Lose consciousness of
yourself in the burning consciousness of your cause.
Very well; but if you do that you must be very sure of your own
belief. Any man who assumes to teach the Christian faith, who in his
own secret heart questions that faith himself, commits a sacrilege
every time he enters the pulpit.
Can it be that the lack of living interest in certain church services
is caused by a sort of subconscious knowledge of the people, that the
minister himself is speaking from the head rather than from the heart;
that what he says comes from his intellect and not as the "spirit
gives him utterance"; and, to put it bluntly, that he himself "no more
than half believes what he says."
"The man spoke as if he were bored with endless repetition of
sermons," said a close observer of a weary parson.
Certain it is that even in political speaking the man who believes
what he says has power over his audience out of all comparison with a
far more eloquent man whom his hearers know to be speaking
perfunctorily.
No matter how much the latter kind of speaker polishes his periods, no
matter how fruitful in thought his address, no matter how perfect the
art of his delivery, he fails in the ultimate effect wrought by a much
inferior speaker whose words are charged with conviction.
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