Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 23, 1910

Lowering Ministerial Dignity

A RECENT number of the Christian Advocate speaks of the temptations presented to clergymen to lower the dignity of their sacred calling, and to conform to worldly standards, particularly in the matter of speech-making. It quotes a judge connected with a legal club as saying:—

Preachers, as a rule, have proved a disappointment when invited to make after-dinner speeches before our club. They have invariably assumed that the more they conformed their sentiments and speeches to the standards of the world, the more certain they would be of winning favor and applause of men.

Commenting upon this remark, the Advocate says:—

Unfortunately, it is too often the much-advertised minister—the man who is on intimate terms with newspaper reporters—who is invited to attend functions. The minister who does his work quietly and conscientiously, and dreads to live in the limelight of public notice, is not generally the type of man who is sought out for such functions. We need not wonder, therefore, that those men who have lofty ideals of what a minister should be are so frequently disappointed when they call upon sensational preachers to make after-dinner speeches.

The minister of Christ has a sacred calling; and no desire to please, or to become popular with, certain classes should lead him to descend from the dignity which belongs to his work. This does not indicate by any means that the preacher of the gospel should be long-faced or solemn-visaged. Above all men, he should be cheerful and joyful; but it should be a cheerfulness which does not descend to cheap witticisms, and a joyfulness which does not find its exercise in frivolity.