336 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



diligent study in that many-sided fulness by which it 

 supplies the Church s every need. That is no scriptural 

 and no catholic knowledge in which the normal religious 

 experience of the Old and New Testament is applied to the 

 worship of the congregation only through the non-normal 

 vehicle of uninspired experience. A man who handles 

 God s Word thus may sometimes, if his piety is deep and 

 his personality strong, become a great influence. He 

 may even be instrumental in saving souls ; but, on the 

 whole, his ministerial work will weaken the Church. 

 Working always under the guidance of his own partial and 

 impure religious life, he will carry with him the like- 

 minded, and will fail to edify others. All men whose 

 minds are not of a peculiar type will cease to be edified. 

 The all-sided growth of the congregation, which depends 

 mainly on the right and profitable administration of gospel 

 ordinances, will sustain a grievous check. The few like- 

 minded who retain some semblance of congregational 

 vigour will grow more and more narrow and one-sided, 

 being nourished, not on the sincere milk of the Word, 

 but on so much thereof as the minister can himself 

 assimilate ; and the usual marks of a sectarian develop 

 ment will appear in the alienation of the children of the 

 congregation, whose places are taken by deserters from 

 other churches. Of all the temptations to which the 

 student of theology is exposed, there is none more 

 insidious, and none more dangerous, than the temptation 

 to excuse want of diligence in study by concentration on 

 the qualification of personal piety. There is no path of 

 Christian duty in which a man can walk unless he walks 

 also near to God ; but, for this very reason, no advance 

 in Christian life is in itself a qualification for one sphere 

 of usefulness more than for another. Nay, a high degree 

 of spirituality cannot be maintained by any man except 

 in the discharge of duties for which he is properly qualified. 

 The man, therefore, who seeks the office of the ministry 

 in reliance on his personal piety and earnestness of 



