the enthusiasm and devotion of some of the young people. Apparently everybody in the church understands how to run the church better than the minister, and does not hesitate to let him know it. Every member, and many who are not members, feel perfectly competent to instruct the minister in theology, biblical interpretation and other religious subjects. The physician or the lawyer or the engineer is supposed to know his profession better than the layman, but everybody feels abundantly able to pass judgment upon the minister's work, and to teach him the principles of his profession. Is it any marvel that high-strung young men resent this attitude and decline to enter a profession where it is possible for them to be subjected to such humiliations? The red-blooded young man does not want to be glorified because of his profession, but he does want to feel that his work is worth while, that the church at least respects his leadership and service. The church must catch a new vision of its ministry, place it in a nobler position of honor, and give, to those who adopt it as a profession, the respect and attention given to other professions. The economic situation, the critical attitude concerning the worthiness of the minister's contribution to society, the demand for workers in other related occupations, and the apparent unconcern of the church are all evident reasons for the decline in the ministry and its failing appeal to our young men; but they are not final causes. The ultimate reasons lie deep in the spirit of man, in the pervading atmosphere of the age, and in the very nature of the call to the ministry and the minister's work. Two things must be remembered. During the last fifty years we have been passing through a tremendous intellectual revolution. Philosophy, history, pedagogy, and theology have all been influenced by the discoveries in biology and other physical sciences. The intellectual attitude for a generation has been that of questioning. The bases of religious faith have therefore come under the microscope of investigation and reason. This attitude carried into the classroom of our schools and applied to religious questions without tact or discrimination, has undoubtedly had its harmful reactions upon the young men. The atmosphere of doubt and questioning is not the atmosphere in which preachers are born and reared. It should be noted, also, that lately the spiritual life of the churches of our land has not been of the type to emphasize the call to the ministry. We have had sporadic revivals in various sections, and a certain kind of ethical quickening that has made us more responsive to social problems and to the appeals of human suffering, but we have not had any great awakening of the spiritual conscience of the nation such as would make our youth feel the divine necessity of preaching the gospel. The call to the ministry is born into the soul on the swelling tide of the spiritual experience of eternal things, and we have had few such tides sweeping over our land in the last half century. The young men and women of the present are just as earnest and sincere, just as willing to sacrifice for noble principles and ideals as the young people of the past. They will gladly ignore material benefits and turn from worldly honors if they can be shown the real heroism of the ministry; the knightliness of its work; the worthiness of its achievements. They will gladly cry: "Here we are, send us into service," when the church experiences the spiritual awakening for which so many of the "elect of God" are hoping, praying and laboring. In the last analysis the solution of the problem lies in the spiritual atmosphere of the church of God. The supreme duty of the church to-day is to secure such an atmosphere of religious fervor, such a consciousness of the realities of religious life, that it becomes natural for its young men to consider the work of the ministry as the choice occupation, the profession in which they may secure the greatest satisfactions and the largest usefulness possible to mortal man. Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers CHAPTER III THE CALL TO THE MINISTRY It is inevitable that the prevailing spirit of our times, that is confessedly material and practical, should influence the young men and women in their ideals and personal spirit, and to a certain extent determine their choices of life occupations. The individual spirit reacts to the larger class or age spirit, and it requires hardy souls, souls of unusual strength, to resist the prevalent spirit of their times. Moreover, much of the evil is clothed with a sweet persuasiveness that charms the unsuspecting and leads astray even the elect. The spirit of the times is even reflected in the motives that are presented to our young people for entering the ministry. To be effective, the motive for entering the ministry must be strong enough both to influence the decision in the beginning, and to hold the will and purpose afterward -to keep the soul in the day when the tempta |