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TO MY YOUNGER BRETHREN
Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work
by
THE RIGHT REV. HANDLEY C.G. MOULE, D.D.
Lord Bishop of Durham
Fourth Edition
London
Hodder and Stoughton
27, Paternoster Row
1902
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
TO
MY DEAR BROTHER AND VICAR,
THE REV. JOHN BARTON, M.A.,
INCUMBENT OF TRINITY CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE,
AND RURAL DEAN,
AND TO MY DEAR BROTHERS AND FRIENDS,
THE PRESENT AND PAST STUDENTS
OF RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE,
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
H.C.G.M.
"_Give those who teach pure hearts and wise,
Faith, hope, and love, all warm'd by prayer;
Themselves first training for the skies
They best will raise their people there._"
ARMSTRONG.
PREFACE.
The following pages do not appear to need any extended preface; their
topic is set forth in the first lines of the first chapter. With what
success it has been handled is another matter.
But as a writer reviews his own words, it is inevitable that some sort
of _envoi_ should present itself to his mind. In this case the _envoi_
seems to me to be the vital necessity of personal holiness in the
Christian Minister, in order to the right working of the Christian
Ministry; a personal holiness which shall be no mere form moulded from
without but a life developed into manifestation and action from within.
Never did the Church of Christ more need to remember this than at the
present day. The strongest surface currents of the age are against it;
alike that of unregulated, hurrying, indiscriminate enterprize, and that
of an exaggerated ecclesiasticism. In the one case the worker's
communion with God tends to be sacrificed to the work, the fountain
choked for the sake of the stream. In the other case there is a serious
risk that "the Church" may come to be regarded as an almost substitute
for the Lord in matters affecting the life and growth of the Christian
man, and of course of the Christian Minister. Sacred are the claims of
order and cohesion, but more sacred and more vital still is the call to
the individual constituent of the community to come to the living
Personal Christ, "nothing between," and to abide in innermost
intercourse with Him, and to draw every hour by faith on His great
grace.
If these simple pages may at all, in His most merciful hands, promote
the holy cause of such a hidden life and its fruitful issues, it will
indeed be happiness to the writer. In these days of stifling
materialism in philosophy, and withering naturalism in theology, but in
which also the Holy Spirit, far and wide, is breathing upon us in
special mercy from above, there is no duty more pressing on the
Christian than to seek, in the world of work, after that life which is
"lived in the flesh by faith in the Son of God," and which is manifested
in the strong and patient "meekness of wisdom."
RIDLEY HALL, CAMBRIDGE,
_April 22nd, 1892_.
"_Servant of God, be fill'd
With Jesu's love alone;
Upon a sure foundation build,
On Christ the corner-stone;
By faith in Him abide,
Rejoicing with His saints;
To Him with confidence, when tried,
Make known all thy complaints._"
MORAVIAN HYMN-BOOK.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
_THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD_ (i.).
PAGE
Need of watching and prayer over three departments of
a Minister's life--The secret department--Temptations
in it from work--From solitude--Secret Devotion--The
Morning Watch--Physical precautions--Evening
hours--A Minister's prayers must sometimes
forget the Ministry--This will be to the advantage of
the Ministry--"_Tell Him all_" 1
CHAPTER II.
_THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD_ (ii.).
Secret intercourse with God the life of a Minister's life--The
Example of Jesus Christ--Testimony of von
Machtholf--Special need of divine communion at
the present day--The cry for effort and enterprize--Secularizing
theories of religion and the
Ministry--A call to young English Clergymen--A
caution from Laodicea--Study of the Holy Scriptures--"The
New Testament about twice a week"--What
says the Ordinal?--M. Henri Lasserre on
Devotional Literature and the Gospels--Study the
Bible unprofessionally--Bridges' quotation from
Witsius--Ridley in the Orchard 21
CHAPTER III.
_SECRET STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES._
A fragmentary chapter--Higher Criticism--A technical and innocent
term--Actual assertions of certain critics--"Do not follow this
Book; follow Christ"--Weigh facts before theories--Testimony of
Nature and History to Scripture--The Duke of Argyll in the
_Nineteenth Century_--Prediction--Problem of the Human Knowledge
of Jesus Christ--Current fulfilments of Prophecy--Methods of Bible
Study--The plough--The spade--Specimen of spade-husbandry, in a
Church Congress Study of the Epistle to the Philippians 45
CHAPTER IV.
_THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (i.).
Secret Communion with God must _accompany_ everything
else--We are watched--Self-respect--Consistency largely means
Considerateness--"A consistent gentleman"--The Tongue--St
Augustine's couplet for the dinner-table--The Clergy-House, its
opportunities and risks--The duty of Example--Is it remembered as
it used to be?--"For their sakes I sanctify Myself"--"Others" and
their claims on us--Manner--Temper--Simeon's patience--The Secret
of the Presence 79
CHAPTER V.
_THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (ii.).
"Take heed unto thyself"--Relations with Woman--Christian
chivalry--And Christian caution--Special difficulties--"Know
thyself"--Celibacy--The Clergyman's Wife--The problem of
means--The Clergyman and money--Pecuniary intemperance--Accurate
accounts--Investment circulars--"Lay not up for yourselves" 101
CHAPTER VI.
_THE DAILY WALK WITH OTHERS_ (iii.).
Curate and Incumbent--A Chancellor on Curates--The ideal
Incumbent--No Incumbent perfect--And no parish perfectly
content--Loyal watchfulness needed accordingly--The Curate's
Party--"The lost grace, humility"--Subordination--Take sides
against yourself--A letter to _The Record_ on Curates'
grievances. 123
CHAPTER VII.
_PASTOR IN PARISH_ (i.).
A boundless subject--Visiting--All-important--Prepare for
the round with prayer--Method--Brevity but not hurry--An
example--Courtesy--It must be impartial--Visitation of the
sick--Its special demands--Punctuality always a duty--Use of
the Bible--The advantage of coming as "the Clergyman"--Mistaken
for the undertaker--Come to the point--Lying in wait for the
occasion--Happy rebukes to timid reticence 147
CHAPTER VIII.
_PASTOR IN PARISH_ (ii.).
Teach as you go--Urgent need of teaching--About Christ--And
the Holy Spirit--And Sacraments--Common mistakes about the
teaching of the Church--Sin--Evidences--Recollections of a
visiting round--The retired tradesman--The sceptical
blacksmith--The invalid artizan--The civil-servant--The
consumptive--The dying printer--The cripple--Aged poor
saints--Saddening visits--Humbling memories--A bright
conversion at eighty-two 173
CHAPTER IX.
_THE CLERGYMAN AND THE PRAYER BOOK._
"As bad as inspired"--Imperfections in the Book--Yet it is
priceless--Spirituality of the Prayer Book--What it takes for
granted in the worshipper--A remarkable reason for secession--The
Prayer Book as a weapon--Its Scripturality--Its compilers jealous
for the Word of God--Ministerial use of the Prayer Book--Put
yourself into it--We are not to preach the prayers--Yet we are to
pray them--Reading of the Lessons--Baptism--Marriage--Burial--The
Holy Communion--Reverence--Of what sort--Instruction-addresses
on the Prayer Book--"Less worship" 201
CHAPTER X.
_PREACHING_ (i.).
The Pulpit a central point in the Ministry--Mutual influence of
"parish-work" and preaching--"Truth through personality"--Let us
"labour in the Word"--"Litho Sermons"--Addison's village-parson
and his sermons--_Attractive_ preaching--Is a duty--Audibility--Of
the right sort--Good English--Why to be cultivated--Mr Spurgeon's
style--French hearers of an English preacher--Good effects on his
style--"Written or extempore?"--Length--Action 225
CHAPTER XI.
_PREACHING_ (ii.).
Further remarks on Attractiveness--And, in passing, on
Ministerial Considerateness--This is to be practised in
preaching--As well as in other functions--Attractiveness to be
guarded by Faithfulness--Requisites to attractiveness--"Preach
the Gospel earnestly, interestingly, fully"--Jesus Christ is
_the Gospel_--Personal conviction the essence of
_Earnestness_--"Matter-of-Fact"--_Interest_ sustained by anecdote
and illustration--But still more by intelligibility and
practicality--Expository sermons--_Fulness_ in the message--Jesus
Christ for us--And in us--The Holy Spirit must work with the Word 249
CHAPTER XII.
_PREACHING_ (iii.).
