"There is a story told by Toplady of a Doctor Guyse, a very learned man. He was in the habit of preparing his sermons very carefully, and he used to read them very accurately. He did so for years, but there was never known to be a sinner saved under him—never such a wonder! The poor good man—for he was an earnest man and wished to do good—was one day at prayer in the pulpit, praying to God that he would make him a useful minister. When he had finished his prayer he was stone blind. He had sufficient self-possession to preach the sermon extemporaneously, which he had prepared with notes. People did not notice his blindness, but they never heard the doctor preach such a sermon as that before! There was deep attention, there were souls saved. He found his way from the pulpit and began to express his deep sorrow that he had lost his eyesight, when some good old woman who was present, said, perhaps a little unkindly, but still very truthfully—“Doctor, we have never heard you preach like this before and if that is the result of your being blind, it is a pity you were not blind twenty years ago, for you have done more good today than you have done in twenty years.”
So I do not know whether it would not be a good thing if some of our fine sermon readers were struck blind—if they were compelled to be less elaborate in the preparation of their sermons. Then they might loose some half-dozen hard words, which they always write down as soon as they meet with them and use them as stones in the middle of the sermon. And then, perhaps, when they came up into the pulpit, though condemned by critics as speaking vulgar language, they might talk of commonplace things such as poor people could appreciate. If they would only do this, God being with them, the absence of their mental power would be the means of more spiritual power and they would have reason to thank God—that the man had become less—and that God did shine out with greater resplendence. For what are many learned men, after all, but stained glass windows to keep out the light? Oh that we had more men who were as the plain glass of the poor man’s cottage, to let the light of God shine through them! Let the Church feel that her power is not mental power, but spiritual power. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord.” She might then use all her learning, all her education and all her eloquence. She would use them well, too, if she did but feel that these were but her weapons in the hand of God for the pulling down of strongholds.
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