To Mr. Alfred Duncan

________________________________________________
_ _Concerning the Ministry_

And so you have changed your plan of life and, instead of becoming an experimenter with the flesh, are going to be a healer of souls.

And what do I think about it? I am glad you are not to be an M.D. There is an era coming when the doctor will be a prehistoric creature. Oh, it is far, far away, but already the most progressive minds have ceased to regard the family physician as an infallible being.

Medicine has made the least progress of any of the sciences in the last few centuries.

Credulity has cured more people than pills.

Were you to study medicine, I should advise you to take up surgery, osteopathy, electricity, the Kneippe Cure, milk diet, and all the various methods of stimulating circulation; for the people who patronize these treatments are increasing, as the powder and pill patrons are on the decrease.

Then, too, I should urge you to make a careful study of mental and spiritual methods of cure, that you might be wholly equipped for the dawn of the new age. You are a young man, and you will probably live to see a wonderful change in the treatment of disease, and to find the physician of the old school relegated to the historian.

But just as carefully you should now survey the religious horizon, before beginning your studies for the ministry.

It is utterly useless to stand with lifted eyes and say, "The faith of my parents is good enough for me--good enough for all mankind."

Had the children of ancient Salem said that, and their children repeated it, you would probably be lighting faggots at this moment to roast a "witch," instead of a brother of the opposite creed.

The narrow, intolerant old dogmas have been forced into elasticity by the later generations, and the broadening work still goes on.

It makes no difference how satisfied you may be with a prospective lake of fire for your enemies, the congregations you are to address will not listen to that style of sermon as did your grandparents.

Only the ignorant minds to-day harbour ideas of cruelty and revenge in connection with a Creator.

Thinkers find such theories inconsistent with religious belief. Individual thought is leading to individual faith.

Where once I believed in a universal church for all the world, I now believe in a separate creed for each soul, one fashioned to suit his own particular need, with the underlying basis of love for all created things as its foundation.

Let each man worship in his own way, and follow his own ideal of duty to God and humanity.

If it is the pleasure of one to give up all his worldly goods, and to go and live and labour among the poor, wish him Godspeed; but if another keeps his place among men of affairs, makes money honestly, and uses it unselfishly, let him, too, have your blessing, since he is setting a good example for the worldly-minded. If one man finds himself nearer to God on Sunday by going out and peacefully enjoying the beauties of nature and the association of his kind, do not try to convince him that he is on the highway to perdition because he does not sit in a pew and listen to depressing sermons.

The day is over for that type of clergyman to succeed.

Make a study of the needs of men _to-day_, and suit your sermons to those needs.

Men need to know more of the wonders of God's universe. Talk to them in a brief, concise, interesting manner of the recent discoveries of science, and their frequent remarkable corroboration of the old religious theories. Thousands of years ago, in Egypt and India, wise men said that metals and all created things possessed life, and were a part of one great immortal whole, of which man was the highest expression.

Science is "discovering" and proving the truth of many statements made by those old seers and savants. Call the attention of the men of to-day to this fact, and set them thinking on the wonders of the immortal soul.

The man of to-day is an egotist regarding his scientific achievements. He has grown to think of himself as a giant before whose material success all other things must give way. He believes that he has discovered, invented, photographed and made profitable all the "facts" of the universe, and is inclined to regard with intolerance any idea beyond his own mechanical domain.

Tell him how much was divined thousands of years ago, and lead him to realize the mighty depths of the unsounded ocean of his own being.

To know your own triple self, body, mind, and spirit, and to make yourself a complete man, with the body beautiful, the mind clear, the spirit radiant, is better than to have all the Bibles of the ages, in all their ancient languages, at your tongue's tip.

Help men to the building of character, which shall enable them to be honest in street and mart, unselfish in home and society, and sympathetic to their fellow pilgrims.

Salvation is gained as a house is built, brick by brick, day after day, not by spasmodic efforts one day in the week, and the destruction of that effort in the remaining six.

And each man must be his own mason, and select and lay his own bricks. All the clergyman can do is to act the part of overseer.

The man who goes to another, and expects his prayers to save him, is like the mason who expects the "boss" to do his work, while he draws the pay. Do no man's task--physical, mental, or spiritual. That is not friendship or religion. Your work is to stimulate others to do their own work, think their own thoughts, and live their own lives.

The world to-day demands facts to sustain faith.

_Spiritual facts are to be obtained_.

Find them: for once convinced of the continuation of life beyond the grave, and of the necessity to earn its privileges, by self-conquest and character-building, humanity will rise "from the lowly earth to the vaulted skies," and will realize that this earth is but the anteroom to larger spheres of usefulness.

Go forth and find--go forth and find, and do not be afraid to strike out of beaten paths and avoid ruts. Cultivate spiritual courage. It is what few clergymen possess, and it will give you individuality at least.

Preach the religion of happy harmonious homes. Make men and women realize that heaven must begin here, in order to continue farther on, and that the angelic qualities, of love, sympathy, goodness, appreciation, must be rehearsed in the body, before they can be successfully enacted in full-dress angel costume with wings.

God will not care for the eternal praises sung about his throne by a man who swears at his wife on earth, or a wife who nags her husband and children. It is no use expecting a role in a continuous performance of happiness in heaven, if you do not learn one line of the part on earth.

Make your congregations think of the necessity to _live_ their religion in earth's commonplace daily situations.

That is the religion the world needs. _

Read next: To Mr. Charles Gray

Read previous: To Mrs. Charles Gordon

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