waiting for
_him_, for every saviour of men must tread this appointed way. Every
shepherd who is not an hireling "giveth his life for the sheep."

One word more. We have named the preacher's passion for his Lord. We
have also named his passion for those upon whom his Lord has set the
mark of His love. There is something more needed ere the flame of
passion burn with its fullest intensity. It is the passion of the
dream--the dream that is not a dream excepting to those who have only
heard of it by the hearing of the ear. To the preacher it will be a
_vision_. It is the vision of which we have already spoken, and may
speak again in pages yet to come--the vision of the divine ideal at
last triumphant. In this vision the preacher must live. To lose it is
despair. No one has so many disappointments as the idealist; but it is
the glorious fact that no one cares about his disappointments less.
Not that he does not see them, but because he sees _beyond_ them. The
true preacher--_he_ is your incorrigible optimist. Some men form their
expectations of the future out of material supplied in tables of
statistics, ecclesiastical Blue Books, censuses of church attendance,
returns and percentages. Not so the true preacher. He has "seen the
King in His beauty and the land that is far off." Columbus like, he
steers his barque toward the new world his faith has gazed upon, and,
as with Columbus, the passion of the coming victory holds him, heart in
tune and head erect, while others mournfully prophesy the disasters
always by shortsighted people seen.

So by the power of his passion the preacher declares his message and
this passion gives power to every word thereof. In that same passion
is his own sustenance in all the divers contradictions that preaching
may bring upon him. He needs it for his own preservation. Often the
preacher who accomplishes the most is, more than those who accomplish
less, rewarded with ingratitude, misjudgment, scorn. "The carnal mind
is at enmity against God, and is not reconciled to the law of God,
neither, indeed, can be." This means suffering for the preacher as it
meant suffering for the Lord. What can keep him in countenance among
it all? Love and the passion of the vision. In these will he conquer
ever! The prodigality of the younger son had long worn out the
patience of the elder brother. Love kept the father waiting on and
vision saw the lad's return while still he was far away.