In the breast of the millions there is not only a great need but a
great yearning for certain things of the soul which it is for the
Pulpit to supply. This paper is an attempt to talk as one of these
millions to the young man who is about to mount to this sacred
station.
"I have just come from church," said a friend one day, "and I am tired
and disappointed. I went to hear a sermon and I listened to a lecture.
"I went to worship and I was merely entertained.
"The preacher was a brilliant man and his address was an intellectual
treat; but I did not go to church to hear a professional lecturer.
When I want merely to be entertained I will go to the theater.
"But I do not like to hear a preacher principally try to be either
orator or artist. I am pleased if he is both; but before everything
else I want him to bear _me_ the Master's message. I want the minister
to preach Christ and Him crucified."
The man who said this was a journalist of ripe years, highly educated,
widely experienced, acquainted with men and life. He was world-weary
with that weariness which comes of the journalist's incessant contact
with every phase of human activity, good and bad, great and small.
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