The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-08-04
Snecia1 Contributors.
PLAIN TALKS TO A YOUNG PASTOR,
BY Rev. J. NJ. PAYSON.
LA Cross. Wis.,
About Work in his Study.

About Work in his Study.
In my first talk with you, the topic
was pastoral work. l wish now to talk
with you little while about your work
in your study. 1t is here your chief
work is to be done. laid great empha-
sis upon the utility of pastoral work.
But the value of pastoral work is large
ly what it brings to your study, and in
the aid it affords in making your labor
there effective. Pastoral work is use
full largely because it furnishes both
subjects and objects for sermons, and
brings the people to hear them. The
labor of your profession centers IN
your study. This is especially the
workshop of your pursuit. If it be
not the placs where you are to fashion
men into the divine likeness, it is the
place where you are to forge the tools
with which to do this work.
The gathering and fashioning of
these tools, which are ideas, call for
the most persistant labor. However
diligent you may be in the other de-
partments of your profession, if you
are not diligent in your study, you will
be like the man who gathers the ma
terials with which to build, but has
few and clumsy tools to work with.
Perhaps you may think / am somewhat
presumptuous in this advice, fear
Z .cs nearg ySaag rner hegin the minis
try with the idea that they are fully
equipped for it. You may say, "Have
I not spent four years in college and
three in the theological school?" All
that is valuable to you; but sometime
you will know, if you do not now, that
the school has done little more for you
than throw open the gate into that
broad field of knowledge which your
profession requires you to explore.
Perhaps no other profession demands
such breadth of knowledge as yours.
In no other profession is a general cul-
ture of so much use. No knowledge
will come amiss. The lawyer, probably,
would not be much better lawyer for
studying theology, or the doctor much
better doctor for studying law. But
YOU NAV be much better minister for
knowing both law and medicine. There
is no fact of history or science, of
human nature or life that may not be
valuable to you. In an especially in
tellectual age, an age Of scientific dis
covery, an age of reading and thinking,
you have started out to be an intellect
ual and spiritual leader among men.
You need all the information you can
obtain. Nor are ideas all you need. You
need skill in their use. After an expert
ence of ten years of effort to move men
through the pulpit, you will realize,
perhaps better than you do now, what
doubtless you have often been told,
that preaching is the greatest of the
arts.
And this SUCCESS some advice that
most young ministers need. The de-
mands of the ministry are so great that
at first, at leass, you will have no time
for any separate intellectual pursuit,
Make all the work of your study, con-
serve your ministry. Do not divide
your time between your profession and
some other, however closely that other
may be related to it. You will find
that for the first ten years, at least,
your ministry will require all your
time. If you succeed by giving it all
your labor, you will do we'll DO not
begin at once to write for the press.
Too many young ministers seem to
think with Byron that 60 lis pleasant
to see ones name in print; books a
book though there's nothing init
Make your study a minister's study
solely.
Indeed so great is the need of much
reading and study in your earlier min
istry, that you may count it boon if
you are permitted to labor in a small
field. An article in this paper some
little time ago, had some good counsel
on this matter. The writer says, ga
young minister should guard the open
ing years of his public life from inces-
SAINT pulpit and pastoral obligations.
His future strength will depend large
ly upon the hours he can now give to
himself for culture. 1t is the misfOr-
tune of the young minister that he is
generally called from the seminary to
ull practice in his profession, having