The care of souls is the radical idea of the pastor’s office. He is a shepherd to whom a flock has been committed to guide, to feed, to defend; and the Divine command enjoins: “Take heed to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers” (Acts xx. 28). He is to be the personal religious guide, the confidential Christian friend, of his charge. Our Lord, in His description of the Good Shepherd, said: “The sheep hear His voice; and He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him; for they know His voice” (John x. 3, 4). Each member of his flock is a soul entrusted to his care by the Lord; and if true to his trust, he is one of those who “watch for souls as they that must give account.” Paul, when in Ephesus, taught not only publicly, but “from house to house;” and in his farewell charge to the elders of that city he said: “Watch, and remember that, by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every man night and day with tears” (Acts xx. 31). Dr. Cuyler, one of the busiest and most effective pastors in Brooklyn, says: “Young brethren, aim from the start to be thorough pastors. During the week go to those whom you expect to come to you on the Lord’s Day. In the morning of each day study books; in the [p. 79] afternoon study door-plates and human nature. Your people will give you material for your best practical sermons. After an effective Sunday work go around among your flock, as Napoleon rode over the field after a battle—to see where the shot struck and who were among the wounded.”
Dr. Taylor, of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, addressing theological students, says: “You will make a great mistake if you undervalue the visitation of your people. The pulpit is your throne, no doubt; but then a throne is stable as it rests on the affections of the people, and to get their affections you must visit them in their dwellings. I used to look upon my visitation as a dreadful drudgery, but it has now become my joy, so that whenever I am tempted to despond I sally forth to visit my flock; and as I look back upon those early years in which I had no such gladness, I am earnestly desirous to save you from blundering as I did.”
Dr. John Hall, of New York, speaking to a similar audience, said: “Pains should be taken that nothing prevents your making pastoral visits. It is very necessary for you to know the people in their homes, and for the people to know you. The little children and the young people should know you. The men should know you. It is only in this way that you can get a distinct idea of the wants of your people, and so be enabled to adapt your preaching to them. Do not begrudge the time thus spent. In freely conversing with humble people you will get side-lights, or particular testimony, that will make you a stronger man and a better minister for many a day to come.”
Bishop Simpson, alluding to the timidity often felt by young men in regard to pastoral visitation, gives this bit of experience: “I had much of this timidity when I [p. 80] entered the ministry. The palms of my hands sometimes burned at the very thought of going out to visit. But I felt I must go; the church bade me go; I had promised God I would go; and as the soldier in the army walks forward timidly, yet determinedly, into the thickest of the fight, so I went in my Master’s name. If I could, I took with me some experienced Christian friend. I spoke to the people kindly; drew out of them their religious condition and experience; found many a wandering one and tried to comfort many a sorrowing heart. Such visits made me better, taught me to feel for the people, and to break for them the bread of life with more fitness. In a revival which followed, out of nearly three hundred who came to the altar for prayer there were very few with whom I had not previously conversed, and I knew how to enter into their sympathies and to point them to the Lamb of God.”
The late eminent President Francis Wayland, in closing an earnest plea to pastors on this subject, said: “If, at last, it be said that all this is beneath the dignity of our profession, and that we cannot expect an educated man to spend his time in visiting mechanics in their shops and in sitting down with women engaged in their domestic labor to converse with them on the subject of religion, to this objection I have no reply to offer. Let the objector present his case in its full force to Him who, on His journey to Galilee, ‘sat thus on the well’ and held a memorable conversation with a woman of Samaria.”
Pastoral visitation, therefore—this personal care of souls—is an essential part of the pastor’s work; and no minister meets the responsibilities of the sacred office who neglects direct individual religious contact with his flock. For the performance of this duty, however, it is obvious no rules of universal application can [p. 81] be given. Men differ in their characteristics and modes of working, and each pastor will ordinarily succeed best with his own method. Churches differ in their circumstances and modes of life, and a method adapted to one field may not be at all feasible in another. The main points here to be kept in view are that the pastor in some way come into personal religious relations with his flock, and that this be done by a fixed plan. The suggestions made, therefore, will be of only a general character, and will relate to the limits of this duty, the method of performing it, and the advantages of its faithful discharge.
I. Its Limits.
In the pastor’s plan of work, how large a place should be given to pastoral visitation?
The pulpit, without doubt, has the highest claim. The pastor is there surrounded by his whole flock, and stands forth before the world as God’s ambassador, the accredited expositor and defender of the Gospel. No private duty can rise to the dignity and responsibility of this great public work, and no plea of pastoral exigencies or pastoral usefulness can excuse an habitual neglect of thorough preparation for the sacred desk. This is primary and essential.
But in the pastor’s plan he should also aim to secure the visitation of every family and, as far as possible, every person in his congregation. In most churches this could be done at least as often as once a year; in some, doubtless, more frequently than this. By employing system, laying out the work carefully, and rigidly devoting fixed seasons for its prosecution, a large congregation can be readily visited. Suppose that, in addition to those made in cases of sickness and special [p. 82] urgency, six visits in regular course are made every week, even this, small as the number is, in half a year would reach more than a hundred and fifty families—a number above the average of households in our congregations. For this two or three afternoons each week would ordinarily be ample, and the pastor, by thus placing himself in living sympathy with the life of his people, would gain far more than that for his study by the increased facility with which his sermons would be prepared and their individual adaptation to the needs of the congregation. Dr. John Hall says: “I think a minister in good health, and doing his work easily and naturally, should visit some on at least five days in the week. I have done that for months together. . . . A few hours a day spent in visiting gives exercise, bodily, intellectual, and moral. One studies better for it.”
