Earnestness by L. F. STARR

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 8, 1909

Earnestness

By L. F. STARR

L. F. STARR

In the preaching of the gospel, earnestness is indispensable. A lazy, lifeless, indifferent method of speech will rob any message of its power. All preachers can not be learned or eloquent, but no man whom God has sent should lack earnestness, and earnestness and intensity are more effective than eloquence or oratory. But earnestness is not simply, noise. A man may rave and rant and still not be in earnest. Howling and screaming are no proof of sincere interest or conviction. A man running a mock auction will sometimes bawl and scream, and yet his head is cool, and his only object is to gain money. A whisper may be far more earnest than a scream, and it may tell deeper feeling and more intense desire, but a man who should train himself to speak in whispers would lose much of his power.

When any man begins to shape his words and regulate his tones, he is liable to become artificial. The man who is thoroughly in earnest, may find that his style needs pruning and criticizing, but such criticism should be kindly administered by his best and most intelligent friends. But the man must not be cramped; he must have something to say, and liberty to say it; and until his whole soul is aroused to the conviction of the truth and the importance of the things he declares, his words will be of little worth. Sheridan, the actor, once said, “I like to go and hear Rowland Hill because his ideas come red-hot from the heart.” But the heart must burn from within, or these burning words can never be spoken. No graces of oratory, no skill of elocution, will take the place of the positive conviction of those who know the truths which they speak, and see the danger against which they warn men. The apostle Paul ceased not to warn men “night and day with tears,” and those who desire that their words shall be effective must remember that we must be affected ourselves by the things we speak in order to affect others by them.

Takoma Park, D. C.