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To Be a Minister

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 42.

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To Be a Minister

By Woodrow Wilson

WHEN I hear some of the things which young men say to me by way of putting the arguments to themselves for going into the ministry, I think that they are talking of another profession. Their motive is to do something, when it should be to be something. You do not have to be anything in particular to be a lawyer. I have been a lawyer, and I know. You do not have to be anything in particular, except a kind-hearted man, perhaps, to be a physician; you do not have to be anything, nor to undergo any strong spiritual change, in order to be a merchant. The only profession which consists in being something is the ministry of our Lord and Saviour—and it does not consist of anything else. It is manifested in other things, but it does not consist of anything else. And that conception of the minister which rubs all the marks of it off and mixes him in the crowd so that you cannot pick him out, is a process of eliminating the ministry itself.— Woodrow Wilson.