Words to Winners of Souls

Glad to find excuses. Glad to find excuses for the neglect of duties. Neglecting the reading of scriptures in secret, for edifying ourselves as Christians, only reading them in so far as may fit us for our duty as ministers, and oft times neglecting that. Not given to reflect upon our own ways, nor allowing conviction to have a thorough work upon us. Deceiving ourselves by resting upon absence from, and abhorrence of, evils from the light of a natural conscience, and looking upon the same as an evidence of a real change of state and nature. Evil guarding of and watching over the heart, and carelessness in self-searching, which makes much unacquaintedness with ourselves, and estrangedness from God. Not guarding nor wrestling against seen and known evils, especially our predominance. A facility to be drawn away with the temptations of the time, and other particular temptations according to our inclinations and fellowship. Instability in wavering in the ways of God, through the fears of persecutions, hazard, or loss of esteem, and declining duties because of the fear of jealousies and reproaches. Not esteeming the cross of Christ and sufferings for His name, honorable, but rather shifting sufferings from self-love. Deadness of spirit after all the sore strokes of God upon the land. Little conscience made of secret humiliation and fasting, by ourselves, apart, and in our families, that we might mourn for our own and the land's guiltiness and great backslidings. And little applying of public humiliation to our own hearts. Finding of our own pleasure when the Lord calls for our humiliation. Not laying to heart the sad and heavy sufferings of the people of God abroad, and the not thriving of the kingdom of Jesus Christ and the power of godliness among them. Refined hypocrisy, desiring to appear what, indeed, we are not. Studying more to learn the language of God's people than their exercise. Artificial confessing of sin without repentance, professing to declare iniquity and not resolving to be sorry for sin. Confession in secret, much slighted, even of those things whereof we are convicted. No reformation after solemn acknowledgments and private vows. Thinking ourselves exonerated after confession. Readier to search out and censure faults in others than to see or deal with them in ourselves. Accounting of our estate and way according to the estimation that others have of us. Estimation of men as they agree with or disagree from us. Not fearing to meet with trials, but presuming in our own strength to go through them unshaken. Not learning to fear by the falls of gracious men, nor mourning and praying for them. Not observing particular deliverances and punishments, not improving of them for the honor of God and the edification of ourselves and others. Little or no mourning for the corruption of our nature, and less groaning under and longing to be delivered from that body of death, the bitter root of all our other evils. Fruitless conversing ordinarily with others for the worse rather than for the better. Foolish jesting away of time with impertinent and useless discourse, very unbecoming the ministers of the gospel. Spiritual purposes often dying in our hands when they are begun by others. Carnal familiarity with natural, wicked and malignant men whereby they are hardened, the people of God stumbled and we ourselves blunted. Loving pleasure more than God. Sliding of fellowship with those by whom we might profit. Desiring more to converse with those that might better us by their talents than with such as might edify us by their graces. Not studying opportunities of doing good to others. Shifting of prayer and other duties when called thereto, choosing rather to omit the same than that we should be put to them ourselves. Abusing of time in frequent recreation in pastimes and loving our pleasures more than God. Taking little or no time to Christian discourse with young men trained up for the ministry. Common and ordinary discourse on the Lord's Day. Sliding Christian admonition from any of our flocks or others as being below us. The shame to take light and warning from private Christians. Dislike of or bitterness against such as deal freely with us by admonition or reproof and not dealing faithfully with others who would welcome it off our hands. Not praying for men of a contrary judgment but using reservedness and distance from them. Being more ready to speak of them than to them or to God for them. Not weighed with the failings and miscarriages of others but rather taking advantage thereof for justifying ourselves. Talking of and sporting at the faults of others rather than compassionating of them. Nor do painstaking and religious ordering of our families nor studying to be patterns to other families in the government of ours. Hasty anger and passion in our families and conversation with others. Covetousness, worldly mindedness and an inordinate desire after the things of this life upon which followeth a neglect of the duties of our calling and are being taken up for the most part with the things of the world. Want of hospitality and charity to the members of Christ. Not cherishing godliness in the people and some being afraid of it and hating the people of God for piety and studying to bear down and quench the work of the Spirit amongst them. Trusting in our own ability. Not entertaining that edge of spirit and ministerial duties which we found at the first entry to the ministry. Great neglect of reading and other preparation or preparation merely literal and bookish. Making an idol of a book which hindereth communion with God or presuming on bygone assistance and praying little. Trusting to gifts, talents and pains taken for preparation whereby God has provoked a blast good matter well ordered and worded. Careless in