Paul in an address declared that he not only taught publicly but from "house to house." An uncouth, uncultured, hard-handed son of toil, who had found God in the pardon of sins, said he always enjoyed the sermon better if he had had a chance to shake the preacher's hand during the week. Theodore Cuyler, one of the best examples of the preacher-pastor the Church has produced in a century, remarks: "The work of every preacher is twofold -- partly in the pulpit and partly out of the pulpit. The two ought to be inseparable. What the providence of God and good common sense have joined, let no man put asunder." Labors outside of the pulpit occupy more or less time during every day of the week. The great business of a preacher is to win souls to Jesus Christ, and to build them up in godly living, and all this cannot be accomplished by two sermons a week, even if they were the best that Paul himself could deliver. In fact, the largest part of Paul's recorded work was quite other than public preaching. As for our Lord, He has left us but one extended discourse and a few shorter ones, but we have many narratives of His personal visits, personal conversations, and labors of love with the sick, the sinning, the suffering. He was the Shepherd who knew every sheep. Only a few men can be great preachers, but every minister who has a good heart and good sense can be a good pastor. Devote the forenoon of every day except Monday to your studies, and in the afternoon of five days in the week to pastoral visiting. Religiously observe Monday as your sabbatic rest day, remembering that He who sent Israel into captivity seventy years because they, for 490 years, deprived the land of its "seventh year sabbath," will not prolong your life if you violate His law, and abuse your body. The physical exercise in pastoral visiting will be a benefit, and the spiritual benefits will be tenfold more. Do not "loaf" in any home, especially if it's a fine one, but visit the poor and needy as well as those in influence. "Go not only where you are needed" but "where you are needed most." Always, night or day, visit the sick and dying. Spurgeon said once, "I have been today to visit two of my church-members who are near eternity, and both are as happy as if they were going to a wedding. Oh, it makes me preach like a lion when I see how my people can die!" Never spend your time in frivolous conversation or gossip. Talk about religious experience, personal relation to God, not with the air of a schoolmaster examining a pupil, but in the real spirit of the "Shepherd and Bishop of our souls."
In your visiting you can discover whether your preaching is going home, whether Gospel shot is striking. The officers on the battleships off Santiago were anxious to know how many shots "struck home," and they smiled at the almost fruitless shooting of the enemy. "Gunnery that hits no one is not worth the powder." Preaching in the Holy Ghost accomplishes something, and glorifies the Triune God. Help the weak, lead the penitent inquirer to Jesus, comfort those who place confidence in you and seeking your advice reveal their hearts unto you. Never violate the confidence reposed in you, but, as in Christ's stead, lend the helping hand to the needy. A home-visiting, hot-hearted preacher, with the real Spirit of Jesus, seeking to "walk even as He walked," will not have to bemoan empty pews. Having won the hearts of his people, the preacher can preach plainly and give no offense, and lead on up into Canaan.
Do not make long visits. John Wesley declared it hard to spend over thirty minutes profitably. "People do not need sitting up with unless they are sick." Learn to distinguish between social visiting and pastoral visiting. You represent Jesus. You are not a "society" man, nor a "club" man, but, like Elijah of old, a "man of God." "The King's business requires haste"; transact your business for God and souls, and move on. A minister's visits, nine times out of ten, relate to the souls, the spiritual welfare of his people. Gossiping and visiting after meeting is dismissed at night have often grieved the Holy Ghost, and ruined the service, and social visiting and chit chat after spiritual exercise undo all the work previously done in pastoral calls. Never lose sight of the fact that you are seeking the lost, comforting and instructing the saints; and nothing is unimportant, nothing costs too much, that will win a soul or lead it closer to God.
