"Preach the Word," was St. Paul's advice to Timothy. "Preach the Word"; "be instant" with that word "in season and out of season"; in the pulpit and out of the pulpit; in the schoolroom and on the platform; in the sick chamber and in the abodes of health; in the highways and in the byways. Only one-half of a minister's duty is done when the services of the sanctuary are over, and the marriages, funerals, and baptisms are performed. "The minister," one has remarked, "is a physician. He has a vast field before him. He has to study a variety of constitutions. He has to furnish himself with the knowledge of the whole system of remedies. He is to be a man of skill and expediency. If one thing fails, he must know how to apply another. He must be able to speak a word in season, to deliver the Lord's message to the saint and to the sinner, to the heavy-laden and to the presumptuous, to the contrite and to the inquirer,--to all, in short, that come." "For the priest's lips," says Malachi, "should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth." For this reason, he will unceasingly be on the lookout for tidings. He will not, indeed, originate new things. He will not speak anything which comes into his own head, but he will diligently study what the Word of the Lord says, and that will he, no matter who may be present in the congregation, boldly and unreservedly deliver. He will deliver the whole counsel of God. He will be zealous for the truth, and neither teach nor tolerate any manner or degree of error; but, above all, he will preach, as the most important part of his message, Christ Jesus. Other preaching may inform the head and please the ear, but it is the setting forth of Christ in all His willingness to pardon, Christ in all His mightiness to save, which alone can storm the outworks and force the citadel of the heart. It is not the flowery language and the rounded period, embellished with sparkling figures and brilliant metaphors, that will of itself win souls to the Lord. No, it is the discriminating, earnest, and affectionate preaching of Christ, whether in the polished language of the scholar or in the ruder accents of a less accomplished zeal,--it is this preaching alone which is worthy of the name. The minister of Christ has a much more important matter in hand than some imagine. As a faithful messenger, he is to deliver, not information about political issues, lectures on morals, literature, and topics of the day, but he is to give hearers a full exhibition of Christ as He is revealed in the Bible and ought to be imprinted on every human heart,--the sinner's Hope, the sinner's Refuge, the sinner's Surety and Substitute, the sinner's High Priest and Advocate, the sinner's All and in all.