Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1864-04-28

Uneducated Preachers.

IT is one of the honors Of the Gospel,
that poor men have taken to the preach
ing of it. There was tinker once
and let the worldly wise blush when
they hear of it-there was..a tinker once,
tinker. of whom great divine sid
he would give all his learning il ne could
preach like him. There was a tinker
once, who ne'er SO much as brushed his
back against the wall Of college, who
wrote Pilgrims Progress. Did eyer a
doctor in divinity write such book !?
There was pot boy once-a boy who
carried on his back the pewter pots of
his mother, who kept the Old Bell Inn
That man drove men lnad, as the world
had it, but led them to Christ, as we
have it, all his life long, until, loaded
with honors he sank into bis grave,
with the good will Of multitude round
about him, with an imperShable name
written in the worlds record as well as
in the records of the church. Did you
: ever hear of any mighty man whose
name stood in more esteem among Gods
people than the name Of George Whit
field? And yet, these were poor men,
who, as WycliHes said, were taking to
the preaching Of the Gospel If you
will read the life Of Wycliffe, you will
find him saying there, that he believed
the Reformation in England was more
promoted by the labors Of the poor men,
whom he sent out from Lutterworth,
than by his own.
He gathered round him number of
poor people whom he instructed in the
faith, and then he sent them two and
two into every village, as Jesus did.
They went into the market-place and
they gathered the people around, they
opened the door and read a chapter, and
then they left them manuscript Of it,
which for months and years afterwards,
the people would assemble to read, and
would remember the Gospellers that
had come to tell them the gospel of
Christ. These men went from market
place to market-plaee, from town to town,
and from village to village, and, though |
their names are unknown to fame, they
are the real reformers You may talk
of Cranmer, and Ridley, and Latimer |
they did much, but the real reformers
of the English nation, were people whose
names have persisted from the annals Of !
time, but are written in the records Of
eternity. God has blessed the poor
man in preaching the truth. Far be it
from me to depreciate learning and wis |
DOM We should not have had the BIZ
bic translated without learning, and
the nacre learning man can have, i'll
he be sanctified man, the better he
has so many more talents to lay out in |
his masters service but it is not abso- |
lately necessary for the preaching o.
the Word. Rough, untamed, untaught
energy, has done much in the church. |
A Boanerges has stood up in village
he could not put three words together in
grammatical English; but where the
drowsy parson had for many a year
lulled all his people into an unhallowed
rest, this man started up, like the herds
man Amos, and brought about a great
awakening He began to preach in
some cottage; people thronged around
him; then house was built, and his
name is handed down to us as the Rev
so.and-so; but, then he was known as
Tom the plowman, or John the tinker
God has made use of men whose origin
was the most obscure, who seemed to
have little, except the gifts Of nature,
which could be made use of in Gods
service; and we hold that this is no dis
grace, but on the contrary, an honor,
that poor men are taking to preaching
the Gospel.-Spurgeon. 2