Let every preacher learn well the lesson-pay attention to the aged. It is especially due to them when they are the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." Many of them live in the past. They talk of the good times of long ago, and catch fire when they talk. Some time ago I was in Kentucky, on one of Dr. Godbey's first charges, and I was told that many old saints there, when relating their experience in witnessing for God, tell of their conversion "when Brother Godbey was on the work." One of the greatest sorrows of old age flows from neglect. The prayers of the aged saints are a benediction to the preacher. I cherish through the years the memory of a precious old saint, Sister Anderson, the mother of Mrs. Elizabeth Hoag, of Martin, Mich., who would meet me on Monday morning during the winter seasons, when she could not get out to services, and say, "Did you have a good time yesterday, Brother Kulp?" and upon being told of the services, she would say, "I knew you would, I was praying for you." She was eighty years of age, knew God, and knew how to prevail in prayer. We missed her when she went home.
Pay attention to children. Jesus did. You must. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." "Except ye... become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom." Aim to win them for God, and to retain them in the Church. Instruct them, help them to get settled, rooted, grounded, established, before they backslide. Half the effort made to retain them, would keep them. Said a young girl, "They leave us alone till we are fourteen, and then they bother the life out of us." Paul wrote to Timothy, "From a child thou hast known the Scriptures." A child five years old was asked, "How long have you been a Christian?" and he replied, "Ever since I was a little boy." And his mother affirms he was converted when he was two years old and was the best Christian in the house. Some time ago I read the obituary of a woman who passed on at one hundred and five years of age. She was converted when five years old, and lived a century for God. Someone cared for a child, and thus secured a hundred years of godly testimony. The preacher should help train the child in the way he should go. Claim the young for God, make it a business. We have hundreds of evangelists who are in the field and doing good work for God, but only one Payson Hammond. Bishop Quayle says, " 'Snug up to youth' is the advice of a wise pastor to his church, and is the wise advice to a pastor for himself. Youth for God is the world's safety. To start with God and stay with God, what a shelter from temptation, what a safe conduct on the long, grim way of life."
To start with God, we said-and we mean it. I wish every preacher would procure Dr. Godbey's book, just issued, on theology, and read there a Scriptural presentation of the truth regarding children. A recent author writes, "Only two theories are possible touching a child at his birth. Theory one: The child belongs to the devil. Theory two: The child belongs to God."* [*Quayle "The Pastor-preacher."] The church or the person who would rise and make a disquisition to prove that the child belongs to the devil would have a hazardous enterprise. The common sense of mankind knows better. When the common sense of mankind, and the view of Jesus are at one, we may allow that the coincident voices of Christ and humanity are always wise. Suppose we consider the first view, namely that the child is the devil's child. No man could get a hearing for a moment in championing such a theory. The other theory is that every child belongs to God, was born God's child, before he can belong to that wicked one and arrive at such unworthy notoriety. Across the path of every child thrusts out the jutting crag -- "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." In the light of Jesus' authoritative and conclusive saying, we must frame our theories of the child as related to God; and the child as related to God is the measure of the child's relation to the Christian Church.
"Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man," is the statement of universal redemption. In that sunlight we may walk swiftly and safely. There are no heathen children born into this world, all the babes born into this world are Christians. The world is born Christian. Every soul born among men is a saved soul. I consider this the greatest thought which has ever crossed the path of my thinking. It is sublime, heartening, illuminating. Children are born in heathen lands, but they are not heathen; they are Christians. There are only heathen men and women. There are sinners in the world, but there are no persons born sinners. Hear the Christ: "For of such is the kingdom of God." This is said of all babies. There is every sort of difference between being born "sinful" and being born "sinner." Everybody is born "sinful" "as the sparks fly upward," but to sinfulness there attaches no guilt. We are not responsible for a bent. To "sinnerness"* there attaches guilt. "Sinfulness" and "sinnerness" are radically different terms. We are born sinful: we make ourselves sinners. To doubt that the babe dying is safely housed in Heaven would be strange atheism. "The streets of the city are full of boys and girls" is the laughter-laden description of the City of God given long since by a prophet who saw things as they were. You cannot listen for the heavenly song and not hear children singing. Children are born in the kingdom of Christ. This the preacher must not fall to know, and this the preacher must never forget, and if children belong to the kingdom of God, they belong to the Church of God, and have the right and privileges of the Church. "Forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God."
