13. Internal Humiliation on perceiving in ourselves the Man at so great a distance from the Preacher.-Has not the most faithful man sometimes become weak, and felt himself reproved by these words: "What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, and to take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee?"-Ps. 1., 16, 17.

14. The agonizing Thought, that one bears in his Hands the Destinies of so many Souls, and that he exercises a Ministry which kills, if it does not give Life.-It kills, in aggravating the condemnation of those who might, but do not profit by it. Thus it is with a faithful ministry. As to him who exercises it without fidelity, and whose life does not correspond to his word, it kills in another manner.* And this thought, that the scandals we give are the greatest of all, and that the least unfaithfulness in us has the gravest consequences, is enough to frighten us, and make us say, "Lord, send by whom thou wilt send." Let us hear Massillon: "The Gospel, to the greater part of the people, is the life of the priests of which they are witnesses." And this will always be so in the bosom of Protestantism. They regard the public ministry as a stage designed for the exhibition of the great maxims which are beyond the reach of human weakness; but they regard our life as the reality, and the true standard to which they should conform." And further, We are pillars of the sanctuary, which, if overthrown and cast about in public places, become stones of stumbling to passengers."†

15. The most deplorable case is when these wounds, which

"Par fois li communal clergié,

Voi-je malement engignie,

Icil font le siècle mescroire."

La Bible Guyot (Treizième Siècle).

MASSILLON: Discours sur l'excellence du Sacerdoce. First Reflec

tion, near the end.

the consolations of God alone should heal, become healed by habit, and by a false resignation-a case which too often oc curs. As it has been said, "repeated repentance wears out the soul," and puts it, so to speak, out of humor with itself. All these troubles are painful, but there are many of them which it is more hurtful to avoid than grievous to submit to; and all need to be foreseen, and, as it were, tasted beforehand.

To this enumeration, perhaps incomplete, and of which no trait, perhaps, is presented strongly enough, we may with confidence oppose, as a compensation, the following advantages:

Religion, which is the most excellent thing, and the whole concern of man, is the minister's office and duty for all days and all hours; that which mingles itself with the life of other men constitutes his life.

He lives in the midst of the loftiest and sublimest ideas, and of occupations of the highest utility.

He is called to do nothing but good; nothing obliges him, nothing entices him to do evil.

He occupies no rank in the social hierarchy, belongs to no class, but serves as a bond to all; representing in himself better than any other, the ideal unity of society. The minister, it is true, is not so well situated in this respect as the unmarried priest. But yet he may have this privilege when he wishes it.

This life, unless circumstances are very unfavorable, is the most proper realization of the ideal of a happy life. It has a great regularity, a sort of uniform calm, where, perhaps, is to be found the true place of earthly happiness. The predilection of poets and romancers for the character of a country pastor is not without foundation. All this is true only on the supposition that the pastor is faithful, and filled with the spirit of his profession. If he has this spirit, all is counterbalanced, corrected, transformed; and it suffices him, with

* Allusion to a passage from Corinne, book x., c. v.—Editor.

out minutely weighing the inconveniences and advantages, to make one reflection: "Jesus Christ assigns to his ministers painful trials, internal and external, to the end that they may sympathize with their flock, and know, from their own heart, the seduction of sin, the infirmities of the flesh, and the manner in which the Lord sustains and supports all those who trust in him. So that, in a certain degree, one may transfer to the minister what has been said of Jesus Christ: "We have not a high-priest who can not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all things tempted as we are."-Heb., iv., 15.

In short, the word of God, directly or indirectly, blesses peculiarly his labors and his estate.

It declares (remark the gradation) that "those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." -Dan., xii., 3.

In promising to the immediate ministers of Jesus Christ that, in the renovation of all things, "they shall sit upon thrones, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel," it presents to their successors proportional honors and rewards. - Matt., xix., 28.

It so honors and blesses the ministry, that even to those who aid it special promises are given: "He who receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward."-Matt., x., 41.

7. Call to the Evangelical Ministry.

L

But the advantages of the present life which we have mentioned, and the promises of the life to come to which we have referred, will be, the first wholly deceptive, the second without effect, for the minister who becomes one without a call to the ministry. We must put a call into the balance as a * JOHN NEWTON: Cardiphonia, vol. iii., p. 12.

weight, to raise that other scale, so full of griefs and fatigues, which the want of a call not only does not mitigate, but fearfully aggravates. Apart from a call, all the advantages vanish; some also of the disadvantages will disappear, and there remains a life the most false, and, consequently, the most unhappy, that can be imagined.

It is always unhappy to be unequal to the business which we have to perform, or to feel ourselves out of sympathy with it; but this unhappiness is inexpressible in the case of the ministry, and nothing can save us from it but insensibility or degradation; while, though every thing be adverse, and the trials of the ministry be carried to the highest degree imaginable, a call corrects every thing, renders every thing agreeable, and makes these troubles themselves an element of happiness.

But it is not only under the aspect of happiness or unhappiness that we must contemplate the subject. The minister without a call is not only unhappy, he is guilty; he occupies a place, he exercises a right which does not belong to him. He is, as Jesus Christ said, a hireling and a robber, who has not entered by the door, but by a breach.

The word call has, when applied to professions of a temporal order, only a figurative signification; at least, we only so understand it. It is equivalent to talent, aptitude, taste. It has been natural to represent these terms as voices, as calls. But, applied to the ministry, the word approaches its proper sense. When conscience commands, and obliges us to discharge a certain task, we have that which, next to a miracle, merits best the name of a call. And it must be nothing less. To exercise legitimately the ministry, we must have been called to it.

I do not wish, however, to draw too strictly the line of distinction between the ministry and temporal professions in respect to a call. Wherever there is responsibility, wherever one may do injury in charging himself with a work which is

not his, there is room for inquiring whether he is called to it. And even between two occupations, to one of which he is better suited than to the other, and in one of which he may be more useful than the other, there is one to which, in a Christian point of view, we may say he is called.

This idea is consecrated in the Old Testament, all the parts of which, provided they are spiritualized, may be transferred to the New. No one was a prophet to his superior, at least in the special sense of the word prophet; for there is another sense in which prophesying belongs to all, as forcibly appears from the beautiful words of Moses, "Would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets."-Num., xi., 29. He fulfilled an extraordinary vocation because it conferred extraordinary powers. Whatever may be the author. ity of the pastor, in one sense, it will always remain inferior to that of the prophet.* Now prophets could not be invested with such an authority without an express call; and we understand, in this view of the case, the threatenings denounced against those who should prophesy without a call: "If a prophet shall presume to speak in my name a word which I have not commanded him to speak, that prophet shall die."-Deut., xviii., 20. Say thou to them that prophesy out of their own heart, Woe to the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing "†-Ezek., xiii., 2, 3. "I am against the prophets that steal my words." -Jer., xxiii., 30.

Mutatis mutandis, the necessity of a call remains, and on this point, as on others, we only need to translate the Old Testament in the language of the New. The ages are destined to replace one another, but the foundation of eternal truth remains always the same. It is ever true, then, that

* See Isaiah, xxxix., verse 3, seq.

This same idea is symbolized in Numbers, i., 51, "When the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up, and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death."

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