Year: 1873

OTk OOSGTUeT.


APLEA FOR THE PARSONS.


The eccentric Brooklyn preacher, DR.. Tai
mage, recently deliverd discourse on the some.
what novel theme, "Beefsteak for Ministers"
1t is so capital bit of humor and so practical
withal, that we give it in full to our rea-
ders. DR.. Talmage said:


There have been lately several elaborate ar
ticles remarking upon what they call the lack
of force and fire in the clergy. The world
wonders hat with such rousing theme as
the Gospel, and with such grand work
as saving souls, the ministry should ever be
nerveless Some ascribe it to lack of pie
ty, some to timidity of temperament We be-
lieve that in great number Of cases it is
from the lack Of nourishing food Many of
the clerical brotherhood are on low diet.
After Jackets and sacques have been provided
for the eight or ten children of the parson-
age, the father and mother must watch the
table with the severest economy. Coming in
suddenly upon the dinner hour of the country
clergyman the housewife apologies for what
she calls "a picked-up" dinner, when, alas it
is nearly always picked-up.


Congregations sometimes mourn over dull
preaching when themselves are to blame.
Give your minister more beefsteak and he
will have more fire Next to the divine unc-
ton the minister needs blood; and he cannot
make that out of tough leather. One reason
why the apostles preached so powerfully was
that they had healthy food. Fish was cheap
along Galilee, and this with unbolted bread,
gave them plenty of phosphorus for brain food
These early ministers were never invited out
to late suppers, with chicken, salad and
doughnuts. Nobody ever embroidered slippers
for the big foot of Simon Peter, the fisherman
preacher. Tea parties, with hot waffies, at
ten o'clock at night, make namby-pamby
ministers but good hours and substantial diet,
that furnish nitrates for the muscle and
phosphates for the brain, and carbonates for
the whole frame, prepare man for effective
work. When the water is low the mill wheel
goes slow with full race how fast grists are
ground. In man the arteries are the mill
race, and the brain the wheel, and the prac-
tical work of life is the grist ground. The
reason our soldiers failed in some of the bat
ties was because their stomachs had for sew
eral days been innocent Of every thing but
"hard.tack." See that your minister has a
full haver-sack. Feed him on Cruel during the
week and on Sunday he will give you cruel.
What is called the parsons nose" in a tur-
key or fowl is an allegory setting forth that
in many communities the minister comes out
behind.


Eight hundred or thousand dollars for
minister is onlya slow way of killing him,
and is the worst style of homicide. Why do
not the trustees and elders take mallet or an
axe, and with one blow put them out of mis-
cry?


The damage begins in the college boarding
house. The theological student has generally
small means, and he must 60 to cheap boar
ding house. A frail piece of sausage trying
to swim across river of gravy on the
breakfast plate, but drowned at last; "t.e
linked sweetness long drawn out" of flies in
the molasses cup: the gristle of tough OK,
and measly biscuit; and buckwheat cakes
as tough as the cooks apron, and old peas
in which the bugs lost their life before they
had time to escape from the saucepan, and
stale cucumbers cut up into small pieces Of
cholera morbus, are the provender out of
which we are trying at Princeton and New
Brunswick to make Sons of Thunder. Sons
of Mush! From such depletion we step gas
ping into the pulpit, and look so heavenly
pale that the mothers in Israel are afraid
we will evaporate before we get through our
first sermon.


Many of our best young men in preparation
for the the ministry are going through this
martyrdom. The strongest mind in our theo-
logical class perished, the doctors said after
wards, from lack of food. The only time he
could afford doctor was for his post mortem
examination.


I give the financial condition of many Of
our young theological students when say:
ontgo@Board at s. per- week cheap pace 5s 90
Clothing (shoddy). loo OO w
Books (no morocco) ......... 70 oO
Travelling expenses. ~ w


Total, ...'."So'l w


Here you see deficit of ffty-one dollars.
AS there are no "stealings" in theological
seminary he makes up the balance by sell
ing books or teaching school, He comes into
life cowed down, with a patch on both knees
and several other places, and hat that has
been done over four or five times, and so
weak that the first sharp wind that whistles
round the corner blows him into glory.
The inertness you complain of in the ministry
starts early. Do you suppose that if Paul had
spent years in a cheap boarding house, and the
years after that in poorly supplied parsonage,
he would have made Felix tremble No!
The first glance of the Roman procurator
would have made him apologize for intrusion:


Do not think that all your eight hundred
dollar minister needs is a Christmas present
of an elegantly bound copy Of "Calvin's lnstl-
tutes." He is sound already on the doctrine
of election, and it is poor consolation If IN
this way you remind him that he has been
fore.ordained to starve to death. Keep your
minister on artichokes and purslain, and he
will be fit to preach nothing but funeral SER
mons from the text Gall flesh is grass"
While feeling most of all our need of the life
that comes from above, let us not ignore the
fact that the clergy to-day need more gym
nastcs, more fresh air, more nutritious food.
Prayer cannot do the work of beefsteak.
You cannot keep hot fire in the furnace with
poor fuel and the dampcr turned.


VARIOUS TALENTS NEEDED.-There is
strong disposition in men Of opposite minds
to despise each other. A grave man cannot
conceive what is the use of wit in society; a
person who takes strong, common.sense
view Of subject is for pushing out by the
head and shoulders, an ingenious theorist,
who catches at the lightest and faintest analo-
gies and another man who scents the ridicu-
1 r |. T., Ia
who tastes, exquisitely, the fine feelings of the