AN “IF” FOR MINISTERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3996, 14 October 1930, Page 63

AN “IF” FOR MINISTERS.

■lf you can show the young men how to

wrestle With flesh and blood, and how to buck the line, And at the same time be a chosen vessel Filled to the brim with love and power divine; If you can please the modernists who hear y 7 ou, And give them sermons fully up-to-date, Can calm the fundamentalists who fear you, And make them think that you are truly

great; If you can speak so loud that Deacon

Purvus Will hear distinctly 7 ever word you say, Yet speak so softly 7 that poor Mrs Nervous Will not be driven by your noise away; If you can uniformly preach' with unction No matter whether stocks are up or down, Can show up well at every social function, And yet on Sunday look swell in a gown; If you know how to kiss the little babies And tell each mother hers is just too sweet, Can cater to the Has-beens and the May-bes, And be a hail-fellow-well-met on the street; If you can boast a wife who’s never weary Of making calls and doing parish work, Who plays and sings and has a voice that’s cheery, Is never sick and never known to shirk; If you have children who are an example >To all the other parish girls and boys,

Who never scold, nor answer back, nor trample The neighbour’s lawns, noi* make unseemly noise; Added to this, if you have good digestion. And liver trouble never makes y 7 ou blue, Can answer promptly every Bible question, I think, ‘perhaps,’ my brother, you mav do.”

—Charles Dood Crane, in the Congregationalist.