“Honour thy father and thy mother....
“Thou shalt not kill.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.
“Thou shalt not steal.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
“Though shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, ... nor anything that is thy neighbour’s.
“And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking.”...
Now, the practical usefulness of the preacher lies largely in the fact that he supplies the sanctions for right doing,—the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet, the mountain smoking, and in all but above all Jehovah. To show the man in the street or in the cotton field that for him lying and stealing are bad because, if everybody were a liar and a thief, society would fall to pieces,—that would be very well, but it would hardly make the man honest in word and deed. If, however, you marshal feelings of awe and reverence in defence of honesty, if you get God on your side, your success is more assured and you may develop a “sensibility to principle which feels a stain like a wound.” The preacher fortifies the common moralities with these religious sanctions and that is no easy business. The preacher must himself be righteous, resourceful, sympathetic, with the gift of nearness to men. Such qualities education is peculiarly fit to bestow or to develop, and hence an educated ministry is sorely needed by our people from Boston to New Orleans.
An educated ministry would realize that social settlements, gymnasiums, kindergartens, day nurseries, friendly visiting, homes for defectives and orphans and the aged may fitly and usefully be organized and maintained by the church. By such means the church may tend to establish a kingdom of heaven on earth.
Among cultivated Negroes there is apparent an unfortunate tendency to look at preachers askance. This is due largely to reaction against bad preachers, and to failure to understand and appreciate the temporal opportunities of the Church. I argue for the usefulness of good preachers and of the “institutional” church. Though no member of this graduating class should become a preacher or a preacher’s wife, every member may wisely ally himself with the church and use his personal influence to enlarge and strengthen church work, to make it definite and human and nobly practical.