Notes from a Sermon-Lecture--On diction, arrangement, fidelity
to the text, proportion of parts, accuracy--On statements about
revelation, justification, faith, grace--A paper in _The Churchman_
on Old Sermons--Be a preacher indeed, whatever be the fashion of
the time--The Directory of 1645--Its instructions on "the
Preaching of the Word"--Spiritual Power in Preaching--How sought
and received--Farewell 273
_Fordington Pulpit_ 301
_"What contradictions meet
In Ministers' employ!
It is a bitter sweet,
A sorrow full of joy;
No other post affords a place
For equal honour or disgrace"_
OLNEY HYMNS.
"_The Interpreter had Christian into a private Room, and bid
his Man open a Door; the which when he had done, Christian saw
a Picture of a very grave Person hang up against the Wall, and
this was the fashion of it: It had eyes lift up to Heaven, the
best of Books was in its hand, the Law of Truth was written
upon its lips, the World was behind his back; it stood as if it
Pleaded with Men, and a Crown of gold did hang over its head._"
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
CHAPTER I.
_THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD_ (i.).
_Pastor, for the round of toil
See the toiling soul is fed;
Shut the chamber, light the oil,
Break and eat the Spirit's bread;
Life to others would'st thou bring?
Live thyself upon thy King._
Let me explain in this first sentence that when in these pages I address
"my Younger Brethren," I mean brethren in the Christian Ministry in the
Church of England. Let me limit my reference still further, by premising
that very much of what I say will be said as to brethren who have lately
taken holy Orders, and are engaged in the work of assistant Curacies.
AIM OF THE BOOK.
Day by day, for many years past, my life has lain among men preparing
themselves for just that work. As a matter of course my thoughts have
run incessantly in that direction. Many a lecture in the library where
we work together, and many a conversation in dining-hall, or by study
fire, or in college garden, or on country road, has given point to those
thoughts and enabled me, I trust, better to understand my younger
Brethren, and with more sympathy to make myself, as an elder brother,
understood by them. What I here seek to do, with the gracious aid of our
blessed Master, is somewhat to extend the range of such talks, and to
ask a friendly hearing from younger Brethren in the holy Ministry with
whom I have never had the opportunity of speaking personally.
I have not the least intention of writing a treatise on the Christian
Pastorate. To talk to young Christian Ministers about some important
details of pastoral life and work, but above all of life, inward and
outward--this is my simple purpose.
* * * * *
THREE LINES OF PRAYER.
One day in each week, at Ridley Hall, we unite in special prayer,
without liturgical form, for those members of the Hall who have gone out
into actual ministry. As I lead my dear younger Brethren in that
supplication, the heart feels itself full of many, very many,
well-remembered faces, characters, lives. It seems to see those many old
friends scattered abroad in the Lord's work-field; and it sees, of
course, a very large variety among them, in the way of both character
and circumstances. But, with all this consciousness of differences, my
thoughts and my petitions always, by a deep necessity, run for all alike
along three main paths. The first prayer is for the young Clergyman's
inner and secret Life and Walk with God. The second is for his daily and
hourly general Intercourse with Men. The third is for his official
Ministrations of the Word and Ordinances of the Gospel. And in all these
directions, after all, one desire, one prayer, has to be offered, the
prayer that everywhere and always, from the inmost recesses of life to
its largest and most public circumference, the Lord and Master may take,
and keep, full possession of the servant. I pray that in secret
devotion, and in secret habits, Jesus Christ may be intensely present
with the man; and that in common intercourse, in all its parts, He may
be the constant and all-influencing Companion, to stimulate, to control,
to chasten, to gladden, to empower; and that in the preaching of the
Word the servant may really and manifestly speak from, and for, and in,
his Lord; and that in ministration of the sacramental and other
Ordinances he may truly and unmistakably walk before Him in holy
simplicity, holy reverence, and full spiritual reality, "serving the
Lord," and serving the flock, "with all humility of mind." [Acts xx.
19.]
My present talks on paper will take very much the lines of these
prayers. Secret walk with God, common and general walk with men, special
ministrations--I desire to say a little on each and all of these points,
and more or less in this order, though without attempting too rigid an
arrangement, where one subject must often run over into another.
* * * * *
SECRET WALK WITH GOD.
Let me take up the first great topic of the three for a few preliminary
words in this chapter: THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD of the young Pastor of
Christ's flock.
HINDRANCES: WORK.
