PART SECOND

RELATIVE OR SOCIAL LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

SOCIAL LIFE IN GENERAL.

We are not now to treat of pastoral life in the direct and actual sense. We are to consider it in its relations to general society, regarded, however, from the stand-point and in the concerns of the ministry: not the office now, but only the duties.

In this view, however, it is the beginning, the nearer boundary of the ministry. The pastoral impress should show itself in these general relations. If the conduct of the pastor, in these general relations, does not announce him as pastor, it should at least correspond to this character. If we do not recognize him as a pastor, we should at least have no surprise on learning that he is one. Let this be his rule and measure.

It is important for a minister to keep a watch over himself in these social relations. He is a city set upon a hill. In the eyes of the world, he is the representative of Christian. ideas, and the majority judge of Christianity by his example.* This, perhaps, will not excuse them, but it involves him in a high responsibility.

"The people of this world," says Massillon, "regard our life as the reality and the just abatement to which they must adhere." (A passage already cited, page 69.)

The minister is the official Christian; he is a symbolic man. He is so at all times.

Those, then, who are not tempted to judge of Christianity by him, will judge him by the Christianity he preaches. In reality, these two things are not alternatives; they both exist. We shall be judged

by Christianity, and Christianity by us. We shall not think ourselves obliged to do better, or to be more useful than the pastor; and, on the other hand, we require him to be as perfect as his doctrine. We expect him to be the same when we see and when we hear him. And every one knows very well what he ought to be, for every one knows what a Christian ought to be. And if every one applied to himself the rule which he applies to the pastor, every one would be a model. Men are apt to frame the most exquisite morality as the measure of what is due from their neighbors, and the most relaxed morality as the measure of what is due from themselves. From these two perils the pastor would be tempted to despair, if he did not seek strength from a higher source than the world and himself. The world does more than judge; it binds the pastor to a certain mode of life. Its claims seem to be contradictory. It would seem to require the pastor to be perfect, and to be, at the same time, like other men. * But we may be certain that it knows what the pastor may and ought to be. It is difficult to the minister, as well as to the Christian, to be agreeable to every one; and we should never forget the Scripture, "Woe to you when all men shall speak well of you!"—Luke, vi., 26. But it is possible for him to render himself approved of every one. He may say to the world with St. Paul, "We are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences."-2 Cor., v., 11. In one sense he must seek this approbation: "A pastor," says St. Paul, "must have a good report of those who are without" (1 Tim., iii., 7); with

* Isaiah, xxx., 10; Matt., xi., 27. "We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned, and you have not lamented."

stronger reason, doubtless, of those who are in the Church. Thus the approbation of the world, as to all that of which the world can judge, is a thing which the minister must seek, and which he may obtain.

It is at once useful and encouraging to a minister to bear this in mind, while prescribing it to himself as an end and as a supreme rule, "to render himself approved of God" (2 Tim., ii., 15), and while he is preparing himself to say to the world, when it condemns him for what it does not understand, "With me it is a very small thing to be judged of you, or of man's judgment" (1 Cor., iv., 3); "If I seek to please men, I shall not be the servant of Christ."-Gal., i., 10. If severe consistency is honored even in evil, much more will it be in good. The condemnation of the world for our acts of fidelity never hurts us, never exposes us to contempt. There is a glory in this reproach, while all worldly complaisance or concession weakens, in every sense, our ministry, and draws reproach upon us.

Let us now see what are the principal traits under which the minister ought to exhibit himself in the general relations of society.

§ 1. Gravity.

This quality makes a part of the relative life. "A bishop must be grave."-1 Tim., iii., 2. This, as St. Paul says, is one of the first things; it is the first, as the world says.

Our translators employ the words grave and gravity to render,

Kóσμos (1 Tim., iii., 2), translated by Luther, sittig; by De Wette, anstændig; and by the English, of good behavior. Zεuvós (1 Tim., iii., 11, in speaking of the pastor's wife), translated by Luther and De Wette, ehrbar; and by the English, grave.

Zεuvórns (Tit., xi., 7), translated by Luther, ehrbarkeit ; by De Wette, würde; and by the English, gravity.

Gravity, from the word gravis, is the weight, more or less considerable, which an interest, an evil, &c., possesses. In external life and in manners it is whatever announces that a man bears the weight of a great thought or a great responsibility. The minister is the depositary of so great a thought, so great a responsibility, that gravity is but decency in his profession. It may be defined, the impress of the respect we bear for the object of our mission.

It is evident that external gravity is true and commendable only in so far as it answers to an internal gravity, which is the feeling of the weight of the responsibility with which we are charged. Gravity is not "a bodily mysteriousness, whose end is to hide the weakness of the mind."*

Nothing is more contrary to gravity than the affectation of gravity. "A too studied gravity," says La Bruyère, "becomes ludicrous: extremities meet; the mean between them is dignity. That is not being grave, but acting gravity: He who tries to be grave never will be. Either there is no gravity, or it is natural; and it is less difficult to descend from it than to arise to it." But much less must we affect the contrary. There have been ecclesiastics who, wishing too much to avoid alarming, have ended by compromising. This is seen particularly among the Catholics, because the quality of the priest-his habits, his dress-distinguish him from the world; and the frivolity by which he would remove the distinction makes it more apparent. "Could we not make persons of a certain character, and of a serious profession-to describe them no further-understand that they need not have it said of them that they play, they sing, they joke, like other men ; and that, to see them so pleasant and so agreeable, one would not think they were also so regular and so strict? Would one even dare to insinuate to them, that, by such manners, they remove themselves from that politeness on which they

* LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Réflexions Morales, celvii.

† LA BRUYÈRE, Les Caractères; in the chapter Des Jugemens

pique themselves; that, on the contrary, politeness suits and conforms externals to conditions; that it avoids contrast, and the exhibition of the same man under different figures, which make him a fantastic and grotesque compound?"*

Gravity shows itself in manners in general, and discourse in particular.

Under the general idea of manners, I class society, recreations, occupations, and costume.

As to society-we should not, certainly, restrict ourselves to seeing only one kind of persons, for fear of accrediting the false idea that the minister is not a man; but we should still more carefully avoid being seen every where. The pastor is a social man—not a man of society, still less a man of the world. He should make himself scarce, unless prohibited by charity, which alone is allowed to make him common. A man who is seen every where can not inspire respect. The judgment we form of a pastor who goes much into society is not very favorable. We suspect him of not being sensible of his duties, and of the need of solitude. Society multiplies the occasions for doing good, but much more the temptations to do evil. Then there are men whom the pastor should see neither at home nor elsewhere. St. Paul charges Timothy to avoid certain persons: Men whose lives are bad, and, above all, those who have the form of godliness, but deny its power. -2 Tim., iii., 5.

More than another, the minister should be select as to his associates. Others will be critical for him, and consequently severe, if he is not so for himself. This is important in order not only to preserve an exterior, to regard conventionalities, but to shun a real danger. To ministers, as well as others, this maxim applies: "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners." -1 Cor., xv., 33. "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not."

LA BRUYÈRE, Les Caractères; in the chapter Des Jugemens.

H