Pastoral Theology Or the Theory of the Evangelical Ministry

uman will which is excited with the Divine will which excites it. It is with vocation as with conversion. In one sense, we are called but once, as we are converted but once; in another sense, we are called and converted every day. Analogy here should suffice, and even be an a fortiori argument; but the Gospel is explicit: St. Paul says to Timothy, " I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee."?2 Tim., i., 6. I dismiss the question whether there are not many whom it concerns to make to themselves a call, while they are already engaged in the work. The exercise of the ministry, will not this of itself suffice for the confirmation of the call ??It should contribute to it, but it may also have the opposite effect. The exercise of the ministry endangers the spirit of the ministry, if it be not sustained from within. If there be not this balance, if the internal does not exert itself sufficiently on the external, the external injures the internal, as the internal no doubt would fail without external action. There is danger that functionmay become a substitute for feeling. Our first impressions have in them much of imagination; when this is once exhausted, and without further aid from it we are made dependent for feeling on the heart and the conscience, it is much to be feared that we shall have too little feeling.t We must not depend on the vivacity of our first impressions ; that which affects us most to-day will leave us ...