WE have had a continuous series of writing and preaching about properly qualified Evangelists, and numerous schemes have been set on foot and advocated, for raising up and qualifying men for this great work. Still, the Evangelical field is not at all supplied. No scheme set on foot is supplying, or likely to supply, the field. Some few preachers are being manufactured, but where do they go? and what do they do? How many of them go out into the field and preach the gospel, convert sinners, plant and build up churches? Where is one doing anything of this kind? In many parts of the country, they have made people believe that the old preachers who have planted the churches and made the principal part of all the converts that have been made, are behind the times, and incapable of preaching, discouraged and driven many of them from the field, and the work is not progressing. We need, and must have, if we ever progress, evangelists, or missionaries, who will travel throughout the length and breadth of the country, visit the churches, “see how they do,” “set in order the things that are wanting,” recruit their numbers, and maintain the faith once delivered to the saints. We need, and must have, men who will visit weak churches, enter new communities, where there are no churches,—bold adventurers, pioneers to open the immense forests, and make the rude desert blossom like the rose. This work must be done, and we must have the men that can and will do it.
Where are we to obtain this class of men? Can we never learn anything from the history of the past, from all experience? Where did the men come from, who have done pretty much of all this kind of work that has ever been done? Is a miracle to be expected? Will men for this work, come from a source whence such men never came? No! never while man is man, and human nature is human nature. Men brought up in school houses, fed and clothed from their father’s pockets, without ever knowing what it was to earn a dollar, or a coat for their backs, without knowing anything about the hardships and buffetings of the world, no matter if they become scholars, and learn how to say a few fine things, never will and never can do the work we are speaking of. They have not the constitution, the physical energies to do it. They have not the knowledge of the world, the ways and manners of the people to do it. They know nothing of the toils, hardships, and burdens, of the masses of mankind; are incompetent to sympathize with them, mingle with them, become a fellow creature with them, and preach the Gospel of Salvation to them, in an acceptable and successful manner and save them. They not only are wholly incompetent, incapable, and could not, if they would; but it is not their atmosphere, not their congenial sphere, and they never will do the work in the Lord’s great Evangelical field. They never have done the work, and never will.
We must turn our eye in another direction. We must look to men who have come up in our midst, among the people, who are of the people, in active life, habits of industry, who have known what it was to earn a living—men who have found out what a dollar is worth by earning it; learned the people by mingling with them; developed their physical man by active and industrious life; know the ways of the world by being in it. We must look to men of this description whose hearts have been overcome by the love of Christ, whose energies have been enlisted in the churches, and who are brought forth by the churches, and should be reared up and encouraged by the churches. Here is where we must look for Evangelists. The church must open the way for her young men, set them forth, and bring out all the talent she has within; and every man that has the natural endowment, the energy, the love for man, the anxiety for man’s salvation, necessary for one who would go out into the world to save men, will make his way into the Evangelical field, and make his mark in the world. If he lacks learning or information, and has the proper zeal, desire for his work, and natural endowment, he will acquire the learning and knowledge. We must open the way for such, in all the churches; show our young men that we are looking for them to come forth and enter upon this great work. We must give them opportunities and encourage them to speak, to read the Scriptures and pray in public, and we shall soon find that the Lord has plenty of material of the first quality, for this great work.
Here is the source whence our laboring men have come—our active effective men who are doing, and have always done the work. It is useless for us to be deluded by the vain hope that the men we need, will ever come from any other source. We must turn our attention to the Evangelical work, concentrate our energies upon it, and do all in our power to promote it. Every man that can preach at all; every man that can turn a sinner to the Lord, should be engaged in the work, with all zeal and power. We must preach the word both publicly and privately, with the tongue, and pen through newspaper, pamphlet, magazine, tract and book; in every possible way, and by all means, we must preach the word of God from the rivers to the ends of the earth, and make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which, from the beginning of the world, hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. “Go,” brethren, the Lord says, “Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature;” “Go,” says he, “therefore, and teach all nations.” Let every man go, who can call a few people together, and preach the word of the Lord to them. Yes, go if you can preach at all, turn sinners to God and save them;—go and preach. Go under a sense of the mighty work, remembering the language of that great preacher and apostle to the Gentiles, “Wo is me if I preach not the Gospel.” God requires those who have the gospel and the ability, to preach it now, and this same wo will rest upon them if they do not do it.
What a crying sin against the Lord, who gave us the gospel, and man to whom he commands it to be preached, for those with the ability, to refuse to preach the gospel of the grace of God? Who but these shall answer to God, if the people perish for the word of God? The first disciples, when dispersed from their homes, deprived of all their earthly good, “went everywhere preaching the word.”