p. 8 | SOUL OR SELF by Lutheran Observer

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 20, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 16.

SOUL OR SELF.

By Lutheran Observer

WHEN Christ is to be proclaimed by preaching or worshiped in song, the auditors are quick to discern whether the preacher or singer is putting soul or self into the service which he renders. The good effect of the very best sermon is sure to be vitiated if even in one's own mind self is allowed to become prominent. It is a great offense for the servant to thrust himself before his Lord, and people are quick to discern and resent the wrong. If the speaker thinks of himself, is anxious about the estimate which will be set upon his effort, the esteem in which he is to be held, it will be impossible for him long to conceal his thought from the recognition of even the general public. Self is offensive in any public

speaker, especially in a minister of the gospel.

That which makes our greatest preachers and singers preëminent to-day is their ability wholly to put their souls into their service. The patient people will excuse other faults, but they imperatively demand, in those who sing or preach, that quality which they speak of as the influence "which comes from the heart and goes to the heart."

That which we as ministers most need to-day is the baptism of fire which will help us to forget self.

What is true in this respect of the preacher and the singer is also true of the Sunday school teacher and the Christian worker everywhere. In all our teaching and in all our work we need to drop self.

This is needed by all our people. How many of our congregations are rent asunder or broken into factions because of the selfishness of those who should forget self-interests for the prosperity of the common cause and the good of all? A baptism of unselfishness is to-day needed by the pew as well as the choir and the pulpit.—Lutheran Observer.