Yes, though the little
fellow cannot put his suspicions into proper words for you, all the same
he has his suspicions that he is being deceived by you and your Sabbath
book; and, ten to one, from that sceptical day he will not read much more
of John Bunyan till in after-life he takes up John Bunyan never for a
single Sabbath again to lay him down. Yes, let the truth be told at
once, Experience is simply a minister, and not a real shepherd at all; a
minister of the gospel, a preacher, and a pastor; but, then, he is a
preacher and a pastor of no ordinary kind, but of the selectest and very
best kind.
1. Now, my brethren, to plunge at once out of the parable and into the
interpretation, I observe, in the first place, that pastors who are
indeed to be pastors after God's own heart have all to pass into their
pastorate through the school of experience. Preaching after God's own
heart, and pastoral work of the same divine pattern, cannot be taught in
any other school than the school of experience. Poets may be born and
not made, but not pastors nor preachers.
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