A people will always love a minister, if a minister seems to love his people. The old maxim, Simile agit in simile, is in no case more exactly verified; therefore you were beloved at Olney, and, if you preached to the Chicksaws and Chactaws, would be equally beloved by them.
W. C.
Tenderness in a minister is a very important qualification, and indispensable to his success. The duty of it is enjoined in an apostolical precept, and the wisdom of it inculcated in another passage of scripture. "Speaking the truth in love." "He that winneth souls is wise." We have often thought that one reason why a larger portion of divine blessing fails to accompany the ministrations of the sanctuary, is the want of more affectionate expostulation, more earnest entreaty, and more tenderness and sympathy in the preacher. The heart that is unmoved by our reproof may perhaps yield to the persuasiveness of our appeal. We fully admit that it is divine grace alone that can subdue the power of sin in the soul; but, in the whole economy of grace, as well as of Providence, there is always perceptible a wise adaptation of means to the end. Who is not impressed by the tenderness and earnest solicitations of St. Paul? Who can contemplate the Saviour weeping over Jerusalem, without emotions of the profoundest admiration? And who does not know that the spectacle of man's misery and guilt first suggested the great plan of redemption, and that the scheme of mercy which divine love devised in heaven dying love accomplished on earth?
TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.
Olney, June 19, 1783.
My dear Friend,—The translation of your letters[191] into Dutch was news that pleased me much. I intended plain prose, but a rhyme obtruded itself, and I became poetical when I least expected it. When you wrote those letters, you did not dream that you were designed for an apostle to the Dutch. Yet, so it proves, and such among many others are the advantages we derive from the art of printing—an art in which indisputably man was instructed by the same great Teacher, who taught him to embroider for the service of the sanctuary, and which amounts almost to as great a blessing as the gift of tongues.
The summer is passing away, and hitherto has hardly been either seen or felt. Perpetual clouds intercept the influence of the sun, and for the most part there is an autumnal coldness in the weather, though we are almost upon the eve of the longest day.
We are well, and always mindful of you: be mindful of us, and assured that we love you.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.