Chapter II: Administration of the Lord's Supper

In some churches it is customary to preach what is termed "an action sermon," designed to bring vividly before the mind, just previous to the Supper, the events connected with the sufferings and death of our Lord; and it often proves a service of great power and value. With us the ordinance is more commonly preceded by a simple address designed to fix thought upon the great event symbolized. Whatever the method adopted, all subjects should be excluded which may divert the mind from the one great thought of the occasion. The Lord's Table, therefore, is not the place to bring up items of business, or to reprove the church for special derelictions in duty, or even to consider plans for church work. The pastor is often tempted to use it for such purposes, because then the members are more generally together and are alone. But I think it is rarely done without loss, for in this sacred service the Lord designed that the thoughts of every soul should center on Him.

The necessary acts in their order are these: 1. Take the bread, give thanks, break, give to the disciples, pronouncing the words of institution. 2. Take the cup, pouring the wine, give thanks, give to the disciples, pronouncing the words of institution. The service is usually closed with singing, but whether it was originally a part of the Lord's Supper, or only one of the hymns prescribed in the Passover service, we have no means of determining. The question is not important, but a closing hymn is certainly appropriate, and it is better to observe the custom. Observe the scriptural order of the acts carefully, for any deviation will divert attention and is always painful. In prayer avoid forms of expression that may convey false ideas of the ordinances. Thus, we sometimes hear: "Bless so much of this bread," or "so much of this wine," "as may be used," as if blessing made a change in the elements, and the administrator feared too much would be changed and the blessed elements might thus be wasted. Such phrases, which have come down from the ages of superstition, are adapted to foster among the people false ideas of the ordinance. Do not talk much during the administration but leave silent moments in which each heart may commune with itself and with Christ. Too much talking is the common fault. When God is speaking through the symbol, let man keep silence. This will be the more obvious if we remember that the ordinance consists of two essential parts--the presentation of the symbols of Christ's body and blood by the administration, and the act of partaking as the symbol of an inward act of faith on the part of the partaker. If the attention, therefore, is held by remarks of the administrator, the value of the ordinance may be lost to the participant from lack of opportunity for silent communion between his soul and Christ. Above all, enter yourself as fully as possible into the great idea of the ordinance, and use all means to fix thought on that to the exclusion of all else. Rightly administered, the Lord's Supper is one of the mightiest forces God has given to inspire and purify the heart and elevate the life of the church.

+SECTION VI.+

THE PASTOR AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL.

No pastor can be permanently successful if not in sympathy with the young. He must be the pastor of the children, accessible and attractive to youth, and must give a cordial recognition and a kindly word as he meets them. As an aid in this, make a register of their names and a careful study of their faces, so as readily to recognize them; and carry with you cards with Scripture mottoes or other little souvenirs of a pastor's love and interest to leave with them. The most successful ministers of the present age are, as a rule, active Sunday-school workers. Of several eminent pastors it was written some years ago: "The venerable Dr. Tyng, as is well known, attributes his great success largely to his long-continued and unwearied personal attention to his Sunday-school. He is never absent from his home school. Rev. S. H. Tyng, Jr., uniformly conducts the closing exercises of his home school, and also the Friday-evening meetings of the teachers of all his four schools, thus by indirection reaching the twelve hundred children who in turn are taught by these teachers. Dr. Howard Crosby takes up the lesson on Wednesday evening, and preaches regularly to the children on Sunday afternoons. Dr. Richard Newton, who has an almost world-wide reputation as a children's preacher, takes up the Sunday-school lesson at his weekly service, attends his teachers' meeting, and preaches regularly to the children of the parish. Dr. John Hall goes each Sunday morning into his home school and believing in 'hand-shaking as a means of grace,' takes each teacher and scholar cordially by the hand. He lectures each Wednesday evening on the Sunday-school lesson to a well-filled church, the audience having long since outgrown the lecture-room. He conducts in person a monthly review in his home school, questioning each class on the lessons of the preceding month. He presides at the monthly or bi-monthly sociable of the teachers of his four schools and conducts on Saturday afternoon a ladies' Bible class which the lecture-room is too small comfortably to hold." These are, indeed, rare men, but they show the wonderful power that pastors may wield by sympathy with the young, and by wisely-directed Bible study among them. Indeed, the preparation of a Sunday-school sermon, by compelling simplicity of statement and aptness of illustration, is a valuable discipline for the preparation of ordinary services.

