Almighty, who it was at first claimed sent him, delivers him, he is
in luck; but the usual end is that the congregation itself effects his
deliverance by giving him the same warm experience that the terrapin
undergoes when it is desired to see him walk. After a persistent
ham-stringing of the ministerial horse, the congregation are astonished
that he cannot pull his load. I am a business man, and in many years
have had many men in my employment, but nothing would have more
astonished me at any time in my business life than to be told that I
was systematically impairing and obstructing the usefulness of the men
that I was paying to work for me and from whose labor I expected some
profit. It is the most inexplicable inconsistency to me in
congregations, which generally include a large percentage of business
men. I have used the word systematically, because it seems to me that
it is a system which pervades to a greater or less extent all
congregations of all denominations, and is confined exclusively to no
one. Nor is it the worst element in a congregation that is guilty of
it; I am sorry to say that it is prevalent among even the best members.
Even that excellent woman, Mrs. Boyzy, whose mind is often tortured
by the apprehension that absence from church service will seriously
affect my future prospers, often regales me after church with keen
criticism of the sermon and the weak points of our preacher. And yet
that estimable woman, on hearing our eldest daughter indulge last
Sunday in a similar strain, warned her against the wickedness of her
irreverence. I beg you to understand that I am not taking the part of
pastors against congregations any more than I would take the part of
our little girl against her pious mother, but what I write is merely
to blaze the way, as it were, to a settlement of the question: Whether
a pastor is a shepherd set over a congregation by the Almighty, or
whether he is a man whom an angry God has delivered into their hands
that he may suffer for his sins.