THE PASTOR'S LOT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 17

T HE PASTOR'S LOT.

SOME PLAIN TALK (From Oub Own Cobbespo'wv: arCT.} AUCKLAND. March L - Some more plain speaking fell from the Ko\. W. Sl-a-de during the course of an address to five newly-ordained ministers a(j Ilio Methodist Conference lasc j '.'You cannot," he said, "hope to persuade 1 people unless jou get them 1o listen to your message, and they will not listen to a message which is uninteresting. I know that people ought to crowd the churches even when the pulpit is occupied by an animated; wood-tlock, but they don't and will nor. TLey would forsake even the theatre if ifc ceased to interest them. Good manners, assisted by four strong walls, secure you an audience in church, be you over so dull, . and there are faithful souls whose deter1 initiation to be saved carries them through I everything, but to hold an outside audience 1 you must be interesting. As boon as you j drop mto dullness your hearers move or, I without the ai<( of a policeman. Whether ! or not you become good pastors, not afterI noon tea-drinking pastors, but pastors in the iSew Testament sense, depends on the kind' of men you are. If you have right, ideals ■ you will not neglect any part of your ministry, and you will make one part help j the other. If you have not right ideals, ' jiothing that I may say can matter. You ' will dejreßerate into mere time-markers, of 1 whom Ihe Church and the world will 6oon weary." Comparing the lofc of ministers of leligiou with the prosperity of those in other walks of life, Mr Slade said: "On jour small salary it is hard to make end 3 nxeet ; . .they embarrased by -the growth of capital. You live in a houso i which can never be other than a lodge in the desert of your itinerary ; they build! , their /mansions of brick and stone. You , can barely afford a short annual holiday; • they make the grand tour. You aro thankful if you are able to keep your bright boys and girls at school long enough to exhaust the limits of their free course ; they send their* to the universities of the Okt j World. You travel about to the musir of the lodge springs of the circuit trap : they whirl past in their motor cars. They (an pay the highest rates of the domestic labour market ; your wife docs all her own work."