CHAPTER XII.
PASTORAL WORK.
The work of the faithful minister covers all the round week. On the one day he teaches his people in the house of God, on the remaining days he teaches and guides them in their own houses and wherever he may happen to meet them. His labors, therefore, are twofold; the work of the preacher and the work of the pastor. The two ought to be inseparable; what the Providence of God and good common sense have joined together let no man venture to put asunder. The great business of every true minister is the winning of souls to Jesus Christ, and to bring them up in godly living. In other words, to make bad men good, and good men better. All this cannot be accomplished by two sermons a week, even if they were the best that Paul himself could deliver; in fact, the best part of Paul's recorded work was quite other than public preaching. As for our blessed Master, He has left one extended discourse and a few shorter ones, but oh, how many narratives we have of His personal visits, personal conversation and labors of love with the sick, the sinning, and the suffering! He was the shepherd who knew every sheep in the flock. The importance of all that portion of a minister's work that lies outside of his pulpit can hardly be overestimated. The great element of power with every faithful ambassador of Christ should be heart-power and the secret of popularity is to take an interest in everybody. A majority of all congregations, rich or poor, is reached, not so much through the intellect as through the affections. This is an encouraging fact, that while only one man in ten may have been born to become a very great preacher, the other nine, if they love their Master and love human souls, can become great pastors. Nothing gives a minister such heart-power as personal acquaintance and personal attention to those whom he aims to influence; especially his personal attention will be welcome in seasons of trial. Let the pastor make himself at home in everybody's home. Let him go often to visit their sick rooms and kneel beside their empty cribs, and comfort their broken hearts, and pray with them. Let him go to the business men of his congregation when they have suffered reverses, and give them a word of cheer; let him be quick to recognize the poor and the children, and he will weave a cord around the hearts of his people that will stand a prodigious pressure. His inferior sermons (for every minister is guilty of such occasionally) will be kindly condoned, and he can launch the most pungent truths at his auditors, and they will not take offense. He will have won their hearts to himself, and that is a great step toward drawing them to the house of God and winning their souls to the Saviour. "A house-going minister," said Chalmers, "makes a church-going people." There is still one other potent argument for close intercourse with his congregation that many ministers are in danger of ignoring or underestimating. James Russell Lowell has somewhere said that books are, at best, but dry fodder, and that we need to be vitalized by contact with living people. The best practical discourses often are those which a congregation help their minister to prepare. By constant and loving intercourse with the individuals of his church he becomes acquainted with their peculiarities, and this enlarges his knowledge of human nature. It is second only to a knowledge of God's Word. If a minister is a wise man (and neither God nor man has any use for fools) he will be made wiser by the lessons and suggestions which he can gain from constant and close intercourse with the immortal beings to whom he preaches.
In Dundee, Scotland, I conversed with a gray-headed member of St. Peter's Presbyterian Church who, in his youth, listened to the sainted Robert Murray McCheyne. He spoke of him with the deepest reverence and love; but the one thing that he remembered after forty-six years was that Mr. McCheyne, a few days before his death, met him on the street and, laying hand upon his shoulder, said to him kindly: "Jamie, I hope it is well with your soul. How is your sick sister? I am going to see her again shortly." That sentence or two had stuck to the old Christian for over forty years. It had grappled his pastor to him, and this little narrative gave me a fresh insight into McCheyne's wonderful power. His ministry was most richly successful, and largely because he kept in touch with his people, and was a great pastor as well as a great preacher.
I determined from the very start in my ministry that I would be a thorough pastor. A very celebrated preacher once said to me: "I envy you your love for pastoral work, I would not do it if I could, I could not do it if I would; for a single hour with a family in trouble uses up more of my vitality than to prepare a sermon." My reply to him was: "That may be true, but, after all, the business of a minister is to endure these strains upon his nervous system if he would be a comforter, as well as the teacher of his people."
My practice was this: I devoted the forenoon of every day, except Monday, to the preparation of my discourses. My motto was: "Study God's Word in the morning, and door-plates in the afternoon." I found the physical exercise in itself a benefit, and the spiritual benefits were ten-fold more. I secured and kept a complete record of the whereabouts of all my congregation and requested from the pulpit that prompt information be given me of any change of residence, and also of any case of sickness or trouble of any kind. I encouraged my people to send me word when there was any case of religious interest in their families or any matter of importance to discuss with me. In short, I endeavored to treat my flock exactly as though they were my own family, and to be perfectly at home in their homes. I managed to visit every family at least once in each year and as much oftener as circumstances required. As I had no "loafing" places, I easily got through my congregation, which, in Brooklyn, numbered several hundreds of families.
Spurgeon had an assistant pastor for his immense flock, but he made it a rule to visit the sick or dying on as many occasions as possible. He once said from his pulpit: "I have been this week to visit two of my church members who were near Eternity, and both of them were as happy as if they were going to a wedding. Oh, it makes me preach like a lion when I see how my people can die."