_Hints._--1. In public address or prayer let your appreciation of the Sunday-school as a sphere of church work and religious power be always manifest. Make it prominent among the subjects of prayer both in the pulpit and in the prayer-room. Exhort and instruct the church respecting the necessity of securing for it cheerful, attractive rooms and an ample apparatus in music, library, papers, maps, etc. The interest and liberality of a congregation in this depend greatly on the interest manifested in the pulpit. 2. Use careful effort to form the adult members of the congregation into Bible classes, and thus connect them personally with the school. This can be done to a much larger extent than is supposed, and the results are of the highest value. It enlarges the biblical knowledge and enriches the experience of the adult part of the church. It brings to the school the moral support and influence of this class. It is a means of holding the young as they become men and women and preventing their abandonment of the school as having become too old for it. And it secures a permanent, living sympathy between the church and the school, thus avoiding that isolation of the school which, in many instances, makes it practically a separate interest outside of the church rather than within it. 3. The pastor should let his presence and personal influence be constantly felt in the school; but if he have two sermons on the Lord's Day, he should neither superintend it nor, if possible to avoid, consent to take a class in it. It will exhaust him often before the second sermon, and in the end may destroy his nervous power. But he should be often present in the school, talk to it occasionally, and make the personal acquaintance of teachers and scholars, moving among them as a friend and helper. 4. The pastor should, if possible, meet the teachers weekly for instruction and counsel, carefully studying with them the lesson for the Lord's Day. The teachers' meeting will afford opportunity for the consideration, not of the lesson only, but also of all the interests of the school. As a preparation for this he should make himself familiar with the best methods of Sunday-school work, that he may wisely inspire and direct improvement. Or if it be thought that the helps for the study of the lesson given in papers accessible to the teachers are sufficient, the pastor's instruction in the teachers' meeting might take a wider range, embracing courses of lectures on the Christian Evidences, the Introduction to the Books of the Bible, the Scripture Doctrines, Sacred Geography, and kindred subjects. In this case the sphere of the meeting might be enlarged, making it also a normal class, in which the more advanced scholars, as well as the teachers, might be prepared for the teacher's work. 5. Great care is to be exercised respecting the books introduced into the library; for, while much advance has been made in the style and adaptation of books for the young, there are many which are not merely trashy but are positively pernicious. The Sunday-school library is an instrument of great power in forming the tastes, the opinions, and the habits of the people, and it is of the utmost moment that the books be pure in doctrine and healthful in moral and religious tone. 6. The Sunday-school concert, in which the exercises are prepared chiefly by the school itself, will be of great value if wisely conducted; but care is needed to exclude exercises introduced for sensational effect which may not befit the Lord's Day. Indeed, it is all-important that the exercise should not be degraded into a mere exhibition, awakening on the part of teachers and scholars only a desire to produce a popular sensation and draw the crowd, and on the part of the people a desire to be amused. The devotional spirit should always be dominant. But in addition to such exercises, it will be profitable to preach a sermon statedly--once a month, or at least once in three months--expressly to the Sunday-school, adapting the whole service to the young. It brings the pastor and school together publicly and directly and recognizes the relation of the pastor to it as its chief instructor and guide. But in the sermon, as in every Sunday-school address, he should be careful that in attempting to be simple he does not become childish; the former is necessary to success, the latter is a common and fatal mistake.

Finally, the hearty co-operation and sympathy, above suggested, of pastor and people with the school will ordinarily avert all difficulty on the question of the relation of the Sunday-school to the church; for any school, whether home or mission, which finds itself thus enclosed within the living sympathies of the church will instinctively recognize its position as belonging to the church and under its watch-care and guidance. Nor will the other evil, so widespread and unfortunate, of the non-attendance of the school on public worship be likely to be experienced; for the scholars, won by the pastor's personal interest in them, will be attracted to him and to his ministrations in the pulpit.

+SECTION VII.

