Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 311, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 December 1910 — The Preacher’s Library [ARTICLE]

The Preacher’s Library

pBHJpSS HE subject before me for aHwra discussion pre-supposes /Mraßy that the preacher is also a student, Which most assuredly he must be if, as a preacher he desires to make his "calling and election sure.” There perhaps never was a time, in the history of the church, when the demands made on the pulpit were as great as they are today. On account of the -universal diffusions of periodicals, magazines and books both secular and religious, this has become pre-eminently a reading age, and the preacher must be a reader if he desires to lead, or even to keep up with the procession. We are living in the veritable age of reason yhen men refhse to accept, with implicate faith, dogmatic teaching simply because it proceeds from the church but demand, and we think justly so, that men be able to "give a reason for the hope that is in them.” Therefore the preacher, to gain and retain the confidence and respect of his parishioners, should and must be a clear logical reasoner and thinker.' A thinker will not do. The preacher must have brain and heart as well as mouth. We hear a great deal today in religious circles about the ministerial dead-line, what to do with the old —that is, fifty-year-old —preachers, etc. Preacher Must Be Student. Now it is our humble opinion that no minister can cross the dead-line as long as he remains a careful, faithful student, for thus by keeping in close sympathetic touch with the brain and heart, of the generation in which he lives he is able to "serve that generation well by the grace of God” and then like one of old simply "fall asleep.” But any preacher who ceases to be a student as well, has already crossed the dead-line whether he be fifty or twenty-five. The fortunate thing about it is that many such are dead and do not know it. If then, it is imperative that the preacher be a student, he must have something to study and this brings us more directly to our subject, “The Preacher’s Library." Now we are free to confess that we do not think that it is indispensably necessary for a preacher to know something of God, of man and of the things that come in the thought and life of those whom he is called to serve. Neither Is It necessary that he Save - a large and expensive library. The epitaph of many a faithful, successful minister might be truthfully written thus: He was the happy possessor of few books and many, babies. And while he might have been successful without the babies, we are not able to affirm, but the few books he must have. The library that Is absolutely necessary for the preacher to possess and thoroughly and faithfully study, if he wish to show himself approved of God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth, is -composed of those sixty-slx books commonly called the Bible. To this should invariably be added a good concordance, Bible text-book and commentary. These things are essential, many others may be helpful and highly desirable. For the nourishing of his own spiritual life, in addition to the word, the preacher should keep in constant touch with the most godly men of this and preceding generations; And we should feel disappointed if we did not find in his library biographies, histories, books of sermons and addresses as well as a few -of the many devotional books being constantly issued from the press. We would also expect to find in the progressive preacher’s library some of the leading magazines and periodicals of the day, but not as we found on moving into a certain parsonage scores If not hundreds of good standard magazines in the garret stored away’ in original packages, showing that, while they had been, received and, perhaps paid for, they had not been read. A few standard works of fiction seem almost indispensable to show the preacher things and people as others see them, to sharpen his intellect, warm his heart, quicken his imaginations and aid his liver to act properly, It would be almost impossible in this brief paper to say everything that might be said in reference to the preacher’s library and it would also be unkind to those who are anxious to have something to say in the discussion that is to follow. So we close in the language of the immortal some body with malice toward none and with charity for all. —Sabbath Reading.