rd's work-field; and it sees, of
course, a very large variety among them, in the way of both character
and circumstances. But, with all this consciousness of differences, my
thoughts and my petitions always, by a deep necessity, run for all alike
along three main paths. The first prayer is for the young Clergyman's
inner and secret Life and Walk with God. The second is for his daily and
hourly general Intercourse with Men. The third is for his official
Ministrations of the Word and Ordinances of the Gospel. And in all these
directions, after all, one desire, one prayer, has to be offered, the
prayer that everywhere and always, from the inmost recesses of life to
its largest and most public circumference, the Lord and Master may take,
and keep, full possession of the servant. I pray that in secret
devotion, and in secret habits, Jesus Christ may be intensely present
with the man; and that in common intercourse, in all its parts, He may
be the constant and all-influencing Companion, to stimulate, to control,
to chasten, to gladden, to empower; and that in the preaching of the
Word the servant may really and manifestly speak from, and for, and in,
his Lord; and that in ministration of the sacramental and other
Ordinances he may truly and unmistakably walk before Him in holy
simplicity, holy reverence, and full spiritual reality, "serving the
Lord," and serving the flock, "with all humility of mind." [Acts xx.
19.]

My present talks on paper will take very much the lines of these
prayers. Secret walk with God, common and general walk with men, special
ministrations--I desire to say a little on each and all of these points,
and more or less in this order, though without attempting too rigid an
arrangement, where one subject must often run over into another.

* * * * *

SECRET WALK WITH GOD.

Let me take up the first great topic of the three for a few preliminary
words in this chapter: THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD of the young Pastor of
Christ's flock.

HINDRANCES: WORK.

My brotherly reader will not need any long explanation or careful
apology from me here. He knows as well as I do, on the one hand, that a
close secret walk with God is unspeakably important in pastoral life,
and, on the other hand, that pastoral life, and not least in its early
days, is often allowed to hinder or minimize the real, diligent work
(for it is a work indeed in its way) of that close secret walk. He finds
all to