The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-10-30
GUNNISON'S
FAREWELL,

FAREWELL.
Continued from Page ~
while 1 can see its imperfections, 1 can
rejoice that have worn the armor and
| welded the weapons of a minister of
Christ.
Men often think the pastors life is
one of hardship; that it is thick with
cares and busy with unrequited tolls;
that it offers no prizes for ambition
and has few rewards for devoted eff
| fort.
EDUCATION AND REFINEMENT
which are the essential equipment of
ministerial success create a taste and
! appreciation for the Injuries of life, and
yet the ministry is denied the wealth
which brings these things. 1t is not
often that fathers choose the ministry
for their sons, and even the mother
heart which is so true and loyal in its
love, which desires for its children not
greatness, but goodness, not wealth,
but honor, only with a pang sees its
offspring select the ministry for it's life
work. Here and there is a pastor
whose life has been hard and cheer
less, who speaks of his work with re-
greet and cheats himself with visions
of prizes he might have won had he
chosen otherwise, and because the
world does not see wisely the ministry
! is regarded as a work which has many
trials and few rewards.
All my life has been lived in a pas
tors home. l have heard the tale of
hardships and privations, have seen
true and loyal men toiling in hard
fields with scant rewards; frail wives
and mothers growing prematurely old
with burdens of hand and heart. and |
am by no means ignorant of the shadow
side of the profession. But looking
back over it all, I can think of no field
of effort so rich in compensations as the
pastors field, no throne of power equal
to the preachers pulpit, no work so
rich and certain in it's rewards.
The splendid
CONVERSATIONS OF THE MINIS
TRY
are revealed only to the few whose
privilege it is to serve their people for
many years. A short pastorate termi-
mates before these slow growing ten
drills of affection interbraid themselves
With Others but when through many
years, pastor and people live together,
then when the severance comes all the
compensations of the years come in
floods of blessing. Common fellowships
are severed without, pain, but friend
ships
HALLOWED BY THE GREAT Elk
PERIENCES
of life become so interbraided that to
separate them is to take something of
life away.
Few lives touch others as does a pas
tors. His words give inspiration and
we are grateful to those who give us
the thrill of higher ambitions and the
ideals of nobler living. To every one
who realizes the holy solemnity of mar
riage, three lives are bound together by
its sacrament for the hour of bridal,
which is to woman life's supremest
moment, makes an eternal memory
and in it stands forever the one whose
words united the two destinies in one.
And there is no soil that preserves
the footprints of friends like that
which is around open graves, and no
music of human speech is so undying
as that which receives immortality of
remembrance by association with the
sound of falling clods. In all these
great experiences of life, and they
come at some time to every one, the
Christian pastor is associated, and
when he goes, it is for some at least, the
taking away of some of the foundation
stones on which life is built. A pastor s
life is made up of services for others
He is public servant, and every cause
and every individual need of the poor
and helpless come to him for help. His
life is spent in making plans and devils
ing help for others, few thinking ever,
as they draw upon his sympathies and
time that no one can give of his life
to others except the virtue goes out of
him and there is inevitable exhaustion.
And so every pastor often asks him
self: "Will these myriad unseen labors
which cost so much ever be appreciat-
ed by those for whom they are
wrought" And the years go on, and
the burdens multiply, until he is
weighted down with care, and he
learns, but never easily,
IN THE MINISTRY OF SERVICE,
to find the reward of the toll that so
eXhausts the life.
And then, some day, the end comes.
By death, perhaps, and then when the
eye that has so often been wet with
tears of others sorrows cannot see, the
hands which laid unthinking burdens
on the poor, stilled heart, braid loving
FLOWERS OF REMEMBRANCE
INTO FUNERAL WREATHs.
Or the pastor goes to other fields. that
he may find the rest which comes not
by idleness but by change of work
And the revelation comes that his labor
has net been in vain. He feels the
tugging of thousand heartstrines
and old memories that slumbered wake
to life, and voices that long before died
in the great silences speak, and every
service finds a tongue, and every sac
rifice comes back with blessing, and
one has ell the love and gratitude and
friendship that death reveals, without
the pang of dying.
There is no joy comparable to that of
serving others. This is not sentiment. it
I is the very secret and philosophy of lffe
And there is no place so rich in oppor
| tunities of service as that of the Chris
tlan ministry. No occupation is so dow
ried with rewards. Not prizes of gold
and the mere counters of material VAL
ues, but the higher rewards of graft
tude and love. Do we bewail the fact
that the young men are not erowding
the doors of our theological schools? II
is because the wondrous prizes of the
ministry, its sweet rewards of friend
9AtiP anu iONC arc HluueI IN men S
hearts as too precious to be revealed to
human eyes. 1t is because the blind
world does not know how usurious is
the compensation of the pastor, who is
denied the common rewards of wealth
that he may be enriched with the
ICosTLIER PAYMENT OF GRAFT
tube AND LOVE.
am not revealing the secrets of NV
mere personal life, or depicting that
part of a pastors life on which the sun
shine rests, forgetting the shadow part
of it. My own life has been rich with