The Master says, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” When God calls a man to preach it embraces all there is of the individual, with all possible development: mental, moral and physical; so that the man of God will improve every chance of doing good and of getting good, including hard study for the development of the mind; practicing the laws of health for the development of our being for greater efficiency in the Master’s service. The word of the Lord is: “Study to show thyself approved unto God.” Success comes on this line of action. I believe that the minister should study and write as though the whole thing depended on this for success; and then he should pray as though everything depended on prayer; and when he gets into the pulpit he should trust alone in God the Holy Ghost as though entire success depended on help from above. On this line the stream of salvation will flow into the pulpit and into the pew, and the results will be the salvation of precious souls and the sanctifying of believers. Glory to God. Amen. We are to glorify Him with our physical powers, as these belong to Him. Hence, we will carefully study ourselves, the laws that govern our own being, eat and drink, labor and rest so as to produce the greatest development for His glory. The mission of the minister of Christ is of the utmost importance, because it has to do with those that must live forever with God and angels and the redeemed of earth in the world that is to come, or with those that reject Christ and everything that is good, and together are cast out into outer darkness, where the flames of their torment will ascend up for ever and ever. And then to think that a single word, or look, may change the destiny of a soul! Well might the apostle exclaim, “And who is sufficient for these things?” The Gospel must be proclaimed with great tenderness of spirit, and in deep love for the souls of those that are in their sins; love that is all aflame for the perishing. A minister should keep as near the head of the church as possible. He should pattern after the Master in simplicity, in naturalness, in literalness, in appropriateness and in holiness. As He is in the world, _so are we_, so clean and pure; morally speaking, the minister should be transparent--Christ shining out in all his ways--looking, speaking, doing the right thing at the right time and in the right manner. Speaking as one that must give an account in that day for words uttered. Looking like one that has been with Christ and learned of Him. How often a word from the man of God has been like the pouring of oil on the troubled sea. A man called to minister in holy things must remember that he is a peacemaker. In almost every place there is a marvelous chance to stir up strife. This must be avoided. “Study to show thyself approved,” says the apostle. Appropriateness is an essential element in the minister of God. A congregation of idiots could not appreciate a discourse on moral philosophy.