Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-09-03
Pastors and People.

The Rev. DIR. Brownies, who cele-
brated last Sunday the fiftieth anniver-
sary of his installation as pastor Of the
Reformed Protestant Church at Port
Richmond, gives this quaint explana-
tiCn of the long harmony between him
and his church: II think [ may sum ii
up in this: Winding my own business.
Or perhaps had rather put it, preach
ing simply the gospel of Jesus Christ
as we understand it in Scotland" 1t
is an honorable testimony of the worth
of clergyman to retain the sympathy
and good will of his congregation after
forty or fifty years of service; and such
cases, fortunately, are not uncommon.
But we think there is an impression
among the Protestant clergymen that
they are not as common as they ought
to be or even as they used to be. The
Methodists, of course, have little inter-
est in the matter, but to the clergymen
of most other Protestant denomin ations
1t is one of considerable Importance.
Most clergymen endeavor to comply
with DIR. Brownlee's simple recipe.
They try to preach the Gospel as their
church understands it, and to mind
their own business. II they are not
able to have long pastoratcs, the fault
is by no means always theirs. Indeed,
perhaps the fault is rather oftener with
the church, or at least the parish. Ger
tain it is that many clergymeD, before
their eye is dimmed or their natural
force abated, become unsatisfactory to
their congregations because these from
mere restlesSness and desire of novelty
want younger man. Men of the very
first rank in the pulpit are generally
able to keep their places rs long as
they choose, while clergymen of equal
piety and learning, but less brillian t,
are very liable to find, when they be-
gin to get old, that their churches are
tired of them. So it often happens
that they are regarded as superannuated
and useless old fogies when they get to
be sixty or seventy years old, ,and some
green youth just from the theological
seminary is preferred to them. The
lot of many of these old ministers is
certainly hard. Their salaries have
never been large, they have generally
given freely to benevolent objects, and
they have had to educate their children
well. At the very time when their
experience is largest, their faith ripest,
and when their conviction of the me-
cessity of the Gospel which they preach
should be deepest, they cease to please.
A new generation has grown up in
their parishes, and the new generation
tires of the same old story, and, per-
haps, wants more art and less matter.
So the old clergyman has to give way
to younger man, and. perhaps shift
for himself as best he can.
OF course young blood is necessary
and welcome in churches, and many
clergymen seem to "preach themselves
outo before they get to be very old;
but, looking at the ministry from q
purely secular point of view, and re-
garding it merely as a learned profess
sion, it has this popularity as compared
with the other learned professions,
that young men, as rule, have dis
tinctly a better comparative place In it
than their elders. A young lawyer or
doctor is thankful enough if he can pay
his office rent the first few years of his
practice; but the older he grows the
more valuable are his services, and at
sixty or sixty-five he is in the fulness
of his powers. A young clergyman,
on the other hand. at twenty-five or
six commands, perhaps, as high sal
ary as he will ever earn unless he is a
man of exceptional talent. 1t is to be
supposed that he keeps on learning
and improving just as the lawyers do
and the doctors; and yet it is likely
enough that at the time of life when
the lawyers and the doctors find thefr
practice most valuable, and when his
services ought to be considered most
valuable, he will be forced into retire
ment or have to take smaller church
and smaller salary, or depend upon
sporadic preaching, book peddiing, or
bear leading for support.
It may be said that ministers are
willing enough to leave their present
charges if they can get larger salary
somewhere else, and that If clergy
man. young or old, is not wanted by
his church or parish, it is better for all
parties. that he should go. Still, it
seems true that young clergyman is
better off, as compared with an old
clergyman, than a young lawyer OF
physician, compared with an old law
yer or physician.
To have fifty years. pastorate re-
quires both a,singular fidelity in the
church and singular faithfulness in
the pastor.
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