A MINISTER’S MANNER

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 4

A MINISTER’S MANNER.

The following is from the fourth lecture by Howard Crosby, D. D., before the Yale divinity students, published in the Independent of Dec. 25, 1879. Ministers should study it for their own practice; and the people should study it the better to be able to judge between the true gentleman and the boor.

“Leaving, now, the psychical disposition, we look to the outward manners of the preacher, some of which are natural and are traceable to birth or education, and some assumed from notions of effectiveness. Manner has so much to do with attracting or repelling men that it carries with it an importance greater than its intrinsic worth. It is only the exceptional and philosophic mind that looks beneath manner and judges directly by the character and disposition; and, hence, he who would have a passport to all men’s hearts must wear the outer garments of propriety in his intercourse with others. He is not a wise man who cares nothing for appearances, any more than he who makes a false presentation of himself to his fellow-men. The manners of a preacher should ever be harmonious with the sacred character of his office and the consistencies of a holy life. In describing these manners, we must keep before us the great aim of the preacher as the representative of the Lord and proclaimer of his gospel. He is to sink himself in his Master’s cause and in his love for souls, and he is to mold self according to the demands of the highest philanthropy.

“Manners are so largely a matter of choice and determination that no preacher can avoid the responsibility of conducting himself with seemly behavior before his people and the world. We might almost sum up all we have to say on this head in the one sentence that a minister ought to be a perfect gentleman. The word ‘gentleman’ may be hard to define in phrase, but yet it is well understood by all. It is a word that has regard chiefly to manners, and describes one who is acceptable in all his social contact. Whatever may be his real character or tone of mind, he controls himself to such an extent as to fit in gracefully in all the movements of society, and so to approve himself to all. He covers the mistakes of others by calling attention to a new subject, and commends their successes by fixing attention upon them. He looks to see what others like, and then adapts himself to their tastes while he is in their company. He is never boisterous or rude in his speech, however resolute and determined he may be in his character. He knows that power is not seated

in noise or boorishness, and that an iron hand is best used in a velvet glove.

“A gentleman is not to be confounded (as so often he is) with the man of fashion, who has learned the lying grimaces and small talk of the salon, and who invests his soul, as well as his body, at the tailor’s. A gentleman assumes his manners because they are right in themselves or advantageous for society; but the man of fashion assumes his manners because they are in the fashion. The gentleman is, probably, what the Greeks denoted by καλοκἀγαθός, a word which implies a moral worth beneath the agreeable manners. There have been preachers who affected clownish manners, through a strange infatuation that these added to their power, because, forsooth, they added to their notoriety. In their garments, or walk, or methods of address, they have played the fool, and only their undoubted talent has saved them from universal reproach. Young preachers who imitated these eccentricities, but who had not the talent of their patterns, have speedily gone under. Eccentricities are never enjoyed by others. They are only endured. There may be a sense of humor temporarily excited by the sight of an eccentricity in a minister, but it can never be a permanent source of pleasure to a parish. The man who helps himself first, the man who stands in another’s pathway, the man who throws his person into ungainly postures, the man who affects an uncouth dress or walk, the man who monopolizes the conversation, the man who delights in mortifying others, the man who indulges in any filthy habit,—such as these have no place under the category of ‘gentleman.’

“Next to this comprehensive characteristic of manner noted as gentlemanly, we may mark those forms of manner which are used in the pulpit for emphasis, or to produce the greater impression upon the audience.

“In all addresses to our fellows there must be art, which is only to say that there must be adaptations in manner consciously exercised. No man can be so lost to himself as to conduct an hour’s service in complete unconsciousness of his manner. He may at times lose himself in his discourse, forgetting everything but his message and the persons he addresses; but such a rapt state cannot continue long. As conscious of his manner, he is an artist, so that when we say the manner in the pulpit must be artless we are not using exact language. The danger lies in pushing art to an exaggeration, either beyond the point of just influence or beyond all harmony with the actual feelings of the preacher. In the former case the art may be of complete accord with the preacher’s feelings, and yet be so extravagant to the audience’s cooler state of mind as to disgust and repel; while in the latter case the insincerity is sure to show itself and produce a like result. The preacher, therefore, has two errors to guard against in respect of manner in the pulpit—one involving the moral element of insincerity, and the other evidencing a want of control over his impulses. With regard to the former, we need only remark that, whatever the manner, it is to be condemned. It is an imitation of the stage, and the stage and pulpit have nothing whatever in common, notwithstanding the popular idea that they are run in the same mold. The stage has as its object to amuse, and it has as its uniform method exaggeration; but the pulpit has as its object to instruct, and it has as its method the simplicity that becomes the delivery of truth. Young preachers who go to the stage for an example of manner or utterance are on the high road to ministerial ruin, although they may make a newspaper fame. The stage-actor is etymologically and classically the hypocrite, and has, so far as he is a stage-actor, no sympathy with the preacher and his solemn duties. He will teach the foolish preacher who goes to him for instruction poses, gestures, tones, and grimaces that have no more to do with a minister’s person than Hamlet or Romeo has to do with his theme.

