The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-09-07
THE PREACHER

The pulpit is the holy of holes in
the Christian dispensation. Every
pulpit in the land should be throne
of power. If preachers and people
had something of PauPs conception of
the supreme purpose of the Gospel
there would be fewer perfunctory pull
pits and fewer listless and sleepy
pews. Every minister of Jesus Christ
has need again and again, to stir up
the gift which is in him, and fan it
to a flame that he may be an efficient
agent in spreading Scripture holiness
over the land. The royal gift of in
tellect, conscience and will may be
neglected, but can never be annihi-
lated; it may be hid in a napkin, bur-
led in the earth, and become a stencil
in the nostrils of the Almighty.
John Angel James, himself a
mighty soul winner, said in substance,
Build me but barn in the neighbor-
hood of St. Paul's Cathedral and give
me man who shall preach the Cos
pei with something of the enthusiasm
which its Importance demands and
will show you house full of anxious
hearers, whilst in the statelier building
hard by they shall chant their YES
pers and mathis to empty pews if they
preach not Jesus Christ and Him cru
CITED. Waste no time on skeletons
and sketches of sermons. Study the
master great books like Buffers An
alogy and Bledsoe's Theodicy. A
theological professor advised class
of young theologues to study Buffers
Analogy and preach to the negroes.
Let the preacher achieve the mastery
Of self by the help of Almighty Grace;
the Heavenly Paraclete cannot use
selfish, jealous, envious man. Take one
example, John Fletcher, sanity, sa
raphic man, the ablest, the fairest and
the most powerful controversialist of
his agee. He was offered living worth
$4,000, but refused because the work
was too light and the pay too great
he preferred Madely where the pay
was light, the work heavy and the peo-
pie were ignorant, selfish and dissipat-
ed. Fetched had an all-consuming
passion for souls. Then there was
John Knox, who cried out, "Give me
Scotland or die!"
Many a man has made disting
uished and useful preacher without
a college education. DR.. Ebert Mum
sey, for example, had no educational
advantages in his boyhood. He was
born and reared in an obscure, bleak,
barren section of Bland county, Vir-
ginia. His father was thriftlcss and
dissipated. Ebert had to support his
mother by his daily toll. Such was
his consuming thirst for knowledge
that he read and mastered books that
he had borrowed, by the light of
pine knot. He was a tireless student;
he intermeddled with ALI knowledge
and even acquired working knowl-
edge of Greek and Hebrew. He be-
came one of the greatest preachers
America ever produced. Some of his
sermons are as sublime as the sixth
book Of Milton's Paradise Lost"
Give attendance to reading, said
Paul to Timothy. Show myself
workman that needeth not be asham-
ed. Dr.. Adam Clarke advised young
preacher to study himself dead and
then pray himself alive.
A preacher who will not study
should be unfrocked and cast out as
worthless ecclesiastical fotsam. Gull
tivate the personal pronoun style of
preaching. Go straight to the mark,
like Nathan, who said to David, "Thou
art the man." DR.. A. T. Bledsoe who
was a great theologian and philoso-
pher, commends in his Southern Re-
view the style of Wesley's sermons as
good model for young preachers Let
the preacher take his arrows from
Gods culver,
The true preacher is Gods prophet
who lifts his voice like a trumpet,
cries aloud and spares not in a
wicked and adulterous generation.
God-intoxicated and God-inspired he
neither fears the frowns nor courts
the favor of men.
He is shepherd who feeds the flock
and the lambs are his special care.
He would rather be an ambassador for
Jesus Christ than the Gar Of the
Ex,oboNo.a