My brotherly reader will not need any long explanation or careful
apology from me here. He knows as well as I do, on the one hand, that a
close secret walk with God is unspeakably important in pastoral life,
and, on the other hand, that pastoral life, and not least in its early
days, is often allowed to hinder or minimize the real, diligent work
(for it is a work indeed in its way) of that close secret walk. He finds
all too many possible interferences with the inner working on the part
of the outer. Such interferences come from very different quarters. The
new Curacy, the new duties and opportunities, if the man has his heart
in his ministry, will prove intensely interesting, and at first, very
possibly, encouragement and acceptance may predominate over experiences
of difficulty and trial. Services, sermons, visits to homes and to
schools, with all the miscellanies that attend an active and
well-ordered parochial organization--these things are sure to have a
special and exciting interest for most young men who have taken Orders
in earnest. And it will be almost inevitable that the Curate, under even
the most wise, considerate, and unselfish of Incumbents, should find
"work" threatening rapidly to absorb so much, not of time only but
thought and heart, that the temptation is to abridge and relax very
seriously indeed secret devotion, secret study of Scripture, and
generally secret discipline of habits, that all-important thing.
*HINDRANCES: SOLITUDE.
Then, on the other hand, there is a risk and trial from a region quite
opposite. The Curate comes to his new work, and takes up his abode in
lodgings--alone. Only a few months ago, perhaps only a few weeks ago, he
was in rooms at College, amidst all the social as well as mental
interests of University life, and (so it is, thank God, for many
University men now) feeling on every side the help of Christian
friendship and fellowship of the warmest and truest sort. And now,
socially and as to fellowship in Christ, he is, to speak comparatively,
alone. I say, _comparatively_. Very likely he has found in his Incumbent
a friend and elder brother, perhaps a friend and loving father, in the
Lord. And most probably he will find among his people, and that very
soon if he is on the watch, friends in Christ, gentle or simple. He may
be associated with a brother Curate or Curates; and if so, the inmost
aim of both or all ought to be, and in most cases will be, not only to
work in the same parish but to work heart to heart as "in Him."
Nevertheless, the Vicar or Rector, though a friend, is a very busy
friend; and so is the brother Curate; and the Christian friend in the
parish is after all only one of the many souls to whom the man has to
minister, and he must not forget those who perhaps need him most just
because they are least congenial to him.
*ITS DANGERS.
So the sense of change, of solitude, in such part of his life as is
spent indoors, may be, and, as I know, very often is, real and deep, sad
and sorrowful, and in itself not wholesome, to the young Minister of
Christ. Possibly my reader knows nothing of all this; but I think it
more likely that at least he knows something of it. And it needs his
prompt and watchful dealing if it is not to hurt him greatly. Solitude
will not _by itself_, if I judge rightly, help him to secret intercourse
with God. A feeling of solitude, under most circumstances, much more
tends, by itself, to drive a man unhealthily inward, in unprofitable
questionings and broodings, or in still less happy exercises of thought.
Or it drives him unhealthily outward, quickening the wish for mere
stimulants and excitements of mind and interest. Aye, let me not shrink
from saying it, it sometimes quickens a wish for "stimulants" in the
most literal sense of the word. Exhausting and multifarious parochial
work, and the lonely bachelor quarters at the day's end, have brought to
many a young man sore temptations of that sort, and sometimes they have
won the battle, to the wreck and ruin of the work and of the worker.
HINDRANCES ARE OCCASIONS.
Well, all these facts or possibilities are just so many reminders that
the new Curate's life will not, of itself, greatly help him to maintain
and quicken his Secret Walk with God, that vital necessity for his work.
It certainly will _not_ do so directly; it will, directly, be a problem,
not an aid. But on that very account, dear Brother and reader, your new
conditions of life may prove indirectly a most powerful aid, by being a
constant and urgent _occasion_. As you are a Minister of Christ, your
life and work will, in the Lord's sight, be a failure, yes, I repeat it,
a failure, be the outside and the reputation what they may, if you do
not walk with God in secret. But therefore your life and work are a
daily and hourly occasion for the positive resolve, in His Name, that
walk with Him you will. Recognize the risks, right and left, the risks
brought by pastoral activities and interests, and those brought by
pastoral loneliness and uncheerfulness. Remember the vital necessity
amidst those risks. And then you will the more deliberately purpose and
plan how to guard your secret devotions, and how to order your secret
hours even when devotion is not your direct duty, so that your Lord
shall be indeed there, at the centre, "a living, bright Reality" to you.
