The Apostle declares we are to speak to men to their edification and comfort. While it is true that none but God can make a minister of the Gospel, it is true also that study and application and culture will make him an effective minister. We are not discounting the Holy Spirit-without Him the man educated at the feet of Gamaliel would have been a complete failure; He alone can give true spiritual views of God and life everlasting. A man who is rightly instructed as a servant of God will put a high estimation on the work of the ministry, and will use every lawful means to fit himself for his holy calling. Under the old dispensation, a thorough knowledge of God's will was enjoined upon all religious teachers. The true object of learning is to make truth plain, and in order to profit, learning must be sound-along right lines. The great American humorist said, "It is better not to know so much, than to know so much that isn't true." There cannot be too much SANCTIFIED learning. I trust that Holiness preachers, and all others, will learn the truth made manifest by so many complete failures all around us-God does not communicate necessary learning to ministers otherwise than by the Divine blessing upon the use of the ordinary means such as HEARING, READING, INQUIRY, STUDY AND REFLECTION. The apostles may have been ignorant men when called to follow Christ, but they were not so when they went forth to preach the Gospel in His name. They enjoyed His private and public instruction for three years in all, and in addition they had gifts of tongues.. gifts of healing and revelations.
A preacher should be diligent in the use of the means. The man who is not industrious will not be effective. An idle, lazy man is a disgrace to the calling. A man of God should have no idle moments. Every day in one's life is a page in one's history. We must put into our treasury things new and old if we would have something to set before folks when they come. This cannot be acquired in a day; learning comes in a slow but regular process of accretion. Real knowledge, like everything else of the highest value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, studied for, thought for and prayed for. A liberal education will develop the whole mental system of the preacher, make his speculative inferences coincide with his practical convictions, and enable him to render a reason for the hope that is within him. Addison very beautifully says, "A statue lies hid in a block of marble; the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone, the sculptor only finds it." What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint or the hero; the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lies hid in the plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.
Such a course of study should be pursued as will enlarge and train the mind and enable one to communicate his thoughts in a proper manner. A good knowledge of our own tongue is a great attainment. I have known young men going to the foreign country where they must acquire the language of the people to whom they minister, who murdered the king's English, and apparently were unable to construct a sentence grammatically. In these days of good common schools such lamentable ignorance and neglect of opportunities is almost inexcusable.
The great object of a good education is to train the faculties to just and accurate thinking, investigation and statement, and to prepare them to acquire and use knowledge. Having acquired such a preliminary education as was attainable, let the preacher bring his mind to the study of all those things belonging to a thorough course of theological study, and store his mind with the facts and principles of revealed truth, as taught by inspired men, and as illustrated in the history of the world and of the Church. Let him bend all his energies toward acquiring the art of rightly presenting the Word and persuading men to righteousness.
In this work, natural and acquired, intellectual and moral qualities strangely unite. South says, "I am confidently persuaded that there is no endowment, no natural gift whatever, with which the great Father of lights has furnished the mind of man, but may in its highest operations be sanctified, and rendered subservient to the work of the ministry. Real religion engages no man, particularly no minister, to be dull, to lounge, and to be indolent, but on the contrary, it stirs up all the active powers of the soul in designing and bringing about great and valuable ends." All knowledge should be to one end, making the student an able minister of the New Testament. All studies are subservient to the great work of ministering holy things to immortal souls. All powers and attainments should be laid under tribute to one great end of holding forth the Word of life. The imperial part of man is his will, and any man called of God to preach, and not over fifty years of age, regardless of all his lack of opportunities in the past, may WILL to acquire knowledge and succeed in the acquisition.
Let him study systematically, sacredly setting apart and observing certain hours of the day, applying his mental powers to the work in hand, and he will fit himself to be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Theodore Cuyler says, "In the morning study books, in the afternoon door-plates." This will make him a preacher-pastor and acceptable to his congregation. Without study, he will be acceptable nowhere. What more pitiable sight can one see than that of a man called to preach, sitting on a dry-goods box in a corner store, discussing the weather, crops, politics, the latest fad, when he ought to be studying hard as a preparation for future effectiveness? He must be a scribe well instructed unto the kingdom of Heaven, bringing out things new and old, and he must "meditate on these things." Visitors must not be allowed to break in upon these hours. Orton said, "I have little company and acquaintance, but I have a numerous and excellent society of prophets and apostles, practical writers with whom I have lately been conversing." More than one eminent man has had a warning to visitors put upon the door of his study, calling on them to be short, just as professional men have their card, "This is my busy day."
How many hours should one study? Find out by practice what is best for you, and then stick to it. Two hours a day for the secular days of the year are equal to 104 days of study of six hours each. In that time, the record proves, it, "many a man has learned a language, mastered science, or quite changed his mental habits." The hardest studies should be taken up in the earliest part of the day, while the mind is fresh and the body rested, and lighter studies reserved for afternoons and evenings. The morning hours are by far the best for study. One thing more and this chapter closes. In study, earnest prayer is a great help to success. Philip Henry wrote upon a studying day (which implies that this eminent divine had studying days), "I forgot when I began, explicitly and expressly, to crave help from God, and the chariot wheels drove accordingly. Lord, forgive my omissions, and keep me in the way of duty." Another old divine wrote, "If God drop not down His assistance, we write with a pen that hath no ink. If any would need walk dependent upon God more than another, the minister is he." It was once said to a minister of Christ whose labors had been abundantly successful, "If you did not plow in your closet you would not reap in your pulpit." STUDY AND PRAY, PRAY AND STUDY.