employing Christ and drawing virtue out of him for enabling us to preach in the spirit and empower. In praying for assistance we pray more for assistance to the messenger than to the message which we carry. Not caring what becomes of the word if we be with some measure of assistance carried on in the duty. The matter we bring forth is not seriously recommended to God by prayer to be quickened to his people. Neglect of prayer after the word is preached. Neglect to warn in preaching of snares and sins in public affairs by some and too much too frequent and unnecessary speaking by others of public business and transactions. Exceeding great neglect and unskillfulness to set forth the excellences and usefulness of and the necessity of an interest in Jesus Christ and the new covenant which ought to be the great subject of a minister's study and preaching. Speaking of Christ more by hearsay than from knowledge and experience or any real impression of him upon the heart. The way of most ministers preaching too legal. Want of sobriety in preaching the gospel. Not savoring anything but what is new so that the substantials of religion bear but little bulk. Not preaching Christ in the simplicity of the gospel nor ourselves the people's servants for Christ's sake. Preaching of Christ not that the people may know him but that they may think we know much of him. Preaching about Christ's leaving of the world without brokenness of heart or stirring up of ourselves to take hold of him. Not preaching with bowels of compassion to them that are in hazard to perish. Preaching against public sins neither in such a way nor for such an end as we ought. For the gaining of souls and drawing men out of their sins but rather because it is to our advantage to say something of these evils. Attitude toward our opponents. Bitterness instead of zeal in speaking against malignance sectarians and other scandalous persons. An unfaithfulness therein. Not studying to know the particular condition of the souls of people that we may speak to them accordingly. Nor keeping a particular record thereof though convinced of the usefulness of this. Not carefully choosing what may be most profitable in edifying. And want of wisdom in an application to the several conditions of souls. Not so careful to bring home the point by application as to find out the doctrine. Nor speaking the same with that reverence which becomes his word and message. Choosing texts whereon we have something to say rather than those suited to the conditions of souls and times and frequent preaching of the same things that we may not be put to the pains of new study. Such a way of reading preaching and prayer as puts us in these duties farther from God. Too soon satisfied in the discharge of duties and holding off challenges of conscience with excuses. Indulging the body and wasting much time idly. Too much eyeing our own credit and applause and being pleased with it when we get it and unsatisfied when it is wanting. Timorousness in delivering God's message. Letting people die in reigning sins without warning. Studying the discharge of duties rather than to free ourselves from censure than to approve ourselves to God. Not making all the counsel of God known to his people and particularly not giving testimony in times of defection. Not studying to profit by our own doctrine nor the doctrine of others. For most part preaching as if we ourselves were not concerned in the message which we carry to the people. Not rejoicing at the conversion of sinners but content with the unthriving of the Lord's work amongst his people as suiting best with our minds. Fearing if they should thrive better we should be more put to it and less esteemed of by them. Many in preaching and practice bearing down the power of godliness. We preach not as before God but as to men as doth appear by the different pains in our preparation to speak to our ordinary hearers and to others to whom we would approve ourselves. Negligent, lazy, impartial visiting of the sick. If they be poor we go once and only when sent for. If they be rich in a better note we go oftener and unsent for. Not knowing how to speak with the tongue of the learned a word in season to the weary. Lazy and negligent in catechizing. Not preparing our hearts before nor wrestling with God for a blessing to it because of the ordinariness and apprehended easiness of it whereby the Lord's name is much taken in vain and the people little profited. Looking on that exercise as a work below us and not condescending to study a right and profitable way of instructing the Lord's people. Partial in catechizing passing by those that are rich in a better quality though many of such stand ordinarily in great need of instruction. Not waiting upon and following the ignorant but often passionately upbraiding them. These are solemn confessions the confessions of men who knew the nature of that ministry on which they had entered and who were desirous of approving themselves to him who had called them that they might give in their account with joy and not with grief. Confessing our shortcomings let us as they did deal honestly with ourselves. Our confessions ought to be no less ample and surging. One we have been unfaithful the fear of man and the love of his applause have often made us afraid. We have been unfaithful to our own souls to our flocks and to our brethren. Unfaithful in the pulpit, in visiting, in discipline, in the church. In the discharge of every one of the duties of our stewardship there has been grievous unfaithfulness. Instead of the special particularization of the sin reproved there has been the vague illusion. Instead of the bold reproof there has been the timid hint. Instead of the uncompromising condemnation there has been the feeble disapproval. Instead of the unswerving consistency of a holy life whose uniform tenor should be a protest against the world in a rebuke of sin there has been such an amount of unfaithfulness in our walk and conversation in our daily department and intercourses with others that any degree of faithfulness we have been enabled to manifest on the Lord's Day is almost neutralized by the want of circumspection which our weekday life exhibits. Archbishop Usher's example. Few men ever lived a life so busy and so devoted to God as Usher, Archbishop of Armagh. His learning, habits of business, station, friends, all contributed to keep his hands every moment full and then his was a soul that seemed continually to hear a voice saying, redeem the time for the days are evil. Early too did he begin for at ten years of age he was hopefully converted by a sermon preached on Romans 12 1. