HERESY

Men study for four years in college to obtain a "liberal education" and most of them have a general idea of what they are going to do with it when they get it. They plan "three years in the Law School" or they are going to "study business" or they have a vague idea of getting a job somewhere, teaching, or building bridges, or selling cotton. But there is one occupation at the mere mention of which nine-tenths of them will cross to the other side of the street,--the ministry.

Economics and engineering have sprung up as professions within the last sixty years; theology has kept knowledge itself alive down through the dark centuries. In this day of "whatever is new is good" the very fact of its age condemns theology without consideration.

As a profession, the ministry has fewer and fewer recruits, when more than any other it needs them. A student who admits that he is studying theology stamps himself as "different", out of sympathy with his generation, to be let alone. From the undergraduate point of view, to wish deliberately to be a minister is heresy. But this attitude is more habit than anything else, a habit which is hard to overcome. If regarded as something more than a necessary evil, like grace before meals, preaching can be made a great profession.