Many causes operate to unsettle a pastor which ought not to produce
that result; indeed, some of them, if rightly interpreted, would have
served rather to strengthen than to dissolve the pastoral relation.
Thus, 1. Mental depression. A sedentary, studious life often induces
abnormal nervous conditions, and the hypochondriac misinterprets the
feelings of the people and underestimates the results of his ministry.
A change is in consequence resolved on, which subsequent developments
show to have been wholly unnecessary. 2. The loss of popularity. This
is often due to real defects in the character and work of the pastor,
and its true remedy is not a change of field, but a correction of his
faults. Imperfect preparation has, perhaps, made his sermons
commonplace and his pulpit a failure. Or he has failed to cultivate
executive, pastoral, and social power, and, as a result, the church is
not in effective working condition, and no bonds of personal sympathy
and affection bind pastor to people. Or there are imperfections in his
spirit and life, and these forbid confidence and respect on the part of
the congregation. In all such cases a loss of popularity does not
indicate so much a change of field as a change in the spirit, plan, and
work of the pastor, for these defects would in any field soon lead to
the same result. 3. Difficulties in the church. Such trials enter more
or less into every minister's lot, but they may be no indication of
duty to change. The trial may be sent as a discipline, designed to
develop, through faith and patience, a nobler character and higher
power in the pastor. Change in this case is only a cowardly running
away from duty, and consequent failure to gain an intended blessing.
Many a disruption of the pastoral tie, it may be feared, is thus only a
shrinking from trial and intended discipline and results only in loss
to pastor and people. 4. Ambitious seeking for distinguished position.
There is an unhallowed ambition which, unsatisfied with advancement
through natural growth, is ever restlessly seeking, by newspaper
notoriety, sensational sermons, and influential friends, to secure
prominent places in the ministry. A vacant pulpit in a conspicuous
church is usually beset by many such ambitious aspirants for place and
notoriety. It is hardly necessary to suggest that such a spirit is at
the farthest possible remove from the genuine spirit of the Christian
pastor; and in the end it reacts disastrously on the reputation of him
who indulges it, for self-seeking and pretense are sure, sooner or
later, to be exposed.