thousand to chase "one" depends largely upon the quality of man's coöperation with his Maker. So I believe the real desideratum of the Christian ministry today is not numbers, but quality of manhood. The pulpit princes of the generation past-the Beechers, the Halls, the Parkers-must be matched, not in inches but in soul. Finney and Moody and Spurgeon must be reproduced, not in imitators of themselves, but in fresh incarnators of their Master. Not how many, but how great of soul, how catholic and tactful, how commandingly gentle of manhood-this is the real question concerning candidates for the ministry.

Among the immemorial customs of Commencement season is a classification of the new graduates according to their several adopted vocations. Vividly do I recall the list as published concerning my class. With what curious eagerness my eye ran down the names! Of course I knew already, and in a general way, what the list would show. We had summered and wintered together; we were almost acquainted with each other's thoughts. But now the facts appeared in black and white: Pinchot for forestry, Sherrill for the law, Barstow for medicine, Kent for a professorship-who for the ministry? Who to choose the vocation made magnificent to me by my father's unwearying devotion? Who to dedicate life to the healing of souls? I answered then, as I acknowledge still, with peculiar sadness: Not our best men; not those students whom the faculty or their fellows had delighted to honor. With two to three notable exceptions the biggest brains and the greatest hearts of my class were headed toward secular pursuits, while the supreme human vocation, that calling which demands the richest human endowment and endeavor, the place of largest and most enduring reward, must be recruited from the ranks of mediocrity. And what was true of my own class was equally true of the other classes in which I had acquaintance. For some reason, or combination of reasons, the business of being an ambassador for Christ was not alluring the best of my comrades in Greek and Calculus-I repeat, with two or three notable exceptions. It hurt me strangely, though I did not then mean to enter the church. That the cure of souls should be attempted by any but the most opulent manhood seemed to me little short of sacrilege.

But how stands the case at large? Delicate as is the question, invidious in certain of its bearings, let it be asked and answered fairly. Frank recognition may lie on the way to better days. Sane treatment must begin with diagnosis. How grades the ministry among earth's great vocations? Acknowledging eagerly all the stars of the first magnitude in the ministerial firmament, past and present, thanking God for those beautiful souls which have poured out their full treasure upon the altars of the Christian Church, not forgetting that the law has its hacks, medicine its tyros, and business its blunderers, can it be truthfully said that the pulpit is attracting its full share of the world's sturdy souls? I wish I could so believe. But the signs are wrong. Something has happened since the days in which the shining lights of most of our colleges were preparing to be hung in chancels and at the harbor entrances of the Christian Church. And the reasons, some of them, are not far to seek.

First of all may be named a prevailing, popular attitude toward the ministry. Times have changed since the "parson" was the person of the community. People may still "respect the cloth" -they can hardly be said to revere it. Most healthy boys would rather be consigned to the schoolship Saint Mary's than dedicated, like Samuel by his mother, to the ministry. "A man despite his sacerdotal robes" is the description given by an eminent reviewer to Margaret Deland's creation, Dr. Lavendar. The priest gets his compliment at the expense of his priesthood. And whatever be said as to the ungenerosity of the phrase, it is only an expression of sentiment of which the modern air is full. Nor is the poison less dangerous for being impalpable. Our young men early become inoculated with it. Anemia is counted native to a ministerial calling. Take the ordinary stage portrayal of the clergyman— long-frocked, mincing, perfunctory. Unfair, you say. Well, let it be no truer to the facts than is the average theatrical conception of saint or of wanton, it must be reckoned with. It is the minister as the playwright sees him and as his audiences are expected to recognize him. And such will be the image burned into the average youthful mind. Ralph Connor's heroes-red-blooded, strong-fisted, deep-chested preachers, have won readers by the

sheer surprise of such conception. The long coat and the long face have been so long wedded in popular opinion that it seems almost sacrilege for anybody to put them asunder. "He does not look like a preacher," said a father by way of inviting his son to hear the new pastor. "Too bad to spoil so good a lawyer," was the compliment often applied to a certain eminent clergyman. As if any left-over sort of material were competent for the ministry. Paul thought the best was all too poor; he almost doubted the divine wisdom which called him-a defective instrument-to the apostleship. But nowadays the church must be content, forsooth, with any kind of recruits for its pulpit. Such is the widespread drift of popular opinion. No wonder, then, that the ministry fails to attract the average robust young manhood. No wonder that men talk about being compelled into the ministry like conscripts in the army, as if no virile spirit, apart from some fearful compulsion, would ever choose the healing of souls. Nor will it be otherwise until the ministry ceases to be apologetic for itself. Let the preacher claim all the prerogatives of full-grown manhood; let him eschew half rates on the railroad and ten per cent discounts upon his dignity; let him shorten his coat if thereby he may lengthen his credit as a man. Upon us who are in the ministry today will depend, in no small part, the attitude of young men toward the ministry of tomorrow. By every honorable means are we to rehabilitate the parson in the eyes of the community. Not by clerical arrogance but by sheer manhood values, not by special favors but by special self-devotement, not by elaboration of ritual but by eager, vital service of humanity shall we prove the majesty of our "high calling." Only when the ambassador of Christ succeeds in making himself as indispensable to the community as the attorney or the meat man-and for purposes as immeasurably higher as the heavens are high above the earth-will a call to the ministry be worthily appraised.

