taking him home to my little girl. There -he's singing now."

The canary chirped and the feathers on his throat stood out, then he dropped his bill and pecked into his feathers again. The train crossed a river and passed through a very carefully tended forest. The train passed through many outside of Paris towns. There were tram-cars in the towns and big advertisements for the Belle Jardinière and Dubonnet and Pernod on the walls toward the train. All that the train passed through looked as though it were before breakfast. For several minutes I had not listened to the American lady, who was talking to my wife.

"Is your husband American too?" asked the lady.

"Yes," said my wife. "We're both Americans."

"I thought you were English."
"Oh, no."

"Perhaps that was because I wore braces," I said. I had started to say suspenders and changed it to braces in the mouth to keep my English character. The American lady did not hear. She was really quite deaf, she read lips, and I had not looked toward her. I had looked out of the window. She went on talking to my wife.

"I'm so glad you're Americans. American men make the best husbands," the American lady was saying. "That was why we left the Continent, you know. My daughter fell in love with a man in Vevey." She stopped. "They were simply madly in love." She stopped again. "I took her away, of course.'

"Did she get over it?" asked my wife.

"I don't think so," said the American lady. "She wouldn't eat anything and she wouldn't sleep at all. I've tried so very hard but she doesn't seem to take an interest in anything. She doesn't care about things. I couldn't have her marrying a foreigner.' She paused. "Some one, a very good friend, told me once 'No foreigner can make an American girl a good husband.""

"No," said my wife, "I suppose not." The American lady admired my wife's travelling coat, and it turned out that the American lady had bought her own

clothes for twenty years now from the same maison de couturier in the Rue Saint Honoré. They had her measurements, and a vendeuse who knew her and her tastes picked the dresses out for her and they were sent to America. They came to the post-office near where she lived up-town in New York, and the duty was never exorbitant because they opened the dresses there in the post-office to appraise them and they were always very simple-looking and with no gold lace nor ornaments that would make the dresses look expensive. Before the present vendeuse, named Thérèse, there had been another vendeuse, named Amélie. Altogether there had only been these two in the twenty years. It had always been the same couturier. Prices, however, had gone up. The exchange, though, equalized that. They had her daughter's measurements now too. She was grown up and there was not much chance of their changing now.

The train was now coming into Paris. The fortifications were levelled but grass had not grown. There were many cars standing on tracks-brown wooden restaurant cars and brown wooden sleepingcars that would go to Italy at five o'clock that night, if that train still left at five; the cars were marked for Rome, and cars, with seats on the roofs, that went back and forth to the suburbs with, at certain hours, people in all the seats and on the roofs, if that were the way it were still done, and passing were the white walls and many windows of houses. Nothing had eaten any breakfast.

"Americans make the best husbands," the American lady said to my wife. I was getting down the bags. "American men are the only men in the world to marry."

"How long ago did you leave Vevey?" asked my wife.

"Two years ago this fall. It's her, you know, that I'm taking the canary to." "Was the man your daughter was in love with a Swiss ?"

"Yes," said the American lady. "He was from a very good family in Vevey. He was going to be an engineer. They met there in Vevey. They used to go on long walks together."

"I know Vevey," said my wife. "We were there on our honeymoon."

W

HEN Woodrow Wilson was closing his campaign for the governorship of New Jersey he spoke one night at the Steel Pier, Atlantic City. With his inimitable skill at repartee, he turned a statement that was rapidly becoming a club in the hands of the opposition into a strong weapon of defense. He said: "They call me an amateur. If they mean by the word what we mean in college athletics, I accept the epithet gladly. An amateur in college athletics is one who does not take money for his playing, but who plays for the love of the game. "Let me steal the statesman's thunder and say that the preacher is, at least, one man who should not take money for his playing, but who should play the game for the love of the game. The most noticeable fact about the ministry is that it encourages professionalism. It is quite safe to say that every thinking minister has felt the pull of professionalism. The very garb that he wears immediately distinguishes him from the rest of humankind. And if he does not affect a distinctive dress, his manner of wearing his clothes, his manner of talk, and his manner of walking are sufficiently different to set him apart from men. He is not long in the ministry before he becomes a man of mannerisms. Almost the highest compliment that can be paid a young, progressive clergyman is to tell. him how little he looks the part. I have seen young graduates from the theological seminaries blush with joy at such a compliment, even when given by a bookagent who would never think of addressing an older minister other than as "doctor." Nobody knows the foibles and idiosyncrasies of the ministerial mind so well as the book-agent.

