his mantle and to say, 'Take me away; I am not better than my
fathers.' And when a man for thirty years, amidst all the changes
incident to a great city congregation in that time, has to stand up
Sunday after Sunday before the same people, and mark how some of them
are stolidly indifferent, and note how others are dropping away
from their faithfulness, and see empty places where loving forms used
to sit--no wonder that the mood comes ever and anon, 'Then, said I,
surely I have laboured in vain and spent my strength for nought.' The
hearer reacts on the speaker quite as much as the speaker does on the
hearer. If you have ice in the pews, that brings down the temperature
up here. It is hard to be fervid amidst people that are all but dead.
It is difficult to keep a fire alight when it is kindled on the top
of an iceberg. And the unbelief and low-toned religion of a
congregation are always pulling down the faith and the fervour of
their minister, if he be better and holier, as they expect him to be,
than they are.

'He did not many works because of their unbelief.' Christ knew the
hampering and the restrictions of His power which came from being
surrounded by a chill, unsympathetic environment. My strength and my
weakness are largely due to you. And if you want your minister to
preach better, and in all ways to do his work more joyfully and
faithfully, the means lie largely in your own hands. Icy
indifference, ill-natured interpretations, carping criticisms, swift
forgetfulness of one's words, all these things kill the fervour of
the pulpit.

On the other hand, the true encouragement to give a man when he is
trying to do God's will, to preach Christ's Gospel, is not to pat him
on the back and say, 'What a remarkable sermon that was of yours!