That there should be occasionally a young man, with the views that
have been fostered and encouraged by some among us, of a “pastorate,”
who would assume authority to cast persons out of the church, and give
letters of commendation, is not strange. There were some even in the
time of the apostles, when no such views of a “pastorate” existed, who
assumed such prerogatives and “prated against us” (the apostles.) In
III. John 9, 10, we have a reference to one of them. “I wrote to the
church,” says John, “but Diotrephes, who loves to have the pre-eminence
among them, receives us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his
deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words: and not
content therewith, neither does he himself receive the brethren, and
forbids them that would, and casts them out of the church.” We have
fallen on the track of a few young men, and some old ones, of this
stripe; but their race is short. The brethren, whatever else is true of
them, are not prepared for clerical assumptions. They will not have the
manacles put on them. Such men will not trouble us long. Some of them
will go over to sectarianism at once, thinking that the shortest road
to a “pastorate.” Others will go to law, medicine, or to nothing. But
the main body of our young men are true and noble in the highest sense,
as humble and faithful as can be found anywhere. They are studying to
know and do the will of God. We are not sure that, as a class, they are
not generally sounder than their instructors in the gospel.
We regret to see anything like collision or rivalry between old and
young preachers. Young men get a little _fast_ sometimes, and old men
become a little _cross_; but these matters will all work their way out.
As a humorous writer said some years ago, after writing a long piece
about nothing, as a burlesque on certain persons, “We are all poor
_critters_.” We need a great deal of mercy and grace.
It is a little trying for old men, after toiling a lifetime in the
cause, and when they are struggling under the infirmities of age, to be
shoved aside, as we know some of them are, and treated with contempt by
the young men who ought to be a comfort and consolation to them. The
cause is the Lord’s, and we are his, and we shall all give account to
him. Let us keep pure ourselves, and keep the church pure; let us make
a record of which we shall not be ashamed when the Lord shall come. We
must study to bear our burdens, and to do so without murmuring. What we
can not cure, we must endure.