The Pastor: His Qualifications and DutiesHarvey, H. (Hezekiah)
Religion
The Pastor: His Qualifications and Duties
Harvey, H. (Hezekiah)
Pastoral theology
1. The minister should be, always and everywhere, the unaffected
Christian gentleman, showing all courtesy to all men. It is here some
fail, and either through a neglect of the courtesies and amenities of
social life render themselves repulsive, or by a stiff and artificial
manner of observing them, without geniality and warmth, make themselves
unapproachable. Men ordinarily and justly regard manners as an index of
character. Good manners, therefore, cannot be put on from without; they
spring from a sense of the relations we bear to others and a
disposition to act in accordance with them. A kindly, unselfish heart,
a quick, keen sympathy, a sensitive regard for others' rights and
feelings; a ready, generous appreciation for the excellences of others,
and a tender charity for their faults and foibles--in short, a
well-developed Christian manhood, with refined sensibilities, noble,
pure, upright, transparent, touching life on every side, and fitted to
bless whatever it touches,--this is the only real basis of correct
manners. The cultivation of such a character, therefore, is the prime
necessity, for in this will exist all the instincts of the true
gentleman from which the gentlemanly manner spontaneously results.
2. In the matter of dress. I do not know that any law of propriety
requires the minister to be distinguished either in the cut or the
color of his garments. Many, however, prefer some kind of ministerial
costume as a matter of convenience to indicate everywhere their
vocation, and this is, of course, a subject to be left wholly to
individual preference. The principle to be insisted on as important is
that the dress be not such as to arrest special attention, as
suggesting foppishness and fastidiousness on the one hand, or
carelessness and slovenliness on the other. The man, not the dress,
should arrest and hold attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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