"There are many exceptions. The manly, four-square ministers are the more noticeable because they are exceptional. There are still more ministers who are warmly admired by their congregations, but they are admired rather for professional traits and pulpit graces than for the rugged virtues that count on the street and in the store and office. On the whole, men of honor feel that today it is no honor to be entitled 'Reverend'; the average man looks somewhat askance at the clergyman. "Perhaps this is nowhere better illustrated than when a minister leaves his profession and desires to enter business. He finds there a strong prejudice against his past; it is regarded as unfitting him for work. When such a man goes into an office, experience shows that he is likely to lack the qualities that make for trustworthiness in details in the individual and for harmony in a large force of employees. "Now, if the business of the minister is to teach the people how to live, he ought at least to know how to do it himself. His principles are valueless if they will not stand the wear of daily life. Is the trouble with the teachings, with the message, or is it with the man himself? "The first reason ministers go wrong is because they are men. They are not angels; they are not the reincarnated ideal saints that the sisters and the sisterly brethren like to think they are. Because they are men they have human frailties. But, while that does account for the fact that ministers steal and break the express commandments the same as other men, it does not account for the fact that they are held below par in commercial esteem. "As a profession the ministry seems to offer a premium on the pretender, the impostor, the hypocrite. So long as there are the intentional pretenders and the unconscious hypocrites in the church they will enjoy the ministry of the pretender and hypocrite. So long as the churches say, 'There's nothing either good or ill but seeming makes it so,' the man who can succeed in fooling the people with appearances of virtues, with saintly air and pious phrase will be the man who reaches the top of his profession. "Then no mortal being can stand for long the fawning and adulation which the preacher is likely to receive, especially from foolish and emotional women. He is sure to come to believe that he is a superior being, one who either can do no wrong or can do only right. Steady feeding on flattery unfits him for sound counsel regarding his shortcomings; he gets into the habit of judging his own actions, not by any undeviating principles, but by the measure of praise they receive.