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Ministers should be Bible students. They should thoroughly furnish themselves with the evidences of our faith and hope, and then, with full control of the voice and their feelings, present these evidences in such a manner that the people can calmly weigh them, and decide upon the evidences presented.

A minister of Jesus Christ should not be regardless of his attitude. If he is the representative of Jesus Christ, his deportment, his attitude, his gestures, should be of that character which will not strike the beholder with disgust.

I add, that those who are bent on restoring the whole church ought to be well instructed in the word, and to abstain from doing anything under the pretext of simplicity.

Ministers should impress upon the people the necessity of individual effort. No church can flourish unless its members are workers. The people must lift where the ministers lift.

Ministers are powerless people who have nothing to boast of except their weaknesses. But when the Lord whom they serve fills them with His blessing they will move mountains and change the hearts of people wherever they go.

I lift my voice of warning against praising or flattering your ministers. I have seen the evil, the dreadful evil, of praising ministers. Never, never speak a word in the praise of ministers to their faces. Exalt God.

When the congregation becomes the norm by which sermons are measured, a minister has put a mortgage on his soul.

However, it must always remain a dialogue, and never an imposition of the church's own convictions and methods. Propose, not impose. To serve, and not to dominate.

We ministers have undoubtedly failed to connect and apply Christianity to the practical everyday problems of the average man. In this, we have failed to follow in Christ's footsteps. For the religion which He taught and revealed in His own life and ministry was an intensely practical and down-to-earth affair.

To be a clergyman, and all that is compassionate and virtuous, ought to be the same thing.