An ambassador is often called a diplomat. Indeed, a poor diplomat could not be a good ambassador. Frequently he has exacting and sometimes he has strained situations to handle. He must do so in the least offensive way and, at the same time, in the way best calculated to carry the point for his King. For, above all, an ambassador must be faithful to his own country. He must not involve it, nor compromise it, nor surrender its interests in any way. While he must properly respect the country and people to which he is accredited, his business is to cooperate in establishing and maintaining the supremacy of his own government. It is a wonderful thing to be a minister, because a minister is an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. Let the Minister Know Life (1929) The young ministers used to have to learn Hebrew, Greek, and all kinds of ponderous tomes of Theology. Now they must learn, instead, the technique of the various practical enterprises in which the church is engaged. Probably a young minister needs to know something of both. But he needs to know another thing. He needs to know life. No man is prepared to engage in the cure of souls until he has seen the world as it is; until he knows what saints and sinners alike are doing, saying, and thinking; and until he has seen, understood, and felt for human life at its best and at its worst. Unless he has seen and known these things, he is like a man trying to practice medicine without having observed how the body is built and without having looked not only on the beauty of its health but also upon the horror and loathsomeness of its diseases. To look upon these things may not be pleasant, but to be helpless against them is less so. A minister is not a near-angel to be perfumed and laid away in tissue paper for fear of some contamination. He is a physician to the spiritual lives of men. He has a real battle to fight. He has conditions to face that are ugly, and fierce, and perilous. What can he do with them unless he knows about them? What can he know about them if his experience is limited to leading the devotions for society meetings and wearing correct dress at afternoon teas? A minister needs to go about, less as a minister and more as a man. He needs to see, and hear, and know enough to understand the mind and heart of the world. After a young minister graduates from the seminary and before he begins his public work, he may need to go to the solitudes for meditation, but he needs also to do another thing. He needs to go down where men live their lives and, keeping his own heart clean, learn at first hand what are the problems that he must help them to solve. The Yielding of Aaron (1929) The story of the golden calf is a familiar one. Moses was holding a meeting with God—a habit that began with the burning bush. His absence was prolonged. The people grew restless. They felt that the cure lay in worship, but why not worship with a little novelty in it? Why not get out of the rut?