No great teacher is born with fullness of knowledge or with perfected ideals. Knowledge increases and ideals change, being affected by environment, educational opportunities, and special experiences. These ideals grow, and become higher and more perfect; or they deteriorate and demoralize. They really enter into the very heart of man, crowning him with success, or ultimately unseating him in his endeavors, and writing failure over his name.
The highest type of worker never reaches his ideal. The painting which satisfies the artist, the statue which meets the sculptor's dream, marks his limit. He can never pass beyond or reach a higher degree of perfection than his ideal. The composer who does not feel and dream of what he cannot write, will never reach a high place in his art. It is said of a certain great Italian composer, that in his meditations he seemed to hear strains of music of such beauty, such heavenly harmonies, that no human skill could write them, no instrument known to man could reproduce them.
Thus it is with the true minister of the gospel; he feels and thinks beyond his power of utterance or the skill of man to attain. As long as his ideal stimulates to endeavor, there is growth; when he lowers his ideal, his ministry is lowered.
In his ideal the minister must penetrate the deep, mysterious things of God. He must understand true values as measured by time and by eternity. His ideal must lead him to place a correct estimate on the things of time as compared with eternal values. With Paul he will be able to say, "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, you yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me." Acts 20: 23, 24. Paul had a high ideal constantly before him,—to attain to the fullness of life in Christ Jesus.
The true minister understands man. His work is to deal with men. As it was said of Christ, "He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man" (John 2:24, 25) ; so it should be true of one who is called to be Christ's ambassador,—he should have a deep and sympathetic understanding of mankind. What Tennyson said of the poet should be doubly true of the minister:
"He saw through life and death,
through good and ill;
He saw through his own soul,
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open neroll, before him lay,"
Sometimes the ideal is awakened by direct revelation, as in the case of Paul on the Damascus road, and the man receives a vision of God in his innermost being. He conceives what God has called him to be, and feels in his soul that he is to become a mouthpiece for Jehovah. Henceforth such a man has a high ideal of his work, which like a plain pathway lies clearly before him. No other man can see nor understand nor comprehend the ideal which this spiritual, re-created man feels and knows.
The world loses its attractions for such a man; its pleasures pall on him as low, vulgar music shocks the ideals of a great master of harmony. The lusts of the flesh make no appeal to him; for his ideal is born of the Spirit, and keeps him above carnality. His soul finds communion with the Infinite, and he endures "as seeing Him who is invisible." Ever there grows within him a desire to be in the mount with God, that he may commune with Him, as friend with friend.
The man who has received from God a conscious call to be His ambassador, and has caught the prophet's true ideal, can never be "funny" nor vulgar nor play the clown. One might as well think of Isaiah or Jeremiah or Joel making sport for the people whom they were sent to warn of impending doom, as to expect a great spiritual leader who has received a true vision of the Lord Jesus to make sport before those whom he has been called to warn and lead to repentance.
It is easy to lose this high ideal. One may have it, and yet through sin and vulgarity and low living entirely lose it. Without spiritual-mindedness, without prayer, reading of the word, and meditation on holy themes, it is impossible to maintain holy living and to reach the ideal in daily life. The flesh ever wars against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
After his high ideals have become dimmed and his spiritual vision dulled, the man of God may repeat sermons that once moved men to repentance; but while those parrotlike sermons may contain the same words, they are without spiritual power. The ideal is lacking. The soul of the minister is no longer in touch with Heaven; the connection with Deity is broken; the spirit and fire and power have departed. Why?—The man has lost his hold on God. His life is no longer hid with Christ, but he lives according to the flesh.
Early ideals, if of the right stamp, must be held to as of great worth. Truth, purity, honesty, must be cherished; otherwise these very virtues will lose their appeal, and one who allows himself to lower his colors or lose sight of his ideals in these matters, is permitting himself to fall to a lower level. The citadel of the soul must be ever swept and cleaned, that it may be the habitation of the Holy Spirit, if ideals which stand for spiritual enlightenment, spiritual foresight, spiritual insight, are to remain with us.
The spiritual life needs food and nourishment. There must be much study of the word of God; for we grow into our ideals by labor and prayer and faith. A minister without an ideal is a failure; for the true ministerial ideal will ever bring in touch with God one who holds it. The higher and nobler the ideal, the more spiritual power will the minister have.
What a pity that any minister should lose this ideal touch with God, and still go on preaching as if endued with power from on high! For "our preaching is not to be by might, nor by power, but by the Holy Spirit: convincing of sin, convincing of righteousness, convincing of judgment, transforming men more and more into the divine image from glory to glory."
To avoid falling from his high spiritual ideal, the minister must constantly strive to maintain in heart and life an ever-increasing, fresh, vital, spiritual communion with Heaven. The soul must be so attuned to spiritual things that it ever recognizes and responds to the "still small voice," whose warnings and encouragement are so necessary to his spiritual growth.
I. H. E.
