What
probably most wears on a clergyman's nerves are his pastoral duties,
which do not consist simply in consoling people in great trials, but
in listening to their fussy accounts of small ones. Nine-tenths of a
minister's patients, like a doctor's, do not know what is the matter
with them, and consult a physician largely because they take comfort
in talking to anybody about themselves, and doctors and clergymen
are the only persons who are bound to listen to them. A professor or
teacher is somewhat similarly situated. His business is the most
wearing of human occupations--that of putting knowledge into heads
only half willing to receive it, and persuading a large number of
people to do their duty to whom duty is odious.
To these men, a Summer School of philosophy or theology, or anything
else, must be repose of the best sort. It gives light work of the
kind they love, free from all nagging, and in good air and fine
scenery. At such schools, too, one finds uses for "papers" that no
periodical will print, and which no audience would assemble to
listen to in a city in the busy part of the year, and to many men an
audience of any sort, interested or uninterested, is a great luxury.
Pages:
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356