THE KING’S BUSINESS
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girl needs to be sharpened by years of training and education. 'The home, church, and school are sharpeners o f both wits and * morals. IV. In the marks of value. The value o f a pencil is not determined by the shape or color. A yellow pencil-is as good as a black one, and a hexagonal one costs as much as a round one. The soul o f a black boy or girl is worth as much as that o f a white child. The things that give value to a pencil are Without a cross lifted up you have a demagnetized gospel. No Christ on the cross means no Christ on the throne. Someone has said that there are two classes o f preachers: Those who “stole the word, every man from his neighbor,” and “those who prophesy out o f their own- hearts, having seen nothing,” and having heard no voice from on high. The preacher should be careful when in the pulpit to speak the common language o f humanity and not the dialect o f a class. Some Bible addresses and sermons have too much matter in them. They remind one o f the man who •complained that he could not get a drink from Niagara, not because there was not enough, but because there was too much water. There are four things every preacher and every person giving a gospel address should ask himself.- They are as follow s: What needs to be explained? What needs to be proven? What needs to be illustrated? What needs to be applied? -------------- O The aim o f every sermon should be to make people see; then feel; then act.
the temper of the lead and the polish, which correspond to character and culture or refinement in boys and girls. V. In the provision fo r correcting mis takes. Every complete pencil has an eraser to rub out the bad marks. So every boy or girl needs to have a way o f getting rid o f his mistakes and sins. Jesus Christ is the only one who can rub out our bad marks, and how many we make! No life is complete without Christ, 9 s Lord and Savior.— Homiletical Review. Some one has said, “I f you would rather be the King o f England, the Emperor of Russia, or the President o f the United States than preach the gospel, you are not fit to preach it.” Sermons should never be measured; they should be weighed. Not the length o f a sermon Jbut the strength o f it is the thing in which we should be interested. Strength, not length, is the true test o f a sermon. Some preachers are like boys swimming under water. You. see them when they dive off the text, and then you see them again when they bob up at the “Amen;” but all through the sermon you lose sight .of them because they have gone in over their heads. On repeating sermons: Do not serve your sermons up a second time cold and Stale. Warm them over in the glowing fer vor o f the imaginations in which they were created. Where there is no (re) vision the people j>erish. The late President Jackson is said to have replied to a clergyman who came to seek a government appointment: “I have no appointment within my power -that is equal to the simple messenger o f Jesus Christ.”
POINTED PARAGRAPHS
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