Finally, above all else is the spiritual study and interpretation of the Word of God. A minister may be fearless of the investigations of scientific criticism. Every truth is important to him, but not all truths are vital. When a man such as Caspar Rene Gregory speaks, something of the holy mystery and inspiration of biblical research, as well as a scientific result, is presented, and one gains a new conception of what it really means to study and to understand the Word of God.
Under all is the life of ceaseless and prevailing prayer. By the life of prayer, many mean merely a way of learning to make public petitions, an objective appeal to God. The true life of prayer is as simple, as unteachable, and as vital as the life of a child with its mother—the little lips daily learning new ways of approach to its mother's heart, and new words to make its wants and interests and sorrows known.
Prayer is the true World-Power. Just as there are vast stretches in the world where the foot of man has never trod, so there are unmeasured regions whereon prayer has never been. The more we pray, the more illimitable appears this spiritual realm. And all about us in the universe are also great hidden forces: nothing will lay hold of them but prayer.
Each prayer enlarges the soul. The measure of our praying is the measure of our growth. No man has reached his full possibilities of achievement who has not completed the circuit of his possible prayers. Power is proportionate to prayer.
And last of all, there is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What it is, who may say? But that it is real, who can doubt? To read the lives of Wesley, Whitefield, Finney, Moody, is to feel a strange, deep thrill. They are men who spake, and men listened; who called, and men came to God. Others, alas, so often call, and there is no response. They cannot make headway through the indifference, the sloth, the materialism, and the inherent vulgarity of the world.
The life itself is arduous. After all is said, it is not quite the same task to examine and classify either protoplasm or the most highly organized forms of nature, that it is to analyze and understand the mysterious workings of the heart, the intricacies of conscience and conduct, the possibilities of spiritual development or of moral downfall, and the many questionings, agonies, and ecstasies of the soul of man. And they are to be studied and understood with the definite and positive aim of the absolute reconstruction of the world-bound spirit—a change of its motives, purposes, affections, ideals. More than this, there must be at the heart of the more thoughtful minister a philosophic basis for the reconstruction of society itself.
Youth is not an adequate preparation for this task: a man must live and grow. To deal with such themes and occasions, there must appear in the world lives of such vigor that they can command; of such charm, that they can attract; of such wisdom, that they can guide and comfort; of such vitality, that they can inspire. And hence there rises before the mind's eye a figure that is both knightly and kingly—a man earnest in the redress of wrong, and who yet holds a subtle authority over the forces that make for wrong; a man burdened with the cares and sorrows of many others, and yet conducting his own life with serenity, enthusiasm, dignity, and hope; a man to whose keen yet tender gaze a life-history is revealed by a word or tone, but whose own eyes receive their light from God. A prophet and a father, a priest and a counsellor, a brother, friend, and judge, a sacrifice and an inspiration should he be who, in reverence and love, brings before a waiting congregation the very Word of Life!
SECOND: OF SPIRITUAL RULE
1. The primary rule is over conscience. The man who sways a conscience sways a human life. The man who sways a nation's conscience controls that nation's life. To rule conscience, a man must himself be unprejudiced and well informed. He must strive, not to keep up an unhealthy excitement which shall make conscience introspective and morbid, but to preserve a sane moral outlook, to encourage freedom of thought and judgment, and to develop a normal conscience which reacts promptly against wrong. Conscience measures our inner recoil from evil. The power of a preacher is in direct proportion to the energy with which he reveals sin in the heart of man, and wakes his whole nature against its insidious power.
Sin is. To-day, sin is thought a somewhat brusque word, lacking in polish. To use it frequently is a mark of lack of 'savoir-faire! Indeed to speak of it at all is as archaic as to speak of the Ichthyosaurus. But sin is a root-fact of the life of man. It is the office of the spiritual teacher to pluck out sin; to pierce the heart with a recognition of the enormity of sin, and of its far-reaching consequences; to stir the seared conscience, rouse the apathetic life, thrill the spiritual imagination, and to quicken the heart to better love and to nobler dreams. He rebukes the private sins of individuals and the public sins of nations. In the Faerie Queene, the "soul-diseased knight" was in a state