Undervaluing an Audience by Robert H. Williams, D. D.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 25, 1886

Undervaluing an Audience.

By Robert H. Williams, D. D.

A GREAT actor has said: "It was my practice never to undervalue my audiences. . . . It was a rule with me to make what profit I could out of a bad house; and before the most meager audiences ever assembled, it has been my invariable practice to strive my best, using the opportunity as a lesson; and I am conscious that I have derived great benefit from the rule." If Edmund Burke had undervalued the few that remained in the House of Commons when he rose to speak, he would never have caught the ear of the nation and stood in the front rank of English statesmen. If the younger Pitt, when a boy, had not framed his replies to speeches he heard in Parliament, and delivered them to imaginary audiences, he would have missed a very powerful means of fitness for his work. If the character of the sermon is to be determined by the size of the audience, the minister may miss the opportunity for great usefulness. The few who brave the storm, or the heat, or the cold, receive too often for their trouble, instead of the carefully prepared sermon, a few rambling remarks, and are undervalued, as an audience, by the minister. Of all audiences the minister's ought to be the last to be undervalued; for we have the evidence that great good has followed the service where only two or three had met together.

Only three persons heard Rev. John Holmes one evening when he preached at Castlebar, Ireland. One of the three was William Arthur, author of the "Tongue of Fire," and that night he was led out of darkness into the light. Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander said: "The best sermon I ever preached was to two persons; and by the blessing of God they were both converted." On a stormy day Dr. Lyman Beecher had an audience of one person, and that person was converted by the sermon he preached, and became a minister of the gospel. Congregations are undervalued not only on account of their size, but also on account of their character; they are poor or ignorant, and do not rank with other congregations not far away.

John Wesley had to hear the taunt that his audiences were composed of servant-girls. He replied, "I am glad of it; for they have the care of the children, and will train them in the fear of the Lord." So highly did Norman Macleod esteem an audience of very poor people to whom he preached in Glasgow, that he said, "I do not envy Wellington at Waterloo." Oberlin's people were so poor that they had to go to church by turns, through lack of respectable clothing; and yet he said, when invited away to a better charge: "I have been ten years learning every head in my parish, and obtaining an inventory of their wants. I have laid my plan; I must have ten years to carry it into execution, and ten more to correct faults and vices." When it was said to Dober and his co-laborers in St. Thomas, "You cannot preach to these ignorant slaves," they replied, "We will sell ourselves as slaves, and preach while we work by their side."

Speaking of a very poor class of people to whom he preached, Whitefield said he had most success in preaching among them, because they knew they had no righteousness of their own and were most thankful to hear, and most ready to accept, the righteousness of another. It is very encouraging and stimulating to preach to a large and intelligent audience; but it is by no means discouraging to preach to the small audiences, or to those in the humblest positions, and for that reason the audience ought never to be undervalued.—Robert H. Williams, D. D., in Christian at Work.