02.03. The Pastor in the Parish

III. THE PASTOR IN THE PARISH.

There is a greater difference now between the work of the pulpit and that of the parish than in the early days of Christianity. We have lost much which needs to be regained. Jesus Christ went about among the homes of men doing good. Paul ceased not to declare the gospel of life from house to house, night and day, with tears. Christianity began in a parish and worked parish-wjse, going from door to door and heart to heart among the people. Planted in the household, the household still remains its stronghold. It did not get into a church to preach formally from a pulpit for more than a century. Its greatest triumphs were won in this near approach to souls through the personal wrestling of love. Here is the foundation of the parish idea, and of pastoral work. Let the early example and practice be restored, and salvation brought down from its cold perches in the church to the hearts and homes of the people. The family altar, at which Abraham ministered, and to which for centuries prophet and apostle bent the knee, will be used by the faithful minister as a great factor of his power. “ Salute the church that is in their house.” The first work, then, in the parish, as in the pulpit, is the rescuing ^of souls from the power of sin. The pastor that determines with Paul not to know anything among his people but Jesus Christ and him crucified, will be swift to see and seize the special opportunities for reaching and saving men, which pastoral work presents. He will seek to imbue the life of the parish with the spirit of grace. The one day’s teaching of the pulpit will be illustrated and enforced by six days’ faithful living among the people.

“ What! carry the solemn proprieties of the pulpit down into the secularities of the week, and work there to save men? It would repel them.” No — rather carry the sweet and blessed spirit of Christ into the joy of Sabbath and sermon, and also into the hardness and toil of the week, and make them both glad and helpful. The pastor who goes around the parish in stone like the two tables of the law, is a pagan, and hardly less so is he who goes around among the tables of the parish, a mere good fellow, talking horses and stocks, feeling he has done up his piety for the week on Sunday. A pastor mistakes if he thinks by being worldly in conversation and bearing he will be more attractive. The ideal gentleman, according to Sir Philip Sidney, is a Christian gentleman. He wins because of high thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy.” The pastor that is filled with the spirit of his Master will be welcome everywhere. He is all the more loved and sought because he is a living, serving Christian. Instead of putting aside Christ to make himself more acceptable, it is the Christ-likeness he bears that makes his coming a joy. There is no place where the minister gains by leaving Christ behind. What is called “society” kills down personal effort. The fashions of this world act as an exhausted receiver on the minister; he loses heart for individual labor, and courage wavers when the rich and pleasure-loving are to be sought. Much that goes as culture is as mildew, and even when a pastor has worked his parish up into a fine social state, a society tempest will upset it all; for such work, however pleasant, has little root. The same time spent in deepening the spiritual life of the church will secure a stability that endures when all the waves are up and the winds are contrary, for it is founded on a rock. For his spiritual.work the pastor has something to show. All else is hay wood, and stubble,” and the time is short, and multitudes around him are unsaved. The pastoral work has great possibilities. The minister goes to the people with blessing, as Christ came to the world. How shall we get souls? “ Go for them,” says Moody. Give your prayers feet. How do the bees fill the hive? They go to the fields. Where there is a will there is a way. It was a good day’s work when Andrew went out and brought in Peter. The sermon will shake down much fruit, but there is much that must be hand-picked. The pastor is watching for souls, and selects the occasions that promise most; availing himself, of every argument of love and reason and individual interest. He can go where his sermon cannot, and speak when it could not, and say what it would not say. Providence is always opening fresh opportunities, and the pastor is also seeking them himself. A sick child, a son or daughter away at school, a wedding, a personal trial, all such things are open doors. The parish work is the short way to the heart.

There are six classes of which the pastor will be always mindful: the sick; those in trouble and affliction; children; the aged and infirm; the strangers in the gates; and souls seeking salvation. Others are reached as time permits. Opportunities like these are like angels encamping round about the pastor. Timely visits make gains for eternity. Once lost, the occasion cannot be recalled. We can never draw souls to Christ as when trial comes. Then, if ever, a man wants to see his pastor, and his heart is open to the best he can give. He can represent his Master to the soul’s needs, and make the Saviour’s love and aid indispensable. It opens the way for prayer and the taking down of the old Bible. Such service kindles the soul. It makes work for Christ real, revealing man’s estate and his needs as they are. It is preparation for other work. There is no school like a parish. A good book is a boon to a minister if it is wiser and better than he, but contact with believing souls is more instructive and power-giving than contact with books. Souls are God’s star-points of light in the world, — “ living epistles *’ are they, bearing the Lord’s own image and signature. It is communion with the highest when you come into the inner life of the sons and daughters of God; you meet God in his dealings with them, and witness his wonder-working; and nothing more strongly convinces and impresses the mind with a sense of divine truth. Pope saw God in nature. It is more to see him in the parish. A pastor will find stronger evidences of Christianity in God’s dealings with souls around him than in all the books of his library. God is there in the scenes of joy and sorrow, birth and death. Work for God in the harvest-fields of life is an educator that no minister can do without. Love for souls is the spring of all best parish work. The bird must be in your heart before you can find it in the bush. You can go over seas and mountains for the soul you love. The pastor who seeks to save souls will find souls to save. There will always be one more case — a straying sheep to be brought back. And how shall souls ever be found, except they are soufifht? Pastoral work strikes to the core. To sit down beside a man and open to him the gates of light, and let all you know of Christ’s mercy and goodness pass before him, setting forth the love and grace that wait for his acceptance, as you have tasted them in your own soul, Christ’s image shining in you, and the accents of his love blending with yours, is to gain that man for Christ.. He will bow over and accept the Beloved whose Spirit pleads at the door of his soul. The greatest good the pastor can bestow on his people is to come to them in their homes and business in the fulness of the Gospel of Christ, and such service is essential for the good of both pastor and people.

Ministers often whet their blades all away in literary studies, and never cut down thorn or briar in any hard path. They keep the mind in the smudge of book-doubt till the temper of the blade is drawn. Real contact with the people corrects all this, and keeps the pastor’s heart warm with love, and strong in faith, and active and wise in service. He gathers up the dewdrops of God’s grace out of praying hearts as he goes, and his soul grows fuller until the cloud breaks in revival showers. Being in the work himself, the pastor can set all his people to work, and the Pastoral Aid Society which he puts in motion carries blessing to every nook and comer of the community.

It is possible to turn every place into a pulpit or to carry the parish everywhere. See St. Paul praying with the elders on the sand at Miletus, with heaven for a canopy, and the voice of the great sea in their ears. What a mighty reaper was he in the parish, shut up neither to time nor place! The pastor needs to visit the homes of his people, and talk of the good things of the kingdom. Where does the heart flow out heavenward more readily than at the board of hospitality, in the circles of household confidence and affection, under a friendly roof, sheltered by divine care and surrounded by tokens of God’s presence? There, with the children present, where the treasures of years of experience, both happy and bitter, gather, how easy to speak of all God’s benefits, and to let the happy interview blossom into songs of gratitude and praise from the quickened hearts of the kneeling group.

Modem refinement is difficult of approach, and the homes of wealth reticent concerning Christian experiences. But the pastor is privileged. He is expected to minister to the soul, and bear into the family circle the flowers of paradise. The occasion of such visits will be fragrant in the home as the coming of the spring lilacs, and dewy with the breath of the eternal morning.