he understands the outcome of his striving. For that matter we are each and all toiling as blindly as the coral insect, and yet our labor is as much a part of a symmetrical structure as is the life and perishing of that polyp.
We are all pouring out our energies day by day without understanding what effect our spent lives will have in the general result of human effort. And some of us get heart-sick, no doubt, and weary; and discouragement whispers, "What"s the use," and many another wily phrase of Satan.
Very well; let every man, however humble or conspicuous his place among men, understand that his work _does_ count and will become a part of an harmonious whole. "All things work together for good."
No matter that _we_ do not know what we are here for. _We_ may not understand how our lives are to be woven into the great design of the world"s work any more than a single thread of some wonderful and beautiful rug understands the pattern of which it is a part.
No matter, I say. The Master-Weaver understands what we are here for and what we are doing, and that is enough. He has uses for every sound thread and doubtless one is as important as another. Vaunt not yourself O thread of purple, over your fellow-thread of white!
a.s.serting then that the man who quarries stone has served humanity as well as he who writes a book, if quarrying stone is what he can do best; a.s.serting the equal value of all things done well and the equal dignity of all sincere and honest work of hand and brain, I shall not be misunderstood when I say that the present day has developed three careers of usefulness which, while not more important, are more continuously prominent than any others.
These are statesmanship, journalism, and the pulpit.
The Pulpit deals with faith. It has to do with religion. Religion makes moral ideals vital. Moral ideals make individual life sweet and satisfying, national life strong and pure. "Righteousness exalteth a nation." The young man and the pulpit are therefore preeminent in conspicuity.
The American people at heart are a religious people. They are practical and fearless, too. If you will listen to the chance conversations of the ordinary American you will find that the laymen of the Nation have some very decided views upon the Pulpit, the man who fills it, and the work he ought to do.
In the breast of the millions there is not only a great need but a great yearning for certain things of the soul which it is for the Pulpit to supply. This paper is an attempt to talk as one of these millions to the young man who is about to mount to this sacred station.
"I have just come from church," said a friend one day, "and I am tired and disappointed. I went to hear a sermon and I listened to a lecture.
"I went to worship and I was merely entertained.
"The preacher was a brilliant man and his address was an intellectual treat; but I did not go to church to hear a professional lecturer.
When I want merely to be entertained I will go to the theater.
"But I do not like to hear a preacher princ.i.p.ally try to be either orator or artist. I am pleased if he is both; but before everything else I want him to bear _me_ the Master"s message. I want the minister to preach Christ and Him crucified."
The man who said this was a journalist of ripe years, highly educated, widely experienced, acquainted with men and life. He was world-weary with that weariness which comes of the journalist"s incessant contact with every phase of human activity, good and bad, great and small.
For no man touches life at so many points and is both so rich in and worn by human experiences as the newspaper man in daily service. And I have found that this expression of the wise old man of the press whom I have quoted fairly reflects a general feeling among men of all other cla.s.ses.
First, then, young man aspiring to the Pulpit, the world expects you to be above all other things a minister of the Gospel. It does not expect you to be, primarily, a brilliant man, or a learned man, or witty, or eloquent, or any other thing that would put your name on the tongues of men. The world will be glad if you are all of these, of course; but it wants you to be a preacher of the Word before anything else. It expects that all your talents will be consecrated to your sacred calling.
It expects you to speak to the heart, as well as to the understanding, of men and women, of the high things of faith, of the deep things of life and death. The great world of worn and weary humanity wants from the Pulpit that word of helpfulness and power and peace which is spoken only by him who has utterly forgotten all things except his holy mission. Therefore merge all of your striking qualities into the divine purpose of which you are the agent. Lose consciousness of yourself in the burning consciousness of your cause.
Very well; but if you do that you must be very sure of your own belief. Any man who a.s.sumes to teach the Christian faith, who in his own secret heart questions that faith himself, commits a sacrilege every time he enters the pulpit.
Can it be that the lack of living interest in certain church services is caused by a sort of subconscious knowledge of the people, that the minister himself is speaking from the head rather than from the heart; that what he says comes from his intellect and not as the "spirit gives him utterance"; and, to put it bluntly, that he himself "no more than half believes what he says."
"The man spoke as if he were bored with endless repet.i.tion of sermons," said a close observer of a weary parson.
Certain it is that even in political speaking the man who believes what he says has power over his audience out of all comparison with a far more eloquent man whom his hearers know to be speaking perfunctorily.
No matter how much the latter kind of speaker polishes his periods, no matter how fruitful in thought his address, no matter how perfect the art of his delivery, he fails in the ultimate effect wrought by a much inferior speaker whose words are charged with conviction.
He is like the chemist"s grain of wheat, perfect in all its const.i.tuent elements except the mysterious spark of life, without which the wheat grain will not grow.
If then you do not believe what you say and believe it with all your soul, believe it in your heart of hearts, do not try to get other men to believe it. You will not be honest if you do. The world expects you to be sure of yourself. How do you expect to make other people sure of themselves if you are not sure of yourself?
"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother"s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
"Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother"s eye."
The world is hungry for faith. Do not doubt this for a moment. More men and women to-day would rather believe in the few fundamentals of the Christian religion than have any other gift that lavish fortune could bestow upon them.
But these millions want to _believe_; they do not want to argue or be argued at.
They want to believe so utterly that their faith amounts to knowledge.
Doubtings are disquieting; pros and cons are monotonous. We want certainty, we laymen.
For years I have made it a point to get the opinion of the ablest and most widely experienced men and women I met on the subject of immortality. In all cases I found that the subject in which they were more deeply interested than in all other subjects put together.
"I would rather be sure that when a man dies he will live again with his conscious ident.i.ty, than to have all the wealth of the United States, or to occupy any position of honor or power the world could possibly give," said a man whose name is known to the railroad world as one of the ablest transportation men in the United States.
"Do you know when I am by myself I think about a lot of strange things. Is the soul immortal and what is the soul anyhow?" It is a politician who is talking now, and a ward politician at that, a man whom few would suspect of thinking upon these subjects at all.
So you see, young man, you who are being measured for the Cloth, that all manner and conditions of men are thinking about the great problems of which you are the expounder, and longing for the answer to those problems which it is your business to give them. That is the condition of the mind of the millions.
Very well! What is the condition of the mind of the young minister? A few years ago a certain man, with good opportunities for the investigation and a probability of sincere answers, asked every young preacher whom he met during a summer vacation these questions:
"First, Yes or no, do you believe in G.o.d, the Father; G.o.d a person, G.o.d a definite and tangible intelligence--not a congeries of laws floating like a fog through the universe; but G.o.d a person in whose image you were made? Don"t argue; don"t explain; but is your mind in a condition where you can answer yes or no?"