Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1884 — MINISTERS AND DYSPEPSIA. [ARTICLE]

MINISTERS AND DYSPEPSIA.

Advice to Ailing Clergymen front a Friendly Cayman. My dear vonng brother: If you can, at the outset of your ministerin'career, entirely divest yourself of any idea that you are possessed of lungs, throat or liver, believe me, it will be peace to your bones and mercy to your congregation, aud your Usefulness in the pulpit will be largely increased. _ j A whining man is always a horrible bore under all circumstances and in any profession. The more he whines, the less do w@ sympathize with him. e strive to avoid him. Wo listen to hicomplaints only when he corners ns: and then we don’t believe one-half of them. And we charitably say that he exaggerates the other half. And when wo believe he was only half so ill as he claimed to be first, it follows Ilia* 1 there is nothing whatever the matter with ltiin. Y'ou have seen those highlycolored manikins which the demonstrators use on tho platform, taking them apart to illustrate lectures on anatomy ? Well, I have sat ttmler the ministry of some preachers who came into the pulpit now and then, and exhibited themselves before the congregation as living wonders of dyspepsia, bronchitis, asthma, neuralgia, headache, torpid livers, ,sore throat, influenza, a large and care-fully-selected assortment of coughs and golds, and rheumatic troubles, inflamjmations, congestions, sprains, bruises, contusions, malarial affections, nnd all the various ills to which a preacher is heir. If you are an invalid, my dear brother, your congregation doesn’t want a full report of your case nnd a detailed statement of Liebig’s Concentrated 'Svrup of Genseng every Sunday morning. If a congregation is aiyrthing like other audiences, and I think it is, it doesn’t care one cent for your physical condition. The individual unit of the congregation will be moved with compassion for your infirmity, and will express and feel the deepest sympathy with you. But the mass of the aggregation will say, “We came here to hear a good sermon, not a lecture on anatomy.” And they will expect) a good sermon, too, and they will complain if they don’t get it. Preach without any reference to yourself or your physical condition. Y’ou can sometimes preach a headache away. If you can’t you will have to stand it. If you parade your distress before your congregation, yon only distress the people, worry and irritate and drive them away from you. They will even “wish to goodnes that man would either , get well or quit preaching.” All this has a heartless sound, I know, but I believe it to be true, and it isn’t altogether heartless. Y'ou must expect to preach sometimes when you would rather run away like Jonah, than go into tho pulpit. All men feel that way at times, and all men, from draymen to presidents, work when

they don’t feel like it.

R.J. Burdette.