THE preacher’s life should be one of activity and industry, one of enterprise and diligence. The preacher can not be a gentleman of leisure. This is not his profession. He can not afford an hour or two every morning in primping, turning himself first this way and then that before a glass, smoothing down his hair, stroking his mustache and fitting on his attire. He can not afford another half-hour sucking an enormous cigar and filling a filthy spittoon, a thing that ought to be tolerated in no parlor, or genteel society. He should be a man of no idle habits, such as lounging upon cushions, loafing on the streets, at the corners, in shops, stores or places of business, or idleness. He should rise early, unless prevented from getting to rest sufficiently early, by preaching at night, dress himself out and out for the day in fifteen minutes, and spend at least five hours in his books. This should be a regular work, an every day work. Five hours only brings him to about ten o’clock in the morning, about the proper time to see sick persons, the poor, or any whom it may be his duty to visit. Three hours can now be devoted in this way. This brings him to one o’clock. Allow him two hours to take refreshment and rest himself. Now it is three o’clock, a good hour for him again to be among the people, where he may frequently spend two hours profitably.
If the preacher is a man of enterprise, he can have an engagement for a sermon, a lecture, a meeting for prayer, or something of the kind almost every night, either in the church, or some place in a short distance in the community, where he may be waking up some interest among the people. It is the business of the preacher to seek an opportunity for something of this kind, and have some work all the time going on round him, arresting the attention of the people, rousing them from their slumbers, setting them to thinking and working.
It is useless to stand and preach in one pulpit and wait for the people to come there, thus depending upon that wholly for saving men. We must go beyond that, find every nook and corner where a few people can be collected and preach the word to them, exhort them, persuade them and plead with them to turn to the Lord. The preacher must make it an every day work to preach. We must get in the way of preaching from house to house and from place to place, thus filling the whole land with the doctrine of the cross. We must be men of activity, perseverance and zeal, not waiting for “calls,” but penetrating the land from its center to its circumference. We must go into the field and do the work of the Lord, and the Lord will open the way and take care of us. We are anxious to see an army of zealous, powerful and enterprising young men, willing to go out into the world and convince the world of their ability and usefulness, by saving men, building up churches and extending the cause. In this way, they will soon make an opening for themselves and secure a permanent field of operation. How much more noble and manly this, than looking round for a rich church, raised up to hand by the labors of other men, where a young man can sit down with a fat salary and merely live upon the labors of those who have gone before him.