THE PREACHER'S INNER LIFE
morrow manna gathered to-day. "I will make thee a minister and a witness," said the risen Christ to Saul of Tarsus, "both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee": for beyond the Damascus vision there was a whole world of spiritual knowledge waiting to be explored, and when he lay in prison near the end he was reaching out to know Christ better still in the power of His Resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. However long your ministry, there need be no danger of the blight of staleness and stagnation, if your personal experience of Christ is growing all the time. Here is the ultimate secret of authoritative preaching—a first-hand knowledge, never inert and static, never dependent merely on remembered episodes, shining and decisive God-encounters long ago, but always dynamic and developing, always with insight added to insight, and wonder piled on wonder, from the moment when you first gird on your armour for the fray, until the last sermon is preached and the long campaign is over and your work on earth is done.
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We have been inquiring into the nature of the preacher's inner life. We have distinguished certain vital marks of his apostleship. There are others, too numerous to mention here. Let it suffice to call attention to one final, indispensable quality. He will be a man on fire for Christ.
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