MODELTOWN WANTS A PREACHER by A Member of the Official Board of Modeltown Church

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 26, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 9

MODELTOWN WANTS A PREACHER.

By A Member of the Official Board of Modeltown Church

Dear Brother Sentman: As this is about the time when the ministers are naturally looking around for the next lightning place, I thought I would lay before them Modeltown. I will say first of all that what I may write I wish it distinctly understood has in it no reflection upon either the former ministers or the present one; because this appointment we know stands well in the Conference, and has always been fortunate in having excellent ministers sent us, some of whom have fulfilled all reasonable expectations.

1st. Then, we want a man who not only preaches man's responsibility to an independent God, but thoroughly believes it, feels it as he feels the danger to a blind man walking toward a precipice, or some one's house on fire; one who feels it in his very bone and marrow, to whom God's word, “The soul that sinneth it shall die,” has a force and meaning.

2d. We want a man who preaches because he cannot help it; one who feels his commission resting upon his soul, and who believes God's word to Ezekiel, 18th and 23d chapters, were meant for him as well as the prophet.

3d. We want a man who understands the definition of Jesus to be one who shall save his people from their sins. The experience of the church is that a preacher who believes that Jesus came to save his people in their sins never has any revivals of religion. He assumes a sinful life for himself, and of course for his people. We want one to whom the sentence of Holy Writ, that God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, and Paul's benediction, blameless at his coming, were not merely thrown in to fill up or round a period, but were guide-posts to show us the possibilities in Christian character. “Higher” is his watchword for himself and his flock.

4th. We want a man of good common sense and mother wit, whose zeal is so tempered with discretion that he will not do harm where he would do good, of fair manners, address, and tact, both in the parlor and pulpit. We would like him to know when in a parlor that all four legs of the chairs are for use. There are ministers who never prayerfully studied any good book of etiquette; but at every gathering of ministers some ladies have to bemoan the breaches of common politeness in floors dirtied with litter and tobacco juice, and curtains scented up for a month afterward with the horrid odor of stale tobacco smoke. The minister should be a model Christian gentleman, the pattern for good manners as well as good morals in every household he enters. I know a minister, though not now in this section, whose house manners were so bad that he was the dread of our housewives. No one wanted a second visit from him.

5th. As to his gifts, we are a plain people, and if he will come to us as Paul did to his charge, determined to know nothing among us but Christ and him crucified, we will be satisfied though he never heard of Darwin nor Ingersoll, and does not know any ology but theology; and is old-fashioned enough to draw his illustrations from the wells whence Christ drew his. Those were the things that were within the range of the knowledge of all the people. If he had undertaken to show us the extent of his knowledge, I am thinking much of the Bible would be of little use to us.—A Member of the Official Board of Modeltown Church.