superintend the other servants, and that is a difficult thing to do. An
honored of God in public, is quite a stranger to that chastening
behind the door which keeps proud flesh from being unduly exalted.
How often have I prayed, "Dismiss me not Your service, Lord!" For a
dismissed steward is a pitiable object among his lord's servants. He
was once great and mighty, riding the high horse; but when he is out
of a place, he is of less account than the smallest cowboy. See how
glad he is to be received, as a grateful guest, into the humble cottages
of those who once looked up to him with a sort of awe when he
represented his lordship! Take heed that you be not exalted above
measure, lest you come to nothing.
2. A steward is a servant of a peculiar kind, for he has to
superintend the other servants, and that is a difficult thing to do. An
old friend of mine, who is now with God, once said, "I have always
been a shepherd. Forty years I was a shepherd of sheep, and another
forty years I was a shepherd of men, and the last flock was a deal
more sheepish than the first." This witness is true. I think I have
heard that a sheep has as many diseases as there are days in the year;
but I am sure that the other sort of sheep are liable to ten times as
many. A pastor's work is an anxious one. All sorts of difficulties occur
with our fellow-servants; and, alas! unwise stewards make a great
many more than there need be by expecting perfection in others,
although they do not possess it themselves. Our fellow-servants are,
after all, wisely selected; for He who put them into His household
knew what He was doing; at any rate, they are His choice, and not
ours. It is not our place to find fault with our Lord's own election. It
is very common with some to revile the Church; but as the Church is
the bride of Christ, it is rather dangerous work to criticize the Lord's
beloved. I feel towards the Church somewhat as David felt towards
Saul; I dare not lift up my hand against the Lord's anointed. Better
far will it be for us to find fault with ourselves rather than with our
people, when there is anything wrong with them.
Still, our church-members are men, and the best of men are but
men at the best: to direct, instruct, console, and aid so many
different minds, is no easy task. He who rules among men, for God,
should be a man; and what is more, he should be a man of God. He
should be graciously endowed, a kingly man, head and shoulders
above his fellows. Men will gladly yield to real superiority, but not to
official pretensions. The superior position must be supported by
superior attainments. The steward must know more than the
ploughman and the thatcher. He must be of higher intelligence than
the gamekeeper and the carter, and he should have a more reliable
character than Mary and John, who have to take orders from him.
Brethren, as stewards, we must have abundant grace, or we shall not
fulfill the duties of our office, or earn to ourselves a good degree.
The other servants will take their cue from us. A steward, who is
dull, inert, and slow, will have a slow team of servants about him,
and the business of his lordship will fare badly. Those who travel
must have noticed that the servants in a hotel are very much like the
landlord; if the landlord is cheery, attentive, and obliging, all the
maids and waiters partake of his geniality; but if he looks sourly at
you, and treats you with indifference, you will find that the whole
establishment is of a disdainful order. A minister soon gets round
him people like himself: "like priest, like people." Oh, that we may
always be alive and earnest in the service of the Lord Jesus, that our
people may be alive also! I have read of a Puritan divine, that he was
so full of life that his people said he lived like one who fed on live
things. Oh, for a life sustained by living bread!
We shall not be good stewards in the management of our fellow-
servants unless we are ourselves filled with the grace of God. We
must set our fellow-servants an example of' zeal and tenderness,
constancy, hopefulness, energy, and obedience. We must ourselves
practice constant self-denial, and select as our own part of the work
that which is hardest and most humiliating. We are to rise above our
fellows by superior self-forgetfulness. Be it ours to lead the forlorn
hopes, and to bear the heaviest burdens. Archdeacon Have was
giving a lecture at Trinity College when a cry of "Fire!" was raised.
His pupils rushed away, and formed themselves into a line to pass
buckets of water from the river to the burning building. The tutor
saw a consumptive student standing up to his waist in the water, and
cried to him, "What! you in the water, Sterling?" The reply was,
"Somebody must be in it, and why not I as well as another?" Let us
say to ourselves, "Some fellows must be doing the drudgery of the