let not thy hand cease; for thou knowest not which shall rather spring up, this or that; and if both together, it shall be the better."[1]
With these words before us, what shall we say of a priest who catches up an old sermon, it may be, upon the Incarnation for Trinity Sunday, or on evil speaking for Christmas Day, or on heavenly joys in Lent; or, still worse, who goes to the pulpit without preparation, remote or proximate, without meditation and without prayer; who chooses his text at the moment, trusting to a fluent tongue and a string of pious commonplaces? In the soul of such a priest can there be holy fear, a sense of the sanctity of God, of the account he must give for every idle word, or a love of souls, or a desire for the glory of God, or a consciousness that he is grieving the Holy Ghost?
- ↑ Eccles. xi. 6.
