Page:Heralds of God.djvu/222

HERALDS OF GOD indestructibility of the Church out of whose bosom you speak, its survival of desperate vicissitudes, its defiance of the gates of hell—this is itself impressive proof of the eternal significance of your ministry and vocation. If ever you feel lonely in your task—and there will be days when crashing loneliness besets you—remember who are your kith and kin, Columba and Xavier and Savonarola and Knox and Wesley and all the multitude who in every generation have preached the identical Christ whom you preach to-day, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Cross, one victory, one mercy-seat, one building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Nor need you turn your gaze to the past only. Lift up your eyes, and look around you; and realize that, while you stand solitary in your pulpit, yonder—at that very moment—beyond the walls of your church and out to earth's remotest bounds a great host of witnesses are publishing the same tidings which you now bear upon your heart. So the littleness and the inadequacy of the individual preacher are caught up into the context of historic Christianity; and his message rings, not with the dogmatism of a self-assured complacency, but with the authoritative testimony of a great cloud of witnesses, the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, and the holy Church throughout all the world.

Yet even this is not enough. The preacher proclaims God's word, not his own; and he proclaims it out of the midst of the Christian fellowship. But a 216