The Warriors eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 176 pages of information about The Warriors.

The Warriors eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 176 pages of information about The Warriors.

A call to the ministry also involves an over-mastering spiritual desire.  Tell me what a man wants, and I will tell what he is, and what he can best do.  If a man desires above all things to conduit a great business, he is by nature qualified for trade; if he desires knowledge, he is designed for a scholar; if he is always observing form, rhyme, aesthetic beauty, and striving to produce verse, he is a born poet.  But if the one thing that rules his dreams is the longing for spiritual power—­the thought of impressing God upon his generation, and leading men to a clearer view of life and duty—­he is a born minister of the Spirit, and to the spirit of the sons of men.  Along with this goes the great burden:  “Woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel!”

Wherever, to-day, there is a young man in whose heart is stirring a great devotional dream for the race, who longs to project his life into the most enduring and far-reaching influence, who craves the exercise of great gifts and powers, there is a man whose heart God is calling to possibilities such as no one can measure, and to triumphs such as no one can forecast!  The highest triumphs of these coming years are to be spiritual.  The leader is to be the one who can carry the deepest spiritual inspiration to the hearts of his fellow-men.  Do not let the hour go by!  This day of vision is the prophetic day!

But if the call be answered, if certain high-spirited and noble-minded men ask thus to stand as spiritual ministrants to the souls of men, how shall they be trained for the high office?

The old way will not do.  Sweeping changes, in these last days, have come over the commercial, academic, and social world.  We do not go back to the hand-loom, the hand-sickle, the hand-press.  What is true of these aspects of life is true of the spiritual training.  It must be larger, freer, grander, than before.  Time was when a theologian, it was thought, must be separated from the world—­an ascetic working in the dim half-light of the old library, or scriptorium, or hall.  To-day, he must gain much of his training from the great life of the world—­learn how to meet men and occasions, and be prepared to deal with modern forces and energies with courage, knowledge, and decision.

We read of the earnest Thomas Goodwin:  his favorite authors were such as Augustine, Calvin, Musculus, Zanchius, Paraeus, Walaeus, Gomarus, and Amesius.  What Doctor of Theology takes the last six of these to bed with him to-day?

Our theological courses are too dry.  Look carefully over the catalogues of thirty or forty of our own seminaries, and notice the curious, almost monastic, impression which they make.  Then realize that the men who pursue these abstruse and mediaeval subjects are the men who go out into churches where the chief topics of thought and conversation are crops, stocks, politics, clothes, servants, babies!  There is a grim humor in the thing, which seems to have escaped those who have drawn up the curriculum.

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Project Gutenberg
The Warriors from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.