There are, indeed, positions in the ministry in which, from the extent of the church and the pressure of outside duties, the pastor can do little in this department beyond the visitation of the sick and cases of special religious perplexity. But these instances are rare and exceptional, and in such churches provision ought always to be made to supply the lack of pastoral visitation either by an assistant to the pastor, devoted to this work, or by delegating it to competent committees charged with its accomplishment. When the Baptist Tabernacle of New York, then worshipping in Mulberry street, numbered over a thousand members, widely scattered over that large city, the late venerated Deacon William Colgate organized a plan by which the congregation was divided into convenient districts, each placed under the care of a competent brother, and it long proved a most effective organization for church watch-care and visitation.
There is here a further inquiry: Does the pastor’s duty [p. 83] of visitation extend beyond the limits of his own congregation? The answer to this must depend on the number of his flock, his special aptitudes, and the amount of his own strength. The Lord does not require impossibilities. But whoever carefully considers that even in the rural districts of New York more than one-half the population attend no evangelical church, I think, will anxiously ask how this mass of neglecters of the Gospel shall be reached; and the pastor who looks down Sunday after Sunday on a half-filled church may well inquire whether it might not be crowded if, instead of waiting for these careless souls to come to him, he should go to them and carry the message of the Gospel, with the urgencies of an earnest, prayerful heart, into the bosom of their families. Or if this is not possible for him, ought he not to train and organize Christian workers in his church to make this aggressive movement on the mass of indifferentism around him? The inspiring and organizing of such aggressive Christian labor as faithful visitation from house to house are among the most important duties of the pastor, and no form of Christian activity is more fruitful in blessed results, both in the higher Christian development of the visitors and in the awakening and conversion of those who are visited.
II. The Method.
Here no single method can be suggested that will be adapted to all positions in the ministry, but the following general views may be considered.
The pastor’s visits should be distinctly understood as designed for religious conversation. There are other occasions for visits of mere courtesy and personal friendship, but here his object is to place himself in religious contact with his people—to learn their experiences, to [p. 84] remove their perplexities, to comfort their sorrows, to stimulate their religious activities—and thus, as one entrusted with the care of souls, to help them heavenward. The minister who passes from house to house conversing only on topics of mere secular interest neglects the great business of his life, and in the eye of the Master fails in the care of souls committed to his charge.
The visit should be religious, but it ought to be divested as far as possible of stiffness, formality, sameness. A sour visage and a formal style are not necessary to religious conversation. The pastor comes as a Christian friend deeply, tenderly interested in the religious welfare of the family, and while dealing with their souls in all fidelity, he should use a natural, genial, winning manner such as to put them at ease and invite their confidence. He is to study character, and to employ his utmost tact and judgment in adapting his words to those addressed. Some pastors have a few stereotyped questions and exhortations which recur in every visit. A process so stiff and unnatural lacks all moral power; it is soon felt to be mere formal professionalism. No duty is more delicate or tasks more fully the minister’s resources than the successful management of a pastoral visit, so as to leave a strong religious impression, and yet secure from old and young a hearty welcome for its repetition.
In visitation the pastor should overlook none. Domestics and children, as well as the heads of the family, should share his attention and be made to feel that he cares for their souls. Nor should any family or person be overlooked or passed by, but the visit should be strictly impartial, made alike to the rich and the poor, the converted and the unconverted. For this reason, it is better to have a regular course in visitation. Then all know that there [p. 85] is no favoritism, and in their turn, they will alike share the regards of their pastor.
Ordinarily, the visit should be short. Circumstances will necessarily to some extent control this, but long visits almost inevitably lead to the introduction of secular topics and weaken or destroy the religious impression. Thoughtless persons will often importune the pastor for a half-day visit, to be followed by a festal dinner or supper. But let him beware of yielding to such importunities; it is fatal to his work in the study, and fatal to the religious force of the visit. No earnest minister will waste his time and powers in the gossip of such a visit. As a rule, a brief visit—genial, but to the point—followed, when practicable, by a brief prayer specifically bearing the individual needs of the household before the Throne, is the most effective, and it leaves time to visit the whole congregation without distracting from thorough pulpit preparation.
A pastoral visit should be confidential. No minister has the right to invite disclosures of the religious state of his people in the privacy of their families, and then go forth to retail these conversations through the community. It is the violation of a sacred trust. Many a pastor has thus destroyed his influence and barred against himself access to the confidence of his people. If he would be trusted as the confidential adviser and friend of his charge, let him be true to the trusts reposed in him in these visits.
Above all, the pastor must remember the injunction, “Instant in season, out of season.” He should make the most of opportunities. In the store, the office, and the shop, on the farm, the roadside, and the car—everywhere—he is to seek to lead men to Christ. Wisely, indeed, he will observe the proprieties of time and place, but he [p. 86] should neglect no real opportunity of conversing on vital personal religion. The care of souls is his life-work, his solemn charge, and concern for their salvation ought continually to reveal itself in his conversation. Especially must he seize on opportunities to speak the earnest, kindly word to the unconverted. Ordinarily, this is better done when alone with them, as they are then more accessible, and the appeal comes with greater power. The lack of this personal dealing with souls is one of the saddest defects than can mar the life of a minister.
III. The Advantages.
The personal religious growth of the pastor is greatly aided by this direct contact with the souls of his charge. In a minister’s life the danger is that he may degenerate into mere professionalism. He may come to study God’s Word and its great truths, not with personal application, but with respect only to the preparation of his............