that they are sadly undertrained spiritually; not that their head has received too much attention, but that their heart has received too little. Of course I shall not deny that it is possible to find men who are naturally lacking in sufficient mental power to pursue a Seminary course profitably: and I am far from saying that there are none of these “unlearned and ignorant men” who have been so baptized with the Holy Spirit that the Church may profitably induct them into the ministry to which God has obviously called them. But these are rare exceptions; and I do not think it characteristic of this humble but honorable class that they refuse to make the best use possible of the mental powers that have been vouchsafed to them. Certainly it would be perilous for us to make the existence of such a class the excuse for neglecting to stir up the gift that is in us. Rather I think it may be fairly inferred that when students for the ministry fail to take full advantage of the opportunities for intellectual culture offered them, the fault is usually to be found in the heart itself. When too much blood seems to have gone to the head, we may ordinarily justly presume that this is only because too little has gone to the heart; and similarly when little or none is thrown to the head, we may quite generally suspect it is because the heart has too little within it to supply the needs of any organ.
I.
I have missed my mark in what I have been saying if, while insisting on the need of a strenuous intellectual preparation for the ministry, I have not also suggested that the deepest need is a profound spiritual preparation. An adequate preparation for the Gospel ministry certainly embraces much more than merely the study of certain branches of learning. When Bishop Wilberforce opened Cuddesden College in 1854, he wrote: “Threefold object of residence here: 1. Devotion; 2. Parochial Work; 3. Theological Reading.” The special circumstances of “candidates for holy orders” in the Church of England suggested, as we shall subsequently see, the order in which these three elements in their preparation are mentioned. In our special circumstances a different order might be suggested. But does it not, even on first sight, commend itself to you with clear convincingness, that any proper preparation for the ministry must include these three chief parts—a training of the heart, a training of the hand, a training of the head—a devotional, a practical and an intellectual training? Such a training, in a word, as that we may learn first to know Jesus, then to grasp the message He would have
