souls to Christ carried me through."

How can anybody fail to see how much more the masses are likely to be
influenced by the preaching, no matter how defective oratorically, of
one who has thus lived in the midst of them--living, in fact, their very
life of anxiety, suffering, and toil--than by that of men, however
excellent, who come to them with the atmosphere of the study, the
college, or the seminary?

And yet, after having been trained for a year in the rough-and-ready
oratory of the streets, subject to interruptions and interjected sneers,
The General was called upon, in order to be recognised as fit for
registration as a lay preacher, to mount the pulpit and preach a "trial
sermon"! Accustomed as he had become to talk out his heart with such
words and illustrations as involuntarily presented themselves to the
simple-minded, though often wicked and always ignorant crowds, who
gathered around the chair on which he stood; able without difficulty to
hold their attention when he had won it, and drive the truth home to
their souls, in spite of the counter-attractions of a busy thoroughfare,
he took very hardly to the stiff, cold process of sermonising and
sermon-making such as was then in vogue, and it was some time before he
had much liberty or made much progress in the business.

Still, in due time he was passed, first as a lay "preacher on trial,"
and later called as fully qualified to preach at any chapel in the
district--this latter after a second year's activities and a "second
trial sermon."

When he once got on to this sermon-making line he took the best models
he could find--men like John Wesley, George Whitefield, and, above all,
C. G. Finney, who he could be certain had never sought in their
preaching for human applause, but for the glory of God and the good of
souls alone.

In the Psalms, as in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we have
the most unmistakable guidance upon this subject, showing it to have
been God's purpose so to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh that all His
people should be true prophets--not all, of course, of the same calibre
or style, but all capable of warning and teaching, in all wisdom, every
one whom they could reach.

The work of the ministry is another thing altogether. Let no one suppose
that The Salvation Army at all underrates the "separation" unto His work
of those whom God has chosen for entire devotion to some task, whatever
it be. As to those whom we take a