Part 1 (1/2)
The Demand and the Supply of Increased Efficiency in the Negro Ministry.
by Jesse E. Moorland.
In the discussion of this subject I fully recognize the opportunity men have to serve G.o.d in any honorable vocation. The Christian lawyer or physician is called of G.o.d as truly as a minister. Such men are putting the emphasis on service and not on getting. The condition confronting us is alarming and this warrants the earnest plea in this paper for a greater number of efficient ministers.
This is probably the most important question confronting the colored people to-day. After all, a race or a nation is measured by its religion, and the greatest fact about a people is its religion. The efficiency of a nation depends in a large degree upon the character of its religious principles. When the good Queen Victoria was asked what made her realm so great, it was expected that she might point to her well-equipped navy or her efficient army, but she modestly held up a little book, called the Bible, and said: ”By adhering to the principles contained in this Book, greatness has come to Great Britain.” China is what she is to-day because she adheres to certain principles taught by her religious teachers, and Africa is still in darkness because led by blind, superst.i.tious, religious teachers.
In a larger sense than many people are willing to give credit the Negro minister has been responsible for the progress of our race and is also responsible for much that cannot be counted as progress, for no other single cla.s.s of individuals has had, and still has, so large and far-reaching an influence as our ministers. You have only to go to a community where there is a well-trained, honorable, upright, and efficient minister to see the marked improvement among the people along every line.
On the other hand, when you find a community where there is an immoral, ignorant minister, wielding a large influence, you will find a community that is full of despair.
It is pleasant to read the short story written by Paul Laurence Dunbar some years ago, ent.i.tled ”The Ordeal at Mt. Hope.” This story possibly gives one of the most vivid pictures of real, genuine service rendered by a man of splendid parts in a needy section of the South, bearing out the practical demonstration of the power the minister has over a community.
It is one thing to lay down principles; it is another thing to show that these principles are correct and true by the practical work which is based upon these principles. It is no hard thing to see how true it is that of all men throughout the history of the world, none have had greater influence than the religious teachers of a people, and it is just as true to-day, and it is a waste of time to argue that a race or nation can be lifted any higher than the religious principles of that race or nation will allow it to go. History fails to record an instance of this sort, and it is very evident there never will be an instance of the kind. Man is bound by his religion. He may not profess it, but he has a belief; even though he may declare that he believes nothing, the very fact of his declaration proves him to have a dogma. You had as well expect to find lions without courage as to find men without some form of religious conviction. It is a something in man that has to be reckoned with, and where it is most wisely directed and cultivated, there we find the highest culture and development along every line. Hence the great importance to a new race like ours in America that the most careful attention be given to this very important phase of our development.
This is no time for mere fault-finding. It is a time, however, for sober, considerate thought. It is a time when the best of the clergy and the best of the laity of every denomination need seriously to face a question which is not alone common to themselves but is a serious one confronting the entire Protestant Church. In some ways our churches are suffering, (and it seems will suffer more for sometime than others), for the reason that we have not had, and have not now, so large a number of trained men to draw upon as others who have had better advantages than ourselves. With an honest purpose, it is our business to courageously take this matter up and get at the facts, and then find a way to remedy the alarming condition. We are at a crisis, and the future of our race is involved,--yea, the future of our nation, for one-eighth of the population of any land has a tremendous influence upon the whole.
In the first place, the demand for increased efficiency is emphasized by increased intelligence of the people. Forty years ago we were just entering school as a race; to-day we have the second generation in our public schools, secondary schools, and colleges. These parents and children read the daily papers, read the magazines, buy some books, and are beginning to think, and as soon as an individual begins to think independently all sorts of problems rapidly crowd in on the mind and put it in an att.i.tude of questioning many of the things which have always beforehand been taken for granted as correct and true. Along with this goes the fact that much of the literature of to-day, (including newspaper editorials and many magazine articles), has a tendency to undermine Christian faith rather than help it. Much of it comes from brains well saturated with Pagan philosophy rather than the principles laid down in the Holy Book. The swing away from Puritanism to what is called liberty has the effect of loosening many of the well-fixed principles of morality and right-living, and makes splendid soil for just such practices as we are constantly reminded of by the glaring headlines in our newspapers giving every detail of murders, and lax family relations and divorces, and every conceivable thing that human nature can devise for the uprooting of many of the essentials of real progress and decent living. This brings a spirit of unrest and doubt, and the question whether life pays, and whether it is worth while to make an effort, and whether the Church is of any effect. The minister is looked upon as a professional parasite drawing a salary and having a good time, and in the thought of many is cast aside as of but little consequence.
To meet such conditions as mentioned above, there must be increased efficiency in the ministry, the demand to meet which is greater to-day than ever before. I am finding no fault with the efficient men we now have at work. Many are doing valiant service. They are heroes on the home field in the same sense that Carey, Judson, Livingstone, Pitkin, Lott Carey and others were heroes on the foreign field. Some of these men are laying their lives down in the great work to which they have been called. All honor to these men! But their numbers are too few. The disproportion is too great in our professional schools. For example, when a medical school can boast of four hundred young men preparing to care for the physical life of the people and the theological school in the same inst.i.tution can report barely one hundred men preparing to care for the moral and spiritual life of the same people, it is time to stop and consider whither are we tending. Then at a closer glance we see something else which is worse still. With all due respect to the men in the theological school, it is an alarming fact that the men in the medical school, in most cases, have a higher average in scholars.h.i.+p and natural force than the men in the theological school. Why is this? It is because the training in our colleges, the teaching from the platform, and the training in most of our homes is such that our boys to-day are led to believe that the route to greatest success is along the material highway. It is a current saying now that the quickest way for a colored man of ability, at this time, to get out of the reach of immediate want, materially, is to study medicine.
