OTHER BAD HABITS | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 19, 1880.

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 8

OTHER BAD HABITS.

Last week we gave a chapter from Howard Crosby’s Yale Lectures to divinity students, on the personal habits of the minister. The same lecture, as published in the Independent, mentioned, also, speculating, social, frivolous and loose habits, as other bad habits to be avoided. We give his remarks on these points, believing that our ministers will read them with profit, and all others at least with interest:—

The pecuniary habits of the preacher may bring him into great reproach. A speculating minister draws expunging lines through all his sermons. His interest in the money market shows small interest in the kingdom of Heaven. His eagerness to buy and sell makes his preaching lifeless. His people lose their respect for him, and never can count him sincere in holding up the incomparable glories of the unseen and eternal. He is the man with the muck-rake, when he ought to be the interpreter. An extravagant minister makes a different, but equally unfavorable, impression. He is not supposed to be a worshiper of Mammon taking a chief place in the house of God; but he is stamped as a self-indulgent man, who cannot deny himself any gratification that arrests his eye. He is felt to be lacking in that self-control which is so important an element in the foundation of Christian character; and for this reason is liable (as is the speculating minister) to the reputation of insincerity in his ministration of the gospel.

Closely allied to the extravagant minister is the borrowing minister, whose visits to his people they find so expensive that they take pains to avoid him when out of his pulpit. They naturally consider his calls to be more concerned with their pockets than with their souls. Even though he may be a man gifted in conversation, and may, under the direction of his conscience, use his gift for the spiritual welfare of his people; yet the object will be missed if, after every exercise of his pastoral function, he virtually hands in his bill for attendance. The preacher who throws the blame of his borrowing habits upon his wife’s extravagance, exhibits the old Adam in its original meanness. “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she has spent my salary, and so I borrow.” The confession implied, that he knows not how to rule his own house, shows him, according to the divine oracles, unfit to take care of the church of God.

These evil pecuniary habits are too often found in those the very soul of whose vocation is soiled by any irregularity in the matter of money. Excuses, of course, are readily found, as they are for every human fault; but no excuse, however good in itself, can save the preacher’s reputation. The stain is there, no matter how it got there, and this is all with which we have to do.

It is as appropriate here as anywhere to answer the question, “Should a preacher who has been guilty

of gross sin remain in the ministry?” for some of these habits to which we have to make so brief a reference may easily lead to overt acts that shock the moral sense of the community. To put the question in a more pointed shape, giving an example of what we mean by gross sin: “Should a preacher who has become a drunkard continue, after a supposed reform, to exercise his ministerial functions?” If the reform be a true one, it would seem to be a hard verdict to shut him out of his important and chosen work, for which his experience, moreover, has thoroughly fitted him. Besides, it would seem that such a man could argue more feelingly with the depraved and abandoned, having a more vivid sense of the horrors of their degradation. These considerations would lead us to answer the question in the affirmative, were it not that another element of consideration more important than all others is the practical one of the personal reputation of such a preacher, as a stumbling-block to the community. The majority of men will not believe in the genuineness of his reform, and even those that do so believe will look upon him as a weak and uncertain guide. His drunkenness will be ever before them as they essay to listen to his discourse, and all authority will be eliminated from his eloquence. The preacher must have a good report from them that are without, or he has no place in the true apostolic line. Now, if we apply this rule to the case in point, we must answer our question sorrowfully but firmly in the negative. The preacher who has been a drunkard can no longer be useful as a preacher. He may find many ways of honoring his Lord and serving his cause, where he will not be publicly observed and criticised; but the position of authority and influence he has forever forfeited.

Very many pernicious habits never reach to such a length as to fall under this illustration, and the counsel of a bold and wise friend or the resuscitation of conscientious thought may break up an evil habit, and render the preacher in all things acceptable and efficient.

