ter,"
said Chalmers, "makes a church-going people." There is still one other
potent argument for close intercourse with his congregation that many
ministers are in danger of ignoring or underestimating. James Russell
Lowell has somewhere said that books are, at best, but dry fodder, and
that we need to be vitalized by contact with living people. The best
practical discourses often are those which a congregation help their
minister to prepare. By constant and loving intercourse with the
individuals of his church he becomes acquainted with their
peculiarities, and this enlarges his knowledge of human nature. It is
second only to a knowledge of God's Word. If a minister is a wise man
(and neither God nor man has any use for fools) he will be made wiser by
the lessons and suggestions which he can gain from constant and close
intercourse with the immortal beings to whom he preaches.

In Dundee, Scotland, I conversed with a gray-headed member of St.
Peter's Presbyterian Church who, in his youth, listened to the sainted
Robert Murray McCheyne. He spoke of him with the deepest reverence and
love; but the one thing that he remembered after forty-six years was
that Mr. McCheyne, a few days before his death, met him on the street
and, laying hand upon his shoulder, said to him kindly: "Jamie, I hope
it is well with your soul. How is your sick sister? I am going to see
her again shortly." That sentence or two had stuck to the old Christian
for over forty years. It had grappled his pastor to him, and this little
narrative gave me a fresh insight into McCheyne's wonderful power. His
ministry was most richly successful, and largely because he kept in
touch with his people, and was a great pastor as well as a great
preacher.

I determined from the very start in my ministry that I would be a
thorough pastor. A very celebrated preacher once said to me: "I envy you
your love for pastoral work, I would not do it if I could, I could not
do it if I would; for a single hour with a family in trouble uses up
more of my vitality than to prepare a sermon." My reply to him was:
"That may be true, but, after all, the business of a minister is to
endure these strains upon his nervous system if he would be a comforter,
as well as the teacher of his people."

My practice was this: I devoted the forenoon of every day, except
Monday, to the preparation of my discourses. My motto was: "Study God's
Word in the morning, and door-plates in the afternoon.