Chapter III: Social Character and Relations

Two extremes are here to be avoided--the one, in which the pastor lives a recluse life, isolated from the life of the people and unfelt in directing the currents of thought and feeling around him; the other, in which he maintains a loose, familiar intercourse with all society, lounging about in public places, a "hail-fellow-well-met" with everybody. Avoiding these extremes, a pastor should never allow himself to be a cipher in social life but should make himself a vital force controlling and elevating it. The gravity of his character and work, however, requires him to use special care in regard to deportment and associations. He is, indeed, to be and to act out himself, but, while true to his own nature as a man, he is so to control it as never to forget his character and office as a minister of God. Here I offer the following suggestions:

1. The minister should be, always and everywhere, the unaffected Christian gentleman, showing all courtesy to all men. It is here some fail, and either through a neglect of the courtesies and amenities of social life render themselves repulsive, or by a stiff and artificial manner of observing them, without geniality and warmth, make themselves unapproachable. Men ordinarily and justly regard manners as an index of character. Good manners, therefore, cannot be put on from without; they spring from a sense of the relations we bear to others and a disposition to act in accordance with them. A kindly, unselfish heart, a quick, keen sympathy, a sensitive regard for others' rights and feelings; a ready, generous appreciation for the excellences of others, and a tender charity for their faults and foibles--in short, a well-developed Christian manhood, with refined sensibilities, noble, pure, upright, transparent, touching life on every side, and fitted to bless whatever it touches,--this is the only real basis of correct manners. The cultivation of such a character, therefore, is the prime necessity, for in this will exist all the instincts of the true gentleman from which the gentlemanly manner spontaneously results.

2. In the matter of dress. I do not know that any law of propriety requires the minister to be distinguished either in the cut or the color of his garments. Many, however, prefer some kind of ministerial costume as a matter of convenience to indicate everywhere their vocation, and this is, of course, a subject to be left wholly to individual preference. The principle to be insisted on as important is that the dress be not such as to arrest special attention, as suggesting foppishness and fastidiousness on the one hand, or carelessness and slovenliness on the other. The man, not the dress, should arrest and hold attention.

3. In conversation he should be genial, courteous, affable, avoiding that tone and manner of condescension which carries in it an implied sense of superiority, and exhibiting that breadth of intelligence and culture which will secure respect for his views in general society. Slang phrases, vulgar anecdotes, boisterous discussions, idle gossip, and scandal, it is hardly necessary to say, ill become a pastor, and will in the end seriously militate against his usefulness. Coarseness, indelicacy, and all that is suggestive of impurity should be scrupulously avoided; such words, when uttered by a minister, live and fester in the memory, and are destructive of all pastoral influence afterward over those who hear them. "An obscene story, a lewd double _entendre,_ a filthy joke, a questionable word or gesture, a sentence that would make a pure woman blush in public or in private, in select or in mixed company, is a burning shame and scandal to any minister of the Gospel." Nor should his chief distinction in society be that of the wit or mimic. Wit and humor, when natural, are often elements of real power, as giving sparkle and flavor to speech, but in the pastor their place is subordinate; when they appear as his chief characteristic, they inevitably injure his influence. Attractive social qualities, such as enable the pastor to exercise a leading and governing power in society, are to be most earnestly sought; their effect on pastoral usefulness can hardly be overstated.

The minister, when a guest, enjoying the temporary hospitality of a family circle, should bring into it the blessing of a genial, sunshiny spirit, showing always a thorough appreciation of kindness received and avoiding all unnecessary trouble to the hosts. If other ministers are present, beware of that ministerial clannishness which centers conversation on topics adapted only to ministers or makes it consist of ministerial criticism, gossip, and scandal adapted to lower the estimation in which other ministers are held. In the freedom and _abandon_ of ministerial society there is often much temptation to this, but words thus thoughtlessly spoken sometimes do incalculable injury, both by lowering the ministerial character in the eyes of the household, and by inflicting an incurable wound on the reputation of those made the subjects of gossip. The injunction of Scripture cannot be too carefully heeded: "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt" (Col. iv. 6); for thus the spirit you breathed and the words you spake will remain a benediction with that household and make your memory fragrant there for ever.

4. In his amusements and recreations a pastor should indulge only in such as are not only in themselves innocent but are not commonly offensive to the Christian conscience. The grand principle of self-denial enunciated by Paul as the rule of his own life is here, undoubtedly, the guiding principle of ministerial duty. He says: "Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved" (1 Cor. x. 32, 33). He relinquished self-gratification, even though innocent, rather than put a cause of stumbling before others and hinder their salvation. Recreation is doubtless a necessity--the bow always bent loses its spring--but recreation should never be taken in a form which may give offence to Christian souls, or which may set an example such as, if followed by others, might work their injury. A pastor's influence also may be impaired by undue absorption in any form of recreation. There is no wrong, it may be, in using a good horse, in playing a game of ball or croquet, in fishing or hunting, or many other forms of recreation; but the pastor who is specially distinguished for his interest in fast horses or for his sporting habits, or as a devotee of amusements, violates most seriously the proprieties of his position, and sinks in the estimation of all thoughtful people.

5. A minister's associations or special intimacies should not be with bad or loose or irreligious men; the taint will necessarily tarnish and injure his own reputation, even if it does not corrupt his character. He is to be "a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate" (Tit. i. 8). He should show all courtesy and kindness, indeed, to even the worst men around him, but his special friendships should not be sought there, nor his habitual associations. Some ministers have here made wreck of their influence with the better classes in the community, while their association with the loose and irreligious class, so far from winning them to Christ, has only the more hardened them in rejecting Him by lowering in their eyes the character of His servant.

6. The pastor's relations with the other sex should not only always be pure in fact but should also be such as to avoid even the possibility of misconstruction. No point needs to be more carefully guarded, for even the suspicion or thought of wrong in this, however ill-grounded, is commonly fatal to usefulness, and often follows him through the remainder of life.