August, 1935
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condemned as unintentionally uttering falsehoods, and mis leading their too trusting readers. W ha t O thers H ave D one Finally, a minister is tempted to undertake a vast amount of non-Biblical reading, greater than he can pos sibly carry without danger to his own spiritual life, because he reads of others who have been able to carry such a pro gram successfully. One thing should be remembered here: God gives different gifts' to different men. I personally know a famous professor of Greek in this country, who, in a sabbatical year, went to Harvard University to study political economy, and who was known to be able to read ten volumes a day. This man had received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Jena University at the age of twenty-two. He knows Europe intimately. He is a mas ter of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, as well as most bf the important modern languages. He is an authority on art. He can discover what he wants in a book, and what is new to him in a book, within a few moments. He can tear out of any volume within an hour or two all that the book has for him, and he can remember for years what he has read. There is no use of any ordinary man’s trying to imitate such a person as this. Alexander Whyte would take away with him on a summer vacation three great trunks of books, and would come back to Free St. George’s, Edin burgh, and lecture through the fall and winter to a great gathering of university students every Sunday night after his evening sermon. We might envy these men, but it is useless for us to think that we can do what they did, or do. We must plan according to the capacities God has given us. Every man must arrange his reading according to his own ability, and not according to a schedule carried out by a man of an altogether different type of mind. T h e E ffect of U nbalanced R eading Yielding to the temptation of a disproportionate allot ment of time and strength to non-Biblical literature, is bound to fundamentally warp a minister’s life and work. Inevitably, the Word of God will be crowded out from the first place in the life. There is no minister in the world who has been called to preach the gospel and expound the Word of God, who is exempt from the law that the Bible should take preeminent place in his thinking and reading. The Word of God is the only work in the world inspired of the Holy Spirit and eternally true. It is the one funda mental, unchangeable message that God has given to man. The Scriptures are “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is ip righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work” (2 Tim. 3 :16, 17, R.V.). The truth about God is to be found in the Word where God has re vealed Himself, and not in the latest speculations concern ing relativity, however important they are. The truth for man’s moral guidance is to be found in the law of the Lord, and in the life of the perfect Man Christ Jesus, and not in the disastrous theories of modern psychology. The only volume that reveals the secret of peace and joy is .the Word of God, where the only remedy for sin is to be discovered, in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Man’s greatest tragedy remains the same today as in all the centuries gone by—sin. Call it what he will, that is what binds him, what depresses him, what blinds him, what weakens him, and what makes life bitter. It is the secret of all our crime and of criminal problems—sin, and there is absolutely no de liverance from it and from all of its awful consequences outside of Christ Jesus, who came to save us from our sins. That truth is in the Word of God alone, and not in art, or [Continued on page 294]
Courtesy, Sunset
THE MINISTER’S SECULAR READING [Continued from page 287]
in the physical sciences tempt one to feel that he must at once master the newest revelations in physiology, physics, chemistry, and astronomy. I rode into Philadelphia the other day with a young member of my church, a Junior in a famous school of science in the East. He had in his hand a textbook on physical chemistry. I opened it and dis covered myself in a world of which I had never dreamed, a world I did not understand, and yet a most important world, a world of facts and realities concerning some of the most fundamental things in the universe. For a moment one would be almost tempted to forsake his appointed task in life, and to put himself under the tutelage of some pro fessor of science, that he might at least become acquainted with some of these wonderful things that our younger gen eration is mastering. The revolution in economic theory in our country has turned the minds of all of us to the very structure and fundamental principles of our economic civ ilization, and books dealing with these subjects seem al most irresistible. One hardly feels himself intelligent un less, now and then, he reads some standard work on Rus sia, or a volume on modern European history. The ex ploration of ancient civilizations has alone given us a great library of literature, and if one has any love at all for the ancient world, he finds volumes continually produced, writ ten in a fascinating style, full of thrilling discoveries, which he can hardly resist taking under his arm to flee to some secluded spot to read them at once. Furthermore, ad vertising has reached such a degree of perfection that a minister can hardly open any standard periodical, be it religious or secular, but that, before he has finished turning the pages of advertising matter and of book reviews, he finds himself almost convinced that there are at least six or eight, or perhaps ten new books that “no minister can do without.” Personally, and this is aside, I think that many of our reviewers are committing a crime against the clergy men of today by making insignificant books which they re view appear as “indispensable” and “epochal.” Many pages of book-reviewing in our religious journals must be
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