The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser., 1910-12-02
The Call
to Preach
By REV. HENRY A. ALKIRE
Pastor Of First Methodist Church
Whitehall, Ill.
TExT-How shall they hear without
preacher er?-Romans X, IA.


Ecclesiastes Is the first user Of the
term preacher. God always spoke OF
his Messenger" But Paul. our au-
thor. repeatedly uses the word
preacher" Preaching is not pro-
fession unless we make 1t that. 1t
Is purely and simply calling. If
calling, there must be a caller. Who
is the caller, and what constitutes
the call?
Some say the chruch calls men to
preach. But men have founded
churches. And men have been ey-
communicated from churches because
they answered their call to preach.
So John Wesley, Martin Luther. Aud
s. H. Hadley had hard work to get
church to ordain him. Some Great
Power seemed to set apart these men
before the church had taken any no
ttce of them. In evangelistical Pro
testantism we call that power di-
vine.
How can we determine God has
called man to preach? by their
fruits ye shall know them" Gods
Word will not return unto him void.
How can a man know that God has
called him? In theological lore we
say the man has a conviction. What
produces the conviction? l did not
know of anything that will send this
conviction deeper into a saved soul
than to look around upon the fields
white unto the harvest and behold the
fewness OF the reapers. Seeing the
need is feeling the burden. Once IN
sympathy with Gods cause, We will
want to make others see their need OF
God, and that will lead us to go forth
to remove the obstacles in the sin
ners way And l am sure that 1t Is
only God that opens our eyes to all
this.
Going out to spend our lives break.
ing down barriers in other peoples
lives implies conservation. So the
preacher Is surrendered to the one
work.
The church declares that the min
lister Is called to let other things
alone. Her messengers must pracu'
cally bring themselves to three
great things: One booh-the Bible;
prayer; service means the field-the
world.
For q century we Methodists insist
ed that a man could jump from plow
to pulpit If God called him. And we
insisted that our preachers should go
where they were sent and be sent
into new fields every year. And $50
for the preacher with $25 for the wife
was considered ample remuneration
for fording swollen streams, fighting
wild beasts and frontier ruffians and
riding a circuit covering scores OF
miles, with a dozen sermons a week
thrown In.
What a metamorpnosis! And what
produced it? First, the pew became
educated. That demanded an edu-
Gated pulpit.
Then the country became thickly
settled and the people demanded
settled ministry. The pillar to post
idea had little permanency. The peo-
pie themselves have created the pres
ent conditions. The common schools
wonderfully developed. and the doctor
and the lawyer smelled of the col
lege. The church demanded that its
ministers should be equipped for lead
ership. So today the preacher mus.
not only smell of the college, but the
divinity schools and postgraduate de-
grees.
All this equipment costs money,
and the church has had to open her
Golfers generously to hold the
young man who has had more ambi-
tion than conservation.
Formerly, the pulpit had no compe-
tition but Satan. Today it must COM
pete with the press, lecture and Chau-
tauqua platform, and political stump.
This Is the age of the specialist, but
the preacher must be a generaiist.
True, he must know about everything
in religion, but something about near
ly everything else.
If the preacher Is "a citizen unin-
terested, he Is sentinel asleep"
He must hold his hand on the helm of
reform.
He must keep his finger on the
pulse of industrial conditions. He
must be a patriot and keep his heart
throbbing warm for his own land He
must keep his ear close to the polii-
cal rail, and be ready to back the
heroes of a growing government. He
must make his pulpit a throne for ad-
yanced education and culture. He
must be the center of the moral and
social life Of his field.
Well, you say, what has that to
do with the call to preach? l answer,
in the greatest day of the worlds
growth, everything. The preacher that
fails in any of these points Is doomed
to sooner or later fail utterly.
What, then, is his real and specific
duty?
He must keep his heart young that
he may warn the young not to loiter
along the path to strong manhood and
womanhood. He must know how to
cheer the aged who are so near the
other world that they have lost all
interest in this. He must know how
to keep close to the man of affairs
who has such tremendous temDta-
tions, or heavy sponsibilities.
In short, the present day preacher
must be friend to poverty, a foe to
wrong, a champion of truth, defend
er of human rights, declarer of thus
saith Cod" and guide to heaven