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. He was a painstaking laborious preacher of the word for 55 years yet hear him on his deathbed how he clings to Christ's righteousness alone and sees in himself even after such a life only sin and want. The last words he was heard to utter were about one o'clock in the afternoon and these words were uttered in a loud voice. But Lord in special forgive me my sins of omission. It was omissions says his biographer he begged forgiveness of with his most fervent last breath. He who was never known to omit an hour but who employed the shred ends of his life for his great Lord and Master. The very day he took his last sickness he rose up from writing one of his great works and went out to visit a sick woman to whom he spoke so fitly and fully that you would have taken him to have spoken of heaven before he came there. Yet this man was oppressed with a sense of his omissions. Reader what think you of yourself your undone duties your unimproved hours times of prayer omitted you're shrinking from unpleasant work and putting it on others you're being content to sit under your vine and fig tree without using all efforts for the souls of others. Lord in special forgive me my sins of omission. Hear the confession of Edwards in regard both to personal and ministerial sins. Often I have very affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness. Very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping sometimes for a considerable time together so that I have often been forced to shut myself up. I have had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness and the badness of my heart than ever I had before my conversion. My wickedness as I am in myself has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable swallowing up all thought in imagination. I know not how to express better what my sins appeared to me to be than by heaping infinite upon infinite and multiplying infinite by infinite. When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell and yet it seems to me that my conviction of sin is exceedingly small and faint. It is enough to amaze me that I have no more sense of my sin. I've greatly longed of late for a broken heart and to lie low before God. Worldliness stunts the conscience. 2. We have been carnal and unspiritual. The tone of our life has been low and earthly. Associating too much and too intimately with the world we have in a great measure become accustomed to its ways. Hence our tastes have been vitiated, our consciences blunted and that sensitive tenderness of feeling which while it turns not back from suffering yet shrinks from the remotest contact with sin has worn off and given place to an amount of callousness of which we once in fresher days believed ourselves incapable. Perhaps we can call to mind a time when our views and aims were fixed upon a standard of almost unearthly elevation and contrasting these with our present state we are startled at the painful changes and besides intimacy with the world other causes have operated in producing this deterioration in the spirituality of our minds. The study of truth and its dogmatical more than its devotional form has robbed it of its freshness and power. Daily hourly occupation and the routine of ministerial labor has engendered formality and coldness. Continual employment in the most solemn duties of our office such as dealing with souls in private about their immortal welfare or guiding the meditations and devotions of God's assembled people or handling the sacramental symbols this gone about often with so little prayer and mixed with so little faith has tended grievously to divest us of that profound reverence and godly fear which ever ought to possess and pervade us. How truly and with what emphasis we may say I am carnal sold unto sin. Romans 7 14. The world has not been crucified to us nor we unto the world the flesh with its members has not been mortified. What a sad effect all this has had not only upon our peace of soul on our growth in grace but upon the success of our ministry. Three we have been selfish we have shrunk from toil difficulty and endurance counting not only our lives dear unto us but even our temporal ease and comfort. We have sought to please ourselves instead of obeying Romans 15 to let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. We have not borne one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ Galatians 6 2. We've been worldly and covetous we have not presented ourselves unto God as living sacrifices laying ourselves our lives our substance our time our strength our faculties are all upon his altar. We seem altogether to have lost sight of this self-sacrificing principle on which even as Christians but much more as ministers we are called upon to act. We have had little idea of anything like sacrifice at all up to the point where a sacrifice was demanded we may have been willing to go but there we stood counting it unnecessary perhaps