' You cannot be a man of a
commanding knowledge anywhere, and you must be content to take a very
subordinate and second place, even in the ministry, unless you have both
a good understanding and a good memory; but then, at the last day your
Master will not call you and your congregation to an account for what He
has not committed to your stewardship. And on that day that will be
something. But not only must ministers of knowledge have a good mind and
a good memory; they must also be the most industrious of men. Other men
may squander and kill their time as they please, but a minister had as
good kill himself at once out of the way of better men unless he is to
hoard his hours like gold and jewels. He must read only the best books,
and he must read them with the 'pain of attention.' He must read nothing
that is not the best. He has not the time. And if he is poor and remote
and has not many books, he will have Butler, and let him read Butler's
Preface to his Sermons till he has it by heart. The best books are
always few, and they must be read over and over again when other men are
reading the 'great number of books and papers of amusement that come
daily in their way, and which most perfectly fall in with their idle way
of reading and considering things.
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