596 History of Methodism 



dressed up in the livery of a good and brilliant literature. I there- 

 fore see how it is that a body of preachers may, by little and little, 

 in a number of years by the charm of literary taste lean more on 

 literature than on the word of God, and if God were to bless such 

 preaching as he did when the preaching was the word of God it 

 would amount to the denouncement of the text itself. No matter 

 how learned a man is, he must speak forth the word of God, and let 

 the people feel and know that he gives it forth to them as the word 

 of God, that he does not expect it to fail because it is not grammatical 

 or to succeed because it is, but because it is a discerner of the 

 thoughts and intents of the heart. Now, I can conceive how Go^t 

 can come down to a discourse of that sort and wield it like he did 

 the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost. He indorses noth- 

 ing but his own word delivered as his word by honest and earnest 

 ministers. No man, unless he is very smart, can preach in a liter- 

 ary style without weakening the word. I care not how learned we 

 are — I wish we were more learned than we are — but unless I am 

 mistaken, you will never see the hallowed days of Methodistic 

 power return to your circuits unless there is more or less of the 

 same method of preaching that characterized our ministry in the 

 early days of our ministry. What did St. Paul do when he entered 

 into the synagogue? He reasoned out of the Scriptures, proving 

 that Jesus was the Son of God. St. Peter on the day of Pentecost 

 declared facts, deducing conclusions therefrom, and God greatly 

 blessed the word. And how has the Church gone in regard to dis- 

 cipline? In every portion of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

 South, with which I am acquainted there are wayward, disobedient, 

 contemptuous members of the Church who neglect class-meeting, 

 family prayer, and the communion, and who are always found at 

 every picnic that comes along, yet, strange to tell, many of those 

 people you could not hire to get out of the Methodist Church. Had 

 they lived in the purer days of Methodism they would have gotten 

 out without much trouble. But now that our Church is filled up 

 with those who are too good to be thrown away, but too bad to keep 

 in the Church, although the class-leader knows it and the Church 

 knows it, still the Methodist Church is cursed throughout all the 

 land with members who are worse than useless to her, with but little 

 fear of ever getting out of the Church, because her godly rules have 

 been suffered to fall into shameful disuse. It is a remarkable fact 

 that in those early days the keys of the kingdom of heaven were, 

 as in th3 order of God's appointment, placed in the hands of the 



