The bee. (Earlington, Ky.) 1889-19??, 1912-09-24
The Call
to Preach
By REV. HENRY A. ALKIRE
Pastor of Fir.t Methodist Church
whitehall. III.

Ecclesiastes is the first user of the
lerm preacher God always spoke Of
his Messenger" But Paul. our au-
Ehor. repeatedly uses the word
preacher" Preaching is not a pro-
'ession unless we make It that. 1t
$ purely and simply calling. If a
calling. there must be 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 ev-
communicated from churches because
they answered their call to preach,
So John Wesley Martin Luther. And
s. II. Hadley had hard work to get a.
church to ordain him. Some Great
Power seemed to set apart these mon
before the church had taken any no
ice OF them. IN evangelistical Pro-:
tsstantism we call that power di-i
zine.
How can We determine God has
pailed a man to preach? by their,
fruits ye shall know them" Gods
Word will not return unto him void.
How can Q man know that God has
called himf In theological lore we
say the man has q conviction. What
produces the convtction7 did not
know Of anything that will send this
conviction deeper into . saved soul
than 70 look around upon the fields
Write unto the harvest and behold the
fewnsss Of the rsapers. Seeing the
nsed IL feeling the burden. Once In
vmpathy with Gods cause. we win
want to make others see their need OF
God, aud that viii lead us to go forth
20 remove the obstacles in the sin
neris way. And am sure that Il 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 IL surrendered to the one
work.
The church declares that the min
lister Is called to let other things
alone. Her messengers must pracu-
oally bring themselves to three
great things: One book-ths Bible;
prayer: service means the feld-ths
world.
For q century We Methodists insist
ed that a man could jump from pillow
to pulpit II 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 s25 for the wife
was considered ample remuneration
for fording swollen streams. fighting
Wild beasts and frontier HUMANS and
riding circuit covering scores OF
miles. with . dozen sermons q week
thrown In
What . metsmorphoSisi And what
produced TT First, the pew became
educated. That demanded an edu-
Gated pulpit.
Then the country became thickly
settled and the people demanded q
settled ministry. The pillar TO post
idea had little permansncy. The pso-
pie themselves have created the pres
emit conditions. The common schools
wonderfully developed. and the doctor
and the lawyer smellsd OF the COL
liege. The church demanded that its
ministers should be equipped for lead
ership. So today the preacher must
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-
ton than conservation.
Formerly, the pulpit had no compe-
tition but Satan. Today II 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 q generalist.
True, he must know about everything
In religion. but something about near
ly everything else.
II the preacher IL "a citizen unin-
terested, he is a sentinel asleep"
He must hold his hand on the helm of
reform.
HIS must keep his finger on the
NuAMJ "a AnQuut AaA CVA0Ata0ass kAe
must be patriot and keep his heart
throbbing warm for bis own land. He
must keep his ear close to the politi-
cal rail, and be ready to back the
heroes OF q growing government He
must maks his pulpit throne for adj,
vanosd education and culture He
must bs the center OF the moral and
social lifs Of his held
Well, you say, what has that to
do with the call to preachf I answer.
In the greatest day of the worlds
growth. everything. The preacher thai
fails in any OF these points is doomed
to sooner or later fail utterly.
What. then. is his real and SPECIFIC
dutyf
He must keep his heart young that
hs may warn the young not to loiter
along the path to strong manhood and
womanhood. He must know how 10
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