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THE PREACHER'S WORLD better than second-hand religion and borrowed theology, and stolid unkindled Churches which are merely efficient and competent machines, dealing with reality at a distance and sending earnest seekers away with an aching, disappointed sense that something vital is lacking. We want that thrilling sense of immediacy, that directness of touch, that spiritual drive and momentum, which only a personal encounter with God can ever impart. "It is good," declared Phillips Brooks, "to be a Herschel who describes the sun; but it is better to be a Prometheus who brings the sun's fire to the earth." "I came into the town," wrote John Wesley in his Journal, "and offered them Christ." To spend your days doing that—not just describing Christianity or arguing for a creed, not apologizing for the faith or debating fine shades of religious meaning, but actually offering and giving men Christ—could any life-work be more thrilling or momentous? 57