142
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
When the church bell rings the passerby hears it calling “Come and hear what the minister has to say about the great verities of the spiritual life! Come and hear what a man who professes to have learned the Scriptures has to say, on divine authority, as to the great problems of eter nity! Come and hear how to be saved from the shame and power and penalty of sin!” The man enters and often times what does he hear? Music, beautiful rhetoric, dis quisitions on secular themes, all “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.” No Christ! No Cross! No Scripture! And no authority for anything, except the ipse dixit of a man whose breath is in his nostrils. Is it any wonder that the next time the church bell rings the stranger answers, “You can’t fool me; I’ve been there.” No Competition In all the world there is no higher calling than to be a preacher of the unsearchable riches of Christ. To preach science is to preach something which the hearer can get, better and cheaper, in any near-by lecture hall. To preach politics is to preach something which the hearer can find every morning in his newspaper. To offer music or moving pictures is to enter into a hopeless competition with places of amusement. But to preach the Gospel! Ah, here is a coign of vantage! Why should we turn to adventitious attractions when we have such a monopoly? Our ministry is the greatest of syndicates. It drives all competitors to the wall. It furnishes a life-giving Gospel on such divinely generous terms that nobody can compete with it. To the same cause we attribute the prevalent shortage in the ministerial supply. Let there be no misapprehension at this point. In Theological Seminaries where the funda mentals of Christianity are loyally maintained there is no lack of theologues. The President of one of our so-called “fresh-water colleges” (and thank God there are many of these, where rationalism has not undermined the founda tions of faith!) in a recent letter says: “Of the eighteen young men who graduated at our last commencement, no less than fourteen are now in training for. the ministry.” But in other quarters the complaint is lamentably true. A minister in one of the leading denominations in New England—the camping-ground of the liberals—wrote: “We are coming to see more and more clearly the seriousness of the problem relative to the Christian ministry. By a report there were but sixty young men in the Baptist churches of Massachusetts who were regular students with the pulpit in view.” How shall this condition be accounted for? It is fre quently referred to the fact that “the salaries of ministers are so small.” Is that it? If so it is the first time in the history of the Christian Church when the supply of its pulpit was openly and avowedly dominated by the question of dollars and cents. Has the spirit of self-denial so ut terly forsaken the followers of the Christ who said, “Pro vide no silver nor scrip for your journey?” No such asper sion as this has been put upon the ministry since the days of Simon Magus; and I for, one do not believe it. The alchemists used to say that a lodestone, when rubbed with garlic, lost its power. The touch of avarice on our com mission would have a like effect upon it. Lack of Candidates If we would discover the real reason for the lack of can didates we must go back to the original source of supply. The ranks of the ministry are recruited from the youth who issue from our institutions of learning. Have these in
stitutions been loyal or otherwise to the Scriptures during the last forty years while the new generation has been growing up? In many of our public schools, and particularly in those of our larger cities, the Bible has within the period in dicated been wholly ruled out. For reasons chiefly political the one text-book which is acknowledged to have had more influence in history than any or possibly all others has been put under the ban. On graduating from our public schools those who have desired to pursue their education further have gone to colleges and universities in many of which the Bible is either ignored or derided. The chairs of science and phil osophy in most of our State Universities and in many in stitutions which were originally endowed by Christian men are filled by professors made in Germany and drenched in rationalism. To such teachers we are indebted for an en tirely new list of definitions of moral and religious things. God is defined to be “law,” “energy,” “a multiplicity of in finities,” an impersonal something or other which has not the semblance of the ghost of a god. Man is defined to be the ultimate product of the calm operation of natural laws. Life is defined to be “a definite combination of heterogen eous changes.” Brain is phosphorus and thought is the re sult of atomic friction. Religious experience is a succession of physical spasms. Sin is a disease of the nerves. And Heaven is a dream. And there are Theological Seminaries where the Bible is in the curriculum only to be torn asunder as an unbe lievable book. Its doctrines, resting on divine authority, are supplanted by dogmas resting on the inner conscious ness or infallible Ego of the professors who advocate them. The doctrine of the Virgin-birth of Christ is denied by those in solemn covenant to maintain it. The doctrine of Regeneration, which is set forth in the teachings of Jesus as a revolutionary change in the human constitution, is re duced to turning over a new leaf. The doctrine of the Atonement is declared to be a splendid illustration of al truism on the part of a tremendously good man. The doc trine of Immortality is a matter for scientific investigation to be ultimately determined by the evidence of the physical senses. The Resurrection of the- body is figure of speech. Miracles are impossible in the necessity of the case, since all things are governed by inviolable law. Sanctification is ethical culture, and “the only Judgment Day is every day.” Is it any wonder under such circumstances that the sup ply of candidates for the ministry has fallen off? What in centive is there for a youth to go into the ministry if these things are so? What is there for him to preach? Shall he preach his doubts, when he knows that everybody feels as Goethe did, who wrote, “If you believe”anything, for God’s sake tell me; but withhold'your doubts; I have enough of my own!” Shall he preach Repentance? Re pentance from what? From a nervous disease? Call in a physician. Shall he preach Salvation? Salvation from what, and unto what? Shall he preach Christ? Why not Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or Epictetus or any other good man? In point of fact there is practically nothing left for him to preach. If the things alleged against the doctrines of Scripture are true, a young man with a life of promise and ambition before him would be a fool to enter the ministry. Let him rather go into the practice of law or medicine, where there is something doing. Let him make an honest living with (Continued on Page 189)
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker