. And till it is a good conscience we shall
hold up with it a broken heart. And that genuine love of all sincerity,
and that equally genuine hatred of all remaining insincerity, will make
all our ministerial work, as it made all Paul's apostolic work, not only
acceptable, but will also make its very defects and defeats both
acceptable and fruitful in the estimation and result of God. It so
happens that I am reading for my own private purposes at this moment an
old book of 1641, Drexilius _On a Right Intention_, and I cannot do
better at this point than share with you the page I am just reading. 'Not
to be too much troubled or daunted at any cross event,' he says, 'is the
happy state of his mind who has entered on any enterprise with a pure and
pious intention. That great apostle James gained no more than eight
persons in all Spain when he was called to lay down his head under
Herod's sword. And was not God ready to give the same reward to James as
to those who converted kings and whole kingdoms? Surely He was. For God
does not give His ministers a charge as to what they shall effect, but
only as to what they shall intend to effect. Wherefore, when his art
faileth a servant of God, when nothing goes forward, when everything
turneth to his ruin, even when his hope is utterly void, he is scarce one
whit troubled; for this, saith he to himself, is not in my power, but in
God's power alone. I have done what I could. I have done what was fit
for me to do. Fair and foul is all of God's disposing.'

And, then, this simplicity and purity of intention gives a minister that
fine combination of candour and considerateness which we saw to exist
together so harmoniously in the character of Sincere. Such a minister is
not tongue-tied with sinister and selfish intentions. His sincerity
toward God gives him a masterful position among his people. His words of
rebuke and warning go straight to his people's consciences because they
come straight out of his own conscience. His words are their own witness
that he is neither fearing his people nor fawning upon his people in
speaking to them. And, then, such candour prepares the way for the
utmost considerateness when the proper time comes for considerateness.
Such a minister is patient with the stupid, and even with the wicked and
the injurious, because in all their stupidity and wickedness and
injuriousness they have only injured and impoverished themselves. And if
God is fu