"_Go, labour on, spend and be spent; Thy joy to do the Father's will; It is the way the Master went; Should not the servant tread it still?_
"_Go, labour on while it is day, The world's dark night is hastening on; Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away; It is not thus that souls are won._"
_Work on in hope; the plough, the sickle wield; Thy Master is the harvest's Master too; He gives the golden seed, He owns the field, And does Himself what His true servants do._
I take up again the all-important subject of Pastoral Visitation, for the same sort of informal and fragmentary treatment as that attempted in the last chapter, and with the same feeling that the subject is practically inexhaustible.
LET THE VISITOR BE A TEACHER, WATCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES.
One object which the visitor will do well to keep steadily before him is, to be a _teacher_ as he goes. I have said something of this already, in recommending my Brethren to seize every good occasion for bringing in the Bible, and words about the Bible. But the whole work of instruction needs remembrance in our private intercourse with parishioners. Of course we shall avoid with watchful and willing care the magisterial manner, the too didactic tone. And only when obvious occasions present themselves shall we even seem to _set ourselves_ to teach; as when we are distinctly asked what is the meaning of this doctrine, or that passage of Scripture, or that phrase of the Prayer Book, or how to meet that difficulty of belief. Such moments do come; in some pastoral lives they come frequently; and whether the inquiry is made in a friendly spirit, with a real wish for information, or whether, as sometimes, it is the question of a critic or a caviller, it is an opportunity for which, in the Lord's grace, we should stand quite ready. To be sure we may have sometimes to remember that sensible precept of the Rabbis, "_Teach thy tongue to say, I do not know_"; the answer, often, of the truest and deepest-sighted wisdom. But even when answering so, instruction may be given, as we state the reasons for the answer. And we shall at least have the opportunity while so doing to bring in that other maxim, which we owe, I think, to the late Archbishop Whately, "_Never allow what you do know to be disturbed by what you do not know_"; a principle of very wide application.