It is not, however, with his clothing and his manner that I am concerned. It is

with his mind. The preacher has a professional mind. His attitude toward his work is professional. If he speaks to the sick it is as one whose duty it is to do so. His ministrations at the grave are regarded by himself and by the family of the deceased as matters of form. It is the proper thing to have a minister present at weddings and funerals, just as it is the proper thing to join a church in a churchgoing community. He enters his pulpit in the same frame of mind. Whether he has anything to say or not, he must preach about ninety-five sermons every year. These sermons are not as a rule the results of his own spiritual or intellectual experiences, but the gleanings of his reading highly influenced by the particular text of systematic theology which he studied in the seminary. Chiefly they are either a defense of dogmas which he is expected to defend, or they are a collection of very pretty but, for the most part, meaningless essays on topics in which the people have no real interest, but against which there can be no charge of heresy. He must preach something. His salary depends on it, and should he rise in his pulpit and frankly declare that on that particular Sunday morning he had nothing to say, his "official board" would begin to reason among themselves as to the advisability of securing a new pastor, especially since, in all probability, such an honest man would already have made enough enemies to furnish adequate cause for his removal.

Now this sense of compulsion that lurks constantly in the back of the minister's mind cannot be other than an encouragement to professionalism. To preach becomes, therefore, not a glorious opportunity, but something of a bore which comes once a week and intrudes itself into one's study. It is unnecessary to add that a task approached in such a manner is mentally debilitating and morally destructive; and if the ministry tends not to the development of the mind and the spirit

of the minister but to his mental and spiritual degeneration, it is obvious that the ministry is a menace rather than a benediction. The whole lake, no matter how sparkling the water may appear, is contaminated if the fountain be impure.

The professional attitude influences the minister's whole life. It warps his definition of honesty. Surely, the most important characteristic of a minister's life should be honesty. He is the spokesman of God, responsible not to man or government or church board, but to God alone. Being an "ordained man," and assuming -as he most emphatically does-that his ordination is "of God," he must speak what God gives him to speak-not half of it, but all of it. "The whole truth and nothing but the truth" must be his motto, from which he departs only at the cost of his own self-respect and the confidence of those over whom he has been placed as "shepherd." But he is not in the ministry long before he comes to understand that there are certain subjects upon which he is expected to preach. His church is founded on a distinct system of theological doctrine. This system he must advocate. In some denominations he is questioned by those in authority as to his fidelity to this part of his work, and if he admits that he has "neglected" it he is reprimanded. The writer recalls one incident which furnished the group of ministers present not a little amusement. A middle-aged minister was being questioned as to family prayers. He had admitted that he did not have family prayers and was being severely reproved with much stinging sarcasm. The official at last, in great exasperation, demanded why the offender did not have family prayers, whereupon that gentleman replied: "Bishop, I am a bachelor." The event, however, is not always so pleasantly terminated. Many a man is frightened by this whip, and consequently defends the dogmas more earnestly than if he believed them.

Other and more subtle forms of control are employed. For example, on one occasion a prominent minister, whose word would go far toward recommending a young and ambitious minister in seeking promotion to a better church, rose in an official gathering to make a report as a

delegate to a national convention of the denomination. After vigorously condemning the trend of ministerial thinking, he concluded his report by saying: "If I had my way about it, I should not permit any young minister to read any book on theology published within the last fifty years!" The writer. could not refrain from asking himself what would have happened if these words had been used by a medical doctor in an address to his fellow practitioners. Doubtless, the speaker would have been driven from the platform with laughter. In this case he took his seat amid hearty applause, though a few sly winks were exchanged in his clerical audience.

