HELPFUL HEARERS by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 24, 1860

HELPFUL HEARERS.

By Editor

NONE but a minister can know how much a minister may be helped by his hearers. Helped, we do not mean, by their benefactions, which indeed may help him to live comfortably; nor by their kind words, though these may help him to work cheerfully; nor by their Christian activities, though these may help him to work successfully. We mean that as present and as hearers when and where he preaches, they may help him to preach cheerfully and successfully. We have in mind now two ways of doing this, and we beg you, reader, to have them also in mind every Sabbath. “There is a man,” said a pastor, “who comes to his place in church fifteen minutes before I begin the service, and, when I begin it, there he has been, with his face covered, praying for me. I should scarcely know how to begin without him.” If prayer is needful and effectual for any object, why not that God may help his servants to preach his gospel? In three epistles we find the request, “Pray for us.” If it was legitimate for apostles, surely it is for common ministers. Besides the divine aid they may thus obtain, it is something to them also in the way of encouragement and stimulus to know that it is sought. The assurance that they are prayed for then and there, prepares them for their work. Contribute to your minister’s preparation by asking for him the blessing that he needs, and the more by giving him reason to believe that you ask it. This is one way of helping a minister.

The other is by good hearing. If it devolves on him to preach well, it devolves on you to hear well, and both must conspire to the desired effect. Good preaching certainly favors good hearing, but good hearing always favors good preaching, and each side has a responsibility for the other. Attention, earnestness, sympathy, intelligence—these are qualifications for the pews as well as for the pulpit. By this means the hearers second the effect of preaching on themselves, and this is to help the minister as they help their physician by attending to his prescriptions, or their taylor by trying and wearing his work. But we mean more,—for they may help him in the very act of preaching, if they are not only good listeners, but appear to be such. Their manner as well as his, has its effect. What if they hear every word and master every thought in the sermon, yet do it as though they did it not? There are such attentive listeners—in disguise. For aught that can be learned from their heads cast down, and closed or averted eyes, they may be in a sleep, or reverie, or speculation. They operate on the speaker, especially if he is a stranger, like the stupid or frivolous, whose eyes are “off and on,” whose minds are everywhere and nowhere.” But let him see the upright form, the earnest, steady look, sometimes the parted or quivering lips, the lights and shadows of his theme playing over the countenance; perhaps the big tear stealing down the cheek; and forthwith the magnetic communication is established between the pulpit and the pew, the preacher feels himself to be in the current and the message goes and comes!

There are listeners as gifted and effective in their part as the most eloquent orator in his—eloquent listeners shall we call them?—at once so devout, earnest, intelligent and responsive. It was of such a one that a minister said, “I would give that man his pew rent just to have him in my audience.” You, reader, may not be so richly endowed, nor so happily demonstrative; but, living man or woman as you are, you may be a good listener, and so may help your minister to be a good preacher. For this purpose be sure not only that you listen, but that you appear to listen. Listen all over—outwardly as well as inwardly—in every function and sign of hearers.

Understand that your pastor, if he is not near-sighted, knows his congregation individually, not only their names, but their aspects and habits

in the house of God, their postures and expressions, the "set" of their heads, the dialects of their faces. He knows you, either for better or for worse. Be such hearers as we have described and he will feel you when you are present, and miss you when you are absent. Perhaps after he shall follow you to the grave he will wish that you might re-appear in your accustomed seat, not only that he might preach again to you, but that he might preach more effectively to others. Give him the benefit of your attention, instead of at best keeping it all to yourself. Listen as well as you would have him preach. Let him see that you listen to him and pray for him. In this sense "take heed how ye hear." Next Sabbath be helpful hearers.