calling it imprudent and unadvised to proceed further. Yet what not the life of every Christian especially of every minister to be a life of self-sacrifice and self-denial throughout even as was the life of him who pleased not himself. Four we have been slothful we have been sparing of our toil we have not endured hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ even when we have been instant in season we have not been so out of season neither have we sought to gather up the fragments of our time that not a moment might be thrown idly or unprofitably away. Precious hours and days have been wasted in sloth in company in pleasure in idle and desultory breeding that might have been devoted to the closet the study the pulpit or the meeting. Indolence self-indulgence fickleness flesh-pleasing have eaten like a canker into our ministry arresting the blessing and marring our success. It cannot be said of us for my namesake thou hast labored and hast not fainted revelation 2 3. Alas we have fainted or at least grown weary and well-doing we have not made conscience of our work we have not dealt honestly with the church to which we pledged the vows of ordination we have dealt deceitfully with God whose servants we profess to be we have manifested but little of the unwearied self-denying love with which as shepherds we ought to have watched over the flocks committed to our care we fed ourselves and not the flock 5 we have been cold even when diligent how little warmth and glow the whole soul is not poured into the duty and hence it wears too often the repulsive air of routine and form we do not speak and act like men in earnest our words are feeble even when sound and true our looks are careless even when our words are weighty and our tones betray the apathy which both words and looks disguise love is wanting deep love love strong as death love such as made Jeremiah weep in secret places for the pride of Israel and Paul speak even weeping of the enemies of the cross of Christ in preaching and visiting and counseling and reproving what formality what coldness a little tenderness and affection oh that I was all heart said rolling hill and soul and spirit to tell the glorious gospel of Christ to perishing multitudes afraid to tell the whole truth 6 we have been timid fear has often led us to smooth down or generalized truths which have broadly stated must have brought hatred and reproach upon us we have thus often failed to declare to our people the whole counsel of God we have shrunk from reproving rebuking and exhorting with all long-suffering and doctrine we have feared to alienate friends or to awaken the wrath of enemies hence our preaching of a free gospel has been yet more vague uncertain and timorous we're greatly deficient in that majestic boldness and nobility of spirit which peculiarly marked Luther Calvin Knox and the mighty men of the Reformation of Luther it was said every word was a thunderbolt 7 we have been wanting in solemnity in reading the lives of how or Baxter a brainer or Edwards we are in company with men who in solemnity of deportment and gravity of demeanor were truly of the apostolic school we feel that these men must have carried weight with them both in their words and lives we see also the contrast between ourselves and them in respect of that deep solemnity of air and tone which made men feel that they walked with God how deeply ought we to be abased at our levity frivolity flippancy vain mirth foolish talking and jesting by which grievous injury has been done to souls the progress of the Saints retarded and the world countenance and it's wretched vanities preaching self instead of Christ eight we have preached ourselves not Christ we have sought applause courted honor been avaricious of fame and jealous of our reputation we're preached too often so as to exalt ourselves instead of magnifying Christ so as to draw men's eyes to ourselves instead of fixing them on him and his cross nay and have we not often preached Christ for the very purpose of getting honor to ourselves Christ in the sufferings of his first coming in the glory of his second has not been the Alpha and the Omega the first and the last of all our sermons nine we have used words of man's wisdom we have forgotten Paul's resolution to avoid the enticing words of man's wisdom lest he should make the cross of Christ of none effect we have reversed his reasoning as well as his resolution and acted as if by well-studied well-polished well-reasoned discourses we could so gild and beautify the cross as to make it no longer repulsive but irresistibly attractive to the carnal eye hence we have often sent men home well satisfied with themselves convinced that they were religious because they were affected by our eloquence touched by our appeals or persuaded by our arguments in this way we have made the cross of Christ of none effect and sent souls to hell with a lie in their right hand thus by avoiding the offense of the cross and the foolishness of preaching we have had to labor in vain and mourn over an unblessed unfruitful ministry 10 we have not fully preached a free gospel we have been afraid of making it too free less men should be led into licentiousness as if it were possible to preach to free a gospel or as if its freeness could lead men into sin it is only a free gospel that can bring peace and it is only a free gospel that can make men holy Luther's preaching was summed up in these two points that we are justified by faith alone and that we must be assured that we are justified and it was this that he urged his brother Brentius to preach and it was by such free full bold preaching of the glorious gospel untrammeled by works merits terms conditions and uncluttered by the fancy humility of doubts fears uncertainties that such blessed success accompanied his labors let us go and do likewise allied to this is the necessity of insisting on the sinners immediate turning to God and demanding in the master's name the sinners immediate surrender of heart to Christ strains that sudden conversions should be so much disliked by some ministers they are the most scriptural of all conversions too little emphasis on God's Word 11 we have not duly studied and honored the Word of God we have given a greater prominence to man's writings man's opinions man's systems in our studies than to the word we have drunk more out of human cisterns than divine we have held more communion with man than God hence the mold and fashion of our spirits our lives our words have been derived more from man than God we must study the Bible more we must steep our souls in it we must not only lay it up within us but transfuse it through the whole texture of the soul 12 we have not been men of prayer the spirit of prayer has slumbered amongst us the closet has been too little frequented and delighted in we have allowed business study or active labor to interfere with our closet hours and the feverish atmosphere in which both the church and nation are enveloped has found its way into our closet disturbing the sweet calm of its blessed solitude sleep company idle visiting foolish talking ingesting idle reading unprofitable occupations and gross time that might have been redeemed for prayer time for everything for prayer why is there so little anxiety to get time to pray why is there so little forethought in the laying out of time and employment so as to secure a large portion of each day for prayer why is there so much speaking yet so little prayer why is there so much running to and fro yet so little prayer why so much bustle and business yet so little prayer why so many meetings with our fellow men yet so few meetings with God why so little being alone so little thirsting of the soul for the calm sweet hours of unbroken solitude when God and his child hold fellowship together as if they could never part it is the want of these solitary hours that not only injures our own growth in grace but makes us such unprofitable members of the Church of Christ and that renders our lives useless in order to grow in grace we must be much alone it is not in society even Christian society that the soul grows most rapidly and vigorously in one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others it is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air is purest so with the soul it is when none but God is nigh when his presence alone like the desert air in which there is mingled no noxious breath of man surrounds and pervades the soul it is then that the eye gets the clearest simplest view of eternal certainties it is then that the soul gathers in wondrous refreshment and power and energy and so it is also in this way that we become truly useful to others it is when coming out fresh from communion with God that we go forth to do his work successfully it is in the closet that we get our vessels so filled with blessing that when we come forth we cannot contain it to ourselves but must as by a blessed necessity pour it out with us wherever we go we cannot say as did Isaiah my lord I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime and I am set in my ward whole nights Isaiah 21 8 our life has not been a lying in wait for the voice of God speak Lord for thy servant here it for Samuel 3 9 has not been the attitude of our souls the guiding principle of our lives nearness to God fellowship with God waiting upon God resting in God have been too little the characteristic either of our private or our ministerial walk hence our example has been so powerless our labor so unsuccessful a sermon so meager our whole ministry so fruitless and feeble seeking the spirit strength 13 we have not honored the Spirit of God it may be that in words we have recognized his agency but we have not kept this continually before our eyes in the eyes of the people we have not given him the glory that is due unto his name we have not sought his teaching his anointing the unction from the Holy One whereby ye know all things 1st John 2 20 neither in the study of the word nor the preaching of it to others have we duly acknowledged his office as the enlightener of the understanding the revealer of the truth the testifier and glorifier of Christ we have grieved him by the dishonor done to his person as the third person of the glorious Trinity and we have grieved him by the slight put upon his office as the teacher the convincer the comforter the sanctifier hence he has almost departed from us and left us to reap the fruit of our own perversity and unbelief besides we have grieved him by our inconsistent walk by our want of circumspection by worldly mindedness by our unholiness by our prayerlessness by our unfaithfulness by our want of solemnity by a life and conversation so little in conformity with the character of a disciple or the office of the ambassador an old Scottish minister thus writes concerning himself I find a want of the spirit of the power and demonstration of the spirit in praying speaking and exhorting that whereby men are mainly convinced and whereby they are a terror and a wonder unto others so as they stand in awe of them that glory and majesty whereby respect and reverence are procured that whereby Christ's sermons were differenced from those of the scribes and Pharisees which I judged to be the beams of God's majesty and of the spirit of holiness breaking out and shining through his people but my foul garments are on woe is me the crown of glory and majesty has fallen off my head my words are weak and carnal not mighty whereby contempt is bred no remedy for this but humility self-loathing and a striving to maintain fellowship with God too