Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-People

Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-People

THREE of these sermons were written for, and (shall I say?) preached some years ago, in one of the earliest missionary stations in Edinburgh, established by Broughton Place Congregation, and presided over at that time by the Reverend James Trench; one of the best human beings it was ever my privilege to know. He is dead; dying in and of his work,from typhus fever caught at the bedside of one of his poor membersbut he lives in the hearts of many a widow and fatherless child; and lives also, I doubt not, in the immediate vision of Him to do whose will was his meat and his drink. Given ten thousand such men, how would the crooked places be made straight, and the rough places plain, the wildernesses of city wickedness, the solitary places of sin and despair, of pain and shame, be made glad! This is what is to regenerate mankind; this is the leaven that some day is to leaven the lump.[8] The other two sermons were never preached, except in print; but they were composed in the same key. I say this not in defence, but in explanation. I have tried to speak to working men and women from my lay pulpit, in the same words, with the same voice, with the same thoughts I was in the habit of using when doctoring them. This is the reason of their plain speaking. There is no other way of reaching these sturdy and weather and work-beaten understandings; there is nothing fine about them outside, though they are often as white in the skin under their clothes as a duchess, and their hearts as soft and tender as Jonathan's, or as Rachel's, or our own Grizel Baillie's; but you must speak out to them, and must not be mealy-mouthed if you wish to reach their minds and affections and wills. I wish the gentlefolks could hear and could use a little more of this outspokenness; and, as old Porson said, condescend to call a spade a spade, and not a horticultural implement; five letters instead of twenty-two, and more to the purpose. You see, my dear working friends, I am great upon sparing your strength and taking things cannily. "All very well," say you; "it is easy speaking, and saying, Take it easy; but if the pat's on the fire it maun bile." It must, but you needn't[9] poke up the fire forever, and you may now and then set the kettle on the hob, and let it sing, instead of leaving it to burn its bottom out. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 37640
Author: Brown, John
Release Date: Oct 5, 2011
Format: eBook
Language: English