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Ministers: Quotations from Burning Words

Our high mission, our noble calling, is to build up souls, to perfect the Christian life, and to make manhood acceptable to God, and radiant in the sight of all men.— H. W. BEECHER

Your great employment is to bring the individual souls of men to Christ.— E. N. KIRK

The minister is to be a live man, a real man, a true man, a simple man, great in his love, great in his life, great in his work, great in his simplicity, great in his gentleness.— JOHN HALL

I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life, Be ashamed of nothing but sin.— SAMUEL JOHNSON

A true minister is a man whose manhood itself is a strong and influential argument with his people. He lives in such relations with God, and in such genuine sympathy with man, that it is a pleasure to be under the unconscious influence of such a mind. It is not the way to convert a sinner to knock him down first and then reason with him.— S. IRENÆUS PRIME,

Learn in Christ how possible it is to be strong and mild, to blend in fullest harmony the perfection of all that is noble, lofty, generous in the soldier's ardor of heroic devotion; and of all that is calm, still, compassionate, tender in the priest's waiting before God and mediation among men.— ALEXANDER MACLAREN

Thou must be true thyself, If thou the truth wouldst teach; Thy soul must overflow, if thou Another's soul wouldst reach; It needs an overflowing heart To give the lips full speech. Think truly, and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed, Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed; Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed. If you would lift me, you must be on higher ground.— R. W. EMERSON

Only a loving heart can effectually present a loving gospel ; only one who himself loves sinners, and is willing to deny himself for their sakes, can faithfully and persuasively represent Him who loved and gave Himself for sinners.— SUNDAY-SCHOOL TIMES

"He commanded that something should be given her to eat." Has any body's daughter or any body's son been raised from spiritual death in your congregation, or in your class recently? If so, give the revived soul something to eat.— H. CLAY TRUMBULL

The minister, who would be most like the Master, must go and, like Him, lay the warm, kindly hand on the leper, the diseased, the wretched. He must touch the blind eyes with something from himself. The tears must be in his own eyes over the dead who are to be raised to spiritual life, Jesus is our great exemplar.— JOHN HALL

That pastor effects the most in the end who comes into closest personal contact with his charge. No amount of organizing, no skill in creating machinery and manipulating "committees” is a substitute for this. Who feels the power of a tear in the eye of a committee ?— JOHN HALL

I find on inquiring among successful pastors, successful in the sense of winning men to Christ in profession, that they depend largely on personal contact.— D. A. GoODSELL

As preachers we are to promote Christian culture, by bringing the dead branches to the living Vine, that, grafted into it, without a rag of human righteousness between, the life of Him may enter them; and by keeping them, as far as teaching and example can do it, abiding in Him, that they may bring forth fruit.— JOHN HALL

Every discourse of a true minister has an influence for good or evil, and that for eternity. Every word tells for the everlasting rise or fall, weal or woe, life or death, of souls. In every sentence we touch chords that shall send their vibrations through the endless future; that shall peal in the thunder of a guilty conscience, or resound in the music of a purified spirit. You want to be radiant, eloquent ministers, ministers of great influence and success. Do you want to sit on the Lord's right hand and on His left? Then give Him your heart, so that in humility, in gentleness, in unfailing sweetness, in patience under all circumstances, you shall be like Him. He that would speak Divine things in a language which living men of to-day can comprehend, must keep up with the researches and discoveries of men who study nature, and put her words into the speech of the present.— J. H. VINCENT

One great want of the times is a commanding ministry - a ministry of a piety at once sober and earnest, and of mightiest moral power. Give us these men, "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," who will proclaim old truths with new energy, not cumbering them with massive drapery nor hiding them beneath piles of rubbish. Give us these men! men of sound speech, who will preach the truth as it is in Jesus, not with faltering tongue and averted eye, as if the mind blushed at its own credulity - not distilling into it an essence so subtle and so speedily decomposed that a chemical analysis alone can detect the faint odor which tells it has been there – but who will preach it apostlewise, that is, "first of all," at once a principle shrined in the heart and a motive mighty in the life — the source of all morals, and the inspiration of all charity - the sanctifier of every relationship, and the sweetener of every toil. Give us these men! ! men of zeal untiring - whose hearts of constancy quail not although dull men sneer, and proud men scorn, and timid men blush, and cautious men deprecate, and wicked men revile.— Wm. M. PUNSHON

Many young ministers are poor men, but that is no reason, gentlemen, why you should be poor ministers. What is ministerial success? Crowded churches, full aisles, attentive congregations, the approval of the religious world, much impression produced? Elijah thought so; and when he discovered his mistake, and found out that the Carmel applause subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well-nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives, and obedient, humble hearts, unseen worth recognized in the judgment-day.— F. W. ROBERTSON

Do not fear the alleged "current of opinion." It was thus that Edwards, Brainard, Dwight, and Payson, preached, and the noblest and most enduring things in New England were the result. If the sentiment of the time is against their way, so much the worse for the sentiment! Paul and Peter and John and James so "reproved and rebuked and exhorted, with all long-suffering and doctrine.”— JOHN HALL

This is the ministry and its work - not to drill hearts and minds and consciences into right forms of thought and mental postures, but to guide to the living God who speaks.— F. W. ROBERTSON

We are to be neither book-worms nor male gossips, but Christian gentlemen, with a side towards mental culture, and a side to practical life. We are to learn how to talk to the people by being with the people, and we are to learn how to raise them up by raising ourselves. We are never to forget that ministry is service, not mastery. "Ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake."— D. A. GOODSELL

There are passages of the Bible that are soiled forever by the touches of the hands of ministers who delight in the cheap jokes they have left behind them.— PHILLIPS BROOKS