little imitation of Christ 14 we have had little of the mind of Christ we have come far short of the example of the Apostles much more of Christ we are far behind the servants much father behind the master we've had little of the grace the compassion the meekness the lowliness the love of God's eternal son his weeping over Jerusalem is a feeling in which we have but little heartfelt sympathy his seeking of the lost is little imitated by us his unwary teaching of the multitudes we shrink from as too much for flesh and blood his days of fasting his nights of watchfulness and prayer are not fully realized as models for us to copy his counting not his life dear unto him that he might glorify the father and finish the work given him to do is but little remembered by us as the principle on which we are to act it surely we are to follow his steps the servant is to walk where his master has led the way the under shepherd is to be what the chief shepherd was we must not seek rest or ease in a world where he whom we love had none chapter 5 revival in the ministry it is easier to speak or write about revival than to set about it there is so much rubbish to be swept out so many self-raised hindrances to be dealt with so many old habits to be overcome so much sloth and easy-minded is to be contended with so much of ministerial routine to be broken through and so much crucifixion both of self and of the world to be undergone as Christ said of the unclean spirit which the disciples could not cast out so we may say of these this kind go without but by prayer and fasting so could a minister in the 17th century for after lamenting the evils both of his life in his ministry he thus resolves to set about their renewal one an imitation of Christ and his apostles and to get good done I purpose to rise timely every morning to to prepare as soon as I am up some work to be done and how and when to do it to engage my heart to it and that even to call myself to account and to mourn over my failings three to spend a sufficient portion of time every day in prayer reading meditating spiritual exercises morning midday evening and air I go to bed for once in a month either the end or middle of it I keep a day of humiliation for the public condition for the Lord's people in their sad condition for raising up the work and people of God five I spend besides this one day for my own private condition and fighting against spiritual evils and to get my heart more holy or to get some special exercise accomplished once in six months six I spend once every week four hours over and above my daily portion in private for some special causes relating either to myself or others seven to spend some time on Saturday towards night for preparation for the Lord's Day eight to spend six or seven days together once a year when most convenient holy and only on spiritual accounts today's need for revival such was the way in which he said about personal and ministerial revival let's take an example from him if he needed it much we need it more in the fifth and sixth centuries Gildas and Salvi and arose to alarm and arouse a careless church in a formal ministry in the 16th such was the task which devolved on the reformers in the 17th Baxter among others took a prominent part in stimulating the languid piety and dormant energies of his fellow ministers in the 18th God raised up some choice and noble men to awaken the church and lead the way to a higher and bolder career of ministerial duty the present century stands no less in need of some such stimulating influence we have experienced many symptoms of life but still the mass is not quickened we require some new Baxter to arouse us by his voice and his example is the melancholy to see the amount of ministerial anger and inefficiency that still overspreads our land how long Oh Lord how long the infusion of new life into the ministry ought to be the object of more direct and special effort as well as of more united and fervent prayer the prayers of Christians ought to be more largely directed to the students the preachers the ministers of the Christian Church it is a living ministry that our country needs and without such a ministry it cannot long expect to escape the judgments of God we need men that will spend and be spent that will labor and pray that will watch and weep for souls how Myconius learned his lesson in the life of Myconius the friend of Luther as given by Melchior Adam we had the following beautiful and striking account of an event which proved the turning point in his history and led him to devote his energies to the cause of Christ the first night that he entered the monastery intending to become a monk he dreamed and it seemed as if he was ranging a vast wilderness alone suddenly a guide appeared and led him onwards to a most lovely veil warded by a pleasant stream of which he was not permitted to taste and then to a marble fountain of pure water he tried to kneel and drink one low a crucified Savior stood forth to view from whose wounds gushed the copious stream in a moment his guide flung him into the fountain his mouth met the flowing wounds and he drank most sweetly never to thirst again no sooner was he refreshed himself than he was led away by his guide to be taught what great things he was yet to do for the crucified one whose precious wounds had poured the living water into his soul he came to a wide-stretching plain covered with waving grain his guide ordered him to reap he excused himself by saying that he was wholly unskilled in such labor what you know not you shall learn was the reply they came nearer and he saw a solitary reaper toiling at the sickle with such prodigious effort as if he were determined to reap the whole field himself the guide ordered him to join this laborer and seizing a sickle showed him how to