The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-09-21

v forget how DR.. Kingsbury. Of
Wilmington. used to drop me q line,
now and then, which would make my
blood Jingle with delight. but he was
In the business himself and knew what
q word OF encouragement meant We
preachers have a great advantage over
editors"
Last Sunday we referred briefly to
mcnstrous. most unchristiAn
..dead-Iine'' In the ministry. The idea
of setting aside q preacher Of the Cos
pei at fifty or sixty Is OF the devil we
must believe. 1t comes not from the
Father Of Mercies or from the adorable
Peter and John and some of the others
in New Testament biography and his
tory toiled and suffered when they
were far unto seventy. and the lovable
John lived about his s6th or ssth
year. The late Rev. DR.. Lovick
Pierce lived to be 81 or more and
preached when he was that old. We
lately read a discourse of his prepared
1t the request OF a body of Georgia
Methodist preachers when he was 80
ear old. It fills seventy octave pages
and Is upon "Sanctification." DR.. Pierce
wrote it in 1878. and he accepted the
doctrine as both S%criptural and Meth
odistic nearly all through his long min
isterial life. He was n Of the very
greatest men ever BORN to southern
Methodism, and was a native Of Hall
fax county, North Carolina. There was
no "dead-line" for this "son Of thun-
der"-this Boanerge Of h southern
pulpit. DR.. Deems told US he never
heard a greater preacher. But this
dead-line is positively hateful and ini-
Quitous, n it il no wonder that aged
and highly gifted writer's like Rev. DR..
Cuyler, of the Presbyterian church.
should cry out In indignation. Think
of applying a dead line to such a man
as he or the eloquent DR.. Moses Hoge.
OF the very able Dr.. Palmer. or to Bish-
OPP Keener, the greatest OF southern
Methodist bishops, unless Bishop WILL
son is excepted, now some n, or our
Bishop Watson, so full of zeal, activity
and abundant labors, and with undi-
minished intellectual powers. A dead
line" indeed! 1t is a reflection on COM
mon sense, common gratitude. and
the very name OF Christianity.
DR.. Cuyler, in The Evangelist,
gives a strikink example Of one most
worthy and able clergyman in this
dead line bad business. The minister
had but recently died of whom DR.. Guy
Ter writes that he was IAN excellent and
eminent minister of the Gospel" He
says he had served the IN -erests of his
own denomination with peculiar zeal
and fidelity; had successfully occupied
the pastorate of one of their most
prominent churches in a large city; had
written editorials for n of h lead
ing journals, and been conspicuous in
their ecclesiastical affairs; and who,
nevertheless, during the closing years
of his life, could find no church which
would have him for it's settled pastor,
although he earnestly sought one.
Why was such a clergyman thus pre-
maturely shelved? Simply and sole
ly," DR.. Cuyler declares, because he
was between fifty n sixty years old"
Nor was this an exceptional case. DR..
Cuyler says that many others as good
and as gifted as he are shelved from
the pastorate on account Of an arbi-
trary and Abdominal law of limitations
that is applied to no other calling,
secular or sacred, but the Christian
ministry"