The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-10-23


In the exercise of your ministry In
deed l know no walk of life where a
man who would be the better for it
even if he could escape. We have to
so through the deeps both for our
own sake and for the sake of others
| We are TO comfort them that are in
atiiiction through the comfort where
with we ourselves are comfOrted Of
God. But l am not going To dwell
/ too much ON the shadows in the pic
ture. For there is another and a
brighter side. | believe that man
who has even moderate capacity for
the work of the ministry, love for
his work and real Christ-like sympa-
thy with men, will in time gather about
himself so much kind feeling from
those he has helped and who love him
for his works sake, that there may
even be danger the other way. He
may need to be saved from the en-
ervating influence of too much kind
ness. Fortunately, if this should be
your case, you may rely upon 1t that
the Lord, in His mercy, Will raise up
some good brother in the church who
Will make it his business to see to it
that you are not exalted above meas
ure. My advice is that you should look
upon that brother as one of your best
friends He has one talent at least,
and though you may have preferred
that he should have wrapped that one
talent in a napkin and buried it in the
earth, you may yet find out that it
has valuable uses.
In future years, then you may have
toll, ie
tirely without, but do not think too
much of them do not be always try
ing run away from them to some other
church--some church not yet created
where all is unbroken and unclouded
peace. If you have your sorrows you
will also have your joys; you will
have meat to eat that the world knows
not of. And the joys you will find to
be most precious are not the Sc which can
be set forth in the religious journals of
the day, but those you take to your
secret place of communion, and spread
before the Lord with a thankfulness
too deep for words. If there are those
you have helped to see the light Of
God to bear their life-burdens, to so
forward under hard conditions with
new courage and hope--if there are
those whom God has given you to be
your children in the faith and whom
you have the honor of building up to
a noble Christian manhood, you will
care very little for the troubles of the
way. II have" says Bunyan, count
ed as If | had goody buildings and
lordships In those places where my
children were born; my heart hath
been so wrapped up in the glory of this
excellent work that / counted myself
more blessed and honored of God by
this than if He had made me the en-
peror of the Christian world, or the
Lord of all the glory of the earth with
out it,
Bunyans experience is interesting to
us in another way was much as with
all his genius he viewed as much as
most of us of those ups and downs,
those civilizations and reactions of feel
ing of which every preacher, indeed
every public speaker, knows the mean
ing. He had his temptations. he
says, and that of diver kinds Some
times when he was on his way to
preach he was haunted by fear that
he should not be able to speak to edi.
fication nay that he should not be
able even to speak sense to the people;
at which he would be seized with such
strange faintness and stTengthessness
of body that his legs would scarce car
ry him to the place of exercise. Some |
times, again, when he had begun to
speak the Word with much clearness, |
evidence mad liberty of speech, before |
the opportunity was over he has be- !
come so straitened in speech and be- |
that he has not known what /
he has been about; or to use his own |
expression, he has felt as if his head |
had been in a bag all the time Of the
exercise" Let this be your comfort if |
such experiences should ever be yours,
and remember that the people have |
not always seen the sermon as you
have yourself Sometimes when you
thought you have done well you have
not done so well as you thought. On |
the other hand when you have felt |
humbled God has taken your weakness
and filled it with bis strength. Some
times" says Bunyan when | thought |
did no good then | did most of all; !
and at other times when | thought | |
should catch them, | have fished for
nothing"
Like all true men this man in his |
work felt he was nothing and God was
We knew his own heart ,
too well even to be proud or vain-g lor
GUS Il have also" he says. while |
'ound in this blessed work of Christ
oeen often tempted to pride and lift
ngs up of heart, and though | dare |
1ot say ] have not been infected with
his, yet truly the Lord of His pre-
,ious mercy, hath so carried it to-
wards one that for the most part /
have had but small joy to give way
o such a thing. For it hath been my
portion to be let into the evil
If my own heart and still made to see /
such a multitude of corruptions and I
therein that 1t hath caused
ranging down of the head under all
ny gifts and attachments. | have felt
his thorn in the flesh the very mercy
If God to me-"
Thus this divinely-gifted and heav-
n-llumined soul was taught the great
ecret of spiritual strength; found out
hat the way to the heights is ever
Trough the depths: that when we are
weak then are we strong. and so with
n ever-increasing sense of his own
came to feel more and