“The other error of overwrought manner in the pulpit, as we have said, shows a want of proper control over the preacher’s impulses. He intensifies his voice to a scream or a roar, according to its tenor or bass nature. He moves about the platform like a caged lion, to the dread of all weak nerves in the congregation. He pounds the desk or Bible with doubled fist, and flings his arms at every point of the compass. His excessive emphasis becomes no emphasis at all. His sermon is italicized in every word. In this case, art should use a repressive influence, should hold in check the headlong energy, should modulate cadence and temper movement, and so bring the thought into proper relief. A power that is held in continues to exert its influence over the audience, but in a different way from its action when unchecked. In the latter case the audience is carried away by it as the forest’s debris is carried away by the torrent; but in the former the audience is awed with a sense of a force reserved. The experience is varied, but the influence is unbroken. The earnest, energetic preacher who in this way restrains his vehemence is ever en rapport with his hearers. In the case of the stage-preacher, any abatement of his exaggeration is absolute flatness, making a ruinous contrast with his mask and buskin. The earnest preacher’s effort is only to hold his horse in; the stage-preacher’s effort is to whip him up to regulation speed. The one has to control a power; the other to constitute a power. We can readily see how very different must be both their experience and their influence. The one has the pleasant duty of directing, the other the painful task of inventing; and the one supplies his auditory from his abundance, while the other can rarely avoid exhibiting the scantiness of his theatrical wardrobe.

“Another set of false pulpit manners may be grouped around the general charge of recklessness. It is either a lack of art or a purposed despising of art on the part of the minister. He enters the pulpit either on a run, or, perhaps, in a sauntering way. He tosses his hat under the seat. He turns over the leaves of the Bible as a child would look for pictures in a book. He looks all over the congregation while they are singing God’s praise. He prays in a mechanical way, and turns toward his seat before he has finished his ‘Amen.’ He does not believe in ceremony; but has he never heard of the apostolic rule of decency and order? Does he not see that the associations of the pulpit ought to be sober and solemn, not common-place and even ludicrous? Is there not a certain natural dignity that becomes the position and function of an ordained preacher before the people committed to his spiritual care? Surely, there are instinctive proprieties that we must not rudely violate, in an iconoclastic hatred of priestcraft and ritual. There is such a thing as sacredness of association, although we do not believe in any sacredness of locality, and he is really sacrilegious who would defile a holy association. There certainly should be a gravity and orderly demeanor in the person of him who delivers God’s revealed truth to a waiting congregation. Recklessness is no more proper in the case of a Christian preacher than it would have been in the case of Moses with his message to the people from Sinai, or in the case of Paul when telling the curious Athenians of the ‘Unknown God.’

“The preacher of reckless manner gives out the hymn as if he were simply directing the choir to sing, when he should be guiding the congregation into the real meaning of the lyric by his earnest and interested reading. He reads the passage of Scripture with no preparatory study of its full significance, and so with no hearty use of the sacred words. In both cases he is unwittingly teaching the congregation to be formal and mechanical in their worship. The preacher should feel that every minute he has in the pulpit is precious and privileged time, offering him opportunities to reach the hearts of many, opportunities never in the case of some to be repeated, and when the mind is generally in a peculiarly receptive attitude. He should be fully charged with this feeling, and every exercise should be all brimmed with solemn earnestness. A reckless manner in such a position betrays a lamentable lack of appreciation of the preacher’s responsibility, and shows the hireling in the place of the pastor.”