Article August 10, 1899 Issue

From the Religious Press

E. H. Johnson

Why do so few young men of commanding intellect and character enter the Christian ministry? There is little question as to the fact. It is even insisted that the proportion of able candidates is continually lessening. The explanation commonly offered is that the minister's office is no longer respected as it once was, or else that the spirit of the age is secular, until even denominational colleges prefer that their presidents should not be clergymen. Both explanations reduce to one: the ministry of the gospel is no longer a prize for ambition. One need not deny the decline of ambition for this sacred office; but still the question remains why strong men, who wish to serve their God and their generation, so rarely find their opportunity in the ministry. It is not just now a question of remedy but of cause.

At bottom is the voluntary system of meeting expenses. Every profession must yield a livelihood; but in no other profession is the pay so exclusively and conspicuously voluntary. If the lawyer's, physician's, or teacher's services are engaged, it is taken for granted that they must be paid for. The individual receives a service, and the individual must pay for it. But the chief offices of the minister are public, and the hearer of sermons, instead of being aware of individual obligation to hand over a fee, often feels that he is patronizing the preacher; and the preacher, in place of feeling that any individual owes him money for a service, may feel that he owes the individual thanks for liking his attempt to serve. His office has then lost its dignity, still more its sacredness. It has sunk to the plane of theatricals, concerts, shows. His part may be artistic, but it is rated as an entertainment. How topsy-turvy the situation is may be known from the vulgar impropriety of the questions: "How were you pleased"? "How did you enjoy the sermon?" "How did you like our minister?"

Is there any remedy for the loss of its attractiveness to the strong men who are so gravely needed at the present time? So far as the voluntary system is at fault, no remedy can be proposed except the modification of that system, and the only modification now possible would be the endowment of churches. Endowed churches would hardly choose their pastors by the treacherous method of candidating, and would carry their pastor safely over periods of depression or even unpopularity. Desirable, even indispensable, as it is to keep the churches under the control of their members, it is not now so widely accepted as self-evident that public worship must be maintained at the cost of the congregation. Wise students of city life are satisfied that only by means of endowments can churches be maintained by Protestants in the poorest districts of our great cities. It is a question whether they can be effectively maintained in any district without more or less aid from endowments. It can at least be stated without reservation that there is no minister among us who, though he may have an unfaltering popular support, would not feel more independent and more confident that his labors would survive him if his support came in part from invested funds.

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