The minister is even more rigorously controlled by his "flock." Does he have people in his congregation who own stock in a sweat-shop or in a concern which employs child-labor? Will he speak against such forms of inhumanity when he remembers that his salary depends upon the liberality of the individual who owns that stock? Well, perhaps; but when he sits in his study and thinks of his wife and children and their immediate needs, will there not be a tendency to rearrange the sermon so that it will not offend that particular individual? "Oh, there are so many other topics on which you can preach; why speak on that at all?" Such was the answer that a brother minister gave the writer. Suppose that one of the most liberal supporters of the church was the daughter of a man who had made his fortune as the proprietor of a distillery. Wouldn't there be a tendency to speak softly on that subject, though one might wield a big stick on all other topics? Imagine a minister's predicament in Tennessee during the Scopes trial. Would he be likely to advocate the freedom of investigation and the possibility of the validity of the theory of evolution while he looks into the faces of his leading members and realizes that to a man they applaud the action of the Tennessee legislature? Well, he may be that honest, he may follow the divine leading and speak forth boldly the convictions of his mind, but if he does, let him have his grip packed before he preaches the sermon. However, the probability is that he will begin to rationalize his position. In this art of

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rationalization the preacher is a past master. It will not be disputed that the minister, at the beginning of his career, wants to be honest. He is an idealist whose conscience lashes him into honesty. He detests subterfuge and evasion. But he is not long in the profession before he realizes that forth-rightness is impracticable. At once the conflict between these two opposing forces compels him to discover reasons which are only camouflaged excuses. His position is tolerable only by that worst form of dishonesty-dishonesty with one's self. His situation is well illustrated by a conversation which I heard not long ago. Two very sincere ladies were discussing the question of racial equality. Both of them expressed belief in racial equality. One, however, candidly admitted that when she entered a crowded car and came to a seat occupied by a colored person she passed on further to find a seat with a white person. Admitting that such an action was inconsistent with her theory, she said: "Now you, I suppose, would sit with the colored per

son.'

"Oh, no," returned her companion, "I wouldn't; but I have figured that out. I assume that the colored person would be as much embarrassed as I would, and so, to save her feelings, I would go on to sit with a white person.'

Obviously, that is a case of rationalization, but not more so than that of the minister who once said to me: "I don't believe in the Genesis story of creation, and neither do I believe in the story of the virgin birth; but it would confuse my congregation if I were to say so. For their sakes I say nothing as to my position on such questions."

Perhaps this position might be laudable if we were living in primitive times, but evidently that preacher has forgotten to observe the fact that books and magazines are filled with questions, that high schools and colleges are asking questions, and that the theatre and motion-picture are asking questions, and that 95 per cent of his congregation are affected by these various agencies. Of course, the position of the preacher is not laudable at all because he is not really thinking of his congregation. He is thinking of his payenvelope and of the effect that his public

espousal of liberalism would have on his "continued usefulness in the ministry." In addition to the control of his brother ministers and of his congregation, the preacher is subjected to a community control which forces him to be professional despite his desire and determination. Let us assume that a man enters the ministry determined to elude the critics by avoiding altogether those subjects which would bring him into conflict with those who hold different opinions. Let us also assume-though it is almost impossible for one who knows the ministry from the inside to make such an assumption—that he is able to keep clear of doubtful doctrines, as well as escape the control of his superiors and his congregation. He preaches a gospel which save for its negative attitude satisfies his convictions. He refuses to become entangled in the current controversies. He stands nobly for social justice, that is, in an abstract sort of way, for to stand for social justice in any positive manner would mean inevitable conflicts. He cannot, of course, hold the student spirit; for that, too, would introduce conflicts which he has determined to escape, but he follows a sane and helpful ministry which, if it is not enlivened by the spirit of investigation, certainly is enhanced by the absence of controversial preaching. Has he freed himself from the charge of insincerity? Has he avoided professionalism? Not at all, for he will be understood as standing for those things which he fails to preach about unless he bluntly denies them, which, of course, he cannot do without confronting the very thing he has determined to be free from. Since conservative theology is accepted as the background of the orthodox churches, he will be understood as holding all that conservativism teaches unless he denies, and denial will bring him at once into trouble with the authorities. The minister is a professional, inevitably. He cannot have the distinction of playing the game for love of the game. He takes money for his playing and cannot avoid the stigma of professionalism.

The professional attitude of the minister springs out of the ceremony through which he is introduced to his work. He believes himself to be "called of God" to preach. This idea was suggested to him