To My Younger Brethren | Page 2

a Minister's life--The secret department--Temptations in it from work--From solitude--Secret Devotion--The Morning Watch--Physical precautions--Evening hours--A Minister's prayers must sometimes forget the Ministry--This will be to the advantage of the Ministry--"Tell Him all" 1
CHAPTER II.
THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD (ii.).
Secret intercourse with God the life of a Minister's life--The Example of Jesus Christ--Testimony of von Machtholf--Special need of divine communion at the present day--The cry for effort and enterprize--Secularizing theories of religion and the Ministry--A call to young English Clergymen--A caution from Laodicea--Study of the Holy Scriptures--"The New Testament about twice a week"--What says the Ordinal?--M. Henri Lasserre on Devotional Literature and the Gospels--Study the Bible unprofessionally--Bridges' quotation from Witsius--Ridley in the Orchard 21
CHAPTER III.
SECRET STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
A fragmentary chapter--Higher Criticism--A technical and innocent term--Actual assertions of certain critics--"Do not follow this Book; follow Christ"--Weigh facts before theories--Testimony of Nature and History to Scripture--The Duke of Argyll in the Nineteenth Century--Prediction--Problem of the Human Knowledge of Jesus Christ--Current fulfilments of Prophecy--Methods of Bible Study--The plough--The spade--Specimen of spade-husbandry, in a Church Congress Study of the Epistle to the Philippians 45
CHAPTER IV.
THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS (i.).
Secret Communion with God must accompany everything else--We are watched--Self-respect--Consistency largely means Considerateness--"A consistent gentleman"--The Tongue--St Augustine's couplet for the dinner-table--The Clergy-House, its opportunities and risks--The duty of Example--Is it remembered as it used to be?--"For their sakes I sanctify Myself"--"Others" and their claims on us--Manner--Temper--Simeon's patience--The Secret of the Presence 79
CHAPTER V.
THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS (ii.).
"Take heed unto thyself"--Relations with Woman--Christian chivalry--And Christian caution--Special difficulties--"Know thyself"--Celibacy--The Clergyman's Wife--The problem of means--The Clergyman and money--Pecuniary intemperance--Accurate accounts--Investment circulars--"Lay not up for yourselves" 101
CHAPTER VI.
THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS (iii.).
Curate and Incumbent--A Chancellor on Curates--The ideal Incumbent--No Incumbent perfect--And no parish perfectly content--Loyal watchfulness needed accordingly--The Curate's Party--"The lost grace, humility"--Subordination--Take sides against yourself--A letter to The Record on Curates' grievances. 123
CHAPTER VII.
PASTOR IN PARISH (i.).
A boundless subject--Visiting--All-important--Prepare for the round with prayer--Method--Brevity but not hurry--An example--Courtesy--It must be impartial--Visitation of the sick--Its special demands--Punctuality always a duty--Use of the Bible--The advantage of coming as "the Clergyman"--Mistaken for the undertaker--Come to the point--Lying in wait for the occasion--Happy rebukes to timid reticence 147
CHAPTER VIII.
PASTOR IN PARISH (ii.).
Teach as you go--Urgent need of teaching--About Christ--And the Holy Spirit--And Sacraments--Common mistakes about the teaching of the Church--Sin--Evidences--Recollections of a visiting round--The retired tradesman--The sceptical blacksmith--The invalid artizan--The civil-servant--The consumptive--The dying printer--The cripple--Aged poor saints--Saddening visits--Humbling memories--A bright conversion at eighty-two 173
CHAPTER IX.
THE CLERGYMAN AND THE PRAYER BOOK.
"As bad as inspired"--Imperfections in the Book--Yet it is priceless--Spirituality of the Prayer Book--What it takes for granted in the worshipper--A remarkable reason for secession--The Prayer Book as a weapon--Its Scripturality--Its compilers jealous for the Word of God--Ministerial use of the Prayer Book--Put yourself into it--We are not to preach the prayers--Yet we are to pray them--Reading of the Lessons--Baptism--Marriage--Burial--The Holy Communion--Reverence--Of what sort--Instruction-addresses on the Prayer Book--"Less worship" 201
CHAPTER X.
PREACHING (i.).
The Pulpit a central point in the Ministry--Mutual influence of "parish-work" and preaching--"Truth through personality"--Let us "labour in the Word"--"Litho Sermons"--Addison's village-parson and his sermons--Attractive preaching--Is a duty--Audibility--Of the right sort--Good English--Why to be cultivated--Mr Spurgeon's style--French hearers of an English preacher--Good effects on his style--"Written or extempore?"--Length--Action 225
CHAPTER XI.
PREACHING (ii.).
Further remarks on Attractiveness--And, in passing, on Ministerial Considerateness--This is to be practised in preaching--As well as in other functions--Attractiveness to be guarded by Faithfulness--Requisites to attractiveness--"Preach the Gospel earnestly, interestingly, fully"--Jesus Christ is the Gospel--Personal conviction the essence of Earnestness--"Matter-of-Fact"--Interest sustained by anecdote and illustration--But still more by intelligibility and practicality--Expository sermons--Fulness in the message--Jesus Christ for us--And in us--The Holy Spirit must work with the Word 249
CHAPTER XII.
PREACHING (iii.).
Notes from a Sermon-Lecture--On diction, arrangement, fidelity to the text, proportion of parts, accuracy--On statements about revelation, justification, faith, grace--A paper in The Churchman on Old Sermons--Be a preacher indeed, whatever be the fashion of the time--The Directory of 1645--Its instructions on "the Preaching of the Word"--Spiritual Power in Preaching--How sought and received--Farewell 273
Fordington Pulpit 301

"What contradictions meet In Ministers' employ! It is a bitter sweet, A sorrow full of joy; No other post affords a place For equal honour or disgrace"
OLNEY HYMNS.
"The Interpreter had Christian into a private Room, and bid his Man open a Door; the which when he had done, Christian saw a Picture of a very grave Person hang up against the Wall, and this was the fashion of it: It had eyes lift up to Heaven, the best of Books was in its hand, the Law of Truth was written upon its lips, the World was behind his back; it stood as if it Pleaded with Men, and a Crown of gold did hang over its head."
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
CHAPTER I.
THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD (i.).
Pastor, for the round of toil See the toiling soul is fed; Shut the chamber, light the oil, Break and eat