These incidents are glorified now by the influence of time, but, when they had to be endured, they were real and painful enough. To take but a single instance, what must it have been to a man of such sensitive honour and engaged only in doing good to be so frequently in the hands of the police and in the company of malefactors? In his epistles he cannot conceal the irritation caused by his "chain." Although in victorious moods he felt himself, as we have seen, borne onwards in triumph, in other moods he felt himself at the opposite extreme: "I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men; we are made as the filth of the world and are the offscourings of all things"; the reference being to the gladiators whose cheap lives were sacrificed to embellish the conqueror's triumph.
Yet it was never long before he could rally from such depression at the thought of the cause in which he suffered all; and his habitual mood, in the face of accumulating difficulties, was expressed in these heart-stirring words, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God."
It is good to linger beside one who was so faithful to his charge, so hard a worker and so patient a sufferer. We may learn from these extraordinary labours and sufferings to do honest work and to endure hardness ourselves.
Our sphere is, indeed, very different from his. His was so vast as to be almost limitless; ours may be very circumscribed. He was continually moving from place to place and encountering new people; we may have to labour among the same handful of people for a lifetime. He lived amidst daily novelty and excitement; we may have to fulfil an existence of deep monotony. And all the disadvantages do not belong to the large, difficult and dangerous lot. It may seem easy to be faithful in a small sphere and to exhaust all its possibilities. But the narrow lot has its trials as well as the wide one, and perhaps it does not require less virtue to overcome them. A stronger sense of duty may be needed to prepare an honest sermon week by week to a small and comparatively ignorant congregation than to bear the brunt of danger in an exposed post of the mission field.[55]
Nowhere can the ministry be easy if its responsibilities are realised and its duties honestly discharged. Look forward, I would say to you, to a labourious life. If you are thinking of the ministry otherwise, you had better turn back. Ours is a more crowded existence than that of any other profession.
There is the work of study and preaching. I do not know the details of a minister's week among you; but in Scotland ministers have, as a rule, two discourses to prepare for Sunday, besides a lesson for the Bible Class, which may involve as much work as a sermon; and we have at least one week-day meeting at which a lengthy address is given. For these four discourses subjects have to be found; materials for exposition and illustration have to be collected; the mind has first to make each subject its own and then to shape it into a form suitable for popular effect. A sermon may sometimes, indeed, come in a flash, and perhaps there is something of sudden discovery in the very best work; but even then time is required to work out the thought and enrich it with subsidiary thinking; and there are many discourses which are of no value without extensive investigation and the patient working-up of the quarried materials. Then follows the writing. This will take at least six or eight hours for a discourse, and may easily take much more. Many ministers do not write more than one discourse a week fully out, and probably they are wise; but many write two. Here, then, there is obviously ample work for a long forenoon on five days of the week. I have always had to add the afternoon of Friday and Saturday, and often the evening as well. Then comes the hard and exciting work of Sunday. It is a religious duty to rest on Monday, as we do not get the bodily rest of the Sabbath.[56]
There is the work of visitation. The sick and the bed-ridden must be visited; and it is of enormous profit to visit the whole congregation from house to house. As Dr. Chalmers said, the directest way to a man's heart is generally through the door of his home. Acquaintance with the actual circumstances of the families of the congregation gives wonderful reality and point to the prelections of Sunday. Our sermons must rise out of the congregation if they are ever to reach down to it again. Here, it is evident, there is abundant work for the afternoons which study leaves free. Many ministers have to add one or two evenings, the evening being the best time to find their people at home.
There is a third mass of work of an exceedingly miscellaneous character which absorbs much time and strength. It includes such duties as performing the ceremonies at baptisms, marriages and funerals; organizing the work of the congregation; attending church courts and sitting on committees; serving on school boards and the boards of benevolent societies; preaching from home and addressing the meetings of neighbour ministers; writing official letters; raising money; receiving visitors; writing for the press. It would be easy for ministers in positions of any prominence to spend their whole time in duties of this description, none of which might appear useless; so great is the multitude of the claims which pour in from every side.
I have said nothing of the time required for keeping abreast of the literature of the day or for cultivating an intellectual specialty. It is extraordinary what some of the busiest men achieve in this respect; but it is only managed by an economy and even penury of time for which a kind of genius is requisite. Of course there are seasons of the year when the pressure of public engagements is not so great; and ministers are allowed longer holidays than other professional men. A couple of hours a day given from a holiday to great reading may shoot threads of fresh colour through the whole web of a season's work. Nor have I said anything of the time necessary for thinking over the devotional portion of the service of the sanctuary, though in our churches, where free prayer prevails, this deserves as careful attention as the sermon.
The glimpse which I have given you into the details of a minister's week will help you to realise that the life which lies before you is a labourious one. Of course the labour may be shirked. Ministers have their time in their own hands; they have no office hours; and, I suppose, a minister's life may be more ignobly idle than any other professional man's. That is, if he has no conscience.