No Ministerial Airs
OUR subject is to be the minister’s common conversation when he
mingles with men in general, and is supposed to be quite at his
ease. How shall he order his speech among his fellow-men? First
and foremost, let me say, let him give himself
no ministerial airs, but avoid
everything which is stilted, official, fussy, and pretentious.
“The Son of Man” is a noble title; it was given to Ezekiel, and
to a greater than he: let not the ambassador of heaven be other
than a son of man. In fact, let him remember that the more
simple and unaffected he is, the more closely will he resemble
that child-man, the holy child Jesus. There is such a thing as
trying to be too much a minister, and becoming too little a man;
though the more of a true man you are, the more truly will you
be what a servant of the Lord should be. Schoolmasters and
ministers have generally an appearance peculiarly their own; in
the wrong sense, they “are not as other men are.” They are too
often speckled birds, looking as if they were not at home among
the other inhabitants of the country; but awkward and peculiar.
When I have seen a flamingo gravely stalking along, an owl
blinking in the shade, or a stork demurely lost in thought, I
have been irresistibly led to remember some of my dignified
brethren of the teaching and preaching fraternity, who are so
marvelously proper at all times that they are just a shade
amusing. Their very respectable, stilted, dignified, important,
self-restrained manner is easily acquired; but is it worth
acquiring?
Theodore Hook once stepped up to a gentleman who was parading
the street with great pomposity, and said to him, “Sir, are you
not a person of great importance?” and one has felt half
inclined to do the same with certain brethren of the cloth. I
know brethren who, from head to foot, in garb, tone, manner,
necktie, mid boots, are so utterly parsonic that no particle of
manhood is visible. One young sprig of divinity must needs go
through the streets in a gown, and another of the High Church
order has recorded it in the newspapers with much complacency
that he traversed Switzerland and Italy, wearing in all places
his biretta; few boys would have been so proud of a fool’s cap.
None of us are likely to go as far as that in our apparel; but
we may do the like by our mannerism. Some men appear to have a
white cravat twisted round their souls, their manhood is
throttled with that starched rag. Certain brethren maintain an
air of superiority which they think impressive, but which is
simply offensive, and eminently opposed to their pretensions as
followers of the lowly Jesus. The proud Duke of Somerset
intimated his commands to his servants by signs, not
condescending to speak to such base beings; his children never
sat down in his presence, and when he slept in the afternoon one
of his daughters stood on each side of him during his august
slumbers. When proud Somersets get into the ministry, they
affect dignity in other ways almost equally absurd. “Stand by, I
am holier than thou,” is written across their foreheads.
A well-known minister was once rebuked by a sublime brother for
his indulgence in a certain luxury, and the expense was made a
great argument. “Well, well,” he replied, “there may be
something in that; but remember, I do not spend half so much
upon my weakness as you do in starch.” That is the article I am
deprecating, that dreadful ministerial starch. If you have
indulged in it, I Would earnestly advise you to “go and wash in
Jordan seven times,” and get it out of you, every particle of
it. I am persuaded that one reason why our working-men so
universally keep clear of ministers is because they abhor their
artificial and unmanly ways. If they saw us, in the pulpit and
out of it, acting like real men, and speaking naturally, like
honest men, they would come around us. Baxter’s remark still
holds good: “The want of a familiar tone and expression is a
great fault in most of our deliveries, and that which we should
be very careful to amend.” The vice of the ministry is that
ministers will parsonificate the gospel. We must have humanity
along with our divinity if we would win the masses. Everybody
can see through affectations, and people are not likely to be
taken in by them. Fling away your stilts, brethren, and walk on
your feet; doff your ecclesiasticism, and array yourselves in
truth.
C. H. Spurgeon,
Lectures to my Students, (The Minister's Ordinary
Conversation)