SECRET DEVOTION.
Let me plunge into the midst at once, with a few simple suggestions on
SECRET DEVOTION.
LET IT BE DELIBERATE.
I ask my younger Brother, then, to keep sacred, with all his heart and
will, an unhurried time alone with the Lord, night and morning at the
least. I do not intrusively prescribe a length of time. But I do most
earnestly say that the time, shorter or longer, must be _deliberately
spent_; and even ten minutes can be spent deliberately, while
mismanagement may give a feeling of haste to a much longer season. Do
not, I beseech you, minimize the minutes; seek for such a fulness of
"the Spirit of grace and of supplications," [Zech. xii. 10.] as shall
draw you quite the other way. But if the time, any given night or
morning, _must_ be short, let it nevertheless be a time of quiet,
reverent, collected worship and confession and petition. One thing
assuredly you can do: you can, if you will, secure a real "Morning
Watch" before your day's work begins. I do not say it is easy. Young men
very commonly sleep sounder and longer than we seniors do; they are not
always easy to rouse in a moment. But they can direct some of their
energy to contrive against themselves, or rather _for_ themselves, how
to secure a regular early rising to meet their Lord. Most ingenious, not
to say amusing, are some of the devices which friends of mine have
confided to me; schemes and stratagems to get themselves well awake in
good time. But after all, in most lodging-houses surely it must be
possible to be called early, and to instruct the caller to show no mercy
at the chamber door. Anyhow, I do say that the fresh first interview
with the all-blessed Master must at all costs be secured. Do not be
beguiled into thinking it can be arranged by a half-slumbering prayer in
bed. Rise up--if but in loving deference to Him. Appear in the presence
chamber as the servant should who is now ready for the day's bondservice
in all things but in this, that he has yet to take the day's oath of
obedience, and to ask the day's "grace sufficient," and to read the
day's promises and commands, at the Master's holy feet.
A PRACTICAL SUGGESTION.
I do not recommend an unpractical physical mortification as the rule for
such early hours with God. Fully believing that there is a place for
definite "abstinence" in the Christian (and certainly in the
ministerial) life, I do not think that that place is, as a rule, the
early morning hour. Very many men only procure a bad headache for the
day by beginning any sort of earnest mental effort without food. Such
men should take care accordingly to eat a _chotee h·zaree_ (as old
Indians say), "a little breakfast," however little, before they pray and
read. There are appliances, simple and inexpensive, by which the man in
lodgings can, without giving any one trouble, provide himself with his
cup of cocoa or coffee as soon as he is up; and he will be wise to do
something of this sort, if he is a man whose work by day is heavy for
both body and spirit, and who is thus specially apt to find the truth of
what doctors tell us, that "sleep is, in itself, an exhausting process."
But at any cost, my dear friend and Brother in the Ministry, we must
have our Morning Watch with God, in prayer and in His Word, before all
the day's action. Not even the earliest possible Church service can
rightly take the place of that.
GOOD HOURS AT NIGHT.
It is obvious to add that punctuality and early hours in the morning
will bring into your life another rule; that of punctuality and
reasonably good hours at night. No temptation is greater, sometimes, for
the man alone than to ignore or break such a rule. And no doubt the
exigencies of pastoral life, sometimes, but surely not often, make it
hard to keep it. But it is extremely important, for the man who would
walk closely and humbly with his God, to end the day deliberately at His
feet. And here accordingly is another occasion for watchfulness, and for
method, and for will. Do not _drift into the night_. Have a settled hour
when, as a habit, you lay interests and intercourse of other sorts
down, and turn unhurried to the holy interview, spreading open your
Bible by the lamp, the Bible marked and scored with signs of past
research, and then kneeling, or standing, or _pacing_, for your
prayer--your prayer which is to be the very simplest (while most
reverent) speech with the Lord.
PRAY AS A PRIVATE CHRISTIAN.
