A letter to Oswald

Oswald B. Boloni, Wheat City, Kansas.

My Dear Oswald:

Your mother, Emma Alice, writes me that you have decided to enter the ministry. It seems to me that there are many things that I, out of my wide experience, should tell you. Perhaps you can profit by these remarks.
A preacher, Oswald, is a good mixer equipped with a loud speaker, a stream-lined body, the thick skin of a mule, the patience of God, a bottle of oil, and a can of Flit.

He is employed by an organized group of Christian people to preach two or three sermons on Sunday, to conduct a mid-week service, to marry their children and to bury their dead; to encourage, to advise, to uplift, to warn, to lead and to love them; to pray for them; and to stand by them as the last breath leaves the body of a loved one. Besides these duties he must be an all-around business man and executive so that the affairs of the church may move smoothly and wax prosperous.

Now a minister has no boss and so does not work by rules and regulations. He can please
himself provided he does not displease some two or three hundred, or seven or eight hundred, more or less, members of his congregation. He can plan his work to suit himself, pray when he chooses, study when he chooses, of course subject to constant interruption and demand that he go here and there and do this and that; (and did he find Mrs. Jones’ purse in the church? If not will he please go and look and call Mrs. Jones’ daughter)—then he may return to his sermon making to find six men with six grievances lined up at his study door. Oh, yes, a minister’s time is his own! So in order that you may use your time wisely, and avoid certain pitfalls and mistakes, and become a figure in your denomination, I am going to write you some advice concerning the work of the ministry, ministerial etiquette, and your position in general.

You will have the poorest material of any profession on earth with which to work. The contractor can demand the best of materials; the physician, the purest of drugs; the jeweler, the most flawless of stones; but the minister, working with human nature, finds so much bad in the best and so much unexpected good in the worst, that the structure which he builds is so amazing a combination of weakness and of strength, of solid timber and of worm-eaten

boards, of beauty and of hideous hypocrisy, that God alone can distinguish the maze, trace the pattern, and call it “good” or “bad.”
Cal decided to draw you some pictures. He didn’t know just how to make them until he went to a preachers’ convention and noted that most of the preachers seemed to be bald-headed and fat. So in order that no one’s feelings may be hurt, he will draw them tall and thin with lots of hair. We hope you like the pictures, and that our advice will be really helpful.  Your loving Aunt B. stasf.com