This is what our shrewd and
satirical people mean when they say of us that So-and-so has a great
_sough_ of the gospel in his preaching, but the _sough_ only. (2)
Another kindred temptation to even the best and truest of ministers is to
make pulpit appeals about the evil of sin and the necessity of a holy
life that they themselves do not feel and do not attempt to live up to.
Butler has a terrible passage on the heart-hardening effects of making
pictures of virtue and never trying to put those pictures into practice.
And readers of Newman will remember his powerful application of this same
temptation to literary men in his fine sermon on Unreal Words. (3)
Another temptation is to affect an interest in our people and a sympathy
with them that we do not in reality feel. All human life is full of this
temptation to double-dealing and hypocrisy; but, then, it is large part
of a minister's office to feel with and for his people, and to give the
tenderest and the most sacred expression to that feeling. And, unless he
is a man of a scrupulously sincere, true, and tender heart, his daily
duties will soon develop him into a solemn hypocrite.
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