There may not be too many men entering medicine, but certainly not enough are entering the ministry. In some cases well-meaning men have been disgusted with certain types of ministers which they have met and have cast the whole profession aside, giving it no respectful consideration, and have felt that they could better themselves, socially as well as materially, by entering some profession other than the ministry. I am well acquainted with not a few men who entered college with the express purpose of preparing themselves to enter the ministry, who turned aside to some other calling for the reason mentioned. Sad to say, very few of the most capable men in our colleges to-day are looking forward to the ministry as a life work.
In order that we may cope with such conditions as those just mentioned, none can gainsay the great need of greater efficiency in the ministry, that we do not cut the tap-root of all our progress and become of none effect in the world. The wisest leaders of j.a.pan to-day are deeply concerned about the propagation of Christian principles among the people.
The recent past has changed a nation in a day, and while the people have taken on the ways of western civilization, the larger number of them have not accepted the principles which have made western civilization great, and these far-seeing prophets of the Sunrise kingdom well understand that their glory will be ephemeral unless they are able to plant their feet firmly upon the eternal Rock of Ages. As lightly as it may be regarded, there is a similar danger confronting the rising young race of colored men in this land. It is not rea.s.suring that our strongest men, who are able to make their way through northern universities, have in some cases come out of these inst.i.tutions with a shattered faith and are not found in places of leaders.h.i.+p either as ministers or laymen, in our churches and other religious inst.i.tutions. A man cannot excuse himself by saying that he spends his time during the week in the schoolroom, in the law office, or in the sickroom. The great men of the world and the great races and nations of the world have done all these things but did not leave the other undone. To meet this condition a larger number of efficient men must be led into the ministry.
In order that the supply may be commensurate with the demand, it is necessary to ask the question where and how shall we begin to meet the demand for an increased efficiency in the ministry? First, with Christian parents. It is interesting to note that Paul, in his second letter to his beloved son, Timothy, 1st chapter, 5th verse, makes use of these words: ”When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother, Lois, and thy mother, Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also,” and he thus shows his belief in spiritual heredity.
The foregoing pa.s.sage teaches that we must not shut our eyes to the responsibility of Christian parents in this matter. Many of the great preachers of the world were consecrated to this service by G.o.dly mothers, in some cases before they were born, even as Hannah, Samuel's mother, consecrated him to the Lord before his birth.
Forty years ago, it was a pa.s.sion with many Christian parents to have at least one son enter the ministry, and yet I am sorry to say to-day I have many, many times made inquiry of ministers' sons and have found very few of them who were willing to give even a respectful hearing to the claim of the ministry and few parents of such sons who seemed concerned about the matter.
The first remedy is to go back to first principles and let the people who claim to love the Lord and His Christ be willing to make an offering of the very flower of their families to this, the highest and n.o.blest service ever given to man to perform.
Then our various churches must take a larger interest in leading the most promising young men into this great service. Some churches have done n.o.bly at this and have stood by their spiritual sons by furnis.h.i.+ng the means by which they might attend college and fit themselves for service, and have taken peculiar interest and pride in seeing them return to the mother church and in listening to them, and in bidding them G.o.d speed; but most of our churches, though able, have paid hardly any attention to this important phase of service at all, and many of our churches cannot mention a single successful minister who commands the respect of any large community because of his ability and power, which they have sent out. On the other hand, many times men are allowed to come into the ministry through our churches who are always calculated to do more injury than good,--men with no preparation and no chance of getting proper training.
G.o.d never calls a man to preach unless He also provides the way for him to make due preparation for that service. This is a principle which cannot successfully be disputed. When G.o.d called Moses He led him out of the land of Egypt, and he spent years and years communing with G.o.d under the canopy of heaven; and Paul spent three years somewhere in preparation for his great work, and even the Father's own Son for thirty years was in preparation to do three years' work.
It is a harmful thing to have a church full of inefficient, licensed preachers with no hope of ever entering actively into the ministry, but in most cases are just a worry of the flesh to a progressive pastor. When a man comes before a board for a license he ought to be given to understand that this license will be granted only on condition that he prepare himself intellectually as well as spiritually for the great work of the ministry, and when prepared that he will enter into the field which is white and ready and waiting for the reaper.
Possibly the Church has no larger opportunity for advancing the Lord's kingdom than in just this phase of service. Sometimes a narrow-minded minister is to blame. He fails to encourage the promising young man for fear some day he will come back as a rival too much for him. I wish it were possible to utter these words with sufficient emphasis to arouse many of our dormant, sleeping churches to a sense of their duty.
One organization in our colleges has the largest opportunity over any other to help furnish an increased supply from our college men, and that is the Student Department of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation.