1.E 06. Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm.

There is another force which I desire to speak of, and that is the element of Enthusiasm. This is not feeling, because pure emotion may or may not be accompanied by enthusiasm. There is in all enthusiasm a certain outburst and glow. You may have enthusiasm and feeling; or, it may be, enthusiasm and imagination; or, it may be, enthusiasm and reason. In almost all communities enthusiasm stands before everything else in moving popular assemblies. A preacher who is enthusiastic in everything he does, in all that he believes, and in all the movements of his ministry, will generally carry the people with him. He may do this with out enthusiasm, but it will be a slow process, arid the work will be much more laborious. If you have the power of speech and the skill of presenting the truth, and are enthusiastic, the people will become enthusiastic. People will take your views, because your enthusiasm has inoculated them. Very often you will see a man of great learning go into a community and accomplish nothing at all; and a whipster will go after him with not as much in his whole body as his predecessor had in his little finger, yet he will revolutionize everything.

You may say that a community aroused by enthusiasm alone will just as quickly relapse into their former state. Yes; but I do not counsel enthusiasm alone. The mistake is in permitting any such relapse. It is the same as though you ploughed a field and then left it for the rain to level again. You must not only plough it, but sow seed, harrow, and till it. Yet it is essential that the field should be ploughed. So it is with a community. Mere enthusiasm will do nothing permanent; but its work must be followed up by continual and fervent preaching, and by indoctrination of the truths of the gospel. I repeat, therefore, that enthusiasm is an indispensable element in a minister’s work among men, to bring them to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.