In such acts of worship, morning and night, thought for others, for dear
ones, for parishioners, for colleagues, will have its full place of
course. Let it be so, with an ever-growing sense of the preciousness of
the work of intercession. But I do meanwhile say to my Brother in
Christ, take care that no pre-occupation with things pastoral allows you
to forget the supreme need of drawing out of Christ's fulness, and out
of the treasures of His Word, for _your own_ soul and life, as if that
were the one and solitary soul and life in existence. We Clergy are in
danger of becoming too official, too clerical, even in our prayers. We
_are_ the Lord's Ministers; we have a cure and charge of souls as the
unordained Christian has not; and let us daily remember it, humbly and
reverently. But also we are, all the while, sheep of the flock,
absolutely dependent on the Shepherd, men who for their own souls'
acceptance, and holiness, and heaven, must for themselves "live at the
Fountain." We have to serve others, and "lay ourselves out" for them,
daily and hourly. But on that very account, that "our selves" may be, if
I may say so, worth the laying out, we must see that "our selves" are,
in their own innermost life and experience, filled with the Spirit of
God, filled with the presence of an indwelling Lord Jesus Christ by the
Spirit. And so we must worship Him, and draw on Him, and abide in Him,
and acquaint ourselves with Him, just as if there were no flock at all,
that we may the better be of use to the flock.
LIVE BEHIND YOUR MINISTRY.
I am sure that this is an important point for the thought and practice
of the young Clergyman. While never really forgetting his ordained
character, let him, for the very purposes of his ordained work,
continually "live behind" not only the work but the character; living in
the presence, in the love, in the life, of his Lord and Head, simply in
the character of the redeemed sinner, the personal believer, the glad
younger Brother of the glorious Firstborn, the living Christian with the
living Christ; "knowing whom he has believed," [2 Tim. i. 12.] and
walking by faith in Him.
FOR THE MINISTRY'S SAKE.
Do you so live, by His grace and mercy? Is the sitting-room and the
bedroom of your curacy-lodging the place where you habitually hold
intercourse in this holy simplicity with Him who has loved you and given
Himself for you? Then I venture to say that all the more for this, by
that same grace and mercy, you shall be enabled to "lay yourself out"
for others, in your pastoral charge. You shall understand other men
better, by thus securing for your own soul a deeper understanding of the
Lord Jesus and a fuller sympathy (if the word is reverent) with Him. I
hardly care to analyze how, but somehow, you shall more readily and
closely "get at" men through this direct, simple, unofficial, unclerical
drawing very near indeed to God in Christ. The more you know Him thus at
_first-hand_ the more shall you understand alike the needs of the human
heart (of which all individual hearts are but various instances), and
the supplies that are laid up for all its needs in Him. And so you
shall go out among your people armed, equipped, with a truly
heaven-given sympathy and tact. True personal intercourse with the Lord,
the very closest and deepest, is the very thing to open the whole man
out for others, and to teach him how, with a loving intuition, to look
into them and "upon their things." [Phil. ii. 4.]
A HYMN.
In the next Chapter I shall speak a little more about the young
Clergyman's secret devotion, and secret study of the heavenly Word. But
enough for the present. And let me close with the quotation of a
hymn,[1] a new friend of mine, but already a very dear one, and
thankfully added to the treasures of memory. It puts in the simplest
form possible, while in a form most beautiful, the vital truth that
"intercourse with God is the power for holy service." Happy the young
Clergyman whose secret daily life, from its beginning in the "Morning
Watch," on through the intercourse and energies of the day, up to the
evening hour of weariness and repose, is a translation into experience
of that blessed hymn.
[1] By G.M. TAYLOR: _Hymns of Consecration and Faith_ (Second Edition),
No. 349.
"TELL HIM ALL."
"When thou wakest in the morning,
Ere thou tread the untried way
Of the lot that lies before thee
Through the coming busy day;
Whether sunbeams promise brightness,
Whether dim forebodings fall,
Be thy dawning glad or gloomy,
Go to Jesus--tell Him all!
"In the calm of sweet communion
Let thy daily work be done;
In the peace of soul out-pouring
Care be banish'd, patience won
And if earth with its enchantments
Seek thy spirit to enthral,
Ere thou listen, ere thou answer--
Turn to Jesus--tell Him all!
"Then, as hour by hour glides by thee,
Thou wilt blessed guidance know;
Thine own burthens being lighten'd,
Thou canst bear another's woe;
Thou canst help the weak ones onward;
Thou canst raise up those that fall;
But, remember, while thou servest,
Still tell Jesus--tell Him all!
"And if weariness creep o'er thee
As the day wears to its close,
Or if sudden fierce temptation
Bring thee face to face with foes--
In thy weakness, in thy peril,
Raise to heaven a truthful call;
STRENGTH AND CALM FOR EVERY CRISIS
COME--IN TELLING JESUS ALL."