PASTORAL VISITATION.

The care of souls is the radical idea of the pastor's office. He is a shepherd to whom a flock has been committed to guide, to feed, to defend; and the Divine command enjoins: "Take heed to _all_ the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers" (Acts xx. 28). He is to be the personal religious guide, the confidential Christian friend, of his charge. Our Lord, in His description of the Good Shepherd, said: "The sheep hear His voice; and He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him; for they know His voice" (John x. 3, 4). Each member of his flock is a soul entrusted to his care by the Lord; and if true to his trust, he is one of those who "watch for souls as they that must give account." Paul, when in Ephesus, taught not only publicly, but "from house to house;" and in his farewell charge to the elders of that city he said: "Watch, and remember that, by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every man night and day with tears" (Acts xx. 31). Dr. Cuyler, one of the busiest and most effective pastors in Brooklyn, says: "Young brethren, aim from the start to be thorough pastors. During the week go to those whom you expect to come to you on the Lord's Day. In the morning of each day study books; in the afternoon study door-plates and _human nature._ Your people will give you material for your best practical sermons. After an effective Sunday work go around among your flock, as Napoleon rode over the field after a battle--to see where the shot struck and who were among the wounded."

Dr. Taylor, of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, addressing theological students, says: "You will make a great mistake if you undervalue the visitation of your people. The pulpit is your throne, no doubt; but then a throne is stable as it rests on the affections of the people, and to get their affections you must visit them in their dwellings. I used to look upon my visitation as a dreadful drudgery, but it has now become my joy, so that whenever I am tempted to despond I sally forth to visit my flock; and as I look back upon those early years in which I had no such gladness, I am earnestly desirous to save you from blundering as I did."

Dr. John Hall, of New York, speaking to a similar audience, said: "Pains should be taken that nothing prevents your making pastoral visits. It is very necessary for you to know the people in their homes, and for the people to know you. The little children and the young people should know you. The men should know you. It is only in this way that you can get a distinct idea of the wants of your people, and so be enabled to adapt your preaching to them. Do not begrudge the time thus spent. In freely conversing with humble people you will get side-lights, or particular testimony, that will make you a stronger man and a better minister for many a day to come."

Bishop Simpson, alluding to the timidity often felt by young men in regard to pastoral visitation, gives this bit of experience: "I had much of this timidity when I entered the ministry. The palms of my hands sometimes burned at the very thought of going out to visit. But I felt I must go; the church bade me go; I had promised God I would go; and as the soldier in the army walks forward timidly, yet determinedly, into the thickest of the fight, so I went in my Master's name. If I could, I took with me some experienced Christian friend. I spoke to the people kindly; drew out of them their religious condition and experience; found many a wandering one and tried to comfort many a sorrowing heart. Such visits made me better, taught me to feel for the people, and to break for them the bread of life with more fitness. In a revival which followed, out of nearly three hundred who came to the altar for prayer there were very few with whom I had not previously conversed, and I knew how to enter into their sympathies and to point them to the Lamb of God."

The late eminent President Francis Wayland, in closing an earnest plea to pastors on this subject, said: "If, at last, it be said that all this is beneath the dignity of our profession, and that we cannot expect an educated man to spend his time in visiting mechanics in their shops and in sitting down with women engaged in their domestic labor to converse with them on the subject of religion, to this objection I have no reply to offer. Let the objector present his case in its full force to Him who, on His journey to Galilee, 'sat thus on the well' and held a memorable conversation with a woman of Samaria."

Pastoral visitation, therefore--this personal care of souls--is an essential part of the pastor's work; and no minister meets the responsibilities of the sacred office who neglects direct individual religious contact with his flock. For the performance of this duty, however, it is obvious no rules of universal application can be given. Men differ in their characteristics and modes of working, and each pastor will ordinarily succeed best with his own method. Churches differ in their circumstances and modes of life, and a method adapted to one field may not be at all feasible in another. The main points here to be kept in view are that the pastor in some way come into personal religious relations with his flock, and that this be done by a fixed plan. The suggestions made, therefore, will be of only a general character, and will relate to the limits of this duty, the method of performing it, and the advantages of its faithful discharge.