In the social life of the preacher evil habits will naturally be most conspicuous, and, therefore, most harmful. His daily contact with men should impress upon them a sense of the truth of his character and the dignity of his calling. Whatever will destroy confidence in these must necessarily undermine his usefulness and bring discredit upon the Christian ministry. His personal and pecuniary habits have, of course, a social side, and touch his social character; but there are other forms of habit, that belong more directly to the social life, to which we now make reference as social habits. It requires great watchfulness on the part of a preacher of the gospel to avoid the snares that Satan lays for him in the many-sided intercourse of life. The desire to please, the fear to offend, the claims of politeness, the shrinking from undue responsibility, the dread of being counted assuming,—these commendable causes may break down the barriers that ought to exist between the teacher and the taught, between the ruler in the house of God and those who are under his spiritual sway. Besides these virtuous causes, there may be the workings of a carnal nature, tempting in the same direction, until these combined causes bring the preacher into questionable positions, and identify him, not with his people as such, but with the godless world. We may enumerate a few of these social habits which render the minister unfit for his holy office.

Frivolous habits, which mark the gay world, are altogether unbecoming. He may plead his right to do as others; that he did not lay aside his humanity when he became a minister; that he, too, must enjoy life: but all these excuses, so often given, only reveal the moral unfitness of the man the more. A minister has not the right to do as others. He stands on a higher plane, and the nature of things requires that he should walk by a higher rule in the details of daily life. What private Christians may do without injury to themselves or to others, he can not do. If we can say “noblesse oblige,” the principle is eminently true in the case of the Christian preacher. Moreover, the preacher’s humanity should be of so sanctified a sort as to exhibit tastes and inclinations of a more spiritual nature than those found in ordinary society. He does not lay aside his humanity when he becomes a minister; but he exalts his humanity, and assumes a new dignity which inheres in the office. He is to enjoy life; but he finds sources of joy in all the duties of his sublime vocation, and is not compelled to drink at the world’s crowded fountains.

Identification with the world’s gayety and fashion must always defile a minister’s garments. The fast horse, the pleasure yacht, the dashing dog-cart, conspicuous jewelry, attendance at ball, opera, or theater—these are unfailing marks of a minister low-toned in his piety or eccentric unto uselessness in the service of that God the love of whom is put by the Scriptures in excluding contrast with the love of the world.

Next to frivolous and gay habits we may note habits of undue intimacy with the other sex. It need not be urged that a preacher should live above the suspicion of looseness. Forced by his position into constant association of a confidential sort with both sexes, he needs an unceasing watchfulness against indiscretion. He is not simply to guard against his own feelings, but he is to avoid appearances that could be readily misconstrued. He is to parry a foolish admiration that offers some delicate attention, with a polite indifference, that his own integrity be not compromised. He is to refuse private interviews, except in such accessible places as parlors and drawing-rooms, and in visiting the sick he is not to lay aside his circumspection. Gallantry, or playing the beau, at once exposes the preacher to the rude but righteous shafts of public criticism, while it may lead his own heart and life into lamentable snares.

The habit of self-laudation is a hindrance to a successful ministry. The minister is to forget self in his message. He is to hide self behind his Master. For him to expatiate on his own merits is to forget his position as ambassador, and exhibit himself as principal. Asking members of the congregation their opinion of his sermon, in hopes of obtaining a flattering comment; dilating on his profound studies and the instances of his marvelous power over men; parade of titles and academic honors; insertion of laudatory articles in the newspapers of himself and his work; publication of the numbers that he has gathered into the church; enumeration of the revivals he has started,—all these are sickening forms of the vanity of small minds, and show a spirit out of harmony with the grand self-forgetful movement of the divine life.

We mention only one other class of habits that should be shunned by the man of God,—those which sacrifice his honor, and thus take from him the strength and beauty of truth. The preacher who exaggerates, so that the coarse world exclaims, “He lies!” who takes advantage of his position to make sweeping assertions, unsusceptible of proof; who manufactures his facts, and stakes everything on an antithesis; or, again, the preacher who makes engagements only to break them; who is ever ready to say yes, without any regard to the issue; who raises hopes and leaves them to wither,—these are preachers who are steadily forming a sentiment in the world against the gospel which they profess to preach, for there is nothing on which the world has such correct notions (however little it practices on them) as the necessity of truth and honor in a high and guiding soul.