The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-12-02
THE MODERN PASTOR.

THE MODERN PASTOR
The modern church pastor is a very
different man in the multiplicity and va
! riety of mis- duties and obligations to his
! predecessor of past generations. He is
no longer a student or a preacher, or
! man Of pious life only, who steps outside
| his sacerdotaI duties occasionally to pay
/ a visit to a member of his flock. He
| is, if his church includes an extensive
! congregation, the head of a great organ
! ization, demanding on the part of that
head great business ability and resource
fulness, as well as marked executive and
administrative power.
| A specification of the various activities
which may be found in the year books
of any of the great congregations of the
| big cities reveals an astonishing array.
| Besides having to keep abreast of the
! religious, social and scientific thought Of
| his age and to deliver fitting discourses
! each succeeding Sunday and to perform
! the various duties that are intimately
/ related to the spiritual welfare Of his
| people, the modern pastor has a bewilder-
ing variety of duties in other directions
which relate only incidentally to strict
parochial duty.
! Here are a few of the institutions
which in recent years have come to be
identified with the work Of the pastor Or
of a Christian church in big city
| gymnasiums, kindergartens, trade
schools, parish schools, cadet battaions,
| hospitals, breakfasts, art students clubs.
parish houses, deaconess houses, memo
rial houses, Kings Daughters, Crusa-
ders, Young Crusaders, knights of Tenn
perance and other temperance societies,
clothing departments, grocery Depart
ments, laundries, kitchen gardens, cook
ing classes, sewing classes, guilds cir
cIes. brothtrhoods, sodalities and clubs
and societies without end.
The ordinary non-church attendant will
say at once that all these forms of &C
tivity, or at least most of them, repre-
sent mere surplusage, in nowise neces-
sary to the effective administration Of
the affairs Of a well-ordered parish. In
deed, many will not hesitate to charge
that it is because the Christian minis
ter is at sea in his effort to hold an intel
Heent congregation together, he has re-
course to forms of activity which have
little or nothing to do with the spiritual
obligations of a Christian minister; that
it is all the product of the inability of
the church to hold the people to the
acceptance of their teachings without
! having recourse to worldly devices of
one kind or another. There really IS
little ground for such an implied charge
against the ministry, and such an impu-
tation was recently resented by one Of
the leading pastors Of the country in the
! following terms:
q repel the insinuatton, and deny the
/ charge. It may well be that here ana
there the institutional church, so-ca!led,
loses it's head and makes Itself rIulCulouS
by virtually becoming mere Soclai-re-
form club or village-improvement society,
but 1 deny, Indignantly deny, the ac-
! cusation that the Church of Christ, IN
seeking to initiate Christ by healing al
manner of sickness and all manner OF
! disease among the people, is derellct 10
I-fler task as teacher, forsakes her proper
role of prophet, loses her gift of tongues.
1t is not so. This kindling of interest in
social welfare is a return to, not de-
parture from, the early rule OF the
church's life. The first believers car ed
for these things as much as we, if not
more"
1t was Horace Greeley who one time
advanced the idea that social. rather
than religious or political, reform was
the great need of modern society. The
current of events for a quarter of a
century has promoted the acceptance of
this view. Physical betterment goes
with moral advance. Religious devotion
may appeal to the ignorant mind as a
prime requirement to future salvation,
but the promotion of true religious de-
votion must necessarily involve a sub
stantiaI and continued effort to improve
social conditions and surroundings.
The church is doing the greatest work
of today in the direction of ameliorating
the hardships of life for the less favored
members of society. 1t is doing so
because its leading minds have realized
the truth that mems true spiritual de-
veIopment and advancement is not even
a possibility unless attended by serious
effort to better the conditions relating
to material, moral and intellectual ex-
istence.