His children thus most dear to Him,
Their heavenly Father trains,
Through all the hard experience led
Of sorrows and of pains.
And if His children, then ten times more the tutors and governors of His
children,--the pastors and the preachers He prepares for His people.
2. Again, though I will not put those two collegiate shepherds against
one another, yet, in order to bring out the whole truth on this matter, I
will risk so far as to say that where we cannot have both Knowledge and
Experience, by all means let us have Experience. Yes, I declare to you
that if I were choosing a minister for myself, and could not have both
the book-knowledge and the experience of the Christian life in one and
the same man; and could not have two ministers, one with all the talents
and another with all the experiences; I would say that, much as I like an
able and learned sermon from an able and learned man, I would rather have
less learning and more experience. And, then, no wonder that such
pastors and preachers are few. For how costly must a thoroughly good
minister's experience be to him! What a quantity and what a quality of
experience is needed to take a raw, light-minded, ignorant, and
self-satisfied youth and transform him into the pastor, the tried and
trusted friend of the tempted, the sorrow-laden, and the shipwrecked
hearts and lives in his congregation! What years and years of the
selectest experiences are needed to teach the average divinity student to
know himself, to track out and run to earth his own heart, and thus to
lay open and read other men's hearts to their self-deceived owners in the
light of his own.
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