It was always my custom to take a particular neighborhood, and to call upon every parishioner in that street, or district, but I seldom found it wise to send word in advance to any family, that I would visit them on a certain day or hour, for I might be prevented from going, and thus subject them to disappointment; consequently, I had to run the risk of finding them at home. If they were out I left my card, and tried again at another time. In calling on my people unawares, I found it depended upon myself to secure a cordial welcome, for I went in with a hearty salutation and asked them to allow me to sit down with them wherever they were, regardless of dress or ceremony, and soon I found myself perfectly at home with them. No one should be so welcome as a faithful pastor. I encouraged them to talk about the affairs of our church, about the Sabbath services, and the truths preached, and the influences that Sabbath messages were having upon them. In this way I have discovered whether or not the shots were striking; for the gunnery that hits no one is not worth the powder.
Fishing for compliments is beneath any man of common sense, but it does cheer the pastor's heart to be told, "Your sermon last Sunday brought me a great blessing; it helped me all the week." Or better still, "Your sermon brought me to decide for Christ." In a careful and delicate way, I drew out our people in regard to their spiritual condition, and if I found that any member of the family was anxious about his or her soul, I managed to have a private and unreserved conversation with that person. It is well for every minister to be careful how he guards the confidence reposed in him. The family physician and the family pastor often have to know some things they do not like to know, but they never should allow any one else to know them.
This intimate, personal intercourse with my flock enabled me more than once to bring the undecided to a decision for Christ. In dealing with such cases, whether in the home or in the inquiry-room, I aimed to discover just what hindrance was in the path of each awakened soul. It is a great point also for such a one to discover what it is that keeps him or her from surrendering to Christ. If it be some habit or some evil practice, that must be given up; if some heart sin, that we must yield, even if it be like plucking out an eye or lopping off a right hand. It was my aim, and ever has been, to convince every awakened person that unless he or she was willing to give the heart to Jesus and to do His will there was no hope for them. We must shut every soul up to Christ.
I requested my people to inform me promptly of every case of serious sickness, and I could never be too prompt in responding to such a call. However busy I might be in preparing sermons or any commendable occupation everything else was laid aside. For a pastor should be as quick to respond to a call of sickness as an ambulance is to reach the scene of disaster. I sometimes found that a parishioner had been suddenly attacked with dangerous illness and even my entrance in the sick room might agitate the patient. At such times I found it necessary to use all the tact and delicacy and discretion at my command. I would never needlessly endanger a sick person by efforts to guide or console an immortal spirit. I aimed to make my words few, calm and tender, and make every syllable to point toward Jesus Christ. Whoever the sufferer may be, saint or sinner, his failing vision should be directed to "no man save Jesus only" It is not commonly the office of the pastor to tell the patient that his or her disease is assuredly fatal, but if we know that death is near, in the name of the Master, let us be faithful as well as tender.
There are many cases of extreme and critical illness when the presence of even the most loving pastor may be an unwise intrusion. An excellent Christian lady who had been twice apparently on the brink of death said to me: "Never enter the room of a person who is extremely low, unless the person urgently requests you to, or unless spiritual necessity absolutely compels it. You have no idea how the sight of a new face agitates the sufferer, and how you may unconsciously and unintentionally rob that sufferer of the little life that is fluttering in the feeble frame," I felt grateful to the good woman for her advice, and have often acted upon it, when the family have unwisely importuned me to do what would have been more harmful than beneficial. On some occasions, when I have found a sick room crowded by well-meaning but needless intruders, I have taken the liberty to "put them all forth," as our Master did in that chamber in which the daughter of Jairus was in the death slumber.
A great portion of the time and attention which I bestowed upon the sick was spent on chronic sufferers, who had been confined to their beds of weariness for months or years. I visited them as often as possible. Some of those bedridden sufferers were prisoners of Jesus Christ, who did me quite as much good as I could possibly do them. What eloquent sermons they preached to me on the beauty of submissive patience and on the supporting power of the "Everlasting arms!" Such interviews strengthened my faith, softened my heart, and infused into it something of the spirit of Him who "Took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." McCheyne, of Dundee, said that before preaching on the Sabbath he sometimes visited some parishioner, who might be lying extremely low, for he found it good "to take a look over the verge."
In my pastoral rounds I sometimes had an opportunity to do more execution in a single talk than in a score of sermons. I once spent an evening in a vain endeavor to bring a man to a decision for Christ. Before I left, he took me up-stairs to the nursery, and showed me his beautiful children in their cribs. I said to him tenderly: "Do you mean that these sweet children shall never have any help from their father to get to Heaven?" He was deeply moved, and in a month that man became an active member of my church. He was glued to me in affection for all the remainder of his useful life. On a cold winter evening I made a call on a wealthy merchant in New York. As I left his door, and the piercing gale swept in I said, "What an awful night for the poor!" He went back, and bringing to me a roll of bank bills, he said: "Please hand these, for me, to the poorest people you know of." After a few days I wrote to him, sending him the grateful thanks of the poor whom his bounty had relieved, and added: "How is it that a man who is so kind to his fellow creatures has always been so unkind to his Saviour as to refuse Him his heart?" That sentence touched him in the core. He sent for me immediately to come and converse with him. He speedily gave his heart to Christ, united with, and became a most useful member of our church. But he told me I was the first person who had ever spoken to him about his spiritual welfare in nearly twenty years. In the case of this eminently effective and influential Christian, one hour of pastoral work did more than the pulpit efforts of almost a lifetime.