Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/108

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90 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING

geration, may be said to lie all the way between the zenith and the nadir of the universe of feeling.

ii. But what bearing have these general truths upon the practical problems in which we are especially interested?

(i) As already hinted, they give a mighty emphasis to the value of culture in religious life. In the first place, especially is this true with reference to the preacher him self. The lack of culture in the pulpit may not be fatal to a certain effectiveness. The man of low mental organiza tion is able to move his hearers of the same mental grade along the level of his own emotional life; but the poverty of his emotional life leaves him but poorly equipped for the very important task of developing in them higher and finer types of religious experience. Moreover, it leaves him in large measure insulated from the large and growing com munity of cultured minds, who often are in sad need of religious inspiration. The crudeness of his emotional life repels them. To a large extent he is incapacitated to be come their religious inspirer and guide. He lacks the ability to lead those on the lower levels towards the upper alti tudes of the religious experience, and also the ability to lead those of higher culture to their appropriate service of the uncultivated. In the largest sense of that noble word, his pastoral function is in the main a failure ; for to be a " pas tor " surely means something more than to be an adminis trator of the machinery of the church organization and a kindly visitor in the homes of the people. It means to be a feeder of the people, an inspirational force in their lives, to develop as far as possible the whole range of their emotional capacities, and especially to organize their entire emotional life around the great truths of religious faith and to harness these dynamic factors in suitable ways to the inspiring task of Christianity the building of a social order of which mutual service in self-realization shall be the organic prin ciple.

If, on the other hand, we consider the matter from the point of view of his own personality, this sad limitation of

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