Another obvious deterrent to a ministerial career may be found in its meagerness of secular wage. "It is a dreadful thing to work for wages, to sell one's brains, one's time, one's soulthe modern version of the world-old tragedy of slavery." True. And the preacher should be the last to sell himself for wages: the

sole protestant, if need be, against such slavery. But there must be wages in dollars. "He can't eat souls," replied a pastor who was reminded by a stingy parishioner that a preacher should "work for souls, not money." It is not sheer mercenariness which prompts men to claim a living wage and a competence for old age. The Christian pastor is not a monk, but, presumably, a man of family. There are wife and babies. There are constant appeals to his purse. It is, doubtless, "no disgrace to be poor," but money has so many gracious, holy uses. Even a minister may like to "pay his way," as do ordinary mortals. And the young man may be pardoned for not thinking overkindly of a lean purse. To deliberately choose a salary of a thousand over a salary of ten thousand a year might be Quixotic instead of Christly. Only with the supreme rewards of life in the ministry in view has a healthyminded young man any warrant for despising the value of dollars. Not until the glory of the invisible breaks across his sky, not until his soul by long "time exposure" catches the delicate outlines of spiritual visions can a young man honestly choose the ministry for his vocation. And even such transfiguring experience in the preacher's soul fails to justify his laymen for keeping his salary at starvation point.

A third hindrance to choosing the ministry as a vocation may be found in the difficulty of appraising its successes. "To open the door of the House of Sorrow, not with the hand of authority but as one of the household," to carry a cup of cold water to nameless disciples, to build one's soul into the recreant and backslidden, to "fling open the gates of new life" to those staled with life's weariness and embittered by its defeats-this is very beautiful, but it is so often so painfully vague and indefinite! It is all well enough to assure a man that the record of his fidelity is written in heaven; he longs to see it written upon earth. Other callings have norms of achievement. "Bradstreet" tells the merchant when he has won. A lawyer may be said to have succeeded when clients increase or the bench is opened for him. Grant knew his own worth when Confederate legions reeled and broke. Even the artist in words or colors is permitted a sense of definite value to the community as his book sells up into the hundred

thousands or his picture hangs in the Salon. But by the very genius of his profession is the minister denied the privilege of thus rating his work. Neither may a five-thousand-dollar salary nor an elevation to the Episcopacy adequately spell success. He must find the proof of his ministry in results never tangible and at best uncertain. So many of his converts, like one of my early parishioners, backslide every summer. The young folk, over whose indoctrination with the lessons of Jesus he has spent the most unsparing pains, grow up to break his heart with their wantonness. The veriest saints of the fold show such disgusting traits. What pastor is stranger to the agony of seeing his work undone over night? Of needing to call the same sinners again and again to repentance? Of having his eagerly-borne cup of cold water flung back into the bearer's face? These experiences are the sheerest truisms of every pastor's ministry. Nor may he look, ordinarily, for lasting gratitude. He who hopes to be paid in the coin of appreciation for his service of others will go bankrupt. The most Christly toils are often the most thankless. "Were there not ten cleansed?" asked our Master. "The "nine" are still quite as conspicuous by their short memories. And he who in the twentieth century gives himself to the cure of souls must not expect to be above his Master. His passion for souls must "hope all things" against surface appearances, "endure all things" of disappointment and chagrin, "believe all things" of his ministry to be worth while. Only the divine appreciation is assured. Pastoral rewards are not wholly changed from that Pauline list of which one cried: "Great God, what a salary for a preacher!"

Then there are the constraints of the ministry. I do not now refer to the solemn obligation of a clean life. Pastors are not alone in the sacrificial necessities laid upon them. Who can read without admiration of the princely self-abnegation of the Pasteur group of scientists? Theirs, too, are crucified lives, in the interest of their humane mission. Denial of the lusts and luxuries of the flesh is not much to ask of any real servant of mankind, in whatever field of devotion. The curtailment I speak of, in the case of the ministry, refers to the very spirit of moral adventure which gives to other sacred callings their zest. Young souls feel cramped