t possesses a man, as it often will, body, soul and spirit; which no
place can satisfy save the preacher's place, no task save the
preacher's task, no honour save the honour of telling men about Jesus
Christ. Without it there can be no grand success. He who is not thus
possessed should decline to be drawn for this duty. Of such as he
there are more than enough already in the pulpit--in it, but _not at
home_ in it, not glad, gloriously glad, to be there--slaving to make a
sermon because "in three days Sunday will be here;" taking with them at
service time this so-called sermon, strong with the smell of books and
of midnight oil; speaking it in pain of utterance, and delighted when
the ordeal is over, with a delight most certainly shared by many who
neither came to scoff nor remained to pray. Heaven help the man whom
fate in the shape of foolish friends, or parents, or mistaken
church-officials has sentenced to hard labour in the pulpit; who is
condemned to preach without possession of that love of preaching which
makes for him in whose heart it dwells the business of declaring the
Gospel the noblest and most rapturous occupation in all the great, wide
world! If preparation be invariably irksome--_invariably_, we say, for
all men have their moods and no mere passing spell of depression is
worth more than a little special prayer; if preaching be always a pain
and a cross--_always_, we say--for God may cause the chariot wheels to
run heavily for reasons of His own, and the difficulty may not point to
retreat, but to supplication; if preparation and preaching be
invariably irksome and painful, the fact ought to make the preacher ask
whether a mistake has been made in his choice, which ought to be
rectified as soon as possible. The true preacher will be in love with
preaching for its own sake. This love will be part of the great
all-conquering passion of his life.

A "part," yes; but only a part. May we call it the human, the
temperamental, dispositional part? The passion we desiderate for the
present-day pulpit includes something almost infinitely higher than
this. It must include _the passion for Christ_. It is the hunger to
preach because Jesus Christ is the chief theme of preaching; because it
is in _His_ honour; because out of the fulness of the heart the mouth
would speak; because the soul's deep reverence for the Redeemer _must_
extol its object. He is to be _obeyed_, too, in preaching. It is a
form of ser