A matter, moreover, that he gets not one word of help
toward in all his college curriculum. David was able to say in his old
age that he fed the flock of God in Israel according to the integrity of
his heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands. But what
years and years of shortcoming and failure in private and in public life
lie behind that fine word 'integrity'! as also what stumbles and what
blunders behind that other fine word 'skilfulness'! But, then, how a
lightest touch of a preacher's own dear-bought experience skilfully let
fall brightens up an obscure scripture! How it sends a thrill through a
prayer! How it wings an arrow to the conscience! How it sheds abroad
balm upon the heart! Let no minister, then, lose heart when he is sent
back to the school of experience. He knows in theory that tribulation
worketh patience, and patience experience, but it is not theory, but
experience, that makes a minister after God's own heart. I sometimes
wish that I may live to see a chair of Experimental Religion set up in
all our colleges. I fear it is a dream, and that it must have been
pronounced impracticable long ago by our wisest heads.
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