You have builded temples in His name
Of mortar and brick and stone, With windows of glass most beautifully stained,
With tower and spire and dome; But what do we of the by-ways care
For structure and line and trim? Out in the dust of the lonely road
We only ask for Him!
You have blazed His name across the [...]
It is a very strange thing, Oswald, but people who can scarcely read or write their own names will be eager to tell you how to preach. They can tell you what, how, and when to preach, and hand out advice by the chunks. The less they know the more they can tell you. The [...]
You will be told, Oswald, in schools and divers books, what NOT to do with your hands; but never will you hear or read anything about what to DO with them. Doubtless with your deep intellect and ingenuity you can devise various ways to dispose of them while preaching.
There are preachers who wave them in [...]
The hardest task the preacher has to face is the preaching of funerals, especially those of suicides or non-Christians. Many kind and lovely things may be said of the Christians at death. There is all the comfort of God to be offered to the sorrowing relatives of these. But how very difficult to find any [...]
There are weddings and weddings. There are weddings at five o’clock in the morning and weddings at eleven o’clock at night. There are weddings in the pastor’s study, in the pastor’s home, in the bride’s home, in the church building, in a friend’s garden, in a boat and in an airplane. They are married in [...]
A baptismal service may be very beautiful, but also may be very grotesque. As in the matter of weddings, be prepared, Oswald, for anything.
There are large and weak-hearted ladies who may faint at the crucial moment. Go on and dunk ‘em; water will bring them back. There are those excitable souls who are prone to [...]
Calling is at once the bane and the blessing of the minister’s life. In rain, in sleet, in heat, in mud, in darkness, sick or well, glad or somber, the minister must make calls. With the physician the minister stands by the sick bed and with the undertaker, by the death bed. He must visit [...]
You will find, Oswald, that the golden rule applies to ministers as well as to the rank and file of humanity. It is a sound principle upon which to base your treatment of your fellow-preachers as well as your fellow-men. But you will find that in the ministry it is often sadly neglected or forgotten. [...]
(For Preachers’ Wives)
Dear God, I do not know about Eternity— Just where it is or how will Heaven be, But this I pray—of wood or cloud or stone— Oh, let me have a little corner for my own! I’ve moved into so many houses in these years, Have scrubbed so many boards [...]
Moving is either a form of torture invented by the devil to reduce a preacher to tears and madness or a test permitted by God to teach him patience, endurance, and the control of tongue and temper. Let the harp represent the musician; the pen, the writer; the gavel, the judge; the [...]