proceed again the guide led him to a hill he surveyed the vast plain beneath him and wondering asked how long it would take to reap such a field with so few laborers before winter the last sickle must be thrust in replied his guide proceed with all your might the Lord of the harvest will send more reapers soon wearied with his labor my conious rested for a while again the crucified one was at his side wasted and marred in form the guide laid his hand on my conious saying you must be conformed to him for these words the dreamer awoke but he awoke to a life of zeal and love he found the Savior for his own soul and he went forth to preach of him to others he took his place by the side of that noble reaper Martin Luther he was stimulated by his example and toiled with him in the vast field till laborers arose on every side and the harvest was reaped before the winter came the lesson to us is thrust in your sickles the fields are white and they are wide encompassed the laborers a few but there are some devoted ones toiling there already in other years we have seen Whitfield and Hill putting forth their enormous efforts as if they would reap the whole field alone let us join ourselves to such men and the Lord of the harvest will not leave us to toil alone reaping the great harvest when do you intend to stop was the question once put by a friend to Roland Hill not till we have carried all before us was the proper reply such as our answer to the fields are vast the grain whitens the harvest waves and through grace we shall go forth with our sickles never to rest or we shall lie down with the lamb himself shall lead us by the living fountains of waters where God shall wipe off the sweat of toil from our weary foreheads and dry up all the tears of earth from our weeping eyes some of us are young and fresh many days may yet be in the providence of God before us these must be days of strenuous ceaseless persevering and if God bless us successful toil we shall labor till we are worn out and laid to rest Vincent the non-conformist minister in a small volume on the great plague and fire in London entitled God's terrible voice in the city gives a description of the manner in which the faithful ministers who remain amid the danger discharge their solemn duties to the dying inhabitants and of the manner in which the terrorist stricken multitudes hung with breathless eagerness upon their lips to drink in salvation near the dreaded pestilence and swept them away to the tomb churches were flung open but the pulpits were silent for there was none to occupy them the hirelings had fled preaching to plague victims then did God's faithful band of persecuted ones come forth from their hiding places to fill the forsaken pulpits then did they stand up in the midst of the dying and the dead to proclaim eternal life to men who were expecting death before the morrow they preached in season and out of season weekday or Sunday was the same to them the hour might be canonical or uncanonical it mattered not they did not stand upon nice points of ecclesiastical regularity or irregularity they lifted up their voices like trumpets and spared not every sermon might be their last graves were lying open around them life seemed now not merely a hand breath but a hair breath death was nearer now than ever eternity stood out in all its vast reality souls were felt to be precious opportunities were no longer to be trifled away every hour possessed a value beyond the wealth of kingdoms the world was now a passing vanishing shadow and man's days on earth had been cut down from three score years and ten into the twinkling of an eye oh how they preached no polished periods no learned arguments no labored paragraphs chilled their appeals or rendered their discourses unintelligible no fear of men no love of popular applause no ever scrupulous dread of strong expressions no fear of excitement or enthusiasm prevented them from pouring out the whole fervor of their hearts that yearned with tenderness unutterable over dying souls thus did they preach and thus did they hear in those days of terror and death men were in earnest then both in speaking and hearing there was no coldness no langer no studied oratory truly they preach as dying men to dying men but the question is should it ever be otherwise should there ever be less fervor in preaching or less eagerness and hearing than there was then true life was a little shorter then but that was all death and its issues are still the same eternity is still the same the soul is still the same only one small element was thrown in then which does not always exist to such an extent namely the increased shortness of life but that was all the difference why then should our preaching be less fervent our appeals less affectionate our importunity less urgent we are a few steps farther from the shore of eternity that is all time may be a little stronger than it was then yet only a very little its everlasting issues are still as momentous as unchangeable surely it is our unbelief that makes the difference it is unbelief that makes ministers so cold in their preaching so slothful in visiting and so remiss in all their sacred duties we must be more in earnest if we would win souls we must be more in earnest if we would walk in the footsteps of our beloved Lord or if we would fulfill the vows that are upon us we must be more in earnest if we would be less than hypocrites we must be more in earnest if we would finish our course with joy and obtain the crown at the master's coming we must work while it is day the night cometh when no man can work this is the end of the reading of words to winners of souls by Horatius Bonar read by Joe Messier footnote some selected paragraphs near the end of the book were eliminated so that this book might be completed on one tape