TEMPORAL DISCOURAGEMENTS IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.
By E. T. Bromfield
DISCOURAGEMENTS in the Christian ministry, arising from temporal causes, are many and various. When a young man devotes himself to this work he is generally ignorant of the details of a minister's life; he is enthusiastic—fired with noble resolves, and ready in spirit for hardship and even martyrdom. Years go by, and the freshness of his spirit leaves him under the wearing influences of commonplace trials. Perhaps his salary is small and irregularly paid. He is in debt, and his soul chafes against the bars of his prisonhouse. His family are poorly clad. He can hardly keep the wolf from the door. He sees no good prospect ahead. Nothing but trouble, toil, and vexation of spirit. This is not an exaggerated picture, nor an uncommon one. It may be hard to suggest a remedy for the evil—perhaps there is no remedy that will entirely sweep it away. Let me, then, utter my testimony to the fact—for I have gone among ministers a great deal and observed them closely—that among this very class of suffering brethren are frequently to be found the noblest of men. I know that it is the common fate of poor men to be pitied and neglected. There is enough of the worldly spirit in the church to cause them to be looked down upon by persons who ought to know better. "Man judgeth by the outward appearance," and the poor, self-denying561village preacher is occasionally snubbed by ignorant parvenus and the worshipers of Mammon. But the church has in such men many of her rarest jewels. They endure hardship unseen by man, and being themselves not ignorant of suffering, they are the better able to sympathize with and succor the distressed. When a man, after years of arduous toil in the ministry, begins to feel that there is very little prospect of his receiving fair and satisfactory remuneration for his labors, two courses present themselves before him. He can aim to leave the ministry with its cares, or he can aim to inure himself to privation. It is for him solemnly, and in the fear of God, to select his path, but I have often felt that it must be a terrible thing for a man deliberately to renounce the ministry because of its temporal disappointments. And, again, I have known so many brethren who in their real poverty and suffering have been so manly, so uncomplaining, so tender and heroic, that I have found myself asking whether the Lord had not put an especial mark of his favor upon them. Nothing that can be said or written can make poverty pleasant, and no one should submit to it without a struggle; but if it fall to be the lot of a man in the path of duty, and there is no escaping from it without dishonor, it is as much a martyrdom as being burned alive for the faith, and there are no doubt compensations added therewith. At the same time it is so manifestly the duty of Christian people to share their temporal blessings with their faithful pastors, that whatever may be the excuse for an occasional dilatoriness in money payments, there can be none for the withholding of substantial and timely gifts of supplies, and a noble sharing of creature comforts. I have known a congregation fairly comfortable as to the temporal condition of its members, allow its minister and his family to be destitute of proper food and seasonable sheltering, and to run in debt for supplies of actual living necessities, when a very little timely aid from them in kind, systematically given and affectionately tendered, would have lifted the burden from their minister's heart, and brought a blessing down upon themselves from Heaven. Even the punctual payment of the stipulated salary, though a rare virtue, is not all that a congregation owes its pastor. There will be offenses and troubles in the world and in the church, but "woe to that man through whom the offense cometh;" and, therefore, though I think that temporal discouragements in the ministry are not without their uses, I would emphatically urge the lay brethren and sisters of the churches to do their part cheerfully and lovingly to make those discouragements, in the case at least of their own pastors, as light as possible. I have known other congregations where the members, instead of confining their offerings to a half-yearly or quarterly subscription, often grudgingly doled out, have been quick to share their individual successes and comforts with their minister, thereby cheering his heart and strengthening his hands. That I am perfectly consistent in sounding some of the praises of hardships, while at the same time I urge upon all concerned the duty of doing all they can to mitigate them, must be evident to those who have followed the apostle Paul through some of his inimitable paradoxes, and I will, therefore, advance a step further, and venture to suggest to my ministerial brethren that they would be lacking in some of the highest experiences of a servant of Christ if they did not know what it is to suffer in his name. Possibly it may not be the suffering of actual cold or hunger, but it is some other affliction which has tested their love for their calling and sounded the depth of the conviction of which they once testified that God had in very deed set them apart for their work. It is very pleasant to be called of God or of man to some position of high honor, appreciation, and emolument; very pleasant to lead an admiring and liberal people to the green pastures and beside the still waters; but this is not all of the life even of a popular clergyman. If my experiences among my brethren have taught me to be sure of anything, it is of this, that no true servant of Christ in the ministry of the gospel can escape his seasons of heaviness and disappointment, coming upon him in his work and because of it. Therefore, brethren, let us encourage each other to be "steadfast and immovable"—pregnant words—"knowing that our labor" (kopos, the weariness that follows severe toil), "is not in vain in the Lord."—E. T. Bromfield, in Christian at Work.