But of all the religiously-loquacious men of our day, your ministers are
the chief. For your ministers must talk in public, and that often and at
great length, whether they are truly religious men at home or no. It is
their calling to talk to you unceasingly about religious matters. You
chose them to be your ministers because they could talk well. You would
not put up with a minister who could not talk well on religious things.
You estimate them by their talk. You praise and pay them by their talk.
And if they are to live, talk incessantly to you about religion they
must, and they do. If any other man among us is not a religious man,
well, then, he can at least hold his tongue. There is no necessity laid
on him to speak in public about things that he does not practise at home.
But we hard-bested ministers must go on speaking continually about the
most solemn things. And if we are not extraordinarily watchful over
ourselves, and extraordinarily and increasingly conscientious, if we are
not steadily growing in inwardness and insight and depth and real
spirituality of mind and life ourselves, we cannot escape,--our calling
in life will not let us escape,--becoming as sounding brass.
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