The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1883-08-02
BURDETTE'S ADVICE TO A YOUNG
CLERGYMAN.


NY dear young brother: If you can,
at the outset of your ministerial career.
entirely divest yourself of any idea that
YOU are possessed of lungs, throat or
liver, believe me, it will be peace to
your bones and mercy to your congre-
CATION, and your usefulness in the pull
pit will be largely increased.
A whining man is always a terrible
bore under all circumstances and in any
profession. The more he whines the
less do we sympathize with him. We
strive to avoid him. We listen to his
complaints only when he corners us.
And then we don't believe one-half of
them. And we charitably say that he
exaggerates the other half. And when
we believe he was only half so i'll as he
claimed to be at first, it follows that
there is nothing whatever the matter
with him. You have seen these highly
colored manikins which the dem
onstrators use. on the platform,
taking them apart to illustrate
lectures ON anatomy Well, l have
sat under the ministry of some
now and then, and exhibited themselves
before the congregation as living Won
ders of dyspepsia, bronchitis, asthma.
neuralgia, headache, torpid livers, sore
throat, influenza, large and carefully
selected assortment of coughs and colds,
and rheumatic troubles, inflammations,
congestions, sprains, bruises, contusions,
malarial affections, and all the various
ills to which the preacher is heir. If
you are an invalid, my dear brother,
your congregation doesn't want a full
report of your case and detailed state
ment of the marvellous effects of Liebig's
Concentrated Syrup of Ginseng every
Sunday morning. If congregation is
anything like other audiences-and /
think it is-it doesn't care one cent for
your physical condition. The individual
units of the congregation will be moved
with compassion for your infirmity,
and will express and feel the
deepest sympathy with you. But the
mass in the aggregate will say: "We
came here to hear good sermon, not a
lecture on anatomy" And they will
expect a good sermon, too, and will
complain if they don't get it. Preach
without any reference to yourself or
your physical condition. You can some
IL
can't you will have to stand it. If you
parade your distress before your con-
gregation, you only distress the people,
worry and irritate them and drive them
away from you. They will even "wish
to goodness that man would either get
well or quit preaching" All this has a
heartless sound, know, but believe it
to be true, and it isn't altogether heart
less. You must expect to preach some
times when you would rather run away,
like Jonah, than go into the pulpit All
men feel that way at times, and all
men, from draymen to Presidents, work
when they don't feel like it.
And the man who suffers the most COM
plains the least. The martyrs made lit
tie account of their troubles. Paul only
recounted his own sufferings when he
was goaded to it by the wearisome
''boasting" of others. And how simply
he recounts his perils and sufferings
"Thrice was beaten with rods, once
was stoned" Twice does he refer
TO the infirmty of the fesh," the
''thorn in the fiesh," and then so vague
ly that we only guess at what it was,
and we can find to-day in no ancient
parchment Paul's Endorsement of any
patent infallible eye-wash, averring that
it saved his sight, or that he couldn't
read line were it not for Pebbles bev
el-edge lunar spectacles. He did not
apologize for the feebleness of his utter
ance and wandering remarks, because
on the preceding evenings he had been
stoned and dragged out of the city and
left for dead.
And when he speaks of the messen-
ger of Satan sent to buffet him what a
sermon does he preach on that text.
If you think you can couple such a dis
course with a specific account of the
origin and development of malignant
inflammation of your tonsils, then go
ahead, and the world will gladly glory
with you in your infirmities.
do want you to go out into the
world and enter upon your work like
real men. don't want one of you to
create the impression that you gradu-
ated from hospital, rather than
Grocer Theological Seminary. And if
you are sufferer, suffer cheerfully for
the Masters sake. Remember there is
wide difference between the dumb,
dogged, sullen endurance of pain, with
out a murmur and without smile, and
cheerful submission to Gods will. All,
the sunny. blessed. thousand-fold
blessed religion, preached by the lives
of these cheerful sufferers. How they
shame our querulous winnings.
want you to be manly. / don't like
sporting" preacher / don't think
you need boxing-gloves in your room,
and your presence at the horse race
isn't an absolute necessity. The world
expects you to live on higher plane of
morality than the rest of us. But /
don't see why you shouldn't be able to
throw fly into trout brook without
wrapping yourself and two or three
alder bushes up in your line. I don't
see why you may not as well play base