Study universal holiness of life. Your whole
usefulness depends on this, for your sermons
last but an hour or two—your life preaches all
the week. If Satan can only make a covetous
minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good
eating—he has ruined his ministry.
Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your
thoughts, your words from God. In great measure,
according to the purity and perfections of the
instrument, will be success.
It is not great talents God blesses, so much
as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is
an awesome weapon in the hand of God.
Robert Murray M'Cheyne, 1813—1843