Visitation by Appointment

Abstract

"Pastoral visitation is to many the hardest task of all", writes a leading scholar*, and yet, strange to say, he gives less space to the subject, in his otherwise brilliant book, than is given " to the casual beggar who comes to the house with a plausible story ". Every minister has to face up to this hardest task of all because he feels it should be high up, if not highest, on his list of priorities; and yet, speaking for myself, it is one of the first things to go to the wall and is preyed upon by the chance, and oft-times unworthy, contingencies of a minister's life more than any other aspect of his work"